 All right, let's go ahead and get started and see if our third members able to join us here. If the recording secretary could please call the role. Right. Mayor Rogers. Here. Mayor member Fleming. Also here. With the record request that committee are present with members Sawyer to join. Excellent. Let's go ahead and start with comment on non-agendized item. If you have a comment that falls within the jurisdiction of the committee, but it's not on today's agenda. Go ahead and hit the raise hand feature and we'll start with Eric. Just one moment while I get the screen up for Eric. Mr. Frazier. If you would please confirm your ability to see the screen. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good morning. City council members. Appreciate seeing you. I assume you can hear me okay. Yep. Okay, great. So I obviously wanted to give you an update on the short term rental urgency ordinance. The illegal urgency ordinance that was passed as had severe repercussions. So I'm going to go ahead and get back to you. Thank you. And a lot of lives are now starting to be exposed. For instance, there's a claim that there's some 400 STRs operating in the city. So far, there's been about 240 applications. And only about 30% of them have been issued an approval. After about four months. So they'll probably give lives. Rise to a claim of. Some sort of process abuse. And I'm not sure if you're with Rena numbers. There's no evidence to support that. Despite the testimony from a council member here in this meeting. Well, we did find, however, that Rena numbers were impacted by this illegal conversion of the art house apartment. Build into. Some sort of boutique hotel. So it'll be sort of interesting to see how that is uncovered with all those campaign contributions and everything that's leading up. Also, the numbers are not going to be relied upon because a lot of people that were hosted. Rentals were forced to apply as unhosted rentals. So the numbers in your reports are going to be skewed. They're skewed anyways, because you really don't understand the business. And you just think that if somebody has a permit, then they're doing that 365 days a year and so on and so forth. And there were so many seniors abused by your illegal urgency ordinance that we're contemplating adding that as an additional line of attack in our lawsuit or perhaps issuing another lawsuit, perhaps a class action lawsuit. Seriously, you have hundreds of seniors that have been impacted by this illegal urgency ordinance. Some of them are cat loving. That's true. Some of them are wondering what to do. They're selling their houses. I know that perhaps this is a veiled attack on people that are aging in place in their homes. So it'll be interesting to see how that plays out, but the impact of it is severe. And we're starting to get it. Meanwhile, our fundraising is going well. We are in contact with hundreds of people in the short terminal community in the city. We're also expanding our efforts or have already expanded efforts in the county. So we know as this thing winds forward, Santa Rosa will probably be in a good position to be case law for other jurisdictions up and down the state. We'll address the BIA taxation issues when that subject is up on the agenda later today and I appreciate your time today. Thank you very much. Thank you, Eric. And if we can get council member Sawyer promoted. Absolutely. Welcome, John. Thank you. Sorry about that. Lots of, lots of tech trouble this morning. It's all good. I had to move to the iPad and see it's functioning now. We're just doing a public comment for non-agenda items. Let's see if we have any other hands for that item. So we'll move on to item three and one. So we'll have a additional hands raised at this time. No, are there any email or voicemail public comments for this meeting? Okay. Let's move on to item 3.1 then. Morning, right. Hello. Couldn't even find the unmute button. Okay. So we do have a slide. Right. Before you jump in, I'll also just share for the public that we are polling item 3.3 for today. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the meeting for the committee. Right. And then let me just promote a couple of folks. To panelists. I think I got everybody. Rafael. Sakura. And. Tara. Okay. Now I'm ready to start. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And while she's doing that, I'll just tell you. That we wanted to bring this to you because we are moving towards the. Contracting stage. And obviously as we do that toward. Flushing out the details of the four programs that you guys. The council allocated our funding towards. To see if you want to nudge the programs anyway. And because we have some specific questions as we go through it. So it's. Sorry. So it's going to actually be a number of us. Leading you through this through the presentations. And it's, it has been a truly a communal effort so far. But I do want to say that as we go through these slides, what would be helpful is if we'll, we can stop at any time to answer questions. And get some of the answers done. So don't feel like you have to wait. To the end of the presentation. In order to ask us questions. So with that, I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to Tara and Rafael. Next slide, please. And we'll just get started with the small business support program. Thanks. Hi, everyone. Tara Thompson, arts and culture manager. I am working with Rafael and Risa on. Formulating the program elements for the small business support. Component of these ARPA funds. Which at this point, we are proposing to be kind of broken out into three areas. A qualified census tract focused. Business tenant improvement. And facade improvement program. Funds towards the Mercado, Mercadito relocation. Excuse me. And funds for the park let's build out. So I'll be walking through a couple of these. And then Rafael will be joining in as well. Next slide. So for the tenant and facade improvement program. As you recall, we, we proposed a couple of meetings ago. We proposed a couple of meetings ago. That we would be working towards a program that would include. Tenant improvement grants. As well as facade improvements managed under contract with the arts nonprofit through the public art program. So we're looking at a one application. Program that that a business could apply for either or both programs. With eligibility determined by location in the census tract area. Proposing a $10,000 grant. Kind of ceiling. However, we'd like to discuss that as some of our questions to you. And then in addition to the tenant improvement grant that the facade improvements through the public art program would. Add additional funds to the grant. However, it would be through a contract with the arts nonprofit. So that nonprofit would provide facilitation, design and installation services for the selected projects. We would have targeted marketing and outreach to identify potential business applicants in the QCTs. The materials would be available in English and in Spanish. Collateral would be distributed virtually and in person. And we would also make sure we would hold application. Preparation meetings or workshops. So our questions really at this point. Are. Looking at the matching requirements and the grant amounts. Kind of looking at what, what would set up businesses for success here. So any input that you have. On matching requirements and the grant amount. And tied into that would be another question about the areas to launch this initial program. We've previously talked about. Highlighting or prioritizing Rosalind. And, or Santa Rosa Avenue. Those both are within the qualified census tracks. But there's also the opportunity to say, okay, well, we can encourage those businesses in Rosalind and, and or Santa Rosa Avenue to apply. And then. Other businesses within other census tracks could also apply, but there would be a higher match requirement. So we've seen other programs run. Similar to that, where the matching requirements for the grant component would have a match requirement based on certain map or geographical areas within the, within the map to essentially incentivize the priority areas that we would like to invest in. So those are really the questions out to you to kind of move this forward. So any input you have on that now would be super helpful. We can pause here. If you'd like. Victoria. John. Well, jump in. You know, the, the matching piece is kind of a, there's an unknown here and that is how much is it going to cost the average business. To do what they need to do to take advantage of the grant. There's. So. If, if, if we do have a requirement. A matching requirement. And that will make our dollars go further. If the, if the business person can afford that. That match. On the other hand, if they, if they can't, and the $10,000 doesn't do it, then they're not going to be able to take advantage of the program at all. What we don't know is how much these improvements are going to cost. And maybe there is a. Kind of a schedule where you have, if you, if you, if you don't want to take advantage of the program at all, then you're not going to be able to take advantage of the program at all. So that would be kind of a schedule where you have, if you, if you, if we, if we give you 10. That we require a 50% match, which would be another five. We'll, we'll, we'll $15,000. Get the job done, whatever that job might be. It's each, each business is going to have a different challenge when it comes to how they use these, these dollars. And, and so I think that we should be able to, we should be able to take advantage of the program at all. And we'll need to, we should be able to make some progress. And I know it's hard for people to come in without knowing. Kind of some average costs. That that would be able to be. Under the program. The, the facade. Improvements or. Whatever it might be. I mean, I don't have a laundry list of those. Those. Items that would be. Covered under this ground grant program. without knowing how much these projects are gonna