 we have three items we'll open it up for public comment they'll have three minutes to talk with the council about those items before we go into closed session madam host could you please let me know if there's anybody raising their hand on zoom mayor can we do roll call it's a good call let's do that okay councilmember tidbits councilmember schwetham here councilmember Sawyer here councilmember Fleming councilmember alvarez president vice mayor rogers president mayor rogers here let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of councilmember Fleming and councilmember tidbits all right we'll open it up for public comment for our closed session agenda if you're interested in providing comment today go ahead hit the raise hand feature on zoom or go ahead and make your way to the podium we'll start with you sir good afternoon mayor rogers vice mayor rogers and honorable members of the council my name is Carl Carr and I'm the union representative from operating engineers local three representing workers in units 3 13 and 16 also I'm a resident of the city of Santa Rosa so this message isn't just coming from a union rep but from a citizen of this great city I like you want Santa Rosa be to be the best city it can be I don't want the city dirty with blight excess trash and other waste anywhere there is open space I don't want our parks sidewalks in any other open space to be overgrown with weeds to the point that it isn't comfortable walking around our neighborhoods I don't want police fire or transit to be unavailable to the citizens because their vehicles are in the shop I don't want facilities to be unavailable to workers or the public just because there aren't enough skilled and qualified employees at the city to keep up with the current needs of the city all of these things that I don't want I know that you don't want as well you the council have the power to make sure that these things don't happen you can do this with your council priorities however in order for your council priorities to happen you need to have staff to get the work done I'm not talking about staff to plan how the work gets done but staff that gets the work done they're called by many names city workers frontline staff blue collar workers public servants but my favorite is essential workers they are essential in all that they do to keep our city running they make sure that our water is flowing both to our houses and from our houses to our commercial properties and from those properties they are the workers who maintain the parks the open space and the sidewalks throughout our communities they are the workers who keep the lights on in buildings like this one the workers who keep the facilities open and running whether there's a psps a fire or any other type of emergency the essential city workers keep this city running they are the workers who maintain and repair the fire apparatus and trucks the police vehicles and the transit buses they are the workers who take action on the council priorities day in and day out please when you go into closed session today keep this in mind when you give direction to your negotiating teams thank you thank you sir we have any hands raised on zoom we do not mayor and we did not receive any recorded voice message public comments prior to the meeting excellent let's go ahead and also make sure that the record reflects the council woman Fleming was able to join us as well and we'll recess into closed session but Alejandro over into the Spanish Channel now and engage the that channel Charles can you please stay put for a moment and make the Spanish announcement once they make the statement on how to participate in Spanish for those of you just joining the meeting Spanish interpretation services are being provided via zoom to connect to the Spanish Channel please click on the icon on your zoom menu that looks like a globe once you join the Spanish Channel we recommend you shut off the main audio so you only hear the Spanish translation interpreter Charles can you please repeat that statement in Spanish para los recent niegados a la reunión la interpretación en español está disponible y las personas quienes desean escuchar en español pueden pasar al canal de español para cambiar de canal haga clic en el icono de interpretación ubicado en la barra de herramientas de zoom para ese un globo terraqueo ya que según al canal de español recomendamos que apaga en el audio principal para poder escuchar la interpretación claramente thank you Charles I'll move you over to the Spanish Channel as well can I get a test run from the Spanish Channel from Alejandro as the main interpreter starting us off I just want to make sure the Spanish Channel is working properly can you give me a hello from the Spanish Channel Alejandro Alejandro thank you please come in with translation services councilmember Tibbets I am promoting you to panelists thank you I welcome back to our council meeting madam city clerk could you please call the role yes councilmember Tibbets here councilmember Schwedhelm here councilmember Sawyer here councilmember Fleming here councilmember Alvarez present vice mayor Rogers present mayor Rogers here that the record show that all councilmembers are present thank you madam clerk as a reminder today is a hybrid city council meeting that means that you have the ability to participate both here in the chambers as well as via zoom madam clerk could you please walk folks through how they can participate on each of the different items tonight yes after each agenda item is presented the mayor will ask for council comments and then open it up for public comment they the mayor will first take public comment from those participating in person in the chamber then move on to members of the public participating via zoom the host and zoom will be lowering all hands until public comment is open for the agenda item if you wish to provide a public comment and are attending the meeting in person please sign up to speak on an item with administrator Julie at the top of the room this process is in lieu of speaker cards in order to reduce touch points due to COVID-19 Julie will ask your you your name what item you wish to speak on and for a one-sentence summary for of your statement for the minute the mayor will then call on those in person who have signed up to speak on an item once the mayor has called for public comment he will announce for the public to raise their hands if they wish to speak on a specific item if you're calling in to listen to the meeting via telephone you can dial star 9 to raise your hand once all live public comment zoom and in person have been heard the meeting host will then play voicemail public comments if you provide a live public comment on an agenda item but also submitted an email e-common or recorded a voice message public comment your email e-common or voice message public comment will not be duplicated read or played during the meeting additionally there are two public comment periods on today's agenda to speak on non-agenda matters at items 13 and 17 this is a time when any person may address the council on matters not listed on this agenda but which are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the council throughout today's agenda when the mayor calls for public comment an interpreter will be prepared to assist anyone needing interpretation services those using interpreter support will be afforded additional time for your public comment as required by the brown act we ask that those listening on the Spanish channel but wishing to make a public comment to turn off the interpretation channel entirely at the time you hear your name called so you can join the main channel to make your public comment heard and translated into English this icon may now look like a circle with an e s in the middle and the word Spanish underneath you can then rejoin the Spanish channel at the conclusion of your comment to continue to continue listening to the meeting in Spanish thank you madam city attorney do you have a report from our closed sessions yes thank you mr. mayor the council met in closed session on three items to item 2.1 was a conference with labor negotiators council gave direction heard a report and gave direction to our labor negotiators second item was item 2.2 which a conference with legal counsel on existing litigation in the matter of the new chief versus county of Sonoma at all council gave direction to the litigation team and then third item 2.3 was also a conference with the legal counsel on existing litigation this was on the matter of Terracon versus city of Santa Rosa and again gave direction to legal council thank you all right we have no proclamations tonight let's go on to our staff briefings mr. city manager mayor members of the council the first staff briefing this afternoon is on our COVID-19 response update and I think the first news I'd like to share with the council and the public is that the CDC announced recently that they have authorized booster doses for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for certain members of the public those that have received both doses of the Pfizer vaccine and individuals that are 65 years of age and older individuals 18 through 64 years of age that are at a high risk of severe COVID-19 and individuals 18 through 64 who's frequent institution or occupational exposure to the virus puts them a high risk of serious complications of COVID-19 so for those that are eligible under those guidelines we urge you to get those booster shots for the rest of the population if you have not yet been vaccinated we encourage you to get your vaccinations those are available at a variety of pharmacies and clinics throughout our community and to continue wearing masks when indoors and to practice safe practices and social distancing here within our city employee population we've implemented the public health order requiring vaccinations for fire police and disaster shelter workers we've instituted our on-site testing protocols for those that are unvaccinated and have three different sites within the city where they can receive those weekly tests and so that has gone smoothly thus far we're going to expand that to cover all city employees beginning October 1st and that same testing protocol option is available for those that are unvaccinated so once again we encourage the public to get vaccinated if they have not been able to do so thus far and for those that have received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine and are eligible under the CDC guidelines get those booster shots our second staff reading briefing this afternoon is on the debris response team and will Fetro our senior maintenance worker and Jeremy Gundy our deputy director of field services will be providing this update good afternoon Mayor Rogers and members of the city council my name is William Fetro I'm a senior maintenance worker in the street maintenance section of the TPW here today to provide you with an update regarding our debris response team also known as the DRT so the DRT was formed in February of this year it's a citywide response team that removes debris from the city property and the public work right away which includes our streets sidewalks bike lanes and parks because teams comprised of myself and three other skilled maintenance workers and a crew supervisor this team was created by pulling members from different sections of our departments we have one member who is pulled from parks we have two members who were pulled from our special projects crew and I was pulled from our stormwater crew so our crew has started getting some more training so we've been receiving a variety of training including the use of Narcan to help with any accidental overdoses do like fentanyl and any other drugs such as that we've also been getting extra training for using different PPE or personal protective gear for cleaning up hypodermic needles and other biological hazards so since February of this year our team has removed 2782 cubic yards debris on our road sides you know to our streets our sidewalks bike lanes and our parks so for a little bit of a comparison going back to like 2019 you were pulling about 650 yards and last year we did about 1,952 yards so on top of that number of 2782 yards and we have other large items so I comprised of cleaning up about 193 tires 289 various large items in our roadways and about 15 five-gallon buckets with hypodermic needles so we we do this through responding to various work orders of tags that we get on any given day we receive about 10 to 12 tags daily which include things to clean up illegal dumping and any other things we might come across like hazardous dispersions into our storm drains or any other road hazards we get these service requests through people using my Santa Rosa website and direct phone calls to our public works front desk and other emails to our clean city at src.word email we have been pretty successful in responding to these calls within 24 hours as long as they come in Monday through Friday within our regular business hours so on top of our you know average of 10 to 12 work orders that we respond to a day we throughout our travels we are finding all the encampments are and we are scheduling those for helping to clean up you know we when we respond to these sites we are dropping off trash bags to some of our own unhoused folks out there on the streets and we're scheduling pickup times where we can help them clean up these sites to keep them you know free and clear of debris and any other stuff it might not be good to be there and so we also respond to a lot of illegal dumping so respond to complaints about furniture being dumped in front of houses or apartment complex complexes and in doing this we tend to work with code enforcement as we can when we start finding you know the spots that look like they're being dumped by certain residents so we then give them a call code enforcement a call and work with them to do with trying to mitigate these issues that we're finding there see so yeah so I've been very proud to work with this crew all these guys like I said were pulled from other departments to and tasked with doing something that they weren't necessarily ever thought they would do so they've done an amazing job taking on this job yeah so that concludes my staff briefing at this point in time. Alright thank you so much Will. I'll throw it over to Jeremy as well and see if Jeremy had anything that he wanted to add. Thank you Mayor Rogers. Jeremy Dundee, Deputy Director of Field Services. I just want to add how proud I am of this crew this is something that we we put together we weren't we weren't familiar entirely with what we were getting into but you know the crew stepped up you know we provided training they they actually offered a lot of good suggestions on areas that they thought that they could use some additional training and equipment so they've been a real active part of the success of this program so I just wanted to once again just say how proud I am of the team and everything that they're doing so thank you. Thank you so much and I want to say thank you as well the work that you're doing is very much noticed I hear not just from friends and family but neighbors that they're noticing an impact in the community and they're noticing a difference particularly in some of our recreational areas where they like to congregate where their kids like to be so I just wanted to say thank you for that as well. I'll up it up for counsel to see if there are any questions or comments. Adam Vice Mayor? I also wanted to say thank you to the team having a resource and having some place to or somewhere for community members family and friends to call when they have something that they need picked up or they have something that they see in the community that needs attention and to see that it is done and completed in a timely manner is very it's invaluable so thank you guys so much for your time and your commitment to our community and seeing that things are done and that it is done right so thank you very much. All right thank you I'll bring it back if any additional questions or comments on the city manager's staff update tonight. All right thank you Will and Jeremy. We'll go to public comment on item number seven that's our staff briefings. If you're interested in providing a comment tonight go ahead hit the raise hand feature on Zoom or if you're in the chamber feel free to make your way up to the podium. Seeing none we'll keep moving. We have our city manager and city attorney reports. Mr. Cullen do you want to start? Thank you Mayor Rogers and members of the council. I was pleased to join several members of the city council at the recent California City's Convention in Sacramento was able to attend several educational sessions on affordable housing strategies, pension cost management strategies, race and public health, diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the city of Salinas and San Luis Obispo so very nice to be able to attend an event in person and have lots of discussions and interesting conversations with city officials from all over the state so appreciate your support for attending that meeting. Thank you Madam City Attorney. Thank you Mr. Mayor I did want to report on a new bill that was signed into law just September 16th so not long ago. It's AB 361 and it will allow us to continue to operate through hybrid meetings and teleconferencing meetings so it is a very important step forward. As you may recall the governor had issued executive orders starting very early in the pandemic to allow remote public meetings. Those executive orders however will expire on September 30th so AB 361 takes the place and AB 361 allows meetings to be held either teleconference or by hybrid methods during a defined state of emergency if either state or local officials have ordered or recommended social distancing or the city council itself finds that meeting in person would present imminent risks to the health or safety of attendees so either one of those and in fact last week the Sonoma County health officer did issue a very strong recommendation for continued allowance for remote attendance into public meetings again either by teleconference or by a hybrid system. AB 361 does require that we give specific notice to the public as to how individuals may participate in the meeting either by phone or by internet we must allow participation in real time must allow adequate time for people to register into the meeting and register into any platform that's required and we must recess the meeting if telephonic telephonic or internet connection is lost we actually comply with all of those already we will tweak some of the language to mirror the language of the statute but otherwise we really are in in in compliance and in good shape. AB 361 also requires that within 30 days of the first remote meeting under the statute the council must adopt certain findings and originally we had placed that item on today's calendar you'll see that on the agenda but it we have continued it considering that item today those findings today would have required the council to invoke the exception to the city's early agenda policy council would have had to make a finding of good cause to consider the item without it having been on the preliminary agenda given the 30-day window there was no was not essential to hear that today or to issue those findings today so we have continued the item to October 12th and the item will appear on the prelim agenda preliminary agenda to be published later this week and then of course on the final agenda published next week it will then be heard on October 12th and we will be in full compliance with our early agenda policy that way I just want to explain why it was appeared on the agenda but is being continued but we can proceed on with remote meetings happy to answer any questions otherwise that is it thank you council are there any questions on item number 8 let's see if there's any public comment I see no hands-on zoom and I see nobody in the chambers moving for the podium we'll keep moving thank you so much madam city attorney item number 9 statements of abstentia by council members does anybody have an abstention that they have to register council member tidbits thanks mayor I have to abstain from the September 10th special meeting minutes I was absent okay there are no other abstentions we'll move on to our mayors and council member reports who would like to begin council members what oh thank you mr. mayor I'm just going along with what our city manager mentioned I really did appreciate it the League of California cities having both mr. Collin and our city attorney there because after hearing some of these presentations from other cities you can actually have a dialogue about how would that potentially apply towards this jurisdiction so I really appreciate the two of you attending because I think it was a fabulous conference so thank you on that also on report last weekend the coffee neighborhood park celebration did take place it almost got council because of rain but it was kind of like this tough call but a couple hundred people showed up there it was great and then last night was one of the final coffee strong board meetings they actually formed shortly after the Tubbs fire has done tremendous work and now they believe their work is done and I do want to recognize two city employees that were recognized last night that's Gabe Osborne Gabe Osborne and Jesse Oswald the two of them have really helped and there's been other city employees also that participated I know Paul Lowenthal and some from Bureau Veritas went there but they were just fabulous additions to what that group of folks were trying to do in the rebuild process so Gabe and Jesse understand how appreciated they were in the coffee strong board. Thank you very much. Thank you council member. Council member Alvarez. Yes thank you mayor. I also attended the League of California cities and I must say that's a great event although my event was cut short but for great reasons we were able to attend the vice mayor and I the the metote park and I'll let her definitely elaborate on that but I know the food was delicious and and I invite our community to go out there and and really celebrate the different cuisine that metote food park castle offer in in in Roseland on a more hot topic I've been I've been approached by many of our community members in regards to the side shows and it's something that that cries public safety it cries the chemicals that are being introduced into our waterways by by the friction of tires the burnt rubber and it also promoted a lot of these spectators as well as enthusiasts to reach out and say is there a way to is there a better way to to move the issue forward I don't know if there is but I'm definitely willing to entertain the conversation I definitely want to go out in the community and speak with the folks and hopefully be able to report to my colleagues once goal setting comes about again in the beginning of the year and hopefully gain support to address this situation and enter the enter into the conversation and that is the report for the Roseland issue and with the side shows I'd also report that I appointed Mark Walsh to our charter review committee and and I'll leave the rest to Vice Mayor to report on on the delicious food again there at the meat though the food park me me told today I was able to celebrate the ground breaking of the meat healthy food truck in Roseland on Thursday which was I believe September 23rd very exciting wonderful sense of community food was delicious and for all of you that did not see me on television including myself I think you missed out because my friends and family tease me for at least four days but I'm very excited and we all need to go and participate and celebrate because from what I hear it was ten years in the making for us to have this in our city so this is such a wonderful thing and it is going to be great so very happy that I was able to participate in that I also have some appointments for the charter review my first would be Ronald Miller will be my first appointment my second will be Ernesto Oliver's and my third will be Christine burn and I also would like to take the time to wish her a happy birthday because today is her birthday and she is off celebrating that so I would like to thank the three of them for agreeing to participate in the charter review thank you thank you Vice Mayor we will go to councilmember Sawyer thank you mayor well first I'd like to to mirror mr. Collins comments and councilmember Schwoedhelm's comments on on the our conference in Sacramento oftentimes what we hear at the breakout sessions are things that Santa Rosa is already doing and that was not completely the case although it was often the case because Santa Rosa does tend to lead the way oftentimes and the North Bay tends to lead the way but in this case so we brought home some valuable nuggets I think which will help lead us in in particular directions in the future with various topics so very successful conference and well attended regardless of the mask wearing and secondly I would like to very pleased to appoint mr. Jim Pedgriffe to the general plan community advisory committee which is getting ready to get busy so that'll do it thank you very much thank you councilmember councilmember Tibbets thanks mayor I'll start off with my charter review appointments for Stephanie and Dina I'll be appointing Brian Lang Dan Conran and Adriana Arizon so there should be my three for the charter review I actually want to take a minute to quickly address side shows as well let councilmember Alvarez know that we've been talking about this at length on the downtown act the downtown subcommittee and if you know in the fact that I heard from councilmember Alvarez today to me suggest that we probably should have a broader conversation about side shows at the city council level so I don't know Eddie if you want to take any action on that today or if you're still information gathering but I'd be happy to second an item to that effect to be put on the agenda if you want to do that today or some point in the future but we've had some robust discussions at the DE that I want to say DET the downtown subcommittee level and we have a lot to share on that so thank you thank you councilmember I'll start off by comments by appointing Jocelyn Villalobos to the charter committee Jocelyn is a senior at Santa Rosa High School and is a youth promotor and I'm really excited that she's interested in stepping up to serve the community in that capacity and I think that that might finalize our appointments across the council with a item coming on October 12th for the council to consider a recommendation for the chair I also did want to report out on the league of cities conference thank you to folks who are able to join us there I did vote on the city's behalf was served on the resolutions committee and then later in the the day or the next day was when the full league of cities considered the two items the first item that was cut that came before the council was on the distribution of sales tax based on the sales tax hubs that we had a lengthy discussion about last time that measure did not make it out of the resolutions committee so it did not get considered by the full body the second item was the item of streamlining and working with the CPUC surrounding railroad tracks for debris and other encampment issues and that one did pass with some jockeying for some additional language from the resolutions committee and ultimately passed with the full league of cities as well as this group knows I've spent the last years the chair of the environmental quality committee I thankfully my term has now ended on that but I was also asked and I may have reported out before but it became formal was asked to serve as a potential mediator on a different issue that's coming up before the league of cities that this council should be aware of there's a proposed constitutional amendment last year AC a seven what AC a seven essentially says is that any charter city can invalidate any statewide law that applies to local land use by adopting an ordinance through the league of cities their frame is always how do we maximize local control and this is the ultimate local control measure it came particularly a lot of people were interested in having a tool for local jurisdiction to push back on the top-down regulations that were coming the challenge is while it was supported in the housing committee it was absolutely opposed in the environmental committee because this would also allow jurisdictions to pass an ordinance that says that sequel doesn't apply another types of statewide environmental regulations so I've been asked to serve on this committee to see if there is some form of a reasonable recommendation that that the league can take on this constitutional amendment and find a path forward so I'll keep folks in the loop as that plays out as well that will open it up to public comment for council members reports seeing nobody in the chamber rise and seeing no hands on zoom we'll keep moving we have three minutes for submission today to from July 13th for both the special and regular meeting as well as September 10th for the special meeting council do we have any amendments to those three minutes let's see if there's any public comment for changes to those minutes all right seeing none we'll show those adopted without objection and with council member tidbits abstaining from item 11.3 Mr. City Manager the consent calendar please Mayor Rogers and members of the City Council we have five items on the consent calendar this afternoon beginning with item 12.1 a resolution for approval and adoption of the city's salary plan and schedules item 12.2 a resolution recommending the