 For those of you just joining the meeting live translation in Spanish is available and members of the public wishing to listen in Spanish can join the Spanish channel by clicking on the interpretation icon in the zoom toolbar. It looks like a globe. Once you join the Spanish channel, we recommend you shut off the main audio so you only hear the Spanish translation. Alejandro, can you please repeat that statement in Spanish. Sorry, I think I was muted. This meeting will be interpreted in Spanish by qualified interpreters. If you wish to listen in Spanish, please touch the symbol of the globe. And there you can open the option to listen in Spanish and it will also be available in two ways, the recording of the complete meeting. Thank you Alejandro. I will move you over to the Spanish channel for interpretation with Pablo if you guys can coordinate one interpreter speaking at a time. Thank you very much. Sure. All right, we'll go ahead and gavel back in. Madam City Clerk, can you please call the roll? Yes. Council Member Tibbets will be absent from the meeting today. So I will start with Council Member Schwedhelm. Here. Council Member Sawyer. Here. Council Member Fleming. Here. Council Member Alvarez. I see you, but... Oh, President, I'm sorry. Thank you. Vice Mayor Rogers. And Mayor Rogers. Here. Let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of Council Member Tibbets. Great. Thank you so much, Madam City Clerk. We are doing a hybrid meeting today. We have both the opportunity for folks to give public comment in the council chambers. If you do come in and like to give comment, go ahead and give your cards up to Julie Guzi up at the top. If you're interested in participating via Zoom, you can also hit the raise hand feature on your Zoom. But that will go on to our study session for the day. That's item 3.1, Mr. Assistant City Manager. Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor. Item 3.1, CalPERS unfunded pension liability strategies. Jan Mazik, our Chief Financial Officer, will be giving the presentation today. I see the presentation popped up. Do we have Jan? Yeah, I had a little bit of trouble getting in there. Good afternoon, Mayor. Good afternoon, council members. As we committed to doing back in July, we said we would follow up with a comprehensive strategy for addressing the city's unfunded liability. And we'll do that today. Next slide, please. So the discussion today is just to remind what the challenges, what the, you know, the issue we're trying to solve, provide a historical perspective, some information on the city's pension plans, which has been updated since the last presentation you saw, talk about the pension obligation bonds themselves, and some longer-term considerations and our summary of recommendations, and, as always, provide, you know, an update on what the risks are. And also, one of the requests was that we give a summary of how the city's existing pension bonds are performed, and we'll do that at the end of the presentation. Next slide, please. So just to remind some terms, and yes, some of these are nuanced to talking about pensions, but the actuarial report is a report that CalPERS does for us each year. The actual information lags by several months, so it feels like almost two years, but it's actually done every year. Our most recent valuation was done fiscal year for FY20. Basis, I mean, those are really sort of the payment schedules we had. At the last discussion we had on pensions, there were 65, there are now going to be 70, but those reflect, they're really loans, individual loans to CalPERS. The discount rate is 7%. I refer to it frequently as a hurdle rate, but it's at the rate at which the debt we owe to CalPERS is calculated. Funded status is just, you know, what are assets, liabilities minus assets, that represents the funded amount and the calculation of percentage for miscellaneous fire and police. Normal costs are the costs we pay every year for employees, and then in addition to the normal costs, we pay the UAL or the unfunded liability. I'm going to introduce the term the 115 trust, which is a tool that we use to set aside pension funds separate and apart from other reserves. And as we talk about, you know, strategies for managing the liability going forward, that the section 115 trust will come up. Next slide, please. So this, you know, just to remind of the challenge we're trying to solve, you know, unfunded liabilities, your city of Santa Rosa is not unique. It's a challenge for most governments across the country. In California, I think perhaps they seem some of the largest, largely because we don't really have the tax alternatives to pay for those liabilities as, you know, other states do across the country. So we will make between fiscal year, the current fiscal year, stepping up next year actually, and 2026, an additional amount of $110 million in payments. And those payments are increasing and then they begin to decrease and return to pre-2022 levels in fiscal year 36. But beginning next year, you know, some of these payment range, these payments range from an additional two and a half million all the way up to almost 13 million. Next slide, please. This is a slide we saw in July. And solving this or at least mitigating some of this is consequential to the city's financial well-being. The column to the far right, those are the summary of payments over the next 14 years, totaling $110.8 million. That is above the baseline that we would have paid in the current fiscal year. So if you consider where we are budgetarily today and just consider which each of the other additional costs we have, in addition to the unfunded liability, we might conclude that do nothing may not be an option or it would be certainly a difficult option. Next slide, please. The next slide. We captured this only because, you know, there was a discussion back in 2012 talking about the challenges for the unfunded liability. And they certainly pale based, you know, relative to what we're talking about today. But even back then, it was a challenge. And, you know, as the article, as just a short blurb says, you know, there was a million dollar increase one year in 2012 to be exact and soaring costs of an unfunded liability to $127 million. We'll see some of the reasons and for the concerns and the corresponding reforms that then followed in 2013 that were proposed by the state. Next slide, please. So here are some of the precipitating events. Somewhere in the late, you know, just a, you know, as an anecdote, somewhere in the late 1990s, I think I did a $400 million pension financing for the city of Auckland. And it wasn't long after that when return started soaring as partly because people were putting additional assets into plans and then pensions became overfunded and what retirement systems did as a result was given hands to tenants, to benefits. Some of these you will see here. Although not the full amount, you know, with increasing investments during that period, you know, pension, those pension assets really incentivized people to do just that, but not really anticipating that the reverse might happen in an economic downturn. So the same thing occurred in many jurisdictions, not just the city of Santa Rosa and we know, you know, really how that ended very abruptly in 2008, 2009. And so I would argue and I've maintained and I think most of us that have spent our time, if we've done consulting and governments, you know, the financial crisis, governments really never fully recovered. There were really structural financial differences between that pre-economic circumstance and the economic circumstances we have now faced, not only even in governments but in other businesses as well. And so one of the things that we saw going forward, you know, a lot of the pre-financial crisis, we were busy financing projects and doing, you know, infrastructure. You know, post that people, it's been much slower and people are spending more time and concerns on what I would call more operational and strategic urgencies. Next slide, please. So in 2013, reforms were proposed that the city had to, not only the city of Santa Rosa but, you know, cities across California to implement certain changes. So specific to the controls that went into effect or reform that took effect in 2013, you know, increased contributions for public safety. You can see the increased amounts from 9 to 12 for police, fire increased, you know, 150 basis points, reduced formula for new hires after January 1, 2013. Miscellaneous also took reductions 3% at 60 to 2% at 62. Police and fire also did the same 3% at 50 to 2.7% at 57. And then what was also implemented was a three-year average versus single highest final year compensation. These are reforms that were specific to the city of Santa Rosa in 2013. Next slide, please. Someone had asked for a comparative chart and we attempted to do it here in each of the three plans, you know, what it meant for classic, which is, you know, the employees pre-2013 and then PEPRA and new employees after that date and some of the comparisons between miscellaneous, safety and police. And I think a lot of what I just said has been summarized here with a little bit of additional information as to highest year caps and the like. These benefits that are attributable to classic employees are not alterable under the California rule. CalPERS does not break out PEPRA versus classic employees. However, much of the UAL, probably less than 1%, is related to a UAL for PEPRA. Next slide, please. Specific to the city's pension plans. You'll see, I think it's the next slide where we talk about what changed from last year to this year. There will be a change in the unfunded liability again. But these are the contributory variables. Changes and benefit levels. Increased employer contributions. Changes and assumptions are a big one, demographics, age, number of employees, retirement age, mortality rates, compensation changes, the number of retirees and beneficiaries, and investment returns, both gains and losses. Next slide, please. So back in July, you did see the UAL or the unfunded liability. This is a high cost debt that we have with CalPERS. Think of it as a past due loan. Miscellaneous police and fire on a combined basis. The pension funds are together represent about 70% funding in the liability calculation that was just done for fiscal year ending July 2020. That, you know, the liability of itself went up, but so did the market value of assets. And overall, the funding of the respective systems remains unchanged. But there is a change and it's roughly about, you know, $26 million higher than it was last year. One other comment I'd like to make, you know, actually a return, investment returns, which is a big factor impacting funding. For 2020, it was 4.7% versus the actual area rate, or the discount rate, you know, as I call the hurdle rate. So it underperformed performance. On the other side of that, we also know how FY21 performed. It was a very good year. And while we haven't seen the impact of that, returns then were about 21%. Chances are we're not going to see the results of that until next year. One corresponding event that is likely to happen is that CalPERS is expected to lower its UAL rate from 7%. We don't know if it's going to be at 6.8% or at 6.5%. But that's the discussion given the returns that we've had. But the city will also see benefits as a result of 20% plus returns. Next slide, please. This is just a history of performance. You can see the 4.7% performance in fiscal year 20. You can see the impact of FY21 returns. And the discount rate remains unchanged until such time as there's a formal announcement about it. Next slide, please. So this is the shape, the one within the red circle, that we showed on the first page just in different colors. This comprises the fire, police, and miscellaneous, the proportions of the payments that will be made to CalPERS. We share this back in July and just a reminder, this is really the problem we are attempting to solve here. This specifically. Next slide, please. I would say that the scale of the problem requires a scale of solution. And, you know, that's one of the reasons so many issuers in California in particular, because there are no other choices at hand, attempt to solve the POB issue or the unfunded liability issue with pension bonds. Yes, as part of the strategy, I will recommend that. But I think more consequentially is that strategic application of the funds is also required to perhaps get the most benefit out of using pension bonds. So pension bonds tend to work across the entire spectrum. No, we're not going to suggest the city do a $425 million financing. We don't think that would be prudent. It will be some portion of that, probably likely to be $200 million. If we've got a $110 million problem with CalPERS, it will require grossing up to some degree to be able to solve it. So pension bonds work across the system, but there are other tools that we attempt to use. So I have listed here, and I know we talked about it, and it says used to buy down portions of debt. So a tax exempt exchange where, you know, if we had a capital, they require participation of non-general fund sources of monies. So if we had a capital program that we plan to finance on a tax exempt basis, which is a cheaper cost of capital than taxable bonds, which pension obligation bonds require, we would do an exchange for those costs of capital and you'd finance the capital projects at a much lower rate and then use the cash to buy down the unfunded liability and that would save us obviously issuing pension bonds. Reserves and surplus one-time monies, you know, one of the questions that had been asked was, you know, does $10 million make sense? And yes, it would have, and I think I include a chart on that, because the goal will be to get rid of our most costliest portion of debt first. Next slide, please. So I did mention that pension bonds would be part of our strategy. The first step in the process, however, is to have it validated in court. And what that means is that we would, you know, it falls under the constitutional debt limit, meaning it doesn't require voter approval. The debt, I think, or the debt we're talking about is a CalPERS unfunded liability which exists. And so the financing is termed a refinancing. In today's environment, we can finance that liability at perhaps less than 3.5%, rather than paying the CalPERS discount rate, which it still remains at 7%. Bond counsel, given the exception to the constitutional debt limit, requires that they be validated in Superior Court. The filing for such validation is probably $50,000, which would be reimbursable, were the city to issue bonds at some date in the future. During the validation period, that's usually when we would take the time to deliver, you know, what the recommended plan of finance would be, and to do other documentation, select the team, and return to counsel. But any approval ahead of the validation process requires counsel approval. Any additional step post-validation also requires that we return to the city council. The validation action typically requires about 180 to 210 days plus a 30-day date of appeal. Next slide, please. This is the economics of a pension obligation bond. It's just general, not specific to the city of Santa Rosa. So if we assume the borrowing rate, our borrowing rate of 3.5%, which is less than, which is half of the CalPERS discount rate. So it doesn't matter the size. Pension bonds all work the same way. What varies are scale and just leverage. So the word we use is the correct word is, you've heard the term arbitrage, meaning you're borrowing in one market or taking advantage of rates in one market and expecting to benefit in another market. That other market being a deposit into CalPERS at a rate of 7% or, you know, the discount rate. So in an ideal circumstance, the best returns, the best performance of pension bonds is to be able, one, to exceed funding status improved when we're able to invest at higher than the CalPERS rate. We also benefit when we invest at higher than the rate at which we've borrowed. Where it really doesn't work is if we should have, is if CalPERS returns are lower than the 3.5% rate at which we borrow, because then it just compounds the borrowing problem. So all POBs work this way. And if people are puzzled, I'm happy to go this slide over again. But the goal would be certainly to exceed our borrowing rate, but better yet to also exceed the CalPERS borrowing rate, which currently is 7%. You know, if this were this year, we would have done really well as our returns will show the year worked out exceedingly well. Next slide, please. So over the past four years, there were 55 pension bonds done in California exceeding 6 billion. There are another 12 deals that we know about that are totaling about 3 billion. Some of those are pretty sizable deals, such as the city of San Jose. But the reason, you know, what's really fueling that issuance is that we're really in a very low interest rate environment. And there hasn't really been any upward rate momentum as yet. There are bigger spreads, which is what we call them between the low rate at which we can borrow and the rate of return at CalPERS. I'm using an estimated rate of 3.5%. It's actually still in the twos that people can still borrow in the high twos. But we're using, for just sake of argument, 3.5%. We've learned a lot of lessons made from the earlier days of pension bond financings. We'll even touch on one of those later. And then I think it's the combined effects of COVID, general economic disruption. But the scale of the problem, which I talked about at the beginning of the presentation, requires really a scale of response. And that's the borrowing. What hurts pension bonds? You know, we want pension bonds to perform the minute you put them into the portfolio. If it's adverse to that, it really hurts. It doesn't mean we can't recover, but it does hurt. So, you know, it just becomes a drag on the overall issue. Poorly structured bonds, such like interest only bonds, which we're not going to propose, you know, is a challenge for other back loaded debt structures. The goal is to sort of do it evenly, you know, make equal investments and don't let's not get fancy with the structures because that complicates, you know, the risks. Next slide, please. So one, we benefit just by adding assets into the system. I think you'll also see evidence of that later in the presentation and what, you know, how does that compound? So savings as a result of lower debt service payments to bond holders versus the requirements to make pension contribution payments to helpers, you know, to reduce the UAL that gives us really budgetary savings. It also gives us cash flow savings. Market timing as I talked about matters early on in the program would