cost, I'm a bit of at a bit of a loss. And unless RISO or team, if you have a sense from other communities or from the trades, what these costs might be and what it might actually cover. So I guess I'll leave it there. I'm just not, I don't have the answers to those questions. I just had an idea based on you're not having an answer to those questions or your questions. And that is, you know, one of the things that we could include on this are the city fees because sometimes for building permits, those can be substantial. So we can look at fully covering city, the cost of city fees. So that would be one thing as a starter and then look at, because I think if you, if the tenant improvement would require a building permit, I think there are some fees that are related to the, to the, like a percentage or maybe it might be for engineering. And we can look into this, the percentage of what the actual, the full cost of it's gonna be. So we can look at that. But at the very least, maybe it will cover a hundred percent of your city fees as a base cost. And then a percentage of what the total TIs are expected to cost. It's a little bit more laborious in terms of administering the program, but maybe that's one way to do it. So we know that there is, at least the permits are covered. Well, I'd like, I like the, I like that strategy. We'll know, I would think that in pretty short order, we would start to find out from those that are applying for the grants. And then I like the idea of absorbing, well, we actually, the fees would, we would give and then they would come back or we would kind of deduct the city fees from the amount, from the grant amount. Well, I think we probably would find out in pretty short order, what that $10,000, what will it really cover? How does that advantage someone in getting the job done? And that's really what we want. We want success. So how to attain that success is going to depend on how much we're able to actually provide a business to get the job done. So my thoughts on it, I'm excited to see it. I think this is going to be really neat. Those are two corridors that I think would benefit from something like this. The only concern I have is probably a similar take on what John said, but a little maybe, I don't know if it's different at all. What it is, is that will this program and funding the business or not funding the businesses that most need it? So how are we going to make sure that smaller businesses and businesses that are less hooked up with the city? I know that you guys are great with outreach, but how are we going to make sure that they get some of this? And how are we going to deal with some of the financial hurdles? I mean, the ones that can at least afford to match are probably the ones who most need it. And so can we have some flexibility with smaller businesses or newer businesses? Yes. And I think, specific to this, I think some of the things we're going to have to do in-person outreach. I mean, there is one thing to say, hey, this is available. But I think we've seen consistently with businesses, well, with the community at large, that those who sometimes most need it are the least hooked up. So we do have identified some partners community organizations, but I don't even think that's enough. Rafael tends to be, like, get the most responses when he's actually on the street, going into the businesses and talking to them. And I think we're going to have to figure that point out, like that flexibility, because I think that's one of our largest, as we've been discussing, it's one of our largest concerns, is, like, you know, a match is standard. But right now the people, especially the ARPA money in general, is trying to get to people who have been left out. And it's hard to formalize like an official program with that flexibility. But I think I think we'll, I've heard it. Yeah, we'll keep going. And I think, I think, like you said, Ray, so I think instead of saying or stating a required match, having a sliding scale of how much, how much of their project budget, what percentage can be covered by this grant fund based on a variety of factors. I mean, I think we could establish those criteria and then it's a, you know, a sliding scale to be determined as we're reviewing applications. So, I mean, I do agree that if we say there's a match requirement, that will limit who will be able to participate 100%. So I definitely think that if we can come up with an alternative to that, that will encourage those that need it to get the support. Would there be, I'm sorry, Ray. So would there be a way to implement a user-friendly needs analysis or test? What do you call that? Not a means, there's a, is it a means test or to determine their, it speaks to Victoria's question about making sure that those that need it most have an opportunity. Is there, is there some way to evaluate that without going into their, you know, about having an analysis of their accounting procedure? I mean, I don't know if we have the skills to do that. And I also don't want it to be so complicated that they turn and run screaming in the opposite direction. Yeah, but, you know, the other thing that we can do is, is work more closely with like Hispanic Chamber and the Black Chamber. I mean, I don't think, unfortunately, those organizations have the means, like the financial means to help with matching funds. But, you know, I think they can perhaps most likely help us with some of these issues. And again, the kind of organizations that we're trying to, to involve, you know, probably aren't active participants in some of those organizations. But yeah, I don't know. I don't, I think we can get, because we're struggling with this with a number of the other programs, including childcare, we've got it up to 75%, you know. So we're gonna have to address, you know, potentially a match for it all. I think it's just, how do we write in that, to Tara's point, that sliding scale and then some bubble of forgivability or something like that. Right, and I like Tara's suggestion. I mean, if you can have, it be a percentage of the project total and then, you know, you can add in like, you know, a baseline and I'm just gonna make is that baseline will pay for 70% of the project. But if you're a business under, you know, three years old or a business that has other characteristics that we wanna see or, you know, a diverse business or something like that, then we start to add on percentage points of what we'll cover up to, I don't know, 90 or 95% of the project with a cap or something like that. That might be a real simple way to engage people in the way that we want to without having to get into the details. But I have another concern which I see is actually an opportunity which is around these smaller businesses and newer businesses and frankly exhausted businesses to, you know, trying to envision what they're gonna do with this opportunity and not necessarily having the bandwidth to determine what kinds of projects. I mean, I know if somebody came to me right now and was like, you gotta figure out how to spend $10,000 under these parameters in this amount of time, you better get it done. I'm gonna be like, I'm not sure. You know, I'm gonna be able to do that. But on the flip side, it's an opportunity for you guys to go to the businesses that you consider to be most in need of this kind of improvement and suggest things to them and say, you know, if you wanted to do this or something like this, you know, there are funds available for that. Has that been considered? Like templates or artists that may already be engaged? Yeah, I think for the facade improvement program, they don't have to come up with the project. That's why we're hiring the nonprofits. So it's really a partnership where the city hooks them up with a nonprofit who will come in, look at their site, talk to them about what their needs or desires are in terms of an art component on their site and then the nonprofit will design it and provide the artists and install it and everything. So it's really the tenant improvement component that's up to that business to decide, do they need a new facade awning? Do they need a new sign in front of their business? Do they need, you know, I don't know, roof repairs? Whatever those tenant improvements might be, I'm hoping that there will be businesses who will say, oh, I need to do this, this grant will help me offset those costs and they don't have to come up with a new project. And the last thing that I can think of right now is just that I would hate for, I know you have to write rules and that they need to be approved, but I would hate for the rules to get in the way with ultimate deployment of the funds. And I hope that there's some sort of clause or means by which, you know, under your discretion, if something doesn't fully meet the criteria, but is deemed worthy under your findings that you have the independence to make sure that those funds get into the hands of our business owners. So my question right, I apologize if I missed this. Are the businesses required to own the building? No. I mean, that's generally not, though, you know, we wouldn't reject, I don't think we would reject an application from a building owner, you know, but no. Yeah, what about proof of a lease? Or anything? Yes, so I can answer that, yeah. Yeah, go for it. Okay, so the idea is that it is meant primarily for business owners who are tenants only, though on a case-by-case basis, property owners who are opening a new business and their formerly vacant property may also be considered for eligibility. That's kind of what we started with the framework. And applicants should have a minimum of three years remaining on their lease and provide a letter of approval from the property owner. Okay, that's perfect. Yeah, my biggest concern was just that we would find businesses that needed this type of assistance through the facade improvements and then suddenly the value of the building had gone up and if they don't have a long-term lease, not all property owners would miss that opportunity, right? So