 Okay, I think we should get started. We'll turn it into a staff meeting. In essence, no decisions will be made today. And we'll just be doing the updates. Those, the, those in attendance will still be able to ask questions of those presenting, but no decisions will be made. Today, and I look, it looks and then looking at the agenda, it doesn't look as though any decisions are being asked for. But we will. So this turns into a basically a staff meeting update of the various things on the agenda. I think that's, I believe that's how race has. We've done this. We've had to do this in the past. And I think that's how it's handled. We can still go forward with the meeting as long as there are no decisions being made. Sure. So I guess we would actually, I think we can still deal with public comment. I'll call this, this rises that how we deal with this. We don't have a forum. Yes. So we turn it into a staff update. That's correct. Okay. Can I still take public comment? Yes. So let's, I'll, I'll call this, this update to order to order and ask for anyone wishing to make a, anyone in the public wishing to make a comment on those items, not on the agenda. We have no raise hands at this time for public comment, nor do we have any emails or voicemails. Okay, excellent. So we'll just move on to the updates starting with railroad square association community benefit district Raphael. Well, good morning. How are you? Well, it's good to see you. Good to see you too. I think that one is Chris Wilson's item, but I will go ahead and report that things continue to move very well in the railroad square area. And most recently we had our team from TPW over at the depot park to address some of the electrical concerns. There is hope that some of the minor repairs are completed within the next couple of weeks. And then the association will seek out a contractor that will assess what is needed to be done to decorate some of those streets so that they can be some lighting in December as part of the holiday festivities. And I am hoping Chris is on the call, Chris. Yes. Okay, I'll turn it over to Chris for some additional details. Great. Excellent. Hello, Chris. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you Raphael. Yeah, just to start with, you know, we still have we have some issues I always have to start with that so I can end on a positive note. There is we're watching the encampment that's over near the AC hotel. That's a concern. I'm hoping to get that cleaned up and our security is watching that. Just to tell you there is concern from our merchants are watching going to be watching closely with the temporary move of Catholic Charities moving into St. Vincent to Paul's location we, you know, going to be watching that because there's some merchants that you know it's going to lead to lines of people hanging out on Wilson Street and in that area and it could impact some of the businesses down there so just, you know, being aware of that. We're really focusing as Raphael said, you know, we're focusing now on really what projects can we actually complete before the end of the year there's a lot of balls in the air and, and really want to focus on getting some things completed it's really important that we're showing something to our property owners that's visual that they can see an impact of the assessment fees that they're now paying to support our district. So, looking at the tree trimming we had to scale back our original plan of really going in and removing tree, because as I've mentioned before the concrete issues and the expense of that so we are going ahead with trimming we'll be looking removing any hazardous trees on the third street and fifth street, and that and cleaning up the area, looking forward to the city getting the deep apart trees done which we've been promised that they will be done by October by the end of October so clean that up so that we can move ahead and get some lighting down there for the holidays so the trimming's got to be done. I had hoping cadence will share the contractor she used for downtown for their lighting that they've got down there we'd like to do something similar. The way finding project is another one we hope to move forward I think we're now looking at, you know, working on the permitting through the city and getting that getting that project move forward it's kind of been a long time project. We are, we had our first music stroll last month and we're having our second probably last one of this year of this type of there and a summer music stroll on Sunday, September 26. The Humane Society is going to be out there with showing their services we've got a number of musicians it'll be playing we've got a group playing in Depot Park so it's a variety of music and with the Humane Society out there and a bubble lady so it should be fun casual afternoon for for families to come down in a safe outdoor environment. I wanted to give a shout out to Claire Nordy and Deb Lane who helped us with our last first and the previous music stroll who brought the water efficiency program out there for us and had her had a display and booth so that that was really helpful and they also brought a musician for us. We're working on holiday planning as we move into our fall and and holiday advertising opportunities marketing hoping to bring the carriage rides back this year. That was always very very popular and a great thing for our community so we're bringing hoping to bring that back as long as we can. I'm not barring any COVID restrictions. I really want to thank Eileen Cleary and Raphael for for working us through the whole tax assessment property assessment fees. It's a laborious task really helping us identify those delinquent ones as we now transition those are being transitioned to the county and a lot of time has been spent on it and I and we really really do appreciate it. I think that is really it for me and if you've been down there all the ballards have been painted so they all look nice and shiny where you know little things do make a difference and so we're hoping to also get the light poles done so working with the city to look at options for those whether they're painted partway up or all the way or how much expense we're going to do with those so still focusing on you know getting the area to look nice feel safe and be very vigilant about the the transient issues and the vandalism that graffiti and vandalism that does continue to play us down there. So I think that's it Raphael did I