improvement of the approval of the third amendment of the general services agreement number f 001 626 for janitorial services for the Santa Rosa water item 12.3 a resolution revising the schedule of parking fees to add non-resident to the resolution of the resolution of the resolution of the resolution of the resolution of the resolution ofacie 20 the Council Council steer a schedule of parking fees to add non organization Deutschland permit fees three street garage item 12.4 ordinance adoption an ordinance of the council of the city of Santa Rosa a mending title 20 of the Santa Rosa City Code by reclassifying the property located at one rural residential zoning district file number REZ 20-004 and finally item 12.5 also an ordinance adoption an ordinance of the council of the city of Santa Rosa amending title 20 of the Santa Rosa City Code by reclassifying the property located at 1434 Peterson Lane through the R16 single family residential zoning district file number REZ 21-001 Mr. City Manager, are there any questions on the consent calendar tonight? I have a question there. Council Member? Is it possible to respond to another council member's comment such as the case with council yes on the appropriate item and so during that item would have been the appropriate time I'll give you a minute here if you would like to very short very shortly councilman Tibbets I do appreciate the offer that you just made I am in the exploratory stage of the side shows but I do appreciate that there's information that has been garnered as is and I would love to sit with you and discuss this further and see how we can actually move this issue further and I do appreciate the offer that you made thank you sir Council Member Tibbets we'll go back to the consent calendar did you have any questions I do I was wondering if I could pull items 12.3 there okay we'll pull that we'll consider that separate are there any other questions on items 12.1 through 12.5 excluding 12.3 go ahead take public comment on 12124 and 5 go ahead mr. Dewitt thank you my name is Dwayne Dewitt I'm from Roseland on the item 12.1 in the past the city would have the documents available here in the chambers so we could look at the pay schedule that have been decided upon apparently you have a electronic device and that's where the public is supposed to get this information it's very cumbersome and difficult to use only one person can use it at a time and I wasn't able to find this publicly available pay schedule that you're talking about when I was in the city manager's office earlier so I'd like to ask that especially on these items that have to do with pay that you have a hard copy available for the public to look at and see just what the changes have been according to this it says you had the last adoption in 2019 so it'd be really nice to see how much percentage increased and for which categories which employers are doing better and which haven't been getting perhaps as much as they might need I always advocate for the maintenance people in the city workers at the lower levels to get increased pay when possible thank you for your time thank you so much mr. Dewitt good afternoon my name is Anna Diaz I am from the Roseland area of town where we once owned our sheriff's department my family on both sides have located in some accounting since the early 60s and we've been here ever since I was a student to Meadowview Elementary off of her Avenue Lawrence Cook Middle School which is on Sebastopol Road and a graduate of Elsie Allen High School of 2015 I come here to speak on honor Renee Mora Aguiano last Thursday we would have both been celebrating our quarter century birthdays this fall however on Valentine's Day of 2016 he lost his life to gun violence I appreciate what was said by my fellow Rosalind community member in regards of his detailed concerns and well-being for Rosalind during the last meeting our side has been neglected undervalued misunderstood and severely judged by others living in different areas of town this is the first town this is the first time in me sorry this is the first time this is the first year that we have had someone from our actual community representing us I also want to point out that I happened to be stuck on traffic on September 16th 2021 on my way to the Mexican drive-through because I decided not to cook I wanted to be clear that this incident was not planned by members of our community in fact the truck in front of me happened to be high school children with one wearing an Annalise sweater being stuck there for about an hour I realized that many who were present happen to be children in ages of 12 to 23 I also want to mention that many of our youth that were from many of the youth that were there were from different areas of Sipsonoma County I rolled down the window to ask a group of kids where they were from they replied Hillsborough California kids want to feel a part of something and that is why we desperately need to invest on our youth it was not until last year for a car cruise that the real Mexican Independence Day was finally acknowledged we must step up as a city and celebrate our Hispanics of our community it is two days out of the year to celebrate your daily housekeepers gardeners child care providers carwash employees and field workers who break their backs for $12 an hour it is time for change because we do not because we do not need to do it because we need to do it for all the right reasons the children of Sinema County will continue to pull rebellious acts it's bad enough that we are still living in a COVID era but neither it's either next reports need to be sent out to parents in advance before incidents like this occur or we need to take the time and dedication to plan family events for every single in Mayo and Mexican Independence Day in the Roseland County. My name is Anna Diaz I'm 24 years old in the now honor of Renee Mora I plan to be the mayor of Santa Rosa before the age of 40. All right thank you so much so we are taking public comments on our consent calendar we'll see if there's any others online. I'm not seeing any hands so madam vice mayor. Any questions. Thank you. I'll move items 12.3 because he didn't so what we'll do is we'll take the items 12.1 12 to 12.4 I know how to call it but what does that mean because he didn't have stains so to pull it what does that mean he just doesn't want to vote on it that means he wants to consider it separate from the others so he needs more information and perhaps wants to 1 through 12.2 and 12.3 through 12.5 and wait for the reading of the text 12 4 through 12 5 correct 12 4 through 12 5 and wait for the reading of the text yes second 12 4 through 12 5 okay we have a motion from the vice mayor and a second from council member Sawyer for items 12 1 2 4 and 5 Madam clerk could you please call the roll council member Tibbets hi council member Schwedhelm hi council member Sawyer hi council member Fleming yes council member Alvarez hi vice mayor Rogers hi mayor Rogers hi that motion passes with seven eyes okay and then council member did you have any questions or comments related to 12.3 yes I have a question for director Nado or whoever the designated staff person is on the parking item 12.3 I think we have miss Nado on the zoom hey director thank you I you know one of my I have a couple questions for you about reserve versus non-reserved what's the average that each one of those parking spaces brings in per day if it's just generally open to the public not reserved not a non-reserved in that garage it's a dollar an hour so I don't have a hand what the average amount for space is that we are generating day so I can get that and provide for you but at the maximum per day is ten dollars so if somebody were to park there to the full day which generally people don't but that is the max okay but if it's a dollar an hour it's not going to be over $24 I take it for a full 24-hour cycle no because we have a maximum for the day so yeah they wouldn't pay $24 for for 24 hours I'm sorry I'm looking at this yes ten dollars per day if you were to just okay go there pull the ticket you could park for 24 hours for ten dollars so is the difference between reserved and non-reserved that if I have a non-reserved pass I drive in and I can park anywhere that I find a spot for the full day or how does that work I assume that if I pay for a reserve space that I have you know a number that is assigned to me and that's where I park is that correct that's correct so there are 35 designated reserved spaces in the Third Street garage they're the ones that are the lower you go down basically to park in the spaces and nobody else can park in them they are specifically identified and assigned to a particular person the non-reserve permits are you obviously can't park in the reserve spaces but you can park anywhere else garage and you don't have a particular space designated for you and the reason that that is advantageous for the city is those reserve spaces sit empty a lot of the time people aren't always there they have a permit for the month their employees they work from home sometimes they're on vacation they're sick whatever a lot of times the reserve space sits vacant and unused so there's a benefit to the city for offering non-reserve permits because you're getting maximum use of spaces and particularly in that garage it's the most popular and it's the smallest okay and if I was remember from the staff report correctly on the reserve side you have a waitlist for reserve parking spaces correct how many are on reserve or excuse me how many are waitlisted my apologies I believe it's shoot I don't have that at hand either I think it's around 12 12 to 15 12 because you'll recall essentially an email a while back one of the tenants in a building on old courthouse square was asking us for reserve spaces at the time we weren't able to provide them for whatever reason and so when I saw this come up on consent I thought this might be an appropriate time to bring it up to you in the council that there does seem to be a lot of demand for reserve spaces to serve those office complexes on old courthouse square well I would clarify the clarification is that we've never had non-reserve permits in the third street garage so the reason there's a waiting list for reserve permits in that garage is because that's the only permits that were available it wasn't necessarily that people desire for a reserve permit they just want a permit in that garage okay so and I'm sorry for all these questions that this to me was an opportunity to bring this up because I'm looking at the cost differential here and you know we know the woes of the parking department and I'm thinking this is a great way to make a lot more money to support our parking department above and beyond just providing spaces for the general public and we know too that a lot of these garages are never at full occupancy it's probably only a couple times a year that they hit 100 occupancy so it seems to me like there's a financially advantageous opportunity to either do more reserves or or non-reserves and so with the question with the non-reserves my last one I promise is if I buy a non-reserve pass will the ticket taker the automatic ticket taker at the gate ensure that the 60 non-reserve passes that we're proposing to pass today will have a spot reserved or could there be a situation where I buy the pass I come in and the facility's full it is possible that you could purchase a permit and the garage could be full and you would not be able to find a space that is possible it's unlikely we try to manage the facilities so that we don't find ourselves in a in a bind like that and in my 10 years we have not that that has not been an issue but theoretically that could be an issue when you purchase a non-reserve permit your signing and acknowledging that it doesn't guarantee you a space is there a way we can program our our arm thing in the jig at the the gateway to to kind of you know do accounting so that if we've got people buying these non-reserve passes that they're not going to be wasting their money and not getting a spot when they need to it seems to me if we're going to be charging that money and I hear what you're saying that the non-reserve is better than the reserve to me it seems like a good middle ground from folks who want to reserve but as you said don't fill them up so this seems like a great kind of solution for the city but I think we should really make sure that you know I'm not going to spend $120 on the pass and then not not have a spot to park that I agree and that is where the management of the program comes into place we can't if we were to program the system the way that you're requesting or suggesting it is that is essentially we're back in the reserved permit situation we're saying we have to leave 60 spaces empty in that garage even though 60 permit holders are very unlikely to be in the garage at the same time it's almost never happens because you know people have different schedules and things happen so we wouldn't want to program a garage to say we're always going to have however many permits are outside the garage always keeping space for them that would be the same as having reserved almost the same as having reserved spaces so it really comes down to actively managing the facilities to ensure that we aren't selling more permits than we can accommodate and based on what's happening right now I don't see that being an issue at all we we have capacity to absorb these permits and also absorb the the level of transient visitors that are coming downtown okay well I trust you director Nato so thank you I will say for the council I've had two different landlords in two different buildings in the last few months asked me to bring to the council or bring to the parking department a request for more reserved spaces and and I was obliged to try to do that because to me we're going to live in a world post-covid where retail office space is going to be in lower demand and when we have all these efforts to populate our downtown with people working to go support our businesses if we've just if we have a surplus of parking spaces I hope we'll consider either you know non-reserved for now but reserved too if the landlord asks for it we I think we should make that accommodation but thank you director Nato thank you council member are there any other questions all right vice mayor would you like to make a motion move item 12.3 and wait for the reading of the text second motion by the vice mayor and a second from council member Sawyer Adam clerk if you could call the roll council member tidbits aye council member schwedhelm aye council member Sawyer aye council member Fleming yes council member alvarez aye vice mayor rogers aye mayor rogers aye that motion passes with seven eyes okay council we have our public hearing cannot start until five o'clock rather than going on to item 14.1 which I think will be a little bit lengthy I see we have a couple folks in the chambers who are waiting for 15.1 we'll go ahead and recess until five o'clock that's about five minutes please don't go too far and then we'll come back with item 15.1 all right council let's go ahead bring it back Adam city clerk could you please call the roll yes thank you council member tidbits council member schwedhelm here council member Sawyer here council member Fleming here council member alvarez president vice mayor rogers mayor rogers here council member tidbits have you joined us okay let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of council member tidbits right mr. city manager let's do item 15.1 mayor rogers and members of the city council item 15.1 is a public hearing the matter before the council is the adoption of a mitigated negative declaration and master plan for the roseland creek community park gen santos our deputy director parks is going to be doing the staff presentation on the side of and good evening mayor rogers vice mayor rogers and gen santos the deputy director for parks I also have with me or joining me at some point soon uh our chair of the city's board of community services carol quant our environmental consultant david j powers will burns representing and then phish from design workshop our design consultant and as well as our community engagement consultant so uh saseel kiribon uh from chi consulting to answer any questions tonight this item will present the roseland creek community park master plan and the associated environmental analysis and declaration next slide please so just to orient ourselves as a reminder of what uh where we're talking about we're looking in the roseland area the yellowish orange square in the middle represents uh where you would see rosland creek community park in relation to this area of the city so we're west of what a one and south of highway 12 you also see a little green square nearby and that is bare uh neighborhood park about a six acre park um and so you can see that this is a really important component and an important part of this community as there is only a neighborhood park and a small south davis community park uh neighborhood park at the intersection of highway 12 and and 101 next slide closer uh we can kind of see a closer view maybe an air balloon view of rosland creek community park there's rosland creek elementary across the street uh across burbank avenue from the from the park we also have mc minne avenue on the top northern section of the park the park is generally surrounded by single family homes as well as an agricultural area to the south uh and ranch farms ranch farmhouses and similar areas around the park itself if you look in within the park in the orange area you can see a lot of oak trees you can see that rosland creek um passes through the park on the southern to middle end of it um we also can see some older homes uh of which council has already approved the removal of the above ground structures of these um existing homes on site we have one at the very top right corner one a couple in the middle several outbuildings as well as an older farm residence um on the southern half of the other parcel um we've had use of this parcel since at least the mid 1800s and up until the 1950s it's being used as uh ranchets and small farm areas you can still see if you have really good you can really see and look in there some lines of green those are planted vegetation kind of in the middle um towards a creek um that were being used by a recent um the recent homeowners of those of that area in the park so there's been a lot of active uses over the years of these parcels next slide please and so I wanted to show you that the park is actually currently divided into four parcels it's really common for a lot of our parks uh in 2011 we um purchased three of those parcels you can see the top two and the bottom parcel listed as 2011 uh we bought those parcels uh from the private owners with support for the acquisition from the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District uh we were part of their matching grant program and uh they provided funds for at least 50 percent of the acquisition of those parcels and so in 2018 we were fortunate enough to work with the Ag and Open Space District again and receive another matching grant uh to purchase the parcel in the middle the southern half of the middle which says 2018 on it um the we do have from 2011 two conservation easements as a requirement of those purchase as well as an agreement um to essentially provide um conservation of the native species on site such as oak woodlands as well as providing recreational opportunities for its uh for our citizens into the future the Ag and Open Space District also as part of those 2011 um covenants and agreements have a requirement to reduce the amount of non permeable paving so when I say permeable that means that rainwater can pass through something such as concrete with holes in it so that's a very common um and long lasting method or boardwalks or other decomposed granite other things like that that allow rainwater to move through so on these sites that say 2011 there is a restriction uh on the top two sites each parcel uh we are allowed to use up to five percent of the total parcel for non permeable surfacing so there is an understanding that we were using a lot of permeable surfacing up here in these two areas on the very southern parcel down the bottom of the slide was this 2008 2011 there is an allowable use of non permeable paving of about 20 percent of that particular parcel um so you'll see in the upcoming slides is there's more development and more information more amenities in this part of the park in 2018 both the ag and open space district and the city recognized that um we would be better served mutually better served by having one conservation easement over the entire park rather than three distinct conservation easements and recreation covenants so we are in the process right now working with the ag and open space district to finalize um the entire conservation easement it's really going to be very similar to the one from 2011 and so we are still in negotiations for the percent of non permeable paving for the parcel labeled 2018 and we provided based on the master plan um around 17 percent to 20 percent need for non permeable paving uh going forward the other thing that is required as a requirement of the ag and open space district is if you look at the very top parcel there it's a lot of beige grassland area we do have a requirement from 2011 to install a path uh pedestrian path that connects mcminne avenue across to burbank avenue and then across to rosin greek elementary school um we have been out of compliance with that requirement since 2016 the city cannot install a crosswalk at this location and provide the safe route to school until this master plan and the environmental document is approved at council so uh we are working with the ag and open space district they have been very patient with the city as we are coming into compliance hopefully soon with that but we have been out of compliance and we do look forward to providing that to our residents soon next slide please so just by way of background uh just wanted to mention that the plans you'll see tonight do comply with the 2035 general plan it designates this park as a community park the master plan amenities comply with the ag and open space conservation easements and agreements with the exception that we have not installed the pathway on the northern section as required the master plan also complies with the citywide creek master plan and the bicycle and pedestrian master plan and of course the uh master plan has received a thorough environmental analysis next slide please so i wanted to put this map up uh you can kind of see the whole area including roseland of the southwest uh you can see all the other parks in green that are within the southwest area and you can see circled and orange are two existing community parks as well as a future planned community park out by the airfield area so you see three orange circles in there those are the designated general plan community parks for the southwest area right now we uh have roseland it's undeveloped we also have southwest which is fairly well developed there's still a few future developments to come at southwest um an airfield has yet to be the airfield park um future community park has yet to be purchased but that is the plan and usually what we see is that parks follow development in this case we were able to reach out ahead of annexation and uh from the county received southwest community park and we were advanced and roseland and purchasing and acquiring roseland many thanks to the neighbors and former staff members here at the city and the city council for approving that acquisition there are red trees on this plan so those are actually future neighborhood parks with the exception of the red tree shown in the orange circle off to the left of the screen that's a future neighborhood park um if you if you look at these three circles you can see why roseland creek is really important to this community without that space there there's a real void we're limited in land in this area that of that size and that availability and so we really do look to to roseland as the huge asset to the city we also know that the demand for recreation in this particular area around roseland and fair and southwest is really high we have the highest use uh picnic reservations in this area outside of howard park uh we also have extremely high density in the roseland and southwest area of the city and we also know that our planning and economic development staff um are showing that we have over 800 additional homes coming in within a mile of this park um they're pending developments right now one of which is a multi-family development just south of this park we also have just outside of the one mile marker other multi-family developments coming to this part of southwest so we know we have a lot of intense uses right now and we anticipate the intensity to grow with multi-family units without much access to yards or green space at their house so again this particular park is of great importance to this area next slide so just a quick look at where we're at with southwest area demographics and planning compared to with the 2035 general plan projections if you looked on the on the left side of your screen here you can see existing conditions and on the right of your screen 2035 general plan projections so the last census shows the entire southwest area to contain about 27,162 people and the 2035 general plan projections are at 28,466 so we're really only about 1,300 people away from the 2035 projections and it's likely that the city will exceed this general plan projection with housing that has very limited to no backyards the 2035 general plan projects three community parks as we mentioned before and 15 neighborhood parks of which we have about a half of the requirement met in the southwest area and we are very close to exceeding the population density projected in 2035 so we might exceed that we might get close but again we wanted to provide this for you so we could see that the general plan was correct in locating this park in this neighborhood our standard just by reference for general plan standard is about 3.5 acres of city park for 1,000 residents so we're a little under that right now which is to be expected because the southwest part of Santa Rosa has not grown as fast as other parts of the city so we anticipate that to grow we do look at we're looking at a general plan projection of 3.9 acres of park for 1,000 feet which is fantastic for this area but we are not there yet next slide please and so before we look at the rosin creek master plan I get this question a lot what is a master plan what is it supposed to represent where are we supposed to see in a master plan so I thought it might be important to add in some other master plans we have in the city for reference so we can look at what is a master plan in our agency master plans are a one-page graphic representation to scale of an aerial view of our park land with the desired amenities requested from the community and you can see Kiwana Springs community park at the top of the slide a place to play community park on the bottom left and on the bottom right it looks like the letter we got cut off but that is their neighborhood park which is very close to Roseland and so if you'll notice these are big picture concepts we don't get into a lot of detail their community park their neighborhood park has a little bit more detail than some of the others because we had funding to complete the park from start to finish so we could take it that one step that one extra step whereas Kiwana Springs has a finished master plan but to date we have not been able to move forward with any implementation we are working on the community garden and getting that rolling as we wait for additional funding and grant opportunities to implement the remainder of this master plan which is very similar to a place to play I think in my seven years here we've updated the master plan at least twice with maybe a third time pending they place to play master plan still has shuffleboard on it so at the time it was created that was something that was important to the community but we also understand that master plans tend to tend to create amendments over time to correspond to whatever the community's desires are at that moment but in each of these plans an environment a corresponding environmental analysis was done so any significant changes to any of these plans including the Roseland plan we'll show you later would require additional community engagement and environmental analysis but generally as long as there isn't a significant change we can move forward with these and if for instance on Kiwana spring it's five or ten years from now before we can do something significant at that part we'll reach back out to the community to make sure we still want those amenities as we would with a place to play we recognize that maybe shuffleboard may not be as popular or maybe it is and we just haven't heard from the community in a while so just to kind of give you a sense of what a master plan is and what it represents it really is the big picture we don't get into the details of what sort of paving and benches and drinking fountains you really won't see a lot of that it's hard to represent this is generally to say we want soccer fields here we want lawn here we want children's play areas there so let's just go into our next slide so for Roslyn Creek Community Park we have done an enormous amount of outreach we started the outreach long before my career at the city began in 2009 and if you look we've had 12 community workshops that's an enormous undertaking these were all in person community workshops to gather feedback you can see