 Okay, Alisa. Yes, Dan. Okay. Something seems off here. Hi, Chris. Hey, John. Hey everybody. Okay. Apparently John's not going to be late. Yeah. I should be at least two minutes late. I really insist on being late so that I get, so that I get a warm welcome. All right, let's try that. All right, Alisa, are we all set? Yep. I think we're good to go. All right. Excellent. Let's go ahead and call the roll and get started. All right. Chair Rogers. Here. Member Schwethelm. Here. And member Sawyer. Here. Let the order reflect the all subcommittee members are present. Perfect. Thank you so much. Just a little bit of quick housekeeping, just a reminder for folks to stay on mute when you're not discussing issues. Staff will also be muted as well. If folks are joining today's meeting, you'll be able to participate at a number of different points. And if you join by phone, your number will show up as resident with the last four digits of your number. So listen for that when we go ahead and call folks outside of that, Madam host, do you want to walk us through how people can engage in public comment? Yes. Thank you. At each agenda item, the item is presented. The chair will ask for the subcommittee members comments and then open it up for public comment. The host in zoom will be lowering all hands until public comment is open for the agenda item. Once the chair has called for public comment, the chair will announce for the public to raise their hand if they wish to speak on the specific agenda item. If you were calling in to listen to the meeting audibly, you can dial star nine to raise your hand. Public comment will be limited to three minutes and a timer will appear on the screen for the subcommittee members and public to see. Once all live public comments have been heard, the meeting house will read email submitted. If you've provided a public comment on an agenda item, but also submitted an email, your email comment will not be read during the meeting. Additionally, there is one public comment period on today's agenda to speak on non-agenda matters, which is item two. This is the time when any person may address the subcommittee member. If you have a public comment on an agenda item, there is no public comment. There is no public comment. There is no public comment. There is no public comment. There is not listed on the agenda. And that is it. I'll turn it back over to you to fair Rogers. All right. And we will start with item number two. That's our public comment for non-agenda items. If folks are interested in speaking on this item, go ahead and hit the raise hand feature on your zoom. Or if you're on your phone, hit star nine. All right. And I am not seeing any hands raised. Thank you. Thank you so much. And we will move on to item number three then approval of the minutes. Council members, did we have any amendments to the April 8, 20, 21 minutes? No. Okay. Then we will show those adopted. Let's go ahead and go to public comments. See if there's anyone who had a correction. And madam host, did we have any voicemail public comments? No public comments were received via email. Okay. Then we'll move on to item number four. Item 4.1. All right. Chris. Good afternoon. I'm Chris Lynch from Jones hall. In anticipation of your long-term capital planning exercise that Jen and Allen are going to walk you through. I was asked to provide. Some context for that discussion, namely to provide a high level summary of various funding tools for public capital improvements and ongoing public services. It's a fairly large topic. So hopefully I've struck the right balance between giving you enough information for your policy discussion, but not taking too much of your time. Next, next slide. I will briefly discuss the following. Next slide as well. Sorry. I'll briefly discuss the following infrastructure financing options, which are the most commonly used tools by California cities. Next slide. Um, general obligation bonds are the most straightforward public financing tool. Uh, in this option, the city issues bonds payable from an increase in the add the warm tax on all property in the city. General obligation bonds are most commonly used for improvements of community wide significance like libraries, community facilities, uh, parks, um, uh, sometimes city halls, things like that. Um, so, um, I'm not going to talk about general obligations. Santa Clara County, Berkeley, Emeryville, but unfortunately not Santa Rosa have approved general obligation bonds for affordable housing. Um, the biggest hurdle to using general obligation bonds is that they require a two thirds approval of the city's voters in a city wide election. The key advantage of issuing, uh, geo bonds from a public planning perspective is they don't impact the city's general fund because the bonds are payable from new, uh, general obligation bonds. So, um, the biggest advantage of issuing average ad war and taxes is the strongest available credit among the options available to cities. The geo bonds also offer the lowest cost of financing. There's one more, um, material limitation associated with geo bonds. They can only be used to finance acquisition and improvement of real property. No maintenance and things like that. Uh, next slide. Lease revenue bonds or certificates of participation are the second strongest financing tool from a credit perspective in the city. They don't require voter approval. And the city require is required to covenant to budget lease payments, which is basically debt service on an annual basis. Lease financings are most commonly used for a wide variety of public infrastructure. Um, the advantages that no voter approval is necessary for issuance. But if you're concerned about burdening the city's general fund, then you would still need some kind of voter approval to increase tax revenues to make the payments on those lease payments. Um, but I think some of the other sources we'll talk today about parcel taxes or sales tax or transit occupancy tax. In addition, one other disadvantage of general fund lease financings is that they rely on general fund assets. Uh, in order to accomplish a lease, lease back transaction. And so if you're limited to the amount of assets you have within the city and you want to undertake a large financing or a large number of smaller financings, then you'll need to be able to do that. Um, there are two types of land secured