miss anything. Oh no that you covered it pretty well. And again this is an evolving project with a lot of moving parts so I appreciate not just the association by the city staff, or really stepping up to the plate to bring beauty to this area thanks to the community benefit and of course, this has made a tremendous impact, you know, when I made my city council presentation I said that this was the gateway to Santa Rosa, and it is so so we want to continue moving forward working hard, and making this a destination for Santa Rosa. In addition of course to our other side of the downtown area so kudos to the association and let's continue working together. I do have a question and thanks to the report Chris and Raphael. I'm sure this has been discussed in the past when I'm curious about the lighting, the, the aesthetic lighting. At one point I don't know if it was in place or if it was being discussed that instead of lighting trees or maybe in addition to that the outside frame of the buildings be lit. At least above where someone could actually reach the lights with LEDs and with the new light bulbs that are LEDs and because they, they last forever almost there would be very little light, very light, very little light bulb replacement. Plus it creates kind of a cool look when you look down a street and all the outside frames of the buildings are lit. So I'm just discussing are there are there reasons why that has not been pursued or it was just something that they just didn't want to do they wanted to put the lights in the trees. What's the, what is the kind of the status of that or why what was or was not considered. I can only just say from from the time I've been there, a few of some of the buildings on four street are lit from the top. And we'd like to like to get more of that. What we're looking at is wrapping that there, there's old existing lights that are not working that are in Depot Park when and there are some on four street that were within the trees we're getting trying to get those all removed and do tree in the park. And then on four straight we'd like to do the over the, we really like to do overhead across the street to like give a feeling of entering into or highlighting that street. I'd love to see the buildings outlined or it being more consistent Raphael do you have more on that. So the recollection that we did address this about three years ago and our planning division is open to the idea and providing that encroachment permit for such project. But it's, it's stopped with as trying to assess and the association of course trying to assess the cost of purchasing these lights. However, we are opening, we are open to having these discussions and the possibility of doing the allowing the installation of the flights. So, I think this is a project that Mike has had in mind for for quite a while. I think it would definitely add more beautification to the area, make it more festive and we can definitely revisit this topic with the association. Well, it's, you know, I've seen the overhead lighting is a is a cool idea as well I like that I mean it's it's it's the beauty of the new the new lights as they are. They're, they're nice and bright. They don't require a lot of maintenance. I would think fire would might might have a problem. They, they don't generally like anymore they didn't use didn't use to matter but it does now having things strung across the streets I guess because of their ladder trucks, etc. That can that could be a problem, but any anything to do with those lights whether they be outlining the buildings or or or if we can get them across the street, that would be. It just makes a real festive feel, and it also creates a fair amount of light. Yes, two things. And Council member sorry one chair to bits is on now. Yes, I did notice that thank you. Cadence Hinkle can actually. And Alan's and can give an update on that as well. Okay, outstanding. Thanks, do you want to do you want to say something now. Yeah, I'm happy to speak now or kind of update when I get to my report, which I believe is next on the agenda. Yeah, that now that'll be fine. Welcome chair tidbits. Thank you john sorry I'm late. I don't know what's going on with my camera either. I'm trying to get it to work but for now this will have to do. Well, we'll, we'll, we'll do now is if you could bring the the official meeting to order we were, we were at a staff meeting update until your until you came on so if you could bring the official downtown subcommittee to order, then we can continue in a standard fashion. Good. Okay, it's 848 am I'll call this meeting of this September 7 meeting of the downtown act downtown subcommittee to order. And that's 848 am. And then we'll move on to number one. Madam clerk, can you please take the role. Yes, chair tidbits here. Thank you. Let the record reflect that the member plumbing is unable to attend today. Okay, thank you. Let's move on to item two public comments by members of the public. Any person in the public wishing to address this subcommittee may do so at this time by using the raise hand feature on zoom or pressing star nine if you're calling in by phone. Madam clerk, do we have anybody wishing to speak. We have their raised hands at this time nor do we have any voicemails or emails for this meeting. Okay, great. We'll move on to item three new business item 3.1 we have the railroad square association community benefit district update by Raphael Rivera economic development specialist Chris Wilson. Yeah, chair tidbits. We do have a member of the public wishing to speak and they just raise their hands. If we could take a moment for them. Sure, we'll go back to you. Thank you. Just one moment while I pull up. Welcome to the public comment screen. And in the meantime, council member we did cover 3.1 we'll, we'll, I don't think there's any reason to redo that when we can, we'll, we can after we're finished with the public comment, we can move to 3.2. Okay, thanks, John. You bet. Denise, if you would please unmute and confirm that you were able to see the screen that would be wonderful. Hi everybody morning. I can see the screen. Thank you. I just wanted to do a quick comment and I wasn't sure if this is the right place to do it, but I'm about ready to head into my work life. So I want to get it in. So I pulled the calls for service for our neighborhood, the St. Rose neighborhood, really small neighborhood in downtown Santa Rosa calls for service for the January through August of this year. And it's sort of an astounding 500 over 500 calls for service. And specifically 57% and possibly more if they're not marked correctly is as addressing homeless situations and issues. 