I appreciate you thinking about that and building that into the construct. And we also have an issue of timing because we need, every month that we wait to get the program up and running, we have the potential for losing a business. I don't know how much thin ice some of these businesses might be dealing with. And so we need to wherever we can expedite the program to save those, especially that are walking a very thin line to maintain their viability. So we need to get going on it. I know that puts more pressure on staff and to come up with something quickly that's usable, but we do have, time is not our friend right now. Yeah, quite frankly, we're about two years late on this. Cause I do know quite a few businesses that while they were shut down, took that as an opportunity to do the business improvements. And obviously for many of the businesses that we're talking about, that was not financially feasible at the time. But I'm with John, let's go with what's gonna get the money out the door and making an impact in the community. And the good thing is we can continue to do to sort of iterate for better on this. So we'll give it a go. We'll make some of these adjustments and put it out and then adjust again. And then, you know, it is a lot of money and not a lot of money, but we are targeting it. But we did, we can go to the next slide if you want because what we did do is also pull out some of the funds to address some of the emerging issues that we think will continue to address this. And then, Ty, I think you said on the last one, the next steps is we're gonna enter into contracts, but we don't think those contracts will go to council for the facade piece of it. So we'll just continue to do it for that part. I think it'll be a little bit easier than the tenant improvement piece of it. But we captured what you said. And then, Rafael, do you wanna talk about the Mapudito relocation? Yeah, absolutely. So good morning, members of the subcommittee. Good morning, Chair Rogers. Good to see you all. So I don't know if you've had the opportunity to visit the Mapudito over in Roseland. It's right at the side of the old Dollar Tree building. So the funds to relocate merchants, the funds would be destined to relocate merchants, I deal it with room to incubate additional businesses. But before I get to the two bullet points, I need to give you a little background and I need to go back to sort of a few months right after the pandemic. You may recall, we came and reported on this project. And it was at the, right after the start of the pandemic, as I said, our Roseland's business engagement team worked closely with the County's Environmental Health and Safety and the County CDC to help facilitate the reuse of the Roseland Village and the former Dollar Tree store building. The city also granted a use permit for the Dollar Tree building to be reoccupied by these retail vendors who would otherwise be out in the parking lot at the Roseland Village or perhaps other locations. Our team worked to have many of these vendors obtain their business licenses and to register their operation. And then once they were allowed to be inside the Dollar Tree store, this was through an agreement with the anchor tenant, Octavio Diaz who's the operator for the Mitote Food Park. They actually discovered great success and the ability to, and ways to effectively work with each other. There were a total of 19 at the time. And even throughout the pandemic, even though the pandemic posed many challenges for them, their small businesses have been able to thrive inside this store. And an example of this great success has been by a lady by the name of Margarita Garcia of Arte Mexicana who is now just open a small boutique shop at the Santa Rosa Mall. So she has the store, the retail shop at the Old Dollar Tree and now she's opened up at the mall with the intentions of expanding. So great success there. However, they all knew all along that this was a temporary solution. The group has been giving notice to vacate due to the upcoming schedule, the demolition of the Dollar Tree building to give way for the mid-payment apartment complex which I think is set to begin at the beginning of next year. So the group of vendors reach out to our team just recently for some guidance and assistance in terms of finding a new location in the Rosin area. So you can imagine that also poses some challenges. The area is saturated with tons of businesses, food trucks, lots of people, lots of activities and so on. So they feel, but they also feel that the group is important for the group to stay together and they have realized what an important business model this is, not just for themselves, but for the city. So our team with the assistance of our vice mayor, our director of economic development, of course, Raisa de la Rosa, we've been actively speaking to other property owners that may know of vacant buildings or warehouses in the along the Sebastopol Road corridor. So far, we have come up with some leads. So we are entertaining some discussions and we're also speaking, this is also another important element of this whole project. We're also speaking to some community partners that could potentially become the physical sponsor for this group and eventually represent them because what we're learning is that once we're speaking to some potential property owner, they wanna know that they're dealing with just one group, one individual and then necessarily a group of 12, 13 individuals. The group is also committed to forming as an association and therefore establish credit and so on membership, but that will come later, but we're also assisting in that endeavor. So the intention is to set aside to address tenant improvements and potential lease needs and to seek this physical sponsor slash community partner such as perhaps the Hispanic Chamber, Crescent Capital, Community Action Partnership and a few others. So the proposed budget is between $100,000 to $250,000 and just wanted to see what your thoughts were on that. So again, this is just taking on because we recognize the current opportunity. I think Rafael said they have till April at this point, there are a lot of discussions happening of this a lot and we're really running into difficulty trying to find them a place in Roseland and so we're trying to figure out what the implications would be to move them if we have to look outside of the Roseland, the Sebastian area corridor. And this triggers like a number of other things for us, which is displacement as we do developments, what's available, et cetera, like who's getting the opportunity to be there within that corridor where they sort of were, the businesses were formed. So I think. Yeah, I'll just jump in. It's a really ideal site where they are now. It's too bad and I'm really glad that you're working actively to prevent the total displacement of this valued business asset. So the money would go to maybe perhaps securing a lease or forming an association or what kinds of, in what ways would it be deployed that we could look back and say, we're helpful in preventing the displacement? Well, Rafael, you can jump in here as we want, but we've been talking about what that might look like and originally it was specifically tenant improvements because like if you look at what they had to do within the old Dollar Tree, they did it without building permits because it was within six months and they didn't change and they didn't do any physical changes to it. So we were really able to do it. The kinds of places that we're looking at would probably need some large tenant improvements in order to fit the spaces or to change it to accommodate it. So that was one part of it, the other part, as we're looking at it, it's a group of people who are losing the one business that's holding it. So like they pay the rent for it, but it's through one person with the insurance et cetera covered in that way. So we're also looking at those needs, like for one year if we can, and we'd have to work with an nonprofit because I know the city doesn't want to hold a lease, but could we work with the Hispanic Chamber or Crescer as Rafael said, to sort of be that agent and then fund through that organization. So we're really open and we know we have probably till this summer to figure it out. So it won't necessarily affect the two years in which we have to expend the funds. We can divert it if we're not successful, but we're trying to throw as much as we can into it to be successful. Okay, thank you. And I had to just throw this out. The other thing that we want is not just to help these businesses, but to make it an incubator. So there's one thing to move, the businesses that are there now, there's another to make it open and available to others. And that's another kind of thing that we struggle with. Yeah, I don't think we can emphasize enough what a success this has been and how important it is for our community, but also to keep it if we can in Roseland on a high traffic strip. Because I think that you've highlighted a few of the things that work. And one is the business model and then having the support of the other vendors and then on top of that being in a really high traffic area where people can come and get a quick bite and look around. And so, I really do have major concerns that if you take the business out of that area or change the condition significantly that we may lose some aspects of it. So thank you for your efforts. Yeah, but if we can't, there's not a lot there. We're running out of facility options. I know. Rafael, have you or Raesar, whomever had a conversation with a landlord that could stretch out the tenant improvements by, with the rent? Because there's all sorts of creative ways to deal with tenant improvements. I mean, sometimes the landlord can do it all, but the tenants are ultimately gonna pay for it because their rent is gonna be per square foot is gonna go up because the landlord did all the TI. So have your conversations gotten to the level of that kind of specificity where you're