help a lot. I think we can build up some surplus that helps to sort of inoculate against future market of clients. And obviously the time value of money because as our investments accelerates, we increase the compounding effect of earnings in CalPERS. Next slide, please. What hurts if the pension plan earns less over the life of the program than the interest paid on the bonds. That was that first component that you saw we issue at three and a half and the pension plan returns turns to that really hurts because it compounds the problem. Market timing also impacts performance, you know, poor performance earlier on in the program hurts. But if it's also less than CalPERS discount, you know, or and less than the bond, it is costly. You know, from a credit risk perspective, you know, the idea is that from they want us to have a comprehensive program. Rating agencies, if we're just issuing bonds that in and of itself gives them concerns. And similarly, complex structures that are viewed as budgetary mechanisms are considered to be current credit negatives. So the goal is to put together a comprehensive program that's constructive to not only the program itself, but also longer term financially. Next slide, please. As I mentioned earlier, our intent is not to issue 100%. It's probably going to be 50% or something less. Dollar cost average into the market. I think we all know what that terms means, but what that term means, but investing in a variety of environments and we can do that in more ways than one also help. You know, when we borrow matters a lot. And the structures we use also matters a lot. The issue on the time is right, you know, if we prepared financing documents and at the conclusion of the validation period interest rates were at 4%. I would probably say, let's wait, let's see what interest rates do. I think our bogie is 3.5%. But as I mentioned, barring rates are even quite a bit less than 3.5% today. Next slide, please. So as with all financial strategies, plans, diverse strategies like I think I touched on this before allocation between funds, non general fund sources. We talked about tax exchanges, pension obligation bonds, uses of reserves and one time monies. They all matter and they all matter from a credit perspective and how what the rating agencies are likely to give us as a credit rating. Next section, if we can go there, please. Here is a summary of considerations that I think would be valuable, both from a financial as well, including pension and budgetarily. Next slide, please. I'm going to put this in here because I know it's difficult to think about a $425 million challenge today and think about whether $10 million matters or it doesn't. It actually does and quite a bit. And I go back to the question that was asked before about what would happen if the city made a $10 million investment. Small amount of money. I talked about from a strategic standpoint, you want to take out your high cost debt first. That doesn't always get us the best budgetary benefit. So what we did was we compared, remember I use the word basis, short base, those means the short term loans, the front end of the curve, this entire curve, the ones in orange. And then we looked at longer term loans. It was a single longer term loan that we looked at what would happen if we use a $10 million to discreetly remove that from the loan, the overall CalPERS loan. So the shorter ones got us the biggest budgetary benefit, the actual savings year over year, a million and a half, creeping down to $149,000. And over but together the financial benefit was $13.6 million. The one, the most expensive part of all those loans, one single loan that we took out, you know, we got substantially budget less budgetary benefits. They escalated narrow because it's your highest cost debt, but on a financial basis, it really got us the benefit of about $23 million. So that's, you know, as you think about it, it doesn't necessarily take a whole lot to make a little bit to make a valuable difference in the liability. Next slide, please. So pension strategies across the country are very different. In California, it's bonds first, because I think we have, you know, cities have a larger problem, but we have limited tax alternatives. Thus we go to bonds because we don't have other options. So, but just looking at six places, debt financing, altered service delivery in California, Houston did more modern, they buffered earnings. So CalPERS is very volatile. What Houston said is, look, we're going to set aside X amount per year to deal with volatility in our portfolio. Voter reforms in San Diego, pension renegotiations in many communities, again, further east than where we are, increased pension contributions, wage freezes, pension caps done, you know, in Hartford, Connecticut, and upward revenue adjustments prioritized for pension payments. So that's, you know, for those where they're, you know, that have flexibility to make those adjustments to tax basis. Next slide, please. So I found it helpful to frame, I thought, what might be goals for the system overall, which is obviously to ensure sustainability for people to who we promised that the funding is there and that they will receive as planned. I think another goal is to reduce the annual burden of those climbing costs for the city. Budgetarily, that's going to hurt over the next 14 years. I think if we can minimize or eliminate the rising contributions during that triangle we talked about, that would go a long way towards relieving that budgetary, as well as cash flow pressure and recycling savings. So we'll show an example of recycled savings, but recycled savings just means that by savings you get. So if we saved money budgetarily and, you know, we amended our fund balance policies to say we'll commit to X. If we're able to put that back into the system, I think it will pay off in benefit over the longer term. Next slide, please. So here are a summary of considerations, as I call them, and actions. Building fund assets by financing, and I'm talking about CalPERS specifically, by financing a portion of the UAL. The benefit of that is both budgetary and financial considerations. And that will weigh into the decision of how much we, to the extent we issue or how much we decide to issue. There's a certain cadence to financial success, I believe, and a comprehensive approach is likely one that takes into consideration cash investments, consistent budgetary funding and recycling of savings. We could establish a pension funding policy. I know I've mentioned that before, as a subset of our general fund policy, and to integrate if we wished or thought it would be helpful, an alternative to what I would call smoothing of the volatility. Establish a 115 trust if the council wanted to segregate funds from general fund policy into account of funded liability policy. I would suggest that we establish a cross-section employee working group to come up with, devise and propose some moderate, you know, pension reform strategies, which is a subset of budget strategies that people have been, we've begun to talk about with employee, or we're beginning to talk about. And then continue to take, so you may or may not know this, we take a 3% discount if we prepay our unfunded liability every year, which we do. It's 3%. That's not a given. It depends on the interest rate environment because we'll have foregone interest earnings. And with that something the city already does and we should continue to do it. Next slide, please. I would recommend that we begin the validation process, and which would require us to return to city council for approval of the legal documents that we are required to file in court. And with council approval, initiate the validation action, further develop during that period and finance, finalize a plan of finance for potential POB issuance. That would still require we return to the long-term planning and financial audit committee and provide a preliminary plan of finance. And with the judgment issued, which is what happens at the end of the validation process, we would return to council for full transaction approval if market conditions were so that, you know, 12 actions would be the summary of recommendations. Next slide, please. Next slide, please. These are the risks. I really think most of these have been mitigated just with time, lessons learned and transactions have evolved. You know, it's just progress. And I think most issuers who are doing pension financings are pretty much doing straight vanilla financings. No gimmicks, no other hard to solve issues. But timing is everything. And I think that should factor in the decision as a risk mitigation strategy. Next slide, please. The rest of the presentation relates to this component of presentation relates to analyses of the pension bonds that the city of Santa Rosa did back in 2003 as well as in 2013. So what I would say is the city does have a history with pension bonds. These two bonds were for very different purposes. However, the first series, which was the O3 was intended to fund a $50 million liability. That was an existing UAL. They did it with part variable rate, $20 million plus and $30 million in fixed rate. You know, one of the risks that we talked about was variable rate risks. And it's not the variable rate that's the risk. It's the fact that when you issue variable rate, those bonds are redeemable every seven days or every 28 days, which means that you also need a letter of credit to do that issuance and letters of credit and the associated banks move in and out of the market. So they're not always a constant. That seems to have been what happened. And then so those bonds were then refinanced in 2013 and used for a variety of, well, variable rate, they had to redeem all the bonds. And so they paid down the principal on the variable rate, use a portion to make that service funds. So very different purposes for why those bonds were issued. Next slide, please. I would admit that this is a very complex analysis to do. I didn't do it. I had one of the consultants do it, but because you're really looking at any number of variables. And to go back and look at a debt that's 20 years old, what does that look like and how do we try to construct it? But here are just some fact patterns. Standard refinancing is one of the things we looked at. What are the fixed UAL payments? What is the loan? What are those fixed payments? The existing liability on the balance sheet, we didn't report that back in 2003. The budgetary savings proceeds go to CalPERS at the time of issuance. And then the things that we talk about that really challenge or make or break the financing, market timing, when it was done. You know, during that period of time, the city was able to earn some really beneficial returns early on in the program, which really helped. So next slide, please. So the analysis is focused solely on the 2003s because the 2013s were not funding purposes. That was purely a refinancing of the 2003s. Here are the fact patterns issued at 485. The CalPERS discount rate at that time was seven and three quarters. UAL savings. Now, what the city took upfront was 24.2 million or not upfront, actually, the black. Throughout the life of the bonds, those were budgetary and cash flow savings. And I just got folded in as a part of the budget. The two white boxes at the front are interest only payments rather than interest and principal payments there. And so the question to be asked is, was the city better off having issue pension obligation bonds in 2003? Next slide, please. I think the answer is generally yes. You got a benefit of $24.5 million as I mentioned in present value savings or they're not present value across the amortization. They weren't taken upfront. They were spread throughout the life of the bonds. The alternative question that we asked is what would have happened if those savings had been recycled? That's what we mean. Reinvested in CalPERS. And given what CalPERS returned during those periods, if that program were done throughout the entirety of the program, there perhaps would have been an additional $31 million benefit. I'm not particularly fond of revisiting financings that were done. I think people do them at the time for certain reasons and needs. And I think the city did and certainly benefited from it on the 2003s. So with that, and the last slide on the presentation is just a summary or the math of the analyses. And with that, I will conclude my remarks and take questions. All right, thank you so much. I'll start with council members at the days. Are there any questions? Council members on Zoom? All right, I'm not seeing any questions from council members. We'll go to our public comment on the study session. If you're interested in providing comment, go ahead and either hit the raise hand feature on your Zoom or it looks like we have one card for in the chambers. Thank you, Mr. DeWitt. Hello. May I take this mask off because I'm so far away from folks? We're asking folks to keep their masks on while they're in the chambers. All right. My name is DeWitt. I'm from Roseland. And I remember some of these discussions about the bonds almost 20 years ago in 2003. I'm surprised none of you council members asked questions today because this is a very complex topic. And I don't think you're going to get all the information you need in just one or two study sessions. I think it's really important that we remember back in the day of the turn of the century. Big concerns were that we had such a large unfunded pension liability that's still there and still growing in many ways. And I am a believer that renegotiations of the pension project should be undertaken. And there should perhaps be the model that Hartford Connecticut follows. And you might even go for those freezes. The idea of this trust that the IRS allows the approach of setting things up with them could be quite helpful to you. IRS 115 trust it was discussed. But you didn't discuss it much. So you really need to look into these things because the possibility of the liabilities growing is real. We may have an even worse economy in the next couple of years due to what happened with the pandemic. One of the things that's of real interest to a number of people is going back to these people who we've made millionaires with their pension and haven't been working for years and are still grabbing down lots of money. This is something that you don't owe them that. You can say, oh, well, we signed something. It's an obligation. And I think that if you have any of these working groups, you should make sure to include the taxpayers. So now can I taxpayer association would have just as good a voice as just the employees. This is really important. You've got people in the county does also who essentially made millions of dollars working for the city pushing papers, retire early and are set for life. Can live 30 40 years more maybe. And one of the prime examples I like firemen. I like police officers. I like they do well. I know some of them grew up with some of them who retired in their fifties and are doing really well now. Millionaires based on pension. This is not something that you can do. Millionaires based on pension. This is not something that the taxpayers should be responsible for. In the private sector, the market rate, they're taking pensions out. They're basically setting it up so it's like, hey, it's a right to work situation. Be glad you got the job. This is what you got. This is America. It's a capitalist country. It's free market situation. Taxpayers have the right to be labored. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Duit. I see no other hands, so I'll bring it back to council members. Jan, I'll start with that question that we just got from the public. The comment was made that you don't owe the people what was negotiated prior. Can you talk about the legal landscape around pensions in California? Do we owe people what was previously negotiated? You'll recall the slide where I talked about pension reforms and referred to, you know, classic employees, those benefits. And I believe it's been tested in the courts as recently. I want to say Stockton when it went through its bankruptcy. I may be wrong, but yes, those are commitments. And yes, the city is legally responsible. You know, people came to work for a variety of reasons. But certain promises were made. And so, yes, those benefits are not all terrible. I appreciate that. I just want to make sure we're really clear because I hear this a lot from folks in the public. The current legal landscape in California says that we cannot reduce the benefits or the pay that was negotiated by previous employees. Well, prior to 2012 or 2013, those benefits are not all terrible. You can do something going forward, but those are not all terrible. And yes, I think if you tested it in court, you would find that the city has an obligation to pay. Great. Thank you. Councilor, are there any other questions? All right, Jan, can you remind us what direction you're looking for from Council today? So the items one through 12 are a variety of strategies. I think that work as a cohesive pursuit for addressing the long. This is no quick plan. This is over time and it requires patience and it requires commitment. I'm not going to say any of this is easy. And so, you know, they're different strategies. They're not one size fit all. And I think all of these we could do and implement perhaps over the next year, the next two. And I would recommend that we adopt them. We're writing a general fund or the fund balance policy or modifying it. You know, it's easy enough for us to add many cities in California have adopted a pension funding policy. It doesn't have to be a lot. It could be as simple as a number a year, a million, half a million, some number that becomes an expense item like other expenses are that we spend money on, but that we are committed to. So I would recommend that, yeah, that you direct us to implement as much of these as we can, including the validation process and come back to Council at that time before beginning the validation process and then and go through that process. You have a whole nother bite at that apple. When the validation when the summary judgment is issued, and you see a plan of finance and will be communicating in between then. And what that looks like and how much that might look like to make any recent resolution to the challenge. Okay, I'll start with council members on zoom council member Sawyer. Thank you, Mayor. Well, I am of a mind to leave future councils with a path. And I'm looking at this path, and it was clearly articulated that it is not an easy one, but it requires commitment. It's a constant commitment on an annual basis with our or even even more frequent than that in our budget conversations. So, I would be looking to move forward with the validation process. And then we evaluate that after the, if the conditions still warrant moving forward with a POB, and get on a path to giving a gift of councils, decades from now, the gift of a budget. It allows them to not have this dark cloud hanging over their heads, the way it has hung over our heads for many, many years. So I need to listen and want to listen to my subject matter expert and start the process. There will potential will hopefully have the right formula to allow councils in the future to not again to not have this really major and at times devastating cloud hanging over their heads. I'm willing to make the current sacrifices and take responsibility for those in the for the for the good of our organization and the good of our city. Council Member Fleming. I concur with Council Member Sawyer. I, however, I would be far a little bit less than truthful if I didn't admit that this process gives me some anxiety in terms of the downside risks. However, I think if we don't do something, you know, I was talking with the constituent last week and he said, I said to him, you know, one of the issues is that if we don't address this, you know, we're not going to be able to pay roads to get paved for as many parks. He's like, well, why are you making threats, you know, and I said, we're not, it's not a threat. It's happening currently that we're not paying for every street to get paved or every park to get finished that we would like to have and we simply can't continue on like this. It's the reality now. So I'm eager to lessen the pain and shorten the duration that we suffer in the city and I'm anxious but willing to take on that risk. Thank you, Council Member, Council Member Spudhelm. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Jan, I have one question. A, I'm very supportive of this 12-step methodology, but step one, the whole, how much issue? How and when would we be having that discussion? Council Member, if I can get you to, I had a hard time hearing how much what? So it's the first step, so I'm very supportive and I'm, thank you for the comprehensive presentation, but the second paragraph, both budgetary and financial considerations weighing decision regarding how much to issue? When do we have that discussion? Because that's the part, that's to me, that seems like the first part of the apple. You know, I probably could have a preliminary discussion when we come back to initiate documents because we will have at that point, like a recommendation of not to exceed amount. I think we'll have it as early as then. Okay. And would that first go before the long range financial planning and audit subcommittee or directly to council? Yeah. Well, once the, so that go, no, so that would go directly to the city council because it's just, it's the validation you're authorizing. We could in between, as we work through a plan of finance, come back to the long range planning committee when we firm that up. But in any event, we have to return even post validation, but there are any number of steps we could take in between to say, here's what we're looking at. Is this comfortable, you know, perhaps in month two down the road? Yeah, it's not going to be hard for us to do that. We'll have a really good idea, frankly, during the validation process, or at least, yeah, I'll have a comfortable idea of where we might be thinking about heading. Okay. And how complicated is setting up the establishment of the RS 115 trust because I really like that. It's easy. It's easy. PFM will do it. Thank you so much for this. I appreciate this process and keeping it in front of us because as my colleagues have said, this is challenging. But we do have this is the first time I've seen a comprehensive strategy actually do something about a plan of action. So I really appreciate this information. Thanks. Vice mayor. Thank you for the presentation for the strategy and thank you for putting it in terms that I think I can follow and hopefully the public can follow. I definitely like it. I like that we have a plan. I can stand behind it. My hope is that we can stick with it and that if we start to see or when we start to see savings and we're not paying increased payments that we definitely stick to the plan and that we don't find ways to spend the money that we see saved on other other expenses. So that would be my only concern and I also do have some anxiety about this whole process. Thank you. So I'm reading some of the emails that I've received from the public about their concerns regarding the pension obligation. Bonds in me not being as first in that subject. So thank you. And I'm going to agree with the comments from my colleagues. Thank you. So in particular one correspondence that I think all of us received from somebody who amounted this to a bet. And it does seem like the bet that the council would be making is that the average rate of return for the lifetime of the pension obligation bond would be over the three and a half percent that we expect or that we see which is the percentage that you expect to have on the bond. I think that we can continue to talk about whether that's a good bet. I think that there's people who make predictions about what the market is going to do every single day who are wrong. And I think what we can provide is the best guess and the best path moving forward for our community. And as you said, get the ball rolling so that we can have the conversation about actual issuance down the road. What I'm also very aware of is that this council and not all of the council members who are currently on. But since I've been on has gone to the public and has asked them to reauthorize a tax measure before. And part of that was a promise from this city that we would take steps to try to address our unfunded liability. And we said to the public, give us a runway where we know that we have pensions that are crowding out our services. Give us a runway and we'll put forward a plan on how we're going to not just meet our obligations, but hopefully allow that tax measure to expire ultimately as well. This to me is part of keeping that promise by coming back with a plan, a multi step plan that we can say to the public. We understand that there's risk, but we think that it's a calculated risk that puts us in the best position long term for this city. As you said, Jan, doing nothing is going to cost over $110 million to this city. So good work to you and your team. We really appreciate it. I know we've seen this a couple of times. I know we'll continue to see that the long term finance committee, but I think you have unanimous direction from the council on this. Thank you, council members. Council, it's four o'clock, so we'll move into our regular council agenda. If you need to take a quick break, go ahead, but I'm going to just keep things moving. Madam City Clerk, do we need to take a roll call vote to establish quorum for this since we're continuing to move? No, you don't because we've not taken a break. Excellent. Madam City Attorney, do you want to report out from our closed session? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The council met in closed session this afternoon on item 2.1, which concerns labor negotiations. The council heard from the negotiators and gave direction to them. Thank you. Right. I'll go ahead and pause and see if there's any public comment on the city attorney's report out from closed session. And seeing none, both in the chambers on Zoom, we'll continue to keep moving forward. Go on to item number six. That's our proclamation. Yes. Good afternoon, Mayor and Vice Mayor and council members. We have one proclamation today for the Pollution Prevention Week and Creek Week. And Craig Kitty Robinson from our Center for the Water Department will be accepting that proclamation. Excellent. I'm looking to see. I don't think I have any council member that was assigned to this. So I'll look over to my right and see if council member Schwedhelm can please read the proclamation. Absolutely, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for the opportunity. So read this proclamation. Whereas throughout the United States, the week starting on the third Monday of September is recognized as national pollution. Pollution Prevention Week. And whereas throughout much of California, including the Russian River watershed, cities, counties and other stewardship organizations are recognized in the fourth week of September as Creek Week. And whereas our pollution prevention practices are intrinsically linked to the health of our watershed lands and waterways. And whereas the city of Santa Rosa supports programs to reduce pollution, improve the environmental quality of our watershed and provide our communities with the knowledge to be effective stewards of the Russian River watershed lands and waterways. And whereas the nearly 1500 square miles of lands, 238 creeks and approximately 350,000 residents of the Russian River watershed are connected and mutually support each other making the Russian River along with its tributaries and associated features important resources to the people of Santa Rosa, Los Noma and Mendocino counties. And whereas pollution in the form of trash and debris, chemicals from industry in everyday living and sediment from construction in many land uses and activities all have the potential to degrade the quality of life and the quality of resources within the Russian River watershed. And whereas the city of Santa Rosa through our storm water management program strives to protect our lands and waterways through ongoing pollution prevention outreach which aims to raise awareness of the harmful effects of ocean water. of the harmful effects of pollutants to our natural systems. Now, therefore be it resolved that Chris Rogers, Mayor of the City of Santa Rosa on behalf of the entire City Council, ask all members of our community to support efforts to protect and enrich our watershed health by participating in the many Pollution Prevention Week, Creek Week activities, and to take active steps to reduce pollution and care for our environment throughout the year and do hereby proclaim the week of September 19th through the 24th, 2021, and the week of September 18th through the 25th, 2021 as Pollution Prevention Week and Creek Week. Thank you so much, Council Member. I'll give Katie Robinson a chance to un... There we go. Katie, if you want to say a few words. Absolutely. Thank you, Council Member Schwedhelm. For over a decade, Creek Week has offered fun educational events and volunteer Creek cleanups. This year, we are encouraging citizens to join in the Creek Week festivities in their local neighborhoods and from the comfort of their homes. By visiting srcity.org slash Creek Week, citizens can learn how they can keep their local creeks clean and find fun and engaging activities to participate in, such as household led neighborhood creek cleanups, an online cleanup competition, a virtual Santa Rosa Creek tour, printable kids scavenger hunts, a Creek Week webinar, downloadable creek trail maps, and much more. I'd like to thank you guys for your time and I hope you'll visit srcity.org slash Creek Week to see how you can get involved. Thank you. Thank you so much, Katie. We'll go to public comment on this item. Item number six are proclamations. We'll start here in the chambers with Duane DeWitt. Thank you, sir. My name is Duane DeWitt. I'm from Roseland. This is a wonderful proclamation over in Roseland for over 20 years. We've been doing creek cleanups along the Roseland Creek. It's really an important thing to keep in mind right now during these difficult economic times with many people living outside, they're choosing creeks as places to stay. And part of this pollution effort to prevent it talks about everyday living. One of the unfortunate things that's happening at Roseland Creek and perhaps at other creeks I thought at Doyle Park it happened for a while is the people who are staying in the creeks are leaving human waste, not just solid waste but the things that humans do, urine and defecation. It goes out into the Russian River watershed. We haven't had rain for a while so we've been blessed in that one sense that a drought is actually keeping pollution from reaching the Russian River watershed below Roseland Creek. I'm really so glad you're doing this because also today at the Board of Supervisors, Grant Davis from the Sonoma County Water Agency was there to talk about another matter and he and I talked about the idea that's been talked of for decades for the city to partner with the water agency now called Sonoma Water, which owns a piece of land. Right at McMinn Avenue along Roseland Creek and then it goes to the west where the city now has bought land. So you'd hope there would be some sort of a collaborative effort like this proclamation talks about, working with Sonoma Water and that land on Roseland Creek. Now's the time that you can do it. This excellent proclamation is going to be an impetus for our local neighbors out there in Roseland to get back out there again and do some things now that COVID is lifting. There had been a concern due to the fact that some of those folks I mentioned earlier were living in the creek area and out in our neighborhood. People weren't going out there to do the cleanups we used to do. They were not feeling safe. So I'm hoping that this proclamation which I'm gonna send out to all the people that I know in our groups is going to be that stimulus to bring folks back out there to do the good work that they've done on pollution prevention in the Roseland Creek watershed which is part of the Russian River watershed and the Creek Week activities which Alistair Blythus has helped us with so much in the past. A really good man doing really good things and we look forward to working with him again and I won't try to take any extra seconds up there, Mayor. I see you looking at that clock like, whoa, baby, it stopped for a moment. I will stop on time. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it, Mr. DeWitt. Just wanna make sure we're fair to everybody. Move on then, Council. The item number seven, that's our staff briefings. Mr. Assistant City Manager, go ahead and take it away. Yes, thank you. We have two staff briefings today. The first we'll talk about COVID updates. On Thursday, September 9th, President Biden provided vaccine requirements as part of his path out of the pandemic action plan which covers the following groups. All federal workers and contractors, healthcare workers in hospitals, clinics and other facilities that accept Medicare and Medicaid payments must get vaccinated. Employees have headstart early childhood education and other federal education programs. Private employers with 100 or more workers will have to require their employees to be vaccinated or tested weekly. The requirements for private employers are similar to the executive order issued by Governor Newsom for California State employees, healthcare workers and school district workers and to the policy implemented for Santa Rosa City employees. The President's plan also requires employers to provide paid time off for vaccination. The White House estimates that this action will impact over 80 million workers. Additionally, the President's plan urges all governors to mandate vaccinations for school district employees at the state level. And stadiums, concert halls and other large venues across the country are urged to require proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID test. Our second staff briefing is the community empowerment plan update. Magali Teyes, our deputy director of community engagement will provide that update. Good afternoon, Mayor Rogers, Vice Mayor Rogers, members of the council. Magali Teyes here providing the community empowerment plan update starting with the Multicultural Roots project. Our team is partnering with the Museum of Sonoma County to feature the Multicultural Roots project in the museums. The other Los Muertos event, the exhibit will run from October 16th to November 7th. We will have an exhibit with the larger event to highlight community leaders who are no longer with us. And we'd like to encourage community members to visit the Multicultural Roots project engagement page on Let's Connect SR to nominate a community leader, pastor, present who you'd like to see highlighted. Regarding the Mary Lou Lowrider patrol car, hydraulics have been installed, body work and first round of paint are complete. The next steps is a pin striping art which will be done by artists from the Sonoma County Lowrider Council. And our team will also be holding a meeting with members of the Lowrider Council to discuss next steps. We're also working with the city communications team on a plan for keeping the community updated on the project through our different mediums. In terms of the resolution, declaring racism as a public health crisis, a draft resolution has been complete and we'll be meeting with C collaborative to review the draft and determine the next steps to make sure it's in line with our previous work as well as the community empowerment plan. We're working with a graduate intern from University of San Francisco to develop an evaluation plan for the recommended activities and the resolution. We have a partnership. We're very excited to have a partnership with Latino service providers youth promotores. So we are going to be partnering with their pro promotores program. So our office will be receiving three pro promotores and a small team, which will be a small team of youth to help us with the creation of the youth citizens guidebook and associated trainings and to help create a sub project within the multicultural roots project to capture the voices of BIPOC from select neighborhoods throughout Santa Rosa and to capture ideas around cultural identity using an ethnographic approach to storytelling. And that is the end of my report. Thank you. Thank you so much, director. I'll go ahead and see if there are any questions from council on our staff briefings for today. Great, seeing none. I'll see if there's any public comment. Seeing none, we'll keep moving. Thank you so much, director. We'll move on to city manager and city attorney reports. I'm gonna start with the city attorney tonight. Thank you again, Mr. Mayor. I'm here today to report on our settlements and our active litigation. I actually have two settlements to report on. The first is listed in our written report, which is the matter of Stamey versus city of Santa Rosa. That lawsuit arose out of some injuries that were incurred in last year's protests. The complaint alleged civil rights violations and the parties didn't negotiate and we reached a settlement. The settlement amount was $105,000. And we did report out on that case previously. But I also wanna report that the settlement reached a settlement