57% of those so a call a day for the last eight months in our neighborhood has been regarding the homeless. I know that we have been told in the past and I'm not sure if the police are going to do report or not on this meeting the downtown police patrol. That if we called in repeatedly, you know, repeatedly, we would get a dedicated patrols through our neighborhood and I don't believe that that has happened yet and I just wanted to put it out there that we'd love to see that happen. We realize the in response team is going to be launched shortly but in the meantime, clearly there's a heavy presence and challenges with the with the homeless issue in our neighborhood has as there has been for a long time and we're ready for that to change. So, if that could be addressed later on if there is going to be an agenda item on the downtown police patrols, we would really appreciate it. Thanks, Denise. Yeah, thank you Denise will ask the public safety representatives to address that question when it comes up. All right, was there any other public comment at this time. There is no additional public comment at this time. Thank you. Okay, let's fast forward to item 3.2 on the agenda. That is going to be downtown action organization with cadence Henkel Allison. Thank you chair to this good morning council member so you're in staff nice to see everybody today. I'm happy to kind of give an update on the lighting situation since we've worked through most of the scenarios that came up in the in the earlier item. I just want to start by kind of saying our thank yous because it's been another. Another great month of working with the city for a lot of challenges this past month and our city partners just continue to be responsive and helpful and solution oriented which we really really appreciate. And especially the DET. We who we're just incredibly grateful for we've had a number of ongoing issues that seem to be kind of slowly escalating and are becoming more and more of a concern. And we really appreciate them paying attention to those and trying to help us address them. There's a lot of upset business owners right now about issues that are that are coming forward mostly to deal with our homeless population downtown had a number of break ins and a lot of trespassing and the the general state just seems seems to be escalating a bit The DET has been has been very helpful as we're trying to work through the best way to support that community and our business owners at the same time. I think I'll start with some updates on businesses downtown we have two new retailers in the process of opening which we're really excited about. Both are hoping to open this fall so as soon as we have firm dates on those all I'll definitely share. Any. I have heard from a number of property owners that the ongoing issues downtown specifically the homeless issues have been keeping potential tenants moving in. I think that is more specific to office tenants right now. But we obviously do have a number of vacancies along four street and in the kind of downtown core right there. But again working hard with especially with the ET to try to figure out how to make some positive changes in that area. I'll move on to the committee work right now so our design and improvement committee has been working on a lighting concept. And we actually just installed bridge lighting across four straight at the intersection of fourth and B. Thinking about doing in other locations but wanted to install it there prior to moving forward. I haven't seen that yet. Definitely worth checking out we worked with Gabe to make sure that was high enough and provided drawings to the fire department to make sure they were comfortable with it as well. And we used the redwoods there kind of as the infrastructure to span over the street. We obviously have looked at both parapet lighting so outlining the, the buildings themselves, as well as trying to cross the full, the, the entire span from building to building. It's very challenging because the building heights very significantly, and the building building materials very significantly so that the types of attachments would change per building, the height wouldn't necessarily be able to stay the same, which is why we ended up using the redwoods to do the over the street lighting for the parapet lighting was kind of a similar challenge we're not. Moving forward with it yet it's just proved to be a little bit. A little bit too complicated to do right now, which is that in order to do that we need individual power sources for each building so every single property owner would need to weigh in. And to get to get quotes for it, it would be different for every single property. So wrap be hard for us to budget. We need to have a lot of buy in from the property owners for us to move forward, because we'd have the individual power. And again then the attachments on to the building would differ depending on the material or the construction of the actual building itself would would be a lot easier because we wouldn't we wouldn't necessarily have to work with the fire departments, it's not in the way of building, but more challenges in that we'd have to work with each individual property owner to get their buy in and get a very, very comprehensive quote for what would essentially be a different installation for every building on four street. So that's why we haven't moved forward with it it is something we're definitely still interested in doing. We are focusing on the on the bridge lighting for now and if, and if we're happy with what went in at at the intersection of being forth will look to do more down four street and possibly in other areas of downtown as well. So that's been the main focus of our design improvement committee. Our community engagement committee has been really really busy are opening out schedule comes to an end. Next weekend we have our end of summer block party on the 18th. We have six or seven different musical performances we've got a number of different kids activities and games and things for families, magician balloon artists arts and crafts, different boosts from community organizations. We got some fun games for courthouse square that will bring out hopefully more regularly but a giant, a giant connect four said and some building