actually talking about a strategy and how the associations might spread out the payments of the tenant improvements to make a particular property more interesting to them or viable? Because it would be to leave Roseland. Not only does it kind of put a knife in the heart of that community because of the nature of this business, but what is plan B? I mean, if there's no space, then there's no space. And it's unfortunate, and you don't wanna be moving a business around because people will lose track of it. If it were to go downtown, for instance, I'm just gonna throw it out there. And then a business became available in Roseland now there, and then they would like to go back. It does complicate things quite a bit. Have you been able to have conversations with enough landlords in Roseland to know that there might be something like right on the horizon where this particular business for one reason or another was going to be closing their doors? And so we would like you to know that we have a business looking for a space. Has your outreach become gone to that level? Well, we're hoping to have this conversation with the owner at the property of 330 Sebastopol Road. There's just been a lot of leaving the phone messages and going back and forth and setting up a time to actually explain a little bit more in detail. So we hope to get there with this one particular, this property owner, and we're gonna have to circle back with another owner at 1733, which is a perfect site. We don't wanna give the specifics of the addresses. I mean, really what we're doing is working, we have a local realtor who's from the area who knows the owners and is a commercial broker as well. And so Rafael's identified a number of properties that are either vacant or look like they have some capacity includes warehouses. So we haven't gotten into the specific level of detail that you're talking about because it's, I mean, I should say we have, but it depends on the site we're looking at. So we are in deep with the realtor who's helping us find spaces and then each individual space depending on the property owner, that becomes a negotiation. We've also even looked at the possibility of working again with Preser. I mean, these are simultaneous ongoing conversations, but that's a community funding organization, right? So at the possibility of purchasing through them as site that much. So like everything is on the table with a very, very short period of time. And again, I have to give huge kudos to Rafael because he's literally walking and identifying and then personally going out in person to seek the owner managers of these properties and they're very uniquely different. So we're even looking at the possibility of an underutilized space. What would it take to find a better space to move like a warehouse full of files that they need to keep going by the better space and then help pay for that? I mean, we're going deep. And then another idea that Kara had is, perhaps there's a shipping container village, but we need a site for that as well. I mean, everything's on the table with the priority of keeping them in Roseland. Secor, did you have something that you wanted to add? Okay, I'll just pop that. So it's a complicated thing. So we just want to, on this one, I particularly wanted to keep you appraised at what we're doing. Another part of the conversation is working with the CDC to see if that's the actual, April is the drop dead deadline or can we expand it a little bit to have a little bit of grace and space in order to find another location? I was going to ask about that because it seems a little, I mean, I don't know what it's like to build out an entire neighborhood, if you will, mid-pen and they do what they do, what kind of flexibility might they have. I'm glad you're pursuing a little bit as much of an extension as possible and to say that they need to be out by April to start, did you say the first shovels in the ground in next year? Yeah. Okay, I mean, to my mind, that sounds premature, but I don't know what they have to do to get ready for a project of that size. Yeah, and there's definitely phasing, but yeah. Yeah. Okay, so let's go on to the last thing because this was the last portion, which is in response to current issues that we saw opportunity around with the tenant improvement, the small business funds. So, Tara, do you want to take this one as well? Sure, so these, this is the parklet program that will be coming before council soon. We are looking at using some of the ARPA funds for grants to offset the costs of the year one fees of the parklet program. The proposal would be to have 50 to 75% of total fees for the year of the initial year covered by the grant determined by design elements that could include public art. So again, it would be a sliding scale, a certain percentage of total fees covered by the grant determined by certain components or design elements like public art. The public art program would be involved with this one as well and would contract with artists to design artwork and to install for participating projects. So again, emerging need that we've identified that could also benefit from some structured grant funds as well as a public art program component. So happy to answer any questions about it. Essentially the goal of the parklet in general, which we feel is in alignment with the kind of goals here would be to broaden the potential for the public right of way and create vitality and activity in commercial districts and residential centers. So happy to answer any questions or any feedback. And just real quickly, we're anticipating going back to council in mid April, I think, or in April in general for the next phase of the parking program. So again, this is a little bit tied to that. I'll jump in on to say that I've been a big fan of the parklet program. And I know that the public has as well. So I know that there's two kind of components of this discussion. It's coming back to council. We've got to figure that out. And then also the objective standards and adding art and adding the visual appeal, particularly as people are kind of more out and about and as we go into the spring and summertime. So I'm a big fan and I appreciate the thought that's going into it. Yeah, I agree. And one of the things that popped into my mind when I see those beautiful projects that are in place, I'm not sure where that is, where those two examples that you showed us, the first thing that I think of is, it's the dark cloud of vandalism. And which brings me to security, which brings me to cameras, which brings me to how we might want to have both of those programs in place potentially to minimize, if not, probably if not eliminate, damage to these parklet designs that from the ones I saw could easily lend themselves to some kind of vandalism. And at the same time be expensive to repair, but the kind of energy that they would create regardless of the dark cloud, I think is great. I agree with Chris that this is something that could really revitalize and help them get through that first year, because from what I can tell, regardless of the need for to have these fees, placed on the business owners, they are not small. And you take the permitting and all of the fees that we have seen and add that to maintenance of these parklets, which probably is not cheap. It starts to chip away at the viability of having, our merchants decide to, our restaurants decide to participate. So I just think any way we can come up with a way to help protect these investments, which is really what it is, then I would be interested in having that conversation. I know that the downtown subcommittee is talking about security and cameras, et cetera. Maybe as we move forward with the parklet program, we need to expedite that other conversation so that we can give the merchants a little higher sense of our level of security potentially to mitigate what we could almost bet on happening. On the plus side to turn your frown upside down. Thank you. In years of parklets in cities that have even bigger issues than we do Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento, but also even regionally in Petaluma, they have some really pretty parklets that meet the standards of what we would be looking to do, which are flush with the sidewalk and have artistic elements. And even in those in the last year and a half or a year or so that those have been built have not had big problems like to where their, whether any destruction or anything like that has been an issue. And then in San Francisco and Oakland, in particular, their public parklets. So any member of the public can be in them. And there isn't a ton of, I mean, it has not, that issue has not risen to the critical point to where it's affecting the programs. Excellent, I'm glad to hear that. Thank you. You know, Raiisa, you and your team have really accomplished something in short order that has been a longstanding desire of many business owners and the council. So I think before we get into like, what could be better? I think you ought to take like a victory lap and all the folks in the building and the fire departments who make this happen. You know, it's amazing what can happen quickly when there's great people doing great work. So I'm really impressed with your team. And what I did want to talk about a little bit is one of the things that I think is the other dark cloud of these, which is some of them are just, have these, the temporary structures, the tents, which in my mind is probably a more common problem than vandalism is just blight. And so it'd be really interesting to see if we could either remove fees or conditioned funding on more durable and less flimsy aspects that make these much more attractive. I think that's really the element that stands out to me is the thing that differentiates the ones that look nice from the ones that don't. That in art would be the use of durable and not using temporary parts. I think when we're using things like tents, it really just lends itself to looking pretty run down really fast. I'd