 Ready to roll? Okay. Okay. Good afternoon. Welcome to our 1pm session of the May 11, 2021 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council. I have a few announcements and then we will move on to our meeting. Today's meeting is being broadcast live on community television channel 25 and streaming on the city's website, cityofsantaacruz.com. All council members are being in this meeting remotely. I want to thank the public for staying home to view today's city council meetings. If you wish to comment on an agenda item today, call in at the beginning of the item. You are wanting to comment on using the instructions on your screen. Please mute your television or streaming device once you have called in and listened through the phone. You note there is a delay in streaming, so if you continue to listen on your television or streaming device, you may miss your opportunity to speak. Please mute. Excuse me. When it is time for public comment, press star 9 on your phone to raise your hand. When it is your time to speak during public comment, you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted. The timer will then be set to two minutes. You may hang up once you have commented on your item of interest. And I would like to ask the clerk to please call the roll. Thank you, Mayor, Councilmember Watkins, Kellentary Johnson, Brown, for coming this currently absent. Golder? Here. Vice Mayor Brunner. Present. And Mayor Myers. I'm present. Today we're opening with three presentations under our presentation agenda. First up are Parks and Recreation Child Care Staff Recognition. And our presenter will be Tony Elliott, our Director of Parks and Recreation. Mayor Myers, I'll be myself. Hi, Rachel. Hi. We'll be our presenters. Our Recreation Superintendent and I'll be joined by Robert Acosta as well, Recreation Supervisor for teen and youth programs. So good afternoon, Mayor Myers and City Council members. I'm honored to be here today to recognize the hardworking heroes of City of Santa Cruz, our Distance Learning Child Care Recreation Leaders. And some are joining us here today as panelists on Zoom as well as watching from home. A brief background on the program before I turn it over to Youth and Teen Supervisor Robert Acosta for our presentation. When the pandemic hit last March and operations, including city schools closed, we all quickly had to adjust to the impacts. And one of the immediate needs that hit our first and foremost was the need for childcare. And in order to keep, you know, core city operations functioning, the recreation team, including Loud Nelson Supervisor Iseth Ray, Youth and Teen Supervisor Robert Acosta and youth coordinator Amanda Aries quickly put together an essential worker childcare program for city staff. And remember, this was during the first month of the pandemic and that there were so many unknowns about COVID and protocols were just developed by the state and, you know, having to be researched by staff and recreation leaders who worked at the teen center and in summer camps just immediately stepped up to the plate and worked the all day childcare program to provide that critical support. And when we transition to our summer camp program, many of the staff continue to work the entire summer again, just providing that much needed childcare for working parents. And then as fall approached and city schools transition to distance learning childcare for working families, you know, there just remained a critical need there. And the youth and teen staff worked and trained with city school teachers to create the distance learning chapter at the Loud Nelson Center during the school year, which was an all day program that assisted the students with their distance learning during the day and provided recreation activities in the afternoon. And the program ran September through March until city schools transition to their hybrid model of in person and distance learning. And the staff provided a safe space for kids to learn and play Monday through Friday, 7 30 am to 30 p.m. And that is a long day to be kind of on each day as they are responsible for keeping kids on track with their lessons, you know, play with them during recess, eat with them during their pods, assigned lunchtime, and then provide fun activities after school until they were picked up by their parents at the end of the day. And so today we just really want to recognize these caring, dedicated and hardworking individuals who showed us the bridge and stepped up to help our community when needed. And I also want to recognize the maintenance staff at the Loud Nelson Community Center who provided the daily sanitation and cleaning at the facility that made the program possible. So that's building maintenance worker and custodian Bob Durant, who led the facility team in their cleaning protocols, a facility attendant Emilio Galvan. And the program just would not have been able to operate without their efforts. And they each take great pride in their work and are passionate about providing a safe space for our community to thrive in, and especially for the kids to continue their education. So just huge well observed to Bob and his team. And I also just want to recognize friends of Parks and Recreation support group FOPAR who awarded $14,600 of scholarship funds for kids to participate in the Distance Learning Child Care program. And lastly, but certainly not least, just a huge thank you to Recreation Supervisor Robert Acosta and Recreation Coordinator Amanda Arias, who worked tirelessly to implement the program. They both provided a critical service to our community. And I'm honored to recognize them along with the staff today. They showed just unbelievable leadership for their team this year. And just a huge, huge thank you to them. And just with that, I want to turn it over to Robert Acosta to introduce you to the outstanding staff and just to talk more contributions. Thank you, Rachel. Hello, Mayor Myers and Council. It's an honor to talk to you guys as always. Yeah, I did want to say a few things. I'm going to share my screen in a second, but you know, it came to us in March, as you know, and we were told to plan a program for May. And typically, we start planning for our programs that start in June, we start that planning in November. Oh, it was, go, let's do this. And but we did, we had to shift immediately. You know, I'm really upset a little bit that Amanda Arias couldn't be here, but she actually had to, she, she's taken a leave. Everything's great. She's healthy and all that. But you know, she was a really big part of making sure that this program was going to happen. She knows those CD guidelines, better than anyone. It's pretty funny, like you could ask her any question. And she knew it. And so she helped with our childcare program in May, in the summertime for our summer camps. And then the program that started again in September that Rachel was talking about. And the funny thing is when Rachel talked to me about doing this program, I freaked out because I, we were going to have a diss. And I freaked out because I said, we are not educators. That is a, that is a different group of people. And it's not us. And, and, and, you know, much respect to educators. And, you know, they're two different animals, you know, but we did the thing we trained with Santa Cruz City Schools. We learned how to aid the students and you know, that's, that's what we did. I'm going to share my screen purely to show you a the names of our people because I think the names need to be out there. These heroes, as Rachel called them, to show, to show the, to show the hard work that they, they did. So let me, let me get that started here. Everyone see that? You can see that, correct? So these are the names. Pardon me? On our end, we see the presenter view. Oh, do you? Yeah. Well, it's okay. And I appreciate it. The people that did it, these people that, that ran these programs, did this amazing job. We got a call from Bayview Elementary School saying, we know the people that are in your program, because they're being helped. And they're, they're doing the work and not that, trust me, not that the parents at home couldn't do the job. But, you know, when you're trying to do your own work, and help your kids, and chase the dog, we understood. So we were able to do, to do this the people that did these programs that people just listed here, have 126 years of experience with our city, with our department. And all of them work other places throughout the county. We had some of our employees leaving Harbor High School after a full day work, then come and work the afternoon for us. We had had people who work in the Live Oak School District. We have people that would leave our job and go to another job. And like I said, come there from, from this job. Some of these employees are former team center members who are now working in their team centers that is closed to provide a child care program for the, for the kids in the community. Because of this job, and one of my employees took a leave from their other job to continue to do this program, just so they could, because they love working with you so much. And we had a couple of employees that would leave their home in Watsonville to be at the Loudon Elton Center for their 730 AM shift. This is the kind of stuff that they did to work for us. Since the program has ended, we have a staff member who, who is now working at the house of one of those parents, because they still need a child care. So they're, you know, so they're doing, they're still doing the work. And it's pretty cool to see it. There is, I wanted to show you some, some pictures. I unfortunately, in the great world of Zoom, I can't find those, but I will say, I will say that most of those staff that worked for us this throughout this time, we're going to come back and work for us this summer. And a great thing too is we, we do, we do a buddy request when you sign up for summer camps, you do buddy requests during COVID. So your kids could be with kids, they know, well, we got, we got buddy requests from parents who want their kids to be with the leaders who were in this child care program. So I, to me, that's very telling and very exciting. And it just made me realize what, I mean, I knew it already, but it really made me realize, you know, what heroes our staff were. These are some of the kids in our, and you guys can see this now, right? We can, yeah. So these are the kids in their distance learning. This is just a farther away picture, but this is during the distance learning time. This is time on the playground in, in Loudoun Nelson. We actually got a phone call from a parent saying, can you tell me that noise? Like, well, there are actually kids out there now. So we got to, we got to help these kids with the distance learning, get them outside exercising, teaching them PE, doing all the different things that the kids have to do in order to do distance learning. And at the same time, create what we expect to be a quality recreation program. And I think we succeeded in that. And it's, it was just a very, a very good time and a very positive experience for me. And the last thing I want to show you is just a message from a parent who, who just sent a letter to us. And I know it might be in that same view, but I will read this to you. Can you see this? Yes, we can. And I'm just going to read it to you as well. I'd love to send our deep appreciation for the kind support Barrett, Eric Chelt are selling the mandate that all the staff offered during such a critical time for our community, especially for working families. Personally, as a single mom, this is a priceless support, which I needed desperately. As an essential worker, a working parent and a member of this community, I cannot tell you how great I are for the support the childcare staff offered. Being able to have my child in the program allowed me to show at my work in health care to support the health of our community. We are all interconnected and the parents are supported. We can all do better as a community. And that, that is why, that is why we do what we do. So I just wanted to, to thank my people, you know, that worked for us there. They are, there is no better in the field. They do the best job and I'm really looking forward to our youth in the community that are just looking forward to seeing them again to come to summer camps and continue the fun. And thankfully, nothing no offense, but thankfully with no distance learning. Just recreation. That's my presentation. If anyone has any questions, I would love to answer them for you. Thank you, Robert and Rachel. And thanks to the whole parks department. You guys did amazing work and I knew several parents that were using, you know, your service, it just was amazing. So it takes a disaster or a pandemic to get creative. So thank you for everything that you and all your staff did this past year. Is there other council members that would like to either have statements? I see lots of hands, boom, all went up. Renee, please, council member Golder. So as the one that works at Bayhue, I can attest to whoever you talk to that that's 100 percent true. And I just can't thank Rachel and Robert and the entire staff for all of the work that you guys did to bring this board in such a short amount of time. It's just really a long, mental task and it just was astonishing to see how happy these kids were. And I saw them out in the community at Mary Lacune and it just, I think, from the bottom of my heart, can't thank you guys enough for providing this. Council member Collin Tari Johnson. So I'd like to echo those sentiments. As a mom school-aged kids, the last year has been incredibly hard and these services are really invaluable and heroes are exactly right. I mean, it really saved our community. So thank you, Rachel and Robert, thank you to the whole team. Really, truly, truly invaluable what the city did for our community and our families. Thank you. Vice Mayor Brunner. Rachel and Robert and Amanda and I see, or I saw JD on here. Thank you so much. My son is grown now, but I heard from many parents how appreciative they were that these services continued through the pandemic and through the uncertainty and the unknown and really contributed to the well-being of children. And thank you. And I just want to say a special shout out to Michelle Levy and our Sally. I know they've been, you know, they're part of a great team, but I've known them to be just amazing caregivers for over 10 years now, at least through Boys and Girls Club and so on. So thank you so much. I just want to acknowledge the hard work and appreciation. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Excuse me, Councilmember Watkins? I too just want to thank you all and your entire team for really stepping up in a time where it was really a scary time, right? Also we didn't, there was just a lot of uncertainty in terms of what, who and how and kids and the impact and the risk and also a commitment to see our essential services continue and not everybody has the opportunity to work from home as challenging as that is, but also to be in the field and have your kids in a safe and nurturing environment is just incredible. Not every city stood up what you stood up and it's so important to take these moments to celebrate all the great work that you've accomplished but also not to lose sight of how we can better inform and change our systems moving forward. So your team and really just job well done and thank you. Thank you, Councilmember, Councilmember Cummings? Yeah, I'm just going to go ahead and echo the sentiments of my colleagues and express my deep appreciation for all the work that you all did. I mean it was special for everyone in the city but I can only imagine having children and then having to, especially for some parents who are single parents as well, how do you balance trying to provide income for your family and child care and it was the effort that you all were able to lift and that you all were able to move forward. I think it's just you know it really goes to show how much our community cares about you know supporting families and supporting you know our essential workers and so I just want to thank you all for everything that you were able to do last year and you know it really demonstrates how as a community you know during tough times we're able to come together and take care of one another and I think that you all really you know did a great job at helping to take care of you know the youth and the children of many of our working families so thank you. Thank you council member and council member. I will just I'll say ditto it's you know thank you all so much for the work it's just amazing I mean you already go above and beyond in the work that you do I know that and the way that you were able to bring this together I think is a real reflection the amazing city staff we have and the connections in our community that allowed you to bring a team like this together at a time when everything what was so scary and uncertain and so I you know I just want to also acknowledge that you know students who were able to have access to in this way like you said the schools could tell and I imagine absolutely I you know we see so many young people who have been you know pretty traumatized by this experience and so that support that you've given those students those young people means so much and I much gratitude great thank you so much it gave us a new respect I mean I've all I have many friends and family and education and it gave me a new it gave me a new respect for education for sure it's like okay I see this so but thank you for the support of our management team Rachel Tony and Lindsay and Travis and the city council and the commission and we felt the support and it feels good to be able to do what we do so thank you all for that thank you Robert thank you Rachel um so appreciate everything you guys do and um sounds like we're going to have a a better summer this year so that's exciting it's great to see all the sign-ups for uh for classes and everything else going on so back to normal back to seeing the little red lifeguards walking up and down that hill right thank you Mayor Myers thanks you guys thanks everybody thanks so much next up we have a mayoral proclamation proclaiming May 16th through May 22nd as National Public Works Week and we will have a presentation but first I'm going to read a few lines of the proclamation and then I'm going to turn this over to Mark Dettle our director of public works whereas public works professionals focus on infrastructure facilities and services that are of vital importance to sustainable and resilient communities and to the public health quality of life and well-being of the people of the city of San Cruz and whereas public works personnel provide essential services and thus are continuing to work hard each and every day to keep our communities functioning with various responsibilities related to the COVID-19 pandemic and whereas the city of Santa Cruz public works department continues to be recognized as a regional leader in innovative and forward thinking projects and services that include active transportation infrastructure waste and reuse solid waste energy efficiency and sustainability and whereas the year 2021 marks the 61st annual National Public Works Week sponsored by the American Public Works Association and esteemed stronger together in recognition of how the impact that citizens and public works professionals can have on their own communities is magnified in results and the ability to accomplish goals once thought unattainable now therefore I Donna Myers mayor of the Santa Cruz do hereby proclaim the week of May 16th through 22nd 2021 as National Public Works Week and I'll go ahead and turn this over to Mark Dettle our director of public works congratulations Mark you got a week a week in your honor great thank you actually the honor of employees I really appreciate it Mayor Myers and members of the city council every year this week is recognized as public works week and gives a little recognition to the hardworking employees that you have in the public works department and then although this has been a very strange year public works continue to deliver course services and keeping our residents of businesses and visitors safe staff was very creative and had to be flexible to continue service deliveries but they came up with innovative ideas and continue to make it happen and took whatever came their way well much has been accomplished many of the challenges are still lie ahead and as we accelerate towards recovery I'm confident you're dedicated and talented public work staff is ready to meet those challenges I'd like to thank every employee in the public works department for their commitment to public safety and customer service and their professionalism in dealing with whatever came their way this past year and continues to come their way it's my honor to work with them and I dedicate this proclamation to them your public works department and this year the theme is stronger together I think that's really really poignant I would say you heard with the park's presentation pulling together I think that that works with public works also we are a community and we're working very strong together in the past year no years has proven more more of this given the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic the CZU complex fire on all of us and through it all they were their services to celebrate public works week previously in years we've offered construction site tours facility tours touch of trucks street fares this year we're going to try something new and we need all of your help to make it a success we're going to offer a fun and easy way for everyone to acknowledge public works week by entering our stronger together selfie contest this is stepping out there for public works we don't do this kind of stuff so we're going to give it a try and we need your help so to enter the contest is very simple just take a selfie that relates to one of our public works divisions and you see I'm listed here in traffic engineering and parking operations which is streets maybe traffic safety resource recovery and wastewater systems and take a selfie and you can forward that to us through the public works or our Facebook page by May 23rd and all the instructions are on our website and there are prizes to encourage more active use here the top five winners will each receive 100 dollars in downtown dollars so you can come back and spend that money downtown and support our businesses 10 winners will get a $50 park card and 25 winners will receive a $20 worth locals parking pass all these prizes support our local business and continue to seem stronger together all the details are on our website cityofsanacruz.com backslash public works everyone is welcome to enter the contest so help us celebrate public works week well congratulations Mark and thank you to all everyone in your department we we see some of them but we see I know we don't see most of them and so anytime anyone in the city of Santa Cruz is riding their bike on a bike trail or you know visiting the landfill or you know basically also flushing your toilet you are experiencing the wonderful work of our public works department and it's just great to be able to celebrate the work of public works this week you really are the front lines for public health and safety as well as transportation and active recreation and so much of what we enjoy here in Santa Cruz so again we're lucky to have such a capable and accomplished and nationally recognized public works department so congratulations Mark and happy to open this up to any council member comments and also importantly I have one other item Madam Mayor and as you know the city completed the first segment of the rail trail with the rebuilding of the trestle walkway and this innovative project extended the walkway off the existing trestle eliminating the need for a new bridge and saving millions of dollars this this project has been recognized for numerous awards and we actually received an additional award and I'd like to introduce Chris Schneider the assistant director engineer it was his innovative design team that came up with this innovative approach and Chris is here to present that award so Chris all right thank you mayor council members and mark this is you know clearly an example of stronger together the project you see before you the trestle walkway under construction is the first segment of the rail trail that was constructed Bonnie can you go to the next slide if you were doing the slides for me right there we go so you know the project was originally conceived in 1987 as part of the work on the San Lorenzo River design concept and what's important about that is just to recognize that these planning documents are where we get a lot of our projects and these planning documents get a lot of public input and so you know it's important to think that something that's 30 40 years old is still really valuable today because at some point in time we're going to get the money and the effort to put these wonderful projects together originally this was owned by Pacific and they were going to tear the walkway down because they saw it as a liability the city took on the project to make it a little bit better to make it safe and to actually maintain it into the future for public access the project had on the western ramp was constructed you know a few years ago with the anticipation that we're going to have a wider path the one on the east side was constructed with the east cliff bridge and that was built I think it was under construction during the earthquake so over 30 years ago was also in anticipation of a bigger project it compliments a lot of pedestrian and bike projects that we have done on the San Lorenzo river walk as well as the beach street bikeway and it supports all the city goals which is really critical next environmental permitting and funding when we look at a project early on we try to figure out a way to reduce the environmental impacts and the the amount of permits and the conditions on the permits by making the project easier to construct and again having fewer impacts in this case what was critical was finding a way to not touch the river touch water whether it's the river or the ocean or creeks you're increasing the complexity of the environmental review and the permitting requirements as well as the funding it gets a lot more expensive in this case the land trust paid for a feasibility study to attach a walkway to the trestle bridge that was not going to touch the river and it turned a feasible idea so we went with that in a particular later with the environmental review and design this project took five years and people go well why did it take so long actually five years is pretty short it could have been sooner if we'd had all the money at once but really what happens on pieces as we move into the future and often to get construction money you have to have the environmental review done and the design done and so that's why also it may take a little bit longer but again if we had touched the water this project could have easily been another 10 years and you know four or three times as expensive so this is really next the approach that the approach was to remove the old walkway build some scaffolding under there and then design a steel support system that is protected from the environment with galvanizing they did a lot of the work off site and brought that and fitted the pieces on site and so there was very little actual field welding or bolting that took place on site the contractor that we had for for that was part of the team Cushman contracting near Santa Barbara they were just a wonderful group to work with they came up with this scaffolding idea that was better and cheaper than any of the other contractors that are proposed on the project they were great to work with their submittals were on time their construction scheduling was just excellent and they're just a bunch of great people next slide so the innovations not touching the water using the existing structure you know bolting and welding assemblies off site and bring them onto the project using a lightweight fiber reinforced polymer decking made a big difference as far as the structural integrity of the project and to reduce the weight on the old bridge next so they the contractor used the actual trestle with some to actually work from there to place a lot of the steel and so that helped a lot with getting the project done on time and within schedule I think we already talked about the other items there next just some of the pictures you can see on the picture to the left the eucalyptus tree that was the only tree that was potentially going to be removed we ended up saving it as the roots were not impacting where the the path was being reconstructed next construction bringing in a crane to place two larger beams for the for the west end photographs there next the finished product this is really the one of the most well used and loved projects we've had in a number of years even when the project was or when the path was removed and it was being constructed and people couldn't use it they were writing by an east cliff you know telling the contractor how much they loved and we're anticipating the new path we had very that people had to go almost a mile around to get back to their original path it was really great great support from public next um so we've received five awards which is pretty amazing for projects we usually get one or two the league of cities the a c east which is the the american consulting engineering groups american public works association american society of civil engineers and the california trails and greenways um we we couldn't have done all this without just having a great team and the photographs is a part of the project team to the right at a number of local consultants mme engineering design the project dale hensby was great in working with the rtc on the design requirements as well as the railroad and then all the contractors and their team that were great the environmental review was by harrison associates kate giberson who's also local led that effort and we just really had a a wonderful team that worked on that next slide and again that was all the people that worked on the project most of which the consultant teams were all local if linda engineering deis and associates rm who've done the design on our rail trail projects harrison associates ecosystems west and ring con consultants all a great local team and then dale hensby and rodney k hill and their team had a mme who've done a number of projects for us in the city as well next and then we have our own cell for submitting for the award that's me with one of the awards and then to your last is miguel lasaraga who was our project inspector who's assistant engineer in the public works department and then ricardo valdez on the other side but the other two awards and ricardo's an associate engineer was the project manager he's recently promoted to senior engineer in traffic engineering moving from general engineering over to the traffic section anyway it's been a great project it was one that went didn't always went it didn't all go smoothly because it's construction but because of the quality of the people and the collaboration that we had on the project it went very well anyway thank you for recognizing apwa or american public works association week and all the wonderful people that work and i i want to acknowledge parks and rec to because our employees took advantage of their program and that allowed them to do to work on some other wonderful projects thank you very much thank you chris thank you very much and congratulations the great great bridge to go on really enjoy it councilmember coming thank you i just wanted to express not only my appreciation for our public works department all the work that they do but really just acknowledge the appreciation of that the path that was created on the bridge and the fact that you all are winning you know continuing to win awards for that just goes to show how great it is as someone who lives in the beach flats i take that route every day to kind of go grab coffee and from what it was to what it is now it's such an improvement not only for you know people being able to go across it but you know in terms of safety as previously it was so narrow trying to get across i know people were always wondering like how can we get something better and you know the fact that you all were able to put such an amazing you know path through our community that's highly utilized and it's such high quality i just want to express how grateful i am and i know many members of our community are for the work that you all were able to do for that and i just like to say that you you all deserve all those awards and then so thank you thank you thank you council member next i have council member brown yeah i just wanted to appreciate the all of the work that public works staff do on the ground to keep the city functioning and you know in addition to these amazing projects that that come forward just the day to day you all do really appreciate it and you know the bridge obviously is something that we all can be proud of and so that is you know i mean it's amazing you know how it just that the difference between i think council member coming said the difference between riding your bike across that bridge now and the way we did it for decades before it's a difference it's amazing i did because i'm on the RTC commission i also just wanted to say that i i believe that the you know the land trust has been an amazing partner in the process of developing our our rail trail segments and so i just wanted to acknowledge them as well for their work in this piece of it and so appreciate everything you've done to bring it to fruition thank you thank you and i have vice mayor bruner i wanted to thank you thank you so much to the public works teams krist thank you for that presentation and those photos amazing project i was there when it was groundbreaking day i remember was quite an accomplishment and mark thank you for leading the public works team i really want to acknowledge the maintenance workers that do the day to day things to keep our our city clean and safe and that includes our classroom downtown and the maintenance and the restocking of toilet paper constantly mopping floors sidewalk scrubbing emptying you know refuse and garbage all of the things that we don't stop to think about and acknowledge and every time i see any of them in them for you know their hard work and through the pandemic so what a great week to have to be able to honor all the hard work so thank you thank you that's great and sure didn't miss anyone i have council member conntary johnson and then council member walk great yes i'd also like to choose for the work that you all do i know that it often goes unnoticed but we notice it and we are grateful thank you so much and i plan on dragging my kids out there and doing some selfies so thanks so much council member walkin i too just want to say thank you and it's so nice to have our meeting start off with these celebrations and acknowledgments of just the everyday work that keeps our city going so an extended higher team and staff just echoing my my colleagues comments in regards to the bridge it's amazing and awesome to see how it's being recognized and yes i know that we used to cross that bridge all the time and you know you you sort of like hold your like hold everything in as the bike or the stroller comes by and it's so beautiful now and it's just such a way to access all parts of our city and it's just you know just kudos to to your recognitions as well and just appreciation for your you know just acknowledgement of the stronger together and the cross between you know the staff that provides these daily activities to keep our city running with our parks and rec team that provided the childcare amongst really challenging times so indeed we are stronger together and i look forward to seeing some really awesome selfies and nice to see you chris and your team kicking it off with a really cool well thank you mark and thank you chris and please extend the council's congratulations on public works week but also all just the great work that you guys do so thanks so much right thank you very much we will definitely great okay next up we have a presentation on city workplace reopening plan and this will be lisa murphy our human resources director welcome lisa hi good afternoon mayor good afternoon council members my shout out to the parks and recs and the and public work employees brother good work today it's my pleasure to present to you our city of santa cruz workplace reopening plan and i'm going to share my great so thank you again this is the city's workplace reopening plan through covid-19 this plan is our opportunity to share with the community and to codify all the things that we are doing presently to keep our employees safe and to service our community and for our opportunity to to make sure that we are following our plan and to uphold our obligations to our community and to keep our place safe this workplace reopening plan documents our principles the logistics and our operations through the different tiers as we move through and as you know we may be moving to the to the yellow tier and beyond quite quickly so this plan while it documents our where we are today it will also document as we move into the future but balances our operational approaches with our safety restrictions and our employees personal needs again this is a communication tool and we are aware this is an evolving document it will change it will probably change next week as i just received a new email regarding osha's updates for our workplace standards the development of this document we utilized some five guiding principles employee health and safety was number one the status of the schools and our child care our public health guidelines the vaccination ability availability and obviously what tier we are in utilizing these principles is how we created this workplace reopening plan as we started this planning process we were really three phases it was the planning the research and communication then in April develop our operational assessment and where we are today with a full reopening plan in this first phase what we had looked at was we had each of the departments assess the current and future operations and they participated in a study a survey excuse me continuing our open communication with our employees to balance the sensitivity of their needs with the operational needs i've been noticing with the bargaining units and the employees of our reopening plan and we have been preparing our employees for re-entering retraining on onboarding of safety protocols work hours and etc in the second part is really where we got down to developing our plans for each department is really important to be flexible every department needs the setup if everything's different and needs to be really tailored to approach for each department however it was really important that as the directors work with their staff they were consistent with those principles that i mentioned earlier again return to work very for each department though is employee safety and then secondary is we need to keep communicating with our employees where we are what are we going to do what are the expectations and how are we keeping you safe so the the plans for each department have been completed i'm going to put them up on the web after this meeting the format of how each director and their staff went for the to develop their plans is we have three different tiers so we i have them complete this form for each of their facilities what does it look like in the orange tier what about the yellow tier and what about when we're in all clear what does that mean what does that look like so each one of the the the facilities had to develop a staffing plan what are your public counter hours what about your meetings how are you going to conduct your meetings what facilities are you going to open are you going to stay closing what's your vehicle usage what are your worker safety policies and overall guidance as a bare minimum baseline with worker safety is that we will follow Cal OSHA rules we'll follow the state and local public health orders and the CDC guidelines each one put on the attachment to the plan for each department will have their outline of how they'll move through these tiers now some departments may not want to reopen all of their counter even when we are in the all clear and limit their counter hours working with the employees to see what works best for them some things to keep in mind as we go through this the reopening stages there's things that we can control and that we got we've got to keep communicating as to what does that look like because again it's going to evolve we can control our physical facilities we can control our operational strategies and we can control our personal behavior with regards to operational strategies things that we have done to