blocks that we can put out on the weekends but we'll start doing that at the block party. And then we've got a craft fair coming in so the makers market artisan craft fair is going to be on the square. And then we have a beer garden with all of our downtown breweries. And then we're really working with our retailers and restaurants to offer specials and sidewalk sales and make all of 4th street and courthouse square really feel like the full event rather than it being just on courthouse square. So the block will be closed from B to to D. And then the little section of Mendocino from fifth to fourth will also be closed as will the whole square. So it'll be very pedestrian friendly people can walk from space to space activities or activity and feel pretty comfortable out there. We're also moving forward with our fall fun fest on Friday, October 29. We're going to start with a trick or treating in the businesses along 4th Street. Our friends at Bayside Church are bringing a bunch of carnival games that will spread throughout the street. We're going to do a costume contest partnering with the local radio station on that so we'll have a DJ on the square and hopefully a little, you know, red, red or orange carpet costume contest for for kids and families and pets. We're looking to do a couple other activities and have a family movie night at seven so we'll have a big LED screen which is a bit of a shift we were using the blow up screen previously but we're going to be using an LED screen so it should be brighter. And it'll be dark by seven in October but it'll be fun to have that really exciting new screen in the square and we're going to be showing Hocus Pocus at seven o'clock on that Friday. October 29. So that'll just be kind of a fun family afternoon downtown. We don't have any street closures planned for that. Although we'll we're not we're not planning to close the street but we will we do want everyone to safely be able to walk from across the sidewalk so we'll probably have our street plus team. Really focusing on the trick or treating areas and making sure everyone is safe. And then finally, because this is probably the thing I get the most questions on other than the closure of the 500 block is the ice rink. We are moving forward with this and said synthetic ice rink it is scheduled to be installed in mid November and will likely run from November 19 through January 9. So we're working with some of our some of the markets we've worked with over the summer and to have some holiday markets throughout that time as well. We are using volunteers to to staff the rink over the course of the, over the course of the season, and then we'll still have our winter lights. And then we'll have an event on the 26, which is the day after Thanksgiving. So we're really trying to make it a fun, fun festive courthouse square over the holidays and are excited to kind of share more about that maybe I can just give more details about it so that everyone is up to speed at the next meeting or working through some of the logistical things right now and we'll be obviously meeting with city staff to talk through that as well. And I can probably give a pretty thorough overview at our October meeting just in case there are any questions about timing or tickets or any of those things. And then finally our street plus team has lost a couple staff staff members recently in the process of hiring and hoping to get them back up to five. But the three who are still with us, Steve Sonny and Danielle are working very hard. So we're grateful for their, their support downtown. They've, they've had a lot to do and they've done a great job doing it so hoping to get two more staff on board in the next couple of weeks so that they can keep, go back to some of their more proactive activities and, and not just be reactive to the various issues that come up so it's been a challenge for them but again they've been, they've been great kind of pushing through that so hoping we can get them the support. So, I think that's that's it for me unless anyone has any questions. Sorry. Thank you, Jack. I do have a well, a comment and a question. When it's, when it is supported by the merchants and when it's possible to do it certainly makes it easier to close off Mendocino Avenue. Now that it's not going through the middle of the square so it's, it's nice to be able to have that that flexibility when you can take advantage of it. That's a good thing. It kind of makes some cohesion when trying to do an event. So, happy to see that my, and then throw the next, the question I have is probably going to move to a sergeant wolf but it sounds like when you break in, it sounds like this is moved from a nuisance to a much more serious and arrestable situation is it. Are we not are the perpetrators do they disappear before we can get to them for they're actually breaking into a building and that sounds like a felony to me. So I'm curious, and it'll probably just moved into to Jonathan about how that's being dealt with but that's just sounds like it's, it had some of this, some of these this activity or behavior has escalated, regardless of the reality of zero and just the revolving door, but I would like to hear the, the reality of how we deal with break ends. I will point out that this is not necessarily this does not feel like an escalation anyway. We have had pretty regular break ends downtown over the last six months or so the ones that I'm specifically thinking about that happened in last week or vacant buildings, which is, you know, an additional issue because they're not monitored. They don't have security on site or security cameras. And it is harder to address that when there's, there's no one there although most of our problemers do have no trespass letters on file and DET is great about enforcing that. Okay, thank you. That's sad to hear I'm sorry. Okay, see no other questions let's go to public comment on item 3.2 are there any members in the public wishing to speak. We have no raise hands at this time. Okay, seeing none we'll bring it back for any final comments that customers or any final comments. No, thanks Jack. Okay. Thank you cadence will move now move on to item 3.3 public safety update with Sergeant Jonathan wolf. Okay, good morning, everybody. Good morning. I'll be filling in for certain will for the foreseeable future so you're probably seeing me once a month from now on. So the focus of the downtown enforcement team has been continued re emphasis of the