 All right, Madame city clerk. Are you ready to call the roll? Yes, I am councilmember tibbetz councilmember schwedhelm here councilmember Sawyer here councilmember Fleming councilmember alvarez vice mayor rogers President mayor rogers here councilmember tibbetz. Have you joined us? Councilmember Fleming have you joined us? Councilmember alvarez have you joined us? Okay, let the record show that all councilmembers are present with the exception of councilmember alvarez councilmember Fleming and councilmember tibbetz All right. Thank you so much Madame city clerk We begin our day today with a special meeting that is specifically for interviews for various boards and commissions If folks who are interested in participating today have an option to do so either in person or via zoom What we'll do is we will go through all of our interviews first and then do public comment on the back end And I believe Madame city attorney and later in today's meeting is when the council will be able to make some decisions about these boards and commissions correct So with that let's go ahead and start with our board of building regulations Appeals our first interviewee is mr. David Cooper And I do see him via zoom as an attendee Good morning. Good morning So thank you first and foremost for your service on the board We are doing a little bit of speed dating here. These are five minute interviews councilmembers do have Your application in front of them, but first I want to just kick it off and give you an opportunity to talk with us Give us your qualifications or why you're interested in service on the board and then I'll open it up for councilmember comments and questions Okay, well, I've been on the board for several years. I think I'm chairman now I'm a retired structural engineer used to work for ZFA structural engineers And so I know a fair amount about building I believe that there's certain slots of people that they want to be on the board and I feel one of those However, if they're truthfully if there's someone else But I'm happy to serve I'm just curious in your time on the board what's been the mind or something like that and so we haven't had a whole lot what we've mostly had is Essentially when they've been enforcement actions and they've had like bold and Trying to decide whether a landmark should pay a tenant based on stuff so it's You know the challenging thing there is trying to understand the impact of the mold and and who might have caused it and And that can stop so that's that's been the challenge Okay, council members any other questions council members what help Thank You mr. Cooper for your service Is there anything that the city council could do to improve the efficiency or effectiveness of this board? That's a good question. Um, I Guess not really. I think that we it's set up well enough And if we don't have any actions in front of us We we don't meet and and so we are efficiently not meeting You know there one of the things that's kind of near and dear to my heart is this program that they have for After like post earthquake stuff, excuse me. I gotta move the cap For post earthquake inspection of buildings after you have an earthquake that's the big thing from a structural point of view And so San Francisco has a program where they preset up engineers that are already set up to certify businesses and get them back to it I have brought it up to the building department But it has not been a priority and maybe doesn't need to be but it what you can do is is Excuse me Is is to help the city building department and to Improve the Recovery from the earthquake and get the businesses back going if you get some people they help already set up To verify the buildings. Okay, so the business can get back to business. That's that to me is a really good thing to You know the structural engineers Association has a program where they can loan inspectors to the city after an earthquake to help you go through that But this might be another step in other words I guess I'm saying it might not be a bad idea to be able to use this as a forum to put your own initiatives up Maybe there's somebody, you know a plumber The plumbering or the mechanical people have ideas that they could make certain other things more efficient or something like that Long long long answer to a short question Basically allow us to maybe have more ability to initiate stuff on our own Great. Thank you Alright, thank you so much. Is there anything that you wanted to add before we thank you for your service and and discuss your qualifications later in the meeting Do you want me to hang around or no? So we'll continue to do we've got a couple of more interviews here today And then we do only have three applicants for the four Spots and so we'll be making some of those determinations that later in today's meeting Make sure we're qualified. So I thought we had like five spots or maybe if you're rotating them around, okay, never mind I figured it out. Thank you. No, I'm good. All right. Well, thank you so much for being here today We really appreciate it and appreciate your service on the board. Thank you. Have a good council meeting Right. We'll go on to Ken Coker Welcome in Ken. Hi, my name is Ken Coker. I'm a semi-retired architect here in Santa Rosa I've been In Santa Rosa since about 1974 and I've had 48 years of experience It was originally with Coker to Silver architects and actually worked for Larry Simons for five years before Started my own firm and then Coker architects ended up being Larry Coker to silver and then we merged with Tomasi Larry Coker to silver. So now it's known as TLCD architecture. I I left the firm in 98 and Just went back on my own as a sole proprietor and I've been that possession for all since 98. I Feel that I have a lot of experience Not only in architecture, but in problem-solving I think I feel that that's kind of my focus has been and in architecture is not only design, but the technical aspects of it and when I started in architecture, I mean the building code was The size of a novel, you know small book and of course now it's multiple volumes and energy