help reduce our contact and our exposure if we have staggered schedules for employees adjusted our field work implemented cleaning protocols where possible single occupancy vehicles many of us have moved over to online services not just regular hours you have to schedule in person if you want to do in person do it by appointment only and this actually we've come to learn for many of us has really been successful and provided better service to our customers internal and external obviously one that we continue to utilize and we'll continue to use Zoom even into the future or even another platform other operational strategies obviously is continuing telecommuting and that is something we'll most likely continue into the future other things we can control is our facilities one of our statistics I'd like to share with you is that as of this beginning of May we had 29 confirmed positive employee cases for the city of over 800 employees none of those that we have been able to document as employee to employee transmission they were transmissions that occurred at home and so that is a testament to how well our employees are adhering to the safety protocols and standards and some of those which you are all very familiar obviously is the plexiglass barriers the signage on the floor the capacity sanitizing stations entrance enforcement such as screenings for employees and for contractors and finally with the thing that we really is most difficult but it's really our own personal behavior and how are we behaving in the workplace and in our community the biggest thing to remember is that we need to be flexible that the environment is changing this is a great scary time for employees to come back who may have been very much looking at home and isolated and coming back into communities and groups of people we have to change our mindset about spacing between each other and overcrowding we'll continue to be patient and how we interact with each other we'll continue to follow the guidelines and we may be even more stringent than what the local public health orders might come down on the face masks we're working with employees to for their comfort level how do they feel about maintaining face masks even when you're vaccinated and obviously the choice to make to be vaccinated all of these things come together to guide our plans to remain flexible open and to to be ready to adjust as we move into the different tiers and make sure that we're communicating with our employees in our community I have brought all of this to our bargaining groups and tomorrow I think tomorrow yeah we'll have an all employee meeting and we'll we'll be presenting this tomorrow to all of our employees as well with that that concludes my presentation our reopening plan you'll feel to find it on our website on the COVID-19 banner head towards the end of the day if there's any questions I'll be happy to take them from you thank you Lisa and thank you for all your work in creating the plan and also just wanted to just say a personal thanks to all our employees for everything they've done over the last year and a half and yeah just amazing work from top to bottom and very relieved to see that you know employee transmission was looks like non-existent which is wonderful and it's a testament to everybody's hard work during these really trying times I see that Vice Mayor Bruner her has her hand up so thank you Lisa thank you Mayor Myers thank you Lisa for sharing that my question was the all employee meeting landed in my council calendar so is that for us to attend as well it sounds like it will be informational I believe you invited to attend as well thank you thank you Lisa is there any other council members questions for Lisa at this point okay thanks so much Lisa thank you next up I have a few announcements and then we will move onto our regular meeting today's meeting is being broadcast live on community television channel 25 and streaming on the city's website cityofsanacuse.com if you wish to comment on an agenda item today instruction provided on your screen we will provide these instructions throughout the meeting whenever we move into an agenda item that will be opened up for public comment please note public comment is heard only on items the council is taking action on and not regular updates and reports the items that will be open for public comment during today's meeting are items number 12 through 21 on the agenda with the exception of item 20 on our agenda I'd like to ask the council members if there are any statements of disqualification today seeing none I'd like to ask the city clerk to announce any additions or deletions to today's agenda there are none thank you I'd like to also just to make an announcement regarding oral communications today oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not on today's agenda oral communications will occur immediately after agenda item number 19 on today's agenda if you wish to make a comment during oral communications please call in towards the end of item number 19 I'd like to call on the city attorney to provide a report on our closed session thank you Mayor Myers members of the city council this morning the council met in closed session by a zoom at 9 30 a.m. to discuss the following matters item one was public employment involving the city manager recruitment item two was a conference with labor negotiators council met with its negotiator HR director Lisa Murphy to discuss the OE 3 and SBIU temporary employees negotiations item three was real property negotiations council met with and gave instructions to its negotiator a public works director Mark Dettel with respect to the following properties 11 26 to 28 11 26 to 11 28 eastquist drive 11 30 eastquist drive 11 34 eastquist drive 11 40 eastquist drive 11 48 eastquist drive 11 52 to 54 eastquist drive and 11 56 eastquist drive the name concerned the acquisition of a pipeline easement adjacent to the San Lorenzo River along eastquist drive in that location item four was liability claims the council met with its legal council concerning the claim of the UC regions of California against the city of Santa Cruz that is also listed as item of 16 I believe on your consent calendar this afternoon there were two litigation item one was regions of the University of California at all versus city of Santa Cruz currently pending in the Santa Cruz County Superior Court item two was Santa Cruz homeless union at all versus city of Santa Cruz currently pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose item six was a conference of legal council concerning and litigation specifically significant exposure to litigation in the council discussed one matter of significant exposure there was no reportable action if you Mr. Condati I'd now move on to item number 10 on our agenda this is the city manager report all in by a city manager Martin Bernal to make the report today thank you mayor council I have three items for you today COVID-19 pandemic an update on encampments and also a Reclamation of national police week I'll first start with our fire chief to hide this we'll do an update on the COVID-19 pandemic status in our county thank you Bonnie mayor city council Jason Heidi fire chief and today I'm going to start on some sobering news and hopefully and on some more hopeful news for us as a whole two weeks ago at our last city council meeting I showed you the John Hopkins COVID dashboard and since that time nearly 11 million new cases have been reported worldwide with a really significant portion being in India itself and it's a large outbreak there and unfortunately it does not look like that is slowing down so cases are still going up even though you know we're getting in front of spread with with vaccinations and whatnot next slide so bringing it from the worldwide view back here and this has been updated as of about 45 minutes ago so it's actually better news than what I'm showing you and this is statewide showing that our cases per 100,000 within the state are at 3.6 per 100,000 and as you can see this is a rolling seven-day average and you know the graphs are showing that we are definitely heading in the right direction especially when compared to the world or in the nation bringing it down to the Santa Cruz as we can go to the next slide so here in Santa Cruz one of the key indicators that was keeping us in the orange orange tier was we were just about 2% cases per 100,000 for our adjusted and this one shows 1.7 that's when I grabbed it this morning it was just updated and it's at 0.5 so if we can stay within that till next week we should be able to move into the yellow tier which is the good news so all the indicators are moving in the right direction we are held in the orange tier just by the smallest of margins and then if you look at there's been no new deaths which is a great indicator and one of the reasons why we've been taking all these precautions like Lisa Murphy talked about reopening the city and all the PPE and the precautions and this is really what we want we want to see low transmission we want to see low hospitalizations and no deaths so here locally within Santa Cruz we're doing better than the state and that's good news next slide so again looking at the statewide the number of vaccines going into arms is gone up pretty significantly and here in Santa Cruz County almost 270,000 doses to people one of the issues that we're seeing right now is that there's actually a growing supply of vaccine and not enough people who are actually getting vaccinated and so again I said this last time but I urge everyone if you are eligible to get a vaccine to get a vaccine that is what will get us out of this pandemic that we're in next slide so this is a vaccinated group by status and if you look at the 18-49 we're approaching almost 60% we're a little over 57% either have full vaccine or at least one shot in their arm all people who are eligible that 50 to 64 group is close to 85% and the 65 and over is over 80% as far as people who've been fully vaccinated or have at least one vaccine shot so they're partially vaccinated and that's here within Santa Cruz County within North County we are almost at 70% have received either full vaccination or at least one shot in that process so our numbers here are really looking good and that's one of the reasons why we're seeing those indicators for the orange tier, the yellow tier and just the lack of hospitalization for COVID as well as the number of deaths next slide so again right now today who are 16 and over are eligible for vaccine and I'll keep plugging these sites but go to myturn.ca.gov or go to santaacruzhealth.org and that will show you where you can get vaccines I have a child who's 15 and a half so I've been watching this really closely wondering you know when we're going to be able to get vaccine for that younger age group tomorrow on the 12th the CDC is having their meeting and by tomorrow afternoon they should approve use of the Pfizer vaccine for that age group of 12 to 15 which will really kind of complete that you know the population that we have here and get us back to normal so all indications are that that will be approved that that will be available and so again go to those websites myturn or santaacruzhealth.org find out what providers you know you can sign up for an appointment either for yourself if you're currently eligible or after tomorrow all expectations are that we will be able to vaccinate that 12 to 15 age group which would really help with getting people back to normal taking the workload off of parks and rec for running you know schools which they normally don't do and daycare and whatnot so it's good news for us here locally we're still not done with the pandemic as a whole but all indicators are that we are right in that right direction next slide and so again I'll keep plugging this every single time take those steps you can to minimize transmission washing your hands wearing a mask keeping your distance don't come don't leave home if you're sick and then go to santaacruzhealth.org to find the list of providers that you're eligible for to get a vaccine and especially after tomorrow give that approval to CDC level for that age cohort that we're able to include them and the overall number of people within our community that really blunt the spread of COVID and get us back to normal that's a report I have for you and more I'm happy to answer any questions if you have them East Hydrant is there questions from council on this item? Very good news we're still going the right way thank you Jason okay thank you next I'll have Lee Butler doing an update on the campus thank you Martine and good afternoon good afternoon mayor and council members I'm going to update you on two things the Benchlands and San Lorenzo Park and then Highway 1 and 9 and first I'm happy to report that the team has implemented a successful move San Lorenzo Park the team first moved individuals from the Benchlands up into the upper areas of the park so that the area could be prepared and then they put various resources down into the park and began moving people down that move has been completed and all of the refuse has been cleaned out of the top area of San Lorenzo Park the county is providing services out there at the park outreach services through the hopes team and the HP HP team and we are still under the federal injunction which you all know has another hearing later this week on Thursday and I just want to acknowledge here the great work that the team put in on this we had a whole lot of staff time between the city manager's office and police and fire parks public works water we really had a team effort and want to appreciate the great work that went into that smooth move between the Benchlands to the top and back down and then secondly I wanted to update you you're probably all aware that Caltrans they posted 72-hour notices to vacate at the intersections of Highway 1 and 9 that was on Friday last week and they began the on Monday yesterday and our understanding that that is progressing smoothly at this point and it's continuing today and I am available for any questions that you may have there any council members with questions council member coming Spice Mayor Bruder thank you for that update I've been hearing about other encampments so like Harvey West and I think there's an area along the San Lorenzo River as well there's a bit of encampments down there I'm just wondering because you know I just want to make sure that the information we're receiving is correct are those encampments also being cleared currently or what's what's kind of happening with those as well because I'm getting emails from people saying that you know the city's going out and clearing all these areas and where those people are going to go or if they try to go to the benches when they can't get in there so I just and then I think the biggest concern is that if those areas are clear that people are going to go into Pogganep or some of the other open spaces so just like to understand how you know what's happening overall in terms of how people are going to get connected to any are available or you know kind of what's happening in those other areas as well thank you thank you for that question councilmember Cummings and you we share that concern with individuals moving into the Pogganep and other fire prone areas right now there is one other area that we are working on one encampment and that is at Harvey West Park in the Fringe of Garden area so very back area of Harvey West Park there's a group of roughly 30 campers out there and we've been coordinating with the individual who has sort of organized that group and we've also been coordinating with the campers out there and and we are putting plans together to have them move to the binge lands in an area south of the pedestrian bridge so so right now everyone from San Lorenzo Park moved to the north side of of the pedestrian bridge and we are working with those individuals who are currently camped at Fringe of Gardens to relocate them to the binge lands south of the pedestrian bridge area thank you vice mayor Bruner councilmember Cummings did bring up my question received some emails regarding Harvey West Park and so that answered the first part of that question and can you just explain why that's being moved sure so parks has had a number of issues that have been out there and we have that use that area is actually rented out you know there's a picnic area that's rented out and we've got campers coming in for the the summer camps and so it's really a combination of issues with you know that area being right adjacent to central fire hazard areas as well as some of the issues that that parks has seen as well as the other alternative uses there and so all of those things have led to this situation and really you know we're in we're in the COVID reaction scenario where parks still responding to the the COVID crisis that Jason was just highlighting okay that's helpful to know and so it was it was somewhat of a temporary space that was allowed but in preparation for the upcoming potential summer use and picnic areas and wildfire risk which brings me to Pogonip and wildfire danger there are there any encampments there as well that you know of there are we are aware of some individuals in Pogonip our parks team went out last week and I believe the fire team is going out next week or the week following on reconnaissance both to understand the risks associated with encampments but fire is also going out to look at the the fuel that's out there and Jason could to what he's going to be doing out there next week if if you'd like I was curious if they would be directed also to Benchlands at this point the number the capacity that we have at Benchlands is going to be very constrained you know we have expanded it slightly however there is not going to be capacity for everyone at the Benchlands and that's part of what we're doing as we're going out and really assessing how many individuals are in these areas okay and really quick can you just again clarify HOPE's team and HP what that stands for the HVHV is Homeless Persons Health Project and the HOPE's team the acronym itself is slipping anyone else can jump in I appreciate it but it's essentially it's a multi-disciplinary team at the county level that provides a variety of outreach services and aims to connect individuals to the various resources that the county operates great thank you great that was those were my questions appreciate it thank you Vice Mayor Council Member Brown yeah just a couple of questions and then a comment reiterating concerns about the PogoNIP so you said that park staff have had issues with folks at the French of Gardening Campmen I'm just wondering if you could provide a little bit more information about what that means sir I'll ask and I have one other question okay sorry I see Tony is on the line I'll see if he wants to jump in and and clarify and I will also while he's jumping on homeless outreach proactive engagement services hopes thank you alright the follow-up on the other question good afternoon Mayor and Council at Tony Ellis Parks and Rec we've seen a number of issues at the Friendship Garden encampment from drug use perceived drug dealing illegal timber harvesting terracing of the hillside destruction of property and so forth thanks that's helpful and then another question about the oh any sense of the timeline so I actually two more questions any sense of the timeline for moving the encampment I ask this because you know we're I'm sort of I feel like I'm hearing a little bit conflicting information in the questions I'm asking of folks behind the scenes or not during the mean this public meeting that about the you know what's anticipated when the move will be likely to happen and I think particularly given the fact that this is a group that at least the conversations I've had with people who are camping there as well as you know Brian Adams who's been trying to you know help facilitate the the conversation and and you know move forward I have heard from a lot of people that they know many of them left the San Lorenzo Park area and they're you know they just really are worried about moving back into the Benchlands and are you know I know that there's been requests for looking for alternative fighting particularly given the the concerns about that and the fact that we're out at we're running out of space in the Benchlands and the potential for that just to be more people moving into the Pogo Knit with all the fire danger it seems like it would be in our interest to try to identify some alternative and I'm just wondering if you could speak to that Sure I'd be happy to thank you Council Member Brown so we did hear those concerns from individuals and one of the things that the individuals requested was delineated fencing in that area and so we are working to get that fencing as well as hygiene resources ordered for the park I would say as far as the timeline it is going to be dependent upon how quickly we can get some of those resources in place but it could be as soon as a week I can tell you when a number of us were down there meeting with Brent and others yesterday we had a camper show up and say hey when can we move you know so there are people who are interested in coming over but there were also some of those concerns as well and having that physical separation was one of the things not only with the fencing but also the placement south of the pet bridge and trying to provide as much separation as possible so that we could recognize and respond to the concerns that were raised by some of those campers Thank you I think yeah that's it thank you sir welcome thanks council member I had Vice Mayor Bruner I just thought of one more question in this conversation with the separation of what I'm understanding that the Harvey West Park friendship garden camp would be south of the pedestrian bridge separated from the other Benchlands portion and with fencing separating the two would there also be separate restrooms hygiene stations we are procuring additional hygiene stations for the newly relocating camp on the south side of the pet bridge as well but not restrooms yes yes so restrooms hand washing the both hygiene stations means the whole thing yes yeah so restrooms hand washing not showers or laundry or anything but restrooms and hand washing okay thank you for clarifying that you're welcome thank you Lee Chief did you Chief Hodges did you want to discuss or update us on some of the fire related fire risk related questions that have come up yeah so first of all you know the a fire that doesn't start is the best one and we are moving into a wildland season that is has the potential to eclipse last year just because of the fuel moistures and the lack of rain things are ahead of schedule within the state they're ahead of schedule here we've been in red flag morning just on the other side of the hill our saving grace this morning is fog into that coastal marine influence but as we get closer into June July those fuels are going to be very receptive to catching on fire and within Poganyep which is our largest continuous open space all of our fires in that area have been human cost not lightning not other activities and so whether they're intentional or unintentional that is our ignition source and last year we went out and we identified all of those ignition that were primarily within encampments and then in August right as the TZU fire was coming down the valley we evacuated all those people from that Sickmore Grove lower Poganyep area and that was something that was in motion prior to the TZU fire because of that risk and so they were moved for two reasons one they were at risk if the fire came into the city limits and then they were also at risk of being the ignition source for fire next week we'll be going out and doing our proactive outreach that we've been doing on an annual basis for those folks out there and then when fuel conditions gets to that point that are critical I cannot in good faith do my job by saying it is okay to be in those areas and in camp it's a danger to the environment as a whole it's also a danger to the people who are sleeping in that area because of a fast moving wildland fire that's a that's a big concern for me there's no addresses there's no warning systems there's a lot of risk you know beyond it and you know the environmental damage is one impact and I think the TZU fire brought that home for a lot of people but the very real risk of a wildland fire within that area is unacceptable to me and we have to have a zero tolerance for that I know there's real challenges for where do people go how do people be as a community I think we can recognize that stopping that type of impact before it starts is the least impactful process forward and so I would ask that we identify with the county a location we can have people be but being in that area when fuels are dry is just an unacceptable risk in my opinion thank you Jason I have a question just on follow-up of that do you forecast sort of basically closing our open spaces at some point due to conditions or how do you manage that in terms of your authorities to do that yeah and so a lot of it it's double closure Sycamore Grove is close and yet we have people so when the fire risk becomes to that elevated level and some of the people on this council have done site tours out there and seen that direct impact of what it is and prevention easier than response so we have closed all open spaces to all activities when we reach that really critical threshold my preference is not to close it to all activities but at night and to close it to camping which really comes with warming fires cooking fires to allow transit where people can walk on a path similar to what COVID was last year where you were allowed to walk across the beach to get in the water that activity was allowed but setting up camp on the beach was not and so within our open spaces as our fuel moisture gets to that level and we do get reports on that I do foresee absolutely saying zero difference for anything other than transiting through walking through biking hiking but setting up shop sleeping or having any type of open flame device we it has to be a zero tolerance policy just because the risk of a catastrophic event is so large it outweighs that that singular person's need for a place to sleep in my opinion yeah I guess you know what I've noticed in communications and folks contacting me you know there's there's a growing sets of the I think they're called firewise communities or firewise neighborhoods I think we have gosh probably what three or four maybe five now in the city just in the city limits and these I know are throughout the whole county now um but it does seem like there's really concerted efforts organized around evacuation and people who do live on their own so a lot of that work is to is being done but that clarity around you know some of these are adjacent city lands and how how they you know work with city leadership and fire in particular is something that I think many people have been in contact about and I know there's some you've been I know on a lot of these firewise meetings in the last few months so it seems like people are aware and trying to get organized which is greatly appreciated you know to have neighborhoods really takes their the initiative to get each other organized around evacuation or being able to know who lives alone or if someone is you know needs going to need help getting out of their home also for us to obviously take into consideration all those conditions out in our own properties is great so thank you for your work yeah you know the firewise communities were something that we started a few years ago the first one in the county of Santa Cruz was started in Prospect Heights with our help and then we roam that to other community other neighborhoods and so you know they're concerned about the landfire which I completely understand which really important for those firewise groups other than being concerned about a fire starting is hardening their neighborhoods in their homes having a plan that they can enact and we've developed those brochures and those plans and those checklist and if we have a fire happen but it doesn't impact those homes those neighborhoods or the environment as a whole that's really our goal is trying to harden those areas and that's why we've done the vegetation management and we've also reached out to those neighborhoods to get them the tools that they can do and we had a pretty successful meeting last week and we will probably be meeting more frequently as we get into summer months here and you know wild land events start growing throughout the state and is there anyone particularly in your department Jason that that we could direct people to who are interested in these firewise groups do you have any do you have a lead staff person on that or do those things I'll go through you or Chief Rob Odie is our fire marshal and also if you go to city of Santa Cruz and go to the fire department website we have all that literature available we have physical handouts that we can give out to people but all of that information is available on our website and if you send if you click the link for the email on that website it will get routed to the right person and we will work with those individuals in those neighborhoods that's been one of our big outreach efforts in the last two years and we'll continue to do that great thank you working do you have any you have one more item I think yes thank you very much thank you Jason yes I'm going to just spend a few minutes on national police week and then in a few minutes I'll ask Deputy Chief Bernie Bernie's gone on to say a few words but first by way of background so in 1962 President Kennedy proclaimed May 15th as national police officers memorial day and national police week paid special recognition to those law enforcement officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty for the safety and protection of others and in the city of Santa Cruz we as you all know tragically saw the loss of two of our officers Sergeant Butch Baker and Detective Elizabeth Butler and that had a significant impact on our police department our officers and certainly our community and only just yesterday the city of San Luis Obispo also had a tragic loss of officers and circumstances are very similar to ours and in fact I spent last evening talking with their city to ensure our experiences and offering resources it's something that happens unfortunately much too often and so with that I just want to and I know we're going to do a a disenrecognition at the next council meeting but I wanted to ask Bernie if you could just share a few words in regarding this important week Thank you Martin and hello Mayor Myers thanks for having us yeah it's it's kind of a solemn day with yesterday's events in San Luis Obispo and a tough reminder of the dangers our men and women take on and and face every day in 2020 they had the highest number of officers that lost their lives in the line of duty since 1974 and it was 264 lives were lost across the country of course COVID-19 was a big part of that I think over half of those numbers come from COVID-19 so but it is a very dangerous job a very unpredictable job very challenging and you know the men and women of this department should be praised for their efforts and the resilience especially through 2020 as we're all aware it was a challenging year for all of us in government work and and definitely no less for the men and women out in the field day in and day out fighting pandemic and issues and obviously a lot of other issues so I appreciate on behalf of the men and women of the organization I appreciate the recognition we are thankful for your support and the community's support and we will keep striving forward and pushing forward and getting better and promoting a high level of service to our community so thank you thank you for all your work and the department's work and yeah we are we are lucky that we have the department that we have and the leadership we have and I know you guys have been through so much in the past year both all of our first responders and so just really heartfelt thank you we certainly will be celebrating you with approximation next week just want to recognize and so thankful for everything you do have any council members if they have any comments to say please raise your hand like we're we've got claps well thank you very much martin great to see you bernie and for all the updates from the staff thank you we'll move on now to the review of the meeting calendar attached to the agenda and revise it as necessary and I just like to ask on the the call on the clerk to provide any updates for this calendar thank you mayor we have no edit no edit great okay we will now move on to our consent agenda and these are items 12 through 18 on our agenda today for members of the public who are streaming this meeting now is the time to call in if you want to comment on items 12 through 18 instructions are on your screen please remember to mute your streaming device press star nine to raise your hand the cue saying you have been unmuted all items will be act upon in one motion unless an item is pulled by a council member for further discussion are there any council members who wish to pull to comment on or pull any of our consent items today and this is items there are 12 through 18 let's see I see council member brown oh you're muted sammy yeah sorry I just want to make a comment item 14 okay any other council members wishing to uh council member Cummings I'd also like to comment on item number 14 uh others council member golder same item other items from either 12 to 18 I do have a just a quick question on item 18 so I'll put myself down for that and I will make a comment on item 14 any other council members going going gone okay great so we'll go ahead and I'll go ahead and let me just catch up here on my here so for members of the public who are streaming this now is the time to comment on items 12 through 18 and we are going to take a motion on all the items that we're not that we're not that we're not either commented or questioned on I think I'll go ahead and do comment and questions because we did not have any items pulled so we'll do comments and questions we'll take the consent as one item and look for a motion a little bit later so why don't we go ahead with the comments on item number 14 which is the supporting senate bill 380 end of life option act sunset elimination and revisions and at least councilmember brown had a comment on this yeah I just wanted to thank the mayor thank you mayor Myers for getting this on our agenda when I first was approached about this and was able to talk with the folks who were asking us to do this I I thought it was going to take you know that we needed to it was going to take longer and so I just really appreciate you expediting getting it on to the agenda and I'm I'm glad to have been able to sign on to this our state senator John Laird and our assembly member Mark Stone have both signed on as co-sponsors of the legislation and I'm just really pleased to that be supporting it as well thank you councilmember and I've got councilmember coming yeah I was just going to thank the member of the public who reached out to us asking for support and then additionally wanted to mayor and my colleagues who were able to bring this forward I was in the field when this came when we when I received an email about this was wanting to get back good at some point and then I saw it on our agenda and so I was really excited to see the councilmembers who were able to bring this forward with the mayor and so just wanted to express my appreciation for being able to bring this forward thank you councilmember councilmember Golder I want to echo the sentiments of councilmember Brown and coming that I just also wanted to say gratitude to everyone that works at hospice and it's just you know such thankless work and really difficult and then went through it with a close run this year and you know I fully support this people should be able to choose to you know dying in a dignified way when it wins their time so yeah and I just want to also make a comment I just want to acknowledge the the public members who reached out to us and for those listening in today the council did support this act by resolution back in I believe it was 2015 was when the council it initial a resolution in support of this of the the end of life options act and what we'll be doing is we'll be submitting a letter in support of SB 380 which will extend that act which has a an actual termination date so again we're we're following on our other council tales and they're already they're supportive this but obviously expressing as a community that we're supportive of the end of life option act and trying to avoid that sunset so thank you to the council members who also wanted to sponsor this it was a quick turn around but I also want to acknowledge Ralph Demmerkut from the City Manager's Office as well as Martin Bernal and gave guidance on trying to how to make this happen as quick as possible so it was really made this happen I just happened to read the email and try to get it get it rolling so thanks to the staff for their support in helping us put this on and then we'll move on to item number 18 and I just wanted just had a quick question I wanted to make sure I understood regarding the Bay Drive storm damage repair project and I guess this is a question for either Mark for Mark Devil Cecil here or Christian Eiter Mark I just had a question so I know this is I believe this is also considered a city park is that correct or is it really just a median that people use you know the trail to get up and be able to walk through the you know without having to walk along you know that keep hill and bay Bay Drive Christian Eiter here you know that's a great question and I know the answer to that but I'll get back to you with that okay you try to protect the path because it is the only one that essentially goes from Escalona up to Nobel and you know this covered some damage about four years ago and it was not part of the declared disaster so it's been difficult to get the money to do the project but I think we have a great project coming up there now and we'll be ready to go out to bid shortly once it's that's great so this will really be basically it'll it'll basically address a lot of that erosion and some of those failures along that path that have made it quite to either walk it or I know a lot of people mountain bike up up it too because it's it's well it's at one specific location but the path paving goes further out further than where the damage is because there are you know it is suffering from from deferred maintenance and we could use more funding for further improvements as well okay great thank you I just wanted to clarify thank you okay I will look for a motion on the consent agenda mayor do you just need public comment oh sorry about that I will go ahead and open up our consent agenda for public comment this will be for items all through 18 on the agenda and for members of the public who are streaming this meeting now is the time to call in if you want to comment on items 12 through 18 instructions are on your screen please remember to mute your streaming device press star nine to raise your hand and listen for the Q saying you've been unmuted let me see if we've got anybody in the Andres I'm not seeing any Bonnie are you seeing any no I'm not not seeing any okay great so I'll go ahead and bring this back to council for a motion and I see council member Cummings and then council member commentary Johnson I'll go ahead and move the consent agenda and I'll second so we have a motion by Cummings seconded by council member commentary Johnson for approving the consent agenda and could we have a roll call vote please council members Watkins aye commentary Johnson aye Brown aye Cummings aye Boulder vice mayor Brunner aye and mayor Myers that motion passes unanimously okay next we will be starting up on item number 19 we are a little bit ahead of schedule so I think we'll just take a about eight or nine minute break and because we're going to go into a couple of items that might be lengthy so why don't we get back here at 255 to start on time for this item thank you everybody breaks always goes so fast we've got one two three four five if council members are back if you could flip on your camera that would be great and I will go ahead and open back up the meeting so next up on our agenda is item number 19 transition to city council district elections for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an item you want to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen the order will be a presentation of the item by staff followed by questions from the then take public comment and then return to council for deliberation and action this is again item number 19 transition to city council district elections the presenters today will be Ralph Demericut from our city managers office and Victoria Thompson from our who's our deputy city