some images there we tried to meet with a variety of folks in the community also of great importance is that we had five board of community services public meetings where we receive feedback from our city's board of community services and return to the community return back to the board of community services five times the board of community services has recommended this plan to council once and has recommended to follow up again as well a unanimous vote to vote forward for council approval we've visited the bi-national health fairs we've been at all the Roslyn annexation and specific plan meetings with our plans and collecting feedback the whole time we've been to all of the community advisory board open house meetings as well next slide please and we also in addition to the 2009 to 2018 meetings we added additional meetings in 2019 the latest trend in collecting feedback especially from the recommendation from the state parks and recreation team is that you target groups especially groups that wouldn't traditionally want to participate in a city public meeting and we had great success with our outreach we were at shepherd elementary we were at roslyn prep high school we were at the single roslyn synchro mile festival we visited our senior community chelsea gardens and we were at the southwest center was a healthy action uh partnership meeting and of course you could see an image down there on the bottom right we were the landpads garden celebration um we collected um a lot of information from these but at shepherd the preferred amenities for the for the park were sports courts and playgrounds at roslyn university prep high school students requested the sport court be built first at the synchro to mile festival we received a lot of varying uh and diverse responses and comments it was about a tie between the request to build the nature center and a playground first there were also many requests to utilize the nature center as a community center at our chelsea senior gardens community there was a request to build the lawn and turf area first of the park and a request for stable surfacing for walking and exploring the park at our southwest uh santa rosy uh healthy action meeting there was a lot there was an overwhelming request to accommodate families and um at our land paths um meeting we had requests for of course community garden and outdoor classrooms um in summary in addition to all of the community meetings we've had from 2009 up including all of these meetings in 2019 we had a very similar dynamic happening within this community we had folks interested in items that allowed for active uses now we also had a significant and vocal group looking for a preference for protecting and enhancing the nature found at los angeles community park and preserving it so that's a theme we see at almost every meeting um when you start to combine some of the results we've had that is a corresponding theme in this community um we had community members that are looking for a natural and a natural park um that have been involved in this long before 2009 um we don't have any records of that but that is what we're hearing from this community that they were um they had the idea to have this park here and they've been behind this park since then and they've been very active in community in coming to all of the meetings but we do hear a wide variety of feedback uh beyond that group as well next slide please so if you look at some of the ways we've been able to outreach to our community these are just some of the basic things we do for uh most of our um in-person meetings we had direct mail postcards of course to residents and property owners we eblast attendees of our previous roseland planning meetings and of course we have our Santa Rosa Recreation of Parks newsletter and news newsletter subscribers we have um outreach at the park we assign it at the park a lot of the times and of course we have one for this public hearing tonight and we also during all these times um have online surveys or paper surveys that people could take depending on if we were in a pandemic situation or not so we've had a lot of ways for folks to participate over the years um and we have had participation since 2009 so it's been a long time coming for this park next slide please so um I'm only going to do one look back because I know there we've had eight more than eight different changes to this master plan since 2009 there's been a lot of changes but if we look back to 2010 I thought this was important starting point because um this plan is often mentioned a lot of times in different circles um this was the plan that the city submitted as a draft to the agate open space district to receive matching grant funds um the agate open space recognized that it was a draft and that the city would continue to do outreach um certainly I you know wasn't I'm not sure if the county expected us to continue this conversation 11 years later but here we are and I wanted to just touch base with this and look at this plan this is the graphic that was used we have trails throughout wetlands slash vertical pools preservation of both trees of course um a parking lot in the middle to support uh a nature center and um there's about 20 something parking spaces there although there's no count um we have two pedestrian bridges in the plan to cross over roth and creek we have a multi-use turf area at the bottom part of this plan which is essentially lawn that's another way of saying that we have a multi-purpose trail for pedestrians and bikes that runs from the southern left far corner along bourbon avenue all the way through the park up to the farther farthest right hand side off mcminne avenue um we have a playground in the southern section of restroom uh picnic area and off to the far southern part we have a what's called a pommel interpretive village and picnicking areas in there um I just wanted to use this as a basis for discussion as we move through what we've been doing over the last 11 years next slide please and so just to summarize I know you've heard a little bit about this before but I wanted to take the time to summarize it here that um there is a group of residents who would like the park to return to a natural state with little to no improvement except for trails and nature center and associated parking all of our other community comments generally include requests for amenities such as lawn general for general play and yoga and things like that playgrounds group picnicking regular picnics dog parks pump tracks community gardens restrooms parking trails fitness equipment basketball courts barbecues and outdoor sink and a teen center and of course on the other end of that spectrum we also have had requests for intense development such as a bicycle velodrome a veteran center regulation soccer baseball and request of course on the far other side is no improvements at all so that's what we've been hearing and this is a consistent thing we've been hearing throughout these 11 years and I wanted to take the time to make that point again next slide please so with that with all of that um outreach and studying of course we um had a recommendation from the board of community services for the master plan on in 2018 our environmental consultant started the environmental analysis of the draft plan in 2017 and once we had a path forward from our board of community services the um environmental consultant went full steam ahead and conducted the full environmental analysis based on the master plan at the time um called an initial study and essentially they look at what sort of amenities are shown within the master plan as asked for by the community and they analyze any impacts to the environment based on the amenities requested in the park there's of course a full environmental evaluation of the site which includes biological a biological study as well next slide please and so a year later we end up with a notice of intent to adopt a mitigated negative declaration and we submit that to the county and essentially what that is is it saying that the impacts to the environment of this master plan are mitigated to a negative declaration so it concludes essentially that the impacts will be mitigated to a less than significant level through implementation of mitigation measures through compliance with existing municipal code requirements and of course city standards um and just as a reminder the council must first adopt that mitigated negative declaration and then a master plan as part of the council item um the environmental document also contains any sort of public comments received as well as the response to those comments next slide please as part of our master planning process we also if you recall from the first master plan in 2010 um there was a request for a pomo village or a pomo theme area um in the master plan and when reaching out to our tribal nations reaching out to Great Inventoria to ask them what sort of um many of these they would like to see in this pomo village or pomo themed area and they were very clear with uh with staff that the request for a pomo village and a pomo theme should be removed and not shown on the plan as going forward um they also additionally requested that uh fire barbecues and water and in as an outdoor sink and picnicking parking for elder access proximity to restroom and identification of all the native tree spaces on the southern side of the rosin creek um be provided to them and worked into the plan that was their request they also of course have reviewed the environmental um documents and have no comments next slide please we also worked with the um Linton Rancheria of California and um they reviewed the draft concept plan we asked for comments back or to meet with them and we um did not receive any comments back they did um have the opportunity to review the environmental documents and again no comments we also have had a person from a local area in roseland um planning to be part of the dry creek pomo rancheria and when we reached out to the contact for dry creek rancheria um they had no interest in the park and no comments for the park and uh noted that uh they are the ones that would provide comments if they had it and not necessarily folks from out in the area so we uh we ultimately removed that area from the plan without the support from our tribal nations next slide please so let's look at what went to council back in 2020 and this was the plan that was um recommended for approval by our board of community services and then this this is also the accumulation of all the feedback we've received from community members since 2009 and just take a little bit more time to walk through this plan and go through it if you look we have some trails the brown trails all over the park we have some of the top some that go through the bottom and the base of the park as well you'll see a multi-use trail shown in a straight yellow and brownish color running from McMint Avenue all the way down and across the park to exit near Burbank Avenue at the southern end of the park the little orange dots are represented uh interpretive signage so interpreting what you're seeing native oaks or um historic anything historical that um the community would like to interpret we also have some smaller green squares at the bottom portion of this plan and those represent fitness equipment along the pathways and trails and working with the ag and open space district um it was a request that this fitness equipment uh which would be one or two items off a trail be limited to the southern portion of the of the park and you see them there in the middle portion of the park we have a parking lot as well as a nature center it's that white box off to the left in the middle the nature center has about 19 parking spaces and of course a firetruck turnaround and the nature center is shown about the same size as the pavilion and kitchen at their neighborhood park if any group in there it's a relatively small space but we also have a large overhang for outdoor area and it's not really determined if it should be a building or an outdoor pavilion but nevertheless we looked at the impacts as if it was a building so that if if the city wanted to do that in the future we have that option in the middle it's really hard to see this there's a label this is picnic area so what we intended from there was to show that there is a picnic area around existing oak trees and throughout the area right now it's a gravel pathway a gravel driveway in that area and so we intended to have just scattering of picnic tables in there much like you'd see at Howard Park and off to the right of the picnic area a community garden or outdoor classroom area that's the area that was being used previously as a garden and a vegetable garden for the previous owner of that parcel and of course we have two pedestrian bridges that overcross the Rosland Creek and we have an area down in purple that is represented of something wonderful we found at this park which was existing purple needle grass and so of course we want to preserve that and celebrate that and interpret the purple needle grass so you can see it down there with trails around and interpreted signage and there's a small picnic area off to the left of that as well as a multi-use turf field in the center so that's essentially a lawn it's a very small area of lawn we did have a lot of requests for people to picnic and throw frisbees and do yoga classes and different things like that on the lawn for quiet and passive uses it's about the same size as the lawn you would see at their neighborhood park so it's pretty small for a community park but it also provides that servicing for that isn't paved and then there is a restroom it's shown and interpreted as part of the environmental review as a building in case the city would like to make it a building could also be a bank of rural restaurants in the future whatever is suited at the time that we implement this plan there's also the very bottom left a driveway and a parking lot and we do have a requirement for fire truck access to this area where we're providing amenities and so we are showing a smaller parking lot and a fire truck turnaround there and just above that a group picnic area and the shade structure and so this is just an overall reminder of where we were at in 2020 and this was the plan that was used to put forth the council it was also the recommendation from the board of community services again as I mentioned previously this plan has seen countless changes it's been through many iterations this is where we found ourselves in 2020 and 2019 next slide please and so just a reminder about this plan we did bring the plan forward to council with the recommendation of the board of community services on January 14th the master plan was presented and received the council received community feedback and the council also received a citizen developed park plan at that time at the council meeting and ultimately requested that staff conduct a follow-up community meeting that also includes the plan submitted at that evening at the council meeting next slide please and so the next step that we did was to hold and conduct that follow-up meeting it was planned on March 4th the neighborhood group calling themselves the neighborhood group presented their ideal park plan to the community we also had members of the planning and economic development department presenting pending and future development to the community our transportation folks were there presenting bus routes and bicycle plans for the southwest specifically adjacent to the park we also had of course recreation parks there showing park adjacencies and master plan examples and of course the previous master plan was available and presented as well and at this meeting well let's go ahead and jump to the next slide and I'll go into our next so just to back up a bit I just wanted to remind the council of the plan that they asked the staff to bring forward to the community this is the community submitted plan at the council meeting and it was presented at our March 4th 2020 meeting by members from the Rosen Creek neighborhood group and I think the interesting thing here is looking at the similarities so the similarities to the community-based plan show pathways of bike path a nature center or one restroom a greenhouse and two picnic tables one small parking lot preservation of oak woodlands an outdoor classroom a children's play area and preservation of purple neograss two pedestrian bridges a planned habitat restoration in the very top of the of the plan up here and we also show they also show restoration regarding the creek down here in the blue the blue thing so there's there's similarities to to the plan as well next slide please so just putting this back up there this is an advanced it says July 9th I'm so sorry but it is very similar to what was previously presented it shows a lot of the similarities so the similarities between the two plans again where the picnicking community I guess the similarities yeah we're the bike path nature center restroom a greenhouse picnicking and a small parking lot the this plan here shows and allows for a little bit more picnicking including group picnicking a community garden a secondary restroom near the playground a lawn area and a picnic area near the nature center so those are some of the differences between the two plans the other thing that you'll see on this plan is previously we also identified as part of the environmental review that wetlands previously shown on the 2010 version we're not actually located there and so they have been removed from the plan also we have a note on this community plan that references the citywide creek master plan which already identifies this stretch of the creek for restoration so as not to compete or conflict with each other we have instead shown a note that shows that the the rose and creek or the I'm sorry the citywide creek master plan should be instead referenced which shows restoration through this area as well since we have that plan I think those are the biggest differences between all previous versions and the version completed by the neighborhood group so next slide please one of the other things we can look at is we can look at what we actually heard on march for based on these two plans that were presented and the information presented by the city regarding housing and traffic in the area so if you look at the top we have these are exact quotes from people attending the march forth meeting listen to multiple needs and generational perspectives scores the quote please keep the rose and park as natural as possible we don't want that many parking lots there's another quote also the children in our community need more places to play we courts playgrounds and larger picnic areas as quote we heard the next one was please leave the preserve natural no pavement no fitness station no sport court no shade structures no structures except restrooms and a nature center the next quote was balance the naturalist with the x which is probably where we couldn't read and the sports minded there is enough room for all of that not one interest should dominate all the others there is enough room we also heard full basketball court i want nature please hurry the process it's already been 10 years nature park no amenities facilities to play basketball and soccer and at the bottom of this area needs an active and natural space a park that meets both nature and community so this is this is very indicative although this was from the march fourth meeting this is very indicative of many of the community feedback all of the community really feedback we've received over the last 11 years we you can see lots of divergent ideas of what should be happening with this park but we also see common ideas so after this meeting we ended up in a very similar spot to where we were at when we came to pre council previously so we asked ourselves where do we go from here and thank you for advancing the slide so what we did next was not something the staff did but we were fortunate enough enough to have districts at this time and we work with council member alvarez to have a conversation about what we should be doing next with this park and he had developed some listening sessions where he was providing meeting with groups in particular to look at and hear from the community not just about rosin creek community park but also about the general the wider roseland area and so you can see he met with students from middle school and parents um the on on february 11th and on february 24th with the rosin creek elementary parent group um he also met on march first with the rosin community builders initiative and on march 17th he also met with the boys and girls clubs both the juvenile hall for girls and boys groups separately and um he also met with the neighborhood group on march 22nd 2021 uh community engagement staff were here um taking notes uh park staff was able to join some of these meetings and listen in um and and and what we understood was the council member and staff we were able to hear again a variety of perspectives about the request of the park to serve the needs of various groups um she consulting also joined in as a facilitator listening in and when we got to the end of the listening session suggested that we bring these groups together to meet with each other and to make some final decisions regarding what sort of amenities we should be seeing in the rosin creek community park and so we looked at um a working group uh with representatives from each of the listening sessions to attend a working session on april 9th where community members were able to speak about what they thought was important in the park um they got to hear from other community members that maybe don't agree with them um and together they recommended the plan updates so that we could update the master plan and move forward with it really council member alvarez led these discussions um and provided updates to staff based on what he heard and based on what we heard when we were able to be at these meetings or at these listening sessions it was a really um good working group of folks to try to get down to the meat and potatoes so to speak of what should be in this park and what is important for this community now and into the future because often as you'll recall from our other master plan samples we showed you a master plan is for today but it's also for our future our future neighbors because often we don't have the funding necessary to build our entire plan right from the get go so we we're doing both we're looking at what folks want right now and what folks want in the future and this group came together on a very cold day to try to have the discussion uh socially distant with mask on and have the conversation with each other and um what that led to was exhibit c in the staff report it was a long list of changes that were made to the plan updates to the plan really clarifying with groups what intents were because when you look at those master plans it's very difficult to really get a good grip grip on on what's on what's happening so let's go to the next slide please and so um we'll go over this plan and what sort of changes we heard from these listening sessions and what changes we're presenting today um as part of the final master plan graphically it looks very similar but a lot of headway was made at these meetings it was um really wonderful to see um the community members engaging with each other um for what they want to see at their at their park and so one of the things we uh changed I've mentioned already we referred to the city wide creep master plan which has excellent information on the rest future restoration of this creek and of course that's where we want to reference for the restoration portion of it it's not shown here because we already have a master plan for that so we clarified that it's not that we staff don't want to see these changes in the creek we simply we already have a document that helps us get there we also discussed with the community members about the interpretive signage being respectful of uh tri-lingual languages so we do have three prominent languages and we may have more by the time we develop this uh plan and actually move forward with it those are shown in the little orange dots around and again these are not necessarily exactly where they're going to go this is the big picture representation knowing that we would like to interpret and provide these interpretive signage for our community we also talked about parking a lot there's a lot of confusion frustration with not enough parking too little etc what sort of paving that we're going to have for that um so we changed the parking to really reflect what we all had in mind which is that we don't need parking unless there's something uh unless there's an amenity there to support parking so for instance we don't necessarily need a parking a lot until the nature center is built and even then we may not need a full 19 spaces but the working work did decide on 19 spaces overall um that's not something where we go in unless we were fortunate to have funding for the full nature center we might be required to have that as a minimum but we do emphasize that we want to have the amount a minimum amount necessary and not to overdo the parking lot areas similarly on the southern parking launch where we have the firetruck turnaround access point as well we discussed um keeping limiting the parking to 17 spaces and only developing so for instance if we install the trail as first we probably don't need a lot of parking to support the trail but as more and more amenities come in over the years it will allow the parking to expand and to its full needs to support the community with a maximum of 17 spaces one of the interesting things that um I think came out of the listing sessions too was the discussion and concern about large group parties and picnics and things like that and so one of the things that the council member discussed was eliminating group sites and group picnic areas so that we could focus this park on more of a single-use picnic area with a single-use barbecue um and of course an ash disposal bin was something very specific um but of course we would include that we wanted to call it out so that's one of the changes we in my mind one of the significant changes we made was to look at single-use areas of a more spread out area so that we still can have people bringing their picnic lunch um but we're not encouraging group grouping together per se let's see um the other thing that um it's just number five on my list but one of the things we um decided was that it's really important to show that this is a community-based plan so we we added a note that said that that um all these groups came together and of course it's not just this last group on from the listing sessions it's all the other folks we've heard from over the last 11 years we also added a note about a vehicular gate and really just clarified that like in all of our parks except for maybe parks with sports fields which this park will not have um we have vehicular gates that are closed at sunset so that we're eliminating the um illegal activity and use in the parking lots or the potential for that um and clarified that this is um to be a park used sunset to sunrise um there was also a lot of concern and um talk about the type of paving that we have throughout the park and so we added a plan note it's really difficult to see on here but essentially it's plan note number three um that shows that all paving will be permeable which means that we'll have rainwater flowing through it except we're required for ADA compliance or for uh engineering purposes related to improvements we we can't even understand at this point maybe um we do have when it comes to ADA parking we do have to put in a solid surface there um but otherwise we're really looking at allowing rainwater to float through whatever paving gets decided whether it's um some sort of permeable concrete it's essentially a concrete a lot of holes in it raised walkways pavers or other types of pathways that um are fabulous and can we can discover in the future so we also clarified the note at the very top of the plan that shows existing grassland to remain and or be restored the recall recall from the neighborhood plan that this area was desired to have restored and so um we clarified that that is what that means that although the city is not in a position to restore this to a grassland we would be happy to work with nonprofits and other community members who would like to restore this area um and we look forward to that so we clarified that that's what that note allows that to happen um we also had um as part of listening sessions requests for um lawn area and there was confusion about what do you mean by multi-purpose turf and really all we mean is law it's just it's an irrigated lawn area and with the massive improvements in technology there's all kinds of ways we can do um more drought tolerant lawn um irrigation we're experimenting with a type of irrigation at Howard Park where it's it's like a blanket underneath so we don't have any irrigation coming up above ground so you know we're looking at future options and and again um the next step for this um after approval is to install the pathway from McMen to Burbank but we do not have any other funds yet so as we move forward with and fine funding for that future lawn area uh we will be exploring ways to significantly reduce the irrigation use especially in a new area and so we removed the word multi-purpose from the lawn area because it's it's it's lingo and so we just clarified it's just lawn so that we did have folks in the listening sessions that wanted to do yoga and also wanted to throw a frisbee and put a picnic blanket down and uh we talked