codes and Building standards and so it's very complex A lot more opportunities for conflicts and I kind of enjoy Oddly enough some of that. So I felt that my experience would be advantageous on the board All right. Well, thank you so much for being in here and being interested council. Do we have any questions? Councilmember Switham Thank you for your interest in this position and for your other volunteer opportunities within the city Can you share with us? Why now you've been in town for quite a while? Why is this the opportunity now you seek to achieve? well right now as I mentioned I'm Merging into retirement so I have a lot more time The other volunteer I do is a volunteer in police services vips And of course as you may know, that's on hold But even then I was doing maybe 60 hours a month doing that So I felt that this in this board in particular They do not have a really heavy schedule I Feel that Jesse Oswald does a really good job of mediating issues So it's not a big time consumer, but it does allow me to stay connected with codes Because I do intend to stay practicing and keep my license active I just want to have more time to do more interesting things and kind of after 48 years. I'm Ready to do something a little different Thank you. Yes Any other questions council? All right, well, we really appreciate you coming in and I know it was was quick And as you heard we'll be making the decisions later tonight in the meeting and just wanted to thank you and we're very grateful for your interest in helping to continue to serve in the community and We'll be getting back to you great. Thank you very much for the opportunity. Absolutely. All right a couple minutes ahead here But our next is Richard yon Don't see him on zoom at the moment. So we'll just wait a couple minutes here Mr. Yon if that is you that is dialing in can you please raise your hand should we Promote this individual and see if it's Richard yon Let's do that. We're trying to get resident 611 0 to unmute And I do see now. Yeah, we go ahead and promote rich yon It's trying oh, it's trying rich. Are you able to unmute? All right, we can see rich rich. I can't hear you yet still nothing Do we have speaking permissions enabled? Yeah It's rich. I'm not sure why we can't hear you we've enabled it on our end. I don't know if you can hear us Still can't hear you rich Give it one more second here. I'd give it one more try All right rich, I think we're gonna have to move on we do have your application in front of us there are Three applicants for four spots and so council members will discuss how to move forward at this point later in our meeting And we do appreciate your interest in the position. We wish we could talk to you a little bit about it But in this digital world, it looks like we're misfiring here just a little bit But thank you for your interest in serving and we'll talk about it later in our meeting Let's go ahead and move on council to Item 2.2. That's the interviews for our one position for the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Board This is the senior community representative and we'll start by interviewing Edward Barich Who I see via zoom And are you able to turn on your camera? Or talk hold on a second Can you hear me? There you are Yeah Well first and foremost, thank you for joining us today and thank you for your interest in the position We are doing quick interviews to council members all have your application in front of us And we'll do just a quick five minute talk to see if there's any questions on that application But before I go to other council members, I'll open it up to you First to introduce yourself and to talk a little bit about what your qualifications are and why you're interested in serving in this position Okay, my name is Edward Barich I'm a resident of Santa Rosa. I've lived here since 1979 My former job was I was electrical engineer for your Heel Packard and presently or later Keysight technologies I retired exactly a year ago Sonoma retired citizen and While I was working I was doing a lot of bicycle commuting over the years over the decades in Santa Rosa both from the west side to Fountain Grove and then also In the latter years from the spring lake area on the east side to Fountain Grove So I've done a lot of commuting And I still do some riding On the streets, but not as much as I used to when I was commuting And I'm interested in contributing in some way to improving bicycle transportation in Santa Rosa It seems like we've got some some roads that are good for Transportation on bikes and then some that aren't so good and could be improved. So Now that I'm retired. I've got some time that I can contribute To the community and I think this might be a good possibility All right, well, thank you so much council members have to start with questions As a member Switham Thank you, mr. Mayor Mr. Birch on your application you talked about wanting to see the use of bicycle and pedestrian Transportation increased by a hundred percent in Santa Rosa over the next five years. How might you either a accomplish that or measure that? Well, I'm not sure exactly what methods of being used presently to account for the amount of bicycle transportation Certainly the surveys could be done to determine the exact numbers I think to improve bicycle transportation in Santa Rosa is mainly to improve the street Access to bicycles prevent them from being in danger of motor vehicles provide them with easy access and Make them more more available in all all parts of Santa Rosa. There are parts now. They're basically Break our necks that are difficult Through and so vending from our town for bicycles and making it pretty dangerous because they are subjected to very close Vehicular traffic, so I think if we were able to solve some of those problems of those areas where it's really tight People would be more interested in taking bikes to work or or wherever they want to go during the day And I think that that would help greatly with the improvement of bicycle transportation Great. Thank you. And Edward. Have you had a chance to read through the bicycle and