 let's go ahead and get started here. We have a number of people on the call. I mean on the Zoom with us already and I know we're midday, people have busy days, a lot of things going on. So this is going to be our first downtown subcommittee Zoom meeting and again it's taking some getting used to us a lot different than before but I also don't want to keep it with our tradition. I don't want to keep our meeting too rigid either but let's go ahead and call our meeting to order and uh a recording secretary do we need to take have you take the roll calls that we need to do? Let's the record show that all members are in attendance. Thank you. Thank you very much. So we'll go ahead and call that to order and I'm going to read off a statement here that I think we're required to do because of our form of meetings now but due to the provisions of the governor's executive orders and dash 25 dash 20 and then dash 29 dash 20 which suspends certain requirements to the Brown Act and the order of the health officers of the county of Sonoma to shelter in place to minimize the spread of COVID-19 the downtown subcommittee will be conducting today's meeting in a virtual setting using Zoom webinar. Subcommittee members and staff are participating for remote locations and or practicing appropriate social distancing. Members of the public may view and listen to the meeting as noted on the city's website and as noted on the agenda. Members of the public wishing to speak during item three public comment or during our public hearing items will be able to do so excuse me will be able to do so by utilizing the raised hand feature on on their screen or by pressing I think it says a star nine on their phone and then they will be given the ability to address a subcommittee. So those are our ground rules I suppose. Do we have any announcements today? Other than to welcome everybody back to our to our meetings we've had a little bit of an absence but we do have some very important report outs for you today too so let's go ahead and zoom into I mean sorry zoom into our yeah I guess so our public comments so if you wish to make a comment via zoom please select the raised hand button. If you are dialing in via telephone please dial star nine to raise your hand. Each speaker has three minutes a countdown timer will appear for the convenience of the speaker and viewers and please make sure to unmute yourself when to unmute yourself I'm sorry unmute yourself when you are invited to do so. Your microphone will be muted at the end of that countdown so we'll turn it over to our recording secretary to go ahead and start that process. Hi at this time I don't see that any hands are raised. Thank you for those of you joining us today please if you have any any comments on items not on today's agenda this now's the opportunity to do so okay we don't have any email or recorded calls either right? No we do not. Okay let's go ahead and move on to our agenda and we will begin with our permitted events and public art update by Tara Thompson. Tara take it away. And Tara I will unmute you in just one moment. I apologize this is just taking one more second. Hi can you hear me? Yes. Great hi everyone I'm Tara Thompson the city's arts and culture manager and I wanted to provide a brief update on permitted events as well as public art projects in the downtown. As you know events have had to drastically change how they can occur if if they do it all they are in virtual settings at this point. The city has suspended all special event permits through Labor Day as of today however I am working with a team of city staff that make up the special event application review team with representatives from various city departments including fire police parks transportation public works etc on a recommendation for the rest of 2020 as there's still so much uncertainty about how we may be able to permit those large events. So stay tuned for an update on that in the coming days. And you know most of the events that that were slated to occur this spring and summer have completely canceled for 2020 and are looking forward to 2021 however there were some events that were trying to reschedule for a date later in the fall this year and at this point those are to be determined. You may have heard that Iron Man has released a tentative go forward date for rescheduling both of their May and July events here in San Rosa for October 17th and that is tentative based on a variety of conditions but should they be able to go forward with that the city has tentatively approved that date. I think that's it for special events I'm happy to answer any questions but I'll jump into the public art update first and then maybe any questions I can answer at the end. So for public art there's a new opportunity that you'll hear a little bit more about when Cadence provides her DAO update but I wanted to share that the public art program has allocated funding towards the open and out call for artists. The open and out program is already kind of in effect with a variety of phases meant to allow restaurants and businesses downtown to expand their usable space out into the sidewalk parking spaces and potentially the street as well and a part of that program includes a call for artists. The idea is to create a pool of artists that we can then work with on specific projects that range from streetscape kind of beautification and improvement projects to temporary art installations. We're hoping to see some of those start soon in the next few weeks and continue throughout the summer and into the fall. I wanted to also provide a brief update on the courthouse square public art project Imagine Art in Courthouse Square. This project has been delayed by COVID by about six months so I think when I reported back in February perhaps maybe it was the beginning of March we were on track to have five finalist proposals ready to be kind of weighed in on by the community and by our selection panel in in springtime. Now that's been pushed back to late summer and early fall but we are still on track for that project just about six months behind our original timeline. That will put the installation of the artwork around January of 2022 rather than sorry August of 2021 as originally planned. A few other brief updates. We are still working on restoring the Ruth Asawa panels to the fountain in the square with a kind of unknown timeline at this point for that but we are still working to get that completed working with the DAO and we are also working on conservation and maintenance projects on public art pieces throughout the downtown. Most recently some work was done on the wood fence panels at the downtown library which are actually a piece of public art and be notes to many and next up will be the water woman with the water jug fountain on 4th Street at Jeju Way. So those are the updates I have for you today and thank you. Thank you Tara. John, Victoria, any questions? Victoria, I just one thank you council member Oliveris. I'm curious about the work on the water bearer from Jeju. What kind of work is being done? Is it mainly plumbing or has there been some damage? There is currently no damage which is great but the fountain itself we need to be working with our public works team and parks team on some of the rust issues that are at the base of the fountain which are a little bit outside of the scope of our art conservators. What they would be focusing on once we can address some of the rusting is the mineral deposits on the stone