downtown quarter. We've been focusing on old courthouse square and the calm stock mall area with useful codes for things like smoking and public or public consumption alcohol. We continue to address the trespassing issues throughout downtown. As cadence said most of the businesses downtown have trespass players on file and that's a regular every morning thing that we try to enforce. The criminal charge for downtown over the month of August was that the vehicle actually which is different from this time last year. As far as the, the St. Rose area that is part of our daily routine of emphasis and trying to get through all the downtown neighborhoods. And just for context, this team has been tasked with the homeless chem and chemist throughout the city for the last four or five years and splitting time with downtown and just recently, we have re emphasize downtown and have committed to downtown so there should be more presence moving forward. And to that end we've been working hard on getting electric motorcycles zeros back online we have to currently work and we're trying to get back up to for to help our ability to be seen downtown and throughout all the neighborhoods downtown. We've been working with the DAO to with their habitually homeless issues they have downtown. We pray with hope and we've worked on getting some people kind of wrapped in services through hope and all that kind of stuff. And then, finally, to address the break in issues, like Caden said those are typically having overnight in a business that don't have cameras so if we're able to get them on camera and able to identify them then we're able to follow. But typically, it's not like a breaking and entering where there's a burglary involved it's just a break in vandalism type thing and the person's gone by the time we discovered that the business and broken into. That's all I have unless there are questions. I'm sorry, do you have any questions for Sergeant Barry. You know, I, not really a question is just a comment. Potentially, I guess there's a question embedded in there is, you know, those buildings that are vacant is there for public safety. I'm wondering if there's any kind of program we might want to put into place that actually puts eyes on the vacant buildings. And I'm just as a I don't know how it would be done I mean we have eyes on courthouse square I think that there are other eyes around downtown. If we, depending on how many vacant buildings there are on 4th street. I'm wondering if, if we couldn't incorporate some of these blind spots, if you will, into our visual program, and it's just, it's just throwing it out there I don't know if it's something that we could even do, but if it's a public space like the sidewalk, as opposed to someone's building I don't, I don't want to suggest that we should be taking responsibility for the security of landlords that have empty buildings we might want to. But if we were able to to kind of assist in that way. We could aid in our ability, potentially, of kind of getting some of these individuals that are that are doing the vandalism tracking it or looking at them identifying them and then and then which could lead to an arrest. And I think the police have plenty on their on their plates, as far as dealing with this kind of behavior but I'm just wondering what what options there might be with our own program, our own security program downtown, where we do have eyes on the street so I'm just throwing it out there. It's, it's, it's disturbing to me that we have this kind of behavior going on and whether or not there's any really any solution that we can assist in is the big unknown so I'm just throwing it out there. I'm certainly no subject matter expert on cameras I can say that based off of the results we've had in old courthouse square in the transit mall throughout the parking Rogers that they have been extremely effective in getting people identified and getting prosecution. So that is certainly an option, making that happen obviously this is a whole different conversation but it certainly be an effect. And we have elevated our director of information technology Eric McHenry, and he might be able to weigh in as well so I just want to note that he's available for questions on this as well. Excellent thanks very so. Eric, can we had through the mayor can, can we have Eric way in on what the potential is for additional eyes on fourth street. And that is a item on the agenda as well so we're wondering if we just know that comes up and. Yeah, that's fine. I didn't know I really, I didn't notice the video surveillance piece on that so I'll just, I'll just wait that's fine thanks right. And thanks there. Thanks, John. I have a question for you sergeant and Denise Hill she asked it earlier and I see that she's still on and I'm probably going to butcher her questions so if I do Denise. I hope that you'll talk to us again during public comment on this section. But Sergeant she had a question about the uptick and calls for service and the same rose neighborhood she had a statistic where 57% are related to people experiencing homelessness. So that a little bit are you noticing an increase in homelessness activity. I will say that St. Rose has for a long time been a neighborhood of emphasis for us that we spend a lot of time in. We also are reactive to where specific crimes are so like based on the statistics over the last month the primary areas where we're seeing the most criminal activity are actually on seven street and the Comstock mall area. And that being said, we do have at least two teams throughout the week that do spend regular time in the St. Rose area and our weekend team spends their time there as well. So, it is a place that we go as far as homeless complaints versus crime. Probably seeing a lot of complaints there, but not necessarily specific crimes related to homelessness if that makes sense. Okay, that does thank you very much. Let's go to public comment at this time. We have anybody wishing to speak. We do Denise has raised her hand. Denise, if you would please unmute and confirm your ability to see the timer on the screen that would be wonderful. Hi again. Yes, I can see it. Yeah, it's I just want to elaborate. So this is a quality of life issue for our residents. We've had a number of residents literally move out of the neighborhood this summer because of the impact of the homeless situation the transience. And you know what it what it takes to constantly walk out your front door