pedestrian master plan? No, I have not other questions council members Thank you, sir You think that's that one of the issues with the with the senior disabilities and being able to access our Bike paths that you want to increase the methods which they can do so What are some of the ideas that you have in mind where we can actually increase the participation from our senior community on to our our bike paths and open areas Well, I mean again some of the the biggest problems are these choke points in Santa Rosa where The bike lanes either don't exist or they're choked down to such narrow widths that They're practically not not usable. And so I think those are the some of the biggest issues we've got We have some very nice Bicycle lanes and some of the bigger streets and some of the newer neighborhoods Very much concerned about the older neighborhoods I know that property rights are a problem that we can't easily expand but there may be other things that we can do to make those safer I think I think as a senior. I'm always concerned about safety. It seems like the younger folks They get out on the road and they don't think about safety so much It's kind of ironic because they got more years to lose than us seniors But seniors definitely feel a bit more afraid that we're you know a bit more Are vulnerable to accidents that we could not recover from so I think if you make the lane safe That the seniors would be more interested in getting out on the road on the bicycles And it would be much more comfortable with the whole idea Thank you, sir. And you mentioned a specific area that you have concerns with Would you mind mentioning what areas those are? Um, well one in particular that when I was commuting to up to Fongrove area from the east side Was the intersection of highway 12 and farmers lane It's really a choke point to get from the area where I live around Sprint or Sprint Creek up to Fongrove the hidden valley get into the hidden valley area so That area every day I commuted I had to go to that intersection and get in there with the cars basically get in in one of the lanes at the front of the light there And get to the front of the cars and then you know just take off and make a left turn that intersection And I'm sure that a lot of the auto drivers were you know Kind of a bit perturbed by the fact that I was in the front of the lane But I tried to get out of the way as fast as possible But there was no alternative There was no other way. There were actually no bike lane at that point. So, uh, it was a pretty dicey place to commute Thank you for showing your experience sir. Thank you And councilmember Fleming last question Thank you, um, and that is Jesus a difficult intersection Um, I'm curious to know if you've watched it had a chance to watch any of the meetings and feel that The way that it set up that you would be able to be effective in achieving some of your goals Yeah, you know, I looked at two of the meetings One of them looked like it was there was a problem established in a quorum Uh, I understand now that that can happen The president of the russian mirror fly fishers in santa rosa And if we don't have a quorum, we can't have a meeting and you know One of the things I would want to do as a member is be available If they're having them on thursday evenings, like they've been apparently having them I think that's a good date for me that I can Be have good attendance So, um, yeah, I could that that is an issue um, the other meeting there wasn't anything going on except something to do with basically meeting Say say our Meeting rules, I guess is what it was So, uh, I understand how that goes In our club. We have to do deal with roberts rules And I know the city has to deal with rules beyond that. So, um I can see how that's part of the job and I would just have to accept that All right. Well, thank you so much. Mr. Barrett. We really appreciate your interest in the position Council will be voting on our appointment at today's meeting later in the day And we just wanted to say we are so grateful that you're interested in serving And thank you for everything that you do do within the community already And we'll be talking with you shortly Okay, thank you for your time Council members. I have down that michael lapelts with drew from The position over the weekend So we're looking for marie I do not see marie in the chambers or Via zoom yet. So we'll go ahead and pause and see if we can locate her Do we have paul schwarz? All right, paul, let's go ahead go on to you and if we find marie later. We'll come back to marie So, uh, up at that microphone up there, we'll do All right, and thank you for coming in and as you've seen a little bit it is a little bit quick Uh, but we do all have your applications in front of us to be able to ask some questions But first I wanted to open it up and just allow you to introduce yourself Talk a little bit about why you're interested in joining the board And you're interested in the the position Okay, well, thank you for thank you for having me My name is paul schwarz. I've been a resident of san rosa since 1984 I've been a member of the san rosa cycling club since 2006 Do a lot of walking a lot of riding through the through the city and on the outskirts So I've got to feel like I've got a good awareness of where some of the Issues are and some opportunities for improving safety and Attraction of cycling for people in the community That's why I'm here and if I'm open any questions you have Well, thank you for being here I'll start off asking you kind of this the same question I've been asking have you had a chance to review the bicycle and pedestrian master plan that the That the city has passed I looked at it very cursorily A few weeks ago in connection with the stony point Intersection project and that's that's pretty much all I've really been exposed to it. Okay council members Council members what help Thank you for your interest in this position in your opinion, especially with your experience on the Bicycle club. What's the most important thing you think the city of san rosa can do to improve bicycle