attorney and they'll be doing a presentation questions from council and then we will take public comment after questions from council so without further ado I'll have Ralph start us off and Ralph I don't think we can hear you I'm not sure if you're speaking yet or not I was not in such a good role too oh yeah and that concludes my presentation I'm done here good afternoon mayor and members of the city council Ralph Demericut principal management analyst with the city manager's office and I'm here today with Victoria Thompson deputy city attorney for our city attorney's office to discuss the transition of district elections and before I did want to say that this presentation of including the content and actions and including the content actions that are being presented they're consistent with the direction provided and council resolution number 29657 which was passed on May 26, 2020 and we'll get into that a little bit more as well and that we want to highlight that this is going to be the first of many conversations to come as well as first of many additional opportunities for the community to provide feedback on the process maps and schedule and as the proposed schedule will show this includes sharing key information with the community now and coming back to council and on with an update with an updated schedule with more details on that schedule and sort of a summary of the feedback we've received since today's presentation and August so and the next slide here today the requested action that we are asking for from council is want to receive the presentation on district and transition requirements which Victoria will get into and also to provide direction for staff to proceed with the recommended next steps and propose general timeline to transition a district elections Yes, so good afternoon council members we wanted to go over background information on the California voting rights act which is shortened to the C.V.R.A. What exactly is the C.V.R.A. So the C.V.R.A. was signed into law in California in 2002 and it amends the 1965 Federal Voting Rights Act for California the Federal Voting Rights Act outlaws intentional discrimination in voting practices as well unintentionally discriminate the C.V.R.A. expands upon the Federal Voting Rights Act and increases protections for minority voting rights and creates additional liability for entities that violate those rights and so under the C.V.R.A. if a minority group can show that racially polarized voting undercuts their to elect or influence the election of a minority preferred candidate a violation of the C.V.R.A. exists and as background racially polarized voting is voting where there's a difference between the choice of candidate preferred by voters of a protected minority class and the electoral choices preferred by voters of the electorate the city currently holds at large elections which means that voters from the entire city select elect all members of the city council the C.V.R.A. does not outright ban at large elections it just discourages any election system that impairs the ability of one of the protected minority classes to elect candidates of their choice or their ability to influence an election's outcome and it's important to note that the threshold to establish liability under the C.V.R.A. is very low and at this time no California government entity has successfully dispended its at large election from a C.V.R.A. lawsuit in 2020 the city received a notice of claim of violation of the C.V.R.A. letter from a prospective plaintiff and that prospective plaintiff alleged that the city's at large elections violated the C.V.R.A. and threatened suit unless the city transitioned to district-based elections and again as background a district-based election is where the city is divided into geographical districts and voters residing within each district choose their council member who must also then reside in that geographic district the city denies that its current at large system violates the C.V.R.A. but as I mentioned no California government entity has successfully defended its at large election against C.V.R.A. law a C.V.R.A. lawsuit and so to avoid the uncertainties and costs associated with a lawsuit the city agreed to consider a transition to district elections for the general election in November of 2022 and to discuss the city council's May resolution so on May 26 2020 city council passed resolution number 29,657 and in that resolution it states that the city council will consider adoption of an ordinance to institute the district-based election system as authorized by government chose section 34886 and that prior to considering an ordinance to establish district boundaries for a district-based election system the city will follow the requirements set out within elections code 10010 to solicit public input in a district map drawing process and so today's presentation includes the schedule of how we animate that and in November the city entered into a professional service agreement with National Demographics Corporation and the scope of work with NDC includes developing and refining the city's election district working with city staff to develop a redistricting database preparing draft maps and an election schedule and assisting with public meetings and plan adoption including with our voters and the professional service agreement in the resolution of what was included as backup material of what is that so what are the district election transition requirements there are very statutory requirements in the in the California elections code we must follow when it is going through this process of considering the transition to district elections first the city must hold two initial public hearings and this is before any maps are created and these meetings are for the public to provide the city and NDC with its input regarding district composition and again this is before any maps are created secondly the city must publish at least one proposed district map and a proposed staggered election schedule if council members will be elected for staggered terms of office current practice is that the city holds staggered elections for city council members for council members are elected in one or two years later three council members are elected thirdly at least seven days after the proposed district map and schedule are published the city must hold to follow-up hearings and these second public hearings are for the public to provide their and starting the proposed map and schedule or if the proposed map and proposed schedule are at all revised during these follow-up second public hearings the city must republish both at least seven days before it goes to council for consideration and then fifth the council can vote to approve or reject an ordinance established based elections under the government code the city council can adopt an ordinance requiring council members be elected by district this does not need to go to the voters for their approval but then also please note that the city's charter does specify that council member large and so it would make sense at some point to clean up this issue and have voters consider this okay so we understand that this process and the schedule we come up with is should be specific to the city of Santa Cruz and that it should meet the needs of the community and so but we did take a look at what other cities have done and the process they underwent to kind of give provides an insight as to what the community and the council can expect throughout this process and we looked at cities that had comparable variables such as you know either population and geographical size annual budget university proximity and other variables to better understand how they went through this process and the cities that I'll be discussing today include the city of Davis Santa Rosa and Santa Barbara and quickly go over some highlights during and the process they took so to city Davis has a population of 68,000 that thousand and they completed their process to transition from that large elections to buy their straight elections during the fall of 2019 and the first council members who were elected by district were elected in the 2020 election and the remaining two districts are going to transition from that large to district the elected representatives in 2022 and the structure of the council remain the same they held five public hearings and community workshop and during these events members of the public were invited to provide input on the maps that we created by the demographer and I will share Davis's schedule after I go over Santa Rosa but that way I'm not going back and forth from different documents too much in Santa Rosa they have larger population they have a population of 174,175,000 but they began their transition from that large to district-based elections in 2017 their process was interrupted by the 2017 wildfires and then they had to redo their process all over again but in 2020 their final at-large council seats were transitioned to district seats there are seven people on their council and their structure of the council remain the same six public hearings were held for community feedback first two hearings were held prior to the publication of the maps and the the remaining hearings were held following the publication of the draft district maps and I'm going to switch over to a different document here and kind of share what those schedules looked like really briefly just so members of the council and community get an understanding of what the process was like in those cities so in Davis they adopted a resolution of intention which this council already published in September they held their first public hearing where they discussed the process with the community identified neighborhoods and communities of interest and considered criteria criteria for the formation of districts and they held a second public hearing in September and a community workshop in September as well and wordhead presentations for the public after those initial meetings were held the maps the preliminary district maps really and public hearings were held after that which included input on the proposed map of the ship maps from the community and it was an opportunity to provide direction to modify map options and then everybody's district map was believed after those meetings and then they had follow-up meetings late October and in early November city council held a meeting to adopt in order to transition districts which includes selecting a final map in Santa Rosa talked about how their other process was interrupted by the wildfires so they started their process all over again in February where similarly they held initial public hearings before maps were were and after the uh maps were drafted and published they held follow-up meetings and gave the the community and the public an opportunity to respond to those maps and then it gave an opportunity to post amended maps based on the feedback and um council action um they had they held follow-up meetings after that and um council action occurred on in April of 2018 to adopt the map and the ordinance so that's sort of how it looks like in Santa Rosa and Davis and then we'll go back to the power city we looked at they have a population of 88,000 and unfortunately we didn't I wasn't able to get a full of their schedule and I wasn't able to share that with you but what's interesting with Santa Barbara is that the creation of an independent redistricting commission was required an agreement and I know this is an item that's come up through public emails and questions and all of that but independent redistricting commission was created after council decided to move forward with creating districts and that commission their goal is to issue an updated map by November of 2021 for 20 decades and I understand that due to the delay in the 2020 census results coming out that this this is becoming a little bit of a challenge for the independent redistricting commission but I added that in there just to show that you know we can the council can create a commission but ideally it would be after the creation of or after passing an ordinance stating that we're moving to districts creating initial districts this is where we talk about the city of Santa Cruz's process within our city and the first thing that staff did was create a district a district election web page where FAQs and really fundamental information is currently available to the public and we could I will share how the public can access that right now if members of the public are interested in learning more about this they can okay you guys my screen is highlighted they can go to our home page we have this pinned right now under trend the collection kicks off and they could click on that and it'll take them to this page to our city newsroom and it just gives a brief overview of what we're doing over the next 12 months and there's a link here that goes to the landing page and members of the public could go to the planning directly as well by going to cityofcentercruise.com slash district elections but we just heard that it was easier to have something on the home page to make it easier for people to remember so they could click on that link and here we have a brief overview of what's going on some FAQs some basic questions and some newer questions that were over in our presentation today the proposed timeline that will also go over pending council approval of course and then some space for notices and press releases which we'll all keep in this section so people could follow it or read previous notices and press releases that went out documents that relate to this item additional resources and contact and certainly they could contact if they have any questions or comments and that's me and my email address and so on but we'll go back to the power point sorry to keep going back and forth so that was the initial step that staff took and then we're here today with our initial presentation to give council an update to request you know direction to move forward with the schedule we're proposing and then we're planning on coming back to council in August of this year to give you an update on the feedback and to give you more details on the schedule and and then we plan to have introductory public meetings in August which story we'll get into yes so in August of 2021 we plan to have those tray required introductory public meetings the reason why this is in August is one to account for councils July period where there will not be any meetings and then also the 2020 census data is currently set to be published in September of 2021 and NDC and the city cannot begin to prepare draft maps until that census data is available so it's our current belief the federal government is saying that this data will be released in September however this data has asked and so there is a chance that it could be delayed again if so that will impact our proposed timeline here and if so we can update council as to that change in August at the August update to council meeting let's say that so long as the the census data is published in September we anticipate that by November the city's expert NDC should be should be able to draft maps and again this will take into consideration comments from the public and council members at those introductory public meetings as well as 20 census data and we anticipate that in by November of 2021 and then council should be able to review the maps and the proposed elections any proposed staggered election schedule in November of 2021 we anticipate that by December of 2020 the city will be able to publish that their proposed map and election schedule and again we will provide links to the proposed map and election schedule on the city's webpage for district elections that the public can easily access that by January of 2022 we believe that we can hold those post-publication public meetings where the public can comment draft map and the draft schedule and we anticipate by March of 2022 council can vote to approve or they can consider whether or not to approve the transition to district election and that March date is sort of important because in order for the county to process the district maps in time for the November 2022 general election we need to have that map and that schedule to the county by mid-April of 2020 and that again will allow for the November 2022 general election in the city to be the first with district elections now a comment we received from the public was at what point can a public comment on the process or get some input in the maps and just a little content of what's being discussed so in this overview of the general in blue our opportunities or times when the community and the city will be going back and forth and communicating and getting feedback and all that so we just wanted to highlight that with the council and the members of the public that are we thought we'd get in some frequently asked questions man maybe go over these before we took additional questions from the council or maybe we'll answer some of the questions you might have or maybe they'll spark new questions that we could get into today and I'm trying to answer for you one of the questions that we received from the public from any members of the public was relating to is this a time to change the structure of the council and that encompasses you know is this a time to switch to and at large elected mayor can we change the number council members on the on the council and can we change the number of districts and all of that and the response I'm right to that right now and the answer to that is the transition district elections who's been directed through council resolution RS 29657 a direction does not include changing the structure of the council and the one thing to highlight here is there is a general government code that allows the council to pass an ordinance to transition to district elections and the process to change the city council the structure of the city council however made a process from from passing an ordinance so they are separate conversations that should happen but as far as this item goes and the process that we presented it's strictly as focused on transitioning to district elections at this point another question that we received a couple of you know and we switched to a rank choice building system and similarly it's we're considering this a separate item or discussion from the transition district elections and additional direction would be needed from the council to begin the process required to transition a rank choice voting system for similar reasons and that the direction provided for our presentation today was provided by the resolution we mentioned which focuses specifically on transitioning to district and that this is a you know major change in the charter that may need to go to a vote and not necessarily allow the council to do so through an ordinance which the transition to district says sorry sorry is there anything else you wanted to add on that nope I think you covered it well an independent redistricting commission be formed many jurisdictions have created independent the commissions after transitioning to just district elections and we're recommending that this item be revisited in the future to allow for appropriate time to discuss and implement the process and structure of the commission with the public and government code also allows the council to transfer their redistricting powers independent body so this could be done through ordinance and the future as well however with this timing of everything and all of that you think that this would be a good idea to maybe do after we transition into district elections or how are the number of districts determined or so under the city's charter and specifically charter section 601 there are seven council members and so there will be seven districts currently through the the council's may 2020 resolution there is no direction to include changing the structure of the council again we're focusing on the transition just to sections and so there will be seven districts we also received questions about can some council members continue to be elected at large while some are elected based by district no under the government code there is only one member of the council from each district and so if you had district elected council members so elected council elected at large council members there wouldn't affect to be two council members from that geographic area so they would violate the government code we also received questions about whether the candidate or council member needs to live in their district and yes per the government code a person isn't eligible to hold office as a member of council unless they reside and then related to that question how does this impact council members who may be forced to move during their term and unfortunately government code says that the council member needs to reside in their district understand that this might be an impact on council members and there might be a way to address this in in city code but the government code says that yes the person must reside in the district and one more time the website that members of the public can visit if they want more information on this process or this transition on this right here wwwmcrew.com slash district election and as we receive more questions we'll continue post those on the website and answer them for members of the public and here is my email in case any members of the public have any questions or comments they'd like to share I'll be sure to summarize those and share them with members of the council and staff as appropriate and lastly just a reminder of what they requested action from staff today is one is to receive the presentation on district election transition requirements and two is to provide direction for staff to proceed with the recommended next steps and propose general timeline to to transition the city council district election and of that concludes your presentation and we're happy to take any questions Thank you Ralph and thank you Victoria complicated and also a major shift for our community so thank you for the thoroughness and sort of walking us through the process certainly is important and it looks like we have several several ways that we can engage with the community as we move forward but it's that's a big shift so thanks for the presentation E3 council members with their hands up council member Cummings Thank you mayor thanks for the presentation I have a couple questions and I think Mayor Myers touched on it when she was saying how this is a big shift for our community and you know where there's a lot of folks that are concerned about process and really how they can engage in this I wanted I'm just curious because the potential for a redistricting commission and bringing that back later rather than having that introduced sooner before I get on into that item I'm just curious if you kind of walk us through the like how these maps are created and what is the process if you know for how the maps are created because it sounds like those redistricting commissions oftentimes play a very large role having members of the community who can help weigh in on the drawing of maps and if we don't have that commission in place you know who's really responsible for coming up with those maps because I think many members of the community are going to be concerned with you know how can they provide input at the early stages rather than having like here are the maps you know here are your options choose one or the other and so included in the scope of work for NDC or Demographer is the resources the outreach meetings which we have to schedule prior to any map being released to really get feedback from the community and to share the process and sort of the ongoing work that'll happen and kind of get their feedback on communities of interest in the city of Santa Cruz and with that feedback from the point NDC will prepare draft maps that the council and the community will have opportunities to provide feedback on and Tony and Victoria if there's anything else you guys want to ask and feel free I can add that some communities have permitted or have opened up map drawing to the public and have had on their websites abilities for public to submit their own maps so that's something that we can consider NDC will when they are putting together their proposed maps will consider the city's demographic demographic information they will consider where there are minority or protected voting blocks they will my understanding there's no intent for these to be gerrymandered districts that they will be districts the contiguous districts that geographically contiguous districts and yes does that answer your question councilmember yeah for the most part and then two other questions one it seems like we have you know there's a bit of time before back to council it sounds like timeline is to have someone come back in August and I'm just wondering if there's an opportunity to have a public hearing before then to get input so that community members have more of a heads up rather than being a council meeting I know many people are probably at work right now and can't weigh in you know right now but I think it might be good if we could another like an public hearing process where we you know doing the initial introduction of where we're going so the community can weigh in on that timeline prior to us adopting a formal timeline it sounds like because that would be adopted in August is that correct that's correct so we definitely at the direction of council we can consider having earlier public outreach meetings that could be a council meeting it could be a community meeting under the the statutes there is a requirement that some of these public hearings must be outside of work hours or on weekends so there will be a chance for members of the community to comment at a time not at three in the afternoon if that doesn't work for their schedule but yes at this point we are just thinking about this August council meeting but if you would like for us to add something else that's something that it's directed we can add and then I guess the my last question is as it relates to the kind of redistricting commission I mean what what's kind of holding us back from potentially creating that and I asked because it seems like you know we have again we have about months and I you know we could have something come potentially at the second meeting in June for example if each council member was to appoint you know a person to serve on this what could be a commission and then to have them play a role so we have more of a community engagement into this process and so I'm just wondering you know what is some of the constraints around kind of creating the redistricting and for the purposes of this redistricting effort and I know that the county county supervisors when they're considering redrawing the maps for their districts they appoint members of the public to help with that process and so I think it would it would seem you know I think many members of the community would would really appreciate being able to you know weigh in and and to have us have a consistent process within the city and within the county I could take a crack at that I think ultimately that the methodology is that council employs whether it's a decision that's made by the city council or if you want to establish an independent commissioner committee to make a recommendation to the council on district boundaries or to appoint an independent commission to establish district boundaries those are policy decisions that the council can can there's no legal requirement that you do so but but that's a policy discussion for the council can I add the the other thing to consider of course is that it's a it's a pretty extensive effort and so it does require staff resources to be able to staff and create the process so it would require us looking at priorities in terms of our work plan and workload I'll ask if I could add that a part of this discussion too is for council to decide if we do want to move forward with districts first so until that decision is made it's a little difficult for the independent registry commission to continue with the work not knowing you know if the council will decide to move forward with districts for not so that decision is what we're trying to get to I'm at this point for long okay well I guess so just my comment would be I think that you know that there'd be a lot this is a very big transition for our community and and I think that to extent that we can maximize community input in this process I think the outcome will be in the more community buy-in we'll have for this um so I'll in my comments there thank you great thank you council member council member of callantara johnson thank you so much for that presentation I wanted to touch on the the process to the structure of this city council um I wonder if you could touch more on that you mentioned that this would be a separate process and in particular looking at an elected mayor structure you mentioned this would be a separate process from what we're doing right now in terms of moving forward with district elections what would it look like for us to even if it is as a separate process but simultaneously right so under the government code the city council can transition to district-based elections via ordinance some of these other changes like the change to an at-large mayor or going to rank choice of voters that's something that would need to be addressed by the voters through a charter amendment the charter currently allows or currently requires that the mayor be appointed by council members so if you switch to an at-large voter or excuse me an at-large mayor that needs to go to the voters for a charter amendment this is something that can be done it just our concern is that do we have the time to do this right now simultaneously with the change to the district elections and as ralph mentioned we we need to first determine if the council wants to move to district elections and so it makes sense to have that step first and then to look at other charter amendment other structural changes that could then go to the voters for consideration I can just follow up on Tori's comment very much the reason why it's a different process is that the remedy for a voters California Voting Rights Act lawsuit is to order the city to transition to district elections and so other cities including charter cities have adopted ordinances to transition to district elections as a result either a demand made under the CDRA or be to for a CDRA violation and and the only remedy that the court can impose under the CDRA is to order the city to to switch to district elections a court could not compel the city to have an elected mayor or to adopt a different voting methodology like rank choice and so that's why a charter amendment would be required so the latter two but not for the transition to district elections okay so I understand but it seems like even though this we're pursuing this because of a lawsuit or a risk of a lawsuit it's an opportunity for us to really look at across the spectrum how we structure our city governance and where there may be gaps and how we want to address those gaps and just wonder if I understand that it would have to be a separate process but I wonder if we could leverage the work that staff is already doing it's one issue to to move simultaneously but I just like us to think about that and explore that and then I have another question around the independent redistricting commissions do we have a sense of I hear that it takes time and staffing and capacity do we have a sense of what that looks like for other like communities how much time how much staffing how much resources has it taken other communities to form this type of independent commission we look at other cities and the process they underwent to create these commissions we could come back with more details on that but along it is you know I'm having the city clerk and the city council really can determine the process of how individuals are chosen and added on these commissions there are a few legal rules that we need to follow as to who can serve you know such as city staff current elected officials or family members of elected officials and all of that but it does give a lot of authority and power to the council as to how and you know the process that undergoes creating this independent redistricting commission who could serve and all of that but we I started I have started looking at the process other cities have undertaken and if this is an item that council would like to show information on it could definitely provide that at a future meeting great thank you so much shows them for now thank you council member I have council member brown next thank you so I I first wanted to just comment in response to council member Calentari Johnson's question about trying to incorporate some consideration of other changes in this process and and leveraging the the process to look at those so we did have charter was established in when I'm my last term as mayor or as council member sorry and I am at the time I thought that that charter review committee was going to kind of look at and we directed that it they look at all of those things and and more and that was suspended and a recollection is that in a grand jury report the city's response to a recommendation that we have such a committee the city's response was that no we're not going to do that so I I guess like so there there was a process it you know it didn't have it didn't have the time and the space produce any kind of recommendations that would help us figure out what to do so you know but I agree that I think that those are conversations that we should try to have and open up space for them because there is so much community interest and those are the questions that I mean I'm consistently getting and you know and you put them up in the q and a Ralph so obviously people are wondering so I I think that it is we're trying to find a way to open up space for those conversations in this process recognizing that we're not statutorily statutorily required to do so doesn't mean that we you know might doesn't mean that we wouldn't want to do that right so like just to see that happen and I have other comments but this is question time so I'm going to save those with respect to the restrictions on council members representing a district in which they do not live I I recognize that's that's not that's not the point and that there is something in our government code that would prevent that from happening or from being allowable and I I guess I'm just because it is such a burden on renters to you know to try to find housing in our community I and I myself as a member of the council had you know had to scramble to find housing at one point and thankfully no longer that's no longer an issue for me but I reckon there are many many people and we are a town that's majority renter and if you are a renter without some kind of commitment of stability from your landlord then you are at a serious disadvantage so I think that you know I guess I just wonder the question would be then could we unicode to accommodate for situations when if it were to occur an elected a person elected by district was forced to move to allow them to be able to finish out a term I mean it seems like that would be something that we you know we would want to consider in the interest of fairness I mean the whole point California Voting Rights Act at least purportedly is you know equity and access in voting and so it seems to me that that would be an important one to to look at so just one is that Victoria maybe you could speak to that is that how we would go about making that possible is a unicode change let me jump in I think that's something that that we would have to research um and if that's the if the council's if the council's interested in going that direction we will certainly do our best to figure out the the most legally viable pass forward if if that's if that's doable and I'm happy to look into that matter and get back to council that'd be great thank you Vice Mayor Bruner thank you okay my questions have to do with the public meetings prior the two public meetings required prior to the map drawing process and it I think it may have been somewhat answered and council member coming question why wait till August and is is there you know what does that look like would it be at council meetings or separate and so you would mention that one meeting or or both have to be outside of work hours so evenings weekend so it's in you know how are what do those meetings look like is it I know things are unknown with virtual versus in person versus surveys versus you know is there any requirements on what those public meetings look like or what is the plan for those public meetings and is there a way to start sooner so if I recall correctly at least one of the meeting of one of the required meetings needs to be outside of of business hours or on the weekends so it's just one those meetings staff is still figuring out what exactly those meetings would look I believe at this time it's our intention for some of those meetings for those meetings to be during city council meetings there's the opportunity to have community meetings I believe that's something that we've we've heard that there be nice to have something outside of the context of a city council meeting so that's something that staff can consider but to be exact how the meetings the details those have not been been worked out yet and so is that direction from council or is that staff decision can we have as many meetings as capacity allows in many different formats in different Spanish and English in person weekends evenings really feeling like we did our you know due diligence to have that public input before the map drawing process yes I can't sorry council member Bruner I think a a part of the process to was to really introduce the topic to the public today and to use the time between now and August to really determine what about at these community meetings before maps the draft maps go out you know what concerns do does the community have that need to be addressed at these public meetings and working with NDC to answer all of those questions but to really use this today this presentation as a way to introduce this item to the community and the council and really begin gathering that feedback from from everybody to help draft a more detailed schedule moving forward including you know what items what topics will be discussed at these public meetings before the maps are drawn and what needs to be covered to help council make an informed decision at the end of this entire process great okay thank you for clarifying that I also was wondering about um the community input once the draft maps are done and I think that was November was in the timeline timeline those put on the any draft maps when we get when and if we get to that point would also be through council meetings the first and second reading is that how that part would work no would be before the first or second read if it be before it's introduced the ordinance is introduced by council it'd be a separate matter okay so the draft come out and there would be more public meetings regarding the draft maps correct there would be two meetings just having to do with public comments about those draft maps about the draft proposed election schedule and that would be before council considers the resolution or the the ordinance okay great those are my questions to clarify thank you thank you vice mayor uh councilmember Watkins yeah I my questions or sort of the issues that I had have been raised by my colleagues I share sort of we've had we've had community outreach and input around things like ring choice voting or directly a elected mayor so it seems like this opportunity is sort of um it would behoove us to to sort of think about a simultaneous process there potentially and then I guess so you know I think what I'm hearing from staff is just this is sort of a preliminary kind of get a sense of where the council is so I'll maybe I'll shift mine from a question to more of a comment but I think that you know the commission that was formed by the prior council was before the lawsuit had been filed and was really more sort of exploratory so there's a little bit of a difference there but I will if we're thinking about true kind of equity of voice and those who aren't necessarily able to serve on these volunteer commissions if we want to look at some of the kind of outreach work that that Tiffany wise west is doing with the with the green mining institute and sort of thinking about how we're making this process accessible to folks who may not find these processes accessible whether it be sort of offering food or childcare or whatever obviously finished translation but you know full community representation with you know us not only expecting them to come to us but us going to those populations that we need to go to so that could be I was going to frame it differently as a question but I think what is your running