about the interpretive signage language and um the city of White Creek master plant so those are some of the significant um changes that we made although um we made some significant changes to the plant they were really clarifications of a lot of things that were only there and small revisions again with the biggest revision is the elimination of group picnic areas and looking more at single single use um and just a reminder that um staff um the your board of community service our consultants the community members we have worked tirelessly to bring a master plan to operation that provides not only protection of natural elements um on site but also allows for some active uses we have collected an enormous amount of feedback since 2009 and each time we engage um a large amount of feedback um is about the same the same what you are seeing here is a desire to keep most of this park in its natural state but also allowing for these for our community members to come and have a picnic uh play in a sport court that's also part of a fire truck turnaround um our our teenagers that we met with were really interested in that part of this park um we also looked at we also heard from community members about making this more of a nature-based um play area and that's definitely something um that we had in mind all along so we clarified we clarified that we really feel that additional community engagement at this point will continue to result in a similar plan to what you see here today we understand that roseland is changing it's it used to be in the county we had a lot of single family homes and ranch homes we know there's much more housing development pending and um this plan should not only take into account what we hear so loudly today and of course for the last 11 years but it also should project the future recreational needs of the hundreds of families that will have little to no yards and will need picnicking nature spaces playgrounds and walking paths has a life this plan protects the natural environment we're protecting trees and the repairant area and it also provides for recreational activities which are very desperately needed in this area we are already overrunning bare neighborhood park and southwest to the maximum we do need a space for recreation in this area this is certainly not a plan for everyone not any one group is going to have exclusively everything we've heard in this plan really this plan focuses a majority of the park land um into a president a type of natural area where it's preserved and or enhanced this plan also complies with the agon open space restrictions for permeable paving and provides inclusive park amenities for a variety of community members interests this is the plan that is recommended for approval to the city council and the council appointed board community service approving this plan and the corresponding environmental documentation this evening will allow the city to give this park back to the community for us to protect what we have provide a safe route to school for students to be ready and to be ready to implement future amenities as funding arises next slide please and so uh we just thought and so we just thought we'd give you a little if you took one example of what we mean by nature thing and you take the playground for instance these are things that we know we can do we can work with natural surfaces which you see on the bottom natural logs we can also have a variety of things of natural logs and concrete structures which you see in the very top right and top left and I look at that playground on the top left it's amazing so this is really what we're thinking of is a joining of providing access to our view for traditional play features as well as shrubs and natural environment and walking paths to enjoy nature this is something that our friends at play core I don't want to plug them but they you know they've done an amazing amount of research on how children play and interact and how their imaginations grow and what they've seen is having a combination of traditional park amenities without using plastics and existing nature or planted native plants around the playground really enhances the play value of our park so I just wanted to take that moment I appreciate you allow me to take that moment and show you what we mean by nature thing so this same type of thing can be throughout the park implemented in our picnic areas as well next slide please and so um oops thank you so it is recommended by the transportation and public works department that the council by resolution one adopt the mitigation negative declaration including mitigation monitoring recording program for the rosin creek community park plan and two adopt the rosin creek community park master plan which includes pay pedestrian and bicycle trails community garden or outdoor classroom and nature center and parking picnic areas with single use barbecues parking near the children's play areas for ages two to five and five to twelve restroom building sport court fitness stations irrigated turf area which is lawn two pedestrian bridges a crosswalk looped walking paths and interpreted signage and I appreciate your time listening to this presentation thank you all right well thank you so much deputy director it's obviously it's been a long process and we appreciate all of the work that you put into it a big thank you to council member alvarez for all of the work that you've put in since you've been on council holding those meetings as well and trying to find resolution are there any questions from council before we go to public comment council member alvarez uh thank you uh first of all thank you gen thank you to seal thank you will stop well thank you to our community for all the work that they put in absolutely phenomenal and I love to see our community can come together and dialogue and and conversate with my one question that I have for now before we listen to our community are there any grants or monies that are due to expire should this not pass and if so what are they thank you well as I mentioned earlier we do have a requirement with the agate open space district I'm sure not sure what the ultimate consequence would be there but we do have an application in for a place to play community park ball field and so they're in hold until we finish this master plan with that application for the place to play ball field there any other questions council council member Fleming hi gen thank you could you summarize what the board of community services most recent feedback is or do you have a representative from them available to give us their impressions of this room most recent master plan of course I um I'm not seeing our chair there she is she would probably be our best representative to um talk about what the board heard most recently they did receive a very lengthy and I know this probably seems lengthy but you can imagine that to our presentation there's lots of detail about this at our last meeting so I'll turn it over to our chair of the board of community services Carol coin she would like to elaborate um I've been on board of community services for approximately seven years this is um seven years of experience and many more years before I even came on the board in dealing with this evolving plan since the plan first came to the board of community services we went from district wide city council people to area specific when we first reviewed there was no roseland representative on city council as there is now in city council member alvarez so the input that we had has changed over the last year or so in our review of the 2021 master plan we took much more input from the information provided by city council member alvarez and his listening sessions also please bear in mind that for the pandemic we were going out in person the march 2020 was held at the middle school there were several hundred people in attendance in real life a plethora of opinions all over the board were represented at that meeting since then board of community services been been limited to virtual participation combining those two and leaning heavier towards the information provided in the last year during zoom and covet the plan as it is presented is something that the current board of community services which has half of its members appointed within the last year this is something that the current board of community services including myself are comfortable with forwarding to city council thank you chair i don't have any additional questions okay i also see that we have uh richard drury's hand up i i believe richard is part of our consulting team so i want to give him an opportunity to to weigh in as well um this is richard drury speaking i'm not part of your consulting team although i did comment i'd be happy to speak to that if this is the proper time we'll go ahead we'll come back to you in just a moment then i apologize you were listed as one of our panelists so we'll get you moved back over to the attendee side and we'll call on you at the appropriate time thank you council are there any other additional comments questions okay we will go ahead and go to our public comments then i'm going to go ahead and i've got a couple of folks here in the chambers and i've got folks on zoom we're going to start with shawn on zoom followed by anna am i on yes you are we're going to go ahead and open the public hearing shawn okay next my name is shawn smallwood i'm a wildlife ecologist with phd from usa davis a lot of experience with wildlife surveys research and sequel i provided a comment letter to my client loza jury who shared it with you i surveyed the park and when i did that in late august i detected 38 species of wildlife in a short time including five species that have special status based on my experience and based on publicly reported sightings of wildlife in the area i'm no doubt that many additional special status species rely on the park other than those i saw my own eyes and as my comment letter lays out one can infer from that more species occur there based on the pattern of detection in the data or based on the data pattern of the data anyhow the site is rich in wildlife species what are characterized as improvements in the park would end up covering up 20 of the park with improved surfaces and when intrude on much of the rest of the park with artificial lighting and increased activity by people in their pets these changes would harm wildlife in the park while making no commitments to improve or enhance habitat there i suggested before approving this project an eir should be prepared to replace city's initial study which is insufficiently informative and too often misleading the biology survey could perform by the consulting firm was deficient in its effort level and reporting for me a giant red flag went up when i read that the consultant saw only six species of wildlife in the same park where i saw 38 species the city needs a better wildlife surveys the initial study misimplies of the survey outcome proves the park is biologically impoverished and unable to support most of the potentially occurring special status species it often mischaracterizes species habitat by for example pigeonholing species into unrealistically narrow portions of the environment it misimplies that all those known as species occurrences has been reported the california natural diversity database on which the initial study relies and further that wildlife are static in their distribution they are not it misrepresents the habitat value of old trees in the park refer to them as dead and dying instead of pointing out that these trees offer many more cavities for food storage refuge and nesting opportunities and neglected estimated impacts of habitat loss to wildlife includes no human effects analysis for bilateral resources considering the stakes the city's analysis is grossly deficient in my opinion and er eir should be prepared uh prepared appropriate surveys and analysis are needed to achieve sqa's objective of publicly disclosed disclosing potential impacts so that you can make a more informed decision over whether and how to proceed with the project and thanks thank you shan we'll go to ana followed by jasmine um i'm from recently in university prep and i know so i think we have two people who are talking right now can we go ahead mute jasmine we'll come back to jasmine uh can you hear me yes we can go ahead hello si buenas tardes mi nombre es Ana salgado y este estoy presente hoy porque tuve el honor de que se interesó que se preocupó por su área y vino a mí a pedirme su apoyo como como una persona que ya antes ha apoyado otras causas y ellos me mostraron el otro mundo que está al cruzar la calle de su escuela cuando ellos me most me invit me hicieron esta invitación a mí fue un honor porque este de jóvenes me enseñó tanto ese día por algunas horas que estuve ahí con ellos me enseñó que que no no hay una edad para que uno alce su voz y uno hable acerca de las cosas que le pueden afectar ellos me mostraron este este parque esta área que es otro mundo me mostraron como uno puede convivir con la naturaleza y como uno puede aprender de ella y como uno tiene y merece nuestra madre naturaleza y el poco espacio que podamos preservar e invitar a nuestros jóvenes a que aprendan a respetar a la naturaleza y que junto con ella empiecen a vivir uno del cual algún día sólo vamos a tener los recuerdos si no empezamos a cuidar estas áreas que son para nosotros muy importantes tanto como el des como para el desarrollo de nuestros jóvenes que muchos de ellos ya no están disfrutando esa área natural si no se están quedando con los juegos que están muy salados a los medios y así todo y esta área es un espacio un espacio que les va a aprender a conocer y a respetar más a nuestra madre naturaleza que ya ahora con el cambio emático ya no ya nos está olvidando de todo eso y se nos está robando ese privilegio entonces yo quiero agradecer a ese grupo de jóvenes que me invito a conocer esto y es la razón por la cual estoy hablando necesitamos preservar las áreas necesitamos darles a nuestros jóvenes ese apoyo que ellos necesitan y la oportunidad de convivir más con la madre naturaleza gracias gracias madam cd clerk can we please unmute our translator to provide the translation for us interpreter charles can you please capture as best you can what miss algado just stated and going forward if you can explain if it's easier for you to ask our Spanish speaking audience to make a statement and then let you interpret and then they'll go back to complete their statement just so you can capture better what they are saying simultaneously understood good afternoon my name is Anna Salgado I well I had somebody that come came up to me who was worried about a specific area some children and they came to ask me for support seeing as I was a person who had supported other causes in the past and crossing the street from their school they showed me a completely new world a different world when they invited me to go I felt it was a very great honor because those youth during the hours that I was there showed me that there is no specific age when one should begin to have a voice about things that can affect them they showed me this park which was another world and they showed me how one can live in harmony with nature and how beautiful nature is and it's such a small space that we have and we should try to take care of it we should show our kids how to respect nature and how to enjoy these areas and it is important to take care of of these natural places for our children's development as well because if not then they won't be able to enjoy natural spaces like this this area is a space that will show them how to learn to live with in harmony and respect mother nature because with all of these changes in the world including climate change it's robbing us of that privilege and I want to take the time to thank the group of kids who showed me this area and I feel that I need to add my voice to theirs and support and preserve these areas and I support the kids and their voice all right thank you Charles and thank you Anna we'll go on to Jasmine followed by Rick okay I'm Jasmine and I go to Rosalina University PEP it's actually new to me to be here talking about this and it's kind of been a while since I've been on zoom it's well my opinions about this is not only are we will they take up like creatures out there home you will destroy like you will destroy many places and I think putting along theirs or whatever is like not so good because California's drought and it's very severe my thoughts and I believe that we shouldn't be taking up the space because well those homeless people out there are live there are staying there and if we make this then they will start to get kicked out of from there but in any place if it's happened a lot before freeways many places where they've kicked out the homeless because they don't want them to be gathered there I think even if they make this new change they might they might see as a better place as more beautiful because of all the new things they've added and done to this place but I think I believe nature is beautiful the way it is and it shouldn't it shouldn't just be taken over I think that's all I want to say thank you thank you Jasmine Rick followed by Richard yes a couple problems I see I want to endorse the the need for a full EIR it's clear to me that the public agencies tend to select the consultants that conform their opinions to what the the agency wants rather than to what's actually there I I'm really concerned about that secondly I'm concerned about the safety of the school kids having taught school for over 30 years I know that if you place that crosswalk which I noted on the the the plan map there if you place it to the north of the school that the students will not use it it needs to be placed across from the school connecting to the the trail that they will use at the parking lot there secondly the bicycle trail is basically an extension of the trail along Roseland Creek yet there's nothing that indicates a crosswalk there I think both crosswalks are necessary and I would say that especially the one at the school I should be signalized in some way for safety of the kids safety is an issue here and so is the environmental impact on endangered species thank you thank you Rick we'll go to Richard followed followed by Allegra hello my name is Richard Drury I'm representing Roseland Action a community group with members living in the Roseland area we asked the city to reject the mitigated negative declaration and prepare an environmental impact report for the project there is substantial evidence of a fair argument that the project may have adverse impacts on numerous special status species an EIR is required to analyze and mitigate these impacts Roseland Action favors a neighborhood park or a series of neighborhood parks rather than a single large community park which would have lesser environmental impacts by reducing hardscapes and parking areas this site is very environmentally sensitive it is has a riparian corridor around Roseland Creek and is home to many sensitive species and is in the area designated as critical habitat for the California tiger salamander that hasn't been mentioned at all despite the lengthy presentations we have submitted expert comments by Dr. Sean Smallwood who you heard from earlier Dr. Smallwood identified 35 special status species likely to be present on the site he positively identified eight and took photographs as many the negative declaration states that there are none on the site it's clearly wrong identification of special status species requires an EIR just hours ago David Powers and associates the consultant submitted a report by Will Burns trying to rebut Dr. Sean Smallwood's comments Will Burns has a bachelor's degree in environmental studies not even a hard science he has no expertise in biology and has no place rebutting a PhD wildlife biologist with 30 years of experience and 88 peer-reviewed journal articles Dr. Smallwood positively identified in a mere three and a half hours five special status species on the site on the site Cooper's hawk nuttails woodpecker oat titmouse red-shoulder hawk he concluded that there are eight special status species that certainly appear on the site 35 probably occur and 17 possibly occurred including the site being in critical habitat for California tiger salamander Mr. Burns showed a fundamental misunderstanding of sequel when he said that the special status species identified by Dr. Smallwood are not special status species in the city of Santa Rosa well that's absurd sequel identifies special status species in appendix G and in section 15380 and the species identified by Dr. Smallwood are special status within sequel they have to be analyzed in an EIR our comments have we're also supported today by the Madrone Audubon Society which recognizes the importance we favor neighborhood parks we want parks in Rosalind area but those parks have to respect the species on board have to mitigate their impacts and should try to minimize those impacts through an EIR thank you thank you Richard we'll go to Allegra followed by Amalia hey um thanks for thanks for listening to me tonight um i'm a Rosalind resident and um I am I'm really passionate about having this park happen and having it happen soon and I hear the environmental concerns and I think those are really those those are real and those are are appropriate and so what I would ask is is there a way for city council to do some kind of like dual tracks so that this park doesn't get further delayed because access to this space on this side of town is crucial and critical and it isn't happening fast enough um to have to go like out of your neighborhood to experience nature I don't know I don't know that the people who are speaking out for the salamanders understand what that feels like and maybe you do and I think it's important I really do but I also feel like there has to be a balance and there has to be a way to get this park to happen sooner rather than later and address the environmental concerns in tandem if if that's what it has to be but I would just ask the council to be creative and find a way to make this park happen in a in a fast moving timeline without unnecessary delays and and to meet the environmental needs as much as possible but to remember that the people on this side of town do not have that type of access to open space and to delay and delay and delay is inequitable and um it it's it shows um a lack of concern for the humans who live here as well thank you thank you Allegra we'll go to Amalia followed by Susan hi my name is Amalia Boley Fuentes and I'm with Lozo Drury LLP speaking today on behalf of Roslyn Action we requested the city repair preparing EIR for the project because there's a fair argument that the project may have significant adverse environmental impacts we filed written comment on September 20th by email and US mail and the law on CEQA is clear that comments can be submitted either during the formal comment period or at the hearing so those comments do form part of the administrative record our comments include the analysis of Dr. Sean Smallwood a wildlife biologist who you heard from earlier and Dr. Smallwood found issues with the ISMND's biological survey characterization of habitat analysis of cumulative impacts and mitigation measures under CEQA and EIR must be prepared if there's substantial evidence in the record supporting a fair argument that the project may result in significant adverse impacts whether or not an impact is significant depends on whether it will cause a substantial or potentially substantial adverse change in the environment and the courts have read the standard very broadly in order to provide the fullest possible protection to the environment Dr. Smallwood's extensive comments meet this this standard because his research shows at least the potential for substantial adverse change to the environment from the project his comments on the mischaracterization of habitat indicate a potentially substantial impact on all species in the area especially the California tiger salamander and the northern California black walnut and the fact that the mitigated negative declaration did not analyze cumulative impacts of the project means that the public is unable to assess whether or not there are substantial cumulative effects and an EIR must be prepared to clarify this and Dr. Smallwood's comments on the inadequacy of the city's mitigation measures showed that as it stands the project has the potential to adversely affect the environment for these reasons we request that the city reject the mitigated negative declaration and require preparation of an environmental impact report thank you thank you Amalia we'll go to Susan followed by Tatiana thank you um good afternoon council this is Susan Kirk's I'm the president of Medruinada von society here in Sonoma county we're headquartered in Santa Rosa 54 years in Sonoma county we enjoy a very positive relationship with the city of Santa Rosa and I'm pleased to follow up and speak in addition to submitting a public comment which I hope that you received the last time that I had the opportunity to speak with Jen Santos I was looking in my emails actually during your meeting was in august of 2020 and prior to that time Jen is aware that we had been very interested I had met with her and Jason Mutt and Medruinada von had actually offered to lead a task force of conservation organizations including the Laguna foundation and other groups native plant society to coordinate the the environmental education offerings and restoration program for this exceptional property having heard from many high school students as some of you council members may recall from the last city council meeting that you held and from that you required that the city staff reach out and do community meetings and and get input from from your community to better position this particular amazing property to serve the entire community and so there was one meeting in March of 2020 that I was unable to attend and I looked forward to other meetings and then of course COVID hit so the pandemic has impacted all of us and for the speaker who spoke and said you know don't don't delay this because we don't have anything and people need to have access to this property I definitely understand that we all do but the environmental education opportunities for the students who are so close to this property the long history of the involvement of your community members to ensure that this property is conserved appropriately with passive recreation and again the environmental education opportunities the green space the open space all of this while we are in the midst of a climate emergency and I really appreciate all the work that your city is doing in that regard this is the property in this area of Roseland for the future of the Roseland community to be conserved as has been requested by the neighborhood group and I'd like to say also that Dr. Smallwood is one of the most respected biologists in the state of California I encourage you to reconsider what has been presented to you this evening and I would very much like to represent the drone Audubon again to come together for what we were discussing about restoration education and the opportunities thank you thank you Susan we'll go to Tatiana followed by Anna all right hello all right sorry can you hear me yep we can go ahead and hear you all right I am very much against the Roseland Creek community park as it is planned right now I say this because Roseland very much needs parks but placing parking lots and barbecue areas is not aligned very well with the idea of a nature park as we heard it impacts the native life already there and several meetings ago I remember the plans alluding to a nature park where children can learn about native species which the children from the school are able to go over there with their classes and learn about those native species as it is currently however asphalt and barbecue parties doesn't jive well with the salamanders and the delicate flora and fauna of the space also the space is open to all to access currently I know I walk my dog there every morning and every evening and it's absolutely beautiful also I feel that the parks department has a poor reputation with how the parks have been handled so far we have a quote-unquote park on the corner of sabastopol and I believe it is west street right there where the new marcarito is located and it is nothing but asphalt and paint and it has just served for homeless people to go and lay there at the bus stop instead of I don't know what the original plans were for that area but it almost feels like a slap in the face to people that live here I know that it was very difficult we had several RVs and campers that showed up a few weeks ago and it was very difficult to get noticed you know we wanted to be a part of santa rosa living here in rosa we wanted to be a part of the city because we thought it would bring great things for the area and so far it's it's proven to not to to bring a little bit of of difficulty to get noticed and like I said almost almost a slap in the face especially with little parks like the one at the marcarito and I don't want that to happen to this park both from a natural a naturalist standpoint and from a resident standpoint I was very lucky to have like a nature class when I was in high school and in middle school and I think that's so important for the kids to be able to access at that and of course we do need more parks but as it's planned currently I think that it will do nothing but create more of a drain on the community and I don't want to see it I don't want to see it look look like it's been left behind and forgotten about like so many other parks in the area have been thank you so much