structure itself on the stone sculpture itself. They will work to kind of neutralize the water chemistry to make sure that the water deposits mineral deposits are kind of less noticeable to the actual sculpture. That's really what they will focus on but there are some rust issues to be dealt with with the great at the bottom of the fountain. Okay I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Thank you Victoria. No questions. Thank you Tara. Thank you. Do we have any members of the public that have comments or questions on the item? I don't see that we have any at this time. Thank you very much. Okay we'll go on to our next item. Let's see we have I'm sorry. I just wanted to let you know unfortunately it does not appear that our next presenter Amy Lyle has been able to join so we'll be going to the next item. Okay good let's go ahead and move to our next action organization. Really quick this is one of the hosts. It looks like Supervising Planner Lyle has joined. She just started. Let's go back. If you're ready Lyle we can go ahead and start with our downtown stationary specific plan. Hi can you hear me? Amy yes I'm sorry. Great thank you so much. This is Amy Lyle, Supervising Planner with planning and economic development. Just wanted to give you a brief update today on the downtown stationary specific plan. As you know it's an update of the existing specific plan and we actually are considering this a full overhaul removing many barriers to residential development and updating other aspects to really create a greater sense of place and a more multimodal framework for the downtown. And so the last time that we spoke with council was actually in December of 2019. So since that point we've been drafting the specific plan and the environmental impact report and we are going to be releasing both documents next week on the 15th and so those will both be available on the website and then that will also kick off a round of public outreach all of which will be virtual but we do plan to hold virtual meetings with the preservation districts around the downtown so we have four meetings planned for specific neighborhoods. We are planning to meet with the downtown action organization, metro chamber, disability rights center, college students at the JC incident of state and we will be having one meeting held entirely in Spanish and in addition we will be going to our standing committees as well. So I hope to come back to this committee once the plan is released and you all have had a chance to review to answer any questions that you might have. We also are going to be picking out the bike and pedestrian committee. We'll be having a joint design review board, cultural heritage board meeting, waterways advisory committee meeting. So all of that outreach will be going on through the rest of July and into August and then the remainder of the schedule includes a planning commission meeting August 6th and then again in late September for their final recommendation and then city council in early October. We're hoping to maybe push it into late September. We're thinking about power shutoffs and hoping to get through the process before that potential occurs. So that is our schedule at this point and on the 15th next week when the documents are released we do plan to hold a public open house and that will be virtual and it will be in the evening and the information will be publicized through our social media outlets and any place we can later today. So with that I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you. John, Victoria? Victoria? Thank you for the update. I don't have any questions. Thank you. Any members of the public wish to make comment or have questions on the set? I don't see that anyone has raised their hand at this time. Hi, were you able to hear me? Yeah, it looks like I was able to hear you. Check and see if anybody I think we have a couple hands now. Looks like we have three hands raised. I'm going to allow you to unmute yourself. Okay, can you hear me? Yes, please proceed. Yes, quick question. Have there been any significant changes? Yeah, I think we already heard your question. Can you hear me now? Yes. Were there any significant changes to the plan since it was last presented back in December? Would you like me to answer these individually? Yes, let's go ahead and do that Amy. I wanted to try to stick to our old habits which are pretty informal. Sounds great. So no significant changes so we're still on track with that preferred scenario that was presented and accepted by the City Council. There has been quite a bit of research done to offer incentives for housing and other amenities in the downtown and also a lot of work on historic preservation and how we deal with the transition between downtown and height and then the single story historic areas. But the biggest change that will occur with the plan is really a removal of height restrictions and moving to a floor area ratio which gives greater flexibility but there still be some parameters around those transition zones. Thank you Amy. The next person is David Del Santos. If you would like to unmute yourself. Yes, hello. I just wanted to confirm that the when the specific plan was going to be officially adopted. Is that in October after City Council reviews it or will it be beyond that? Yes, so we do are we are hoping that it will occur in one meeting. So we do have two meetings planned for the planning commission. So the first one in August will be a public hearing on the draft environmental impact report and a review of the plan itself and then their comments will be incorporated along with the public into the EIR. We will be having a pause to be able to respond to all the comments we receive on the environmental document and then a final EIR will be produced. And so that the final plan and the final EIR encompassing all the comments we receive over the next couple of months will then be presented to the planning commission once again for their formal recommendation to the City Council. So at that point the City Council will be asked to review and adopt and we hope it could occur in one meeting but could be potentially two meetings. Thank you. Thank you. Next individual is Eric Frazier. Eric has allowed you to unmute yourself. Mr. Frazier. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. There's a little lag time in getting that unmute notification. Thank you very much. The question I had for you is about the communication and outreach. So in this new Zoom reality that we're in, I've heard a lot of comments from the community that they're not able to access Zoom or participate because of the lack of internet or other technology issues. So the question is when it comes to this plan as well as other calls for the public to get involved, what steps are being taken to augment just this access by the internet that apparently a lot of people are unable to participate? Yes. Thank you. That's a great question. And it's really been a global issue that we've been looking at with all of our outreach throughout the entire department and at this point we have to remain consistent with the health order and not hold opportunities for large amounts of people to gather. So we have moved to the Zoom platform which does allow for people to call in by phone. We also plan on recording our public open house that will occur on the 15th and posting that to the website if people are able to attend they can view after. And we are trying to expand our outreach