kind of input and that will be forthcoming in terms of how you're going to use this information that's it for me thank you any other questions from state council at this time not seen any I think I will go ahead and take this out to public comments so this will be for item number 19 on the council agenda and for those members of the public who are streaming if this is an item you want to comment on please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand I see two hands up now and when it is your time to speak you will hear it and now you have been unmuted so I see a caller with the name Anne S and you are go ahead and you'll have two minutes I think this is Anne Simonton and I appreciate all the work that's going into this and I just wanted to suggest also that we really consider changing the municipal code or whatever whatever it takes in order to be able to consider the fact that we live in a city that is predominantly renters and they are under the auspices of the whims of the owners of those rental units and that we we are hardly being equitable if we do not allow for that particular change to happen it's I think it's it will be imperative to be to go along with the whole thought of this particular district election change I'm concerned about Tony Kandadi's comments about it all has to do with the council being interested it has to do with the fact that they suspended the current or what was once a redistricting commission or thinking about the rank choice and that large mayor I hope that we can reintroduce that I appreciate everybody's work on this I know this is a change and I hope we can also keep this very transparent for our community as I hope we can continue to or have some more transparency about what who's on the commission for the electing the city manager and how who decided that and who are they on this city you know who's who's representing the city connected with selecting the city manager I still haven't gotten a list of those people and I appreciate you know this that that would be more transparent thank you so much for all your work appreciate it thank you next up I have phone number ending in three month five eight you're go ahead and you've got two minutes yeah hi this is Kegard Phillips the MDC has many credentials but missing is a discussion of their overalls for this objective standards that will be used early on in the process to guide redistricting in compliance with California Voter Rights Act to avoid lawsuits is certainly one of those but no others so far are mentioned in secret city progress meetings that public expense don't do it for me from wikipedia redistricting is like an election in reverse usually the voters get to pick the politicians and redist redistricting the politicians get to pick the voters let's not really do that okay the MDC hasn't revealed their map and uh looks to the city for a sole direction therefore the city should present their map of objective standard process for public consideration and discussion before becoming the rules and weightings that DC should only use in map drawing the optional features of allowing the public to draw maps doesn't do much for me without their justifications behind them and reminds me of giving children crayons to play with to keep them bit absolutely be some process formally used where various factors and their weightings are considered and I for one want to know what those are and will be no good is a process formula that's unspoken or involves data that is never made available to the public and their weightings that map drawings hidden and are really needed for verification transparency a few standard objective examples are the is that roughly equal adult voter population count districts must represent roughly rational justify contiguous geographic boundaries and consideration of incumbents vote strength for residency should be a minimize factor to draw boundaries and as to which staggered districts vote first in 2022 they should be chosen by random drawing only not to protect incumbents or to do social justice for wearing priorities but the 100% fair and not create some privileged voting block rules that is 50% of the vote needed to win needs consideration okay thanks thank you any other members of the public interested in speaking on item number 19 on our agenda today I see oh hand just went down oh I do see Ron your hand is up to this item you can go ahead and speak a star nine to excuse me star six on you Ron if you're interested in speaking on item number 19 which is transitions to city council district elections is that the vote can you hear me yeah okay I'm not on a phone so good afternoon council members I find agenda item 19 puts the card before the horse any change to the city charter must be done by a vote to the people according to the law establishing district elections is a change in the city charger talk charger therefore before setting up district elections an affirmative vote by after it appears to be required having a vote after district elections are established appears to be a way to avoid to evade the required process the city attorney's conclusion that district elections could be done without a public vote doesn't adhere to the law the city attorney's judgment says we can go to district elections without any judicial ruling that says that the city of Santa Cruz is in violation of the cvra the purported violations affirm that it's in the business to extort money merely by saying jurisdictions are in violation of the cvra the city attorney told the the council that measure oh is 15 percent affordable housing requirement could be reduced to 10 percent by ordinance without a vote of the people lawyers make mistakes changing how we vote must be taken very very seriously and thoughtfully not dictated by an ambulance chasing law firm prefer a vote to change the city charter first then if approved go forward with the process to set up district elections I don't know if district elections are a good or a bad idea district elections may be the best way to go forward if they provide for expanded voting rights and equity maybe it's ranked choice voting is the best way to comply with the cvra can succeeds being districts and one at large why can't we be in compliance with cvra by the 2024 elections why go through a districting process and then go through another complicated process to comply with the cvra take care of it now and and one time as shever stated as other council members now that's the conversation that must be had now so please don't suspect how we get around this and and go time and consideration thank you are there any other members of the public who want to speak on item number 19 which is transition to city council district elections please raise your hand if you okay i'm not seeing any other attendees who would like to do that I see council member commentary johnson and the council member Watkins thank you yes I I would like to make a motion to approve staff's recommendation to move forward with a pursuing district elections and I would also like to add that staff explore elected mayor as a simultaneous process to come back when you come back in august to share with us what that could look like as a simultaneous process and in general there was a lot of really great input from my colleagues today around process and direction so so to take all of that into consideration when you come back in august with what our next steps would be thank you and council member Watkins um I was just going to make that a similar motion so I'll go ahead and second the motion and that's okay okay so we have a motion on the and then I'll open it up for further deliberation from council member commentary johnson to um direct staff to proceed with um the next steps and propose general timeline to transition to city council district elections including bringing back a information on potentially the process or process for an elected mayor and including what I've heard from many council members is the consideration of some kind of some kind of possible independent redistricting commission as well as additional public meetings especially during non-work hours and in the weekends I think those are the main three points that I at least caught as we were discussing things and then I guess I so we have a motion chevro did I capture that primarily okay a second by council member Watkins so we'll go ahead and and take further comments and deliberations I have one question just real quick myself here real quick since I didn't ask questions before Tony could you speak to the last public member who disputed sort of the the timing on whether or not we should go first with the charter amendment to the voters and then and then into so the question to the voters would be should we go to districts should the charter be changed to become a district to go towards districts can you speak to that and my understanding that part of our issue is that it's the settlement agreement that we're in as well so there's the legal sort of component that we're trying to also accomplish during this period of time but could you speak to that yes that I mean that's right that's the rationale for bringing it forward as an ordinance is that it's pursuant to a demand made under the California Voting Rights Act and an agreement to place a charter amendment on the ballot doesn't resolve the California Voting Rights Act claim unless the voters approve of the charter amendment and if they don't then you have a you know of voters take an issue on something over which ultimately a court would likely direct the city to transition to district elections anyway and that's why other cities and I didn't make up the part about other cities having transition to district elections by ordinance even if their charters specified at large elections it's common practice done or it's not a common practice aren't that but but it's done there's established precedent for it and it's recognized as an appropriate way to proceed so I reject the argument the charter or that going by ordinance would be illegal under the charter okay thank you for those for that clarification so we'll go ahead and continue we do have a motion on the floor so councilmember brown just a couple of comments and one more question so we've been at this for a while now and lamentably most of that has been behind closed doors so the public really has not been privy to the same information that we have and and so you know I think that this is very new as Mayor Meyers and other council members have said this is a a really major change and in how we do business how we you know are city representatives are picked and and so I do think that having some additional community input you know may either additional public meeting town hall meetings you know some kinds of you know maybe community workshops things that would give the public an opportunity to in in a form that is not simply you know everybody lines up and says we've supported or oppose it right because that's not really going to tell us much about how to move forward so getting meaningful community input I think and finding ways to do that is really going to be critical so what's to come clear to me and all of this time is that I'm just going to say this for the public record for the watching or listening that it it doesn't really matter if there is racially polarized voting in our community or any given community and it really doesn't matter whether or not districts would be an appropriate remedy or for that matter if it might actually undermine the goal of increasing diversity of candidates which is frustrating I mean that's a function of the CVRA in the way it's been interpreted by the courts so here we are it's you know there is there are attorneys out there who are literally going around to California communities cities and extorting money out of those communities enforcing district elections and you know it's really frustrating to see the top it to be successful in this way but we are in a situation now where we're in a settlement agreement essentially so I am I guess I'm wondering because we have never been asked to actually approve an ordinance or any particular plan for district elections what point do council members do we actually get to go on record saying whether or not we support this because we've kind of been all been moving along this you know down this path understanding that it's you know we're kind of we're just in this bind but at the same time we're you know I've heard other council members and I've asked you know serious concerns about you know whether or not this is actually going to support the goal of inclusion and access so I just want to clarify I guess so today we are being asked to accept this report give input on what else we want to see happen in the process and we're not being asked to make a statement of clearly yes or no on district elections is that I just want to be clarify that because if that is the case so I'll be voting no so if anybody could just help me understand I didn't see anything in the in the agenda report that said that's what we're doing today but I'm starting to feel there yeah and today the item was I'm sorry mayors you know I was going to say maybe Ralph you can clarify my understanding was the former that you described not not going as far as saying you supported on support of a district election but Ralph please clarify correct today's item is following up on the direction that was provided in the resolution that council passed in May of 2020 which includes bringing ordinance for a council to consider that would transition the city to district elections by 20 by the 2020 elections so at the end of this process that ordinance including draft map or including a final map would go to council for final consideration in this process but today's action is really just presenting that schedule of how staff plans to meet the direction that was given in the resolution that was passed back in May and then I guess the last thing I would ask my colleagues if you would be willing who made the motion and second if you'd be willing to include some information about rank choice voting coming back to us as part of that I know it's a huge can of worms and there's a lot you know a lot that goes into that but at least just something so that we can understand it a little bit better and kind of put it in the in the mix for conversation I know there are many community members who are interested in it and I don't want to I'm not suggesting this to try to derail what the road we're going down but I do think it's important to be responsive to community's interest and you know at least you know open up the space to talk about it Councilmember Brown yes I think Mayor Myers also named those specific pieces I didn't list them exactly but it sounds like rank choice voting the independent citizen's committee and elected mayor were three pieces that came up by community members and colleagues so for staff we can add those specific ways for staff to come back in August to let us know what those would look like thank you so I don't do a lot of that yes oh yeah thank you yeah I didn't I didn't hear it so I just wanted to make sure thank you thanks great okay I have Councilmember Cummings and then Councilmember Golder thank you I have a couple questions related to the timeline I know one of the things that I mentioned earlier and it might be taken that I'd like to offer for consideration is that given the timeline of you know we have about we have a few months before August hits and we get and this comes back to and so one of the things I was maybe going to suggest is that we if there could be a public hearing you know between now and when this comes back to Council preferably in June but in addition to that I think one challenge too is you know if we if we get feedback from the community that you know we'd like to move forward with an independent commission my my thoughts are that we'd probably need to establish that commission sooner than later if we want that commit that body to have any kind of influence over this process for the upcoming you know for when we're drawing these maps so that's one thing to take into consideration and so I'm wondering you know if if we want the independent commission if we want recommendation on that would it make sense for us to have a public hearing to allow the public to weigh in on these timelines and then and also specifically on the independent commission and then we could have a report back at the second meeting in June and the reason I say that is because if the community strongly feels that we should move forward with that independent commission and maybe they'll be able to provide us some feedback on that timeline during the summer months or during when we're off that could provide us with an opportunity to select members to serve on that body if that's the direct question we're going to go in and so I don't know if I need to make a friendly amendment but if I were to make a friendly amendment it would be to direct staff to hold one public hearing prior to the second meeting in June to get feet on the independent commission and the timeline for the district map drawing process and to return to the council at the second meeting in June for recommendations that's the seconder of the motion I think that I feel more comfortable with just moving forward as we originally outlined in terms of the timeline I think it seems really rushed to have it come back in June and frankly I having been mayor I'm not I know that sometimes you have a full agenda right particularly before you're about to take the break in July we're looking at having a meaningful engagement I think we want to have our due diligence so I feel comfortable so I'd rather not have it go fast forward in terms of personally I was pausing because I was just thinking about staff's comment about the feasibility and the capacity of staff to accomplish that in a short period if that's the case then I then I'm wondering if there's the opportunity to have an additional public hearing before this comes back to us in August on all the items that you all have listed because when this comes back to us at the meeting in August we're going to get an update on the timeline process and any feedback received from the committee and it's not clear that there will be any kind of public hearing before that so I guess that is a question as well for staff is given that you know what's listed in our agenda is that we're going to get an update in August what's the I guess what's the expectation between now and then as to what kinds of meetings will take place does it sound like there's going to be two public hearings required it's not clear whether that'll be you know one of those will happen before August or after and it sounds like there's now a discussion of you know the independent commission rank choice voting direct elect mayor and that will require some time to receive input so can you kind of provide any feedback on what are your thoughts around timelines for how to make all this happen so the reason why we wanted to come back to council in August before the public meetings occurred was to clarify what would be discussed at the public hearings and to really determine when and how they were going to be held and just kind of share that with the council before we move forward with the initial public hearings which you know will cover the process content and as you're concerned the community might have before any maps are drawn out or drafted if the council feel that we should have those initial meetings sooner that's something we can change and you know possibly come back to council before the first public hearing occurs so we can share with you what is going to be expected at the public hearing or if council wants you know for a step to inform the public hearing before returning to council with a finalized schedule that's fine too but that was sort of what the thought process was of why you wanted to come back to council before the initial public hearing occurred with to clarify with council that you know this isn't what the public hearings are going to look like this is what's going to be discussed and this is when they're going to happen and I'm kind of give council the heads up before we started rolling out with the public meetings yeah and the hearing that I'm the additional hearing that I'm kind of referencing to is is really an opportunity to get some input on the various topics that we've brought up today and to get that before you know we start this process so I don't know if the maybe you know the second of the much will be interested in us having an opportunity to have a public hearing prior to this coming back to us just to allow the public especially given that you know again we're hearing this at you know three in the afternoon on a Tuesday more of an opportunity to just understand the process weigh in and then before this comes back to us in August I'm sorry can I just have something really I think a quick question I think some of the reasoning for the timing too was related to because the focus again is on the maps and getting input on the maps was the time needed to prepare the maps and to collect the data so that was in part driving the timing and at some point the census data was delayed again the you know whether making them sooner will allow for the maps to be available and drawn and then you know which is the main purpose of the hearings so that's that's was the reason for that and I don't know if uh if Ralph or Victoria you know whether that can be accomplished because of the work that the demographers doing so that's so the yes the purpose of the meetings is to specifically focus on the maps and on the election schedule these other you know rank choice voting independent voting commission at large election is something different and so that could be a different process but yes are the reason for those meetings to be after our August meeting was as Ralph said and and to account for the census data and to come back to you with an updated schedule based on that yeah and I'll just clarify that I totally understand that you know for the purposes of the mapping but I think there's another question around process and having opportunities for the community way and on the process we're adding things for consideration you know creating another opportunity between now and August for the community to weigh in it doesn't necessarily have to be a council meeting it can be a time when you know members of the public are not at work which is I'd say majority of people are probably working right now so I'll put that out there again as another family member if there's the opportunity to have a public hearing for the for community members to weigh in on the process and all the alternatives under consideration before our next meeting and before this comes to us in August Mayor may I jump in? Sure Absolutely make sure the motion thank you councilmember Cummings I'm sort of going back and forth I appreciate your comments and and also would like to see a meaningful public engagement process one of the reasons when I'm going back a couple reasons I'm going back and forth one of them is if if staff is going to come back with more information the public can weigh in and give inputs with more informed right so if if we get information from then the public will be will be also receiving that information and then a public hearing after that will be everyone will be more informed so that's that's one thing and then the other thing I'm thinking about is when will this happen? I know that lots of folks are there's a lot of moving pieces in summer months so we would just I just want to make sure the timing is such that it's through work for community members to be engaged and involved if staff and counselor are gone in July that seems like an unlikely month and then is it feasible to happen in June? So those are some of the questions that's that's why I'm not sort of jumping in to say yes or no I'm going back and forth and trying to weigh what are the benefits of waiting and what are the what are the challenges there to drawbacks of not I wonder if as mayor I can maybe a potential solution is that I know a staff mentioned their contact information to be in touch I wonder if we could do maybe some like virtual outreach in terms of our many lists serves to solicit input in between now and then and then in August we visited this discussion given that the concerns that were raised by council member Calentari and trying to balance that but also a recognition that the office generally closes in you know the month of July as well as a number of people are out of town I think that summer month is kind of an off month for a lot of people so I also just know that council member Golder had her hand up for really long times I just want to acknowledge that she hasn't had a chance to speak as well Council member Golder Mayor if I could really quick before we move on too far into the weeds was that friendly amendment not accepted? Yeah it wasn't exactly not accepted but it wasn't accepted either because I'm I'm I know you amended it to instead of like a schedule do like a virtual outreach to the community to involve the community not schedule it the scheduled public hearing as a public hearing I think what's clear is that we would like an additional either public hearing or some form of meaningful outreach around these three issues that we're exploring that's separate from the maps I think that's clear that's what I'm hearing from council member Cummings is that we want a separate opportunity to engage the public around the three topics how we do it is the question and council member Walot can suggest that we do some direct outreach maybe virtually I know we're getting in the weeds so yeah it makes sense when you guys are talking about it but putting it on paper it's in this manner is difficult sure it's okay we can we'll watch the video you've got the toughest job Bonnie so thanks for being patient with us if I could also just clarify as well though but I I also want to add that the district election process also getting input on that is something that would be incorporated into that outreach so and maybe if it's helpful I can try to just clarify that this will be providing direction for staff to conduct additional outreach could be in the form of online outreach or a public hearing on district collections independent commission direct elect mayor and rank choice voting prior to this coming back to us in August of 2021 does that sound like you kind of I'm okay with that then there's some flexibility for staff to figure out what's feasible yeah thank you I thank you let me just check with staff is that is that doable yeah I think that's something we're going to have to look into if we do have an outreach meeting with a public I think we want to be informative and to be able you know have speakers that are really informed on the subject on these subjects that could answer questions they might have instead of just you know the lifting questions or gathering up and all of that so it's something we can look into and those are three topics that are very different and that would require different approaches and then try to build them all together would be quite quite a challenge before August but it's up to the council and I see Martín jump on too yeah go ahead Martín yeah I was going to say we can I think you know we'd have to do some some work and research on some of these topics which we haven't really you know really dealt into at this point and focus has been on the the distributing process that we can certainly at least perhaps just to call for input or comments or that sort of thing but I think to expect a robust process that we normally do would be and we'll use them we'll give it the time frame and and all of the other constraints that were noted thank you for calling Derek Johnson do you do you want to direct or council member Watkins something either virtual or a way to because I do I do think that there's a little bit of kind of separate separate components going on but obviously voters don't separate these things and so I understand the intent you know a voter who's being asked to change a way that they've been voting for their entire since they're 18 is you know something that's very important to be able to explain and there's a lot of other ways that people are starting to look at you know for the public it's it's really it's that lens of you know how is this going to affect the way that I that I vote for who I want to you know be on the city council so I'm wondering if there's a way that we could to martine suggestion you know either do this virtually maybe initially through some surveys or I I'm not sure how to manage it but we're all we are and then under an obligation whether you like it or not we are to obviously move towards district election so it's sort of a little bit of a you know slightly different sets of questions that could be asked so I'll look to the motion maker and then I do want to get to to council member golder so maybe the maker of the motion council member called Dory Johnson sure yeah we're complicating this and I certainly don't want to make it not feasible for staff to accomplish what needs to be accomplished so let's let's go with what council member Watkins suggested is that we do some engagement outreach virtually and if that's feasible and doable then we return in august with a more robust discussion I'm comfortable with that as a seconder sure yeah and I was just I was just going to say that since I've made the the friendly amendment I was just going to say to I'm I was just trying to be very inclusive given that there are multiple topics it makes more sense to focus just on the district elections at this point in time for that feedback I'd be fine with that well and with the independent commission but if you know it seems like a doing the virtual outreach and coming back with a more robust discussion if that seems like something that's doable I'm all for that too again I don't want to over complicate this but just given that in the the staff report you know it's August 2021 staff will provide an update on the timeline process and any feedback see from from the community to council trying to you know create another opportunity for the community to weigh in where they can you know receive notice and provide feedback on all this that's my intention behind all of this so thank you council member thanks for that clarification council member Golder and then I've got Vice Mayor Brunner thank you who organized the timeline in the process when city schools switched to district elections whether it was the demographer or the school Tony knows the answer to that I wanted to say he's on his way back as I wanted to say that the process was really smooth and there was a lot of opportunity for public outreach and engagement and so I realized this might be the first that people in the community are hearing about this and we've been hearing about it in closed session for over a year and I know council member Brown and several of us have expressed that we don't like how we we got here and you know we found like we're being extorted almost but here we are late and so I just was wondering what process the school board you would know because it was really smooth and successful I'm sorry council member but I don't have that information okay my involvement in the redistricting or the transition to district elections for the school district was really focused on the charter amendment that that came after the district had already converted to district elections in my understanding that that council member colder I attended some of those I believe the school board actually you know was directing and I believe we may even have hired the same demographer for ourselves so I think there's some overlap there and I went to at least two or three of those hearings and they were very well attended and the demographer was very clear on sort of the process and how the four showing maps and then after maps how all of that data had been crunched to be able to produce you know via the intent of the C.B.R.A. was very clear was of how that data was basically utilized to create proposed districts so it was I agree it was well done Vice Mayor Bruner the discussion this is great so let's see we have first a second a friendly amendment my comment is you know council member Cummings brought up the independently districting commission and I just did a quick search on that definitely exactly what that role is and they're established to draw electoral district boundaries and and responsible for determining boundaries of districts so I think the concern to get in front of and to consider as we move forward is that with the demographer and any draft maps before we get to that point understanding if an independently districting commission is needed in that process so that part would come first it seems and I think that was the point that council member Cummings was was trying to address and so looking at the August well we have an August 10th council meeting and an August 24th council meeting and you know it almost seems like the August 24th council meeting would be the the better option to allow time for that public input and you know just taking a consideration today's recommendation is directing staff to move forward with this proposed timeline and I think we've really brought up the key points I would like to really emphasize the communications around this so that landing page Ralph thank you for screen sharing the landing website the city website is crucial as one tool to get this information out and maybe to bullet point district elections elected mayor rank choice voting independently districting committee or commission and brief little blurbs about what that means I think will be really important to you know we can all share that and to consider other ways of getting that information out besides the online website so that as much of this information is in front of everybody so that come August it's not a complete surprise so uh thank you for all of all of the points brought and the discussion great we're running about an hour late so I'm going to call I'd like to just get the vote going we've been on this item for and we do have people waiting some of the public who are waiting for the the green business and builders record recognition so councilmember Cummings you have additional comments sorry there's a lot of car outside my house I guess the one you know to follow up on that would it be worth this you know with the independent redistricting commission if that's something that that we're interested in I'm wondering if we may want to you know have an item on an upcoming agenda in June because if we do want to consider that you know it's going to take some time for us to select individuals and what's that process going to look like because you know is that each councilmember gets to a point an individual to serve on that body I don't know if the staff is responding not at this point so I think I don't well I think I mean what I'm interpreting from the agenda is that you know they want to be back from us and that's something we're interested in doing we can provide that direction and so I think Vice Mayor Bender made a good point that you know if that body's role is to provide to self draw those maps if that's something we want to do my I think you know if we could have staff bring back an item related to that we can have a further discussion on that at that point in time just to not hold up hold us up any longer so you know I'll look I'll look at staff but my understanding was has been hired to basically draw the maps and then yeah you're correct Mayor Myers and clarification might be that these commissions were intended to redraw districts whereas council members they're able to transfer that going to redraw districts in the future to these independent commissions whereas council members cannot transfer the ability to decide whether or not we go to districts with an independent body that's a decision that still needs to be made by the council and to get there is sort of the process we're presenting today which is why many jurisdictions in California do decide to have independent redistricting commissions but to redraw districts with that commission after they have decided to move forward with districts and that original districts are there and then have a very thorough vetted process to determine who serves on these commissions and then getting a lot of feedback from the community to determine if you know in the future with new data from the census or any major population shifts in the city if those lines need to be redrawn but that is definitely the main cues of these commissions look at the jurisdictions and the districts that are already there to see if they need to be amended however the authority to move into districts that's given to the council members and I don't think that's transportable to an independent commission okay thank you so I think we'll go ahead and call get the here I'm just checking on a timing issue with the clerk okay great so we have a motion on the floor by council member Kalantari Johnson seconded by council member Watkins to provide direction for staff to proceed with the recommended next step and propose general timeline to transition city council district elections including solicitation of public input the district map drawing process prior to council considering an adoption of an ordinance in student district-based election system staff is also was also requested to come back with additional information on process around elected mayor and there's been a request that additional public outreach be done as soon as possible virtually to begin to provide into the public as possible on on the process and including information about the roles of independent redistricting commissions and possible other types of of voting including rank choice voting and as I said before the elected mayor I think that's kind of what it is captured is that correct so I will go ahead Bonnie can you get all that I gather just a bit we got it okay council members oh sorry yeah go ahead and call for a roll call no council members Watkins aye calentary johnson brown aye colder vice mayor Brunner aye mayor Myers aye that motion passes unanimously I'm going to go ahead and take item 20 now the green business and green builders recognition I know that we have members of the public actually the awardees in the in our in our attendees today so I want to I want to not tie them up any further we're running a little bit late already and so I will go ahead and take item number 20 we will then take oral communications after this and then item 21 so next up is our our agenda is item number 20 presentation on green business and builders recognition this is going to be a presentation of staff Kirk Hurley our green building specialists and awardees of the green business and green builders recognition we will not be taking public comment on this item as council is not taking action so welcome Kirk welcome thanks for course I'm going to share my screen and everyone see good afternoon mayor Myers and council members I appreciate the time to make this presentation to council on behalf of the green building program the city of Santa Cruz demonstrated continued dedication to responsible and sustainable building practices by providing green building review for over a decade and including over 1100 all electric dwelling units in our development pipeline this fiscal year our green building program identifies projects developed and completed by forward thinking members of the community the award process recognize utilizing the highest standards for techniques and construction and design today I'm pleased to present two new awards for achievement and exceptional design since the start of the program the city has recognized 86 projects with green building awards please join me in recognizing award number 87 for 231 Oregon street owners Heather waltz and Craig waltz the designer and builder Craig waltz at this time I would like to share a short description of the first project receiving an award today this project went far beyond the requirements for remodel stone concrete sidewalk poor containing slag from the steel recycling process in the lower left the reclaimed wall and flooring materials reduce environmental footprint radiant roof barrier assists avoiding interior overheating without resorting to air conditioning formaldehyde free insult improve indoor air quality placement of deciduous planting materials to avoid unwanted heat gains during shoulder seasons further enhances the passive design and resiliency reused wood framing reduce the sensitivity for the project the award plaque for 231 Oregon street and certificate will be conveyed by physical mail at this time the owners would like to express their thanks please join me in also recognizing award number 88 for 192 Hollywood avenue owners Ventalon and Luke Ventalon architect Peter Spellman and builder Scott Rogers SLR construction at this time I would like to share a short description of the second