thank you Ana followed by Stephanie can you hear me now yes yeah I am calling because I have been participating in a number of meetings for several years now and throughout all those meetings that have happened in different locations with different members of the community has always been very ecstatic by the people who have attended these meetings and they're always different people I do not know too many of the neighbors people say work but the idea of having a park that is natural in its state to provide habitat to provide learning experience for the children and to have a beautiful green area with native plants native animals I saw is very important to most people participated in the evolution of what to do with that piece of land I think that it appears to me I am not a politician I don't participate in meetings with community or any other organization but it appears to me that the city keeps insisting on having an infrastructure having pavement, having roads, having parking, having bathrooms and that defeats the intent that has been addressed time after time in every meeting if the city really wants to have more money from the grants that they get to do these developments but don't they improve some of the areas that are already designated for public use and improve the quality of the vegetation and habitats of the animals and there's plenty of places to go in the park they're not very far for most people and we all walk in the process so I think that it would be very beneficial to the community that instead of having barbecue or sports parks or other improvements that they actually improve the quality of the of the life that is already there I am very disappointed that they keep pushing every time that we have these meetings it's always put off to decide it later because they didn't get the result that they wanted and I think that's really unfair to the community because I feel like you're just trying to get us tired and it appears that you have forgotten what has happened on all the other meetings and I would really like to know why is it that the information that was received earlier is no longer available so my point is is that I think it's important to keep it improve it but do not destroy what's already there improve the natural life the plants the animals the habitat and do not build anymore crap thank you thank you Anna Stephanie followed by Kimmy good afternoon Mayor Rogers Vice Mayor Rogers and City Council members my name is Stephanie Manetti and I am a proud Rosalind resident I also work for a local nonprofit and I'm one of three elected officials in Santa Rosa that reside in and represent Rosalind I'm here today to voice my support for the Rosalind Creek Community Park I know that you all know the many reasons why this park is necessary for our community I know you know that Southwest Santa Rosa is severely lacking in the parks that we're supposed to have I know you know I having a community park like the one described in this master plan is necessary for the well-being of our community and I think you know the dire consequences that not having a community park could bring to the city and the council so instead of focusing on the facts I'd like to talk to you all as a young person who cares about her community I don't have children yet and I don't plan on leaving my neighborhood anytime soon so it's important to me that our leadership take care of our community in ways that are forward-thinking and that set our future up for prosperity and community parks are part of this equation as you're hurting your presentation there's still so much work that needs to be done to bring Southwest Santa Rosa up to speed and I want to affirm that this is a step in the right direction I want young families, teens and children to be able to walk to their local community park and have access to a place where they can spend time playing basketball and soccer, picnicking, walking their dogs and hanging out in a safe space with amenities I want our owlitos and owlitos to be able to take their grandkids to the park and I'll have to worry about their safety I want to see our community thrive in the same ways that other neighborhoods thrive in Santa Rosa I also ask that that as you listen to the voices in the room today you think critically about who's showing up and speaking on behalf of our community's interests I have the privilege of being here because I know how to navigate Zoom I have internet access and a working device many of my neighbors in Rosalind don't have the same access and opportunity and many of them want to see this park happen and happen soon so I ask that you think about who you are listening to and who you are prioritizing in your decision making lastly I'd like to thank staff that has been working on this project for over a decade I appreciate your work to find a common ground with our community members who want to see preservation take place on these parcels I hear the concerns of those who have talked about safety and protecting wildlife in public health we know that community parks actually increase safety in a community and again it looks like staff has done a great job at prioritizing the existing wildlife Rosalind is changing and growing and with that has to come improvements in our infrastructure I hope that your work staff's work will be validated by the council's decision in the near future thank you and I yield my time thank you Stephanie for both your comments and your public service let's go to Kimmy followed by Noemi hi Kimmy yes we can hi everyone my name's Kimmy Barbosa I am a Rosalind residence and I live in walking distance from the planned park I am pregnant and very excited to be able to bring my child to a park I hear concerns and I hear concerns on both sides of the conservation and of course community members who really want access so starting with just access receiving a postcard in the mail in English and Spanish however the way the language that that is on this card to describe tonight's meeting is very inaccessible I have a degree in public policy and even sometimes it's hard for me to decipher what exactly this public comment in this meeting was for not to mention how the person for me spoke about not everyone has access to zoom to internet and to this much less you know the access to understand the jargon on these cards so making this meeting accessible to actual Rosalind residence is very important and so on the conservation front we have such great models just right up the street we have Bayer farm which is partnered with land pads that has great model promoting habitat and native plants there are permaculture techniques where native plants and native species can be in communion with human beings access to green spaces does help the well-being of communities and since this community has been repeatedly divested in and lacking resources I think it's really important for the youth around here to have another green space to go to with that said so in the same block in the same area as this plan park is market rate dense housing coming up with no planned parks within that it is in the same area as a lot of these conservation concerns and yet I'm seeing so many folks calling for this plot of parkland to to not go through which is really frustrating considering it feels like market rate housing is okay with no affordable housing built in and no parks built in and no green space built in but then a community park seems to be offensive so I'm just really looking at the double standard here double standard here and the and the duality of this and hoping that you see the importance of having green space here in communion with native plants like I said there was great models of landpads and other parks that are neighborhood parks that have less parking or whatever to make it walkable there are ways to be creative but overall as a soon-to-be-mother I would love to walk my child down to a park and have a place room to play soccer and enjoy being outside just like most neighborhoods who are thriving thank you so much I yield my time thank you Kimmy we'll go to Noemi followed by Nick no I make can you please unmute your microphone look a pediamos anteriormente era que hubiera letreros visibles en español y en inglés tanto en la calle la burbana venida como en la magma y tenemos también perdón pediamos letreros donde dijera no fumar no marihuana no bebidas alcohólicas y que hubiera un área para los perros y también este un parqueadero que hubiera para descapacitados pero que estuviera accessible y bien marcado y también baños fijos no movibles no queremos movibles como en otros lados y que la lo publico se mantuviera ya a ciertas horas de la noche porque está muy oscuro ese lugar y el diosco pues con la información y también otra recomendación que decíamos era que que se mantuviera el área como natural que se hiciera todo como decían los ecologistas de cierta manera pero también que se vieron poco moderno para los niños y este y el cruce que es bien importante el cruce de peatones entre la escuela rosla crick y el parque y otra de las cosas que decíamos que si van a dejar árboles que sean que los mantengan porque a mi hija una vez cruzando ahí iba con su amiga de una escuela la rosla crick y le salió unas personas unos personas que viven en la calle y las corretieron a las niñas esto es un lugar peligroso si que está alumbrado muy bien y que los árboles sean visibles que pueda uno ver a a las personas porque pues para el susto que leon a mi hija la verdad este me me quedé preocupada y sigo preocupada porque mucha gente camina mucha gente cruza para la escuela un honor gracias por la invitación thank you interpreter charles can you please restate what noemi stated in spanish hello my name is noemi palomino i am the president of rosland cvi and i'm a little worried because we have some recommendations that we made at the last meeting that we had with eddy alvarez and other people i often cross the street to go to rosland creek from the school and we would like to see things like visible signs uh on bourbon and mcney in english and spanish uh just showing telling us where we can go and can't go also signs that uh say no drinking no smoking and no use of marijuana we also like to see a dog area maybe a parking area that's easy to access um also some bathroom structures that are actual structures not uh portable or movable as in other locations that we've seen uh we'd also like to request some lights for the nighttime uh because it does get quite dark and also a kiosk with information um also a couple recommendations we wanted to mention was uh maybe some maintenance in the areas as well uh in and then forms of trying to keep it in natural park as the ecologist ecologist said uh we want things to be done in an ecological way to preserve it uh and it's also another note is that it is hard for crossing that area so we'd like a crosswalk between rosland creek and the park um and another thing i want to mention is my daughter and a friend we're going walking around the area rosland creek one time and some people from the street saw them and chased them and so um we'd like it to be more visible because i'm worried about her and other girls crossing in that area so it's uh not very visible at night so we'd like it to be illuminated uh it's been an honor and thank you thank you charles and noemi nick followed by magdalena yeah this is nick reinberg um i'm uh a member of the resident of rosland my wife is here too and uh she would like to be able to speak after my three minutes as well but um to reiterate some of the comments that are previously stated that you know there is a there's a severe problem with the eir for this for this project we are not against parks in rosland we just want to make sure that they're done ethically and ecologically sound um and we need more of them having a single 16 acre park is insufficient for rosland compared to other air districts in santa rosa who have much more acreage of parks a lot of to them than than rosland um there's a lot of plots coming up for sale and the city is refusing to do anything to purchase or provide um additional parks to rosland um despite developers coming in and purchasing them as well so to the commenters and to the city council i'd behoove you to really look at what's going on in this community and be aware that you driving development of any kind of of all different kinds is really i understand that it's needed but at the same time it can't be to the detriment of the parks um needed in this community and to also ensure that there's plenty of environment that's preserved for this community you know by just constantly build build building and not doing things like um ecologically sound and without providing additional open spaces such as causing this one to be just a community park instead of a neighborhood park which would neighborhood parks in my understanding require additional parks to be around while the community park allows for a larger geographical circumference to be covered without additional parks in the area and that is a problem in rosland where we are so severely deprived of parks so in short really what it comes down to is ensuring that we have ecological sound parks and many of these parks as to show that the community has the same as other communities within san rosa because we are not afforded that same opportunity for community environmentally sound parks um i also would like to point out brown act violations currently being for this meeting you have posted only in zoom via video showing that you can dial star nine to participate via phone and raise your hand however no one at this point until now has stated that that is an option thus depriving people who are appearing only via phone without any visual assistance to be able to provide public comment which is depriving the city and its members of being able to provide comment as afforded under the brown act thank you thank you nick and i think uh nick said that his partner would like to comment as well so if that hand comes back up we'll call on it a second time let's go ahead call on it a second time here hi this is erin reinberg member of friends of roslyn creek fighting against the over development and destruction of environment in roseland a big proponent of parks and open spaces for all however as people have stated at this meeting we keep coming back to this park this was a conversation two years ago before covid happened i was at that neighborhood meeting as another neighbor here said and we all shared what we wanted this park to be which is an ecological preserve of native species and to their point i agree the city just did not like that answer and here we are again debating what this is going to be because you don't want to listen to the community i'm really getting tired of chopping down heritage trees that's a whole 14 acres of oak preserve full of wildlife and native species that keep getting destroyed time and time again in roslyn also to the point this needs to be a neighborhood park so that more parks can be put in roslyn we are so underserved in parks in this area that it is pitiful and the city should be ashamed of themselves of how they've treated roslyn all these years i would love to see a community park in an appropriate space that does not destroy native habitat and heritage trees however this is not the location for that because that's exactly what this planning will do you are not listening to the needs of this community to have both ecological preservation and other parks to have these facilities that people want to why is it only one spot why are we again deprived of open space and parks and recreations throughout the city where i look at the other quadrants that have two to three to four times as many acreage and parks that we do here again we're being shortchanged and everybody's suffering so why can't we have more than this one option also the eir for this project is pitiful and again the city is trying to shortchange the community more needs to be done to make sure that we preserve our open spaces we preserve our heritage trees we preserve our wildlife we preserve it for students to enjoy i'm an educator and being able to bring a group of students to this park to experience it in its natural state and talk about the ecological well-being is just as important as being able to go to another park to play soccer and basketball and have a barbecue area both need to have a place in roseland and both need to be provided it should not be one or the other thank you for your time thank you we'll go to magdalena followed by janice hi can you hear me yes we can hi my name is magdalena makuola i've lived in roseland for most of my life and i'm 40 years old i have five children three of them are 10 and under and i live fairly close to burbank avenue a little bit too far to be walking all my kids over there um but i would love to go to the park as it's designed i'm really confused by the opposition to this design um and unlike a lot of these people who are on this call i've seen this process for probably at least 10 years maybe maybe 15 and it's always been the same argument i think it's a specious argument and that's that we're destroying habitat um and it could be somewhere else on both points it's totally wrong um the small sliver that would be developed um is actually an opportunity to allow people to see the rest of what is going to be preserved there my understanding is that um the oak woodland is going to be preserved there's going to be nature trails and honestly for at least the last 10 years it's been very consistent people want a real community park we want to be able to go to the bathroom when we're at the park we want to have an interface between recreational uses and natural uses it's been very consistent and there's always been a vocal opposition by people who live close to it and want it to stay the same because there's not people there because it's their own private place it's not a place that i go with my kids to enjoy the nature because it seems really inaccessible and um you know when you when you create a bit of development and let people know you can come here and this is how and here's signs and here's a trail that's how people enjoy it and love it and preserve it this is the largest open space left in the neighborhood and this design has been really consistent for like a decade and it keeps getting delayed because special interests come to these meetings because they know how to access these meetings they know when they are and they come and they act like there's the neighborhood hasn't been listened to and there's outrage and nobody wants this we do want this most people with families in this area want this just as it's designed and we've waited for 10 years there's a ton of nature preserved in this design and it would be foolish to not just move forward already thank you thank you janice followed by melissa janice are you able to unmute all right janice we'll come back to you melissa followed by wsh can you hear me yes we can all right so man a lot of different viewpoints hard decision here i'll just give you mine uh as a teacher in the rosalind district i take my students there already uh i go there every semester i teach them about climate change i teach them about wilderness i teach them about ecosystems um this let's see what else i put um complaints of like kids wanting to go there and that we can't go there i took my kids there christmas december 2020 i take them there all time because i go there we saw two great horned owls i'm confused as to why seeing nature isn't something kids can enjoy that we have to build like a pretend nature area for kids to go to but that's confusing to me and i think it's a disconnect if we want to connect kids to nature and to what we need to protect um i do want the park to be built i know it's been there for a while so that's a hard decision um somebody else mentioned needing two crosswalks i want to point out that we need two crosswalks because we do we need two crosswalks not just one that cross that street on the what is it the west side or whatever um also i'm very confused like why one park needs to meet all the interests of everybody like why are we trying to cram ever but everything in um you know we have a community farm a bear farm like what eight ten minute walk away why are we putting another one we have basketball courts at the schools i know they're not public property but like i don't know um this doesn't make sense and then my biggest uh point is why are we uh watering a lawn when we're in the biggest drought for 40 years and climate change is going to just exacerbate i don't understand why we're putting something in that's going to use more valuable resources when you guys have made like like they all in agreement to focus on climate change and the impacts of that so i'm opposed to the lawn mainly being there and watering it and uh just lights and things that are going to take away from nature i do like bringing people there like interpretive signs i like things that bring people in and teach them about the park and tell them about the trails um i think it's a great resource but i think and i think bear farm is also a really great resource somebody else mentioned but it's not a nature park it's not somewhere you go to find a great horned owl it's not someplace you go to to be immersed in nature and neither is in natural play area so those are my two cents thank you thank you melissa wsh followed by maria can you hear me now yes we can i think you accidentally muted yourself go ahead and hit the unmute button again can you hear me now yes we can go ahead so i have lived in roseland almost 40 years my kids went to school here my granddaughter went to school here um i've lived here long enough that in the early days my my husband could not get a ride home from an event because they would not drive into the rosland neighborhood i've been here long enough to hear the city say yes we're annexing you but we're not going to change anything we don't really want you we just want the tax base and they did tell me that and it seems like that's continuing we need this park but i am leaning on the side of the environmental impact report because i think that what was done was a quick and dirty and doesn't answer the questions um concerning the the specialized species i think that at least we need to get an environmental impact report i agree that this nature piece i'm all for restrooms but it needs to stay mostly nature but i agree with the the signage and the the trails maybe not a paved trail but the turkeys come out every morning come out of that park and come into my yard do i like turkey poop no but do i like watching the turkeys yes i do and to turn that park into another hard escape is just not not what we need i think i do agree that we need a green space where the kids can go and learn to deal with nature the national parks are dealing with this they're trying to reach out to less um substantiated neighborhoods they're trying to get kids into the park so that they can have the open space my house is within walking business distance from three elementary schools where there is hard skate there are play equipment there's plenty of lawn to play soccer if you want to barbecue barbecue at home um i really believe that we need most of this park to remain natural and to protect the natural environment and to be set up for people to go and enjoy the hawks and the turkeys and the tiger salamanders and the titmice and what's there already thank you thank you maria followed by liz hello can you all hear me yes we can oh perfect wonderful thank you so much my name is maria that the land last name is manieri and i want to thank all of you for doing this presentation i didn't know much about the this park and the project and i was invited to zoom and listen and i have been paying attention to every single person that has had the opportunity to say something about it whether it's been you know by professionals by the residents of gross land i'm actually a 30-year resident of southwest area i live on one acre land of course i'm very fortunate that through the um pandemic you know covet uh we have been able to stay home and enjoy more than ever our open space here in our backyard and but i am pro park i listened and i came to this conclusion that you know this this park this project has been looked at from every angle of um like every perspective and i would love to see it um i would love to see it and also preserve you know what's there already um even though i've lived in sinoma county in the brosland i'm close to brosland i go to the mercadito you know um and uh i've also seen families with kids and um i more i teach um sunday school and kids love to go to park and they're they're not enough parks in our communities that we can take you know we can go and hang out so i just want to thank every every person that is involved in every aspect of building building this park you all taught me something and uh you you taught me that if we work together and then we come you know if we meet one another you know halfway um we can make this happen so i just want to thank every one of you for teaching me something very important and at the same time you know the perspective i had about parks and nature and it's so important you know we go out to other communities because we love to see their parks and you know reconnect with nature the redwoods have been closed for quite some time because of the fires so honestly i just want to see happy faces kids are kids and you know and they don't really quite understand you know this grown-up challenges and struggles that you that i can hear from the community and um so thank you so much and just want to say you know let's work together um make this happen and someone said you know we don't have to all agree like i i'm looking at this you know we don't agree in everything but let's just make our community um let's just make our community better thank you so much god bless thank you maria let's go to liz followed by bertha hello can you hear me yes hi my name is liz and i am a rosen resident i'm a mother of two kids and i've been hearing the whole meeting and it's it's tough but i am against the new development um i believe that we should save wildlife and we should you know save our trees and save natural life um if we want parks there's lots of parks here um some are within walking distance um some you can just 10 50 minute drive and um you know barbecues and all that having that across from that school uh i just feel like you know we're if we don't have to look too far we are we look at climate change we look at you know all these wildfires and you know let's not destroy what's left you know keep the wildlife keep the birds keep you know keep all keep all of it let's try to save that for our kids for their future um yes parks are important but i don't believe that's the place and the project itself um i am not i'm not against parks but i just feel like it's not okay to um build this new development and scare away the life the wildlife you know um uh like i said you know i take my kids to the park you know it we there's the bay or park nearby there's the southwest community park within a walking distance too um you um kids are gonna play wherever you can take them to on the weekends to the schools the schools are open you know they have the play structures they have the field um let's just save our our our nature our wildlife right now because that's what we're gonna leave our children and their children and by tearing down you know land or trees or scaring away the wildlife because you're building new structures um they're not gonna be able to see that in the future and we really have to think about them and their future and there's lots of parks if they want to play you can take them you know like i said within walking distance there's different parks that are already you know up and running and um but you know nature and uh wildlife is what our children are gonna look for in the future and their children and so on so let's not destroy it let's keep it and let's protect it thank you liz we'll go to bertha mayor it appears that bertha is using an older version of zoom she would need to update her zoom app and reconnect all right bertha good news is you'll have plenty of time to do that because we still have voicemail public comments and in-person comments let's go ahead and bring it to the chambers we'll do public comment for folks who are in the chambers and then we'll come back see if bertha's been able to update and then go to our voicemail public comments we're gonna start with carl car excuse me carl car carl's still here oh on a different item great thank you uh mr dwitt hello my name is dwayne dwitt i'm from roseland please reject the negative declaration i request an environmental impact report for this neighborhood park and preserve since 1993 a group of residents called roseland action came together to save nature in roseland because there'd been a 30-year vision for roseland creek and a neighborhood park and preserve at the burbank avenue site 17 years ago the city spent a hundred thousand dollars for a roseland creek concept plan with a map published in the 2004 creek dreams booklet page 12 and 13 you can see for yourself then 12 years ago a large community effort completed a map and a master plan in 2010 we advocates for more parks in roseland have been doing creek cleanups and park cleaning for over 20 years we want more parks neighborhood parks now we respectfully request you reject the negative declaration we request an environmental impact report for the project which is actually road building and parking lot construction that staff proposes neighbors and roseland action members request a neighborhood park next to a preserve which has already been secured for over a decade ago by