be interested to hear your opinion on that. Oh, well, that is 100% the reason why we were trying to get to a permanent program because it's not only that. I mean, those were really set up by volunteers specifically and very quickly in response to the health requirements of shutting down the inside. So they are not meant to be permanent and they are starting to feel run down permanent and we are looking to shift that. So when we finally bring a permanent program or an extension or some kind of modification in the current program to counsel included in that will be a six-month leeway for those businesses that want to keep them to become ADA compliant at the very least. We don't have design standards built into it because we don't have a quick pathway that wouldn't add substantial costs to it but we do have or we will be recommending within the program. You can't use picket fencing. You can't use pallets. There are requirements about awning material and so we're looking to elevate through the next phase of this program, some of those issues that 100% has to be taken away and what exists right now. Awesome, thank you. Yeah. And I think the other piece of this that is really critical, this all elements of these, we can pivot quickly with them if we're seeing that either one, the delay maybe in parklets is too long and we need to get the funds out. So it's 100% we're able to pivot and put it back into the program of the facade and tenant improvements. Okay, good to know. I like that. You know, even though we didn't handle it the other day the item was pulled, the staff report and the presentation did a pretty darn good job of articulating some of the very issues you're talking about, Victoria. They took a heavy look at kind of the blight issue and those temporary tents. And though they understand that it's not going to happen overnight, it appeared that they tackled most of those kinds of issues which was good. I mean, it was expensive. I mean, that is a concern of mine are the fees and how many people will actually be able to take advantage of it. But we're kind of, I think we're kind of stuck with some of these fees that because of the parking that we're taking away, et cetera, other reasons. But it looks like a pretty comprehensive program. I think that, you know, ultimately when we do see it, I think most people will be pleased by the kind of the changes that have appeared now to be necessary. Yeah, no, you're right. That's good stuff in it. Hopefully it will come for council really soon. Yeah. So we can move on to the next slide which is totally different program. And, you know, as always, you can continue to give us additional feedback on any one of these. So this is now the, we're gonna go into the child care support program pieces of it. So I think for the ARPA portion of the child care facility fund which are grants only, there's not too much new to tell you because I think that, you know, the foundation of the program has been brewing since we received the original $2 million from the general funds that established the child care support program. So for this, I believe we're scheduled on the consent calendar to bring the professional services agreement with first five who's gonna be the administrator of the programs. I think we're set to come to council on April 12th. And that agreement with first five includes three elements and one is the $2.9 million facility fund grants which you see here, which we'll talk about as well as the remaining $1.4 million for the zero interest facility loans that are the general fund portion of the facility grant program. And then the other part of the contract that we're bringing is the administration of the child savings account but I'll talk about that in the next slide. So for this specifically, providers have the opportunity to apply for really anything that is facility related indoor and outdoor so long as it is to build or enhance an environment to create or increase program quality to promote optimal learning outcomes. So we set it up so that the grants can cover up to 75% of the total project costs though priority points will be given to facilities that focus on infant or at least have some portion of the program that is infant and toddler oriented because that's where we see the highest needs. And then in terms of eligibility we're prioritizing some organizations over the other but it's basically local education agencies 501C3 nonprofit organizations that operate state or federal subsidized programs like Head Start also private childcare and preschool operators but we want them to have at this point at least 50% of enrolled children I should say that the childcare provider accepts AP vouchers on needs-based scholarships for at least 50% of the kids in the program. So that's how we're kind of hitting that QCT mark and that's gonna be the first run out the gate but in terms of the qualified census tracts thing that's part of our requirement again while we have facility, sorry, extra points for facilities that provide certain needs or needs or in targets and we're not doing it as a location-based grant. So it opens it up anywhere. We do have some providers, some new facilities, roundup facilities that are waiting for us to finalize the agreement and to get this portion of the fund out. So we know we have at least three facilities or three developers who have a portion of their facility that's gonna be dedicated to childcare and so those providers are interested in waiting these funds. So if you have any questions on this one, that's it. Yeah, right. So I asked this when we were doing it from the dais and talked about ARPA what level of coordination is going on between the city and 4Cs on that program? Well, on this one, so 4Cs we've had conversations with them but this is really a facility, grants of 4Cs would be a recipient. So they're informing what the, or could be a recipient because they're a service provider, they're informing what the grant would be. I think the question for 4Cs was more related, like I think they had a lot of questions or concerns about a different program that didn't get funding, but for this one they're 100% eligible and informing what the grant looks like. Yeah, I think it was for both because aren't they mostly also conveners? I think don't they have the state designation for convening child service providers? So wouldn't they be one of the people that we would talk to in terms of what individual providers need access to the tenant improvements or need access to the program funding? Yeah, so they're, I forget, Melanie Dotson sits on my one, it's like a leadership advisory subcommittee or something of the first five program. So she is doing that, she is participating. We are not doing a second contract with 4Cs, to duplicate the program out of both things that we're just consolidating it through first five. So I'm not sure if I'm understanding the question exactly where I was going. Yeah, I would ask that you talk with 4Cs because my under, yeah, just make sure because my understanding is that they would not be applying for the money, they are the convener. They are the designated convener of service providers from the state. So they would be the ones who would be working with the individual childcare facilities to say you have access to this type of money, here's how you can apply. I don't think it would be them as an organization that would be applying for the money directly. I think they would be linking us up to the businesses that would take advantage of it. So that's, and I know that there's kind of this quasi, first five I know also convenes programs, but they're the designated one for our county related to childcare services by the state. So that's why I just wanna make sure that they're fully in the loop and that we don't have any miscommunications about who's doing what. Because as I understand it, they'll bring in the people that we would be working with with the funding. Yeah, I did meet with Melanie, it was a great meeting. They are just an amazing organization. So shout out to 4Cs, but I will circle back with her and then also with her and Angie to make sure that if we miss some piece of that within this grant to be able to fund organizations who then would have additional access to providers, we'll make sure that that's part of this. Yeah, I appreciate that, thank you. Yeah, yeah. If you don't have any questions on that, we can go to the next one, which is also part of that first five contract. And that I think is, yes, the child savings account and this is why I have Sakura on because although we're sort of managing it through economic development, Sakura was part and parcel during the budgeting process and helping to figure out some of the components of some of these. So, Sakura, I can either hand it over to you or I can give the high level view of it, but we have a couple of four questions specific to this and the use of the funds. Do you wanna present Sakura, do you want me to? You can go ahead and then I'll chime in. Okay, so the child savings account is an existing program that we are, that's run through first five that we are seeking to leverage. So they can administer it, but our core question oh, and the crux of the child savings account is that at base, the program gives 200 dollars to every eligible child. And then from their family's participating in it can get additional funds by doing certain things. So they're incentivized to take classes and participate in other support programs that add incrementally up to $300 to the initial $200 deposit. And then of course they can add to the savings account on their own. So the funds are then held in trust for that child and then are available for withdrawal after the child graduates from high school. And then like any other 529 program can be used in multiple ways towards the education of that child. And so our core question specific to this is do we want to for those children who reside within the city limits of Santa Rosa that have existing accounts, do we want to increase those, match the