project receiving an award this project went far beyond the requirements for remodel the owners specified a suite of electric appliances to reduce the environmental impacts heat pump conditioning and heat pump water heating significantly reduces natural gas usage and shifts energy consumption to electricity pervoltaic panels installed help offset daytime electric loads and battery energy storage helps reduce peak load reliance for grid import electricity especially during weekday evenings sun tubes increase natural lighting efficacy and reduce electricity use for artificial lighting the award plaque for 192 Hollywood avenue and certificates for the project team will be conveyed via physical mail at this time the owners would also like to express their thanks in closing I want to remind our community that the city of Santa Cruz is still a leader in the push toward the new era of sustainable communities which are also affordable we have chosen to recognize the importance of quality and climate resilience in our built environments there is this is especially important as we enter the era of neutral energy and positive energy buildings the green building program is motivated by our continued leadership role to inspire through engagement with the creative minds with our community as we work together for a more secure future thank you thank you Kurt and uh just want to I'll open this up for council member comments I'll take a quick one myself I just want to congratulate the all those involved the designers the builders lucky enough to live a few doors down from Craig and watched him put all his heart and soul into that building project and watch his kids love to play in that garden with the deciduous trees and great to see little bow in that picture so special congratulations there Craig and and also as Kurt said and you know the city's been a leader in this for over a decade so many communities are just getting their green building programs up and running in terms of climate change and we've been leading the way for quite a long time so congratulations to the Vatsalons and to Mr. Rogers and thank you for doing this with your homes it's a great example for for ability to really put their put that green building concept into reality and for people to be able to see in their neighborhood so thank you for all your work I'll see if any council members have and thank you for your patience and we're a little bit late today um I'm happy to have any council members make comments as well count coming thank you mayor and uh congratulations to you all and and thanks for making these green buildings a reality I know many people want to see these come forward and I just had one quick question which was um you know a lot of times people are curious about the difference in cost between traditional building materials and these green materials and now oftentimes there's you know benefits that come with the green building materials and how they help save on you know energy with you know if you don't have insulation you can you know you don't well I'll reframe frame that but you know in terms of heat exchange throughout the day that oftentimes some of these green buildings are much better at that and so I'm just wondering if you can speak to some kind of the benefits of these green buildings how it relates to costs currently sure I I can I can speak to that briefly so in evolving the green building program as we have a increased emphasis on electrification I've taken some of those measures in place that can help reduce the total occupancy cost the building by avoiding electric rates during hours where electricity will be more expensive there's also materials that many of our builders are learning about like re fabricated remanufactured paint some of which is made in our own state in Sacramento that can save 12 to 15 dollars a gallon for a mid-grade paint so just a couple examples of things that change the equation for first costs which generally people are more sensitive to what's the upfront cost before I move into the building in the example of the paint and then those things which have longer economic you know time frame to them that that you you have a savings based on initial investment that that you realize by reduced utility bills there there are many new features as as we're going to time abuse electric rates dated a year and a half ago which will be seen people adopting things such as heat recovery ventilation interfaces so your utility can communicate rate information with your appliances so there's a lot of things that we have now and that we'll see implemented going forward great well thank you all again and program so glad to see more buildings in our community receive these awards council member colder I just wanted to congratulate all the recipients and then also acknowledge Kurt for all of the work he does behind the scenes in the city to promote sustainable growth and green building so thank you right and vice mayor Brunner you for sharing those photos award number 87 and 88 does that mean there are 88 green buildings in the city of Santa Cruz or in the county how are those numbers related to those award numbers so the green building program has two different award levels the awards that were to two awards that were granted today are at the highest level of the city's building program and the total sense the beginning of the program all today's award 88 does that answer a question is that within the city of Santa Cruz within the city of Santa Cruz that's correct okay thank you great well congratulations again and thanks to staff and to our community members and congrats those clocks on your houses take care okay we will go into oral communications next and this is for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if you want to comment during oral communications now is the time to call in instructions are on your screen oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not listed on today's agenda if you're interested in addressing the council press star nine on your phone to raise your hand you will have two minutes to speak when it is your time to speak you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted we request that you clearly and slowly state your name before making your comments so that we can accurately capture it in the meeting minutes however it is not required to state your name for the record please remember this is a time for council to hear from the public we are not able to engage in dialogue with each member of the public but when we are able we will address the questions raised after oral communications has been completed so again this is oral communications I see two members of the public Mr. Garrett you're up first Hi this is Brett Garrett and I'm very happy to see the city of Santa Cruz listed as an endorser of the Save California solar campaign I hope you'll take this a step further and pass a resolution to oppose AB 1139 which is anti-solar legislation at its worst AB 1139 claims to be an equity that will hurt everyone by increasing transmission costs and by reducing distributed resources resulting in less resilience and more environmental damage AB 1139 obliterates net energy metering by changing the basic solar production compensation from a retail rate to a wholesale rate and it imposes a monthly grid access charge that will actually result in some solar customers paying higher utility costs than if they never installed solar in the first place fixing the duck curve requires more batteries not fewer solar panels net energy metering reform should be oriented toward encouraging more energy storage not discouraging solar panels please pass a resolution to oppose AB 1139 and closer to home central coast community energy formerly mbcp is proposing some very bad changes to their rate plans it's sort of a reverse robin hood take more money from the smallest residential customers who don't use much energy and provide excess savings to non-solar commercial and agricultural customers please oppose the fixed monthly charge of four and a half dollars which will disproportionately impact low income customers and please oppose all provisions that will harm solar customers i'm very concerned about pre-ce's so-called cost of service plan the general concept seems okay but the details concern me thank you very much thank you and next up is caller with the phone number ending 3158 please go ahead uh yes first i'd like to say that by changing the order of uh who who who to speak uh tells a little bit about the mayor's priorities but anyway uh i want to talk about the child care impact fee from the last couple of meetings and uh was suspiciously lumped in with the developer fees but those are the charge developers for city services they're receiving but not yet paying for otherwise because they're unfinished construction sites or are charging a city services directly done as part of the construction child care impact fee is neither the argument new developments create additional child care impact is and saying any population increase has an impact well any population increase does have an impact yeah on everything we have a tax that takes care of population growth impact on government spending oh yeah the property taxes sales taxes and taxes etc that uh additionally you seem to forget we'll be paying uh in with the new developments in full forever exactly exactly in the same way relation just like everybody else pays for it now you may slather this with sympathy and pity for the poor children but those who can't afford to have children but that's like slathering mayo on a bologna burger if you single out who in this town or an undeservedly politically unpopular growth called developers who are no more responsible for near and dear social programs than anybody else and contribute plenty maybe more than most into the economic attacks system this woke gen version of equity is building an awful future if that is an example the county's smokescreen expensive study trying to calculate the child care cost per bedroom comparing residential and non-residential developments uh that you relied on is grossly flawed because only parents cause the need and only they receive childcare services for their children buildings don't in fact have children seems simple to me but not the politicians have spent baffling the public with expensive sheepskin data latent consult services to justify whatever they're paid to justify is an old trick in business and government grandparents trusted parent co-ops parent qualified independent preschools or preschool options thank you thank you next step for oral communication for on the agenda is Sabina hello can you hear me we can thank you I'm calling today to request the city council opposes the sweep of the harvey west agreement camp sizing force it's quiet clean and it codes this well in that space I've heard rumblings that traditional families don't like seeing the camp but I have a traditional family and I think that it's a great thing and we need that space and it's working I think from what I've heard that you're looking to sweep them into the benchlands and increasing that that doesn't seem very tenable to me and I think it's an opportunity for the city to test and refine the emerging model in the interest of moving away from the move along policy and into solutions and I would love to see you try I know that there's other things that are on the agenda but I think this one is really important and I'd really love to hear you guys talk about that when you're going over that thank you thank you that is Edward Estrada for oral communications items not on the agenda hi everyone this is Edward Estrada I'm the current president of the UCSC College Democrats so I've met most of you it's great to see you all I wanted to bring to your attention SB 379 it is a bill that the college democrats have endorsed that ensures that you see health not discriminate in provision of health care to provide gender affirming care as well as as well as reproductive health care like you know a wide range of services so I would love to see the council sign on in support of that it's a really important thing to our UC community especially as students are coming back onto campus and many students rely on UC health care and I also wanted to add what the previous person said about the Harvey West Harvey Westland encampment I'm a bit concerned about you know pushing more and more encampments to the bench lands and the increasing population there and I hope that we can look into better solutions for our homeless community but thank you all for listening you next we have Joy this is for oral communication so for items not on the agenda go ahead please hello I am calling also in support of letting the friendship gardens agreement camps stay where it is especially in light of the and of people living at highway one and nine most of those people did not have a clear place to go the vast majority did not have a clear place to go which is just horrifically stressful for them and the people who are trying to help them a few of them did go to the Benchlands area and were forced to squish in between the already crowded sites that are in that space being told that the small area below the pedestrian bridge was being reserved for people from Harvey West who are anticipating being dislocated very soon the small space that is available to the Harvey West people is it's really it's really too small the space should have been let to the people who are displaced first the 80 to 100 people from highway nine it's absolutely disgraceful that all of those residents were displaced they had community help but there wasn't a good place to take them and there's already been a 911 call reporting that some of those highway residents were moved to an unsanctioned location the criminalization of these people continues and moving people from where they're where they're making do on difficult circumstances is just inhumane absolutely unforgivably inhumane so please let that camp stay at Harvey West it's working thank you thank you okay I don't see any other members of the public in the point in time so this will conclude our oral communications item I'm going to take just a 15 minute break before we come back to begin item number 21 I apologize to those who are queued up but we have been back in session for several hours and we all need a little bit of a break so let's go ahead and take a 15 minute break we'll start seeing those of you who have called in you're welcome to stay on the line we'll come back in at 515 thank you and we'll be here starting for item number 21 which is the ordinance on the new camping services and standards ordinance we will go ahead and get started again I believe Vice Mayor Bruner sort of in transit so she let me know she might be a little bit slow coming back on but we'll go ahead and get started so appreciate everybody again another short break so I'm going to go ahead and restart the meeting we are now on agenda item number 21 this is the ordinance amending chapter 6.36 of the Sanchez Municipal Code relating to camping services and standards for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an item you want to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your script the order tonight will be a presentation of the item by staff followed by questions from the council we will then take public comment and then return to the council for deliberation in action please note the following for this item public comment will be limited to one hour each person will have one minute to speak and the groups who have requested extra speaking time will have two minutes and those groups will include the sea bright strong will be first for extra time next will be the Santa Cruz Business Council third will be stepping up Santa Cruz and fourth will be west side cares those will be the folks with the extra time I'll take you first at the beginning of the public comment period okay so I will go ahead and we're going to turn this over to the staff and just for council members tonight I will try to just try to manage as much as possible the amount of time you know that we spend you know with our deliberations just so that we have enough time to to really get through the item at an hour and respectful of people watching tonight in terms of the outcome so I'm going to try to try to move away from a lot of the extensive extensive back and forth if we can and I'll just be sort of watching to make sure everybody's queued up and got enough time to do what they need to do with regards to asking questions and making comments so that there's enough time between all of us to get our thoughts and questions out in a timely and hopefully efficient manner between all of us so with that I will go ahead and turn this over this is item 21 the ordinance amending chapter 6.36 of the San Cruz municipal code relating to camping services and our presenter tonight will be Lee Butler the director of planning and community development and homelessness response thank you Lee thank you Mayor Meyers and good afternoon council members I am going to share my screen here okay can you all see the presentation yes we can great thank you all right this evening we are talking about the new camping services and standards ordinance and I'm going to focus on number of things first off providing a bit of the context around homelessness response I'm going to talk a little bit about city services and investments I'll provide an overview of the ordinance and I'll do a brief series of next steps I will try to go through this quickly to reserve a lot of time for council deliberation and public input so the county of Santa Cruz a new division and they are working on a five-year excuse me three-year plan for reducing homelessness and they have goals of reducing the unsheltered population by 25 by 25% over the overall homeless population and 50% for the unsheltered population by 2024 and you can see the main categories on the slide here of how they are proposing to accomplish that and of note they estimate that to achieve all those goals they do have about a 35 million dollar shortfall right now and funding is a significant challenge across not just the city but the region and the state and federal levels and we'll talk about that in just a moment here as we talk through a little bit more about their three-year and six-month work plan including a range of steps to help address the data collection to help address the individuals who are currently housed that are at risk of losing that shelter because of the COVID-19 funding that's going away there are a variety of shelter programs that they are looking to fund they're looking at permanent supportive housing for example and how that can be funded and with respect to that 35 million dollar shortfall that I referenced it's worthwhile to note that just today the governor released a statement that spoke about a 12 billion dollar statewide package that the governor is releasing to address homelessness why that was just released today and so we'll have to see how that impacts Santa Cruz but it's a great step in the right direction because funds for these facilities are just really really needed it's important to to distinguish the different roles that the county and the city have and the county is related to health and housing and human services so mental health services and addiction services and medical services those rests with the county the city's roles and responsibilities are more on the property management of the city's properties and regulation and enforcement the rules that are in effect and we serve as a conduit as a pathway to the county services and some of what this ordinance has included does actually achieve that goal of facilitating connections between homeless individuals in our community and the county services our county offers some of the things that we do as a city we invest in outreach programs primarily at the county but also in non-profit organizations specifically in the city like the downtown streets team we invest like rental assistance money and we invest in infrastructure like the hygiene base at housing matters and shelters in safe parking affordable housing development and of course federal and state advocacy and all of these are pieces of the puzzle that we in our role to support as a means to provide services to and assist those who are homeless in our community so moving to the ordinance itself there are four primary goals eliminating the impacts of large encampments in a time place and manner for how camping can occur again helping support people on their path to county services and then making sure that we've got a ordinance that is both effective and legally sound so we have a couple of updates the first one was really a part of the prior ordinance as well but it is it's paired with the second one differently so the the prohibition of daytime camping remains when a storage program has been put in place and the biggest change as part of this proposed ordinance the draft that's before the council is addition of nighttime camping throughout the city when there are available alternative sleeping locations that can be offered to an individual and so that's the primary change and that has changed a number of the sections mostly 6.36.040 related to prohibited areas and 050 related to permitted areas for camping we did receive a wide range of comments on the ordinance and we've got three proposed edits council's consideration that I'll talk to you quickly about here the first is related to personal effects we we heard a comment coming back saying hey shouldn't clothing be included there and so under subcategory 5 under the definition of personal effects we've added in recommendation to include clothing here for the council's consideration then under 6.36.080 J this section says that when a encampment has been noticed for a week and belongings remain that the city would be able to go in and remove those cataloging them without their if they're essentially considered abandoned we are recommending based on comments that we receive that this subsection be deleted so if there are personal effects in the location even if it's been noticed for for over a week this notice to just the items to be thrown away would not be allowed so we're just proposing to delete this section and I can go back if if you guys want to read this in detail but that whole section is proposed to be deleted and then the third one um we heard from the council to when we establish this and I'll note this is existing text just to declare it we we heard from the council when we established these 150 shelter or safe sleeping spaces in the city that they shall not be located adjacent to residential neighborhoods or schools and we when we added this language we specifically stated safe sleeping and we received some comments about a subsequent section where this wasn't identified and our first review was that okay the first but this just says safe sleeping so what we're recommending is that down here where we talk about these again 150 spaces again that and but here we're talking about shelter managed camp and safe sleeping spaces again city owned or operated properties or facilities and we're suggesting that this be added facilities noted in this subsection shall not be located adjacent to residential neighborhoods or schools so it's the same as what we've got up here and that would be a clarification that it also includes the managed camps or safe sleeping spaces again on city owned or operated properties or facilities that changes that we have responding in response to comments that we've received but we wanted to take a moment to talk a little bit about the new city services that are included as part of this and they relate to that last change the safe sleeping program minimum of 100 spaces that as I'm as I mentioned would be not in residential neighborhoods or schools and the way the word the way the wording is read is listed is adjacent to residential neighborhoods or schools which can also equate to it not being in I think you might hear a question or comment from the public about wanting to add in as well but 150 spaces would be established there would also be a daytime storage program established we anticipate that wherever we have a safe sleeping program we would also have a daytime storage program they work together but that may or may not be the case you know there may be shuttles for example to from one place to another and the storage program may fit best at that shuttle location so that's still yet to be determined but there is certainly a synergy between those locations whether the transportation locations or the physical storage location with respect to those storage facilities and safe sleeping as well as manage encampments and some other services that I'll talk about in a moment we are in the midst of preparing a request for qualifications we were just working with some of the other departments today on getting some of the finishing touches put together on that and what we're asking for is for providers to respond with their background their experience their outcomes their operating costs for how they would operate these facilities in a manner that is compatible with the goals and objectives that we have of serving the unhoused population and limiting impacts within the community we have identified in that in addition to the things that I mentioned before also indoor shelter operations typically shelters are operated and funded by the county but there could be for example a shelter operator that says hey I've got a facility and I want to operate this and I want to do it and we may want to explore that independently from the county similarly hygiene services the restrooms hand washing showers clothes washing we would hope to have a county partnership on those kinds of things but there may be instances you know we could for instance contract with a group separate for safe sleeping site for have one operator providing the services at the safe sleeping but another operator providing the hand washing and restrooms for example so we've got those separated out in there and then the council specifically has in the ordinance directed us to include outreach to individuals and to aim to precede enforcement activities with outreach and so we've got some provisions in the RFQ that specifically focus on what's sort of the city side of things and not the county side not the health and human services type outreach but more on helping individuals understand what the rules are without an enforcement that's typically associated with the police and then finally someone may have locations they may not be an operator but they may say hey I've got this building where I think you know it's a vacant warehouse and I think we could have some of these facilities here so we open up those opportunities for responses as well and by by broad possibilities for engagement there is a expectation that's spelled out in the RFQ that the service providers will be facilitating connections to the county service providers who we expect will be regularly present at these facilities and then there was also some related to community engagement and we want to learn from the experience that others have in operating similar facilities and so we're looking at getting together an advisory group on the facilities that we are looking to operate and then anytime that we are proposing a a location for these facilities we will be doing site specific neighborhood outreach to the surrounding area understand their concerns to figure out how we can maintain constant communication with them if they have any concerns as it gets up and up and so forth two more things here we have a general services and standards webinar that we'll be hosting on the 20th at 11 a.m and that's a broader audience that we're looking to attract and it's really a higher level overview of what we're doing and then we'll have a pre-submittal RFQ Q&A and that's really geared towards those organizations that are looking at submitting so that we can have that dialogue and the questions that they have and the ideas that they have for the response to the RFQ and I believe the last slide is next steps council has provided this is the fourth time this ordinance has been in front of the council in the last few months since late February and council has provided a whole range of recommended steps and I wanted to be clear that those steps are still valid and that we are looking to move forward with those and so that includes things like a quarterly census of the homeless individuals and effectiveness review of the ordinance so taking a look and seeing how are we doing with this what things do we need to change what's working well what's not how can we make this better and then a semi-annual review of arrests and citations that occur pursuant to the ordinance we are also pursuing a lot of the items that council has directed us with respect to outreach and integration of the safe sleeping and managed encampments that we do any shelters that we do how we integrate that with the continuum of care and we've already had initial conversations with the county about that and the council has requested that we come back and provide updates on the restorative justice approach that they have suggested so we'll be back in June related to that and that is something that our police department and city attorneys have already been having conversations on and they are they've already pinged the DA with some questions there and then also with respect to longer-term solutions there are a range of things that the city council has requested we collaborate with the county on like a navigation center and I want to close by saying that in one week's time we will also be hearing from the county with respect to their three-year strategic plan and six-month work plan on homelessness and so that will be another opportunity for the council to engage the county and to hear their feedback on the long-term approach and the short-term steps that they are taking in order to achieve that long-term approach and so with that over to the mayor and I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have right thank you Lee yeah I might just say a couple of comments in the context especially Lee with the with the last few slides that you shared and I think it's really important that you know the public understand that the ordinance is really the beginning of a much broader management strategy that the city is rolling out including committing to providing 150 safe sleeping sites every night but more importantly it provides many ways where the county and its services provided for outreach for healthcare for getting people you know resources in terms of shelter or you know methods to get people back home or it provides all of that because we actually have much more touch points built into this management system than we have without you know you know with with versus sort of like an encampment that's unmanaged or sort of on its own so I also want to really recognize the work that the staff has been doing on the RFQ you know service provision is such an important part of the success of moving an individual or a family or someone in need is really the level of service provision the capabilities of our service providers all of that really comes into play in really the success ratio of really actually helping someone move through the system and hopefully into more secure to a more secure situation here in Santa Cruz and I think it's really important too to recognize that the governor's announcement today of $12 billion for homelessness in the state of California is nothing has ever been done like this on a national scale this is the largest investment in homeless assistance through the United States I note specifically in his list that he's actually making $15 million available for encampment management in particular and that's a really a recognition about how encampments are really places where people are not succeeding and you know they're very difficult to manage for permits for local communities so his commitment and his call out of $50 million to really address the the you know this difficult issue with encampments is I believe really telling and so I'm pleased to see that the city is you know on the verge hopefully of really setting a management policy that then helps us cue to these other investments which include housing assistance actually you know even employing people to look at how public rights of ways and even potentially other public lands may be used to do some job training and other activities so I would encourage the public listening tonight to really look at this package obviously includes tremendous amounts over $1.75 in dollars to build new housing as well as other care and other services for homelessness so I think it's important that the city is as chewed up as possible with our policy framework to be a partner with the county but also to be competitive as our own local government to look at these potential types of resources coming in from the from the governor so I think this policy is a really step tonight and I really want to recognize our staff's work both our city attorney's office as well as Lee and the city manager's team these kinds of policies are incredibly difficult to do and they're you know they take a lot of time and a lot of thought and I want to also recognize our community and how vocal they've been about when we got it right and when we got it wrong and I another sign that people are engaged they want to see solutions they want to support folks in our community that are suffering from homelessness but they want to really understand and see some predictable management techniques that you know move people towards more stability in their lives so I also want to just recognize our community tonight because they continue to be involved they continue to provide feedback I still get a lot of emails and calls and media and still a meeting with folks and so I think our community is really ready to to try to figure this out and so I think that's a good time to really look at completing a policy that takes that initial step forward so again I want to thank the staff I'll open up this now for council questions at this point regarding the ordinance and Lee you know I'm sure you'll be poised with any of those changes that I think you put up just in case council member have questions of those so I'm looking for any questions from council members at this time I'm not seeing any hands up okay council member coming thank you Mayor Myers and I just want to echo the you know amount of work that's really going into us trying to figure out ways you know to support the houseless community and also mitigate some of the negative impacts that works that our community is experiencing because ultimately we need to make sure that our community is a place where everyone can live and be supported and for people who are experiencing whether it's mental health substance abuse or they're just down in their luck that we can really provide them and connect them to services that they need so they can improve their lives I do have a couple questions related to some of the comments that were presented in the staff report in the presentation and also thank you Lee for that presentation and then other things that came up in in the agenda report my first question is I'm just curious so you mentioned that staff is still putting together the RFQ for the safe sleeping sites and for the storage program I'm just kind of curious what the anticipated timeline for you know getting the RFQ out identifying a provider and then rolling this out and in addition to that kind of combined with that is what's the sense of you know what funding is available and what sources of fundings could we tap into because I know there's some COVID relief that's coming but whatever we're setting up we don't want it to be a one-time thing that's just funded with kind of emergency funds we really need to understand how can we long-term so I'm just curious about my first question is those two items which is the timeline for kind of rolling this out and then where the funding where the funding is going to come from and also costs for the anticipated costs thank you councilmember Cummings great questions first off we are targeting this week we're still getting comments for the release of the RFQ I should say we're still getting comments back we are working with our Office of Economic Development today and with our risk management team and finance and then we still need to get that back in front of the attorneys for another final review but we are still hopeful that we'll be able to get it out this week if it's not exactly this week then it's you know imminently forthcoming following that but we're really close dotting the last eyes and crossing the last T's we are anticipating that we allow for probably a little over three weeks in that response at time frame and so by the beginning of June we would have that first set of of responses back and hopefully we'll we'll have you know a wide variety of those from a lot of different organizations so that we can understand and compare and contrast those and that gets to the cost that will give us a better idea of what the costs will be we've provided in prior presentations to the council some estimated costs based on you know if the city were running the facility and we were paying $19 and now estimated hours and estimated costs for restroom facilities and so forth but you know we are we're very curious to see what we get back as part of that rfq and to see how those providers are proposing to staff the facilities and then with respect to funding we are looking at a variety of sources CDBG is one the special COVID relief funds as you mentioned are another and then of course you know we do have a substantial amount of general fund resources that go to things like encampment cleanups and and so forth and and so you know we'll be looking at a mix of funding and it's it's going to depend on the cost in terms of how much of a mix we have but we are looking at leveraging those grant dollars to the extent that we can and then a follow-up question to that so in terms of the process around citing and identifying a site would that happen concurrently with the rfq process or would that happen after someone's been identified so that you know working with the provider they'd be able to say what sites you know they'd be able to work with versus sites that you know are incompatible for them to work with and then also along with that obviously there's going to be you know community outreach and where this can and can't you know happen where the community is okay within where they're not that's yes so I think there's going to be somewhat of a parallel course there you know we've been focused on the rfq and we haven't done any site specific outreach but we may also get sites back from the rfq where we say hey you know this this wasn't on our radar but we could you know lease this vacant building and it would be a a good opportunity for us so we do anticipate having somewhat of a parallel path on those once we get that rfq out the door then we can start looking at individual sites and start doing outreach to the surrounding areas okay and then I just have a couple of the questions regarding the family so there was there was a in the agenda report there was an item that came up regarding family shelters and really trying to deal with you know how are we gonna well one direction around prioritizing homeless families and then you know at one point we talk about 150 safe sleeping sites and then towards the end of the agenda report it talked about breaking up those sites into potentially like three sites with 50 individuals at each site and so I'm just I guess this is more of a comment than a question but it might be worth us considering you know that approach and having one site where it's families and children since that's a concern and that's one of the groups that we're really targeting or if that's not the case you know is there a way for us to provide hotel vouchers because I know it was mentioned that the county is really trying to prioritize and I think it was like 120 families this year and so if there's a way first to work with the county and provide hotel vouchers for families and then really connect them to services to get them into programs that might be a way to address those issues around trying to you know to prioritize homeless families thank you for those comments and questions and yes we do think that the county will play part in prioritizing those families that are here and who are houseless and and you know they've got a great resource in the Reveley family shelter and that of course is a much better setting than if someone is in a a safe sleeping location and so that's where as part of the agenda report we're just requesting a little bit to have a broader approach to the prioritization of families so that we can you know have the county resources in the county's prioritization potentially take that family and get them placed in a location that is a more long-term setting that concludes all my