and be able to and look down the street and see you can't turn right, because there's someone who's having a mental break. You can't walk down on that corner of the street so you have to turn left to go where you want to go you can't walk down Morgan Street because there's a lot of sketchy characters hanging out on Morgan Street. You can't go under 9th Street all those been vastly improved and I really appreciate Sergeant Wolf and the in the public works department working on, you know, no parking on 9th Street under the under crossing we could use a camera there for sure. You know it's it really is a quality of life issue and it is really depressing to see neighbors we've known for years. Make the decision to move out of the neighborhood because they just can't do it anymore we can't call every day about something going on. You know we've got young children in the neighborhood so what are they seeing when you know somebody is acting erratic, or using the outdoors for a bathroom and I know these are all issues you've heard before but it is so endemic in our neighborhood that it's gotten to be a serious issue. So I appreciate any focus that can be given on the area. We currently have people camping right across from the Catholic Charities property right next to 700 Morgan Street the one neighbor who lives right there. He is incredibly challenged right now with waking up to fights in the middle of the night, having people, you know, verbally assault him as he's going in and out of his house. You so it is less than that you know you can't put your finger on it's a specific crime, but what you can put your finger on is, you know, then, you know, not only the homeless population and we and we hope the best for them and are thrilled that there's going to be some mental health facility expansion but you know it's really what what should you know the other population the residents in the neighborhood be required or expected to put up with every day. And I think it's just that the focus needs to be, you know, now start to be a little bit more focused on the neighborhood because people are leaving because of the situation. And it's, you know, that's an untenable situation for a neighborhood, you know, you can't have people who have been here for 20 years, make that decision that they're moving just to this to the JC neighborhood because the JC neighborhood is actually a better living situation than our neighborhood really sad to see because we love our neighborhood. So I just wanted to put that out there. Thank you. Mr. Clerk, are there any other raised hands this time. There are no additional raised hands at this time. Okay, thank you. I'll bring it back. Council Member Slerr, do you have any final comments or questions? No, I think probably my questions will be answered from Mr. McHenry and the next item. So thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, we're going to wrap it up and thank you, Sergeant Barrett. We're going to move on to item 3.4 video surveillance in public areas and overview by Eric McHenry, Chief Information Officer of Information Technology with Rafael Rivera, Economic Development Specialist. Yeah, and quickly, Chair Teves, I was just quickly going to introduce Eric. So, but I also want to point out that this has been a hot topic over the course of the last several meetings. And you had requested for us to do a little research and find if a policy existed for video surveillance, video surveillance and such or actually a program. We invited Eric, our Chief Information Officer under Information Technology. He has some background about some efforts that were conducted quite a few years ago under video surveillance. I understand there's some controversies and such cost, constitutional rights and such. But I think it turns out that we may not have a policy in place. So I'm going to turn it over to Eric and thank you Eric for being on the call. And I appreciate your time and information. So thank you. Yes, first like to give an overview of what cameras we have around town in general. We have a number of cameras inside buildings, and so those are in the category of non public areas. I would say that the vast majority of our city facilities have interior cameras. I won't speak to those because I understand the interest here is more on the external cameras in the public right away or public view. Next, generally when there's a specific request by a department and those are identified based on need from the department. So for example, the parking garages have had cameras in them for 15 years and they are in various places in all the parking garages. They are accessible through the parking department staff. None are available for the public to look at. They are used in the parking garages for generally after the fact, understanding of what happened for incident in the garages. In general for our city surveillance cameras, the resources do not exist for them to be monitored live. They're used after the fact and of course, ideally for some deterrence because they're posted that they're there. The next set of cameras that the city put up in general were the ones around courthouse square. And those were funded as part of the courthouse square project, probably five or six years ago. Those are the ones that most are most noticeable by the public. We have eight fairly sophisticated high resolution cameras in courthouse square. There's one in each corner of the square. And there's also one on each interior corner of the square, the middle of the square. This time we also put up a fairly robust Wi-Fi network also in courthouse square as part of the courthouse square project. Those cameras and then Wi-Fi were completely funded by the courthouse square project, with the exception of two additional cameras that were put in that are pantone zooms that basically can be moved around and controlled by the police department. And the other cameras we have around the city are kind of sprinkled in just random areas. There's not a large concentration of cameras anywhere else in the city. There are no cameras currently in railroad square or to my knowledge, ever in railroad square. Those have been debated over the years, but they've never happened. And the policy that we use for those cameras is that to get access to the cameras that responsibly lies with the department oversees them. For example, the police department generally oversees the cameras in courthouse square, the transit department generally oversees the