funds or do we want to expand the program and do $200 base for a number of additional children? And so I think that is, we can also do a combination of the both but that's the core question on this is who do we want to target it to? Is it new expanding the program or existing doubling up what the existing kids get? Can I ask you? Okay. Sorry. Which is, do we have data? I mean, I know a lot of this is about collecting data and being able to demonstrate that these things work in them. Well, for that, but do we have data that led us to these dollar figures or do, are we just throwing something out there? Which is not, but no criticism here. It just gonna inform my next question in terms of $200, is there logic behind it? Or is it just what we have? I think we're going off of the infrastructure already established because the state is taking on this same kind of mechanism to drive more and allow more families to get students to college. And so we're following the model that has been established assuming, quite frankly, your question council member Fleming that they have done some research and feel this is kind of a threshold point for these types of investments at this age. Okay. And is there similar logic behind the ages two to five? So the goal, one of the co-goals of this whole thing besides the economic development of this fiscal resource is to shift trajectories within the family. So capturing that age before they enter the K-12 public school system to really allow families to grow an opportunity and choices throughout the system. That's why they target that age range. Some places do go as low as birth. I mean, there is some that goes lower. I think this is just kind of like a capture plan to get as many families as possible because of course the broader the opportunity perhaps the fewer the families that can participate. So I think it's just narrowing down kind of where will we begin in Sonoma County? Dan, it's a great age in terms of, you can start in really simple terms to explain to a child that you're gonna be starting school now you're hopefully already in preschool or daycare and that there's support for you to continue on. In terms of expanding or adding to it that's a really difficult question because of course you wanna make it be that it's enough that it really feels like an incentive. And I love the idea of getting parents into classes but there's one concern that I had that I think could maybe be part of an answer which is, let's say I've got a six year old daughter and a three year old son. So he gets money and I say to my daughter, too bad, you can go work at whatever job you can figure out but your baby brother gets to go to college. And so if we were to expand I would consider expanding for school age children maybe up to a certain grade in the same family because that just to me, I can only imagine I have a brother who's three years younger than me and that would have been so upset if he had had an opportunity that I didn't have. I know any of us who have a sibling out there can just imagine what could go wrong. So that might be my suggestion of how to proceed. And then that way you're investing more in the families that need it. More families, that's a great point. Yeah, I guess one of my feedback and it's a little bit of a, it's a little bit of a nitpicky one is I'd like to see the program branded with Santa Rosa on it and I know that the partnership is through first five but this really is the city of Santa Rosa investing in the city of Santa Rosa. And I'd like to continue to push other jurisdictions to do the same thing, Leonard Park, Petaluma, Sonoma, Sebastopol, right? But when people just see Sonoma County first five, first five futures, it really does ignore that Santa Rosa is stepping out and making this investment in our own community. And so I just, it's nitpicky. I know I get it. It's all for the good of families but I think it really does need to reflect that this is the city of Santa Rosa making an investment in our disadvantaged communities. I think that's an important message and it's so noted. And I just couldn't agree more with you, Chris and especially around like community engagement if people feel like we're engaging with them and by funding their children's futures, we have a whole different trajectory with our residents. Yeah. To me, it says the city cares, right? Absolutely. The city cares to change the trajectory for kids. Absolutely. We are able to do that. And I think we modeled it a little bit with the original grants that we popped into the resiliency fund. That was definitely branded with Santa Rosa. So a hundred percent, I love that. Yeah. Any other thoughts? Anything? Oh, you've covered it. And I love that last part as well. Both Victoria's and your comments are well taken. I think they're both really, really important things to consider and it sounds like very doable. So yeah, good job. Yeah. Very smart. So similarly, then I'm gonna go straight into Guarantee Basic Incomes. I don't have a slide on this, but it's some of the same issues. What's interesting about this one is we don't have an existing program, but we do have a number of other cities who are kind of trying to follow suit and are at different stages of development of the Guarantee Basic Income program. We have been meeting consistently with Human Services Department to try to figure out the elements and details of this through their ARPA program because we're trying to align it similarly, but their ARPA funding is not on the same timeline as ours and they're following a very different model. And so that's affecting what we're going to do. And I'm looking to try to streamline it to go a little bit faster while acknowledging what the county is trying to do. And that's kind of similar to what I think Healdsburg and Petaluma potentially, they're starting to talk about it as well, what they're gonna do. So originally we were looking to contract with Human Services Department with the county to administer the funds. The county has, or HSD has subsequently come out and said that they have a role, but they should not be the lead role. And so the questions that they're grappling with now is if they're not the lead role and these cities are rolling it out independently, how do we do a county-wide kind of program? How do we leverage each other without having separate payments and processes and et cetera? And then how do we also work together to get additional funding from the state? Oh, Sonoma I think is also looking at this. So like all of the cities are looking at it. So at this point HSD is having first five submit the application to the county for the ARPA funds. So what we're looking at now is contracting again with first five for the administration of the city's portion of the guaranteed basic income because they can distribute it and then they have the county-wide coordination element of it. There's three parts that we've been discussing. One is at the administration of it, tracking compliance, return to source is a big one for all of us and federal reporting, not just from them, but also the city's requirement of federal reporting. The county is looking at sending aside additional funds because it is pretty laborious for this one. Setting aside additional funds to pay for that portion regardless of who's running it. So like in Healdsburg, it's Corazon Healdsburg in Santa Rosa it might be first five in Petaluma. I don't remember the name of the organization that's looking at it, but county funds would help pay for the administration and the coordination on that. And the second piece of it is evaluation. So the county was also looking at, I think this is gonna be built into the application from first five to the county at data tracking. They are looking at hiring an external evaluator from the outset so that we can monitor this and then be better positioned in the near future to get additional state funds potentially. And then, yeah, so that was it. I mean, because there's big discussion about who's gonna be the main liaison coordinator amongst all these programs, both incorporated cities and unincorporated. And then the last piece of it obviously is the program itself. So for us, again, it's looking like it's probably gonna be first five, which is gonna be an easier contract. But we are looking at working with Corazon. I think that they've done a lot of research at this point on what the amount for family amount is. And they were looking at $500 a month per family, regardless of the number of kids. And so in Healdsburg, it would be 50 families for two years. For us, it would be an into the math, but some similar amount. And then the county has begun to acknowledge that we would get additional funds, proportional to the size of the number of kids or families that we have that will qualify for this. So that's where we are now. There's still work to be done. We're trying to get something to the point in April or May so that we can, our goal was to launch something by July 1st, and then to have those funds obligated but giving through two years of those funds. Okay. And then just briefly, my comments on the previous one kind of stand across all of our ARPA things, right? I want to make sure people know Santa Rosa investing in Santa Rosa. The other, and just making sure as regardless of who the service provider is for the guaranteed basic income that the data and the reports still come back to the city of Santa Rosa for discussion, right? So even if it's first five, I know first five has its own board, they can do their own discussions about administration and the results of the program. But I want us to also have whoever the service provider is accountable to the city council in making those reports and letting us talk about the data. 100%. So I did write into the contract that right now that's coming to you for the everything except for guaranteed basic income that they are required to follow the ARPA, the federal reporting requirements and that those come back to us. So it is written into the contract at this point. Excellent. Thank