questions thank you thank you councilmember I have councilmember brown and then councilmember commentary Johnson thank you thank you for the presentation and for the materials we received in preparation I I have a few questions and the so I just want to start with the so the discussion around or that comes directly following the RFQ discussion in our staff report that we received provides you know it talks about various services and how they might be handled and who might handle them and it's pretty vague and I understand that there's a lot up in the air right now and that you're working hard to have those conversations and I appreciate that I the question that I have on costs you've answered with councilmember Cummings question but I guess I'm wondering how you how you're thinking about the scope responsibility question for these various services is it are we thinking what we're just going to see what we get and whatever people can offer or their you know have included as possibilities that they can offer as an contract operator and then we'll see what else we need or is there some kind of underlying kind of even if it's a you know just hope our hopes and aspirations kind of plan for how that will will go and then another question related to the budget are the costs I'm just I'm wondering you know what do we have a plan for trying to make the actual costs and and budget legible and transparent to the public or really even the council members you know I feel like you know we hear we spend a lot of money and here are the general areas or you know it's too much we don't have the resources for it we kind of talk about and it's like really really big generalities and you know I'm still hard pressed to be able to say how much money the city spends in you know the various categories you know it seems to me that much of what we much of our cost has been and if we move forward in this way it's likely continue to be dealing with the fallout of you know houseless you know people being in spaces that are not managed that are not cleaned up where there isn't adequate you know refuse removal waste management and and so that's where we spend our money and I don't know how much money that is and you know and I don't so in terms of comparing that to how much money we might spend for these proactive you know models sanctioned encampment sleeping zones which I obviously support I've advocated for my whole time on the council but in terms of weighing you know where the money is going and helping the public understand I think it would be really great to get some of those numbers in broken down in greater detail so I'm just wondering if that if you've talked about that is there any you know more detailed information we can get I don't want to micromanage here but I think that there's some pretty significant differences among the categories of spending sure thank you for those questions councilmember brown and let me let me tackle the second one which is the budget info so first off we have been you're you're absolutely right it's tough to get a handle on all of those expenses because there are a lot of things that are done just on a daily basis to run the course of individuals work that isn't necessarily category a homelessness bucket or homelessness response and you know we've got a team from you know five six plus departments that meets every Wednesday and you know I don't think anyone's tracking their time for that and that's just you know one of many many meetings that we have but we are aiming to be more deliberate about how we track this and so we've started looking at how we can break that down and how we can look at that moving forward so that we can get a handle on not only what we're spending now but what's a better way to spend that money and that's what gets us to the RFQ and how when you're saying understanding those expenses some of those will be direct expenses the direct expenses are much easier to track you know that's like yeah we paid for servicing of a restroom facility and it was $5,000 a month for you know five months and there's $25,000 the staff line is more challenging but we are looking at how we can get a better handle on that but the RFQ will have some of those you know direct costs that are very transparent invisible so that's that's something that you know we'll be able to share and we've got some information on our website and the homelessness response page but you know if we don't have that comprehensive view that we're trying to work towards and thank you for that but that's something we want to do as well and then with respect to the RFQ you had some questions about that and how we're going to sort of engage those responses that come in so one of the things that we really so we've got some of the standard things like you know okay what are your qualifications have you won these things elsewhere but really want to look at it you know what were the outcomes you know how how successful were you you know how was this accepted in the community what did you do to interface with the community to address any concerns that arose from you know the person next door or you know and how do you address problematic behaviors we've got some questions in that RFQ so that we can gauge how these providers are going to fit into the community and of course we've got costs in there and you know are you able to provide the staff in in this location even Santa Cruz to operate these facilities those kinds of standard questions but then we really want to look at how this is going to fit into the overall community and and hopefully there'll be a good a good mix of those because you know it might not be a one-size-fits-all here you know we may have councilmember coming to talking about multiple locations and there may be like oh this operator might be good for this location this operator might be better for this location you know we're going to have to wait and see once we get the responses back but you know you also mentioned like things being vague we also want we are kind of intentionally being a little bit vague so that we can get some of those creative responses back you know we don't want to necessarily dictate that someone have to provide these this level of service 24-7 you know we want to understand how they're going to address services the entire time but let's let's hear how they're proposing to do that rather than saying you know this is the dictated way in which it must be done Thanks. If one another question and then I'll stop this is related to the interface between the the ordinance once it is goes into a and the alternative you know spaces that we can direct people to or the city could direct people to or you know people will be aware of I realize that the you know we are not what we're what we're doing here is not intending or trying to address the the issue writ large so you know if we have like 1200 give or take people unhoused people in our community and we're setting up 150 spaces they're probably I mean they're going to be get full right so I guess I'm I'm I'm just still trying to understand that how that that interface will occur so that we ensure that enforcement when people actually have a space so I'm just trying to figure out how kind of as I'm sure you all are you know in how that's going to work on the ground in real time and I know there's no you know definitive answer but I'm just I'd love to hear how you're thinking about that a little bit thank you yeah I'm happy to share and you are you know but in terms of that but what I'll say is we've talked about things like you know all right can we get an app that provides real time information that each individual location then specifies that here's how many spaces we have available right now in real time and then individuals out in the field have access to that and they can swap specific individuals into those locations and so that's that's how we've been talking about it you know we haven't gotten to the point where we are you know making that a reality but we think that you know that may be the approach that we ultimately move to but you know really that is sort of a next phase conversation and it's it's one that we've touched on to make sure that yes we do need to do this is there a way that we can do it yeah we can do something like this but well most we still need to implement that and we still need to to figure out a lot of those logistics and and ideally you know we would also have you know the county or if there is a non-profit operator that isn't the city facility that we get them connected into into this you know the county has their own um intake procedure for for some of those but there there still may be opportunities through that so we we need to explore all those avenues and if you know the city rent facilities that's going to be the easy part because you know we've got we've got control over it but like if if we have a co-owner out there that's running these like are their barriers to entry for example that we need to be aware of and so so it it starts getting a little more complex and we'll have to work through that as we as we move forward thank you me I believe councilmember commentary Johnson is next and then I'm going to try to get us out to the public before this thank you I'll be brief I have many comments that I'll save until after public comment I do want to just take a moment to acknowledge you Lee and the whole team of I won't name all the names but that you've worked with what you guys have accomplished in the last few weeks is incredible so want to take a moment just acknowledge that I have one question can you describe what the selection process will look like for once we get the RFQ because hopefully we'll get a good number of providers that will be interested what does the selection process look like sure so what we're anticipating is that we have a short list of vendors that we can then go to and say all right we've got a location at this location starting at this time can you run a safe sleeping and then we'll get the more specifics on here's how much it would cost and then we can weigh those options say here's here's the location we are working to make sure that we are if we want to make sure that we maintain grant eligibility for these and so you know we're working through some of those procedures now that's that's how we're envisioning that process and subject to change as we work through those grant requirements but that's that's what we're trying to do as part of is as some of the finishing touches on this to make sure that we can still use for example CDBG funds as we roll these out and and while I've got the floor I'll take the opportunity to go back to Council Member Brown's question just broadly speaking this year we this year is is a little bit different because of the COVID dollars but roughly four million dollars this year that we've spent with about three million and services and about a million and clean up and hygiene and thank you so much Lee Council Member Condor Johnson is that the only question you had at this time that was thank you okay thank you okay we'll go ahead and take this out to the public if you are interested in commenting on this item what is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen and please press star nine to raise your hand when it is your time to speak you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted for for those who have been approved for extra time there's just four groups I'll have you speak and then I'll go out to general public comment and again the timer will be set to one minute for general public comment so first up under approve the extra time for groups is see bright strong and I believe that is Tom Brown I see your you're unmuted there Tom so go ahead and we'll set the timer for two minutes great thank you Mayor and good evening City Council I think the draft is a really good start to a very difficult and in trans again problem but I think it is the right approach I do though have a few comments I had three comments in particular Lee Butler address one of them with respect to section 6.36.050 D which was the permitted camping section and excluding camping in residential areas there or schools solves one of the really big problems that was in the draft ordinance and so with that amendment I think see bright strong would be quite supportive of the amendment of the ordinance the other place where I think we have an issue is in 6.36.050 C D basically says permitted camping is city owned or city sponsored camping on city owned property is what it addresses C addresses private in cities having camping in residential areas and right now it does not preclude such camping in private areas I believe that's a gaping hole in the protections that the neighborhood were looking for from encampments and safe sleeping areas and so we strongly suggest that C have the same addition that Mr. Butler proposed for D okay so that's the two comments to the permitted camping areas we also have one comment on the prohibited areas which is 6.36.040 and our is to A2 and what that section says right now is that camping is not permitted adjacent to residential neighborhoods but it conspicuously leaves out the words in residential neighborhoods having maybe been jaded by lots of litigation in my lifetime I would if what we mean is that we won't permit camping in neighborhoods or adjacent to neighborhoods we say the words in or adjacent to neighborhoods and that concludes our comments thank you next up is the Santa Cruz business council and that's I believe phone number ending in let me look here sorry I've got too many notes tonight see I know it's 707 area code there's only one if it's in work work I see it yeah I see it and yeah phone number ending in 4546 this is for Santa Cruz business council you'll have two minutes good evening Santa Cruz city council members can you hear me yes we can okay great thanks for hearing from me tonight my name is Robert Singleton I'm the former executive director of the Santa Cruz county business council but this was a pretty important issue so I wanted to go ahead and say a couple words about it so before I talk about why I support this ordinance I want to give a little context for folks especially folks out in the public this is a major issue that's not the city of Santa Cruz or Santa Cruz county recently I've been traveling and speaking with a lot of city councils all over the Pacific Northwest and western United States this is a major issue that every single jurisdiction big or small is facing so we absolutely need a unified concerted and state and national efforts if we are to really make a dent a major problem so this I support the tolo ordinance as as stays here I want to talk a little bit about what this ordinance does right so this ordinance does provide more housing options for unsheltered folks and what we had previously had I know there's been a lot of back and forth about where management can't but the fact that the city has has gone and listened to neighborhoods gone and talked to a lot of people and identified these clear sites is a big step in the right direction I provide this ordinance provides a daytime storage program which is extremely needed when you actually talk with folks experiencing homelessness in the ground level about the things that they most need it's a place to store their belongings so they won't be stolen or impounded by the city so I applaud the city for going forward and moving forward by developing a program this program collects better data by going out and actually talking to people who are going to be in these management campsites we will hope to provide greater insight into what we're doing right and what we can do better having that quarterly census is going to help us better refiner services and better tailor them to need for people experiencing the ground so I support the ordinance to get the step in our direction and I appreciate the conference council come up with thank you thank you next up is Stepping Up Santa Cruz and I see Surge is on the line hi good evening can you hear me yes we can go ahead Surge good evening my name is Surge Cagno of Stepping Up Santa Cruz in a time when bring focus to marginalized populations bring focus to the systemic barriers against achieving equity and success this ordinance continues the marginalization of those with mental health challenges suffering from trauma and those suffering from poverty trauma informed care is a required practice for nonprofits in contact with the county and those funded the state and federal dollars through the homeless action partnership trauma informed care is the idea that people suffer trauma through their services offered should have sensitivity and flexibility should be intrinsic in their design they should not perpetuate trauma not all people who are homeless are criminals they're living in poverty have medical mental health domestic violence and trauma issues they have high numbers of adverse childhood experiences known as ACE scores they often grew up in poverty from unhealthy home lives and very often from foster care they deserve being treated with dignity and sensitivity to support healing trauma informed care is the best practice because it's more effective and cheaper hiring people in the middle of the night to go to an available location without a requirement of providing transportation is setting them up for failure this ordinance does not take into account our responsibility for our role in why people who are unhoused will not make use of our shelters and our programs many many people are banned from ever returning to our shelters this ordinance does not take into account our minimal level of support and lack of offer of management for encampments there are innovative programs in other cities doing outreach and incentivizing picking up trash around one's campsite and for signing up for benefits and services any population camping without management will get out of control whether that's people with three hundred thousand dollar RVs at a state park for people who are unhoused this camping band makes it more difficult for non-profits and county services to engage build trust and to offer services I applaud creating safe sleep locations in a storage program yet we all know they're based for everyone then why is this ordinance making being homeless illegal criminalized crime don't criminalize being poor and homeless please note no work group city work group has ever indoors the camping ban thank you next up is westside cares and I do not have a phone number but if the westside cares person somehow indicate who they are the Bonnie I'm not quite sure how to do this but the only thing I can think of is if I lower everybody's hand and you have them for hand let's do that so the westside cares person we're going to lower everyone's hand and then we'll have you raise okay um just the westside cares person that asked for extra time the bean are you the westside cares person okay go ahead hello I'm calling on behalf of westside cares neighborhood group in opposition to the new camping services and stand ordinance which will criminalize the existence of unhoused people using methods that have long proven to be expensive ineffective and harmful camping bands elsewhere have been marketed as a way to create services while enforcing with a light touch however research shows that when these types of laws are passed the increase in services tends not to materialize but finds citations and arrests increase then when shelters continue to be overburdened and affordable housing not available people are forced to break the law by either sheltering in public and risking harassment from the police or finding more isolated and hidden locations to avoid moving camp daily this worsens public health by dispersing people in their belongings to more remote areas of the city but nowhere to discard trash or bodily waste much research demonstrates that camping bands do not inspire people to leave town instead they travel longer distances every night in search of shelter and move more frequently between neighborhoods the nature of having to pick up and move every single day is a well-documented destabilizing force in people's lives team police report on homelessness and emails acknowledges that quote resources to help people just aren't there until we fix that we're going to continue to move them from place to place or incarcerate them which doesn't seem to be a good solution in anybody's book end quote it is widely acknowledged by experts that redirecting funds towards productive and preventative solutions is one of the most cost-effective weapons we have against homelessness this means providing people with meaningful support not proposing bare minimum services in order to justify criminalization an example of what we would like to see or as the Harvey West agreement camp by choosing to close it rather than support it is clear your only intention is to sweep the unhoused under the rug rather than lift our neighbors out of homelessness we believe we are capable of employing creativity compassion and critical thinking to lift people out of homelessness instead of punishing them instead of wealth research policy this ordinance was built from fear and animosity towards people who are unhoused it ignores experts evidence in the city's own point in time count it's enacted we can expect to see increased police budgets trapped in human waste but more most importantly human suffering thank you for your time thank you that concludes our available extra time folks and now I will go ahead and take people who have their hands raised just in the order that I see them you'll get one minute and the first person is joy go ahead hi this is joy shambled becker from sanitation for the people this new ordinance continues to criminalize houselessness while offering the most paltry and vague remedies and is misleading people living outside are not camping they are living and often working without housing allowing people experiencing homelessness from seeking shelter in parks and open spaces day or night effectively privatizes public land from them if essentially all land is private or privatized where can people go day and night storage are important programs that should be put in place but they do not replace the need for a resident to establish a home for themselves or to have the tool in their workplace often their tent or vehicle it doesn't add up where will the several several hundred people not served by safe camping find sanitation and waste management how will you ever be able to enforce this ordinance when you have so few spaces 150 safe sleeping spots is woefully inadequate sanitation and waste management are still not adequately addressed and too vague stop criminalizing houselessness next up is an s go ahead please this is an simonton and I want to thank surge for their comments I agree completely and wholeheartedly with their comments it's very important for the city council to hear their comments the major goal of this city is to eliminate large encampments why are you creating the bench lands which is will be like the Ross camp again and we need managed camps I don't know how you can hear this but what we need is managed places for people who are working and living outside like the woman just said and that we need to create something like friendship or agreement camp this is incredibly important the city spent four million dollars with little or nothing for us to see as what have we done what has been accomplished moving them around and sticking them someplace else it's very disturbing it's disturbing that you can't come up with a policy that will allow safe space groups and you know nonprofits to create not trauma informed care thank you so much for your work I know it's not easy but I appreciate you listening thank you next up is caller with the phone number ending in eight four four three this is Altera Hatton thank you for taking my comment today I'm here today if I've been many times because I'm deeply concerned about your proposed ordinance agenda item 21 the house or unsheltered population you are again proposing ways to penalize their behavior you are targeting behaviors that are inescapable acts of daily life and you're creating a criminal class for this are simply survivors why has been occurs refused state funding to probable house of population in hotel rooms during this pandemic you put our whole city at risk not to mention denying our house of population the transition to permanent housing which has helped so many others pandemic across California why do you repeatedly introduce ordinances which violate Martin versus Boise it's very nice sounding for you that the city and county have an agreement which places a responsibility for care outreach and housing with the county but please understand that Santa Cruz is no longer a small town we have a hundred four million dollar city expense budget and a great many of us do not this city is simply a neutral mediator between the houses and county program thank you very much next up is Bob you press star six there you go you're unmuted go ahead please hi yeah I have I want to comment on two kind of aspects of this one is just that the city's approach to this ordinance has really fomented a lot of the wrong attitudes towards this problem by going forth with criminalization and trying to hide this deep structural issue in our society we're teaching our children to dehumanize the people that are negatively impacted and our house lists and second as somebody who has survived whose family has survived a wildfire barely the commute this groups that have sprung up in support of the especially adopting you know name of locality strong it's been a gross misappropriation of that sentiment of community strength and sticking together and looking out for one another and we should be leading with compassion next up is phone number 4931 we can hey i'm calling as a registered nurse in lower ocean neighbor i work in oncology i give chemotherapy to people from regularity i give chemo to people who are unhoused maybe living in a car maybe with a friend occasionally camping outside so we do our best to get people the housing that they deserve many don't want to use an available shelter options most often this is because they don't want to be separated from a partner or a pet but whatever reason it is it's a valid reason so i wonder when you pass this version of tolo and we all know in our hearts that you're going to pass it even though we're desperate that are called to empathy evidence and humanity will reach you when you pass this new ordinance i hope you think of my patience and the horrific impact that you and your ordinance will have on the little stability they may have in their lives when they have to pick up and move the stuff every day or else risk arrest or be forced into shelter that likely won't ever materialize but certainly is unlikely to provide anything they actually need maybe instead i can send them to renee golder's house no money in the budget says it's on the police budget if you put people in houses you won't have to pay the lease to grasp them you won't have to be so grossly it's by having to look at poverty as you drive around town thank you next up is sarah star six you can unmute there if you're available if you press star six you should be able to unmute and then you can speak i'm going to move to edward estrada and have edward go and we'll see if we can get sarah to to be able to unmute go ahead please edward okay hi this is edward estrada president of the college democrats at ucsc i want to highlight the qualifying disability section of disordnance my mother is disabled with an invisible disability severe chronic pain proving disability even to physicians as a woman of color is difficult and many physicians have not believed her i highly advise you to change the requirement that invisible disabilities require physician notes due to our disability for many years we lived off of five hundred dollars a month and lost our home if it wasn't for family support we would have been one of the many unhoused people surviving on our streets these people are just trying to live and criminalizing their survival is not a long-term solution for them our communities i stand with the aclu of northern california in opposing this criminalization of homelessness and i urge you to look into further solutions to build more affordable housing in our communities thank you thank you Sarah will try you again if you press star six that's correct right bonnie star six is unmuted is what we folks can unmute with okay sarah you're up you have to press star six on to unmute yourself okay well we're going to move to the next caller which ends in uh phone number seven nine oh wait sarah there you are you're unmuted go ahead please no i don't yes okay okay okay there we go go ahead sarah sarah we can't hear you will sarah i'll come back to you i'm going to catch the next two callers next caller will be phone number ending in nine seven my name's debora and i wanted to make a comment um the statistic i heard was that we have 1200 unhoused people so proposing 150 safe sleeping spots is obviously inadequate and we really need to do more i think at the county level we need to change the building ordinance to make it easy to build tiny homes identify county land build and manage tiny home villages managed encampments follow the models that have been working in other places like washington oregon oakland santa barbara we can do this if we have the political will and the moral courage thank you thank you sarah looks like you're unmuted so you can go ahead there are you using your ipad or um other streaming device or are you on your phone you need to be on your phone and then you should mute your television or streaming device if you are calling in using like an ipad or something like that because we won't be able to hear you if you don't mute those by i'm not right i'm not quite sure how we help her but i'll move on to the next caller the next call in person is user get slash or underscore two not sure and please press star six to unmute yourself hey my name is maryland garan and i also oppose the criminalization of homelessness as a retired teacher i think of that bumper sticker that says it'll be a great day when the schools have all the money they need and the air force has to have a big sale that applies also for all social services housing parks if we could take the approximately 50 percent money that goes to the military what we could do with that i also think of experience i had in 1966 to visit the former soviet union and my second cousin there they paid about five percent of their income for housing and a little apartment near a park we have a structural problem here it's called capitalism and you need something something better that provides for everyone that's my comment thank you thank you okay uh we'll try sarah again looks like you're unmuted sarah we still can't hear you okay um we're going to move on to the next caller which is three one two three ending in uh four numbers of three one two three hey this is mark helsey i'm a resident of this area and uh i wanted to echo my tom brown support for and thanks for the work that lee butler and the planning department have done to revise the ordinance and offer um an improved new ordinance regarding camping uh and i support fully support the council um adopting this ordinance with the improvements lee proposed and those also that tom brown suggested so i think it's a very very much a step forward and will be very helpful to community thank you thank you any other attendees tonight wishing to to speak i am not seeing any oh there's a hand um a couple other hands uh i have a caller with the name with the name uh skirt hi council members um this is skirt bonnigut formerly the Santa Cruz derby girl and i just wanted to call in and um thank council member brown for her questions thank uh lee butler for explanation of you know the app the interface um i am i'm still just sad to think that some you know council members will probably likely want to move forward with this measure um you know without a clear understanding of you know i still understand how the city will avoid criminalizing the 1050 people who will not be served by the you know safe sleeping sites and i'm just really sad at thinking about walking to work every morning and you know passing by people lugging their belongings behind them you know all their things and that i walk to work at every morning i'm just really sad thinking about having to you know witness that and just wishing my neighbor as well thank you uh next up is phone number ending in six seven nine eight please you should be able to speak we can't hear you have you press star six to unmute yourself there you go press star six to unmute and they should be able to go there you go we still can't hear you um if you have your tv on you should be muting it or your streaming device you should be able to speak you're unmuted on our end but we're not hearing you okay it looks like you're unmuted but for some reason we're not hearing you bonnie do you have any suggestions no except they can email the council with their comments that they would make and it would be submitted as part of the public record part of the record okay i'm sorry phone number ending in six seven nine eight we can't hear you even though you're unmuted so please go ahead and email the council and with that it looks like we've concluded um those members of the public i'll bring it back to city council now for further discussion and deliberation i've got councilmember walkins with our hand raised thank you mayor um i'll just make a few comments and then i'll um see if our staff wants to clarify some of the stuff that was brought up in the uh by the public um i i too want to just really thank our staff for their hard work on this and our community for ongoing engagement um and just really recognize the really large complex societal issue that we're really trying to do our best to address in the context of also learning from what we get right along the way changing what we don't get right along the way but continuing to solutions to support the health of those who are unhoused in our community as well as the health of our entire community as a whole i'm really encouraged that the state is uh stepping up and hopeful that we can advocate that for small cities like ours to get a good amount of funding to support the need here and uh also really looking at prioritizing additional programming and restorative justice programming thinking about a navigation center and ultimately really trying to find ways to support individuals either into supportive living environments or on a path to their independence and success in our community i understand the concerns and i appreciate the input to help us refine that um and i know that we've also spent a significant amount of time on this on this topic as well and so i feel confident that um you know unless there's any major major questions still pending from my colleagues uh i'm prepared to move the recommendation with the additional changes i would also just add how i want to echo what uh council were coming spread up and really prioritizing families and seeing how we're continuing to align our interest in supporting families into the county's prioritization of families into the continuum of care and however that is built into this recommendation as well and encouraged by thinking creatively around things like how an app or technology can be part of our solutions too in terms of really uh on the moment time of what's available to get people housed and in better sheltering i also want to also recognize the the value of the next steps that were outlined particularly around tracking data identifying need and refining and potentially expanding based on need and so i think something that we're going to continue to see brought forward and continuous improvement has to be our north star and so uh but also balancing the need to do something so with that i'm prepared to move the recommendation with the changed language as suggested by staff member walk-ins uh i see councilmember commentary johnson has her hand up i'll call yes thank you and i'll i'll second that uh motion with one um friendly amendment um i heard see by strong mentioned uh section look at my notes 6.36050c and to make the same addition that added to 6.360.050d so if um you're okay with that council member walk-ins to add that as well to the staff recommendation i'm okay with that yes okay and and i did have some comments um i too want to thank again the staff for your incredible work what you you accomplished in the last few weeks is is really truly i'm enough that was a lot of and i know that there's other other opportunities that you are working through with service providers in the community that haven't quite formulated yet and i want to thank the members of the community for your letters and your emails and your phone calls um and staying engaged on this very important issue um i i brought this up in past meetings around this issue and i'm going to bring it again it's just passion that is used all the time um one definition i've heard of compassion the word compassion in sanskrit is caruna and and how that's defined is that my heart is broken to act um and and that is what i truly see us doing right now is we are acting we are in action it's not perfect it's not complete and it never will be because we can't do it alone um robert singleton said this is an issue that's happening in all jurisdictions up and down the coast um mayor meyers uh spoke to that as well um we're not alone we can't do it alone um and yet we have to take action we have to be moving forward um and what i see that's shifted in the last couple months this is a justice issue is that we truly have um afflicted so that we're focusing on services we're focused on um solutions and we're focusing on contributing to the larger spectrum of services that are needed um no 150 safe sleeping sites is not enough and we know that there's going to be more that's going to happen um one caller mentioned we want we want managed camps we want faith communities and nonprofits to be involved um that's exactly what we're pursuing with the rsq process um the city posing to do um to do this by themselves because we can't we can't do by ourselves um and we also will hear more about this next week from our county partners but we know the county has a work plan the six next six months that really truly ties into what we're doing what we're doing is aligned with the county we heard that the governor approved dollars for homelessness um as a grant writer i know what it takes to be competitive as a community funders want to see communities that are in action funders want to see that we are capable of moving forward with solutions and so this is the stuff in that direction and so when the state sees that we have made progress and um we have set up 150 safe sleeping sites in a matter of months they're going to want to fund us because they're going to want to see see our effort um progress and and expand um so those are those are some of my comments um one other comment about public space um I just want to reiterate what Chief Hayduk said at the very beginning of this council meeting so some of our listeners may not have been on that uh one of the number one maybe the number one source of fires um are are unmanaged encampments in and we all remember what happened a year ago it was way too close and so these efforts this ordinance um are to mitigate the negative impact that can cause harm to all members of our community including those who are on house um so i'll just keep my comments to that but um just remembering again is my heart broken to act um and i'm happy to see that our community is acting thank you thank you council members so we have a motion um to by councilmember Watkins seconded by councilmember counter johnson to um to go with the staff recommendation with the additional additions um i do have one motion maker there was also a suggestion for section 6.3 6.04 a2 um it's adding the word in or i did check with lee butler he does seem to be supportive of that can that be part of your motion as well yes absolutely and then i'll i i just have one quick and then i i see council member Cummings and council member brown um the one thing i just um didn't recognize in my earlier comments was um i also just want to recognize my colleagues because um we've had this before us i think four or five times now um we've had you know literally thousands of letters we've had hundreds of people show up um to the meetings not everyone has been able to speak um we've also just individually fielded uh literally hundreds of calls and hundreds of emails um met with hundreds of people um and you know i looked back through my binder um today and i see that every councilmember has actually been a part of building this ordinance there is language from each and every single one of you in this ordinance and so that is what it looks like to create a law together um and i think that needs to be uh really recognized is that it may not be