cameras in the parking garages, et cetera. When those department staff have a need to access the camera, they submit that authorization to the IT department, and we provide permissions to view those cameras. Access to the images is internal staff only a very limited number of people. There also is a venue of course for public records request to look at the video that has happened occasionally. And that also typically goes to the department oversees the camera. For example, it's not that uncommon in past years, particularly about two years ago to get some requests for video camera surveillance in courthouse square. Those go to the police department, the police department confers with the city of Terry's office, et cetera, and clips if appropriate are released. I believe the policy in general that if it's, if it's part of an ongoing investigation than they view a little bit differently. There's no overview of the cameras, there's no policy of where the cameras can go. The interpretation by our attorney's office a number of years ago and it's still the case is that if cameras are in the public right away. They're fine to go there. We post that there are video surveillance cameras, and there's no expectation of privacy in the in the public public areas. Let me just pause there and ask if there are additional questions on specific aspects of the cameras I can type into that. Council Member sorry. Thank you Mr chair. So, Eric, if there were, if there was, if we were noticing a trend in a particular area in our downtown. Who would be perhaps it would be our police department, but the requesting department to say look we've got we have a trend. We have a trend that we're that we are dealing with of illegal behavior and this on this block or on this building would, would, would that be any anywhere in the downtown area where it had to do with some illegal behavior would that be a request that would come from, for instance our downtown enforcement team. So it almost certainly go through the police department and the department would make a determination whether they felt it was necessary to put some cameras up and then the request would go out to the information technology department. We would work with them on camera placement and camera angles for those cameras. Okay, so there looks looks sounds like there might be some research that would need to be done to see if we do, if we do see a trend, and then we could move from there. Yes, that's correct. Okay, that sounds good. Thanks Eric I was I was hoping that there would be a policy like that or a standard procedure for responding to various needs as they as they might arise. I appreciate that thank you. Any questions at this time Mr McHenry but thank you so much for joining us this morning. We appreciate it's been an ongoing discussion for us for quite some time. I would like to turn to the public at this time to see if there's any public comments on this item. Madam Secretary do we have anybody wishing to speak. We do not have any raised hands at this time for public comment. Okay. I can. All right, bringing it back to the subcommittee. I guess I'll quickly make a comment and john if you have comments, please jump in after me. But to me this seems like a good tool and something worth pursuing for downtown in this, these days of Martin v Boise where we don't have a lot of abilities to, I guess, have tools for lack of a better term to help the homelessness situation that we have in our downtown in the St. Rose neighborhood. A lot of these areas where unfortunately disruption can be commonplace with people experiencing homelessness. So I would like to see the city council get the opportunity to weigh in on this potentially explore cameras as a use it seems clear to me that the police department does have a use for it. It does help in the persecution of crime such as break ins and other things that are going on that to me is really not related to being homeless that probably has more to do with just flat out bad behavior that could be rooted in substance abuse or addiction and mental health but the point being is if merchants and families are exposed to that sort of thing on an ongoing basis and there's another tool that we have that can help get somebody into services which unfortunately all too often come when being incarcerated these days. That's probably something that we should look into. That's my two cents john I don't know if you have anything you'd like to add. Well, I agree with you. Jack and I think that maybe what what we might be able to do is recommend a just to have a report item on on our camera usage and how we might, how we might enhance that to help us with our security in downtown. Somehow speak to the police department and do that do that research to find out if we if we actually have a trend. If we don't have a trend it's kind of hard to know how to place so it's, it would be, you know, it would be helpful to have ultimately, if we were to be get a report item to have the the details on calls for service at a particular location where an added surveillance may help us either deal with the perpetrators, or, you know, word gets out in certain communities when, when, when the city acts and so I think I think we have the, the, I think we have all the reasons necessary to at least bring the council up to speed on what our what our policy or procedures are for increasing that kind of surveillance, albeit potentially temporary in a particular area downtown. So, I think I think I would I would like to see that happen I think you, you know, I think it falls within your recommendation jack is to talk to talk to talk to the mayor and or just bring it up as a report item on this on this subcommittee that we would like to see something happen with the conversation with the council about camera surveillance. And just to be clear on the next steps that you're recommending john is you'd like me to speak to the mayor and my capacity as chair and see if you would prefer a report out from us on this or if you would like, for example, Raphael and Mr McHenry to create. I don't know some sort of a study session. Yeah, I'm not sure if it needs to be a study session at this point but at least a report item to get the ball rolling and get the get take the temperature of the council, as far as their willingness to ask, because staffs can there's there's going to be some effort here, getting the police department to identify to potentially identify those trends, but however, however