opportunities beyond what was in our original plan due to the virtual environment and are looking for standing meetings or other organizations that want to review the plan and coming to those meetings specifically. We are also working with our citizens advisory committee meeting to do some outreach through radio and print media but are really open to any ideas that you would have that would help us create a more robust outreach opportunity. We are trying to do absolutely everything we can considering the remote environment that were required to function within. Thank you. Thank you. I think those are all the hands we have. Yes. And that's correct. Through the chair Mr. Oliver. Is it alright if I ask a question? Absolutely. Ms. Lyle I was wondering if we could go back to the downtown closure of Fourth Street and see if we have any updates around timing or considerations that are going into that. So I don't have any updates from the perspective of the downtown plan. I will say that we are hoping to do some types of sandwich boards or some kind of outreach in the downtown as people do start to enjoy the street closure with the restaurants as far as the outreach component. As far as the policy component there will be some encouragement and openness and flexibility in the plan to allow that type of structure to facilitate itself in the future. But I don't have any specific updates on the closure itself. Is that answer your question or did you have something more specific? You know what I apologize. I meant to direct that question at Tara and so I apologize for asking you that out of the blue. But thank you for doing your best anyway. I'm always impressed. Appreciate it. Tara are you able to unmute yourself? Yes. Hi. I can try to answer that. I think Haydnce when she provides her DAO update was going to bring this up and I'm happy to share briefly and we can perhaps revisit when that item comes up on the agenda. But we are interested in looking for input from the committee members from the council members today on the timing for the open and out street closure component of 4th street. As you know the county is now on day one of the state watch list and there are some concerns about potentially having to roll back restrictions that would affect people's kind of comfort level with coming downtown as well as what restaurant capacity there may be at that time. And so we are interested in discussing that today. Getting a sense from the committee members as well as briefly here that I didn't know that that under 4.3 but that was going to be a topic. So I'll hold the rest of my questions for that. Thank you so much for putting up with me. Thank you. Okay. So with that we'll go ahead and move on to 4.3 the DAO Haydnce please. Hi everyone. It's nice to to see a few of you. Thank you very much for having the meeting today. I think it's great that we're all getting together. I also want to just take a quick moment to thank all of the city staff who've been working really hard on getting downtown reopened. I think pretty much every department has had a hand in trying to move this plan forward. And on behalf of all of our business owners we're very grateful for your creativity and hard work to support our businesses in this kind of crazy times. A quick update before we talk to what everyone is interested in hearing about today. Our Street Plus team is still operating downtown. They do have a new manager though. So Danielle who many of you know has taken over the manager position. We are fully staffed outside of her though. So they are working hard helping us get ready for opening out in whatever form that ends up taking and spend a lot of time as you can imagine in the last month or so on on graffiti abatement downtown and we're really grateful for their efforts. So as Tara mentioned you know we have a group of people who are meeting regularly and working regularly on the open and out program that the city has kind of established to create a pedestrian zone downtown to increase foot traffic and to most importantly create a safe social distancing destination. So to provide our community with a place where they can eat or they can potentially shop and they can do it in the safest way possible. Part of that for us as well is making sure that there is ample curbside curbside pickup parking. Right now there are a number of spots downtown. We're planning I don't know how many are currently downtown but the plan that the parking department helped us put together has somewhere between 25 and 30 spots so really trying to kind of meet people where they are both in the parking with our parking changes as well as creating better outdoor dining opportunities. So I think we can I can provide a little bit a couple more updates and then it would be helpful to get feedback on on the specific closures of 4th Street. So I think we all know that portions of 4th Street were scheduled to be closed. We've had a few delays because of protests and COVID and we're now on target to potentially close on Friday. However with the new with our being day one on the walked list would like some feedback as to whether or not that should change. If we don't move forward with the closures on Friday there are still some pieces we can move forward with. We will be replanting all of our downtown pots on Friday. I think most people have seen that they're no longer that lovely shade of terracotta and they're now very crisp clean black. We have we're organizing volunteers to come down and do a little social just socially distanced planting event on Friday at 10 30 if anyone wants to join. So the planting project will move forward regardless of whether or not the closures are happening. We do have a volunteer group who has very generously and graciously put together some parklet barriers for our businesses on 4th Street. Belly received theirs yesterday and we have six others who will be getting their barriers installed on Sunday afternoon. They had they had been planning to wait until the streets were closed to bring their larger team in. It's a church group with volunteers mostly high school and college students. So they wanted to come in after the streets were closed to make the barriers. I have not spoken to them about the potential of the barriers not being installed. So I don't know if that would change their decision to do the work on Sunday or not. And then additionally we have ordered a large number of new tables and chairs. We would not be able to put all of those out if the road closures didn't happen but we could still put some out on Courthouse Square and possibly some sidewalk locations up and down 4th Street. But again it wouldn't be to the extent that we had discussed doing originally with street closures. We have some other beautification projects underway lighting at JJ Way which is moving forward hopefully in the next couple weeks. And then of course the kind of largest and most significant portion of the project is the art piece which Tara mentioned but we have Creative Sonoma has invested $60,000 in the open and out program for us to as Tara said implement some kind of creative beautifications to infrastructure, temporary installations and community engagement pieces. The Art and Public Places Committee also invested an additional $40,000 into that which Tara you can correct me but that had already been allocated for temporary art in Courthouse Square leading up to the installation in January 2022. Yeah that's correct. So we opened that call to artists