financing options that are available to the city. Um, Melarus special tax bonds, which are payable from special taxes, Lebedon, a community facilities district or CFD. And then special benefit assessments. These financing tools are attractive because like general obligation bonds, they offer a new source of revenue, revenue to pay for the capital improvements. CFDs require a two thirds vote because they're special taxes. Um, they offer a two thirds vote because they're special taxes. They offer a two thirds vote because they need to finance infrastructure as part of a new development project where the landowner developer is the qualified elector. As a result, CFD is most commonly financed public infrastructure that's needed for new development. However, a city CFD could also be formed on a city wide basis, assuming you had, uh, the ability to secure a two thirds favorable vote by the registered voters. Um, CFDs are famous for offering the ability to generate a two thirds favorable vote by the registered voters. But CFDs are not often available for the property. They are available to the property's use, often on a very granular level. So it could include, uh, the size of a lot or building density, or it could even include the activity, uh, occurring on this on the project on the property, such as truck trips or even hotel room occupancy. However, special taxes can never be based on ad valorem or property value. Next slide. Chris, could you, I'm just through the mayor. Um, the, um, what you, could you go over what you just said again? Sure. Um, if, if you're talking about kind of the designer tax, what the tax can be based on. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Um, under the constitution, there's only one ad valorem tax. That's the general tax, the general 1% ad valorem tax. Um, and there can be additions to that for general obligation bonds for cities and school districts and counties. If it's a special tax, which is another option available under the constitution, it can be based on a variety of factors. Um, it's often land use, residential, multifamily housing, single family housing, industrial commercial retail. Um, and it can be based on density of use. It can be based on hotel room occupancy. Sometimes, uh, the number of safety has been formed to finance convention centers where it was almost like a hotel occupancy tax, but it cannot be based on the value of the property. There's only one ad valorem tax and that's the 1% ad valorem tax. So that's the general tax. Okay. Thank you. Sure thing. Uh, the second type of, uh, land secured financing tool are special assessments. Uh, unlike CFDs, which employ special taxes with a two thirds vote. Assessment districts employ special benefit assessments that require a 50% plus one weighted ballot based on special benefit. Assessments are only rarely used these days. Uh, because the California constitution has been updated by initiative, most notably proposition eight to 18. To allow assessments only to finance special benefit and not general benefit. And to impose the burden of proof and litigation on the public agency. There has been a significant amount of litigation surrounding assessment districts. And most public agencies use CFDs instead of assessment districts whenever possible. To avoid that risk. I know the city has, uh, been successful, uh, working with the voters to approve a number of sales tax measures. Uh, sometimes these measures can provide funding for public financing of capital improvements. Uh, in some cities, the sales tax measure is approved as a special tax by a two thirds vote. And the bonds are specifically authorized as part of that process. More commonly, sales taxes are approved by a 50%. Plus one margin as a general tax, uh, that can be then used as a funding source to pay lease payments as part of a general fund lease financing. Um, as you would expect the primary benefit of a sales tax financing relative to, uh, other, uh, some of the other funding options is that it typically involves a new revenue source for the city. The primary disadvantage is that it's difficult and to secure that voter approval. Next slide. So I've spoken to this committee a couple of times, uh, as it's been looking at EIFDs as a possible financing source. Um, yeah, EIFD is offered two sources of funds that ultimately derive from the city's general fund and perhaps the general fund of other taxing entities such as counties or a neighboring city. The first, first possible financing source is incremental property tax revenue. That's based on increases in assessed value within the boundaries of the EIFD, usually as a result of new construction. The second possible funding source is sales tax revenue. And under the EIFD law, specific percentage of EIFD revenues. If sales, sales tax revenues are allocated to the IFT must be used for affordable housing and other specific purposes, such as transit purposes. Well, an EIFD and other post redevelopment services. And financing tools offer a legal way to finance a variety of community improvements, including privately under affordable housing. Um, it's important to understand that they leverage existing resources. They, they leverage property tax revenues and sales tax revenues that otherwise would go into the city's general fund. So they don't generate new funding sources like GEO bonds, CFDs or assessment. Um, it's next slide, please. So now, uh, unless you have questions about the, the funding of public infrastructure, I'll turn briefly to funding sources for public services. Um, and I'm going to highlight three sources. Uh, first sales tax and then two types of special taxes, parcel taxes and millers taxes. Next slide. As we discussed in the context of infrastructure financing, sales taxes, sales taxes can be approved in two ways. First as a general tax with a 50% plus one voter approval or a special tax with two thirds voter approval. And sales taxes have a broad charter. They can be used for any lawful expenditure of the city. Compared to property taxes, sales taxes or general taxes can be approved. And then second, sales taxes are more susceptible to economy based fluctuations than property taxes, particularly parcel taxes and Melrose taxes, which are a fixed amount that isn't tied to the properties value. So, first, sales taxes have a broad charter. They can be used for any lawful expenditure of the