agreement just in the last few days with the Cal OSHA with respect to the four citations that Cal OSHA issued in September, 2020. They issued it in connection with COVID-19 and other health and safety violations, alleged violations, I should say. So the citations, the four citations stemmed from the Cal OSHA investigation following the tragic death of Santa Rosa police detective Mary Lou Armour from a COVID-19 related cause. The four, again, the Cal OSHA initially issued four citations and sought $32,000 in penalties. The matter has been resolved and I'll just walk through those four citations very quickly. The first citation was a regulatory offense related to record keeping. That citation was defined was reduced from $5,000 to $3,000. Two citations that related to the management of employees with COVID symptoms were combined into one and it was lowered from a citation to a notice in lieu of citation, which Cal OSHA defines as not having had any direct relationship to the health or safety of employees. And in those two instances, Cal OSHA agreed to waive all penalties. And I will note with respect to that, Mary Lou Armour's death came very, very early in the pandemic in middle late March, when before health orders had been issued and we were all new to the pandemic and working through it. But we did take all appropriate steps at that time and Cal OSHA ended up agreeing, issuing the notice in lieu of citation and waiving all penalties. The final citation was for a violation of the police department's own fit testing procedure, which outlines the procedures for ensuring that individual respiratory safety equipment fits appropriately. The infection, as soon as we learned it of it, in fact, before Cal OSHA even issued any citations, we did correct and brought our team into full compliance with our procedures as written. Cal OSHA has reduced the fine by 50%. Originally it was gonna be 13,500 and it was reduced to $6,750. So in total, under that settlement, Santa Rosa will pay $9,750 in adjusted penalties. We are releasing, again, that just got finally resolved over the last few days, and the Cal OSHA order is being circulated now. It has been signed and is being circulated. So those are the two settlements that I wanted to report out. And then I'll just mention quickly as to ongoing litigation. We have five, there's not a lot of change from last month, but just to run through it, we have five receivership cases underway. We have 13 general litigation matters and those range from a couple of breach of contract cases, CEQA lawsuits, Public Records Act claims, civil rights claims, Prop 218 case, case that regarding prevailing wages and a number of other claims in that group. We have seven active personal injury cases currently being litigated, and we have three cases that have arisen out of police actions. We have several trials coming up in November and in the next few months after November up until into January. And I'll also note as I will every month that this list is not comprehensive of all the work that our litigation team does. The team continues its work in code enforcement, handling quite a few cases in code enforcement. We list the receivership cases, but we don't list the general code enforcement cases. Pitches motions are ongoing, weapons matters, vicious animals, and a number of other categories of either court proceedings or cases. Those are not included in the report. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Are there any questions for the city attorney? Seeing none, we'll move on to our assistant city manager filling in today. Thank you, and I have no update for today. Right, we'll see if there's any public comment on item number eight. That's the city manager and city attorney's reports. Seeing nobody move in the chambers and I'm seeing no hands on zoom. Council, do we have any statements of abstentia tonight? All right, seeing none, we'll move on to mayors and council member reports. Who would like to begin? Council member Sawyer. Thank you, mayor. Well, I'll kick it off with my appointments to the charter review committee. I'll be appointing Patty Cisco, Havette Miner, and Scott Bartley to that body. And secondly, I'm going to be asking our economic development division director, Raisa Delarosa, to report on our discussions today with our economic development subcommittee. Thank you, council member Sawyer and Mayor Rogers for allowing me to provide this summary. So we had three items on the economic development subcommittee agenda today. The first was an update on how the relatively new state surplus land act process applies to the city's interest in potential infill development on select downtown parking assets. So specifically, we discussed the third street garage in lots 10 and 11, which are the small surface lots on fifth street behind the four street facing businesses. We expect an item to come before council within the year asking to declare the site surplus. However, it has to be understood that this is really a technical category defined by the state and simply allows the city a pathway forward through the surplus land act process. So to be clear, because I think this is an issue that concerns people as distressed in the economic development subcommittee today, staff's direction continues to be that replacement parking will be a requirement of any potential redevelopment of any parking asset in the downtown. So the second item that was discussed is the proposed short-term rental ordinance for which staff will bring an urgency ordinance to council on October 12th. And that will address the most pressing life safety, public peace and welfare issues that we've heard from the community. This will likely manifest in policies relating to occupancy limits, parking requirements, noise and life safety. But what this urgency ordinance does is it allows staff to continue working on a comprehensive ordinance. And we anticipate being able to bring that ordinance to council for consideration in early 2022. This is a really complicated item and a comprehensive ordinance will allow for more analysis of the issues as well as more community dialogue. And I have to say, in terms of input that we've received so far, the community survey that went out recently garnered the second largest number of responses ever reported by the city. And we had nearly 2,400 respondents and about 1,700 individual comments were submitted within that survey, resulting in 164 pages of survey data for staff to step through. And then the final item on the agenda was an update on the childcare support program that council judiciously allocated $2 million of one-time funds to early in the pandemic. This was something that we developed in the early days of COVID through the Economic Recovery Task Force with council members Sawyer and Fleming. And this is a three-part program consisting of the Resiliency Fund, and an employer-supported childcare. So of the $2 million allocated, $100,000 was given to foresees to help adjust the early childhood education teacher pipeline. And that's being used by foresees to expand their teacher trainings and assist new providers with licensing requirements. And then $500,000 was put toward the Resilience Fund which was administered by first five. They, I have to say, did just an amazing job leveraging the city funds to attract additional contributions. So the fund ended up being just over a million dollars with contributions from the community foundation as well as first five's own funds. And then the purpose of that Resiliency Fund was grants and those grants were to help financially stabilize childcare providers to remain open throughout and after the pandemic because at that time, if you recall, we were losing so many of our childcare providers either temporarily or permanently. And then while the city's contribution could only be used for grants provided to businesses within city limits, of the 180 childcare providers who received grants about 75% of them or 134 of them are ones of businesses located in Santa Rosa. So again, we couldn't have done that without leveraging the funds. 80% of the applications were completed in English and 20% of the applications went Spanish. 62% went to licensed home childcare and 30% went to licensed childcare centers. There were over 6,000 children in care among all of the awarded providers. And then lastly, the facility fund. And this is where the remaining 1.4 million dollars of the city's allocated funds will be used. It's to see the establishment of a low or no interest tenant improvement revolving loan fund. We're choosing a revolving loan fund instead of a grant because we want the funds to perpetuate themselves since it was a one-time allocation. Staff is working again with First Five, the center of the Metro Chamber and a select group of developers who are actively working to incorporate childcare into their projects. And it was with this group that we identified a tenant improvement program as the most effective way to encourage new site development or to retain existing facilities. So like the resiliency fund, our intent is to leverage the 1.4 million dollars to attract additional investments. And then I just want to end on that we are trying something new with this program. So it's being developed in the model of centering equity. So in addition to those I've already mentioned, we folded in our equity officer, Secor Shields into the group so that we can model what this can look like for any project or programs initiatives that we put out through economic development and as the city as a whole, as we look at our programs and policies generally. And that is the update from the Economic Development Subcommittee. Thank you, Director De La Rosa. Council Member Fleming, do you have anything to add? Yes, I want to thank both Director De La Rosa. Thank you so much for all of your work. It's a bit of a mouthful there. Lovely last name, but you know, you've really had a vision on this and you carried it out and it means so much to me to see us get to this point. And it couldn't have been done without the cooperation and input from Council Member Sawyer, but it also should be noted that former Mayor Schwedhelm, now Council Member Schwedhelm had the belief that this could work and the leadership to encourage us to ask for that part of that allocation from that funding. And so a sincere thank you to him as well, as well as all of the partners in the community who've made this possible. When we look at the numbers in the presentation today that we got and we saw how many children are actually benefiting from this and how many small businesses are propped up by this and then how many families get to go to work as a result of this. It makes me hopeful that what we do at the city level can really make changes that are both equitable and economically sustainable. Well said, Council Member. Thank you very much. And thank you, my race, for all the work that you've done and you and your team, thank you so much. Any other questions? You can speak at the appropriate time, Mr. DeWitt. We're not done with our reports yet. Are there any other reports? Council Member Schwedhelm. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You have two things. First, I want to report out on our white special water advisory committee meeting that we had yesterday. We had two items. The first item was to consider the methodology for allocation of water to contractors during a shortage. The wacky unanimously approved the new water shortage allocation methodology that will be used by Sonoma water to allocate water to its water contractors throughout the remainder of the drought. The methodology takes into account in various conditions, including previous conservation, implementation and demand hardening, as well as local supplies of each water retailer. The wack also recommended that the Sonoma Water Board of Directors also adopt this new methodology. Sonoma Water will be taking this to their board at today's Board of Directors meeting. And this did require unanimous vote, which it was successful in achieving. And then Sonoma Water Climate Adoption Plan. Sonoma Water is developing a climate adaptation plan to consider the risk and assess the vulnerability of their water supply, sanitation and flood management in relation to climate change. This plan will serve as the roadmap for developing, evaluating and implementing adaptation strategies. The wack was provided and overview of the plan and the Sonoma Water Board of Directors will consider adoption of the plan at one of their meetings in October. And consistent with what we heard with the pension obligation bonds, some of this methodology for determining water allocation is very complex in the staff at Santa Rosa Water and Sonoma Water do a fantastic job to keep the board updated. And lastly, I also want to identify my appointments to the Charter Review Committee. And that would be Karen Weeks, Abigail Kenningham and Annie Barber. That's all we have. Thank you. Vice Mayor, anything? All right. I'll report out on a couple of community events that I was very excited and proud to attend over the weekend. First, I want to say congratulations to both the Boys and Girls Club as well as our Measure O, Violence Prevention Partnership and Community Engagement teams. We have the graduation distanced here at City Hall in the parking lot for our graduates during the REACH program. The REACH program is incarcerated youth who are being put on a path for a better and sustainable future. In fact, recidivism rate is about 80% in our youth within two years, but those who make it through the program, recidivism rate drops to about two and a half out of 10 instead. So really a significant program that's having the impact that we intended to have, which is providing folks with a second opportunity and putting them in a good position to succeed. We had five graduates, folks who had made it through and actually received their diplomas, their high school diplomas, while they were incarcerated. And so that was just a fantastic event and a good opportunity to hear from them about what they wanted to do next and how they wanted to move forward and really be a contributing, successful member of our community. The other event was yesterday. It was the ribbon cutting for the new Roseland Library. This is the new location, though not the permanent location. And I'm very proud to see many of my colleagues there and many community members who have been working on that issue for a number of years. As council will remember, we have set aside money to help build the permanent replacement. And so expect to see more from that and more ribbons hopefully to be cut here in the near future. Lastly, I would also like to appoint two of my folks to the charter review committee. Those will be Logan Pitts and Lisa Batenfort with the third one still to come. Just as a heads up for council next week, we will be bringing the item for the chair position for charter review. I will be recommending Patty Sisko, who is appointed by council member Sawyer to be the chair of that entity. And so there will be an item on the agenda next week, asking council to ratify that decision. Seeing no other hands from council members, we'll go to public comment on council member reports. Mr. Dewitt, did you want to go? I had not attended to speak, but I was surprised by one of the comments. My name is Dewain Dewitt, I'm from Roseland. I have a real concern whenever some of the best real estate downtown Santa Rosa could be described as surplus. This is a really interesting situation because if you'll remember, just a few years ago, 46 more parking spaces were put into Santa Rosa at the courthouse square because it was said more parking was needed downtown. The dilemma that comes about whenever you take a publicly owned asset, something that the taxpayers own and declare it surplus, is you may not be able to get the value for us owners. A classic example is the AT&T building. The taxpayers bought it at one price. And essentially it was given for a song to a local developer for less than the taxpayers paid. And we lost money on that situation. But people looked at it like, oh, well, it's gonna be good economic development for the city. Actually it helps that developer more than it helps us city residents and taxpayers. This could happen again with those two prime sites in downtown Santa Rosa. We have to really be on the lookout and make sure that they are properly appraised for the highest value so that the taxpayers are compensated fully, even if there's going to be more parking and whatever project comes forward. We have to avoid something that was brought out, oh, a century ago or more, in New York City with Tammany Hall. It was pointed out legal graft was occurring. People who knew about real estate dealings going on would tell other people and people were able to profit in a form of legal actions that were considered okay, but to many of us might seem unethical. So I'm really hoping that you, Mayor Rogers, especially, because you're an ethical guy and you're trying to do the right thing, that you're gonna be on the lookout for this situation because that did not happen with the AT&T building and as taxpayers took it in the pants and that's the wrong way. It's not supposed to go like that. We're supposed to come out ahead on any of these dealings with our assets being put forward in some sort of a negotiation situation. I wanna thank you for being in Roseland yesterday at that temporary library's opening. I wanna thank the city of Santa Rosa for putting forward the $10 million that was matched by a million from the state. So there's $11 million to go forward to build a new library over in Roseland. You know it could be a part of that Santa Rosa downtown specific plan because that encompasses part of Sebastopol Road, right there at Roberts Avenue. You guys gotta look into that. You could save money and make money. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. DeWitt. Move on to item number 11. It's approval of minutes. Council, we have two sets of minutes from June 29th. That's our special meeting and our regular meeting. Were there any additions or amendments to those minutes? Seeing no hands. We'll see if there's any public comment on item 11. Seeing no one rise. We'll show those minutes adopted as presented without objection. Mr. City Manager, item number 12. Thank you, Mayor. We have four items on the consent calendar today. Item 12.1 is a motion authority to issue design build requests for proposals for Spring Creek Drive and Utah Court asphalt depression. Item 12.2 resolution purchase order 164640 amendment increase compensation for purchase of additional vehicles for the in-response program. Item 12.3 resolution City County, City County funding agreement for Samuel L. Jones Hall homeless shelter. And item 12.4 approval of the fourth amendment to the professional services agreement number F001748 with HROD incorporated DBA MMO partners. Thank you, Mr. Assistant City Manager. Are there any questions on the consent calendar from Council? Are there any public comments on the four items on the consent calendar? Seeing none on Zoom and none in the chambers. Madam Vice Mayor. I move items 12.1 through 12.4 and wait for the reading of the text. Second. We have a motion from the Vice Mayor and a second from Council Member Schwedhelm. Madam City Clerk, could you please call the vote? Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Schwedhelm. Aye. Council Member Sawyer. Aye. Council Member Fleming. Yes. Council Member Alvarez. Vice Mayor Rogers. Aye. Vice Mayor Rogers. Aye. Thank you. Mayor Rogers. Aye. Let the record show that that motion passes with five ayes with Council Members Alvarez and Council Member Tibbetts absent. Thank you. It's not yet five o'clock. We'll go on to item 14.1 and come back for public comment for non-agenda items. Thank you, Mayor. Item 14.1 is a report item. 2021 Sonoma County Transportation Authority funding program call for projects fiscal year 2023 through fiscal year 2027. Project priority lists and application authorization. Nancy Adams, our transportation planner and Rachel Ead, our Deputy Director of Transit will be presenting. Good afternoon. I am waiting to see Nancy on the call here. I think she will be joining shortly, but I can go ahead and get us started today and I will turn it over to her. Just making sure she has not arrived. So good afternoon, Mayor Rogers and Members of the Council. Nancy and I are here today to present the 2021 Sonoma County Transportation Authority call for projects for fiscal 23 through 27. And this is a call for projects that's kind of a unique process that we haven't experienced in the past. And we're here to bring you a set of project priority proposals for submission to this call for projects. Next slide, please. So the background for this is that SCTA is intending to develop a coordinated five-year funding strategy to program an estimated $70 million over the next few years to member agencies of SCTA. Next slide, please. So on August 9th, SCTA released a call for projects. Applications are due this week on Thursday. And through the upcoming couple of months, SCTA Board will approve first the STIP program of projects as a first step from the project submitted to this call. And then subsequently we'll be adopting additional call for projects and releasing them in programming the additional projects that are subject to this call or grant funding areas. Next slide, please. So the city of Santa Rosa is allowed to submit top five priority projects to this call. Transit operators are also eligible to submit five projects. So what you will see today is the top five priorities for roads, bikes and pedestrians that Nancy's gonna present, as well as the top five priorities for transit that I'll present later in the presentation. Next slide, please. So there's an extensive policy background that we are that is informing the project list we've developed for you here today. It includes the city's climate action plan, the North Santa Rosa stationery specific plan, the Roseland area and Sebastopol road area specific plans, the bike and pedmaster plan, Southeast Greenway and the downtown stationery specific plan. So staff have used this policy context as a way to identify and prioritize projects in the list we'll present to you today. Next slide, please. So a series of ranking criteria were used to evaluate the projects. These included whether or not the projects are in priority development areas or opportunity zones. They were also scored according to their contributions to diversity, equity and inclusivity, their consistency with the city's housing strategy and priority for downtown development, their potential impact on climate action. And I'm seeing Nancy's joining, I'm gonna turn it over to her in a minute, how they contribute to the city's financial stability economic development, recovery and resiliency and whether or not they're catalytic in the sense that implementing the projects will cause other things to happen, other good things to happen in the city consistent with council goals. And Nancy, I see you've joined. I'd love to hand the presentation over to you at this point if I may. Why don't we go to the next slide while we're waiting for Nancy, please. Well, I can talk about transit. So transit projects were also identified based on the eligibility for the funding sources including in the call for the project, included in the call for projects and prioritized based on the ranking criteria just presented as well as some considerations related to timing and phasing of implementation. So consistent strategy was used overall between the road bike ped projects and the transit projects. I will comment that in the case of transit, there's only a subset of our capital and operating priorities that are eligible for the project or the funding sources that are included in SCTA's call for projects. So that sort of limited the scope of the transit projects to an extent. Nancy, gonna turn it over to you. Thank you, Rachel. I appreciate it. Just had a little technical difficulty getting me logged in. So I'm here now. So it's actually a good segue for me. I'll talk over the next few slides about the bicycle and pedestrian and roadway projects that we are preparing to submit to the SCTA on Thursday. So a very quick turnaround for us. So the first one we're looking at is what we're calling the bicycle and pedestrian connection that ties in with our climate change initiatives here at the city and they're consistent with the countywide transportation moving forward of goals of 2050. So this is an investment portfolio that we're requesting about $9.2 million. And the lion's share of that is for the bicycle and pedestrian over crossing. The council just received an item here last month about the $12 million that we received from the active transportation grant. So as the scale of this project is rather large, we need to leverage a variety of sources to fully fund the construction phase. So that's the lion's share of this one. And this project using the criteria that Rachel went over quickly ranked at a 19.5, which was our highest ranked projects. And it also includes some two pathway connections there in the Roseland area and then one on Pearson Street, which is just north of a third street. Next slide please. The second project which ranked an 18 is an investment portfolio for our downtown that supports our housing and densification down in the downtown area. And of course our transit operations. So this would be a $5 million request that would fund a couple of things. Our downtown circulation, which would include B Street and third street, some restriping of Mendocino Avenue between 4th and 10th Street, and then some operational enhancement at Dutton Avenue and Sebastopol Road. And we have a handful of pavement rehabilitation work that we'd like to also include in the downtown area as well. And all of this with the mind that we wanna be able to support additional housing in the downtown and then help with the operations of our transit service and then provide the other micro-mobility initiatives that we're considering in the downtown like bike share and scooters. So that would help promote those activities within the downtown. So next slide please. Nancy, through the chair or through the mayor, can I ask you a quick question? Yes. What is the, did I miss it or what's the highest ranked score? Oh, yes, I'm sorry. So they're in order, they're in order of how we, the five, we have five as Rachel mentioned that we're submitting. And so the first one was the bike and ped connections that were in 19.5. Sorry, that one there, yes. All right. And what is the highest score? That is the highest score. Well, that is the highest score. Oh, out of 21, you can score 21. Okay, thank you. Sorry, sorry. That was the answer. That's the answer. Got it, got it. Okay. All right. So let's advance one more. Here we go. So out of 21, this one ranked 17. And this is what we're calling an investment portfolio that will look at advancing some of our policy decisions that came out of our climate action plan and our bicycle and pedestrian master plan. And really it's, this is about education and programs that would help with our bike share, with our vision zero, safe routes to school and our operations of our signals. Actually, right now in our Measure M program, we have an ongoing part of our Measure M money that goes to the operations of our signals to make them operate not only for vehicles, but also for our pedestrians and cyclists. So it's a kind of a continuation of an existing Measure M project that we would like to see forward, go forward with those Sonoma. And this would be for five years, it would be a total of 1.5 million. So the annual requests for this project would be $300,000 per year for five years. Next slide, please. And this one also scored 17. And this is, you all probably know about this one. This is Heron Avenue interchange. And this is a $10 million, $3 million request. And this is a little bit broader because we've done a lot of thinking about how we can make Heron interchange a little more attractive for outside funding agencies. So what we've done to embellish this, and we did this for a grant that we submitted in July to the federal government, we added a class one pathway as part of the interchange project. So that would also include this class one pathway and we would also make some payment rehabilitation on Heron Avenue. And the pathway would connect up to the interchange and it would go basically from the interchange down along Heron Avenue up to the smart pathway. So it would make that connection to the smart pathway on Heron Avenue and then make it easy for cyclists to get and pedestrians to get access to the smart path. So next slide, please. So this is, I think our last one, yeah. This is an interesting one. It's a part of the Southeast, what I'm calling the Southeast Santa Rosa, multimodal resiliency corridor enhancement. And this is a fourth and farmers. And the why this is important to us, it's on the Sonoma County Transportation Authority regional list for a project initiation document. So this has to go through Caltrans and we definitely have it on the list and this just puts us in a queue for continuing to work on that, get that project initiation document started. And really this is a pretty critical intersection as you all know with the fires, Highway 12 has become a very tough road for residents to get out of in the events of fires. So this would help a little bit with the operations there at that particular intersection. So I think that is all of my, I think the next one might be Rachel's. And I would just add, I would just add just before Rachel and I don't know if she mentioned it, all of these projects come out of the SCTA's Countywide Transportation Plan. So that's pretty, that's very important. I know this item was discussed at the SCTA board yesterday and their staff was very clear that projects that all the locals are submitting need to be contained within that Countywide Transportation Plan. So I'll stop there and I think Rachel has one slide to talk through. Yeah, thank you Nancy. So just to revisit the transit projects we're proposing as I mentioned earlier, our list is more streamlined and a little bit more straightforward simply because as I mentioned, many of our projects such as operating projects aren't eligible for these funding sources. All of these projects are included already within the Countywide Transportation Plan. Although the first project I'll talk about the Downtown Santa Rosa Transit Facility Study is not explicitly identified in the CTP, but it would implement or help implement several projects that are included in the CTP. So I'll go ahead and go through our priority order here. So the first is this proposed transit facility study. This is a new project for us, but we think it's very timely and important for where the city is right now in terms of downtown development as well as development of the transit system. So the idea behind this project is that first of all it would implement a recommendation from the Downtown Stationary Specific Plan that the city study the location and potential for expansion of the current Downtown Transit Mall and related facilities recognizing the level of downtown development transit-oriented development that's contemplated in that plan. How do we make sure we have that central transit facility that functions operationally and that needs the needs of those new developments? So this study would also identify measures to improve connectivity between the Transit Mall and the Downtown Smart Station as well as enhance overall multimodal connectivity in the Downtown area. It could also identify the design and infrastructure elements needed to ensure that the five transit operators serving the Transit Mall are able to get access in and out of the Transit Mall area efficiently and in a timely fashion, particularly in light of the proposed relocation of the County Center adjacent to the Transit Mall. That's a tremendous opportunity as you all know, but it does come with some challenges around ensuring that that transit level of service is not impacted. So part of the study would look at that as well. And this is really intended to sort of, as I mentioned, a key piece of supporting the transit element of the transit-oriented development. We think it's an important project to move forward quickly so we can begin to identify needs and then build those needs into our funding program going forward. The next two projects are both battery electric charging infrastructure projects. We've broken them into two separate projects because the first one is kind of bite-sized, shovel-ready, ready to go. And we think it has a chance to compete well for those reasons. This project is about a quarter million dollar funding request that would complete the first phase of our battery electric bus charging infrastructure at the yard. We've already invested a significant amount of funding and the project is underway to build out the majority of that first phase. However, we're lacking funding for some of the charging units that are needed to complete charging infrastructure for our first nine battery electric buses. So what this would do is would fund those two additional dual-port chargers that would charge an additional four buses to complete that nine bus deployment. The next project, the battery electric bus charging infrastructure phase two is a larger request at 1.7 million. It's a more complicated project because it would actually require us to expand the footprint of the charging area to build out our next up to 10 charging locations for 10 additional buses. So this is a longer-term project, but it's important because that then gives us the charging capacity to move into that next phase of our fleet conversion for the portions of our transit fleet that will be due for replacement and sort of the latter part of this funding period of the SCTA call. And finally, we have the diesel to electric bus replacement project. This focuses on our 2011 fleet, which will be due for replacement in 2023 or beginning in 2023. This is a big deal. As you all know, it's significantly more expensive to purchase electric buses than diesel buses. So we have sort of a gap in funding to transition this portion of our fleet to all electric, but it's something that we've committed to do working with the council. At this point, we have quite a bit of funding that we either anticipate through our formula funds and as well as one competitive grant that will go towards this conversion, but we're short about $3 million, or we anticipate will be short about $3 million. So we're seeking funding to fill that gap so that we have a fully funded program to convert these vehicles to battery electric. So with that, I'll conclude the transit projects. The total request then for transit equals about $5 million, which we think is a reasonable amount to build into the city's overall ass to complement the projects that Nancy presented. Next slide, please. Yeah, so thanks, Rachel. And I'll just end with, you know, Rachel mentioned her ask and on the resolution, there are two tables. And if you'll notice our ask is about 31.4 million for all of our roadway bike and ped projects. And if you look at, you know, and how this could work, if you looked at our population share, we're at about 23, 24 million. So it's, I think for us, we looked at trying to submit everything we thought we could manage within the next five years for our transportation investments, because once they do this call and things are submitted on Thursday, there isn't another bite at the apple. So, you know, it's, this is, we're kind of all in. And so we are a little bit more, but I think there's gonna be some conversations with our technical staff in public works. And so we wanted to be a little bit bold going into this. And so, anyway, so I will add that other note. And then just want tonight for council to look at the resolution that's attached to your staff report and approve, you know, the project priorities that Rachel and I have described to you this evening and asked that our city manager submit these applications to SCTA. And I think we had a good conversation with the mayor and council member Alvarez, our SCTA representative and alternate earlier this month. And we did go over the draft list, which are reflected in the staff report to the full council this evening. So with that mayor, I will hand it back to you for the council discussion. Thank you so much, Rachel and Nancy. And yeah, I was going to mention that same, the same aspect as well. I really appreciated the two of you taking the time to walk myself and council member Alvarez through the different projects and the methodology. It is a priority for SCTA. And as you said, it's a one bite at the Apple type situation and any project that doesn't make it in by this Thursday is not going to be included over the next couple of years. So really appreciate the work that you've done and the rest of your teams to put together what is I think a really good list. I'll open it up for questions amongst council members. Council member Schwedhelm. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you for the presentation. I had a couple of questions on the ranking criteria in that process. First of all, who did the rankings to come up with this list? I didn't see that in the staff report. So this was all generated by staff. And I think you might recall that we, we prepared something like this about two years ago. And what we did was we looked at the ranking criteria and we actually reviewed that and made some revisions. We got some good input from Claire Hartman's team and we added the catalytic item to it and they actually helped us in reviewing and assessing our ranking of the individual projects from their side of the shop, which was very useful. So it's purely been a staff effort to identify these ranking criteria. And we did it mindful of the countywide transportation and the regional plan bay area goals. And so we wanted to make sure that we were consistent with the things that they look for at the region and that SCTA. So hopefully that answers your question. And you might have just answered my next one. So is this the same criteria that other entities that are submitting projects for, they're using the same criteria that we used? You know, I'm not sure how all the other cities are specifically doing their evaluations, but I do know that SCTA when they look at these applications from all the jurisdictions, those are the goals and the ranking criteria that they're gonna use their own countywide transportation plan, which looks at equity, housing, your priority development areas and climate getting as to climate change of zero. And so that's how they're gonna look at it, but I'm not sure how or what approaches some of the other cities have used. We're gonna be talking about this next week with our public works folks. And so it'll be interesting to see how that conversation goes and how, what approaches the other cities use in the county. Great, thank you. My last question was on the new column of, well, I don't know if it's new, but the diversity, equity, inclusion, priority. I noticed every project got the maximum points except the last one. Since this is a new area for me, can you tell me how the group identified in categorized top scoring on all the projects with the DEI lens? So what we use for that one is, there's things called communities of concern or equity priority areas. And those are specifically designated areas at a regional level. And so we looked at where these projects were located and physically within those areas or not. And so for them farmers, even it's not in, most of the areas of equity and diversity are for the city are within the downtown area up in the North station area specific plan and then the Roseland area. So when you get out into Bennett Valley and Oakmont and East Santa Rosa-Rincon Valley, those those designations don't exist. So that's why it doesn't score as high as those areas in the downtown and that are within these equity priority areas. And Council Member Schwedhelm, if I could just chime in as well. I mean, that particular project doesn't exist within a priority development area, nor is it identified in the Portrait of Sonoma County as an area of resource need. And so that's why that particular project was scored lower than the others. And I appreciate that. I guess my questions are coming from DEI. Each of those diversity, equity, inclusion are three different metrics and measuring them are different. And they've all been lumped into one and the fact that all of them scored maximum points. Again, this is new for the city of Santa Rosa. So I'm just trying to learn. So we're consistent across all evaluations as to when we say DEI, what does it mean? So you help clarify that with this project. And you're absolutely right. This is a new criteria for all of us when we're looking at infrastructure investments. And it's something that's starting to work its way into our day-to-day work. And this was our first take at trying to better understand how we can begin to incorporate that concept into the prioritization protocol for various projects across the city. And so I think that's what we gave it a shot. We utilized some basic criteria. We talked with the mayor and council member Alvarez as an opportunity to try to see if we were even in the ballpark of trying to create a scoring that made some sense. But yes, you're absolutely right. This is a new program for us, a new concept, a new criteria. And we're gonna be learning more about that over the course of the next couple of years as we create a broader city-wide prioritization program that enhances what DEI might be within those criteria, within that scoring. And that was another one of the reasons seeing who made the evaluations. I would just offer if she wasn't involved, our EEO officer being involved in these conversations because again, I think she's got a different lens than maybe some of your staff have. Again, it's new for all of us. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Fleming. Yes, thank you. My question is about the fifth project that Nancy presented, the farmers laying in 4th Street. I was just curious to know since that's intersection is such a great concern for my residents coming down from Alta Vista, Montecito Heights area in an evacuation. Can you be specific about the improvements that are proposed at that intersection? So I'll make a stab at it and Jason knows this project really well too if he wants to add. So basically, you know how you come up a farmer's lane and you get approach 4th Street, which goes off to the right to the Highway 12. So there's only one lane that you can turn right there. And so people, you know, and I drive that way home every night from work, but people, it's a challenge. So what this would do would make that a dual right turn lane and let's see, there may be, so this is where I may ask for Jason's assistance on. And so we would do some operational, of course, changes to the operations of the signal. I think it may also include another left coming from like Oakmont going down south, what I call south. There's a dual lefts right now. So I don't know, Jason, do you wanna add anything else to the design of that intersection that I have missed? Yeah, Council Member Fleming, I mean, the primary goal is to increase the throughput and the throughput typically is farmers lane to Eastbound 12 and Westbound 12 back to Farmers Lane Southbound. And so we're trying to create more time for those movements to occur. The primary aspect is, as Nancy mentioned, is the Northbound to Eastbound dual right turn lanes. That would be the first. The second would be enhancing the Westbound to Southbound movement. That could be extending the turn pockets longer so that you don't have interruption of the through movements. It could also be adding a third lane. There was also a very brief feasibility analysis of the potential of utilizing a roundabout in an effort to try to create more of a consistent movement through the intersection. But all of those will be evaluated along with the re-timing of the signal so that we can maximize throughput. We may also be looking at some pedestrian improvements to eliminate or minimize the type of pedestrian crossing needs. We've talked about going under the bridge in an effort to get pedestrians along the creek instead of at grade with the roadway. So those are items that will be evaluated in more detail during the project initiation document that we hope to see underway in the next 24 months. Okay. I just would like to say that I am sure that staff is considering the importance of the Westbound throughput at that intersection. It's a great inconvenience, the Northbound chokehold that Nancy referred to, but it's really dangerous, the lack of Westbound throughput. So thank you for proposing that project. Certainly understand. Any other questions from council members? Okay, we'll go to public comment on this item. If you're interested in providing public comment, either hit the raise hand feature on your Zoom. All right, and I see Aris Weaver. We'll start with Aris. I'm Aris Weaver with some County Bicycle Coalition. I just wanted to say how happy I am to see two specific projects on that list, the one-on-one over-crossing and the improvements on HERN. One of the biggest challenges that I experience as a daily cyclist around the city and see other people do is that East West, getting past the freeway because there are just so few options for going across through there that aren't nasty. So I'm happy about that and very much looking forward to seeing those get implemented. Thanks. Thank you, Aris. I see no other hands on Zoom, so I'll come back to the chambers. Mr. DeWitt. Thank you. My name is DeWayne DeWitt. I'm from Roseland and I wanted to make sure that it was called out by staff that they recognize Roseland is an area that should have some improvements. Unfortunately, these projects don't deal with one of the main things it was talked about for decades. And that's the Roseland Creek Bikeway Greenway. I have a map here from the Southwest Area Plan from 1995. Actually, the plan was put together in 93 to 94, 95. And it points out Roseland Creek as an area where a bikeway greenway would be going in in the future. The city convinced the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District to spend $2.5 million to buy 5.9 acres on the south side of Roseland Creek between Burbank Avenue and McMinn Avenue over a decade ago, specifically stating at the time that that parcel was needed for the completion of the Roseland Creek Bikeway Greenway to go west. Roseland School District purchased land next to it. They've put in a bridge over the creek. They've been working on that project. From what staff has pulled together, it says they're going to work on walkways over in the Roseland area. So I would hope that you would designate to them and to Mr. Nutt here that a bikeway greenway is a walkway and that it's there for pedestrians also and that it should take a priority to try to get funding. I'll be speaking about this at SCTA meetings in the future. Even as I like the fact they're going to improve Herne Avenue perhaps, they've been talking about that for all 28 years of the Southwest Area plan from back in 1993. So I understand things move slowly, but in 2004, the city paid $100,000 for a Roseland Creek concept plan in which it was called out to have the bikeway greenway go forward. All of staff's efforts over the years have pretty much looked over towards the east with the Southeast Greenway. And when we speak about it in their meetings, we point out that this Roseland Creek Greenway Bikeway needs to go forward. This is an area called out in the 2014 Portrait of Sonoma County as the most needed area. Roseland Creek, the most disadvantaged, underserved, overburdened community in the entire County at that time. Perhaps the new census will show something different, but I'm hoping you folks will step up and help us to get that greenway bikeway on the south side of Roseland Creek as promised. Thank you, Mr. DeWitt. And I'll go back to our Zoom. We had one additional hand pop up. It's the telephone number ending in 5104. Hello, thank you very much. I just wanted to point out first, thank you to the Assistant City Manager for bringing forward the projects with the prioritization. And I just want to point out there's a great article in the Government Finance Officers Association recent magazine or a periodical on prioritizing community values and capital budgeting. The City of Oakland was an example of how to achieve relative equity when budgeting for capital projects. And I know that was of interest to the Council. I just wanted to point that out again. The City of Oakland was bought it for their work in prioritizing projects. And maybe if you could look into that to help also on the City Charter, section 10, the Council was to establish a district commission that each year the Council would allocate, would establish an allocation for public improvements in each district, which the district representatives would weigh in on. So if there was a joint exercise for the community members that provide that input on how to prioritize a couple of projects, that would be great. I know it's a hard topic and I appreciate the Assistant City Manager for stepping up and opening up that conversation. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Was that Mark? Yes. All right, thank you so much, Mark. Thank you for your comments. I'm going to bring it back to Council. And I do believe Council Member Schwedhelm, if you could put a motion on the table. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I'd move a resolution of the City Council of the City of Santa Rosa approving the list of project priorities and authorizing the Assistant City Manager to submit project applications and related documents to the Sonoma County Transportation Authority, SCTA, for consideration in the 2021 SCTA funding program call for projects fiscal year 23 through fiscal year 27 and way further reading of the text. Second. Motion by Council Member Schwedhelm with a second by Council Member Sawyer. Is there any additional discussion or questions Council? Okay, seeing none, let's go ahead and call the vote, please. Council Member Schwedhelm. Aye. Council Member Sawyer. Aye. Council Member Fleming. Yes. Council Member Alvarez. Vice Mayor Rogers. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. That motion passes with five ayes with Council Member Alvarez and Council Member Tibbetz absent. Thank you again, Rachel and Nancy. Really good work, really appreciate it. We'll jump back, Council, to item 13 that's public comment for non-agenda items. If folks have a comment that is not on today's agenda, you'll have three minutes to talk with the Council because it's not on the agenda. We can't get into a back and forth, but if anybody has an issue they'd like to raise, feel free to hit the raise hand feature on Zoom or approach the podium in the council chambers. Mr. DeWitt. Oh, my name is DeWitt and I'm from Roseland. I wanted to talk with you about something that came up. Oh, it started 28 years ago for me. 17 years ago, the city of Santa Rosa put forward a proposal for matching grant from the Ag and Open Space District for what was called the Colgan Creek Park and Preserve Project. In that same year was when the Roseland Creek concept plan was put forward by the same woman who worked for the city at the time, Ms. Sherry Emerson, who now works for the Agricultural Preservation Open Space District. The reason I mention these things is because the people of Roseland had been working on the idea that you could save nature and have a park and a preserve. And in our general plan, it states those types of things are allowable. In the comments and responses to the final environmental impact report to the 1994 Southwest Santa Rosa area plan, a number of things were called out about how the Southwest area needed open space and not just parks to be utilized for recreation. In this document, which I hope you will look into your city's library, which they still have because I got the document from the city, the then director of County Parks was named Jim Angelo. He pointed out one of the most important things was to make sure that school districts were not able to count their land separately from the city as recreational and parkland. Since this document was brought out, what happened was the city changed its amount of open space and park land per 10,000 residents or 1,000 residents. And the numbers have gotten different than they were back then. Many schools do not open to allow the public to go onto their land until after school is out. Many proposed parks and preserves did not come about. The Colgan Creek one, although millions and millions of dollars have been spent to help the creek, the park and the preserve have never gone forward and land that was proposed actually has been allowed to develop. So some people that live up in Roseland Creek, that disadvantaged neighborhood I talked with you about earlier, they've pointed out that they can't trust the system. And we have to ask you, our elected officials, to please make sure we get a nature preserve along with parks, neighborhood parks. We don't need just one more community park that 16,000 people in that one half mile are supposed to go to. We need numerous neighborhood parks and preserves. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. DeWitt. It's the only hand that I see for public comment. So I'll bring it back. Let's go on to item 15.1, our first public hearing of the evening. Item 15.1 is public hearing for 1225 Fulton Road Resoning. And Christina Tumians is going to be presenting. Thank you, Mayor Rogers and members of the city council. This is 1225 Fulton Road Resoning. Next slide, please. It's a city initiated rezoning from PD plan development to our rural residential to allow a permanent child daycare facility to occupy a former private meeting facility. No new construction is proposed. Next slide, please. This is the project site. You can see it's at the dead end of West College Avenue at Fulton Road. It was developed as a church. The church no longer occupies the property. The city acquired the property for a sewer lift station and has leased the church to a childcare facility. The PD is very restrictive and only allows for a church on the site. Next slide, please. Here's a close-up view of the former church now, temporary childcare facility. The city approved a temporary use permit to allow for the childcare facility to operate at the location while the rezoning was underway. Next slide, please. Here is the general plan and zoning for the site. As you can see, it's part of a plan development connected with the houses to the north. And there's a mixture of different housing types surrounding the property. Next slide, please. Here is a street view of the former meeting facility. It has a lighted, a traffic light at the entrance. It allows for people to turn left or right out of the facility or out of the property. Next slide, please. And so here's a little bit of background. It was purchased in 2019 by the city after determining that the location was suitable for a new sanitary sewer lift station. The city water department after much consideration from the council and board of public utilities shows the current tenant who had lost their location in the Tufts fire to lease the existing church building. Next slide, please. Although the property was not zoned correctly for daycare use on August 20th, 2019, the director of planning and economic development approved a temporary use permit for a childcare facility. This is possible with the understanding that the city water department would need to, would have needed to rezone the property within five years. The TUP temporary use permit was good for approximately five years to allow for the city to initiate the rezoning process. The diagram that you see on the right there shows the future sewer lift station, which could still be accommodated on the site. And the rezoning would not inhibit that the construction of the sewer lift station in the future. Next slide, please. Pursuant to CEQA guidelines section 15183, I know additional environmental review is required when rezoning for general plan consistency. So the RR