about a little over a week ago and so those projects can still be they're all in the planning stages at this point. We have not selected any artists or any specific projects but that work will continue to move forward even if the closures do not. I will say that you know obviously public health is first and foremost. Our businesses are very eager to try and operate however they can. So if we end up having to close indoor dining this will be an important avenue for them to be able to have an expanded footprint into the street. We can still try to support them by potentially adding a couple tables and chairs throughout downtown but it won't give them that same increased square footage that we were really going for when the program was originally imagined. So the general feeling there is that if we do end up rolling back this would be helpful but again public health is the first concern. So I think that's kind of just a brief overview and you know would turn to you now for either questions or clarifications or feedback on whether or not we should move forward with the closure as planned on Friday or if it would be prudent to delay those and wait longer. So Kase that's the specific information that you need from the committee at this point. Sorry can you repeat the question. Yes I wanted to clarify what you just stated then is the input that you want now from the subcommittee is that correct. Yes. Okay thank you. John Victoria. Candice could you do me a favor and I lost part of what you were looking for as far as the question what you were looking for input on. Sure so the question now with essentially arising as a result of being on day one of the watch list do we move forward as planned with partial road closures on Friday or do we delay road closures to either a determined or an unknown date in the future when it's a little more certain that we're moving toward a lower risk period. I appreciate that and thanks for repeating that. I think you know it's unfortunate that we find ourselves in this position of kind of in the dark if you will for such a long period of time we never know what's going to happen from day to day and how the orders are going to come down whether they are coming from the county or the state it does put us at a bit of a disadvantage. I think just personally what I would hate to do I would prefer to have a little more surety. Not sure what the what the merchants would like. Do you have any finger on the pulse of the restaurants as far as what they might prefer. My first inclination is to wait until we have a little more surety but they may be willing to take that risk and go ahead and move forward with preparations knowing that they would that it could all be reversed depending on what might come down from the state. So any any any sense of what the merchants or the the restaurant tours are feeling at this point. Yeah I think that given that it's likely that indoor dining will be no longer allowed in the next couple days many of them are looking for this opportunity to be able to serve people outdoors. I think it remains very important to them to have curbside pickup which is a priority for this program as well but there is still the public health concern right you know they don't want to be risking their staff they don't want to be they also don't want to be open if people if there's no appetite for people to be coming downtown so it's it's a bit you know it is a very murky area where I think there's there's an appetite to move forward but if we as a county are moving backward I think it's understood that that it might not be practical. So so the kind of what the the biggest piece of this would be the actual closure of the street is that correct is that the part that is because I'm trying to think of so let's say they they prepare themselves for the closure and then the state steps in and they kind of make that closure less less valid or less effective because of the rules and regulations is it is that the street closure itself is is that kind of the more problematic piece or is it prepping the parklets in front of their restaurants that tends to be a concern as far as them going through a certain effort and then having to reverse that or choosing to reverse it is it the closure or the parklets that seems to be the most problematic that they were if their state were to come down on us. I think it's it's the closure itself because that presents some other logistical challenges which maybe Tara would want to speak to. We are hoping that most of our businesses can still have parklet spaces set up it'd be a bit of a shift because they've all been waiting for the closure road closures to happen in order to be really fully begin their outdoor dining. Those who are having parklets installed would need to go through an encroachment permit process to be able to operate those if the closures don't move forward and we've kind of been having them hold off on that for the time being but we'd have to push that forward if the closures do happen and not all of them necessarily have the capability to install a parklet at this point so it would be could present a bit of a challenge for some of the restaurants trying to reopen but Gabe and his team have been pretty flexible so far as far as parklet boundaries so it's not those could still potentially happen even if the road closures don't it just makes it a little bit more complicated for the businesses. John I think before I turn before I turn to you I wanted to take a quick pause and check in with staff to see what are their discussions that we've had internally or the considerations that we need to be aware of today in helping to give some direction so I don't know what our staff members are available to speak on this topic at the moment. Good point. Hi this is Tara again I don't know if anyone else wants to jump in I can't see who else is on the call but I can share that in terms of city staff capacity to support the closure we are ready to go for this Friday but the the concern that I think is now the issue given our current situation is the closure because it was a kind of a long-term temporary closure of fourth street kind of an ongoing closure each end of the street is will be closed with water barricades and so they are not the type of barricades that are easily picked up and moved out of the way and so the concern would be should we set them up on Friday then have to bring bring them down again a few days later and then put them up again it just becomes more of a operational issue for us to support that kind of flexibility unfortunately it's just harder to be flexible with that kind of a road closure setup I think that there's there's just an uncertainty as to what what will be the best and safest thing to do given our current kind of spike in cases and certain rollback of restrictions and just to clarify a couple things with the parklets you know parklets and the use of sidewalks are still currently available and potentially could be even if indoor dining is is rolled back or restricted again and those can be dealt with separately outside of the road closure process and so I think if that's the direction that we go we would be cadence and I would be working with the businesses interested in expanding their space on those two other alternatives rather than using the street the closed street itself thank you target anybody else from staff have any comments on this item yeah this is right you said and the one thing I would add is that in the studies