perfect it may not be what all of us want but this is an ordinance that has been through a process of deliberation and addition and um i want to just recognize my colleagues that you have all tried to add what you think are the most important pieces to this and i think that it is is to become much improved it is um very much focused on service provision and being able to do outreach and some of the things that i think have been missing in past camping ordinances and in past kinds of efforts um that i don't think really acknowledge that unfortunately because of the severity the issues we have we do have to spend resources to help people who um are experiencing homelessness in our town and so um we have to balance that with a lot of other investments that we also need to be doing with our local businesses and into our parks and for our families so that they can take our parks and rec programs and go to the team center so it's a balance for a little city like us but um i do want to recognize that everybody's had a piece in this and i appreciate everyone's work on this and um uh just want to so um next up i have councilmember coming there if i could interrupt before we get too far what was that friendly man what was your friendly amendment what my family amendment was to add um for section six three six point oh four oh a two in the last sentence it would say uh safe sleeping facility shall not be located in or adjacent to residential neighborhoods or school okay thank you thank you thank you mayor and i want to thank the members of the public who chimed in tonight um i had a couple questions and then i had a comment um my first question i remember a member of the public reached out and they will this is a question for staff they were wondering and i know it might not be this might not be the time for this conversation but they were wondering if there are going to be any kinds of barriers for people being able to um you know um utilize these safe sleeping sites so certain shelters for example have certain conditions for being able to gain access to those shelters and they were asking whether or not there would be barriers in place and if so what those barriers might be so i just thought i'd ask on behalf of this member of the public sure thank you for that question so we want to have as many low barrier locations as possible that's not to say all locations will be low barrier um you know we may have organizations that offer to run um facilities in a very effective and economical manner and they excuse me they themselves may have certain thresholds that people need to meet with or certain barriers but we want to as part of our facilities um have um as low a barrier as we can um so long as you know it's it's remaining a safe location for people to uh to be great thanks and then um i just had one other question because this really um gets to the the comments that we've been hearing around um sites going into neighborhoods and so like in or adjacent to neighborhoods and maybe this is for the city attorney is there a clear definition of what is considered adjacent to a neighborhood because it's something that i'm trying to like really understand like when we i mean Santa Cruz is like i feel like almost everything is adjacent to a neighborhood in Santa Cruz and so um when we're when we're considering citing and saying that you can't be in or adjacent to neighborhoods um i'm wondering if you can help clarify in terms of proximity what that would mean so the ordinance does not um contain a clear definition of adjacent to and the thought is that the establishment of these safe sleeping sites and any managed encampments will be an iterative process and so uh through being with the community to um to to bring forward uh safe sleeping locations as they're identified um you know what we expect to hear about it if it's if i mean uh a safe sleeping site is is set up in a way that intrudes upon uh an adjacent um residential area so so that's the intent we didn't want to be too specific because you're exactly right in that case um you know the the exception start this rule so so that's the reason for that okay thanks um i just have a few comments and i actually um have a a substitute motion that i'd like to make and i just really want to appreciate the mayor's comments um you know around us being able to provide input into this and i think that um you know that's that um you know we've all been able to provide some level of input into this um but the one thing that i've been hearing from the community and that i've been expressing throughout this process is that many people feel like they that there hasn't been enough outreach and opportunity for community members to weigh in and so um i don't have um i have more concerns around the process that we've uh had with bearing in this board a number of members of public contact in me and you know this is a new for many people they feel like this is a new ordinance that's coming before them and they haven't really had a chance to look it over and weigh in and um in while i think that you know we need to find a balance in the community around um you know what we're gonna like in the impacts of homelessness um but then also trying to provide services to people i think it's also really critical that we're providing people with an opportunity to weigh in in a meaningful way um it's based on the conversations we've had i mean we started this conversation back in february it's now may based on uh some feedback we heard earlier from city staff it doesn't seem like this is going to be up and running until probably late june possibly even july and with that i wonder just based on the timeline for the rfq identifying provider signing contracts you know getting everything up and running um it's it's likely going to take you know at least another month and a half possibly even two months until we actually have something up and running and i feel like within you know for members of the public who have expressed that they would like to have more opportunity to weigh in um it seems like we could use that time to provide um more outreach and more engagement with the community uh especially seeing as how what's before us tonight is you know the first reading of an ordinance and we agreed that we weren't going to bring forward you know what we previously had so i think for a lot of members of the public you know they feel like if this is something different they've only had a few days to kind of look it over um and so i'll i'll see if bonnie if you could put up the um substitute motion that i'd like to make so i i emailed over some language bonnie oh is it not sharing and well we just yeah your word word screen uh you know we have some potential time to have more outreach occurred i thought you know what might seem like a good compromise would be to direct staff to continue moving forward with establishing safe sleeping and storage programs as previously directed provide a minimum of two public meetings for members of the public including us individuals to provide feedback on the ordinance and input on what they would like to see come forward and their concern and concerns provide updates on feasibility of establishing safe sleeping and storage programs including costs potential operators sources of funding scope of work and any other relevant information and bring forward and updated ordinance along with an emergency ordinance for adoption when it's clear what programs are feasible and locations for sleeping and storage services after receiving public input and um the comments i'll make around that is that um you know there's still a lot there's staff mentioned that there's going to be a lot of outreach going on into the community around what these programs will be and how we can stand them up and who the providers are and you know it seems like we really want to understand what is feasible in terms of the programs before we have laws that um we're creating around these programs so it's not clear what we're going to might be that we can provide more services um you know we can increase those beds above 150 um or it might be that we you know we can't find a provider that's able to um provide those 150 beds so uh the thought here is that you know by providing this kind of direction um we can continue moving forward provide the community with an opportunity to give us more feedback and tony please correct me if you weigh on on this but my understanding just based on the years of being on council is that you know if we were at a point where for example we have a storage you know we have a service provider for storage safe sleeping the council could potentially pass an emergency ordinance that would immediately take effect and we could also pass the regular ordinance that would then take effect after a second reading in 90 days is that a correct um yes if the council makes findings uh to establish the basis for declaring an emergency then the council can adopt an emergency ordinance that takes effect immediately uh I believe with the five vote majority and just to follow up on that question as well I mean the council did the homeless state of emergency back in I think it was 2017 or 2018 so under that you know assumption we technically and we haven't changed that so with that the council the council uh re-adapted that in august of last year as well but I would add that that's the that the homeless or the shelter crisis declaration really is designed to provide a mechanism for establishing shelters without strictly complying with with building and zoning codes so it's not really the exact same thing but but you have declared that there's a shelter emergency in effect right now I guess it would also be safe to say I mean I'll just my comment would be that I think it's also safe to say that we are in a bit of an emergency the fact that you know with our current homeless situation so um that's a friendly or a substitute motion that I'd like to put on the table for consideration and again I want to thank all my colleagues and members of the public for hanging in during all the time we've spent on this item council member council member brown I'll second that and um given that I think I know where that's going I'll just make my comment now while I have the floor um so I mean I'm not comfortable with moving uh the recommendation we have forward for many reasons and I'm not going to go through all of them here although I will say um that Sabina Holder Ms. Holder pretty much said what I would what I'm thinking and said it much more articulately so that's kind of where I stand um but so I'll just put in two categories I'll start with the practical or instrumental and I think that gets to part of why council member coming I think brought this substitute motion forward um you know passing an ordinance when we don't even know if we can actually do the things that have said we need to do in order to operationalize the ordinance just seems really cart before the horse to me it's um and potentially self-defeating really I mean we need a clear understanding and I'm hopeful because you know we're hearing and I understand staff is working very hard and I'm hopeful for that but given that we have never been able to state before um it's it's hard to imagine that all of a sudden we're going to figure it out and make it happen in this short amount of time um so I think we really do need a clear understanding of what we can actually do um you know what the city can do what operators can do um before we say we're going to do this um otherwise we're really kind of misleading the public I think yeah um I I imagine others don't agree with that but I kind of feel like we are if we can't really you know operationalize an ordinance without you know a whole bunch of other steps um and then the you know the other uh kind of general area of concern that I have is is obviously ethical um you know leading with compassion I agree we we should be leading with compassion you know and we should be focusing on trauma interventions rather than enforcement um you know folk enforcement focused uh interventions the nurse who the who said we've talked about um you know chemo or chemo patients um you know thinking about them and you know the hardship this creates on top of multiple multiple layers of hardship um and suffering I mean that's not hyperbole but I mean you know there's at least one person yes it was displaced yesterday um who is going through chemo and so that's this is real this is the experience people are having in the world these are they're humans human beings um you know to even the discussion about um you know oh you know adjacent to schools and neighborhoods and basically you know trying to get us to they're aware for people to go is and suggesting that um because one is without a home a house that they are somehow um shouldn't be anywhere near school is just you know it's just disturbing um that kind of narrative um I was interesting um uh Councilmember Callentary Johnson uh that you uh you break and I'm really interested to hear that the word compassion in Sanskrit is really focused on you know my heart is broken to act um and because I feel right now and I you know I'm not going to go on any longer about it but I just I have to say that my heart is breaking with this act that we are considering here um not all of it obviously but certainly um the criminalization part without knowing that we can actually meet people's needs I'll leave it there okay so we have a um substitute motion on a floor um Tony I believe procedurally we have to first take a vote to accept the substitute motion and then vote on it correct that is correct want to make sure new council members are aware of that so um the uh councilmember Watkins did you have a comment I have a question go ahead please is it okay Tony um you mentioned the emergency ordinance you'd have to make findings but I'm confused that if we're planning to have an emergency ordinance then isn't that sort of putting the cart before the horse because we then would have to retroactively like find the findings to make that happen like I feel like that usually comes as a consequence of the findings not looking for findings to justify the ordinance do you want to speak to that a little bit yeah this it's kind of complicated because the findings necessary to justify an urgent an emergency ordinance are are sort of quasi legislated uh and in and so um the council's determination that that a state of emergency exists uh is it is a policy statement that the council makes um you know the way I think about it is is there a need to take immediate action that um you know that that the so that the ordinance can take effect immediately um I think our circumstance really um you know as it just as a policy matter I don't think our circumstance neatly fits into that because we're dealing with such a long term uh chronic problem and um and the ordinance contemplates that it will be implemented um as the city roll of these additional services and resources so um sorry if I can't like answer your question more clearly but but it's certainly not like uh you know an approaching fire or imminent weather event or something in that nature I think I think that's really helpful information because essentially what I really read into a lot of this is um that we a lot of the direction is the direction we're already moving in in terms of public outreach that's going to be forthcoming as well and and frankly having been on the council now for four years and just living in this community I think you know it's a really it's been often really circular conversation because it's just so challenging and nuanced and complicated and people are complicated and people are unhoused of all types and um to the point where I feel sometimes paralyzing and I um just recognize the you know the wanting to have um you know a balance between engagement and action and I uh I think you know that it's individual right whatever that feels like for the individual person who feels like they've struck that balance um and and I think there's a real tendency and often difficulty around really moving from process to action and continuing to have that feedback loop in terms of how to as I mentioned earlier for continuous improvement and I think that also by not doing anything we really do run the risk of continuing to have nothing uh as a tool to mitigate entrenched unmanaged encampments which are significantly challenging for our community uh for those that are residing there for those that are surrounding it and have not been the most healthy way for us to to work on on on this issue in a meaningful way to help our community stay healthy as well as to help the individuals in those encampments so I don't feel comfortable with this motion uh for those reasons Do I see uh Vice Mayor Bruner did you have a comment on the uh on before we vote um this would be on the sub two votes go to accept the substitute and then uh vote on the and if that goes forward then we would vote on the substitute motion I had question on the substitute motion and um just for clarification uh public meetings on the current ordinance in today is that your intention council member coming it says provide a minimum of two public meetings for members of the public to provide feedback on the ordinance and input on what they would like to see come forward and concerns regarding this current draft version before us today okay and then um uh bring forward an updated ordinance along with an emergency ordinance for adoption can you just explain that intention sure so um mayor for me yeah Tony I just want to understand procedure here should we taking the vote to accept the substitute motion first I'm just I'm not sure if we should be dialoguing if the substitute motion might not succeed that's why I like it's not it's not required um I might suggest that you that if the council uh you know that before the council debates the substitute motion um you might want to consider on whether to accept the substitute motion and then you can debate on its merits uh or um you know uh or advocate for or against it right yeah I think surely that's the purpose of the um the vote to accept it right Tony okay before I accept it or decide to accept it I want to understand just the clarity of the intention is that okay I'm not debating anything yeah no I understand vice mayor I'm actually just looking for um some um Tony your soft phone I'm just trying to find follow procedure Tony both the motion um substitute motion is debatable so um so there can be discussion as there has been on whether or not to accept the substitute substitute motion it's not a it's not something that can't be debated I just thought that it might be a more efficient way to actually get to the heart of what action the council is going to take to me okay um so why don't we go ahead and um well vice mayor Bruder it sounds like you yeah why don't why don't you go ahead and with your your questions and then let I think I'd like I've heard from council member Cummings I've heard from council member Brown I'd like to take a vote on whether to accept the substitute motion but since uh vice mayor Bruder I I don't want to cut you off so let's go ahead and finalize that and then we can we'll vote on whether or not to accept the substitute motion and then deliberate if it succeeds so my my question was the intention of adding the direction of bringing forward an updated ordinance along with an emergency ordinance and in addition to that did you want me to provide clarity on the the public meetings so to the first point the public meetings the idea behind this would be that we we currently have a draft of an ordinance and that the staff would be directed to go out to the community hold you know a minimum of two meetings whether that's in person or online where community members could provide back on the ordinance that's before us today and I included also you know trying to have outreach with the unhoused communities to get feedback on the ordinance and provide people with more time to better understand the ordinance to review it the fourth bullet is that should those meetings occur and that there are recommendations the staff would bring back an updated ordinance with those recommendations and the emergency ordinance the reason why put that in is because if there's a circumstance under which we can people are concerned with being able to act swiftly on this an emergency ordinance could be potentially be used to make something happen more immediately that was trying to get at the concerns around council members feeling like if we delay then that's going to delay when we can implement this ordinance and so the idea would be we have an emergency ordinance that's in place and then we adopt the official ordinance which would then take a second reading and 90 days 90 days correct Tony to implementation 30 days after the second week 30 days that's the intention of those two parts of the motion great thank you for clarifying okay so we will go ahead and we have a motion for a substitute motion and made by council member Cummings seconded by council member Brown so we'll go ahead and take a roll call vote on the substitute motion we want to hear that thank you mayor council members Watkins no calentary johnson no older no nice mayor brunner no so that motion um around my script here so that motion fails with members uh calentary johnson Watkins may mires voting against and council members uh Cummings Brown and Brunner voting for so we do have a motion on the floor to accept the ordinance um as uh with with the noted annotations or noted um um that was presented by staff and if there's not any additional council um discussion i see we have got um some of these sections that we have just been edited if there's no further questions or comments by council um then we will okay uh lee do you have those all of those up so we can see them looks like you do actually um bonnie is sharing her screen and has those up i wanted to uh clarify um one thing um and um that is um so actually bonnie maybe if i could share my screen for a second um so i can find it a little more easily thank you um mayor you had and let me make this larger so you can see it better um this is the version with the changes and you had um suggested that this um language um in 040 include under two here right leaving facility shall we not be located in or adjacent there are other places down here um where you may want to consider adding that um this was what we had suggested here facilities noted in this section shall not be located um you may want to consider adding in or at this location as well for consistency and then um you suggested um someone one of the council members suggested um that this be added to uh see as well facilities in this shall not be located um and presumably the uh approaches to also say in or and i just want to so i wanted to clarify that um i also just wanted to note that um for c here um we this this um as a nonprofit so the the um potential here um for say like a church to have a couple of pallet shelters if that church is located in a residential um in a residential area that would be precluded by this addition and so i want to just put that out there for the council it's a politician um when the um when the council provide us the direction to um not have the city the city owned or operated properties or facilities um that's where we had specified not in residential or not adjacent to residential schools this one um would also it would preclude those types of facilities um run by nonprofit so um you know there could be some limitations on creativity but that is it's entirely a policy decision as to whether or not the council wants to um to do that and i don't know whether a church would be interested in hosting you know a hand of tents or pallet shelters on an interior portion of their property for example that may or may not be something that they would be interested in doing but that was one of the things that we had thought about um in and not including that here and the last thing i'll say is that um we we did say as part of prior um uh staff reports that we would come back to the council with operational policies related to uh to this section so i can leave this up i i think we need we need two things um one is uh well we really need one thing is you know do you want the in or in these other two sections which presumably so and then i just wanted to to call that um the policy implication out for uh to your attention i think um at least from my my request of the motion maker and and council member uh commentary johnson mine was focused on the d and i believe that the mr brown suggested that addition to c but i wasn't completely sure he just he mentioned that but i can see the conflict in c um so i'll i'll leave it to the motion maker um in terms of that and i believe she's taking a look at her right now yeah um can can you repeat lee could you repeat the the conflict in c i'm trying to sure it's not a conflict um you know this this you could you could implement it's fine um i just wanted to call out for the council so that they understand um you know where where this um it without uh this section without the let me highlight let me be clear without this section um a a church for example could say i want to um host i want to put up two pallet shelters on um an interior courtyard of my property um and if that church was located in or adjacent to a residential neighborhood which many churches are uh they would not be able to do that with this i see uh yeah i wouldn't want to do that then i would just point out that c also refers to managed encampments as authorized by the city manager of city council um whereas subsection d is a little bit less structured okay got it okay let's strike that then take it back out for sorry which part yeah the the um red um text under c i wouldn't want to exclude churches from doing something i thought it's 050 050 c bonnie what's highlighted on the screen right now so are we we're just not including the n or or we're including the red minus we're taking out the whole red part the whole right so we're not editing that section at all that's correct because my understanding is that um an instinct could be that church then couldn't stand this up and i wouldn't want to exclude that thank you for that lee of course yeah i mean there are there are policy considerations on either side you know the neighbors have expressed concerns about this and the council reacted and said let's uh preclude from residential and schools um and you know this i think if it were implemented would have to be done so in a careful manner so that um it isn't um creating impacts to the screaming community um but i do think that um that you know we we may get some creative responses and um every every bit can help and so you know if a church wanted to do something like that that would have act um you know having that opportunity i think is um something that we um wouldn't necessarily want to preclude so just wanted to put that out there and i and i think lee your point earlier which is that you know the city will be developing sort of prescriptions in terms around operations and some of that so you know if this situation did arise you know that activity would would actually be permitted and part of that permitting would be you know typical operational requirements et cetera et cetera correct absolutely and we would certainly have any um we would have in any uh authorizations that we issue revocation uh provisions so that if there are any acts that aren't being addressed that we would have the ability to revoke that permit okay thank you and again we would be coming back to the council with some of those um operational considerations so that the council can say yes no these are the kind of things um you know have to have access to sanitation facilities um how are you dealing with complaints and um who do people call those kinds of things okay thank you okay um so we still have the original motion on the floor we've clarified the um uh adjustments to the language uh council member coming do you have uh questions or comments i'd just like to make um final comments and i just want to again express my appreciation for the work that's gone into this um i'm not going to be supporting the motion on the floor um i think that at the last the last time this was heard there's a large contingency of people from the community who came out and given that there's still time before any of this would be implemented i feel like um there's also opportunities to you know take what we have before us and have more community engagement um that is what was clearly expressed the last time we had something come before us was that the community felt like um we were trying to do this quickly and we weren't trying to get as much input and they really were expressing wanting to be included in the process and um and the people who you know came to this meeting weren't just the homeless activists it's many members of the community who um want to see something like this happen and i think we all really want to see how we can strike the balance and so um well i'm you know encouraged to see how this is going to turn out i'm very supportive of safe sleeping sites i'm very supportive of the storage programs we've been able to make them work in the community i think that um we can make them work again uh but i do believe that you know we're creating laws that are going to impact people's lives that we really especially when it comes to probably one of the most controversial topics in our community that we really need to do our best to have as much as possible and then i'll just end by saying you know there was a comment and um i'm not prepared to make any suggestions but i do know that there was a member of the public who made a comment around um qualified disabilities and people needing to to provide doctor's notes and that uh pretty problematic because i think the way that it's stated currently um you know many homeless people don't have access to doctors and so you know for them to obtain a doctor's note and money to pay for a doctor you know could be um you know prohibitive and and they might not be able to do it so um that's just one thing i'd like to point out that um is probably a very big concern that hopefully be addressed before this is voted on and i'll just leave my comments there and thank you all again for your time and for um taking my comments in the community's comments and all of our work into consideration thank you council member um i have vice mayor bruner next thank you um i had some comments and uh we were surprised with the substitute motion so now i have um comments and a friendly amendment i'd like to propose uh at this point so um i think it's uh you know all of this discussion has been really uh valuable in um all of us getting around this and i know this discussion has been going on since the 2017 uh homeless uh report and the cash work i mean so much work and public input has gone into that however with that substitute motion that was there was a piece that i think is very valuable um i think the added time for public input was good and i'm wondering if the maker of the motion would be willing to uh make a have a friendly amendment um for that added public input even though we feel that um we've received so much input already this is a new draft proposal and while we expect to have it on a thursday and ready by a Tuesday the public doesn't always have that option or the opportunity and i know um the process for two readings but i'm wondering if i just that added public input is valuable um the second friendly amendment would be to address the invisible disability that was brought up um and so i'd like to you know give staff direction to address that doctor's note um piece i think is very important we have invisible disabilities um i would just hate for that to be uh not addressed i think that's vital this ordinance has many great components the safe sleeping sites the daytime storage collaboration and access to county health services human services housing services um there was a caller who called in about the four million uh dollars the city has spent and where has that gone and i just want to applaud so much of i know the efforts are are almost invisible um you know the four million i know uh has gone into a lot of prevention and programs security deposit uh comes rent payments um uh and housing matters support to encompass community services um there's so much that the city is addressing and continuing to support and i want to just acknowledge all of that and all of those components are are are still happening this ordinance is not to solve the whole thing that all the needs that are needed you know there were a lot of callers tonight that kept emphasizing 150 safe sleeping sites is not enough and no it's not nobody is saying it is but it's something and um uh it's a minimum we hope to have more we hope to keep that in context of the county also working on shelter sites um doesn't necessarily have to be within the city um all of us working together to address the pieces of that are needed you know it's not one solution we have many solutions needed in this big structural uh issue that is in our community and we have a lot of affordable housing since november i think of 2020 we've approved and uh the construction of so much affordable housing uh which includes transitional housing permanent supportive housing low income housing we need to happen again that that speaks to the prevention component so all of those pieces are happening so uh i just hope that message is heard and understood um by the community when those feel that this is not enough um it isn't enough and um it's a piece of all the other pieces and um so those are my comments and then i'll bring it back to the the friendly amendment and ask the maker of the motion we have a friendly amendment um i believe vice mayor it was to uh address the um invisible disability piece yes and that is public time public input time i'll ask the make the motion mayor sorry i can just confirm uh vice mayor are you can you specify the wording on the disability are you wanting them to look into the requirement for a doctor's note for yet uh the the part i don't have the number in front of me if if someone could bring that up um but where that would fall under if we can get language there it is sure that any invisible disabilities uh rod let me pull it up in front of me there it is so are you wanting to edit the ordinance or are you wanting them to to bring back information on it i am uh hold on give me one second to look at this so i can direct you i'm wanting to edit that physician's verification uh to the ordinance because it's speaking to the um disability that's not apparent to city staff so specifically what are we changing that to delete the fact that they may ask so um i think you probably want to take a look at qualifying disability uh definition phrase in o2o it means a physical or mental disability that prevents a person from being able to on a daily basis deconstruct and put away uh an encampment but the uh the wording in there that to provide uh patient verification it's actually section d it's 3d i think it's the language um vice mayor um at the very end of that sentence it says a person who claims to have a qualifying disability that is not reasonably apparent to city staff may ask maybe ask to present a physician verification of a qualifying disability um is that the language is yes does that need to be in there i don't i i guess my question will be i don't know how uh i just don't know how police would or i just don't know how anybody making contact would be able to maybe maybe choni you can speak to that early um i would say that um this my thoughts on it are that this i think um or this statement was arguably more um uh carried more weight with the prior version of the ordinance and that's because earlier versions of the ordinance recall had um allowances for individuals who could not unpack uh or pack their belongings um to remain in place for 72 hours um and the attorneys have worked in and we've had some conversations back and forth and and i think um we've we've tried to um knew a lot um to address this issue of individuals with qualified disabilities in terms of um now providing reasonable assistance and so that's really what this is related to now is if there's an individual who um has a qualifying disability and they're not able to pack up um that reasonable assistance would be provided to them um that's a very different um scenario than um and uh being able to remain in place for i think it was four days uh that they could stay in place so the implications of taking this out are um less um now than they were before um there still could be um abuse of this sure um but um you know i i don't think that of its removal um are as um as much as they would have been in prior versions of the ordinance i don't know what Tony you want to i would tend to agree i don't think it would i don't think it would um substantially uh affect how the ordinance is implemented if we were to delete that sentence as suggested by uh vice mayor bruner now the challenge would be you know is there a safe sleeping location where someone um says you know i'm unable to um pack up my tent and so i need assistance doing it on a regular basis and um you know that that's that's the flip side is you know someone could then abuse that scenario frankly and um so there's pro and con to it yeah i i just don't i i would like to see that the physician patient not be a requirement and that someone would not be in violation of this ordinance um because they don't have that there is their discretion in the way that that's written in that the word may is is it operative there yes it was intentionally written that way so that um you know a person in the field could make a common sense determination about whether or not a person had appeared to um or exhibited the qualities of um having a disability that i just add a disability that would render the person unable to um relocate their belongings such that they would need assistance from uh city staff to to do so i guess i would ask the maker of the motion if you're i'd believe it's a proposal that that be struck given i think what i heard from staff if i am not following or tracking exactly what is being said is that if that were struck then it doesn't substantively change that component of the ordinance because it's already sort of covered under the other language find it which talks about reasonable assistance available is that accurate um somewhat um the um the issue here would be that um you know if if someone is um capable of doing that but is not going to do so then um under the ordinance they if this section were not there and you know they they could say i need assistance every day which you know can can result in you know staff time in assisting that um individual so um you know that's where i think as attorney kandadi was saying um you know if this provides some discretion for the city so if you know someone seen you know if someone's biking and running around at one point and then you know an hour later they say hey i can't pack up you know absent this i think we would be um we would be mandated to assist them in um packing up their belongings again that's a visible example that you brought up yeah yeah true um and they may or may not have a verification verification um it's still in the ordinance here for assistance and there may be someone who will need daily assistance um but the fact the the physician's verification should be irrelevant make her the motion um i know i'm just trying to um i don't know if the second or one said uh i mean i'm i'm comfortable because i feel like to a certain extent we could take that out and then see how it goes and if there is a feeling not working as written then we could bring back a potential for um an amendment but i'm also concerned that if we do it based on uh individuals words or uh kind of misuse potentially then are we not necessarily going to have an effective approach so i mean i welcome uh the seconder if they have any you know any comments around yeah thank you go ahead thank you i i hear um your concerns vice mayor brunner it seems like the word may as um tony mentioned it gives the discretion um so i don't know it just it seems like the word may there gives us a discretion to not require a verification um i am also concerned of of this being misused if it's taken out um so that's my that's my concern there and then and then um i did have a comment about the engagement but we'll wait till this piece is community engagement so wait till this piece is resolved so the may word um let's let's say they don't have or let so then what happens they're in violation correct they wouldn't be in violation um required to to pack up their belongings themselves and they would have the opportunity to go to uh you know if they needed a physician's verification they could go to for example um the hphp offices at housing matters and get a physician's verification there if they needed that can can i add to that you know