safety in our city? I think education is a big thing. I see people riding on the sidewalk riding the wrong way in the bike lanes Just you know behaving in ways that don't make any sense They're not only Endangering themselves, but they're endangering other people especially walking on the sidewalk As a pedestrian, I've been walking all over the place. There's certain places where there are discontinuities and Walkways or bike lanes like west college, for example You got bike lane and you got no bike lane and no curb really to walk on and then a bike lane. So I think that those and Going under the overpasses to get from the west side of the east side. I live on the west side. That's a big issue so I think that by Education getting into the schools one thing teaching kids how they should be riding because Their parents may not even even know how to ride. So I think that education is a big part of it Great. Thank you Other questions from council members Councilmember alvarez Thank you, sir. I haven't found the the raised hand on my ipad yet. You'll have to excuse me Paul, thank you for for your application in regards to continuing continuity and the The gaps in our bike lanes Uh, what are your suggestions in order to improve those or eliminate the gaps entirely? And if you could give us example other than the college avenue, which you just uh Shared with us, which I thank you for well. I think what we could do is have Indication science signage that where there's going to be a break in it Where it's a safe alternate route rather than having to stay on On the same place that you're at where you're putting your life at risk If you could get off on a side street and go around that discontinuity, that'd be a great thing Just one other thing that I wanted to offer As an encouragement for people to ride is to know where they can park the bikes It's very hard to find bike racks or the bike racks are put in places where They're in a kind of a hidden place Which i'm not going to feel safe about park on a bike Especially an expensive bike because that's just makes it opportunity for somebody to steal it In fact here And I wrote over yesterday from the from my house just to check out the parking situation And although you've got parking here downstairs. It's kind of secluded and I don't think that's really a very good place You at least have some cameras so that people can observe that or know that they're being observed if they're messing around with a bike Thank you for that, sir My last question for you paul is This position is the the senior position on the board How can you help to promote bike ridership within the senior population here in san rosa? I think that uh As a former retired project manager, I've I got a lot of experience with communication and outreach I know folks I know a lot of old people for example and I can just see going to Very senior living places making a presentation, which I did many years ago In connection with another position. I made some presentations to Uh Boating groups when I was working for the kesan frisco estuary project and just make it just educational outreach tell them What needs to be done? What opportunities there are how they can make riding safer for themselves and make it more attractive to them All right. Well, thank you so much. This does go quick But we do appreciate you coming in and talking with us in person And as you have heard we'll be making the decisions later tonight So there's One position that's open and then we'll be getting back to everybody in the next couple of days about that Great. Thank you for your time. All right. Thank you Hey council members. We'll go on to item 2.3. That's interviews for the personnel board I'm sorry. I am looking at do we have marie? Yeah, I don't see marie. So I think we'll just keep moving So item 2.3 is the interview for the personnel board. We have two at-large vacancies And one labor representative vacancy on the board So we'll start with our at-large candidates. We have three candidates for those two spots We'll start with eric stevens and I don't see Eric in the chambers nor on zoom I do see our next interview. That's david parks Let's go on to david and see if we can locate eric in the meantime Hey david About the difficulties. I didn't get my makeup on this morning It's all good. It's good to see you again It's good to see y'all as well So you know the drill a little bit. We're asking quick questions Talking specifically about the personnel board. We have your application in front of us But I'll go ahead and kick it over to you talk a little bit about your interest in this position And why you'd be a good fit for it Well, you know, as you know, I bring diversity. Secondly For myself, it has been challenging sometimes being differently able-bodied And I wanted to show it to myself and to my community and other folks that are also disabled that It can be done that your dreams can happen. It doesn't matter what person you are as well um I want to be there for y'all and be able to help lighten the load of decision-making and I know I don't have a lot of the experience other people do but I would come there Specifically to be helpful to y'all and also help my community All right, I appreciate that council members. Do we have questions? Let's talk a little bit about the the position itself david Have you had a chance to watch or sit in on any of the personnel board matters? I've looked in on a few of the meetings um It's you know, it's uh, it sounds like a very interesting position um and I I would believe that what I would be able to bring to it is um wisdom and Just being able to be there and and help y'all out And do you foresee any challenges uh for yourself? What will be the biggest challenge in coming up to speed on the work that the board has been doing? That's very interesting. Um I don't really see anything as a challenge rather. I see everything as an opportunity So for me, um instead of seeing things as a challenge I would say that yes, I don't have the experience that some people coming to these things do have But I do have the patience and I would