that we're seeing in terms of making sure that people come out or want to be feel like they're in a safe environment it really is predicated on how we're doing within the the health orders and how we're doing with cases so we have been discussing the fact that we would be or now are on a watch list and so that has been a concern depending on what council directive is again I'm sorry I stepped away so I'm not sure if someone said this already but there are plenty of things we can do in a way to continue to put things out so the art etc and then as Tara just mentioned the sidewalk seating and such what but the question is is it the right thing to do if we don't have sort of the enough people who would feel safe using it to close down the streets versus delaying just a little bit I hope that makes sense thank you Victoria I have a question I do have some thoughts on it but first I want to clarify and maybe cadence or right to Raphael can help me understand this which is my the question is based on assumptions the assumption is that we're gonna you know they call like that how you deal with the pandemic like the hammer and then the dance and so the hammer we know what the hammer is and now we're in the dance like go a little bit this way a little bit that way a little bit this way a little bit that way and so my assumption there is that we're gonna have fluctuations for the foreseeable future until we achieve herd immunity or a vaccination which is gonna be a long time and so what I'm trying to understand here is the appetite that the business community has the the restaurant who are the real retailers have for us closing down fourth street and potentially leaving it closed and just understanding that we're gonna be in a long-term dance it's gonna be there's gonna be a week or a month or two months where it's good for people to and it's really helpful for them to be outside and there's gonna be times when people aren't going to be willing to come downtown but that they're the businesses will hopefully be open for curbside pickup or whatever more scaled back types of commerce and rather than because what I'm hearing the assumption be that if we're closing down under the health order that we're actually going to reopen the street and I'm not sure that going back and forth when we're going to be trying to be nimble makes all that much sense and seeing if there's appetite amongst the business community just to set it and let it go and understand that there's gonna be fluctuations and is that okay I don't know how that works for the community yeah I'll I'll share it's a very valid question um our our restaurateurs all of our restaurants along fourth street are planning to take advantage of this individually they might change their plans if the health order changes if if further restrictions are put into play um but there's definitely an appetite from our restaurants to move forward some of our retailers are still a little bit skeptical most of them are on board most of them are excited about the potential of um foot traffic uh coming downtown especially since we're still really trying to accommodate that curbside pickup piece but again they you know they might be I don't I think it's such a hard a hard thing to understand because this is not this specific situation where we might be seeing ebbs and flows um and would they prefer to have the street opened or closed given that we we might be moving in and out of um restrictions that has not been posed to them yet uh we've been looking at it more from a open or closed as we move forward and through the health orders so I can I can just share that for the most part they are on board and they would like to see um the streets closed to give them increased capacity but they also understand um that's that the appetite for that from the community could shift so to that end um would would I know you guys say you haven't asked them this question but I I do really think that we're not going to have it's not going to be an open or closed thing I mean it's going to unless we get a vaccine or unless we have a terrible spike it's going to be somewhere in the middle range for a long time right so um would restaurants feel comfortable leaving their parklets open um if you know to maintain the space and so forth and then using the um and I I don't know if Kim Nado is on the call I'm assuming she is but and then using the space on 5th street for curbside pickup if we left 4th street closed um and does that pose any additional problems so we I think we have a couple options we can um we can move forward with what they've they've shared so far um or I can I can go back and ask again uh what their preference would be given the potential changes we're seeing and kind of setting a new landscape of you know we all we're hopeful going into this thinking that this would be kind of our slow shift back to our old normal um we now are given the state of really the whole moral the whole country that um this is going to be a long term shift for us where it's not going to be just back to open and see if they're interested in if they feel like we need to stick with what's happening now and keep the roads closed and focus on curbside or if they still want to move forward with outdoor dining right I mean my my concern is this is that um we've been closed now um almost four months and it's taken us I mean the first couple of months we couldn't have done this but then once but this idea came up pretty early on and it's taken this long to be able to implement and that um that by the time it won't take as long to implement because a lot of the groundwork has been done but by the time that uh folks are ready to come out again you know it'll be more difficult whereas if the infrastructure is in place you know it can act as a transitional space and if people are still coming downtown I would so much rather than eat outside in a socially distanced safe space and start to enjoy the the public space I know that there's a risk associated with it but I tend toward closing it um and allowing for social distancing and then maintaining a strong curbside ability on fifth third and fifth street and on the side streets um and then understanding that this is going to be you know we're going to weather a whole lot of storms in here um but I need to um you know I can leave those statements here but I want to make sure that we're nimble and responsive to the business community if that doesn't work job you have another comment I do thank you it's it's kind of a question um I I agree um with the vice mayor about wanting to move forward what I'm wondering is if we don't ascertain what the kind of a final decision from our restaurant tours and our and our retailers um about their willingness to move forward with making assumptions about the state what the state might do what would be the what do you what does staff see as as harm in one more week of information gathering as far as basically saying you know Dan the torpedoes full speed ahead let's close the street and start act and and start behaving as slow as as though it's going to be close for quite a while and um and just move forward on on on Friday um is there other than in there's clearly a loss of income with some of the businesses if we wait one more week but if we if we don't wait and gather that information about their willingness to participate we could end up with a very small showing of businesses open on four street which might be worse than not doing it and