zoning district is consistent with the general plan designation for the site. Next slide, please. The planning and economic development department recommends that the city council by ordinance rezoned the property located at 1225 Fulton Road. The planning commission by resolution recommended that the council adopts the ordinance. Next slide, please. Here is my name and contact information. Chris Natumian, senior planner. My email is ktoomians at srcity.org. And my desk number is 707-543-4692. And just to add, I did receive some public comments via email and a few via phone. And both were supportive of the proposed use and were thrilled for a childcare facility to be at the location. That concludes staff presentation and I'm available for questions. Councilor, are there any questions? I'm seeing none. Let's go ahead and open it up for public comment on this item. If you're interested in speaking, hit the raise hand feature on Zoom. We'll start with Renee. I'm Renee Whitlock, I am the co-director of Fulton Community School and Farm. We have been operating under pandemic conditions since we opened. And it has been a really wonderful opportunity for families to be able to bring their children and feel a sense of normalcy. I wanna thank the city council and the city of Santa Rosa and the planning department and the water department for looking at this as a valuable component to our community. I am also the chair or the co-chair of the Sonoma County Child Care Planning Council. And we are really looking at ways in which we can make change in our community and really deal with our childcare crisis. And by using public facilities to do that, it really creates an opportunity for families and for providers to really provide high quality care. I will just make note that on this item at this site, all of our tenant improvements were done via from donations and grants from our community. And we made a huge investment to make this happen. And we're really grateful for all the people that allowed this to happen. We still have a little bit of a hurdle ahead of us in our conditional use permit as it is quite expensive process. But we feel that we will be able to move through that. So I just wanna thank you council members and staff for this opportunity for us. And we really look forward to working with the city more and creating a really special place for families. Thank you so much, Renee. We'll go to public comments in the chamber. Mr. DeWitt. Yes, sir. Thank you, Dwayne DeWitt from Roseland. I grew up with friends that went to the Thanksgiving Lutheran Church at that site that was purchased by the city for a sewer lift station. And when you hear this presentation today, you're glad to see these good things happening for childcare and good things happening for the community. But I didn't hear anything said about how much rent is paid to the city for the use of this city land and for how long the agreement is because now it sounds like this is going to be a permanent installation at this site. From what she just said, the huge investment that they've made makes one begin to think that this childcare site will be there now in perpetuity. I'm glad for that, if that's the case. I just need to know how they're going to be able to build the sewage lift station there and do it without having to relocate the childcare center. And if they're going to have to move, are we going to be able to find another suitable spot for them there on the west side? I remember when the first discussion occurred here and it was stated that they needed to get this as soon as possible because of the fire and I've been supportive of it, but at the same time, there are concerns in the community whenever you see a really nice spot like this because that's a prime piece of real estate out there. And you want to make sure, how's it going to be handled by the city and will it be done in an accountable and transparent manner so that all of us taxpayers will know that not only are we helping the children and the families that need childcare, but also making sure that the taxpayers get a good return upon their investment because that's what this has been, an investment by the city of Santa Rosa for a sewage lift station to be built. Please tell us when that's going to happen and how all these sort of things are going to occur that was left out of the report. Thank you kindly. Thank you, Mr. DeWitt. I'll bring it back to council. Council Member Fleming, do you want to put a motion on the table for discussion? Indeed. I'm proud to present an ordinance of the Council of the City of Santa Rosa amending Title 20 of the Santa Rosa City Code by reclassifying the property located at 1225 Fulton Road from the plan development to the rural residential zoning district file number REZ 28-004 and waive further reading of the text. Second. I've got a motion by Council Member Fleming and a second from the Vice Mayor. Is there any additional questions or discussion? Council Member Fleming. Yeah, I do have a question for Ms. Tumions about the cost of the CUP and just a general question. If the council, when they revisited any of the demand fees following the Tubbs Fire, if the fees associated with child cares have been reviewed in that time? Period. I'm not aware of the fee question, but the Resilience City measures allows for child care facilities to be approved with a minor use permit versus a major use permit. So the permitting requirement was lessened because of the Resilience City measures. I am not aware that the fees were altered. Do you have a sense of how much fees or how the fees are assessed or how much they are in these situations? I can look up the fee right now. That's okay. I just was curious to know is just kind of general question about. Reducing it to a minor use permit, the fees are significantly lower or less than a major use permit. So in some ways, by reducing the required permit, it does reduce the fees. And I'm wondering if somebody is here, whether it's you or someone else who could speak to the lease agreement, because I know that we did enter into a lease agreement and I think it's a fair question from the public about how much money we are receiving in return for our lease. Yes, Jill Scott is an attendee and can answer that question. Thank you. She's being promoted now. Good evening, Council. The lease for two child family daycare was approved by Council several years ago. I think it was about two and a half years ago. They do pay fair market value for the lease rate. We did have it a separate outside appraisal done at the time. And the lease rate right now is a little over 5,500 a month, which is, as I said, fair market value. It's a 10-year lease with some options to extend to Mr. Dewitt's question regarding the lift station. The lift station can be built without disruption to the child care center. And we've planned that all from the beginning and worked through this with Ms. Hemsworth. So I think we're in good shape. Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments from Council? It's okay, Madam City Clerk, if you could please call the vote. Thank you. Council Member Schwedhelm. Aye. Council Member Sawyer. Aye. Council Member Fleming. Yes. Council Member Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor Rogers. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. That motion passes with six ayes with Council Member Tibbetts absent. Thank you so much. Mr. Assistant City Manager, I think we will go on to item 15.2. And then after that item, we'll take a brief dinner break. Thank you very much, Mayor. Our second public hearing of the night is the Egert rezoning and Ms. Tummians is back again to present this item. Kristine, can you unmute? Apologies. Yes, this is the 1434 Peterson Lane rezoning. Next slide, please. This is a request to rezone a residential lot from R19 to the R16 zoning district to allow for a future two lot minor subdivision and the development of a single family residence on each lot and accessory dwelling units for each lot as well. Next slide, please. This is the general location. The property is south of Grenville Road on the east side of Peterson Lane in the center of that map. The aerial. Next slide, please. Here's a closeup. It's a property that's owned R19 surrounded by R19. But as you can see in the general vicinity, we have a small lot subdivision to the west and some smaller lot subdivisions to the north. It's adjacent on all three sides by a key lot. Next slide, please. Here's the general plan and zoning. So both R16 and R19 are conforming zonings to the low residential general plan zoning district. So the proposal to rezone this property to R16 would be consistent with the general plan. The R19 zoning district allows for properties up to 9,000, with a minimum lot size of 9,000 square feet. And R16 would allow lot sizes with a minimum of 6,000 square feet. And this lot is just over 12,000 square feet. So it would allow for the property to be divided in two. Next slide, please. Here's a proposal for the future lot lines showing the property divided in half, fronting on Peterson Lane, rectangular lots with garages and proposed ADUs towards the back. Next slide, please. In pursuant to sequel guideline section 15183 I, no additional environmental reviews required, one rezoning for general plan consistency. Next slide, please. And the planning commission recommended that the council introduce an ordinance to rezone the property. Staff did receive some comments during the planning commission, before the planning commission meeting, concerns were in regards to on street parking. The concerns about how many cars would park for each newly created lot. There's also concerns about compatibility as far as dividing the property in half. Next slide, please. Planning staff recommends that the council adopts the ordinance rezoning the property. And my contact information is displayed on this screen. And staff is available for questions and comments. Thank you. Thank you so much. Councilor, are there any questions? Okay, we'll go on to public comment on this and we will go ahead and open the public hearing. Is there anybody who wishes to speak on this item? Seeing nobody in the chambers and I'm seeing no hands on zoom. So I will bring that back to the council. Council Member Schwedhelm, could you please put a motion on the table? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I introduce an ordinance of the council of the city of Santa Rosa many title 20 of the Santa Rosa city code by reclassifying the property located at 1434 Peterson lane to the R-1-6 single family residential zoning district file number REZ21-001 and waive further reading of the text. Second. Motion from Council Member Schwedhelm and a second from Council Member Sawyer. There any additional comments? All right, Madam City Clerk, could you please call the vote? Council Member Schwedhelm. Aye. Council Member Sawyer. Aye. Council Member Fleming. Yes. Council Member Alvarez. Council Member Alvarez. Can you hear me? Yes, thank you. Okay, perfect, thank you. Vice Mayor Rogers. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. That motion passes with six ayes with Council Member Tibbetts absent. Thank you. We'll take a quick dinner break. We'll be back at 6.15. Let's go ahead and resume our council meeting. Madam City Clerk, can you please call the roll? Yes. Council Member Schwedhelm. Here. Council Member Sawyer. Here. Thank you. Council Member Fleming. Here. Council Member Alvarez. Present. Vice Mayor Rogers. Present. Mayor Rogers. Here. Let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of Council Member Tibbetts who is absent for the meeting. Okay, we'll go on to item 14.2. Mr. Assistant City Manager. Yes, thank you, Mayor. Item 14.2 is a report item, Council Direction Devoting Delegate for the League of California Cities 2021 annual conference regarding council position on the two resolutions coming before the League General Assembly. Adrienne Mertens, our Chief Communication and Intergovernmental Relations Officer will be presenting. Mayor and Council Members, item 14.2 is an opportunity to consider providing direction to the city's voting delegate for the League of California Cities 2021 annual conference. Next slide, please. So the League of California Cities, also known now as Cal Cities, is hosting their annual conference in Sacramento next Wednesday through Friday, September 22nd through the 24th. On the last day of the conference, the annual business meeting occurs and member cities take action on the conference resolutions. These resolutions will then serve as the policy guidance for Cal Cities throughout the year. Each city is allowed one voting delegate for this resolution voting process. So at a recent city council meeting, the council approved Mayor Rogers to be Santa Rosa's voting delegate. And so this evening council now has the opportunity to provide direction to the mayor for voting on the city's behalf on resolutions at the conference. So there are two Cal Cities resolutions for consideration this year and I will go through background on each of them. Next slide, please. So first is a resolution of Cal Cities calling on the state legislature to pass legislation that provides for a fair and equitable distribution of the Bradley Burns 1% local sales tax from in-state online purchases based on data where products are shipped to and that rightfully takes into consideration the impacts that fulfillment centers have on host cities, but also provides a fair share to California cities that do not and or cannot have a fulfillment center within their jurisdiction. Next slide, please. So the sponsoring agency for this resolution is the city of Rancho Cucamonga. The sponsor city submitted the resolution due to concerns over the concentration of sales tax revenue from in-state online sales being directed to cities that are home to fulfillment centers. And the city's concerns, city of Rancho Cucamonga's concerns are centered around a few points. The current tax distribution system deprives other neighboring jurisdictions of much needed revenue, but they're still subjected to the impacts that warehouse fulfillment centers create. This includes traffic, pollution, and road damage without providing proper funds to address the concerns. Some municipalities don't also have commercial space or option to host a fulfillment center. And so they're at a disadvantage to benefit from tax proceeds of in-state online sales. Next slide, please. So the week does provide background and analysis of the proposed resolution, which I will summarize. First, since the 1950s, cities have traditionally received one cent on every dollar of a sale made at a store, a restaurant, or other qualifying point of sale location within a jurisdiction's boundaries. This is known as the 1% Bradley Burns Local Sales and Use Tax. Over time, this simplified structure has evolved into a much more complex structure of how sales and use tax allocation is managed in California. So both have the 1% value, but the tax is applied depending on where the transaction starts, where the goods are located and how customers receive the goods. This evolution has ensured that online sales from out-of-state retailers would be subject to sales and use tax. These out-of-state retailers do not have a physical presence in the state and ship goods from fulfillment centers within California that are operated by third parties. And due to the growth of online sales and the corresponding decline of in-store shopping, some cities see most of their sales tax growth actually coming from the county-owned sales tax pools where much of the revenue from out-of-state sales has been allocated. Next slide, please. So toward the end of 2020, one of the world's largest out-of-state online retailers shifted its ownership structure to own and operate its own fulfillment centers within California. This resulted in its reclassification as an in-state retailer. Per regulations that are set by the California Department of Tax and The Administration, sales tax generated by this retailer is now no longer collected in a county-wide pool to be shared by jurisdictions within that county, but it's solely allocated to the city in which the warehouse fulfillment center is located. The change has resulted in more than 90% of California cities experiencing a decrease in sales tax revenue that began the fourth quarter of calendar year 2020. In their analysis, Cal Cities, or League of California Cities, has explained that fluctuation in sales tax following the pandemic shutdowns have massed this issue, but it will have long-term impacts on revenues for all California cities as revenues have shifted to a handful of cities and counties that are home to these fulfillment centers rather than capturing revenues based on where the goods are purchased. Next slide, please. So each city may experience the impacts of this type of change differently. In many situations, entities without fulfillment centers may experience additional impacts from e-commerce and increased deliveries, including traffic, air quality, and compromised safety, as well as the overall negative impact on local brick and mortar businesses that are struggling to compete with a significant increase in online shopping. It's also believed that these cities should be entitled to compensation and equitable share of sales and use tax that balances the impacts to each jurisdiction involved in the distribution of the products that are then purchased online. Next slide, please. So city staff did reach out to our city's consultant avenue analytics and insights for their thoughts on this issue as it relates to Santa Rosa. From their perspective, the issue deserves further analysis and consideration. Therefore, they generally did advise support of the resolution. Incorporating such a stance, they believe into CalCities policy goals could allow for CalCities to more effectively advocate for an assessment of the existing tax structure, as well as a reevaluation of the allocation formula and a more equitable distribution of sales tax revenues that may ultimately benefit the city of Santa Rosa. The city's consultant acknowledged that Santa Rosa likely could see some benefits that were not present previously, but stressed that full data is not yet available and any benefits will completely depend on what is ultimately negotiated in any legislation that could be proposed for advancement by CalCities, and depending on what fair and equitable translates to in terms of any policy that's ultimately developed by the state legislature. Next slide, please. So moving on to resolution number two. This one is a resolution calling upon the governor and the legislature to provide necessary funding for the California Public Utilities Commission, CPUC, to fulfill its obligation to inspect railroad lines to ensure that operators are removing