love to meet those demands and challenges that our county has the needs And be able to be able to support Those of you in the city council as well because I know that your job is very hard and difficult at times All right council members, are there any other questions? All right, looks like no so there are Three applicants for two at large positions. So we'll be discussing at you know this process later tonight In our regular council meeting. We'll be discussing the positions and we'll get back to folks here in the next couple of days Thank you so much and I apologize. I didn't have something prepared for this one But I'm sure you remember the things I was discussing so those would just remain my issues, you know For things that I would want to be helpful with but I would want to be able to be helpful with anything that needs to be done No, I really appreciate it. David and we appreciate you taking the time again here on a tuesday and we'll talk with you shortly Thank you so much. Are you taking care? Did we find Eric Stevens? No, okay. How about frank panza? Our next individual I was informed frank panza. Oh, here he is Hi there frank Good morning. How are you? Good afternoon. I'm fine. How are you doing? Well? So we're doing quick five minute interviews All of the council members have your application But this will give us a chance to sort of ask you for some clarity or or other things that we've thought of But first i'm going to turn it over to you and i'm going to give you a chance to just introduce yourself And tell us why you would be interested in this position Okay, thank you My name is frank panza I've lived In the county for 35 years and in the city for another three since the fires of 2017 My background Is As a tax lawyer. I worked as a tax lawyer In private industry for about 30 years and in the government As a trial lawyer for the treasury For 10 years I have not been Physically active In the In the city or the county I used to be Active when I lived in new jersey um, I was active in Politics not so much government because The party I represented hadn't been elected for about 40 years In new jersey Or in the area I lived in I think at this point in my life Um I feel I owe a duty to do something Uh to make where I live A better place And that's why I decided to apply for a couple of positions And I will continue To do that For as long as i'm able All right, thank you frank. I'm going to open it up for councilmember comments or questions councilmember swithill Thank you frank for your application. Um, I thought interest in the among the number of diverse interests experiences that you listed on the application Which of those interests or experiences would serve you best if you were to be selected for the personnel board? I'm finding a little difficult to, uh, understand you but if I If I did understand you you're asking me Which of the Things I applied to positions I applied for most interested in and why? No on your application You listed a number of very diverse from a band leader to an actor To a very interested but incompetent athlete you listed several of those things Which of those experiences would best serve you on the personnel board should you be selected? my experience The serving on a personnel board is that I worked very carefully or very closely with human resources at american express Farmers fund and that was probably 30 years of Almost 30 years of my of my work experience And I know the difference between a very effective human resources uh function which was american expresses And a very ineffective one which was firemen's funds um So I I think The city the city is represented by the people who work for it um That's who the people in the city deal with they don't deal On a daily basis with Uh the political people they deal on a daily basis with the people who work here and um My experience Is that a human resource function? um Is very important in Ensuring that you get the best Out of the people who work for you um, so Because I've had extensive experience with human resources um as a tax lawyer because of all the tax implications of Um, what is what would you call it? The employee benefits um The tax implications of special things done for special people um I work I like crowsy with them so I Think I understand what has to be done to keep um the Employees or to not keep to Ensure the employees have that their best opportunity to shine And that's why I'm interested in working in a human resource um capacity. I understand that the job that I'm talking about Is principally concerned with Determining whether a person should continue in the employee Of the city and um That involves union Negotiations which I did not have a lot to do with obviously in private in farmers fund and merc express but it also Deals with a lot of this this you know statutes dealing with um Employee rights. I understand in the city the most important thing you need to do is understand the union um The union contracts because If you don't understand the union contracts you wind up losing uh every employment Controversy, you know you get involved in So my legal background Will help me deal with the contracts and my whole work experience in dealing with human resources makes me familiar with what needs to be done to keep or to ensure that the employees Can operate to the best of their ability Thank you. Thank you so much frank. We uh, we do have to move on to our next interview We really appreciate you coming in today and as you know We'll be making our decision Later in tonight's meeting. We'll get back to you shortly But just wanted to express our gratitude for your interest in serving the city and we look forward to talking with you again soon Well, thank you very much for giving me the time Good day everybody next So council that was uh the last of our at-large vacancies Um, we didn't find eric Okay So we'll move on to our labor representative Vacancy and we'll start with sandra wandel Sandra, how are you? I'm good. Thank you Thank you for joining us via zoom glad to see you here So as you have been listening in and as i'm sure you know, we're