then than waiting a week and getting their getting kind of a commitment from them if they if you will on what they would be willing to do as far as moving forward I'm just I'm without having a sense of what they want to do realistically and in in real time I'm concerned about making the decision for them I guess that's kind of where I'm coming down my sense my sense from cadence is that it sounds like there's a willingness for them to move forward am I am I wrong cadence no you're you're correct the right now all of our restaurants are planning to participate which would be expanded dining onto fourth street and likely into parking spaces if not the street itself uh now would their decision change if we all of a sudden we're on we're had three days onto the watch list that's what I don't know the answer to so I can go back to our restaurants and and ask that and kind of get their ideally get their commitment to stick with the program moving forward but you know we do know that we have a few who won't be able to do anything if the street closures don't move forward because they won't have a large enough space that would justify their operations good well I mean I think you're gonna be able to get some some direction from us today but again if you wanted to kind of check back in with them I think you'll have enough information to work with staff to make it happen my inclination is to make it happen but it's not just a matter of opening or closing the street it's what happens if there's going to be a lot of work that's going to go into making this successful you can't just close the street and they just hope that everything's going to work out we're going to have to I mean clearly all the restaurants and and we already have guidelines in place on what we expect from the restaurants and what we expect from our from our patrons as well and and what I'm getting at is also that enforcement effort is who's going to be watching for that downtown too and I don't know what role our streets plus folks will be playing and what role our downtown enforcement team will be playing because we also need to make sure that people that are coming downtown to enjoy it are adhering to the guidelines and that people and that the public knows that the guidelines are being enforced in the downtown therefore yes you are safe we're coming down because they are being enforced we're not just ignoring people even just with a basic mask worry for example so there's there's work that's going to be done to make it successful it's not just a matter of just doing it and then see what happens so those are my thoughts but I also want to I want to move into some public comments I'm sure there's other input and insights from those that are on the call with us today so let's move into that so we'll have our recording secretary go ahead and open up our public comment and there is one hand raised at this time um that is Bernard Schwartz um Mr. Schwartz I have allowed you to unmute yourself can you hear me we can hear you Bernie okay hi everybody um I'm a retailer not a restaurateur and probably with the restaurants have more of an existential challenge right now although retailers also are looking at big challenges and I have I have to admit equal amounts of hope and skepticism um basically I'm really hopeful that this is going to work but it seems like when we start our marketing campaign to make this an exciting destination when the street closure takes place that is going to be in tension with the current COVID news that is front page every day and so Raisa was indicating that maybe a slight delay wouldn't hurt because in the meantime other improvements like art and tables and furniture could take place so that if we opened in a week or even two it would be a more dramatic opening the downtown would look dramatically different um I know that there's challenges in terms of installing the parklets um but that would be my feeling which would be waiting a little bit to get out of the COVID news would allow the downtown to start their marketing campaign and um really try to invite people to come down it would be a shame to close the street when everybody's afraid to go out again thank you thank you Bernie do I have other comments from those that are on her call with us I don't see any other hands raised at this time boy I've never seen this group be so shy or live had zoom for you I know I know uh okay so uh committee what direction do we want to head here can I I have a question yes unless Victoria you want to go no I'm just I'm I think we should just like have a dialogue here and try to work out excellent so how quickly can this help quickly can could we ascertain the kind of the the the feeling out there of our restaurants on our on our retailers on four street have how quickly could you determine a in a how they're leaning I could um I could do some outreach this afternoon and try to touch base with um all of our restaurants um as Bernie said the situation's a little bit different for our retailers not as many of them are interested in moving into the street uh so I think getting the getting the feel from the restaurants will kind of set the tone here and I can ask them you know I guess it would be a number of questions trying to figure out if if the situation continues to it's a tough question to ask because I'd kind of have to just say no matter what the situation is what would you like to do and yeah even that we don't have a crystal ball here it'll be a little hard for them to commit to anything because if it does get worse I would imagine many of them will close um but we you know we're all hoping that's not going to be the case so I can I can have some more more conversation this afternoon and I ideally get enough feedback that could help us make a decision if we're unsure well you know I'll just jump in I just I I do have a I mean I could go either way I really have a I appreciate um uh Ernesto's optimism and and also you know bite the bullet and kind of and there are merchants that are really to go and and want to move forward and I and I and I respect that and I not knowing you know kind of it's it's I have a hard time making a decision for them I think that's really I mean they know their business they know what they they're what they're hoping to do or what they're planning to do um without knowing what the state is going to do and the night there's there there's a part of me that thinks you know let's just let's just go for it but what when when Bernie was talking about that extra time could could also give an opportunity to be even more ready for when they kind of um you know cut that ribbon if you will so I could I could see myself going in in in one direction or the or the other and that's why I kind of keep going back to wishing I had more input a more current input um from those that are going to be faced with with actually making the decision for their own businesses so I'm having I'm I'm split Victoria you want to come yeah I'm with John and that it is really hard to to make this decision um you know I I tend toward um again the optimism of of Ernesto and say and also you know we that we just got to fight the bullet the one challenge that I have with it without I have a couple one is that I want to be respectful of the merchants and make sure that we don't put them in a in a bind here the other is the public health that where you know it was brought up that we can't just close the street and hope all works out in terms of that we