you. That was it. Those are all our programs. I think the process of them to understand it correctly is because the funds have been, council has seen and awarded and acted on the funds. At this point, I think it's just the program that contracts would go to council on consent and details of the programs themselves would come back just as we've done today to say, yeah, this is what we wanted. And so I think it only goes to the economic development separately. Okay. Any other questions or comments? John or Victoria? No, good job team. No, I'm really looking forward to seeing these dollars get in the hands of families. I think it's gonna be really exciting. Probably stabilizing is what it's gonna be, but in my head, there's gonna be fireworks. Yeah, that's what we're going for. Great. Okay, we have one more item I think on the agenda. Yeah, let's go to public comment first on 3.1 here. I said we have at least, we've got a couple of hands. Yes. Let me go ahead and pull up the screen. And the first individual will be Mr. Eric Frazier. Mr. Frazier, if you could confirm your ability to see the screen and introduce yourself with two searches. Yeah, thank you. And I can appreciate the work that's gone into these programs. And I'd like to say that I'd like to be proud of Santa Rosa, but there's a number of things that I'm not hearing. I'm not hearing really sound research, and I'm certainly not hearing about any metrics in performance. That really concerns me quite frankly. I know that the people that are assembled in this committee love to spend money. It's easy to do, but I don't really see where that's going to contribute to success without metrics. The programs that were raised range in value, in my opinion, I'm not sure if some of the spend is really just sort of dedicated to our undocumented neighbors. Not that I have anything against people that are here and undocumented or anything like that, but I'm wondering what that impact is going to be. And how that's going to be perceived. The programs that you have that are really dedicated towards business, including the facade grant program or whatever, truly is half-baked. I mean, truly, you guys think you're in a position to roll into small businesses and tell them what their needs are? I mean, truly. Oh my goodness. And of course, that type of money is just sort of peed away. It's nothing that's really going to stick. It'll have some impact. It'll look beautiful and certainly you'll shield to the voters. And so as you're pandering for votes, I'm sure it'll play well, but as far as a why spend the money, it's pretty vapid. The Parklet program is even worse. You threw business under the boss with the fees that you wanted to charge and now you guys don't even realize that the Parklets aren't being used. Not only are they dilapidated, but you walk around, businesses aren't using those Parklets anymore. And now you're encouraging more of a permanent installation, putting people in harm's way. I think that's a really, really half-baked. And just for clarification, the Parklets that you saw in the presentation are somewhere online. They're not representative of what's going here in Santa Rosa. And all this money spent, you're not even addressing the core things. Like for instance, certainly a council member of Flaming Remembers where a fine proposal went forward where there's a cost share program to get our sidewalks fixed. From you guys, crickets. You don't really care about the homeowners and historic districts. In fact, your latest actions with the short-term rentals indicate you really don't care about people that own property at all. You just wanna beat up on them and make yourself look good with all this money. I think voters are gonna see through that. It's unfortunate, but go ahead and brand it because it sounds like a lot of quagmires. Thank you. Thanks, Eric. We'll go on the gig. Mr. Highfowler, I'm sorry, Greg, if you would give her your ability to see the screen. Yes, I see the screen. Thank you. Okay, so I'd like to comment on the tenant improvement grants. So I think it's a good idea. And I just wanna point out that there's really a very big difference between the business owners and the property owners and what they get out of it. And so the business owner obviously is like looking at it as a marketing thing to bring more people being attractive, but the building owner has to look at the future of the building. And so I'm not sure how the grant exactly works, whether an owner can apply or only the, I mean, a building owner landlord can apply or only the business owner can apply. But I know you said that they have to have a letter to go with it. But I would think a building owner may have more than one tenant and may like the idea of improving the facade, but they're different businesses. And so they wanna be the applicant. So I'm not sure if that's a flexibility in the program or not. But the main thing I wanted to mention was that in terms, you mentioned priority points. So I'm assuming the grant is competitive and there isn't enough money for everybody who applies to be funded. So they're gonna be evaluated and some are gonna get it and some aren't. So that's where the priority points come in. And I would suggest that you include priority points if the business owner lives in Santa Rosa rather than being a corporation or living in another state or something or whatever. So if a business owner is applying and lives in Santa Rosa, they should get priority points. Same thing with the building owner. If the building owner lives in Santa Rosa, that should be a priority point. And rather than a corporation or some or out of state owners. So yeah, so just for the economic development, if the business owner and the building owner live in Santa Rosa, this should be a high priority funding. So that's my suggestion. Thank you. Thanks, we've got Ananda. If you would go ahead and confirm your ability to see the screen. I can, thank you. Hello, Ananda Sweet with the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber. I'll be brief. I just wanna take a moment to thank you. I thank the council and staff for really their hard work on you looking at economic development initiatives that are really critical to both our economic recovery and our long-term economic success in Santa Rosa. So from sort of re-envisioning what the downtown looks like and how parklets can be made into more permanent status and really that vision for a thriving downtown. And that's a critical piece of it to your willingness to make some like serious investments that through an upstream investment lens. It's something that's a no-brainer to do. We have all the data in the world from replicable studies from multiple economists, Nobel Prize-winning economists. So we know exactly what the formula is. And I know that staff took a real great data-driven evidence-based approach to look at some of those programs and where to get the most for those Santa Rosa funds. But while it's a no-brainer not every community has done that. So I'm just grateful that Santa Rosa has been a leader in this space. It's going to make a huge difference. And again, some that we'll see really quickly as a current workforce issue and lack of access to childcare and some that won't come to us until you wait on the road after none of you are in office. So I really appreciate that sort of broad economic impact lens and your willingness to take it on. Thank you, Ananda. I don't see any other hands. Go ahead and bring it back. I was just going to confirm there are no additional hands when we set this time. Excellent. Let's go on to 3.2. But again, for folks, remember that 3.3 has been pulled for the day. Hi, I'm Tara Thompson. Back to present an exciting preview of a revised and reimagined out there Santa Rosa website which will be launching very soon. So this is a sneak peek. They're like the first ones to get a glance. So at Rice and I've been working with new consultants here in Santa Rosa to really relook at out there Santa Rosa or branding or your kind of destination marketing and local pride campaign approach. And so I'm going to share my screen to give you a little bit of a sense of what we are working on here. So one of the biggest components of this new site is a map of Santa Rosa. So we've worked with an artist to hand draw this map. It's not finished yet. This is a draft, but this is the idea and the direction that we're going, which includes some little surprises, hidden Easter eggs, some iconic buildings or other landmarks that really identify Santa Rosa as out there. So the site has several sections which are really supposed to all be all immersive, all connected as well. They all have their own look and feel. There's art, music, eat, drink, active, wildcard and you can also search by the neighborhood. And we're really looking at this as an insider's guide to what's out there in Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa is the urban center of Sonoma County and we've asked locals to really talk about what are their hidden favorite unique surprises or places they like to visit here in Santa Rosa. So I'll pick one of these categories, walk you through just a few of the listings. Essentially, it's a place where you can explore but also get connected to artists. Here are some examples. For instance, 33 Arts, click on it, it shows you what it is. It's sorted by neighborhood. Southwest links you to their connect, how it allows you to connect directly with that entity. It includes a quote from an insider who we've talked to about all of these places. And then you can keep exploring through that page or you can go back to the mean arts page and keep exploring. So let me see, if we go to wildcard for instance, we've got things like pop-up events, circus, safari west, the sky's the limit, taco, Tuesday rides, the Mercadito. So there's a lot to explore here and it's super exciting. We've also added a feature that allows you to sort by BIPOC owned, LGBTQI owned and women owned and you can also search by neighborhood. So let's