doing quick five minute interviews We do have your uh qualifications in front of us But if you want to talk to us a little bit about what you'd like to highlight And why you think you'd be a good fit for the position. We're all ears so, um, I've been in the san rosa for about 30 years and um, I'd like to highlight my my work done at the school board I was up in a valley union school district and specifically in that capacity. I was on the negotiating team with the union um It was easy In comparison to maybe some other school boards, but nonetheless, I've got I I was able to look at And take a stance back from a different perspective is that I'm not a city employee. I've never been one. I've never worked at a Uh government agency or anything of that sort. So I have a perspective working in the outside and not working under contract to kind of bring in, um ideas and um You have just perspective coming from a different background. I'm also very interested I know, um, I've met several of you and and I'm very interested in the city workings and as well as Um, just local my community. I want to help I want to give back and I want to serve Um, it's a passion All right. Well, thank you so much council members any questions council member alvarez Or excuse me council member Fleming Hello, miss wandell. Um, when you said you participated in labor negotiations was that um As a um on behalf of union members or on behalf of the organization that you were Um on behalf of the board It's on behalf of the board So I was yeah I was just curious what your philosophy that you brought to those negotiations was um what I what I recognized was that that um It's very different when you're part of a union And um, you're under contract. There's certain protections as well as um certain freedoms I'm not to say that I don't have protections and freedoms as well, but they're different And I've been able to I was able to bring Kind of the perspective I mean one example might be that um When it comes to reviews and and When you are um, I'm reviewed annually. I in my job. I get reviews. It's probably more consistent throughout the year That isn't always the case with unions. Sometimes your longevity Entitles you in a con in one of the union contacts to maybe not be reviewed in your performance every year It could be every other year or when you're probation Probationary employee it could be it could be more often so I was able to kind of do that compare and contrast and and um offer insight And perspective for both sides that here this is what I've experienced and I don't see Explain to me where maybe the hang-ups are so that I can understand. I think that's where that's where I offered some help Thank you And so I just piggybacking on that and following up on it. So this position is the Labor Representative position do you feel like you'd be able to adequately represent the perspective of Our labor employees here at the city on that board I think I would yes because um, well I pride myself in education and educating myself So it would be very important for me to do some reading and and obviously get as much information in background as I could But yes, I could I think that that running against um or coming up against what union information there is it's um and having that little bit of experience provides me that um motivation to learn more about that but um I don't I'm not on union if never been on the union, but I would definitely be able to understand that Great. All right. Well, thank you so much for your interest as you've heard We'll make the decisions later in tonight's meeting And we're just really grateful for you taking the time and during the the tuesday to come out and talk with us And we'll be in touch shortly Thank you. I appreciate the time. All right. Thank you It's next we have michael reynolds Mike welcome back to city hall Up here is great Good morning everybody. Good morning. So go ahead. We'll kick it off by having you Introduce yourself for the public talk a little bit about your qualifications and why you think you'd be a good fit as the labor representative on this board Alrighty, uh, my name is mike reynolds. I am a retired city employee of 19 years Of which 15 of those years Were spent on the board of directors for the santa rosa city employees association as a unit rep and Eight years. I believe as president of the association And the last two years as the chief steward for the teamsters association I was asked by the Teamster representative I received a call from matt finnegan And he said I think I've got an opportunity for you to contribute to the city and your retirement As I know you're just lazing around eating bonbons and watching captain kangaroo every day. So I I told him I would absolutely appreciate the opportunity if he would if he would put my name in as a recommendation And received the email and filed my application and here I am today So in your time working with the association What was the most challenging decision? That you're on helping represent the employees on that came before this board Well each and every time an issue came up In a disciplinary action with an employee It was uh, I felt it was our position As the representatives of the board to evaluate the the the issue that was in place because each each individual incident that occurred created an intensive amount of time And labor for not only the city but those of us that were representing that specific individual on the board and we Always took a look at what was the situation Could we address the issue in a as minimal amount of a time as possible? And if it was a situation that was Misunderstanding on the employees part Try to iron out with the employee where they might not be meeting the needs of the of the the the city and change that that attitude or or A need And work towards being the best employee they possibly could and if it was something that we felt was coming from The supervisors side or the management side Coordinate with the managers on those sides and try to negotiate A fix that was equitable to both sides. So it didn't go to higher grounds such as Informal grievances formal grievances and then on to the personnel board Or where the review had to be done by the board at that time and decisions made as to which direction needs to be gone All right other council member questions I'm seeing none because you had a very thorough application. So just want to thank you for taking the time to come in We'll be making the decision later tonight. We'll circle back with you shortly. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you Mr. Jeff par Good morning How are you doing? Appreciate the council being here to Hear my request to be a member of this board A little bit about myself. I moved to santa rosa in 1986. I live on the western side of town BL elementary school is right behind my house I my wife and I who was also retired letter carriers. I am raised a daughter here that now has her own family I joined the national association letter carriers in 1977 when I became Employed as the post office as a letter carrier. I have delivered all over santa rosa, california Some of my qualifications. I am the chairman of the board of trustees for my local branch what we call branches as others might call locals is branch 183 I we have a Our na lc has a Liaison for every member of congress I have been the congressional liaison to lynn wilsey and I'm about to be appointed the liaison for mike thompson I'm currently the california state association letter carriers district two officer. I've held that position for around 10 years And I am also Delegate to the north bay labor council And at at least 10 years As I am a federal employee And work to represent federal employees I have no conflict of interest with the bargaining unit for city employees. I feel I can be impartial And objective we want the best for our city employees and the city and that would be the outcomes I would look out for I'm trying applying for this because I would like to give back to the city that I love And some of my community work has basically been mostly through my union the na lc Supports and sponsors the stamp out hunger food drive for over 26 years. It's a lot largest one day Food drive in the nation and our other main charity is muskler dystrophy I would just like to have the opportunity to give back to the city I was asked by some other local labor leaders to apply for this position And we'll do the best of my ability should the board decide you'll point me to that position Okay questions from council members My only real question for you is what perspective or philosophy will you bring to the board? Will it be to represent? labor and the The workers or will you be looking for some form of a balanced approach? Representing the city Well, I am no doubt labor through and through So I might have a tendency to be that way, but I think we need to be objective We want the best for the city and the workers Now I I'm assuming that and perhaps this is a failure on my part for not doing better homework Is when any of these employees if especially a bargaining unit they have a contract As we know The only time unions really have a lot of power is when a contract or agreement is violated So it would be a matter of applying the contract or agreement to the situation with the individual Okay And I will say thank you for all the work that you do on the stamp out hunger program I've had a chance to participate in it. I think the last four years and it really is A sight to see so I want to thank you for that as well At any we appreciate you're coming down to help me unload trucks Unfortunately due to the pandemic Last year in this year, we've had to cancel or postpone and try to find other ways to help the local communities Food banks throughout the nation, but thank you for your time. Yeah, any other questions council All right, well, thank you so much jeff. We're grateful for you coming in and we'll get back to you shortly All right, we've got a couple minutes here We have one last applicant. It's our incumbent lisa maldonado And I don't see lisa present on zoom or in person So we'll give her a couple minutes here to see if we can locate her Miss maldonado is on Hello, this is lisa. I'm here. Good morning lisa Hi, good morning. How are you doing? Good, I am sorry to not have my picture up there But my my bandwidth does not go do good like you can either hear me or see me, but you can't Well, we appreciate you joining however you can Thank you for your Work in this position over the last I believe it's been four years now Yeah, unfortunately, I haven't got to do a lot. I have Definitely gotten a lot of great training from the city In terms of ethics and understanding of the process But we haven't had a lot of chance due to covet obviously to be able to To meet and and work out some of the issues. It's just part of the reason why I applied to continue and extend All right. Well, so you know how this process works. We've got about five minutes I'm gonna have you start just giving the public a little bit about your qualifications and why you're interested in the position That i'm gonna open it up to council members for them to ask you any questions that they might have Terrific. Okay. My name is lisa maldonado. I have lived here for god 13 years now I am an attorney, but in my current job. I practice as a labor representative for the california nurses association prior to that I was associate director for sci u 10 to 1 and also The north bay labor council I've worked in the issues of in the areas of labor for a long time I feel like I mean obviously i'm not going to pretend to not be a labor Origins person because I think that would be fake and misleading but um, I do feel like my training as an attorney has taught me about Fairness and not being one-sided and being able to fairly evaluate Both sides of any issue any labor dispute both managements and and workers Especially regarding civil service where the rules are very clear the roles are very clear The histories and precedents are very clear. I think I would be good at seeing All sides of a dispute and helping people Get to a place where they can have outcomes that work As much as possible