typically staff will work really hard with individuals to provide them to refer them to assistance uh through the outreach workers we have the outreach workers obviously as you're familiar with um and they'll connect them to services and you know the spirit of the ordinance is to give everyone the every opportunity to uh access services including medical services which are available at housing matters uh for example at the there um and so those referrals will happen i think the concern here really is that uh it's somebody this is it would be an extreme example of somebody uh that was really trying to abuse this potential uh and that that would really be the concerns and that that would be an extreme situation i think for the most part staff doesn't run to enforcement uh uh until it's it's an extreme situation where somebody really is is trying to and i think it'd be helpful to have a tool to be able to address those extreme situations when they come up and if they don't we can always report back and if it becomes an issue i suppose but i think that's the concern that uh there'll be abuse uh and it'll be a loophole that people take advantage of so if they staff has the option to ask for a physician's verification as it's currently written and if they don't have that staff can want to assist is that what's being implied well good so so if um we would we would generally be assisting and if there is a instance where we have reason to believe that um you know a staff member has reason to believe person is capable they could say hey um you know can you get verification for this and again it goes back to the invisible disability like for staff to determine something like that um and they may not have a physician's verification but they won't as i think is the greater concern than the possibility of uh abusing that uh i wonder if i could offer a suggestion mayor yep vice mayor i wonder if i could say that um if they may be asked to present a physician's verification at disability um and be open to receiving assistance uh in regards to movement and that it kind of covers that that they'll still be open to receiving the receiving the assistance but um not necessarily not being able to provide the verification just a little bit yeah i just don't want the lack of verification physicians verification to be an uh an obstacle to receiving assistance um i don't think that or we could just explicitly state state that that the lack of um positions verification cannot be uh an obstacle to receiving assistance or something like that essentially how would that subjectively change the ordinance because i think you're looking for a safeguard in that regard and i don't know if that could how would that know what that would look like i think that would uh if it's not enough if that's not well i think it would essentially amount to the deletion of that um section um you just as an option they they could um you could have the staff um track and report on how many times we actually request that with my other thought that if we or try to see how worksmen have verification or i you know an assessment um when it occurs and then review those cases potentially is needed or something like that to ensure that it's not um you know an unintended consequence for uh this population potentially that could maybe i don't know because somewhat of a tool that we could use but i'm open to other suggestions i'm just trying to see how we can kind of get get get kind of agreement on what i think is the intention around yeah but can you say that one more time so i understand what you're suggesting that essentially we would given that we're going to have sort of uh data collected and sort of a review of how this is working so that we can make changes that we would ask uh our staff to identify these situations when they act when they may uh have to ask the individual to present a physician's verification of a qualifying disability in those circumstances and then review those to see if it's an impediment in relation and or if um you know if it if it works and then just change the language essentially as needed and adapt and kind of refine right that's kind of the hope i think with a lot of this is that we constantly learn and refine um but not completely change it substantively we get back from police or others um reach workers service providers collect that data and then refine as needed needed versus taking making the revision tonight to suggest a revision tonight vice mayor uh yeah i i i agree with um the revisions you know and refining that we will uh but it brings me back to simply deleting that last sentence and tracking to refine and revision in the future um is is the simpler way without changing it substantively which way does the motion maker which way would you like to delete the sentence and then assess um via data that there is potentially um folks not you know potentially kind of evaluating how that's working in the field or do you want to keep it in and evaluate on the back side i mean i i think maybe since i see a lot number of my colleagues with their hands up i'd like to hear what some other people might have to add you know um but i'm open to that um i make a suggestion i mean obviously there's a there's a there are competing concerns here one is uh vice mayor bruner's very legitimate concern that people um such as the the person who is receiving chemotherapy or has a heart condition or something of that nature that is truly a qualifying disability but it's not readily observable um will not be burdened unreasonably by this requirement on the other hand um i think it is fair to say that a significant number of people that the staff encounters on a daily basis um in large encampments um are not in every instance credible when someone might assert that they have a disability and so really the intent here is to give staff reasonable tools to deal with the person as we suggested who's riding a bicycle or shooting baskets or doing something of that nature that they can't for the pretend and so i have some alternative language that i could share them that is my attempt to address that i will call on other i i have a suggestion for vice mayor bruner um position maybe directly not identifying position but maybe there's also another category of a clinical advocate or a case manager so um someone under the care uh huh that could be an option i know um you know working with the the actors and the mental health leads on that uh oftentimes there are certain individuals they are familiar with their cases so maybe there's with with their situations with their needs um and have been working with those individuals um and may know their story and and their struggle their qualifying disability um so maybe extending those types of categorizations of folks that may be able to provide some verification if it is an invisible disability maybe just by extending some of those other service providers that may have knowledge of the person with that yes it's in the right direction however in the moment when you have to what if no one's there to verify that or you know that you wouldn't receive assistance it's a burden on the individual and already we have to look at the burden okay i'll go ahead and bring it out for other council members um so right now i think we're trying to remedy this language in this particular language i think there's also a motion or a substitute or excuse me a friendly amendment to add um some public hearings um i'll call on council member brown and then council member calentary johnson council member brown are you planning to address this particular change in the ordinance that we're working on no no i'm not i raised my hand quite a while ago just to make one comment i can wait until we're you're done with this thank you uh council member calentary johnson did you have a comment on this particular item or on the public hearing uh i had a comment about public hearings but it seems like this specific item isn't resolved so i can i can wait okay and i will i will just comment that um adding um clinical advocate or case managers um i think i really get maybe get to what vice mayor brunner is um is is trying to move us towards and and then the other suggestion that council member wattkins brought up um that we come back and look at how this is being implemented if um i like that suggestion and would recommend staff to direct staff to add that as one of the indicators um that we would be tracking because we had a list of indicators so not an indicator but one of the specific types that we'd be tracking yeah i'll go to council member golder do have a language on this particular one well i just um i think that everyone's good intentions here um i just want to buddy and then people have brought it up already but i think when someone's being contacted to clean up and they're saying i have a disability i would hope that whoever was helping them would help them that first time and direct them to the hphp where they can have walk-in positions um to adopt to the point where they have access to medical care and and so or with contacting them to clean up would take into consideration if they didn't know the person that where they can get a physician's verification and with that some assistance for whatever their disability whether visible or invisible is and so it's kind of what the was wanting us to just look up to put this in and re-evaluate are people taking advantage of the if it is a loophole that people around or whatever like i i don't count the number coming did you want to speak to this item i just had um because a couple things came up um and i do think that um you know case managers and other people providing you know it's probably sounds like a good compromise i would i do want to ask and i don't know if susie is available or somebody who's that are you know um but if or if anybody on staff can answer this question but i think this is an assumption that we have which is that you know people who are experiencing homelessness can kind of just walk in to hphp and get an appointment and get a doctor's note and walk out the door and my it's not that easy to get a doctor's note especially when you're experiencing homelessness and so i really it would be great to hear from staff you know um what the reality is around getting those notes and then also i think there's also an assumption that everyone experiencing homelessness has a case manager and many people haven't been connected to services and i think it's you know really critical if you know somebody um you know has a disability and counters camping in unsanctioned areas um you know what's the opportunity for us and the potential for us to connect them to case managers because ultimately that's what we want to do and i we want to get people back to services and so i i guess that's just a concern i have is that um that we're working on a couple assumptions here and i'd like to get like we can get a reality check around you know how people can see doctors and how we can connect people to case management and case workers i do count remember i just i just took a tour there less than a year ago and i was i was there's a walk-in clinic and that you could get same-day services if you need and then you could make appointments that's what i was told so yes uh i see suzio here has come on yeah i thank you mayor um just um confirming that director butler would like me to weigh in i'm happy to do that if so go for it thank you okay thank you councilmember for um the prompt and i just want to um express just some empathy around how challenging the subject is um generally speaking hphp does have walk-in hours monday through friday i'm getting a qualifying disability physicians assessment is not going to be a drop-in situation however everybody who walks in does have access to clinical support and so what i would say about the invisible disability or if there is an interaction with law enforcement or an outreach worker on whether somebody has a qualifying disability it seems as if what council is trying to do is say at you know under no circumstances could should first contact under the subsection be um you know lead to enforcement and i think you know staff should have some potential to evaluate whether um their conversation is happening um with transparency and honesty and i think multiple interactions will allow for that i do think um with a first interaction under the subsection it would be really hard to um assess how best to move forward and i so i do think that um having that caveat might be helpful and and alleviate some of this challenge and then secondarily i think um as vice mayor bruner mentioned you know while not everybody has a case manager necessarily most folks that are you know have disability are on SSI do have um clinical support at the homeless person's health project or at the clinic at Emeline so um i think in large it's going to be a very small fraction of folks that might fall into this loop pool and i i do think the the intention is to have repeated contacts and making sure that um we're not you know disrupting um and or further challenging somebody who just simply cannot meet the expectations of this particular subsection okay so i see language up um the language on the left side is that from me or um it looks like we're trying to get to this uh qualifying disability that um staff reasonably believe based on objective factors that shall be documented may be asked to present physicians and then we could add clinical um we could add that language um trying to um provided that language and i'm realizing it's an incomplete thought so um i was wondering where that came from but i will try to put something back okay um susie i think your suggestion about no first contact interaction shall result in enforcement of this subsection might be the key to what count vice mayor bruner is trying to achieve so maybe that language um tony is that correct vice mayor bruner does that sort of address your your concern simpler to delete that that sentence a person who claims to have a qualifying disability that is not reasonably apparent to city staff maybe asked to present a physician verification of the qualifying disability like it doesn't serve a purpose enough to have it in there uh the maker of the motion are you are you i think we're stuck so someone's got to move somewhere um and i think we could debate these probably this language for a while but i think there's also that assessment on the back side that could be done if this this does arise based on all the context that this language that maybe needs to be brought back in but i'm trying to we've been taught for almost an hour now so i think we need to someone's gotta someone's gotta someone's gotta accept something um so if the maker of the motion might be willing to uh potentially uh agree to remove that with um and then uh hopefully on the with the data collected in the field we could find out if that needs to be um we put back in at some point i think that might the fastest thing to do at this point i turned the language up here but i would tend to agree with the comment that the mayor just made okay i'm i'm fine with that i i mean and i hear the concerns and considerations around around it so obviously we'll want to look at it and track it but if that is the you know the consensus of where we're at this point then i'm fine with removing that language whoever's screen is up is we're seeing your house um if the secretary also is is the second or amenable to that yeah that's fine as long as we track it because it does seem like there was a purpose to it so let's just make sure we track that okay okay so we will strike that sentence i think moving before we move into the public hearing piece which was a suggestion around process uh if the maker of the motion might be amenable i'd like to revisit um the send that we just discussed earlier which was six point three six point oh five oh um it see it is item c which we had struck all of the language um regarding um the statement of um categorizing the facilities and where and whether or not they could be a just adjacent to residential neighborhoods or schools so this is um the language in this section is at events or in a manner that is authorized by the city council or city manager such as managing campments and or managed safe sleeping zones for overnight tent encampments which may be managed by the city the county or an approved nonprofit these may be authorized on any public or private property in any zoning district and in areas that would otherwise prohibit such uses we had a suggestion that facilities noted in the subsection shall not be located adjacent to residential neighborhoods or schools if there was one comment that was very clear in all of the dialogue we had um a couple of meetings ago um it was the frankly that the concern that um that residential neighborhoods or schools could potentially be impacted by these facilities i'm wondering if they make her the motion um i'm wondering if a way to go about this would be to add back in that language where we say facilities noted in this subsection with the exception of neighborhood churches or churches shall be located adjacent because i think what we were really working on was trying to make sure that if a church in a residential area was going to potentially be a site for this we would be able to accommodate that but i think um deleting it all together i think we we get um people that who are also weighing in on the side of saying we support facilities we just don't want to see them adjacent to our neighborhoods or adjacent to our schools whether that's right or wrong or you agree with that or not i'm just trying to figure out a way to acknowledge that churches may play that role but i would like to um ask the maker of the motion to see if we could put that language back in which would be just so they'll change the facilities noted in this subsection with the exception of churches shall not be located adjacent to the residential neighborhoods or schools i'm comfortable with that okay and a seconder uh yeah yes and i just i have a question um i know some communities have had schools who put up shelters uh either in cases of emergency or um yeah in cases of emergency so would this with adding that include us to have schools step in in cases of emergency otherwise i am okay with it i would say as as written it would i'll share my screen because sometimes it's easier to actually read so i've gone back to this section uh c and um facilities noted in the subsection with the exception of churches uh and actually we should say uh religious assembly uses may not be a church what if um what if we had um school sponsored programs like if a school wanted to do something facilities noted in the section with exception of religious assembly uses or school sponsored programs would would that work i yeah so are you for a school maybe that um potentially had one or two safe sleeping you know maybe a few things for a student if there was if we were found that that was needed or a student was i'm fine with that yeah and i'm just i'm thinking of um you know recently cabrera college put up trailers for the pay transition aid youth program um as a shelter in place site um so that's a college but i think i think there are those instances though we don't want to um we don't want to use language that would exclude school programs that want to do something like this okay i'm fine yeah so the maker of the motion is okay with that language seconder is is okay with that language yeah okay um vice mayor breuner had one other um requested change to the motion or a friendly amendment and that was to include two additional public hearings so i'd like to um uh provide an opportunity for the motion maker to respond to that request and i wanted to see and get clear up in regards to some of the outreach strategies that i think i heard or kind of were identified but i don't have off hand specifically so a few things that we're playing on doing um coming up in the near future um one um we will be um engaging some of the um technical experts in the field people who have experience um either operating or residing in these types of facilities to um help us better gauge the um responses that we're getting to the rfq and potentially even you know to to put an end amount to the rfq um if um there are things that warrant um revisions to that um and then we'd be doing site specific neighborhood outreach so any time we're um contemplating one of these locations out to people in the immediate vicinity to um engage with them understand their concerns see how we can adapt the the uh proposed facility to address those concerns um and then we've got a webinar coming up um next week that is a broader webinar about the the services that uh the city provides and then we'll be doing the um uh risk specific um uh webinar for those who are looking at um providing the services that we're requesting in the rfq so that's that's uh the the current slate that we have planned in the next um few weeks thank you i guess if i could get clarification of what um what the two additional public outreach efforts look like beyond what was identified by staff already so just so i'm clear i'm what that translates to i think for uh my intention and um and how i see it is we i have received uh comments that it's it's difficult to have time to really go through this type of um ordinance on from a thursday to a tuesday um and have uh for the public to feel that they are part of giving the input and not everybody has opportunity to do it within that time not everybody has opportunity to be on this call um so just giving extra time um for that input so that our constituents can feel that they've had a chance to weigh in and i understand email uh we sure get a lot of emails and that is another option but really um you know with everything forward and there is no immediate next week time frame and uh that we need to adhere to i think it would be a very appreciated um thing to do to allow that extra time and you know two public hearings one public hearing even that would be i think um really important if i may jump in as a secondary of the motion um vice mayor brunner is this um are you suggesting in addition to the webinar that is taking place next week something that looks different than that i think so okay um and the other comment i wanted to make is that um i've also seen a number of emails that have indicated that there has been public outreach and engagement um and there has been opportunities to voice um input on what this ordinance should and shouldn't look like so i've also received a number of those emails um so i would just say i mean to me it seems like what staff has laid out in terms of engagement through the rsq process through the webinar through direct outreach to service providers um feels like we cover our basis but but i hear what you're saying and i hear what um councilmember Cummings has brought up as well um i think as long as it doesn't um keep us from moving forward with the programming that we have in motion with the faith sleeping with the storage with the transitional shelter um i just don't want those programming pieces to be delayed so as long as we can um if staff has the capacity to to do public hearings while we're moving forward with programming i would be okay with that i'm gonna programming yeah i'm gonna go ahead may or mayors i'm going to call on bonnie go ahead bonnie do you need to tell us something um no i'll need i'll i'm hoping to be able to go section by section on what i've captured so far okay before we vote okay um i have i i have councilmember brown i'm not sure if you and then i have councilmember Cummings i i'll just make a comment um i'm not supportive of additional public hearings because um the main you know i'm hoping we will we'll obviously go through a second reading in two weeks um and then we're trying to operationalize this um i i i don't agree that um this is going to go on forever i think fairly likely we'll be in the yellow tier very soon um i've heard really really loud and clear and i've talked to literally talked to hundreds of people many of them in person um our community is really ready for this and um to continue keep saying we need to do more public discussion or have more public hearings um i just i think we're just sort of starting to lose traction on really frankly the severity of the conditions that people who find themselves in these encampments are experiencing and this ordinance provides us a way to provide services and it provides us a way to make contact with folks and i've seen our police officer officers and other fields um provide very good care and thoughtful care for people who are trying to um you know even if we're trying to move them along um or move them to another location or get them into a hotel um i think it's i just feel like having another public hearing is kicking the can down the road we have a severe and acute issue with encampments they are not good places for people to be there um there there's a lot of things that go on in them that we need to acknowledge um and um this provides a huge amount of service level that is tied to having an ordinance in place um putting the programs up without an ordinance in place really make any sense um because it's not going to address the acute issue of encampments and that again if we go back to our goal at least for this one part of our homelessness management um that is one of the established goals or stated goals of the ordinance so that's just my opinion is that um you know we've had at least five will have six hearings yes they're formal regarding the ordinance language but each time we've made changes um and i just i just think i think we need to decide whether to adopt the ordinance and move on and get into a programmatic mode on this rather than continue to have more hearings that's just my thought um i'll uh acknowledge uh council member ready then council member coming and then council member colder i am uh so uh just uh mayor if i may in response to your the comment you just made i you know i i hear you and i i understand um the urgency um and i just i just want to point out that um i i too understand the emergency and i also believe that the way to address that is with the programmatic stuff and i don't think we need a camping ban to give us as a political will to um to you know develop these this kind of programming unfortunately that's what's happened here we are um the comment that i was going to make though was um why i had my hand up was uh related to churches and i just wanted to say i was surprised to hear that staff is not aware of churches who um would be interested in this um because they as far as i can tell have been begging us for years to have more of a role and so you know i would really encourage you to get in touch with them if you haven't because i think that you will find um there is an interest there and it's in some cases the resource question but they do have lots of volunteers as well so uh it's a resource question that you know a more cost effective answer um so that's all i got thanks council member council member coming hey man i just also wanted to comment that you know we as we mentioned before i know that we've had a number of these meetings but you know we started back in february and i know even um we the council kind of rushed to put something on the books and as a result of that many people in the community weren't felt like they weren't aware of what was happening and when they became aware we're pretty upset with uh the direction we were going in and as a result we're back here today and although i do understand that there's an urgency to the establishment of encampments um but one of the things that's been pointed out and this is you know for the community to take into consideration is the fact that you know there is still time um you know the rfq hasn't been issued yet and hasn't been finalized and so between the final between the time when we finalize that and we get the uh proposals back until decision is made and then a rollout is actually established that's likely going to be another month and a half to two months and so you know we can there is time it's you know it's may 11th um we could have um outreach occur between now and the first meeting in june uh we could have the first reading of the first meeting in june and the second reading at the second meeting in june and that would still provide us with time to roll everything out especially because we don't have an identified provider yet and we haven't identified you know costs or or any of these other um things that are really important and critical for us to get these services up and running and so um i do understand the urgency but i think that you know one of the things that i'm hoping that comes out of trying to have more of these conversations is that we can rebuild trust with many members of the community who don't feel like they can trust us right now i mean and that's because we receive what close to 1500 um emails regarding the tolo and people not wanting to have the tolo move forward at the not the last meeting with the one before and so you know i just keep recommending that we have this opportunity to have further engagement with the community because that's what the community is asking us for and it would go a long way to cut to rebuild trust and let them know that we are trying to hear them out and so i've been i mean i've been advocating for this for months now and and i'm going to continue to advocate and support the the vice mayor's recommendation so um i'm hoping we can you know move forward and figure out a good path to make sure that we're having inclusive um and transparent conversations with the community around this topic um i will go ahead i i i think i'll respond if that's okay um again i just wanting to make clear uh there has been extensive outreach there's been extensive opportunity for people to engage in this um we've had extensive planning processes um we um we're writing a law which by nature is a public process foods um public comment it provides us the time um to be able to make changes we're doing those again tonight um and i don't think that you know because we have an rf2 that's going to go out in a week and then maybe it's um again we we have to set the policy without the policy doing all of those things you know um while it would be good to do all of those things we also have to bring the policy in alignment with some of the goals that our community as a whole is expressing and our community as a whole is expressing that they would like us to have a managed approach to homelessness and this policy is providing a managed approach to homelessness it's not penalizing homelessness it is providing a managed approach to homelessness um and so that's kind of where i'm coming from in that it it it does provide the policy that then builds the programmatic pieces that put the policy on the ground um if we continue to just sort of talk about you know you know sort of the the need for more people um you know we're just kicking the policy down the down the down the road um and i i guess i i just end by really stating what i stated at the beginning tonight was is that um i mean i attended a statewide conference last week on homeless encampments that was specific to looking at actual the environmental damages associated um and this with you know a lot of practitioners that work on water quality and environmental protection and things like that um everyone in the in that conference was very compassionate about the this tragedy that's happening in california um but everyone was also acknowledging that this is unsustainable it's unsustainable for our environment it's unsustainable for the people in the in these encampments um it is a state responsibility it is a national responsibility and i think with the governor's announcement today that he specifically is offering local government 50 million dollars to address encampments that is a signal that our management policy that we're crafting right now is an alignment to what the opportunities will be to bring resources to the folks who are in these encampments um and that need to get into services and need to frankly get into housing talking about it for another month or two is not going to help in fact if we have this on the books when we go to look to write this grant hopefully in the next couple weeks we can say yes we have an ordinance on the books we have our management policy on the books it's not perfect we're going to keep collecting data we're going to keep engaging with our community um we're going to get regular updates from our staff but i can guarantee you we're going to be a lot more competitive for that 50 million dollars than if we don't have this policy on the books so that's that's my pitch tonight i get to do that so that's my pitch tonight let's not just keep keep kicking this down the down the road i just i it we need to get ready we need to get ready for this money we need to take it seriously we need to be ready as a community i'm tired of talking and not doing anything we've got to get assistance for the people who need it here in this community i'm done talking about it okay council member boulder you've you pretty much summed up everything i was going to say but i just i just any grant opportunities that could be forthcoming um and so i i don't i don't want to delay for that i i see that urgency uh what do we got here we have uh council member wackens the mayor i i i agree i just i appreciate your comments and i my colleagues and i i think we all share a real commitment to wanting to see movement here and wanting to see is improved and our community healthier and frankly we want to see us being poised to receive the resources we need and that requires us to be bold and take action and to be uh educated action and do that for refinement and i think mayor you pointed you you spoke to this point so we don't have to talk about it anymore we don't and i i just want to say as the friendly amendment uh maker suggestor um i i was really referring specifically to this draft uh you know i don't disagree with um the points of moving this forward it's um you know the courtesy of this draft and in giving people the opportunity to sit with this draft and to go through it and to understand it and to to give perspective that we may not see because we only have our perspectives as seven people and so the community as a whole as a much wider perspective that is valuable as we've seen all of their input thus far in all the previous drafts have helped form this current version it's pretty amazing the process we've gotten to at this point with this so that was all uh i was um really just you know if it was until next council meeting just having that draft out there um and having people have that opportunity to have it more equitable so i wonder if between this first reading and the second reading you know our um our communication person can help with getting it out there and that we encourage their input and feedback on this draft after people we make a final decision before the second reading would be sufficient to what i think the intention we all share is we could do that that would be great thank you okay great so with that maybe you can kind of reach a compromise in that direction thank you thank you great so it sounds like that friendly amendment um will hopefully be honored with you know some really focused communication and outreach um so i think i'd like to go ahead and finalize and get get our vote on your way tonight um councilmember Cummings do you have another question i just wanted to see if we could get a clarification on what the motion is before since it sounds like the friendly amendment might have changed and so i just want to make sure that we um that the motion is clear that's before us yeah just going to ask bonnie to bring that up so we can see it before we vote um okay bonnie you want to put that up um and uh ask the maker to make sure we've captured everything on these language changes okay is it up or no my zoom is see it yeah um it's not in red anymore it looks like you're mostly noting it in underline right bonnie that's right okay so the motion would be to um basically just grab my sheets here um so this would be a motion to consider introduction introducing for publication and ordinance amending chapter 6.36 of the Santa Cruz municipal code relating to Kansas camping services and standards with the following um uh the following um revisions as noted in these sections bonnie do you feel like i need to read these off i would like to just have for a clarification on one sure go ahead tony uh 040d my recollection was that the council um uh that the friendly amendment was to strike the last sentence of this this is some alternative language that we were that i was touring with but the about the friendly amendment was strike it yeah you're you're correct although with a eight person bonnie goes all the way to that that entire section gets struck right okay thank you the amendments um are going to include um uh 6.3 6.040 a to the addition of the words located in or adjacent to residential neighborhoods or schools i do have a question about that sorry what was that i do have a question about that the edit you've made here down below um is that that does not touch it it's it's not part of this it's not part of all the adjacent section right i think bonnie if um i think you need to add the n or to the um o or o c below keep keep going down where keep going down yeah i'm still 050 sorry 050 yeah so uh shall not be located in or adjacent to so the other part so do i need to add with the exception of churches or not bonnie's question oh sorry you do not need to add that there that is related to uh city um owned or operated city owned or operated properties or facilities and we're not operating right religious symbol uses so we should be okay thank you for checking yeah thank you on that bonnie can you scroll back down to 050 with some language about school yeah i think we put in with the exception of churches and religious assembly yeah instead of churches oh wait when i can i how should i put that uh with the with the exception of religious assembly uses and sponsored sponsored programs programs school stuff yeah thank you yeah and churches goes away bonnie there we go and that would be the same down below in the yellow yeah we actually do not need that exception in that section this this o d is also referring to um city owned or proper city right operated properties so that would just say facilities in this section they'll not be located in or adjacent right exactly thankfully for catching that yep um we can get rid of the safe sleeping there right yep so yep here we go okay then with that um my other question was about this one i didn't know if we had left that one i think that was tony kandadi's language that was not but i think it's the birthless uh now that don't feel a strict in that language so back to me yeah yes bonnie can you scroll back down to 050d again i'm not i'm not seeing that okay no one question the did the bullet point on the provider minimum of two public meetings remember you're right yeah councilmember heard of that the bullet above the bullet there middle of the page um go back up to where you were right there oh yeah that was my that was my question if that was a thing only if that was a friendly and then offered that i think was we talked about having our communication specialist right the person to get input from the community between this first reading and the second reading thank you marquise okay i think we may be there um 050d does include um private property if you know that so the the second line city on parking lot closed portion of right away on private property um so i i sorry i missed that i think that we should include that um oh the fee the same fee sentence above yep okay the uh exception for um religious assembly uses school sponsored sorry about that as he caught that thanks to her just post just put that out at the end of that sentence like that sentence yeah any other things lee that you've seen or we look like we're there martin does this look right to you thank you okay okay do a roll call vote then member watkins Helen tarry johnson hi for the record state that i'm supportive of the safe sleeping storage programs many of the amendments but um many members of the public have not felt that there's been clear and transparent process to provide feedback and engagement and that's why i'm registering my no vote i'm brown yeah sorry for interjecting but the council did also discuss deleting subsection j which was um subsection j of section o 8 o right i have that it was on there i don't i don't think we've made it that far down but all right sorry i had a note that that yeah that that had been agreed i was that burner um motion passes from this that motion passes uh with um yes votes and two no votes and so that will conclude our um meeting this evening um just want to thank everyone and the public for being here tonight and um our meeting is adjourned thank you everyone night thank you thank you tonight goodbye