city. Compared to property taxes, sales taxes are justifiably criticized for two things relative to property taxes. First sales taxes are aggressive tax. Taking a larger percentage of income from low income workers that isn't tied to the properties value. Next slide. California cities have employed two flavors of special taxes for ongoing public services. The first type of special tax is a parcel tax. In essence, a parcel tax is like a CFD special tax, except that it's approved under a separate CFD law than the Melrose Act. And it doesn't involve the formation of a community facilities district. Unlike Melrose special taxes, parcel taxes are typically, if not always employed on a jurisdiction wide basis. Like Melrose special taxes, they do require two thirds registered voter approval. Like Melrose special taxes, they can vary by reasonable factors such as size, land use, but they can't be ad valorem. And like Melrose special taxes, they can escalate by index and there can be reasonable exemptions. Unlike Melrose special taxes, however, they have some limitations. They have very few limitations on the use while Melrose does have some limits on how their taxes can be used. Like Melrose special taxes, they can vary by reasonable factors such as size, land use, land use, land use, land use, land use. I listed a few California cities that have used parcel taxes and some of the specific authorized uses. Berkeley is levy to spend a parcel tax for parks. Oakland is levied a number of different parcel taxes with voter approval for police library parks. And the city of Vermont had a very interesting parcel tax where it authorized a very long list of public purposes, police, fire streets, libraries, parks, planning and public works. And you know, that's, that's fine. It can, it's still a special tax as long as it has a finite set of uses, even if it's a very large set of finite uses. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, the mayor. It looks like it's, it's captures many, if not all of most cities needs what, what's eliminated here. Nothing. Parcel taxes can be used for any lawful purpose of the city. You just have to specify it in the ballot measure. Okay. Good. Thank you. It's a special tax. So you have to list the special purposes in the ballot measure. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Court cases that have been working their way through about voter driven initiatives that even if they're special taxes, if they are put on the ballot through a signature gathering. Process that those are no longer a two thirds. Threshold is 50 plus one. Is that still the case or the court's still taking that issue up? I don't think so. I think that if you, if the special, if the tax, the parcel tax is introduced by a voter initiative as opposed to by the legislative body, then it is subject to the rules that govern initiatives, which is 50% plus one. It's not subject to the two thirds vote. And I'm sure there's a lot of public agencies wondering out there, how to, how to work with voters to initiate that process without creating any legal issues. Well, I think one of the things that I think is the most of us for watching is I believe there was one that was sponsored by an individual council member and individual mayor who helped with it. And then it became a question of, does that mean that it's city sponsored? Yeah. So I haven't, I haven't died too deeply into those cases. I'd be happy to give you guys a little memo or summary of it. If it would help you as you evaluate this. Great. Thank you. Okay. Next slide. And on the other hand, I believe that the services are commonly used to finance public services and in two different circumstances. First, when a developer CFD is formed to finance public facilities that the developer is obligated to construct as a condition for development, the CFD will all often also finance public services. In that case, the services are those that the local agency may have obligated the developer to finance as a condition of development. Most commonly, those are landscaping and lighting at public streets and in the city of Santa Rosa. And that's why the CFD is used to finance public services. In addition to that, a growing number of cities are forming CFDs that are used to impose special taxes on landowners throughout the city. When they request a discretionary development approval, usually for more intense use. Interestingly, Santa Rosa was one of the first cities to attempt this idea in 2006 when it formed a special tax district for that purpose. The city's land use ordinance, which obligated property owners to vote for special taxes in the city of Santa Rosa, was challenged by the building industry association under the theory that it unconstitutionally impaired landowners voting rights. The trial court ruled in favor of the BIA and Santa Rosa didn't appeal. Since then, a number of cities have successfully formed CFDs just like the one that Santa Rosa formed, but the land use ordinance is different. Cities have learned from the Santa Rosa example, and rather than obligating the property owner to vote in favor of the CFD, it's not a choice. They can fund the required public service costs with a one sum payment in advance, equal to that present value of perpetual service costs. They can establish some other funding mechanism or they can vote to join a CFD. Always glad to lead the way there, Chris. Yeah, good teaching moment. Yeah. This type of ordinance has been, has not been successfully challenged. And the BIA's latest effort to challenge one of these CFDs in San Ramon was unconstitutional, and they took it all the way to the United States Supreme Court. I've listed a few of the cities that have formed CFDs to levy special taxes on developing property when they apply for development approvals. But it's a much, much larger list than the ones I've listed. So I'll pass the baton to Jan and Alan for an overview of the capital planning process, unless you all have questions for me. Good afternoon. Chairperson Rogers and committee. Are you. Go ahead, Jen. Okay. When we did the management partners presentation in March, the committee raised questions about general fund policies. And I indicated that we would begin working on them and supporting policies because supporting policies really make for a much tighter general fund policy. The first one I ended up doing turned out to be capital planning, not the policy of itself, but the framework for us to talk about this afternoon before go ahead to drafting the policy. So one of the reasons that prompted sort of the priority of the capital planning policy is given one-time monies and also because it's the budget season and you're gonna see a lot of requests for capital funding. And so the question is, how do we get there? Jan, let me cut you off for a quick second because I just wanna make sure. Did we just deviate into 4.2 or are you adding on in 4.1? I apologize. No, 4.2, that's why I stopped. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure I thought you were gonna clarify and add some context to what Chris was talking about. All right, we'll do a quick public comment on item 4.1 and then I'll bring it back for council members and then we'll start 4.2. My apologies, I thought you were adding something to 4.1 and I'm not seeing any hands raised. And Madam Host, did we have any emails ahead of time? There were no public comments received via email. Great, council members, did you have anything you wanted to add on 4.1 before we moved on? Okay, great. Go ahead, hit it, Jan. Okay, so today we're suggesting potential approach framework to a formal capital policy and just as a matter of heads up, what we thought we would do is bring it back to the committee in June and then do a study session with the city council. I think that's already been slated for July 13th. Next slide, please. So, definitionally, I think you know what capital planning includes, but build replacement, improving assets, projects that require multi-year budgeting. And Chris highlighted many of the types of projects that we tend to do in the state. Cost is generally the first thing that might come to mind, but more important, assets like roads, buildings, parks, sewer and drainage really are add to the health and the vibrancy of the community. And so that requires consideration of values and priorities, equity and transparency, and of course, funding alternatives and how we choose to carry out related work. The city has a list of capital projects. It's a big list with big dollars associated with it, but more than that is required, I think before projects become shovel ready. Consideration as to financing alternatives, how best we realize value for money and which does mean frequently taking into consideration the total cost of keeping the asset operational throughout its entire life cycle. I think it's challenging in any environment to deliver capital projects that have impact without some combination of pay as you go financing as well as debt financing. And you know, I think the sum total of monies, one-time monies at this point that we receive are about $244 million and it may seem like a lot. It isn't a lot, but we also need to take some time for those considerations and see if at least we can begin to address some of the current challenges of fiscal and operational capacities, which do converge when we're talking about capital. Next slide please. Do that, Jan, while you do that, when you say that we've received one-time funds of 244 million, do you mean that we have that in a bank or do you mean that with the FEMA reimbursement process which can take years that that's what we're expecting? I'm talking about ARPA, we haven't received that yet, but the potential of the full amount of 244 million, ARPA funds, some of the reimbursements we've gotten, I'm not really including the reimbursements that the PG&E funds and CARES Act and yeah, so the sum total of one-time monies. Okay, I just want to clarify, thank you. One of the things I know we talked about in a previous discussion was sort of the three pillars of organizational challenges for governments, environmental, organizational, and financial. And so the goal is to keep these considerations in mind. You'll see, for instance, that when the ARPA funds and the final guidelines are released, we've seen some of them, they're gonna be certain considerations as to what recommended spending might look like and how we go about funding and what those funding priorities look like. But capital decisions overall need to be more than just funding decisions. They're also business decisions, risk quantification, some of which are okay for us to take, some that need deeper considerations. And we may also choose not to want to keep those risks to the city, but to lay them off on other partners. In this particular regard, I'm talking about P3s, for instance, that's one that comes up a lot and is whether we should trade off in the United States, we have the benefit of tax exemption. Most places around the world, Australia, Canada, England, the ones that do a lot of P3s, they don't have that benefit. But I think depending on the project, it may be beneficial for a higher cost of capital because developers' capital costs more money than tax exempt capital to use that source of funding to deliver projects much more quickly, as well as lay off the project risk, construction risk, credit risk, and if you wanted, even operations and maintenance risk. Obviously all of those are paid for in the cost of financing, but they are an important consideration as well. In the same genre, we talk about discussion around value for money, meaning whole life costs, what it costs, not just to build and deliver the project, but operationally, what does that mean? And as well as other sustainability benefits, whatever the choices are, it's really incumbent upon us to ensure that we sort of address the whole other than making just funding decisions. So the next slide talks just about the typical sources we see for capital funding, depending on what the projects are, rates and charges, if we want a certain return on investment, formula funding needs that are usually a prioritization based on proportional need, grants and debt financing. Chris talked about some of those alternatives. Next slide, please. So here's a summary. I've forgotten I put the slide in here, but here's a summary of one time revenues, PGE, ARPA, FEMA, state of California. And yeah, that's just a recap by percentage of what they are of the 244 million. Next slide, please. And I'm gonna skip this slide because I think it's somewhat redundant. You know, in putting a policy together, one of the things we'll want to think about is how do we prioritize what gets done? I mean, the needs are really always