taxpayers paved parking lots are not needed with neighborhood parks the general plan allows neighborhood parks and preserves as proposed in a 2004 colgan creek neighborhood park and preserve plan this can be done development is not needed to do this you don't need these parking lots and this road building you can do the path across from mcminn to burbank without having to pave it roseland creek bikeway and greenway was proposed over 20 years ago along the south side of the creek 1400 burbank avenue was purchased with taxpayers money over 10 years ago to begin that bikeway and greenway project and yet nothing has been done former city council member gary wisaki pointed out to me yesterday that the redwood empire trails council has a machine to make paths and you could already be doing it on that site earlier it was mischaracterized that people in the community are holding something up it has been city staff that has waited over 10 years to do anything there was a plan finished in 2010 and staff did not do anything we members of the community have just said make sure and save what nature is there for the future for the children of our community to be able to have it as good as the people in fountain grove or bennett valley or the northeast nature helps kids asphalt and concrete kills nature please do not do this road building and parking lot construction program thank mr. dwitt is there anybody else in the chamber who'd like to speak on this item okay well good night everyone it's clearly late p.m. my name is anna Diaz i understand a lot of complaints a lot of concerns and a lot of emotion that is brought into this topic being somebody who was born and raised in roseland i see it from both sides however i really want to know if anybody has ever been to shepherd elementary in roseland so shepherd i worked at boys and girls club for about five years and rams shepherd and now roseland prep are all mixed in together and they share one field this is a big and major concern that has been brought i believe it's been brought up before and many parents and children have made this a big issue for them a soccer field is highly recommended and i also wanted to bring up that um as mentioned this is the first year that we have someone who as an actual represent representing us i also believe that southwest santa rosa should be included into district one i was not able to have the opportunity to vote for mr alvarez because my residence lays in district seven many members members of my community community should be able to be included in our local ballot and express their opinions to mr alvarez especially since we happen to be bike distance from the heart of roseland i do not know how else to express this as a desperate need it is not a want and if we need to get a full a room full of members from our community to support this claim it will be done um being part of um boys and girls club of sonoma county the children have made it a concern that they are in need of a skate park as well um i personally prefer a scrape me over kids being caught up right riding against the sidelines with their bikes there is a lot of traffic there is a lot of car and um one of the main things that was highly you know brought up to many of the comments that um was mentioned prior was lights lights are a big concern in um rosen creek as well as a crosswalk and um i want to thank everybody for hearing me speak today thank you thank you i am nancy qsidge and i live right next door to the north end of the park and i've been there for 15 years and my husband's in there for 25 um we've seen the tiger salamander we've seen the turkeys and the and the red tailed hawk and just all kinds of wonderful creatures um there's a park just at the end of the street a huge park that a lot of it's not even being used there's uh empty gravel areas and and stuff the south southward the park down there on herne and the schoolyards uh on third street there's a place to play that has all kinds of soccer fields and baseball field and and and more land that can be developed if you need more fields so i just really hope that you'll preserve the nature there's not too many natural places left anywhere in the county so please um help us preserve our our wildlife thank you all right thank you adam deputy city clerk let's go to voicemail public comments avenue and i just don't understand why you want to make a parking lot in the neighborhood that's been here forever that's probably one of the most um especially on burbank it's very natural setting and i'm representing for nature please don't make the parking lot i don't know what you people have against roseland but you're making a big mistake so that's my comment hello i am a homeowner in the roseland district and i really would because i pay taxes love a roseland creek park that would be wonderful we need more land for us to enjoy and especially because of how run down roseland is we need some good areas that we can actually go to where there isn't homeless or garbage so again i am my homeowner my name is alicia ragona and i want my neighborhood uplisted and part of that would be this roseland creek park for us to have in this area thank you very much hi good afternoon my name is maria chaparro sanchez and i am calling you about the article 15.1 roseland creek i would like to have a park over there because we need to have trees and more uh not too much constructions around the roseland area my phone number is 707 768 mayor i'm going to stop the public comment there that was repeating her personal address and personal contact information item 15.1 roseland creek uh my name is star and i'm calling about having a park in roseland i just feel like having a community park will allow for a safe place for children of all ages and even adults to just come together and just socialize we've been engulfed by technology especially within this last year given that the majority of us were forced to continue our lives through a computer screen you know whether it's been for work or for school therefore i think a park is convenient and having it within our own community will encourage active lifestyles and boost mental health for all we need our children to take a break from technology and to just go outside and take a breath of a share and i feel like a park can can provide this by being a foundation for clean air and roseland given that the park can be surrounded by greenery um and yeah that's basically all i got to say thank you the next listing is for ana she spoke live during the meeting so we will move on to brenda hi my name is brenda i'm calling on agenda number 15 21 i would like to see a crosswalk that connects from the school to that park thank you el artículo es 15.1 y es sobre el parque roseland creek yo deseo que ese parque sea un parque ecológico que lo dejen lo más posible en su naturaleza propia porque ahí hay mucha fauna muchos animalitos y me gustaría que siguiera así como un parque ecológico que solo agregaran pues pocas cosas como en este caso si van a agregar mes mesas o algunas áreas para jugar de los niños verdad pero que se respete la fauna y los árboles de ese parque mi nombre es virginia mi apellido lasso el asetao y yo quiero un parque ecológico en el parque rosland creek gracias one moment while i pull the interpreter over to the main channel to restate that in english charles can you please restate the comment from bahinia the item is 15.1 and it's about the roseland creek park i would like it to be an ecological park and that it keep as much nature as possible because there is a lot of fauna there you know little animals and i'd like to see it stay as it is an ecological park and that maybe you only add a few things in this case maybe some tables or some area play areas for kids but that we continue to respect the fauna and the trees in the park my name is virginia lasso la zo and i would like an ecological park hi this is ozay i'm a lifelong rosland resident and a recent homeowner in december this is regarding item 15.1 rosland creek i just want to point out that we need this park for our community we need it for our neighborhoods we need it for our children um bathrooms playground barbecues picnic tables gazebos all that we want we want we want this to be you know make our neighborhood better and you know just really add value and quality of life to the people who live in the surrounding area um yeah so thank you very much um i'm really looking forward to this park going forward and um utilizing it in the future thank you bye hi my name is elizabeth and i'm here to talk about item 15.1 for the rosland creek um and i'm a rosland resident so the reason i'm calling is because i want to proceed with uh having benches gazebos picnic tables uh barbecue pits i want to be able to have all of that at this park so that way our community is coming together as a family because this family oriented in our community needs that and sometimes you know there's a lot of youngins that go and and you know get distracted and do other things that are not so productive for society but i feel like that if we have this barbecue pit area and we all come together as a family we can use harm reduction and help these um the young ones the adolescents not get into any trouble and they're coming to the park and they're being a part of family activities so i just want to proceed with this thank you so much hello my name is anna reyes i am rosland area resident and owner homeowner i'm calling about item number 15.1 rosland creek um i would love to have a park there um a park with a picnic area play area for our children um just to have more areas for our children to go play and have somewhere to run around it um i think this will bring more families together and have an outlet for our children and mothers with young children as well to be able to go to the park during the day in between nap time so their children that are taller can play on swings and um i think it would be a great asset to our community and um something that we can all um do together and collaborate together and get this done it would be awesome thank you stand gow 322 boy street santa rosa california i um want to comment on 15.1 the rosland creek park i believe that park is underutilized for the youth in the neighborhood and that should be looked at it has continually been hijacked by people that have elite um ideas of what a community park is a community park is to serve everybody and not just a small exclusive group and there needs to be more active play areas through the kids thank you hi my name is ethan helms i'm a member of the rosland community i'm calling regarding item 15.1 uh rosland creek i urge you guys to move forward with preserving space for uh a public park uh public park preserve space for future generations and the public in general not only do we need to think about that but in a constantly developing culture where we are building and removing public spaces it's important to maintain those and increase those um in order to preserve space for our public parks help build and strengthen communities i urge you to move forward with rosland creek thank you mayor that concludes the voice message public comments received on 15.1 all right we have uh janice followed by j l janice is also using an older version of zoom and would need to update her zoom app and reconnect to the meeting in order to make a public comment all right let's see if janice can pull that off let's go to jl hello can you hear me yes we can awesome hello san rosa city council my name is jorge nosencio and i'd like to make public comment today in support of this park i've personally been following the development of this park for many many years and i have seen how it kind of gets kicked down the road because there's always strong opposition for it and as i've been following this park one thing's clear um this park is now a great compromise uh there's a ton of nature space there's a ton of recreational space for our youths uh for our young families for our children for all the schools nearby it and this is a fantastic opportunity uh and by finally turning it into a park it's really going to make it more accessible to um to others you know because i didn't even know about this park um or the neighborhood as it's called until i started looking into it and i noticed that people would walking their dogs would walk into the forest and i was like well what's going on there right and so through looking it up i was like well there's a whole park here that's being uh used that not many people know about it i think it's a shame that not many people know about it and building it up is really going to increase the access to it you know we all know that parks are needed uh particularly here in southwest santa rosa uh and i think part of why people are so argumentative today about this is because there aren't enough parks in santa in southwest santa rosa um and so i say let's build this park let's build this park and let's build some more parks in roseland and southwest santa rosa because we know we need it you know there are kids need it and we know that's about time we built it i saw in the notes and or in the presentation that we've been talking about this park since 2008 and to me that's such a shame because there were kids who were you know maybe little kids in 2008 and they could have used that park when we first started talking about it and here we are 12 years later those kids are now adults maybe they moved on out of the city and they never got to see this park come to fruition so i think it's time that our council makes a strong decision and supports supports this plan and let's get this park built you know we've been fighting for it for a long time um it's never going to make everybody happy but this is a fantastic plan as it stands we need this park and we need more parks uh in roseland and southwest santa rosa so again i'm strongly in favor of it let's not make a let's make the right decision and give this thing built it's been way too long so thank you again city council and uh yield my time thank you whore that's the last public comment that we have so go ahead and close the public hearing bring it back to council madam city attorney many of the comments really centered around the question about an environmental impact report um some claimed that there's california tiger salamanders or that there's other protected wildlife that's there can you weigh in on that question for us uh yes i can briefly weigh in and then i would ask if we have our uh environmental consultant uh online as well uh who could address the issues in more detail but yes there has been a response um uh filed to the uh the issues raised uh from um the dury letter uh this response has been prepared by david j powers and associates um our environmental consultant and uh they do walk through um all of the different uh issues that were raised and do address each of the issues um from our perspective um adequately and substantially but i would turn it over to the consultant uh himself thank you good evening uh mayor rogers and members of the city council uh my name is will burns i'm a principal with david powers and associates been preparing uh sequel reviews for over 18 years um we were supported in our analysis of the initial study in the mitigated negative declaration that's before you by biologists at w r a were experts in identifying uh california tiger salamander and uh their potential habitats um they surveyed the site um and did not identify any adequate habitat to support california tiger salamander um to breed on the site they do uh i acknowledge that um this is considered critical habitat for upland dispersal and that impact is clearly laid out in the initial study and it's also mitigated in accordance with the santa rosa plain conservation strategy and the programmatic biological opinion that was issued by the fish and wildlife service that identifies uh the amount and type of mitigation that's required for those impacts and that is incorporated in the uh mnd for the project and the mitigation monitoring and reporting program um i also have those biologists from w r a present if you want to hear more about uh california tiger salamander but uh in short the potential for them to be present was identified the impact uh is mitigated through the mitigation measures that were included in the mnd all right council are there any other questions on that council member alvarez good good evening uh in regards to the reports that were presented by the uh the public uh in any of those reports were were there mention of the prior structures that could be found on this property and what that actually or how that impacts the the nature and and really i believe part of the the strategy that we're presenting is to remove both the concrete from the property as well as from the creek did you see any mention of that in the reports that were presented if you've had a chance to read them the uh public comment letter um that was provided by lizzo jury didn't acknowledge the fact that these um properties were previously developed um i think there was one that may have only been an orchard in the past but there were single family residential structures on on three of the properties previously and i don't think that was acknowledged great thank you so much uh the other question uh deputy director that i heard quite a bit about was the two crosswalks and i know when we walked to the site and talked a little bit about it crosswalks that was one of the issues that you had brought up with us as well so i'm wondering if you can address that for the council sure thank you very rogers uh we we are planning to put a crosswalk in we're very excited to put this croc crosswalk in originally um our plan had showed the crosswalk um connecting at a place that is in the northern part of the park or a northern part of the school uh because that's the end of the school and it appears as if the crosswalk should go there however with our traffic engineers and further studies of the site is determined that students if they cross further south in the school would only have to cross traffic once so it's a much better and safer route to school um the previous version that shows the crosswalk at the northern part of the school students would cross the street and then cross traffic turning in and out of the driveway for the school so moving the crosswalk to the more southern part it's kind of in the middle of the school allows students to only cross traffic once yes thank you so yeah that's the one that we're talking about right there so originally it came straight off across the upper trail but this time we're swinging it down and crossing it a little further down the school against the students only have to cross a traffic situation once so it's a much safer way for students to travel you'll also see that we have some little ziggy lines along um Burbank Avenue this represents split rail fences so that we can really help guide students to crossing at the crosswalk I heard mention of another crosswalk uh down farther and we have been working with the bicycle and pedestrian folks about um the a separate trail that also comes out a little bit farther down um on the property and how are we going to get across so that's being addressed through a separate process and not necessarily part of the master plan process of course we have a trail available the southern section to connect we also have a crosswalk a little bit farther south uh that you can't see on here uh they can be utilized right now by folks taking the bike path through there so hopefully it gives a little bit of background on the crosswalks and they one more thing the crosswalks are um designated to have uh flashing lights so that cars can see it really quick thank you deputy director let's see if there are any other questions from council members adam vice mayor thank you mayor um how many trees um are proposed to be cut down in total thank you vice mayor rogers so um one of the early looks at all the trail systems in there identified numerous trees that were to be removed to place the trail in but uh staff worked really hard with our environmental consultants and our designers and we are looking at the potential to impact four trees and so whether or not they were moved or just simply impacted by routes they're required to be shown as um a take from the park site these are smaller much smaller trees that will allow the pedestrian bridges to come in and the trail to connect up to mcminn so a total of four trees will be impacted uh and designated as being removed thank you um and i have an additional question uh what percentage of the park is being converted into uh hardscape road building or parking lots that is not already a previous uh previously developed land thank you vice mayor and um most of the developments that were showing like playgrounds nature center et cetera is already on existing developed and disturbed land it's the trail spaces that we'd be looking at where you know depending on how you want to look at it there's a lot of foot trails already in this in this area that we're proposing to uh provide a stable surface in the future for those those trails it's a very tiny amount uh i don't have the exact square footage but um it's it's much less than a quarter of an acre overall through the conservation easement with the agon open space district we are allowed to disturb um i have it down here approximately half an acre on the bottom which is the parking lot and things like that which we are also looking at a permeable surface there so um we wouldn't need to show the parking lot as um taking part of that 20 percent so it's a very small amount um overall if you look at some of the trails we just need to make sure that the loop trails around the park are compliant with uh current building codes for stabilization and the rest of it can be permeable and so it's it's down to around about a quarter of an acre it's really tiny amount that's probably over an exaggeration okay is there a way that um or have we attempted to uh educate uh or inform the the public of the existing uh development that was on the property and that um it is not the intent to to disturb natural spaces that some of this land was not natural spaces but that it was in fact uh housing development because when i went out there what i seen was concrete slabs and um land that was previously uh disturbed it was not natural um so there seems to be a a disconnect or a way that we could like show it on the map about what's already um disturbed right and to and to answer your first question um absolutely the information about the areas that were already disturbed um has presented almost every single meeting ad nauseam um showing that we have a lot of disturbed areas already um some of them will be restored um and then we'll be putting in trails so it's this is really a win for reducing the amount of paving on site overall um i'm not sure if we want to move back to the early presentation um and look at the map that shows the existing site as is i think um i won't ask you to go okay i won't ask you to go back to the map i just from from hearing the public comment and i i feel like i really was listening i felt like we were going into something that was complete trees and natural landscape and and going in and like bulldozing something that was completely natural um and so that just seems not to be the case because i visually saw what was there um and so i just wanted to make sure that i was clear on where the parking parking lot was and where the the structures were that uh the plan to put in that they were where these things were already in place yes that is correct so where we have um parking watch major center playgrounds and other larger improvements we already have um a significant amount of impacts or um impacts to the to the land from the previous private ownership okay thank you any other questions council council member alvarez thank you jen again thank you for for everything that that you've been doing for for roseland in regards to the parks um in regards to to to vice mayor's comments about the land that's already been disturbed could you share with us the state of the creek what is currently there how it's being used by the neighbors uh the leech lines and if you can explain what a leech line in a leech pit is sure i appreciate it so the the creek is fairly heavily disturbed um if you do go there there's concrete uh in the base there's um all sorts of development implement implements thrown into the creek fencing falling into the creek um different different things from different owners over the years and different uses mostly um farm farm equipment and things like that in the creek uh do have people camping in the creek as well um the property in the middle has a septic tanks as well as leech lines um so those are places where an existing sewer would be drawn out so um kind of in the middle of the property behind the big tree there's a huge space more towards your right um yes that is a area where sewer lines are jumping into tanks and leech lines as well we believe uh from the private residences so this this residence there was two residences as well as numerous outbuildings and trailers utilizing septic services there's also septic tanks near the front of the property as well hopefully that gives that gives a background for that that part we also a little bit of septic tanks down here on southern and of the parcel at 1400 um near that tree there's a residence really hard to see but there is a house there and um septic tanks to support the sewer system at that site as well now one of the comments the plan is to remove this i'm sorry just to have interrupted you jen in regards to one of the comments that we heard was the lawn now the lawn was implemented when before we actually had a drought i wanted to make that clear now moving forward is there is there sufficient funds for us to actually implement the the the lawn within a year to two years not at this time so we're we're looking at development of the southern parcel as into the future so right now we have a requirement from the agate open space district to connect a pedestrian trail from macman avenue to the rosin gregale metro and again that'll be at the top of the property so to speak um in the open space area we do have funds available to complete that project however we don't have funds available yet for the remainder of the of the parcel as well as the lawn we definitely want to make sure that we have access into the park from pedestrians that is safe and co compliant into that area before we install any sort of sort of lawn so we're always looking for granting opportunities and other opportunities to um make sure we have enough funds for that and we're always we're all of a sudden just really building a lot so we're always looking for opportunities to collect additional funds to do that but it is a long way off so in this case it's funds and water right yeah yes yes now one of the comments that i believe it was um mr no sensual was that not everyone will get what they want and one of the comments that we heard from another caller was um a dog park we heard other caller saying family-orientated barbecues and and from and this is sharing my experiences in these meetings is that it's true not everyone will get what they want and one of the things that i've been hearing is that we invite students to the property to experience nature and it's hard to appreciate a hop when you've never seen a hop it's it's hard to appreciate what mother nature looks like when you've never been in mother nature and what i want to see are are these deer paths that direct traffic when the children do go out there and play so they're not stopping outside of the the the pathways the deer tracks what i call deer tracks or deer paths uh so it can be preserved and one of the things that i'm very proud of of the college that have have have weighed in today is that they want to see our nature protected that they want to see our natural resources respected and i definitely feel it's important for us to educate our children on why it's important to to preserve but in order to do so it can be from a looking glass in and i think that was something that was that was missing in the messages produced today with that being said um oh lights we heard a lot about lights in the park and and could you share with us if you recall why is it that the eastern part of the park was not lit up such as the western part of the park sure thank thank you council member so um in the in the plan we're looking at um more activities in the southern part of the parcel of the park parcel so traditionally we'll add a security light nearby so that police can see the park at night but otherwise you don't usually put in um a lot of lighting and because the northern part of the parcel um i guess i know you're saying eastern but you know the northeast and west part of the park is um we're not looking at as many amenities um we certainly don't need to have um lighting in those areas we also have street lighting along McMinn Avenue um for that and we're looking at this park being very similar to our other parks where we are it's accessible to the community sunrise to sunset so again yeah in the southern area we're looking at potential security lighting um near the playground and the parking lot and as well as um against the nature center when that's developed but otherwise it's it's um it's going to be dark except for the um surrounding uh street lights etc you know i just told the mayor that i had one question but i came up with like two more and in regards to the sidewalks that that go along Burbank Avenue why is it that we do not have sidewalks there and and how will this park improve the access for the children who have to walk up and down Burbank Avenue thank you council member