see, Rosalind for instance. And then it's, so if you're visiting and you're gonna be visiting an area and you wanna go to see what's interesting in that area, you can sort by that neighborhood. But we're really trying to get the insiders, the people who live here who run these markets to share with us what's special about their place and what makes it out there to be included on this site. So Risa, if you wanna add anything, go ahead. I just wanted to give a little bit of preview of what we've been working on here. Yeah, so we decided that we really, we were so mimicked I should say. I mean, I guess that what is that when people do what you're doing is the best form of battery except that it became really kind of annoying that it wasn't differentiating us as the big city, the fifth largest city in the Bay Area, the largest city by far in Sonoma County. And so we're going with a totally different look and feel and we're redoing it in terms of as Tara said, really getting not just a curated thing, but it's really locals participating in local. So this is funded out of tourism. So it's geared towards, originally towards Destination Brand, but it is fundamental in our marketing for businesses, new businesses workforce because as I've said before, what we attract here is small businesses. We attract a type of person who will move their business here and then grow their business here if they're coming from the outside or want to stay here. And this is how we express to people interested in understanding what Santa Rosa is, who we are. And it is very different from Petaluma who as you may recall, sort of mirrored what our branding was to our previous out there site. The other thing is we are looking for hidden gems or things that people don't understand. And you'll see on the backs, the underlying graphic, we have ways throughout this thing that sort of reiterate where you are, what you are, what category you're in, so that it sort of cross connects. But again, gives us that sort of more cutting urban edge that we were looking for to differentiate ourselves. And lastly, this is really used for broadly, even the folks in Petaluma tell me that they generally send folks to our out there site when they're talking with businesses for them to understand what's here in the area. So yeah, this is where we are. We hope to launch it, I think in the next month, did you say, sorry, yeah. Yeah, I think we're looking at April, early April. Yeah, very close. So yeah, that's your little sneak peek. Oh, and last thing, that BIPOC woman LGBTQ, that was part of the initial initiatives through, what's it called, through some of the things that we heard back through a strat planning process is we need to highlight and identify and highlight some of our minority business groups that have received less, have sort of less access, I guess. So we did decide to highlight those. Excellent. Don, Victoria. Great job. Could you go back to the map for me? I mean, there's all sorts of directions someone could go and looking at this presentation. And so it's really exciting. I love the fact that it's so urban. The one thing that I noticed there's this really nice space right next to Bennett Valley that might include a golfer, but that's just because that's kind of my life right now. So that's why I don't think there's a golfer guy there or a golfer woman or whatever, a golfer. But it might be easy to throw somebody in there with a golf club. So I, oh, go on. Does Chris wanna make a quip about golfing? No, I was trying to read who's cat lives here. Oh yeah. You know what's amazing is how people are so drawn in, especially to the butt snow shirts that you guys have with the SR out there. My daughter, every time I put one on, you know, she like grabs my shirt and like goes in and I'm always embarrassed that I don't have all the answers of what all the things are on it. But people just love that. I did have one kind of like John just, you know, I think we're all just drawn to and the neighborhoods that we live in, which is North Town. Where is North Town? I mean, I have a feeling I represent it, but I've never heard of anything in my district called North Town. I haven't either. Yeah. I was like, maybe I'll just ask her offline so I don't embarrass myself. No, it's okay. I mean, to be honest, it was a fascinating exercise to research neighborhoods in Santa Rosa and to figure out what you call places that really don't have an agreed upon established name or even geographical areas. So, I mean, we all kind of accept there's the quadrants North East, Northwest, Southeast, Southwest divided up by our freeways. But then, and then you've got Rosalind, you've got South Park, you've got downtown, Midtown. But then what's that area? Like there's a variety of residential neighborhoods north of downtown. What is that in its entirety, you know, all the way up to like essentially the bottom of Fountain Grove. So that's, I mean, I consider, yeah, sorry to cut you off. I thought that that was the junior college neighborhood and we have an association, the Junior College Neighborhood Association. Is that different from Northtown? It's a, I would consider it to be a part of Northtown. We did not call out all residential neighborhoods on this map. Right, yeah. Okay. Yeah, so we kind of, we were trying to find larger geographic areas to lump together and what would you call those things? So that's kind of, it was not an exact science. It was definitely a work in progress to kind of figure out how we can provide a layer of direction and kind of knowing where you are without naming every single neighborhood. Okay. Well, I love it. I would love to see the JC neighborhood noted, but your point is well taken. I understand, thank you. Yeah, no, I'm looking forward to being able to put this up on social media, just to see what people think. So let us know when we can, that it will absolutely spur discussion and place making. And perhaps if we had done this a little bit sooner, maybe it would have changed the input that we've gotten on our redistricting. It certainly would have been interesting to have as a tool to talk to people about where they live. No, it's a great, what a wonderful effort. I mean, that's just, and challenging one. So congratulations. Yeah. Let's go to public comment on this item. The Eric. Mr. Frazier, you should be able to speak. You would consume your ability to see the screen. Yeah, thank you so much. And of course, I appreciate you today. And I'm sorry that I've been teed up on so many issues, but this actually is one of them as well. It's a wonderful effort. But quite frankly, for the millions of dollars that BIA money that's spent by this part, this is the city's collection of that BIA. I would totally expect more from a user and distributor of tourism information throughout the state and country. This is incredibly disappointing. Almost embarrassing. I can tell you if that map was in a printed form and available for our visitors, they would disregard it as pablum. What value is there in that information? The self-congratulatory nature of the presentation is nauseating. But the things that really ring out the emotion in me is that your financing is born on the back of an illegal scheme to collect BIA from residential properties. Over the 12 years that the BIA has been in existence, exceeding state law and guidelines, it's collected about $800,000 from residential property owners. When we go back years, we don't have accounting on how that money's spent. This is atrocious, I have to tell you. And while I certainly, anybody who knows me, certainly knows me for being all in on economic development. And I don't blame the artists and those businesses here that want that sense of community, but you guys are acting in such an unprofessional way that I have to say something. I'm sorry I do because I love the city and I love those maps like that. You know I do, I love the sense of purpose, understanding the history, but when I look at the stuff that you're doing, not only do I see people disregarded out of hand because it's nonsensical, it's ridiculous. It's like high school childhood drawings, even though I like Eric Martin, I like a lot of the art talent. Certainly I have my favorites. But your effort is an embarrassment and it's scandalous unfortunately. And I'm sorry to have to report that, but I hope for better and maybe we can rally that, but right now I feel like I've thrown up in my mouth a little bit, sorry. Thank you, Eric. Ray said maybe we can put Eric's short-term rental on the map, might make it a little bit more appealing to him, let's go on to Gig. Gig, if you would confirm your ability to see the screen. Yes, I see the screen. Great, thank you. So I like the whole idea and the map's kind of cute, but you made a big mistake, you got to redo the map. You spelled Juilliard Park wrong. I just cannot accept that. You've got to correct that spelling. It's J-U-I-L-L-I-A-R-D, Juilliard Park. You misspelled it, so that has to be fixed. And as long as you're fixing it, I never heard of North Town. There's no North Town in Santa Rosa. It's the J-C neighborhood, so fix that as well. Otherwise, go for it, thank you. Thank you, Gig. And I might need glasses. I have no idea how you were able to read the spelling on Juilliard Park, but we will absolutely get that fixed. Let's go ahead and bring it back. Any other comments or questions from council members or staff? The only thing I can say is this is really a draft. Really a draft, yes. And a beautiful draft at that. And we are so proud and self-congratulatory and unapologetically, so this is fantastic work. All right, thank you, everybody. So as a reminder for the public, we pulled item 3.3. Bray said, do we have any department reports today? No, that was it. I think that's quite enough. All right, I want to thank staff and thanks to council members and thanks to the public for being here. With that, we'll go ahead and adjourn today's meeting. Thanks everybody. Good job, team. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.