going to be greater than the dollars that we have, even including one time monies. And so early on, actually, what I first came to the city, one of the things that Jason and I shared, I had looked at how cities do prioritize funding. And I took a look at Oakland, I think Irvine, San Diego, and they have a prioritization. These tend to be the general categories that we see, but which, and then they're sort of organized. Oakland, for instance, has a numbering system based on what the project is. Others just do high, medium, low priorities. And then there's a consideration as to what may be shovel ready, but whichever, whatever the preferences as to what the priorities are, I think the goal is to make the decision making more deliberative of what the communities need and take some competitiveness out of the process, both for the city council and staff. Next slide, please. The secondary category behind the broader categories is funding availability and funding categories. Organized by funding categories. If you have restricted funding, such as the American Rescue Act Plan Act, what sort of capital investment might be possible under those funds? One-time funding projects organized in by unique funding categories like PG&E monies, perhaps the most liberal of all the one-time revenue streams, and then by asset classification. If it's mobility assets or public safety assets, that's one that comes to mind, for example, fire and what they desire to fund, whether it includes equipment and or buildings as well. Next slide, please. So in terms of the overall policy development, this is the framework for the capital planning policy only. The city does have a debt management policy. I haven't read it in detail. When it was adopted, I believe in 2017, we'll take a look at it and see if it stands as it is or whether there are some modifications that might be helpful. But we'll also bring back, I think next, will be the general fund policy, a liquidity and reserve fund policy. I didn't list the budget policy here, but there is one, not really fully developed, but a little bit and something to start with and work with. There's an investment policy, usually gets amended every year and then sort of readopted with the budget. Next slide, please. So I'd appreciate just your thoughts around, particularly priority and how we talk about funding possibilities. And as we formulate a policy, it's gonna be pretty difficult to put, well, it's not difficult to put into words, but we'd want to put something into words that will work well for the council and at least have the opportunity to walk through the study session, get feedback and then perhaps do a final draft. Our timing for that is, this says the end of May, but in June, we're going to come back to this committee and then in July, as I said, the study session with the city council around the capital policies. And that concludes the presentation. Okay, any questions, Tom or John? John? And not a question, just a comment. I mean, a lot of the conversation around budgeting and debt and everything that we've seen today can very quickly get into the weeds. And what I'm hoping for and expecting, hoping for clarity and simplicity wherever possible, because it's very easy to drop into fiscal speak. And I would get concerned that we may start to lose cognizance of what it is we're talking about and therefore making it difficult to make a decision. Not sure what necessarily would need to be adjusted, but I know that those that are not fully, and myself included, fully adept at discussing financial situations and debt financing and bonds and all of the things that this subcommittee deals with, it's going to be really important that we create an environment where the council is going to feel very comfortable asking questions and getting good clarifying answers to allow them to make an informed decision. And I guess that's really what I'm hoping for. And I'm not sure exactly where that's going to fall, but it's going to be really, really important, I think, because this is very important information to have and not having a full understanding of the depth, not only of the questions, but the answers will be so super important. It's just easy to drop down into the weeds when having these conversations. Tom? I would just want to echo some of that too, because I'm kind of struggling with what net are we trying to crack right here, to kind of put it into context about, I mean, are we just trying to look for more revenue for operations or is it a specific project? Is trying to get our arms around it, I think is more of a challenge. And so even just with Chris's first presentation, I get all that, but what are our potential reasons for going in whatever direction we want? I'm still struggling a little bit for the context, quite frankly, I have both presentations so that we can either make recommendations to the entire council or give feedback to the entire council. Here's why we're coming to you, as I agree with John, this is all important stuff, but put it into context, this is why it's important now. Yeah, this is all- Jan, before you respond, I'm starting to interrupt, I just wanted to piggyback on something that Tom just mentioned. I think, and I just thought about this, I think it's going to be really, really important to articulate the problem statement. So once they hear the problem and they understand the problem that we're trying to address, then these solutions, some of which are more palatable than others, may start, they might start to want to start asking questions about certain solutions. So having a really clear and well-articulated problem statement regarding our fiscal health is going to be really important. So I love the idea of stating the problem statement. I think that's fairly straightforward. You're probably likely, perhaps, and perhaps we should be conscious about doing it, it's really easy when we're talking about capital, because this is just capital focused, not operationally focused at all, just capital focused to get into the necessary conversation about debt. But only to say it ought to be part of the conversation, not in terms of mechanisms, but I think from staff to council, how might we think about financing this? This being whatever the project is. And also though, I'll be honest and say this in the presentation, what you really heard me talk about partly is it's good to