and if we can see the plan again i can kind of show you what we what we were thinking there so uh originally we had shown sidewalks and a planter strip with trees etc all along the park along Burbank Avenue and as part of the annexation process as well as the sabastopol area rose that specific plan uh comments were made that this this community would prefer not to have sidewalks like that because it would remove a tremendous amount of trees in order to fit that in there and it's a much safer route uh along Burbank to funnel the paved surface you know the the sidewalk so to speak on the interior so if you start on the southern part you're looking at that uh multi-use trail it crosses the creek and then it turns back out and goes back towards Burbank Avenue and then up out towards the edge of Burbank so that's the planned pedestrian access again it's a safer way to access it and we don't have to remove a bunch of trees along Burbank Avenue which was um you know none of us really want to do that in this community and so um we're providing an equal access here and actually a much safer access up there and um as part of this uh park when we do go to construct any portion of the um sidewalk halfway whatever you want to call it that's just interior of Burbank Avenue we will be required to connect it all the way to the most northern crosswalk which is not shown on here and the most southern crosswalk which again it's not necessarily part of the master plan but as part of the future construction that's what will be happening there so it's going to be safer than it is now in addition to the um flushing light crosswalk that will be will be coming so hopefully that gives gives you uh an answer to that it does in regards to to implementing a sidewalk should this project not move forward what what recourse does the community have to to allow as San Rosa's continues to grow as Roseland continues to grow especially with all the new development that we've seen on the northern side of Sebastopol Road what recourse does the community have to to implement a sidewalk on Burbank Avenue if if the community changes its mind like the other master plans we showed master plans can be amended because as much as we would like to build this right now as planned um we often don't have the funding to completely build everything else so in the future if this community would rather prefer um sidewalks we we can look at that in the future and amend the master plan at that time but right now this is the preference and it's it's definitely a safe a safer route than uh right along Burbank Avenue thank you and my last question I promise in regards to the pavement that we see in the parking I understand that in the pathway that connects McMint to Burbank it's it's advisable to place some of that smooth for both ADA as well as those uh people that are walking so they don't trip especially when we do have a small amount of rain that would create muddy situations but in the parking lot I understand for ADA it must be a hard concrete such as for our barbecue pit but is it possible into to implement gravel to lessen the amount of of ground cover or is permeable concrete the best solution for for these uh two parking sites and thank you again Jen sure thank you councilmember absolutely we have discussed the option of putting in gravel because we're really just looking at vehicles traveling in those spaces um except for the part where we are combining the fire truck turnaround with a potential future sport court we want to look at a uh permeable concrete in that area or something similar that's a little more stable for fire trucks to turn around as well as providing um when you're walking on the surface um gravel is not that stable but um when you're driving on it gravel is a perfectly appropriate and acceptable material and it's wonderful because it'll last for a lot of permeability so we're we're definitely looking at that although you know this plan doesn't get into that detail um when we get to that point we can reach back out to the community but gravel would be a really great space for that except for when we have the um ADA spaces those will need to be paved but everything else can be can be gravel and and if I could just add in councilmember um it's the ADA space and the path of travel to the amenity so those would all have to be durable surfaces consistent with the California building code thank you are there any other questions from council all right councilmember alvarez this is your item so if you could please introduce a motion uh for discussion I guess I wasn't done was I resolution of the council of the city of santa rosa adopting the mitigated negative declaration including the mitigation monitoring and reporting program for the rosin creek community park master plan and adopting the rosin creek community park master plan for rosin creek community park and I waive the the further reading of the text second I've got a motion from councilmember alvarez a second from councilmember fleming let's go ahead and do comments now and I do believe that there's two different uh resolutions that'll need to be introduced so uh do any council members want to make comment on the motions councilmember soyer thank you mayor are you looking for a comment on the most recent on on councilmember alvarez's motion let's do global comments if you've got comments on the project uh please provide for now that's that's what I would prefer actually and I thank you for that and you know I just I will try to be brief um it has been since the rosin annexation that I've seen so much community output input from for a project and this has been going on for 10 years um the annexation went on quite some time longer but this has been a a real um uh impressive community outreach I've visited the site I've met with staff I've met with the the community um it's not of course not everyone but but neighbors and members of the board of community services and for me um this is about striking a balance and it's never perfect striking a balance is a perfect balance is very very difficult to achieve um we heard from Stephanie Maniotti um who I think said a mouthful during her her comments about the um uh what she saw as the needs of the of the community when balanced with the ability of the city to provide a park for this particular area so I think that this this plan does strike a balance between the um open space and the more the passive and the more um uh program space so I'm very much in favor of the plan as as it sits and keep in mind I think the the entire community in the city needs to keep in mind that I don't believe there's a single park now I've lived her all my life and I don't think there's a single park in this city that has not had a change in it from its inception to its to to its present day state and without exception I think they have all changed with um with the needs of the community with the needs of the neighborhood um and so this this will also this park will also change over time and I think it will change as as the neighbors and as the community requests so I am very much in favor of this plan and I will be voting in favor of it thank you thank you council member uh and I apologize I misspoke I said there were two resolutions there's one resolution that covers both of the actions uh that staff is recommending council member swiddle thank you mr mayor and I don't want to reiterate everything uh mr story just said um but for the several years I've been engaged in this project it's been mainly listening whether it be at the community meetings um listening to different neighbors the cbi folks um and unfortunately and I really do appreciate the number of people who have been engaged in this process and I really want to thank council member alvarez your engagement in this you really are modeling this is what a council member looks like in your district so thank you for all your efforts but again I I'm hearing more and more and I really want to thank uh Jen Santos and Jason nutt uh walking the property because quite frankly my experiences and walking the entire property for the several hours we're out there are not consistent with some of the comments that I heard today um so doing all that listening what's in the best interest and mr sir used the word I was going to use as balance it's all about balance and on slide 23 today one of the comments that was uh the last one I think was this area needs an active park a natural space a park that meets both that meets both needs nature and community I think is spot on so I'm very supportive of this project and we do need to move forward on this and this is what progress looks like so thank you for this and I'll be supporting this motion council member Fleming yes thank you mayor thank you staff and everybody who participated in this to my mind this is an excellent example of how justice works social and racial equity and justice works in action and how it sounds like the council is going to be supporting this and how we have the ability to to get out there thanks very much to staff and mr alvarez's work to get out there to find the voices that don't find themselves in these meetings and in these chambers and elevate them in a way that that meets the community's most basic needs and and does so in a way that's respectful of multiple perspectives but maintains that um that the future residents and the needs of of our lower income families who will be moving into this area are um cannot be dismissed and that we we shed it we what I'm trying to say is that it's really challenging to get done what got done today and I'm incredibly impressed and and proud of what we're about to do and I will be supporting this well I appreciate the comments from from my colleagues uh this has been in the works for over 10 years and if you listen to the public comment tonight I think there was about two hours of public comment I think it's very apparent that it could be another 10 years and we still wouldn't reach an agreement that fit for everybody I think that this plan is a really good approach I I want to commend councilmember alvarez for all of the work that you've done to listen to try to strike that balance to find that compromise within our community that meets the needs not just of the folks who live right up against the park and would prefer for it to stay there their sanctuary their tranquility but also the needs of the community as it grows and in particular for our youth I really appreciate the work that you've done and I think that this is how districts is supposed to work I'll be very proud to vote in favor of this tonight I uh I'm doing it at the recommendation of the councilmember who represents the district who listens to all of the voices and has found a way to move forward as well as listening to public input for the last couple of years as well councilmember do you have any final thoughts I'm proud of rosalind for recognizing that they have power in their voice and when they speak up they are heard and thank you for hearing them thank you without madame clerk can you please call the vote yes thank you mayor councilmember tidbits hi councilmember schwedhelm hi councilmember soyer hi councilmember phleming yes councilmember alvarez hi vice mayor rogers hi mayor rogers hi that motion passes with seven eyes all right thank you so much council we are going to take a dinner break so we will come back at 840 so in a half hour at 840 for our final item all right madame city clerk let's call the roll and resume our meeting okay councilmember tidbits councilmember schwedhelm here councilmember soyer here councilmember phleming councilmember alvarez present vice mayor rogers president mayor rogers here councilmember tidbits have you joined us councilmember phleming have you joined us okay let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of council members phleming and councilmember tidbits all right mr city manager let's do 14.1 mayor rogers and members of the city council item 14.1 is a report item on the annual report of the community wildfire protection plan a wildfire annex to the local hazard mitigation plan paul loanthal our assistant fire marshal will be presenting the staff report on this item you need mayor rogers vice mayor rogers members of the council paul loanthal assistant fire marshal with the fire department are here to present our first annual community wildfire protection plan the first report following its adoption by council last year so diving right in next slide please so for the council members that were not part of that process the community wildfire protection plan is a five year plan that focuses on essentially protecting our city and our community from the effects of wildfires in the future it serves as a roadmap again for five years there were some basic requirements that came with the plan that come from the healthy forest restoration act and it includes it being a collaborative process prioritizes fuel reductions and also outlines treatment strategies to help eliminate what we refer to structural ignitability so protecting homes we've taken that plan much further beyond those basic requirements next slide and so that's shown here in kind of how the history of how it developed so this was funded by a grant back in 2018 through the hazard mitigation grant program I will note this is one of the as you heard me talk about it one of our last council meetings one of the only grants that we actually were successful in related to vegetation management that grant funded the development of this program the development process was initiated in April of 2019 we did experience kind of some delays in the implementation or finalization of the plan based on the pandemic and the impacts that had on our ability to engage with the community we were able to strategize do a lot of virtual as well as additional follow-up with the community but we were able to get those community meetings in the vast majority of our outreach prior to the pandemic hitting the final plan was brought to council in august 25th of 2020 and again a five-year plan and during that process the fire department committed to provide an annual report which is what we're doing here it was also interesting in kind of eerie in a sense that if you remember we talked about during that that report item that identified the greatest threat to the city was to the northeast of santa rosa in between the unburned area between the tubs the nuns fire and shortly thereafter the approval of the plan and us trying to get started on it occurred the glass fire so this plan was funded by council on April 27th of this year where council allocated five and a quarter million dollars to kick start the the five-year plan so roughly about five million dollars a year over the course of five years with two hundred fifty thousand dollars for the end of it to re-establish a new plan to carry us into the future and again the funds allowed us to implement the vegetation management program next slide so the plan itself identified essentially nine objectives and with those nine objectives came 46 actionable items we didn't wait until we received that five and a quarter million dollars as soon as we got the the plan approved we got to work immediately the funds obviously did help but there were certain things that were able to absorb with existing staff between the time it was implemented and april so over the course of the last year we'll go through some of the improvements and processes that we've taken to again move forward with the community wildfire protection plan next slide so the first of those nine objectives was improved coordination and tracking so that objective identified four different actionable items the first of which was developing a GIS database to track the vegetation management activity this was a really key step for us it was a big step we're able to utilize our internal GIS staff to basically build a database that can track and manage the work that we do as a city the work that we do in part cooperation with our cooperating partners as well as work that's being done by various homeowners associations on large scale this will also help us forecasting the needs around the city another objective or action item was asking us to continue to coordinate with property owners on open space issues so that is something we've been very engaged with working with a lot of whether it's the osma the open space management association and found grove hoa is in benet valley oakmont we're doing a lot of coordination and a lot of assistance with their residents and their hoa reps and we're providing support to property owners again open space associations a homeowner association so making a lot of good progress in that category next slide so this is an example of what the the back end of the mapping system looks like so this is a treatment that we actually did in howard park earlier this season we were able to actually put in a break behind the homes along solovan ridge in howard park and we physically go into the site database track it enter the information regarding it and so that way we can start forecasting what our needs are around the city so we know where the work was done what year it was done who did the work so that ultimately we can make sure that we're tracking where our needs are into the future next slide so the next objective was to improve our evacuation routes and that came with six different actionable items so one of the big things that we've been working on right now is a grant opportunity originally started as a grant opportunity with cal fire and it is now shifting to a potential project that we may be able to fund with what we refer to as cal fires local units that's the sonoma lake napa unit cal fire as you've seen has allocated millions and millions of dollars around the state they are very interested and have been working with us on a project that is specifically designed to prevent the spread of fire into our community from the north and so this project that we're working on is going to be essentially designed to remove a lot of the dead and down fuels in the tubs burn scar on the north end of the city in the fountain grove area as well as into the county so this will extend to the road networks in that area and again it's to reduce a lot of the effects that we've seen from a lot of the regrowth and evasive species that have popped up in fountain grove that I know the fire department myself and a number of council members have seen a lot of the complaints about we are working to mitigate that but it's also part of our evacuation route strategy we also submitted for a hazard mitigation plan that has made it through calis and it's at fema right now that is going to be a 2.1 million dollar grant application we will be responsible with 25 cost share of that through this grant program and again this is designed for reducing fuels along multiple evacuation routes in and around our wildland urban interface on private and public properties so we will hopefully be awarded this grant and be able to work with homeowners along multiple evacuation routes and feeder streets to again reduce fuels along road systems next route next slide so these are examples of some of the roads so here the bottom right hand corner you see cross creek this is the city side of cross creek road we're able to work with our streets staff to do a lot of really good work on the county side of cross creek road but this is an example of the private side where home owners and property owners need assistance and in a number of cases in dealing with some of the again the long term effects of our burn scars and then we have other areas that can just benefit from general maintenance like we see in the top left screen which is up in the Los Alivos Montecito areas where we've been actively engaged with our community and very aware of the concerns up there and have added this and those streets to this grant application next slide educating the public was number three and that had came with a lot of actionable items so we have been working very hard with adria merton's communication team on fulfilling a lot of the action items that come out of this objective so we've been working to increase our education there was a lot of feedback from the community during the surveys of the development of the plan requesting and almost demanding additional outreach and education so it's been kind of a fine line walking back and forth between physically doing things in the in the field that people actually see and a lot of the behind the works behind the scene work that's going on that's actually reaching and helping educate people all across our community but it may not be as visible and obvious to people one of the two big things that we've done is redesign our wildfire ready and our ready santa rosa page that you'll see but that's been a huge part of our education component and we've created a lot of new handouts that have been relevant to our current topics evacuation routes evacuation checklists a lot of the materials that you're seeing have been improved and enhanced as part of the overall strategies related to community wildfire protection plan educating the public and helping again move a lot of those things forward we've also been focusing as outlined in the plan the need to educate and communicate and work with our vulnerable populations and as well as dealing with needs associated with pets and animals in our community so this includes our emergency management staff so neil bregman britney miller again adria merton's team as well as our community outreach specialists all engaged at all different levels dealing with educating the public as we work through the various actionable items and another important note is our wildfire ready community meetings that we worked on with community engagement so that was an exciting series that we held as again another component of doing what we can to make sure that we're working through the needs associated with the plan next slide so this is the website this is the wildfire ready website you see this link on a lot of the outreach information that we've been providing to residents whether it's in our city connections newsletter whether it's on various social media posts that we've been hitting hard over the last several years regarding fire weather watches red flag warnings different fire type messaging are pushing everybody to wildfire ready and ready sr and one thing to note is that with the new and improved landing pages a lot of the topics that come out of the needs associated with the plan have been included in the city connections on a weekly basis and over the last several months it's actually interesting to note that the city connections wildfire ready articles have consistently been the top one and two most clicked links where people are actually physically clicking to expand it and go to the website move around read all the information that we're getting of all the different articles so it shows that with you know about 90 000 subscribers that are part of city connection that education was truly a big component and the community continues to eagerly utilize the information we're giving them and make the improvements that we're asking next slide and then we have the ready sr so the wildfire ready again that page on the last website was our landing page for everything from our wildland of interface community wildfire protection plan what the city's doing information about fire weather watches and warnings our property owner resource library all the different components that we are engaged with for our vegetation management program being wildfire ready is covered on that and under ready sr is all our information now under regarding evacuation zones checklist alerts preparedness tips neighborhood travel outs rival travel routes so again this was feedback that we were provided by the consultant team that saw a real need to centralize these two critical topics and they have definitely served their purpose and will continue to serve their purpose for the foreseeable future next slide and again continuing with the educated the public so we have had the opportunity with some of the changes in the restrictions with covid protocols a lot of our outreach was limited to zoom but with some of our more vulnerable populations that was in some cases a challenge so this was an opportunity we were able to engage this particular case was in oakmont which was our first opportunity to actually engage with that community in person social distance and following all of our protocols and really good to be able to get in touch with them and actually deal with a lot of the critical issues that they're faced with right now with vegetation management again defensible space being wildfire ready emergency alerts helping assisting them with their no weather radio so there's a lot of things that were going on at this event that we had not been able to and we're fortunate to get this accomplished this season next slide um and then uh going back to the efforts that went into actually kicking off fire season so if you remember this year we declared fire season on the 17th of May it was the earliest that we have actually declared it locally uh the local declaration was because of some of the changes at a state level where cal fire no longer declares so chief westrop uh facilitated that declaration for us but it also um played into again a lot of the the needs identified in the plan that were carried out by our department working with the comms team that included a pretty comprehensive outreach strategy that kick started officially on on may 10th so there was a lot of work that was outlined as like you see here that included mailers news releases nixels the city connection kickoffs the radio PSA so again using the plan as our toolbox to really do a lot of good work for the community next slide improve wildfire preparedness so this category came with five actionable items one of which was working to increase the number of citizens actively engaged in cope so cope is a fantastic organization a number of you are very well aware it was a program that initiated here in santa rosa with a partnership with oakmont that has spread all across the county after the 2017 fires and we are actively continuing to work on providing opportunities encouraging communities or neighborhoods throughout our community to engage at all different levels any efforts that we've been able to help with our beneficial because any level of being organized is ultimately a step in the right direction and again we're committed to doing what we can to foster that around the city another item was to continue to foster our relationship with listos and coad one key notable thing that we included in the no-weather radios that we handed out was also making sure that we had plenty of supply of spanish no-weather radios and that we were working with those that were in need as well as a lot of our non-profit organizations that helped us carry out that mission in collaboration with the city and we were also working again to develop a program to address evacuation of vulnerable populations so i regularly attend oakmont's home association meetings helping answer questions dealing with evacuation issues as well as supporting where we can their map your neighborhood their coat programs and then another notable thing that we've done is actually work to help implement an evacuation plan and program for spring lake villages so we work very closely with that community they have an evacuation plan in place that we have exercised with them physically exercised it where they evacuate a residence to our temporary evacuation point on west third street so it really shows that we truly are engaged with our community at all different levels physically doing stuff as well as educating next slide next objective came with six actionable items regarding structural harding so one of the things that we have done already is with new homes that are permitted that go through their permitting process and are built after january first 2021 are now required to have between three and five feet of that non-combustible space around their home so basically hard escaping around home what we saw in the tubs fire and again in the glass fire was what ember cas did to a lot of our existing structures in our community that are primarily built prior to current code standards but regardless even homes that are built to current two current standards are still susceptible so we now require three feet of non-combustible space around homes for homes that are equipped with residential interior fire sprinklers and five feet for structures that are not equipped with interior fire sprinklers and that's there because there are some exemptions for accessory structures but it allows us to capture all of it we now have fire inspector assigned to conduct volunteer home assessments that assist with home hardening that inspector has been very busy we're in the process of actually recruiting two limited term fire inspectors that will be funded through our vegetation management funds that have been allocated to the department to assist with a lot of the evolving needs that are coming with the vegetation management program we've also submitted for another grant that was submitted at the same time as the last one I previously spoke of for evacuation routes and this one is specific to wildland urban interface fuel modification program which is actually for defensible space as well as home hardening that home hardening retrofit will be for the two most common needs that we've seen in our community and that's for vent screens and gutter guards we saw again a lot of spread in the glass fire specific to fires that were able to establish themselves either through vents or more notably in gutter guards I believe council heard in one of our previous