for all parties that would be My goal and also to just be able to You know People's livelihood obviously Is is hugely important to them and to their families sometimes that gets lost in certain disputes, but overall You know one of the things one of the basic tenets of every any job is You're required to participate and to do the job. It's not you do there are requirements to your employment That are not um things that you can either decide not to do get out of And sometimes employees need education in that as well. So I Again, I um, I'm clearly not going to say I'm non Partisan from the sense of most of my work has been in employee-based Jobs, but I feel like I would be an asset on a team of folks working To help ameliorate some of their personnel issues I am curious. I'm going to start with a question So you obviously you've helped represent workers and helped negotiate contracts albeit not with the city and then now in this position Uh, really a lot of the issues that you face are when there's a portion that's in dispute or when the contract is silent On an issue that arises has this helped you in your other position to be more clear or to see Loopholes or unintended consequences That's funny that loopholes and unintended consequences those are the things you all Learned about I mean we learned in law school right to look for it because and it's amazing once you get out Into the you know real world and you see how contracts are drafted and how policies are drafted and you understand the reason for So much and you you know what a really well drawn contract is so Yeah, it definitely has helped Um, and you know, there's always arguments about what was the intent and how do you find the intent? There's documents you can go back and look at But um, and there's reasons why you know people fall on different sides when they're trying to advocate for what The intent is but um, yeah, I would say it definitely has helped And it's an it's it's it's an area of skill and interest that I was actually surprised To find myself having because when I went into law school that wasn't like the number one thing But I I do find it really interesting because you're putting together pieces of Not only the the the four Corners of the document that's in front of you, but what the original people who created that intended So, yeah, I find that Very helpful to both both of my jobs right now Okay council any other questions? vice mayor I least said thank you for taking the time to be here and applying for this position So can I clarify? Are you a labor rep for nuhw? No, um, I work for the california nurses association national nurses united perfect and then my second question is Personally and to serve what do you think it is that you need to work on? um You mean just in general in terms of general quality general Skills, I mean you've been around for a while. So what is it that you can work on yourself to? Better serve Yeah, well, I think that's an easy question my kind of um top of my list standing Agenda item in terms of working on myself is to be a better listener to be more Open to hear hearing the other side to not be to tone down the opinionation because I'm a very opinionated person um But one of the things I've learned and I think You know being a lawyer or being an attorney helps you With this is you do have to be able to marshal Facts for both sides. You do have to be able to uh lead your way through an argument for both sides and that tempers um Some of that sometimes so I feel like that kind of seeing the other side um That's like my number one uh working on Thank you Councilmember alvarez Yes, thank you. Uh, Lisa. Thank you for for wanting to serve again And that leads to my question. I know with kovat many of us have a lot of our projects on on ice And I'm wondering what are some of those projects that you? Uh What motivated you to want to serve again and really uh, maybe complete some of those projects that I want to hear about uh The project that you have the ideas that you have that you haven't been able to To uh really bring to the light yet Well, thank you for the question. It's it's an easy one because frankly the cohort that I was um appointed into with ever I think it was ever and I um another gentleman. We never actually got to hear any Um issues. I mean we gen we just were frozen in time. It was like, okay. We all took our ethics training. We all took our um, you know city training and then All of a sudden everything shut down So the whole term was pretty much frozen and we never I didn't I know that you know, we had heard from a report um, that what was in the pipeline in terms of Any personnel issues, but they never came to us and we never were able to Work on them. Um, so like it's kind of like a do-over For me, which is again, I feel like I didn't get a chance to really serve I didn't really get a chance to offer any of my skills to participate because everything was shut down And I don't know in the meanwhile what has happened with some of those whether they were all just In abeyance as well, but I do want to contribute. Um at some point by being able to participate And that's kind of where I'm at with it Thank you. Thank you All right. Thank you so much Lisa. So this does go quick As you've probably heard we will make decisions later tonight in our regular council meeting I just want to thank you for joining us via zoom and being interested in continuing to serve I'll be it. It sounds like, uh, one of the easiest assignments For for a board appointment Yeah, if I didn't know it was going to be that easy, I would have applied a long time ago Thank you very much and I appreciate it's it's very good to see you guys all um everything semi gearing back up into into gear again And hopefully it'll get um, you know better for all of us Yeah, thank you for coming in. We'll talk with you soon. Thank you. All right. Bye. Bye And I'm looking to staff to the anybody who we missed earlier, uh circulate come back up Okay, uh with that council will go ahead and recess our special Council meeting and we'll make these appointments later tonight. Thank you