have know what capital projects we have, but we ought to be asking certain questions about what it means to the city in terms of overall cost and what is the analysis that we should be looking for when you enter into a discussion about a capital project. So for instance, because this is a nice one actually to talk about, when I first came to the city, I said, oh, did we think about, possibly instead of using cash, using financing for fire stuff, great asset, gets it done more quickly, gives something in the community, gives people an opportunity to move forward from a trauma while they're looking at, and so that's sort of the for instance of where the subject of debt might come up, like that for one. Are you better off with cash or are you better off with, and I grant there's more discussion and analysis that need to go with that, but it's the analysis and sort of, where is this in the priority? And I can, John, I can try to give you what I think the problem statement is, and then Jan can correct me. Yeah, I'd love you to give it to me. If I'm wrong. From my vantage point, it seems like the problem statement is that the general fund follows the council's priorities, and oftentimes our deferred maintenance or other capital projects are not the most immediate need of the city. So how do we make sure we don't fall too far behind on those that they have specific funding for them that doesn't then also hamper our ability to address our priorities? It's not a significant problem statement, but am I getting to it, Jan? Yes, that helps a lot. I agree with that, but I'm talking about actually, and then this may be over simplification, what is a capital project? The council's gonna need to know, I mean, yeah, I mean, this is what I'm talking about. And not only does the council going to want to know, but as the community observes our deliberation, the community needs to know what is it mean for a municipality to have a capital project? What does, giving some examples and why we're having this conversation and what is the, and it goes back to the problem statement. You know, this is why this is so important and to get kind of, I don't wanna, I'm just gonna use the words because it resonates with people because I need things dumbed down. If I don't understand the subject matter, I need it dumbed down to talk to me like I'm stupid because these things can be very complex and they're not things that, they're not conversations that most people have on a regular basis, unless that's your job. So I would encourage a real, in the beginning especially, some real basic conversations about the language that we're using, the definitions that we're using and the reasons that we're talking about it. What is the, and that's what goes back to that problem statement. So that's my request because I think it will help us move forward if everyone tries to get on the same page as we discuss these, what can be very complex conversations. I'm smiling because I wrote it in the presentation and then said, oh, they know what that is. But for me, something that this committee talked about which is I think right in front of our face is the public safety measure O, which quite frankly, I don't think, because it's got capital improvement projects and it's also got operations and it also requires two thirds voters, right? And to timing what Chris's presentation was with the public safety measure O, I've got some concerns. I mean, two thirds threshold, how do we have that conversation? Because for me, that is a priority. Our public safety measure O, for right now, we haven't given direction on what are we gonna do there because I know Chris you're well aware and I think you mentioned at our last meeting, the timing of going to the voters, if we go in that direction, we need to script this whole thing out. And that's where I'm not sure where, what's all the timing, where does this all fit in what's coming before the entire council. Okay. And Tom, would you prefer if we schedule in our next long-term finance meeting a specific conversation about the measure O measure? That would be my preference. I think at the last minute that we should have talked about it yesterday. It's right there. And it's serious. It's real serious. Okay. All right, we'll make sure we have that on. We'll go to public comment on item 4.2. Not seeing any hands. Do we have any other comments? There were no public comments received via email. Okay. We'll move on to item 4.3. And I will mention I have another obligation at five o'clock that I might have to jump off a little bit for. So I'm going to turn over running the meeting to Tom. Good luck, Tom. But I'll stay on until five o'clock. Sure. So Chair Rogers and members of the committee. So the last, I think the last time I was before you, we talked about the timeline for putting a ballot measure on. And this is kind of dovetails in from Council Member Schwedhelm's comments about the public safety special tax known as measure O. So this is what I prepared for you. And we can just go on to the next slide. It's only one slide. I got together with our city clerk and the folks that did our polling and education programs for the last couple of sales tax measures that we did. And to get kind of an idea of what we're looking at in terms of putting any measure on the ballot, but let's just talk about former measure O if you want. So one thing that we need to do when planning for this, and I think it goes along with what we could discuss at the next meeting is, you know, having an understanding for the legal deadlines for calling an election, doing some initial polling to kind of narrow in on the type of tax. And this would be if we were looking at multiple types of items that we would wanna or revenue items we would put on the ballot. Developing an education process and then doing some final polling to make sure that we still have the support where we're going. So as you know, or if you don't know, the public safety special tax known back in the day as measure O sunsets on March 31st, 2025. We have considered other getting to my point about different revenue types. We have looked at different revenue measures in the past, such as modernizing our UT, increasing transient occupancy tax, general obligation bonds, dealing with affordable housing, things like that. If we were to focus specifically on the public safety tax, we would need approximately