have a marketing campaign and going into this meeting um and hoping to have this conversation I was thinking actually you know the last thing that sounds like a good idea is a marketing campaign urging people to congregate in one place downtown that hopefully people will be coming downtown because they want to come downtown and this will allow them to do so safely but the excitement that this should be um in normal circumstances I greeted with would be um in my opinion perhaps a little foolhardy so I'm I'm torn on this I'm interested to hear what Ernesto has to say well again I think that I agree that we don't want to be making the decision for the restaurateurs I think they should pretty much we've already agreed as a community this is something that we want to do in our downtown they've agreed to it not a matter of win so I think I'd want to put them in the driver's seat as far as making that happen with cadence's direction as far as reaching out to them again that's great and to because people will have a choice they have a choice as to whether or not they want to come downtown to enjoy some of the things that we're going to offer them they will have that choice and they choose to come down we want them to have a good experience downtown because if they if they chose to come down we want them to come back we don't want to come in and say well hey I'm not coming back down here because this is chaos so I think we all have a lot of work to do again once we do make that decision is that we want people to be able to have that choice to be able to come downtown to enjoy it and then also we want to make sure that they feel uh safe to come back and continue to enjoy it and to spread the word to others that hey this was a good experience for me but again we have to manage that but I agree though that it's difficult for us three to make that decision for the merchants because they're the ones that are going to be doing it we've already agreed that we will support this effort as a city and as a community so how do we make that happen and I think Caden's reaching back out to them today and working with staff to make that final decision as to whether or not they want to make it happen by Friday or if they want to give it another week to have some of the other remedies go in that's okay with me too so again I don't know that we want that this committee to say yeah absolutely open on Friday or no you you will not open on Friday I think we need to have our businesses that are downtown who are going to be impacted and benefit from this too to be a part of that effort and again also I want to remind people again it goes back to ensuring that people do come down that everybody's following the guidelines that our restaurants and our citizens that are coming down to enjoy this so can I ask for a little bit of clarification as I'm as I'm doing the outreach are we are we asking them if they would like to delay by a week or two or are we asking what their plans would be if we were to close and you know be three days into the watch list yeah I think the conversation is going to evolve we've all around to watch this that's new to us now it's here now so is their desire to start up on Friday does that still exist or based on the watch this are they wanting to watch it as well and wait and let some of the some of the other elements happen in the downtown as well I'm not sure if that's clear enough cadence but again I want to have them and you work with them to figure out what's going to be best for them I think we as a city I think we're ready to make it happen whatever whatever direction they decide to go I'll yeah I'm happy to I'm comfortable having that conversation and then letting them know that there would be if they decide not to move if their preference is not to close on Friday that we don't have a set date in mind it would be waiting until hopefully things clear up a little bit cadence there there's one other question is it okay to ask a question Ernesto absolutely cadence there's one other question that I'd like to that I think would be helpful in answering this which is would the merchants be you know aside from the watch list that when they open do they understand and are they open to living with the reality that we're probably going to be at different phases of of this and are they okay to set this up and and have the flow of whether there's indoor outdoor or only curbside have that sort of are they okay to go with the low understanding that that's largely going to be outside of our local control and that what we can do is what we're ready to do is the infrastructure part for them but that it doesn't come up and come down easily and that it would be something that we'd all kind of have to endure well they have to endure and we will try to support right okay this is that question clear enough for you I think it is and I will work on reaching out to everyone this afternoon and we can I can follow back up with the committee tomorrow I think if that's if you're all comfortable with that yeah I'll check in with staff again staff who's running into any other input that you have in in moving this forward in terms of hi this is Tara Thompson in terms of the logistics of it I will just work with cadence to know when when we want to do it I mean right now city staff are all prepared to do the closure of Friday morning and I've let a few folks know that I will confirm that given things change so quickly with with current health orders so really it's just a matter of communicating and she and I can work together to make sure we're notifying everyone of that decision thank you and you will notify the committee not for single conversation just to let us know what direction was decided correct yes mayor can I ask a question for clarification here I'm just going back to the past um the and it is like following a bouncing ball and I quite frankly I excuse my ignorance on this but as far as the most recent orders that the boom that's being lowered on the cities where it's being lowered on the cities I know that indoor dining is out is is any occupation of an inside space in retail is that also out or is there are they allowing facial coverings and social distancing in standard retail environments or is that verboten to have even to go inside a building at this point with those the more they have actually lowered the boom I've lost track of what this most recent boom looks like is there yeah I actually don't know all the specifics I just know that should Sonoma County remain on the watch list for three days then certain restrictions will be be put back into effect and that could include a list of variety of things and number one on that list was to eliminate the option for indoor dining and that bars bars restaurants taverns sorry bars winery tasting rooms all things indoors that were previously allowed would be restricted but I don't know the specifics and I don't know if all of them are enacted if if needed or just some of them okay because I think I do remember that it seems to be mainly those that are in the business of selling food and drink so I just I just I was just curious if we had any clarity to allow our other merchants to be able to be open and if we weren't indeed to delay the closure of course they would it would be a benefit to our standard retailers and if we close it allows it would allow our restaurants to function so it's it's really this it's it's a tough one I look forward to to your survey to see what's what can