that's best handled. So far as getting it on the agenda, because our agendas are real, are real full, and this probably all those to some sounds like a urgency item. You know, getting things on the agenda can take a while but at least getting that giving the council a heads up, and that might potentially come just either from Raphael or Eric or, or, or you jack on a report item, or report out. So that's our discussion today, when it, you know, when it when it comes to reporting out on some committees. Okay, thanks for that john appreciate it. And with that. Oh, Mr vero did you have a question or comment you look like you were poised to make one. No, in regards to time frame. What are we looking at a couple of weeks from now from today or a couple of months perhaps, given the impacts of future agendas and such. Sure, I'll bring it up with Chris today. We don't have a meeting today the best of my knowledge. But maybe on Tuesday, I can do a report out. And I, I'm going to assume that we'll seek, you know, for votes and go through that process perhaps or the mayor. The conversation today might just say, you know, I'm going to bring this forward. Given the some of the constitutionality issues and privacy. He may want to have it come forward with four votes so it there's already some semblance of council support for the consumption of staff time but I'll leave that to him. That sounds good. Okay, great. Let's move on to I think it's items 3.5. Yes, maintenance of courthouse square update from Tim Finnegan, Park's career superintendent. Good morning, council chair tidbits and council member Sawyer. We've been busy the last few weeks, doing a lot of prep work to the square and the downtown surrounding areas and prep of the center as a marathon. So we didn't schedule any big projects or any, any major work. Our focus was on trying to do some fine tuning of areas going through and doing some power washing of the square, painting over graffiti and lead mowing down the greenway and around city hall and the city hall annex. So that's been our main focus the last few weeks. It was a great event and so forth as far as the Santa Rosa marathon. We work closely with the events coordinator on that and power needs and getting that all set up for them. We then kind of focused to last week on on Juilliard Park. We had a car show event there this past weekend. And so we did it some again, some fine tuning of the area, getting that area prepared for the car show which, as far as all information I received was very successful. We have people around events back in the area being able to showcase some of our parks and city spaces. On the agenda coming up. I am looking at scheduling the bunny bunny cone removal. I'm looking at the week of the 20th or the week of the 27th, depending on availability of equipment. I looked at the schedule of events and that looks like it would work in between those two weeks. But if there's anything that comes up that that I need to be aware of or change something, please let me know. It's been great working with the organizations on events so great communication. So if there's anything else that comes up, please let me know and we'll adjust accordingly. During our inspection of the Greenway, we will need to be spending some more time on the lights down alongside the pathway. Again, we've had problems with some vandalism and and I will have to be working with the electrical department on getting those lights back working again. It seems like it's a constant thing. We spend a lot of time and energy getting the lights going again and we continue to have problems with some powered issues down there. So it's a work in progress and it never seems the end. That's all I have at the moment. I'm open for questions. Thank you, Mr. Pennington. We're unable to hear you. Really, you can't hear me. Now I can. Okay. My computer is acting really strange. Council member sir, do you have any questions? Nothing, Mr. Chair. Thank you. I don't either Mr. Finnegan. I appreciate your time. At this time, we're going to turn to the public and see if there's any public comments on this item. Madam Secretary, are there any members of the public wishing to speak? We have a public comment at this time. Okay, great. Bringing it back. Thanks so much, Tim. We're going to move on to our last item of the day, which is item 3.6 permanent events and public art and I have an update here that Mr. Rivera was going to be providing that update. Yes. Thank you so much, Chair Tivitz and step in for Tara Thompson, who's not able to join us this morning. So under events, there have been continuous activities downtown center in courthouse square under the permit issue to the Metro Chamber to the Metro Chamber for open and out. A few events have returned to downtown this year, but we have not. We're not back up to our typical volume. So far the Mexican Oaxaca event or the Oaxaca in the wine country took place on August 1. It was very festive, very beautiful, colorful and brought a lot of people to downtown of course. And then we also had a very successful center of the marathon just recently, I think we saw a couple of staff members crossing the line including Captain Cregan and the mayor also I believe participated. So that took place on August 28 and August 29. Winter Blast in the sofa district is planned for November 6, and then are the outfest wine festival schedule, typically in October has been postponed to 2022. And of course, as we start to get more applications that we will resume distributing the permit list as we continue moving forward. So under public arts, no major updates from the previous from the last meeting held, however, there are two items, October 1, sorry, October 4. So we expect to recommend the final artists for the fifth street parking garage project to the APPC for approval, and also on the same day, we expect to make a recommendation, a final recommendation for the list of words and phrases and languages for the sculpture to the APPC for approval as well. So that is all we have under public arts and events. Are there any questions? Thanks Mr. Rivera. Seeing none from John I have none. So we'll turn to public comment on item 3.6 any members of the public wishing to speak. We have no public comment at this time. Okay, bringing it back to the subcommittee. Not seeing any final comments but thank you very much Mr. Rivera appreciate you. And so that was our last item of the day so it's 938 we are adjourned. Thank you. Bye.