a month to develop the survey questions and get ready to ask or to set up the survey to go out to be in the field. And we would probably do that. It was suggested that the best time to do it would be mid July through early August. You're gonna kind of have the people back from the 4th of July holidays and prior to them going out for Labor Day holidays. So that seems to be a good data collection period. And it would allow us to get some polling information to understand where we are in the community and do that prior to the recall election that will happen sometime in the fall, most likely in November. So you wanna try to get in touch with the electorate before they are starting to be influenced by information coming out relative to the recall election. And then once you have that and the recall election is done, then toward the beginning of the calendar year, that's when you can really start doing the education, start making a rather robust effort in education. In advance of August 9th being the last day, the last regular council meeting prior to the deadline to call the election, the deadline to call the election would be August 12th, 2022. So we would really need to have the education period going, whatever that may look like, probably do some final polling around June just to make sure that either we increase support or that at least our support is still in the passing area and then go to council with the resolution to call the election. So that in a nutshell has some hard dates and then some good kind of guidelines to go through that would help that move forward. So with that, trying to keep things really brief here, if you have any questions or further discussion, I'm happy for that now. Alan, just a quick question. So with the timeline that you've laid out sort of straddles the line between this year's budget and next year's budget, did either of those budgets anticipate funds for polling or informational programs? Well, we'd have to be careful with the informational programs and how that's paid for. But for the polling itself and that type of work, I don't believe that is in the budget. We would have to, so we would have to include that. Okay, and I think my expectation would be that that's a line item that the council has an opportunity to discuss coming into our budget discussions next week, if we're gonna be able to hit that timeline that you've laid out of early July. Anybody else? I had a question. Sure. Apparently my internet's unstable. When you talked about the recall election, because I know our neighbors to the north may be having one, the DA's having one, the governor's having one. Do we have any idea are those all gonna be on one election or three separate elections? Chris, you know. It's very unlikely that the, as I'm hearing it, it's very unlikely that the DA recall will be at the same time as the governor's and the fact that the potential Windsor one hasn't even gathered signatures yet makes that one unlikely to hit that target as well. That's what I'm being told. My concern is as we're polling, the impact is that's gonna be on the news and the difference between, okay, city of Santa Rosa, it doesn't bode well for any, I think elected municipality DA's for more funding when these things are in the news. That's a concern I have. And I do think that's one of the considerations we talked about before. It all does depend on dynamics. It's something that I've been talking with supervisors about is that their problems with their fire attacks hasn't been the content of the measure so much as the timing of their measure. And it's something that I want us to be really cognizant of. If, this is just by two senses, if the governor is recalled in November, you're going to have a voter base that is more likely to show up to vote for a tax measure the following November. If the governor is not recalled, there's probably gonna be a whole lot less energy from the typical voters who would go for that. And perhaps 2024, though it doesn't give us much of a cushion, 2024 might be a more friendly electorate for a city type measure. That's just my two cents. Go for it, John. Thank you. This is in the same kind of piggybacking on this general conversation about timing. Even though 24 is pushing right up against the limit, it's timing is everything. And is there a... Are there consultants that could help us on our timing of this and knowing some kind of political consultant that could look at our situation, look at this very unique situation around recalls. I mean, I've never... This is... I don't know the last time this all happened, but my guess is maybe not in anyone's memory to help us in this really unique situation to decide on the timing of going after the public safety measure we redo. So... Extension. Right, right. So one of the consultants... So we use two consultants when we do polling. So we'll use God... The last two we've used God Be Research to actually go do the survey, analyze the data that comes in and out. And then we use what used to be known as Terrace Barnes. They have a lot of more partners there. And they provide strategy to help us with kind of crafting the... Not only the ballot language, but then what education materials that we can do as a city. So yes, they are... And that's why I reached out to them because I wanted to know what they're dealing with the other clients that are dealing with the recall. And they were the ones that specifically said, hey, get some polling done early, figure out where you are. And then kind of lay low for a little bit, let the recall do what it's gonna do. And then pick up from there. And I would guess what they could tell you. And again, I'm not them, but I guess you could look at where we are polling in winter or in summer. Do the education, then like I said, do another short track polling to make sure where we are in support. And if we're not where we need to be in support, then that clearly shows that, well, maybe 2024 is, I mean, that just played that hand for you right there. And you kind of have that idea, you're, you know. So I'm guessing that's what they would tell you. So, and we could clearly have a more robust talk about that. And we do have to do this on a general election? No, it's a special tax. So it can literally go at any election. And that is also something that we may wanna discuss and that they also brought up that, you know, you do