presentations that myself Chief Westrope and a lot of other staff were actually physically in Oakmont able to see the effects of unprotected gutters and having to actually physically put out gutter fire after gutter fires so hopefully this program if awarded will be able to help offset a lot of those costs and again this one comes with a 25 cost share so that will play into roughly it's actually close to probably one and a quarter million dollars in cost share that we will be utilizing out of our PG&E settlement funds to cover the cost share of these federal grants next slide tree vegetation to reduce hazards this came with six actionable items so staff we have allocated now are working allocate a million dollars out of the five and a quarter million we're working right now to put a scope of work together to actually hire a contractor we will be using a million dollars of the money to actually do fuel reduction work on private properties along roadways so that is our focus right now is doing work that protects residents and protects our community so this will be an exciting opportunity for us where regardless of how long it may take to potentially move through some of those federal grants that in some cases can take up to a couple years this will allow us to at the same time work to actually physically do a lot of the work that we know needs to be done we just haven't been able to physically do it yet but it's very it's an exciting opportunity for us and look forward to actually physically doing work where people can see it and in addition to a lot of the work that we're doing behind the scenes we've also been last year end of last year and again this year is utilizing some of our leftover weed abatement funds to do fuel treatment projects so we have a hundred fifty thousand dollar weed abatement annual budget that we use sac supervised adult crews to do our weed abatement work for city certain city properties as well as our abatement properties through our weed abatement program the benefit of us using sac as they are a lot cheaper than we utilize with contractors in the past and with our leftover money we've been able to do special projects so we've done like you saw earlier treatment in howard park and we've done treatment this season in skyhawk open space we're continuing to work with the homeowner associations on the treatments that were identified in the plan and helping them implement the plan within their own treatment areas what that means is the plan actually helped identify what work should be done in different homeowners associations throughout our community so it helped them lay out the framework for what we need them to do and we're committed to helping them with that process another thing we did if you remember earlier this year is we established a burn pile ordinance that allows us to help offset some of the costs associated with reducing hazardous fuels in our large open undeveloped areas where it is almost cost prohibitive to conduct the fuel removal so this allows that work to take place which benefits our entire community next slide so here's a couple examples this is what the lower skyhawk open space looks like so if you're taking mountainhawk drive off of highway 12 heading into skyhawk on the right side is the open space that you typically can't see through this is what the backside of that looks like where it's up against the home so we had our contractor go in and physically do work that provides a significant level of protection between the open space and the the rear of the structures next slide and then this is work that was done in howard park go to next slide and this is now what it looks like on the back side of solovan ridge in between solovan ridge and solovan road in howard park so again another opportunity for us to utilize funds to implement our plan using creative mechanisms next slide improved enforcement of defensible space standards this another action item sorry objective came with seven different action items so we are working to establish a new comprehensive vegetation management ordinance that will bring all the different vegetation management type ordinances whether it's pile burning the needs to address that a lot of the dead and down trees all that is going to live under one future ordinance where it'll be comprehensive all of our needs throughout our wildland urban interface in our city specific to vegetation management so that will help clean our processes up streamline our needs and make things enforceable and again benefit our entire community we will have an inspection program we've already started phase one which is our education and voluntary assessments but ultimately our goal is actually to have an enforcement program in place that will involve inspections and enforcement again to help make our community better prepared for wildfires and in a better position to protect our assets and values our housing stock our businesses again the goal of the the program um is is really to to help mitigate what we've now been through in the tubs the nuns and the class fire uh next slide uh there was a required need to increase staffing to address um the needs associated with the plan uh there was a lot of feedback related to this um it was interesting to see that 74 uh supported that need with that uh we have assigned uh assistant fire marshal myself to now manage the implementation of the community wildfire protection plan and the development of our vegetation management program and again we are also working to recruit two limited term uh two-year fire inspectors to support the program um and again that will be funded through uh the PGD funds that were allocated next slide and there was a a request to consider expanding the wildland urban interface uh and there was two items that were identified in this one so uh based on uh community feedback uh we did look at the existing wildland urban interface area uh which I will show you on the next slide for those that are not familiar with it um after doing uh an evaluation of it uh and speaking uh with our consultant and other staff members we currently have made a determination to not uh expand it one of the most notable areas that was originally requested was coffee park uh we had a lot of feedback to to move the wildland interface into that direction uh it did not meet the definition of uh what the intention of the wildland of interface designation was there for and it's also important to understand some of the unintended consequences with that we are and continue to hear uh from a lot of our community members regarding insurance issues and living within that designated zone so we want to make sure that the zone that we have uh meets its intended use and that we're helping uh mitigate the risks uh in those areas uh for our for our community next slide and this is our wildland interface so uh top left uh is our fountain groves extending all the way down to the flamingo hotel at that kind of southern point uh to the bottom right uh is basically montgomery drive on the north side uh all the way on the anadol state park side of summer field road all the way down to the edge of the city uh we refer to this the top right one is kind of our rink and valley skyhawk uh which carries from calla stoga road kind of wraps around the the safeway shopping center area uh but carries all the way out along highway 12 uh up to los alamos road um and then we have the piece that goes from alita road and highway 12 and carries on the uh anadol state park of oakmont drive and oakmont and then the little piece off to the top right uh is uh the county complex um or the upper portion of the county complex that's currently undeveloped is actually technically in our wildland interface next slide so that uh was a quick down and dirty um uh through the nine objectives and action items that are underway we have taken action on 36 of the 46 actionable items and we've actually completed seven of them already um so in addition to continuing to work on the remainder of the actionable items identified in the plan uh kind of some of our key uh priorities uh and things that we want to share with you tonight to kind of wrap this up um is that one of the things we want to do is kind of is essentially form a working group that's going to help coordinate some of our conflicting requirements uh at a local level that help deal with everything from the future uh developments of our vegetation management management ordinance tree ordinance water uh use efficiency landscape ordinance and any other local regulations so that we can all make sure that what we're going to be doing and working on uh will be again in the best interest of our community and making sure that all of our departments are coordinating uh so that it's a smooth operation for community we will be investigating the use of herbicides uh to treat invasive species this came up a couple times in our plan with our community and we've actually had conversations with both caltrans as well as calfires the reason we're putting this on the radar is what we are seeing and i know we've talked about it a little bit before is specifically in fountain grove where a vast majority of our canopies which were originally pre-2017 oak and grass woodlands died off were killed off based on uh proximity to structures the way some of those canyons burned and with the loss of the canopies areas that never really saw the day of light are now seeing it and with that we have an explosive growth of evasive species that includes scotch broom french broom as well as bay the rates at which these are growing in some cases is actually making the backside of fountain grove as well as the mark west quarter worse today than it was in 2017 and we need to come up with a strategy that helps uh uh limit its spread and reducing uh it is best we can so that is something that we will be looking at uh we will be seeking additional grant opportunities and fundings for not only the next four years uh with what we have remaining but beyond that the vegetation management program isn't going to be going anywhere there's clearly a need for it um and so we will be continuing to seek grant over grant opportunities to continue to carry the programs into the future and like we talked about earlier we will be shifting to visible projects a lot of the work and that we've done over last year is not as visible and noticeable to our community we continue to get a significant number of inquiries complaints concerns uh so we will be uh this year uh you're too doing a lot of physical projects in the community where people will actually be able to see them we also want to make mention that we are actually exploring a partnership and this is a unique opportunity for us to potentially become an umbrella organization for fire safe sonoma fire safe sonoma used to live under sonoma county fire emergency services when that organization still existed it has kind of been on its own it is made up of uh both fire and public type leaders from throughout the county and is serving as kind of a lead fire safe council for organizations across the county but one thing that we are seeing and we continue to see is kind of a lack of coordination and competing projects so uh the city was approached by fire safe sonoma to potentially explore a partnership where that organization could live underneath our organization as an umbrella organization but it would not be santa rosa taking over the program it would be us essentially giving it a home this is a unique opportunity an exciting opportunity because it could actually greatly improve our ability to secure funds if there's a project we want to do in the city we would be allowing fire safe sonoma to then reach out to the other organizations and jurisdictions across the county and we could then seek larger scale projects which are stand a better chance of being awarded through whether it's brick funding or other opportunities where these are exactly the type of opportunities and funded and projects they want to see funded so this is something that we are currently exploring and hope to continue to potentially have actually come into fruition and then last but not least and I save this one for councilmember tidbits we are legitimately exploring a partnership with the santa rosa junior college and that does include both work with their ag as well as a newly developed vegetation management type program that they want to actually offer so from the vegetation management side we would potentially help with some of the coursework and then on the ag side we are exploring the opportunity for us to actually become a partner with a herd so I know I heard a lot about that and there's been a lot of feedback and a lot of requests for grazing our community so this is definitely a potentially another unique opportunity for our department and next slide that is it and I try to get through that as quick as I could knowing you guys had a long afternoon so I am here chief westrope and fire marshal moon are here if need to be they can be promoted to help answer any questions but happy to answer anything that you have great thank you so much paul we really appreciate it and it's it's a lot of work and it's incredibly important for the for the community so I appreciate what you're doing I did have a question first and foremost for chief chief westrope can we get the chief promoted I'm getting him promoted now good evening everyone evening chief my question for you is going to be a consistent one and I've asked it in the past and I'll continue to ask it as we get further into the vegetation management program are we finding that we have enough funding allocated to achieve its purposes or particularly in a couple of weeks we have the next round of conversation around the PG and the settlement funds and and arpa as we know more hearing more about fountain grove and the loss of canopy there and some of the the priorities from the department would it be helpful and beneficial and necessary for us to allocate additional funding to this project I appreciate the question I appreciate the consistent question and my answer would be this is number one when we lay this program out we'd never have one before the city's never had something like this before so the funding opportunities and and the cost of the program was was relatively unknown we did our best guess it was under previous administration best guess on what it was going to cost but if you look at 44 square miles 180 000 people it's a big project and when we're covered we're surrounded by 30 percent of our city's surrounded in the wildland urban interface it's a lot of projects so is it enough we're we're still working on that and I would say probably not at this point what I did talk about in goal setting if you recall and in regards to the PG and funding is that you know Paul's gone out and done a great job of applying for grants and almost doubled the value of our five million dollar investment in vegetation management and potential grant funding and he laid that out to you today so first and foremost what you what you've seen in the PG&E settlement request is an additional 1.25 million dollars set aside to to have that grant match available if we don't get the grants we find another funding mechanism for that grant match fund that obviously come back to council for reallocation to whatever project you wanted to so that's first and foremost we could certainly work on some numbers we have a lot of projects already in the pipeline for PG&E and ARPA we could certainly work on some numbers on what we think that would look like to to sort of enhance the program and add more shovel ready or or visible projects but as we've talked about both with fire prevention and and with management is that a lot of this comes down to the the ability for us to contract out where we don't have the crews to do it so we're going to have to contract the work so it's finding the contractors and that's part of the unknown on the cost it is exactly what the cost is going to come back on though so we can certainly work up some numbers and add it to the list but you know we can throw all the money in the world this and and you know and and really make an impact so it's finding that balance of cost benefit and and meeting the right goals that we want to but we can certainly work up some numbers and come across with with a better idea of what we're looking at based on where we're at in this process so far after a year of the CWPP and you know five months of vegetation management program right I really appreciate that chief I know it is a priority it's not going away and I know we've talked in the past about large upfront investment to get a hold of vegetation management and then an ongoing cost to continue that program so I do recognize that council any other questions okay I'm seeing no other questions from from staff on this one or excuse me from council we'll go ahead go to public comment on this I see one hand on zoom we'll start with David yes this is David Harris 355 Gemma Circle Santa Rosa more than 30-year resident of Santa Rosa and in this fire zone but I want to make the observation that you know in between weed abatement and pile burning the whole question of wooden fences I think needs to be looked at seriously there's been a lot of rebuild of standard inchboard fences that go all the way up to the structure and that is something that really we should look very seriously at because it is in in there with the weeds and accumulated piles as a source of fuel that propagates the fire and in many cases is really the wick that takes it right up to the wall and I had a friend who was trying to fight the fire back in October of 2017 and the neighbor house was on fire and he was up there with the hose and he could spray his wall to keep that radiated heat from starting his wall on fire until the fence between their two properties caught on fire and then he could not continue to stand there and and you know the fact that we are actually permitting wooden fences to put cured firewood between our properties and leading up to our properties I think we need to address that and of course the questions are well what are the alternatives but I won't try and go into that tonight but I think we need to look at fences all right thank you David the only hand I see on zoom so I'll bring it back here Mr. Frazier good to see you yes thank you mayor I really appreciate seeing people in person again it's been quite a while I thank you very much for that and of course thank you also to assistant fire chief the fire marshal Paul Lowenthal it's always great to hear from our very heroic first responders and we very much appreciate it what's on my mind today and why I stand and deliver has to do with an urgency ordinance that will be before the council in a couple weeks regulating strs and while we search for rationale for an urgency ordinance we do see that most of the black ink is devoted to a section that's entitled life and safety requirements and therein is quite an extensive amount of regulation that this ordinance would deliver to str owners and operators and so my question is because we are really trying to figure out what the urgency is here and obviously these issues are of an urgent nature but we can't understand really the dichotomy between what strs are being demanded to do and what just normal properties are subjected to and furthermore we we find it very distasteful to say the least that strs are being set up as a problem that they're not so we want to be sensitive to that for instance we find that there was nine objectives and 47 actionable items but nowhere in there is any mention that fire pits out there fireplaces barbecue grills three feet or smaller should be located 25 feet from a property line structure flammable source and if it was larger than three feet it would be a 50 foot distance between any flammable source apparently there's no urgency in the advice that's being created by the fire department and the the wui protection plans the fire department's website when we go there for advice on barbecue grills for instance there's one line about not spraying flammable charcoal lighter on a fire that's already lit but there is a page about candles and candles are more urgent as a fire dam a fire risk than what's contained in the urgency ordinance proposed to regulate strs furthermore there's a quarterly mailing by the city to str owners and operators what a convenient place to insert educational material about risks caused by fires if there was an urgency to control the behavior of strs or their gas surely that effort would have begun earlier thank you all i appreciate your time thank you any other comments in the chamber all right i'll go ahead bring it back to council madam city attorney do we need to vote to accept the report yes okay mr tibbetz this is your item all right how about mr schwethelm sure thank you mr mayor move that the council accepts the first report from the fire department regarding the get the correct name here community wildfire protection plan a second with great thanks motion from council member schwethelm and a second from council member soyer any other comments council member schwethelm thank you and i would just like to add my thanks to all the efforts of not only chief westrop fire marshal moon and assistant fire marshal lowenthal this is the behind the things behind the scenes things that actually make a huge difference in the community so thank you for your efforts on this and i think we're heading in the right direction with that let's go ahead call the vote council member tibbetz council member schwethelm hi council member soyer hi council member fleming yes council member alvarez hi vice mayor rogers hi mayor rogers hi let the record show the motion passes with six eyes with council member tibbetz absent thank you so much team really appreciate the work you're doing on it let's move on now to item number 16 that's the notice of the final map for 3575 mendicino avenue subdivision phase one see if there are any public comments on that item so no one rise and no hands on zoom i'll bring it back and see if there's any comments from council great we'll move on then to item number 17 that's public comment for non-agenda items if you're interested in providing comment tonight on an item that we didn't hear please feel free to either hit the raise hand feature on zoom or to line up at the podium we'll start with david on zoom uh yes thank you this is david harris again i wanted to speak on an item that i know last was on your agenda back in august of 2020 and that is the long awaited over crossing over 101 basically between the jc and codding town and in the direction of the north uh smart station um councilman soya and i were in a class together uh now many years ago not quite 20 uh that dealt with uh the topic of reducing uh vehicle miles traveled and you know we need more alternatives for uh getting back and forth across town uh when i came to san arosa more than 30 years ago i lived right next to 101 in the saint rose neighborhood and uh i had spent a summer in berlin and i mean 101 is basically the berlin wall of san rosa and we have gotten some successful crossings that are alternatives to driving but we need more and we've really made a lot of progress toward getting that over crossing to the jc toward the smart station but i really have a concern about the type of structure that's put there and the cost and uh what's been proposed by the out-of-town consultants is um is really something that is more like a i don't know an aesthetic uh structure not something that i think is practical as a steel truss uh prefab which would be more cost effective and could also be used to really be a place maker you know san rosa used to have over mendicino a banner over a sign over the top and there are places like willowts and madesto that still have uh over their major arteries some type of signage that really names the place and i think that bridge should be looked at to be something designed that communicates what's in the neighborhood there around the the steel lane um exchange the edwards elliott alignment there and of course the jc's on the east side the smart station on the west side and you can drive down 101 and not know that either one of those are there and this is an opportunity i'd say once in a century opportunity to have a bridge designed there that will make that place and and give identity to what we have in that neighborhood and back in 2009 10 there was a um the aia the american institute of architects redwood empire chapter was involved in organizing a charrette uh uh without of town you know the past president of the national aia and others involved and there were entries made for designs related to that northwest sector and i think we need to look more closely at that so i will leave it at that for today thank you thank you david we'll go to mr frazier thank you again i appreciate the opportunity to take the council's time um and again i'm going to refer to the urgency ordinance whose language was just released on friday so there hasn't been a lot of time and it's a very complex ordinance and as you know it's set to come before you again just in a couple weeks the problem is that we strongly feel by doing our research that this ordinance has been established in bad faith when we go to the august economic subcommittee meeting we try to verify the information that was served up purportedly as fact to support an urgency ordinance we find that we cannot factually verify the information that the allegation that there's properties that are operating without paying tot is erroneous in fact if that were true it would just point to the non-feasants of the city operating and collecting these taxes we know from our public records request that the best practice is to collect these taxes over the platform and have them remitted by verbal or airbnb even being presented by with that best practice by airbnb the city declined to participate this is just evidence of your non-feasants this isn't a violation even if these properties exist and we actually question whether they exist we go down the list and we try to find what the urgency is with this urgency ordinance we know that the august 10th meeting was filled with disinformation it was a purposeful lie why are you doing that one thing i didn't address in the fire safety prevention when we talk about airbnb was we certainly have a record about how airbnb and other platforms rose to the challenge to provide space for evacuees first responders i know i was part of that i as you know i have a hosted str downtown the fact that those experiences are not being relied upon on critical ordinances that go right to the heart of hardening and preparing our community is disgraceful i know that strs are a political handball and they're aided by an environment of companies that want to tell you problems problems problems we see it in the presentation at the the association that you just went to last weekend we see it in your information we see it in host compliance knock it off get to a factual basis i do thank you though because this will precipitate getting to the bottom of the bia of iron man of the tourism economy and other issues thank you mr duit hello my name is duane duit i'm from roseland three years have passed since you folks took out the opportunity for the public to present evidence to you by a way of an overhead projector there's a sign on the one over there saying that you're going to get it going soon we've been under the pandemic for 18 19 months and you have an opportunity please make that available because that would have helped today for presentations i brought some evidence that could have been shared i want to say right now it's really important to be supportive of mr alvarez on his efforts for dealing with what are now known as side shows when i was younger people used to go up and down fourth street cruising they were pushed off of fourth street they went up and down mendicino avenue they were pushed off of mendicino avenue came over to roseland this has been going on for decades and i believe we need to find a way to be helpful for young folks to go out and do what they do with their cars i also wanted to point out that the planning commission made a decision the other day that directly affects the quality of life in roseland i know a lot of you folks don't care about that you don't spend much time over there but the planning commission approved another dispensary is the term they use now for dealing marijuana so it's in a spot where a lot of people from rosin don't want it and they went to that planning commission meeting in good faith and they were shined on six oh so that decision is going to be appealed and the reason it's going to be appealed is because they're still a very strong benign neglect and that's a form of racism a lot of folks don't want to admit to that but that's what's happening and that benign neglect is ingrained in san aroza city policy towards roseland one of the things that was really good 17 years ago participated in this effort for what were called creek dreams this magazine was put out by the city it was on the effort for the creek master plan so for 17 years people over in my neighborhood had been working on trying to make the roseland creek neighborhood better but it's really difficult because city staff is actually the obstacle the obstructionists to the people trying to get positive things going for what we'd like to see and then when people come to the meeting you let the zoom folks go first while the lady sits here through a presentation for an hour and a half now i'm used to it you get an iron butt sitting down here but that's just totally disrespectful to roseland all right seeing no other hands for public comments having no other items on the agenda we will adjourn