illegal dumping, graffiti and homeless encampments that degrade the quality of life and results in increased public safety concerns for communities and neighborhoods that abut the railroad right of way. Next slide, please. So for this resolution, the city of Southgate is sponsored and brought this forward to CalCities to call attention to the lack of regulatory authority that local governments possess to conduct abatements along the railroad right of way and the lack of oversight to require railroad operators to conduct maintenance and cleanups on a regular basis or in a timely manner. State oversight of rail operations does fall under the CPUC and currently the CPUC has 41 inspectors covering over 6,000 miles of railroad lines to ensure that equipment and bridges and lines are all operating safely. Next slide, please. So typically railroad right of way areas are open and therefore in some communities have been inviting to individuals to conduct illegal dumping and apply graffiti to structures. As is well known, many metro areas lack an adequate supply of affordable housing. This has also contributed to an increase in unsheltered individuals staying along railroad right of way areas. This situation does pose an increased safety risk to these individuals and unsafe work environments for railroad and agency personnel. While the CPUC cannot compel those experiencing homelessness to vacate railroad right of ways or create shelter for homeless individuals, the agency does have the regulatory authority to enforce measures that can reduce some safety issues created by encampments. This includes enforcement of violations, excuse me, this includes violations of clearance standards between tracks, structures and obstructions adjacent to tracks or the removal of tripping hazards along railroad right of way. Next slide, please. So for this resolution, the league also provided analysis summarizing the following current options that are available to cities that are facing this issue. Since railroad property is considered private property, cities must arrange for staff to access the site in coordination with the rail operator or wait weeks for the rail operator to schedule a cleanup. A city may also elect to declare the encampment as a public nuisance area, allowing the city to clean up the area at the railroad company's expense. The league also talked about how some cities have been successful in negotiating MOUs with railroad companies to provide graffiti abatement, trash and debris removal located in the right of way and cleanups of homeless encampments as well. However, absent an MOU, which would detail the shared maintenance, the enforcement and the expenses, cities really lack the actual authority to address the public safety, environmental quality and health impacts on the local community. One additional point that the league, excuse me, acknowledged their analysis was the recent state budget adoption, which includes a homelessness package of $12 billion. This consists of a commitment of one billion per year for direct and flexible funding to cities and counties to address homelessness with regards to this particular resolution. The state budget also already does include 1.1 billion to clean trash and graffiti from highways, roads and other public spaces by partnering with local governments to pick up trash and beautify downtowns, freeways and neighborhoods across California. Next slide, please. Information was gathered from our city staff about this issue as it relates to Santa Rosa. The areas of 9th and Wilson streets, Carrillo Street and Central Avenue and South of Herne Avenue were identified as locations near the smart railroad right of way where encampments are frequently established. Smart has installed some fencing along their property lines in Santa Rosa. And therefore staff did note that in most cases, the encampments are actually on city or as private property, just past the railroad rights away in fence lines. Smart does also have a crew which actively patrols the railroad lines in Santa Rosa and is very proactive in calling dispatch whenever they find an encampment or subject, excuse me, whenever they find an encampment or there's trespassing on their property and they coordinate with SRPD's downtown enforcement team. Each year, through written authorization, Smart also does request the Santa Rosa Police Department to enforce occurrences of trespassing on the railway as well as any other criminal actions which occur within its right of way. Next slide, please. It was acknowledged by all who provided input from the city team that anytime intensified pedestrian activity is present in the area of railroad lines, there's definitely an increased public safety concern. And the same is true even in Santa Rosa with smart fencing in place. However, the proposed resolution as it's written does not appear to address the root of the issue here in Santa Rosa, which is really a lack of overall shelter and housing options across the region for our unsheltered community members. Next slide, please. So that completes summary of both resolutions. There is no fiscal impact associated with providing direction to the voting delegate for these two resolutions. Next slide, please. And with that, I will read the recommendation. It's recommended that the council by motion consider taking a position on the two proposed League of California cities resolutions. First, a resolution calling for a fair and equitable distribution of the Bradley Burns, 1% local sales tax from in-state online purchases. And second, a resolution calling upon the governor and the legislature to provide necessary funding for the CPUC to fulfill its obligation to inspect rail lines. And B, provide associated direction to its voting delegate for the upcoming meeting of the League General Assembly. The council may recommend that the council's voting delegate support, oppose or take no position on both of the resolutions. Next slide, please. And that concludes my presentation and I will turn it back to you, Mayor, for discussion. Thank you so much. Councilor, are there any questions on either of those items? We'll go with council member Fleming. Thank you. I'm curious to know how this, the Bradley Burns tax differs from the Wayfarer decision. Is it part of that or is it separate from that? So, yes. It's okay if you don't know this. Yeah, and I don't know if anyone from finance is on. I know the Wayfarer decision was a 2018 decision that happened before the 2020 change that I mentioned, which is Amazon, obviously. Honestly, I probably need a little help on that if there's somebody on. We'll see if we can get somebody to answer that question in a moment. Did you have any other questions, council member Fleming? We'll come back to that. Council member Sawyer. Thank you, Mayor. Mayor, in your work on the legislative subcommittee or I think it's a subcommittee with the League or their new name, have you discussed the second piece, the number two? And it's, whether it's what the effect is and whether it's really effective in Santa Rosa or have you had a discussion with your group? So we haven't had a discussion specifically on this item. The way that the League is structured, you have your local committee where we talk about legislation that's working its way through that's sponsored by senators and assembly members. And then you talk about your areas of local concern where each city talks about the issues and that's where homelessness has largely been brought up and where we have a chance to discuss the needs of cities with the legislative representatives who are on it. So from that direction, we've talked about it. This is a resolution that's coming specifically out of a policy group that is interested members apply to with the League of Cities and get appointed to. I serve as the chair of the Environmental Quality Committee. So we've talked a little bit about homelessness from an environmental interruption perspective, not from this specific recommendation or the specific resolution that's coming forward. I will mention that I'm also on the North Bay Executive Committee, which again is mostly folks from kind of a broader region talking about legislation and talking about how these things move through. But this is the first time that I'll be seeing this item. Okay. Thank you. Is your assistant city manager? Yes, mayor. Council Member Fleming, I'm wondering if you could provide some more information or some more detail on the nature of your question relating to the two acts? I was, perhaps I've misunderstood or Adrian said she explained a change perhaps I missed the explanation. I thought that the Wayfarer decision allocated tax funds back to the delivery location and that that had resolved this issue. And I was just curious to understand how this differed from that. It's not really that important. It's just a matter of curiosity. I'm glad that we're addressing it if this is separate or exempt from Wayfarer. I guess what I don't understand is how the Amazon issue separates itself from it but you don't need to take up council time. Council Member, I'm happy to work with our chief financial officer and get a response back to you here and then in short order. And if I can take a stab at it really quickly because I think as I understand it, you had the Wayfarer decision that first and foremost said that online goods needed to be taxed because remember that was a big sticking point was where was the point of sale and the taxing entity it would go back to the jurisdiction at the point of sale. My understanding is with this change some groups such as Amazon are defining the point of sale as the call it the distribution center where all of the goods are coming in and then being routed from there. And so the issue is that then that center wherever whatever city hosts that center is the point of sale for the purposes of the Wayfarer decision which then allocates the funds to that city as opposed to evenly distributed amongst the rest. Is that- Yeah, and that is correct. I just did a quick control F in the 70 page lead council or resolution packet and Wayfarer was referenced in there. So I did remember that but the mayor's correct. That is the difference and that companies like Amazon was a huge impact across the country is now setting up actual distribution sites within cities and their designation is now is changing and that's what's now changing the tax pool. Thank you. That's pretty clear. Got it. Any other questions from council? Okay, we'll go ahead and open up public comment on the item. Seeing no hands on zoom nor am I seeing anybody in the chamber running to the microphone. So I'll bring it back council member Sawyer would you like to make a motion? Sure, I will make a stab at this. Just I'll introduce a resolution requesting a yes though for a fair and equitable distribution of the Bradley Burns 1% local sales tax from in-state online purchases and second a yes though on a resolution calling upon the governor and the legislature to provide necessary funding for a CPUC to fulfill its obligation to inspect railroad lines. Is there a second? Second. So motion from council member Sawyer and a second from council member Schwedhelm. Is there any other questions on the motion or any other discussion? Okay, Madam city clerk if you could please call the vote. Thank you mayor. Council member Schwedhelm. Hi. Council member Sawyer. Hi. Council member Fleming. Yes. Council member Alvarez. Hi. Vice mayor Rogers. Hi. Mayor Rogers. Hi. That motion passes with six eyes with council member Tibbets absent. Great, thank you, Adrian. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Move on to item 14.3. Yes, thank you item 14.3 is a report in response to the 2020-2021 grand jury report emergency preparedness. I'm gonna hand it over to city attorney Gallagher and she will introduce the item and Neil Brighman our emergency preparedness manager. Thank you. On June, this concerns the grand jury report of the 2020-2021. On June 20th, 2021, the Sonoma County civil grand jury issued its final report for the year and that report included reports on six separate grand jury investigations, including a report on the grand jury's investigation into the role and effectiveness of emergency alerts and communication systems throughout the county, county-wide report. The grand jury did request the city respond to that report. Several of the findings and recommendations contained in that report. We referred the report to chief, fire chief Westrope and to emergency manager Neil Brighman and Mr. Brighman prepared a response and I hand it over to him now. Thank you. Thank you, city attorney. Good evening mayor Rogers, vice mayor Rogers and esteem council. Next slide please. So each year the civil grand jury investigates local government institutions on a variety of issues and comes up with findings and recommendations as city attorney mentioned. This year one of the subjects and there were many were related to alert and warning in the county as a whole. Next slide please. They went over different findings and we are required to respond and so we submitted a response for the most part. All of the recommendations were already completed and we will continue to work on pursuing improvement to alert and warning on all of those that either are not completed or are ongoing. Next slide please. We were required to submit a response and we have worked to make sure that other staff have reviewed that including my public information and communications team because many of the questions related to not just alert and warning but public information. We reviewed those and we have prepared a response for council to approve and review and then to be submitted by the mayor once it's approved. Next slide. So I'd be interested in hearing what you might need to say or have to say or what questions you might have. We have until September 18th if you have reviewed the response I prepared and have any changes or edits or additions. Otherwise next slide. We would request that you recommend by motion the response as written but obviously if it is not to your liking or satisfaction or there's things you think that are missing we're happy to change that in the next four days and add that in before we make a final submission. Next slide please. And with that, that is the end of my very short presentation. I turn it over to the mayor for questions or a vote. Great, thank you so much Neil. Neil for the public's edification could you give a quick synopsis of what the grand jury was curious about and what their recommendations were? Sure, so one of the, I see the biggest one was focusing on making sure that all members of our community in Sonoma County have one integrated map of the evacuated designated evacuation zones. We had already published hours prior to that recommendation as well as the county. And so a lot of it was just making sure that the civil grand jury is aware that each city has its own evacuation zone map. There is also a place where we've integrated all of those that lives on SoCo emergency which is the county's website to make sure that everyone has every zone they might ever want to look up and are aware of it. Another area of interest for them was just making sure that all best practices are incorporated into our plans around alert and warning. We are always doing that. We are constantly doing what are called after action reports, not only on alert and warning but all of our responses to major disasters. And anytime we have a area of improvement we include that in our checklists, playbooks and other plans. Sonoma County grand jury more or less wants to make sure that we as a community of alert and warning first responders were looking at all those best practices and making sure that they've been incorporated into our plans. And then finally, there was understandably great concern that we meet as many populations of our community where they are. In other words, making sure we're speaking to our Latinx community in Spanish that we are translating if we need to for other languages that we are working with our heart of hearing community whatever the access and functional need might be that might make it difficult for someone to receive the message. They refer to them as subpopulations making sure that we are working with and keeping all of our subpopulations in mind to make sure that we can get the alert and warning messages to as many people as possible. And so we in our response go through all the tools we have and use and that that is a constant improvement process and we are always open to hearing other tips, ideas or ways of making our system better. Great, thank you. Councilor, are there any questions? Seeing none, I'll go ahead and look for public comment. And again, seeing none, I'll bring it back. Council Member Schwedhelm, you have this item. Thank you. And I do appreciate the response, Mr. Bregman. Specifically, I know we had some community discussions about the sirens and I think you did an excellent job explaining why that wouldn't be the best result here in Santa Rosa and Sonoma County. So thank you for that. Thank you. But I'll move by motion that we authorize the mayor to provide formal response to the Sonoma County 2020-2021 grand jury report specifically about emergency alerts and communication toward a culture of preparedness. Second. Motion by Council Member Schwedhelm. Second by Council Member Sawyer. Any other comments? I just want to thank you, Mr. Bregman, that's really appreciate the work that you have been doing since the 2017 fires that I think that you in your response really did a good job of explaining what the evolution has been here in Santa Rosa to make sure that we are prepared and that we are as safe as possible. I think you did a really good job on the response. So thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you to everybody else who participated and helped out as well. With that, Madam Clerk, could you please call the vote? Yes, thank you, Mayor. Excuse me. Council Member Schwedhelm. Aye. Council Member, excuse me. Council Member Sawyer. Aye. Council Member Fleming. Yes. Council Member Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor Rogers. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. The motion passes with six ayes with Council Member Tibbett's absent. Excellent. Thank you so much. And thank you, Neil. And thank you to everybody who worked on this. Have a great evening. Thank you, Council. Thank you, Mayor. We have no written communications tonight. We'll open up for our last public comment for non-agenda items. If you're interested in providing comment, go ahead and hit the raise hand feature on your Zoom. Council Member, I'm not seeing any. So with that, we'll go ahead and adjourn. It is 6.45. If you haven't voted yet, you still have until eight o'clock. Outside of that, we'll talk soon.