have other election opportunities, but there's pros and cons to all of that. Yeah, and we also don't know what other sales tax measures may be popping up throughout the county. I mean, there could be a big groundswell kind of a, what people being overwhelmed by sales tax requests, which is always a risk, of course. And back to the timing of everything. And if we're the only one out there asking, which is pretty rare, we could be in better stead, but it's just so, it's so hard to know. And this is one of those sales taxes that we need to get right. And we need, the public is, our community has been very generous in supporting Measure O and it will be our responsibility or someone's, it'll be the other people's responsibility out there to remind the community of how important it has been to us, the quality of our public safety and the funding it and all of those great programs that it has funded. People, I think there's a tendency to forget where that money is coming from and where we would be without it. Alan, can I just, are you looking for direction from the subcommittee prior to getting, is that what your ask is? Would you like John and I to give you feedback on next steps? That would be great. I'm hearing that it looks like next meeting is something where we want to have a fuller discussion. So if you want to have a, but if there's some specificity to that that you want to help me out with, I'm more than happy to hear it. Before we go there, let's open it up for public comment and then I'm ready to give some feedback. So we will open up for public comment on 4.3, the ballot measure timeline. Any members of the public like to give comment, please raise your hand or dial star nine if you're on your phone. I'm not seeing any raised hands. And did we have any prerecorded messages? No, there were no public comments received via email. Great, thank you. Okay. So Alan for me, well, go ahead Mr. Sorry you want to go first? Well, I'm just, as long as we're not doing it today so as soon as possible, I would say given our crunched timeline already if we were to trying to make decision on timing having a real, what a targeted conversation on that on measure O the old the public safety measure O I think it'd be Are you guys there? I'm having the internet. Yeah, I'm here. Well, you kind of froze up right at the end there but I think what you were saying was that let's have that targeted discussion on measure O Yes. In, in June. Okay. Yes. Okay. And for me, I'm taking the advice of the polling firms I'm comfortable with that. One additional bit of information I'd like in town with this go before the full council, eventually I get, let me think here I don't think it would need to until we actually did the resolution to call the election. So, so we could, but the where we would really have to is right before the election to call it to, to, to, you know before August, 2022 I don't want to complicate matters and I just think it might be healthy for this to come back to the council. I just understood measure O oversight did not come to a recommendation to approve the budget. And it might be nice. I don't know how staff was planning on presenting that but actually get clarity on that. And the one piece of information I think would be helpful for all of council to do that dependent upon our different timelines that probably are some impacts the current staff and or projects. I mean, are we going to have to do a hiring freeze or are we going to have to lay people off? What impacts if the longer we wait, will it have on the operation of the current positions and programs funded by measure O? That's one piece of the puzzle. I guess there are some impacts. I just don't know what those are but that would be information that would help me decide what direction to go in. And we also have two new council members who are who may or may not be up to speed on the impacts of the the benefits that we have derived over these many years and the impacts that we were not to go forward. So I think keeping the council up to speed on what this body is recommending I think it would be really, really important so that there's no surprises when we make that final recommendation with going forward on a ballot. Sure. So we'll focus on June 10th which is here to have to focus on measure O and moving forward, I'll try to get some impacts for that meeting so that we can kind of get that there and then I'll reach out to the polling firms too and just kind of get some more information from them. In the past, we've looked at different types of taxes. It kind of sounds to me that we are just focused solely on making sure that we move forward with measure O. That is a large chunk of revenue. It's gonna be more than really any of the other TOT or any of these other things that we've looked at in the past. You're looking at $9 to $10 million worth of revenue that's coming in and has immediate impacts to programs as you mentioned, Tom. So I'll put our focus on that and we'll be pretty, yeah, we'll go with that. Yeah, for me, just to reframe what I heard you say, the consequences for measure O not failing are much more significant than any of the other funding options that we're looking moving into the future, right? It's deserving of this major focus, I believe. I think we're in agreement with that. Understood, understood. Okay, so that's it for item 4.3. Next, I guess it'd be item five, next meeting agenda items. I think you got direction from the subcommittee about just what we talked about, measure O public safety. And I think there's one more that we want to have on there and Jan can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we're looking at also a presentation on one-time monies. And this would be in advance of going to the full council in July and there's a study session on that. Yes. Okay, great, there's two items. Okay, then let me open up for public comment. If any members of the public would like to make comment on next meeting agenda items, is there any member of the public who would like to make such a comment? Not seeing any hands raised, is anything pre-submitted? No, there were no emails received. Great, thank you. Allen, did you get what you needed? And Jan, did you get what you needed from the subcommittee today? Yes, sir. All right, having no further items to discuss, meeting is adjourned. Thank you for your attendance. Okay, bye. Thank you.