just to see what what the what the final finalist kind of view will council member Sawyer this is a marketing outreach coordinator Kevin King hey Kevin so I have a little bit of an answer for you for what stays open on several consecutive if there's on the monitoring list for three consecutive days it's mostly died-in restaurants wineries tasting rooms movie theaters personal care services retail is not on that list according to the california roadmap website okay thank you very much thank you for that okay I think we have what we need on this item so without any further comment we'll go ahead and move on to the River Square Association Committee Community Benefit District Rafael Sardes a todos hi and everybody hear me yes yes all right well good to hear everyone and good afternoon Vice Mayor Fleming City Council Member Olivares City Council Member Sawyer I will be brief on my quick update since we're watching the time closely so anyway yeah I was coming into the meeting with a lot of excitement especially around the open and out program we've been working great with the downtown businesses as well as a dao but the as the county adds adds us to the to the statewide watch list it is concerning so a report from River Square is that the AC Marriott will be opening this month so that's again exciting news as well as concerning news given the potential update to the health order but again I'm finding out that people remain very optimistic resilient and that's what we have been learning over the past several years and particularly after the fire so kudos to all the business owners restaurant owners they get up every day they go out there and they're creative they're very creative but we also need to take in part the the work that is going in with the partnerships of course as being one of them another update regarding River Square is that the association the association formed the the board so we have an an official board and they have met during the month of April May and June so the meetings have been great we have a president and that is Mike Montague who is the owner of tvax and Hugh Futrell is the treasurer for the for the board other updates is that the community benefit district has now hired a security company for security and they're doing the night patrols on a daily basis Lagar restaurant has also opened up their urban alley space for dining and again let's see what happens in the next couple of days or so Grossman's has also opened the restaurant that if you recall is right inside the historic hotel La Rose and they also have providing outside dining so they fenced off a little area there and added some fake grass and have some very nice tables and such so people are you know gathering following of course social distancing distancing protocols as well as face covering obviously when they're not eating the visitor center has remained close unfortunately for the last three months but we hope to have it open sometime in the fall or so and we're we're also seeing train riders starting to show up in groups most businesses have remained open but are still working under abbreviated hours from like 11 to four five o'clock and there was a very important meeting both the dao and the red roll square cbd or association held with the mayor and city officials back in june to address the encampment that was under the freeway and there has been a solution for the time being and many of those folks who were at that encampment have been reallocated so again a rebel square is open for business we're just waiting to see what will happen but we're very excited that the the cbd again was created the meetings are taking place and we're looking forward and remaining optimistic to to have a a wonderful rebel square district coming soon this fall thank you very much thank you victoria john questions john no thanks to nesto and and appreciates report it's good to hear some good news yes to me do you have any hands raised for this item oh we do not have any hands raised at this time okay let's go ahead and move on to uh 4.5 with our parking program update kim uh good afternoon everyone it's uh great for us to be all be meeting again uh as you know we we resumed paid parking on july 1st and it's gone pretty smoothly i think um we are seeing pretty uh about 30 drop in occupancy at the meters um we have uh got a new validation promotion that's going on also in in alignment with the resumption of paid parking so we really want to uh continue to work to get the word out about this one-time free validated parking session for up to three dollars and 15 cents in value you use the validation code park s r with the passport parking app and that will be applied to your parking session at a parking meter so um i've been working with um adrian and the outreach team they've been a great help in using social media platforms we've got some radio ads running and also online press democrat digital ads so we're we're you know working to get the the word out and we also have some flyers with information about parking downtown that um i brought over to the chamber office so that merchants could have those available so we're really working hard to get the word out about the various free parking options that have been added so that's the first hour free in all of the garages the garages are free after five o'clock every day and they're free all day on saturday and sunday and then the value zone um parking meter rates were dropped from a dollar an hour to 75 cents an hour so that's all in place um we're also um our new equipment for the garages is being manufactured now so we're hoping that that will be uh beginning to be installed august might be optimistic september might is probably more realistic and we've added a new feature to the equipment um we've added a sensor that will be on as you enter the garage instead of right now you have to push a button to receive your ticket if you don't have a permit and this will allow you to wave your hand in front of a sensor so that you won't have to touch a button so we're kind of excited that we've got that new option um and then i just wanted to talk a little bit about enforcement our enforcement staff has has been uh resumed uh they are writing warnings um we that we're really wanting to take time to educate people that paid parking is back so they're issuing warnings for folks right now um they are writing tickets for safety related issues and they're also patrolling residential permit zones as we're getting requests from residents who want to see us there um but i did want to assure you that there are they're writing like 95 percent warnings right now so there's people maybe seeing something on their windshield oh and we're also attaching that flyer that we have to the warnings so that people are getting information about their various parking options when they get that so that's another way we're trying to get the word out and and that i'll stop there because i know we're running long here thank you thank you victoria john no questions just a comment i just wanted to thank you kim for allowing your department to act as a partner downtown as opposed to a uh what a uh the darker side of parking um you know i i can i know you're trying very very hard to do what you can not only to make the department function but also to act as that partner uh because you are i mean that that your department is is a partner in our economic health of the downtown and maintaining our structures and safety and and maintenance and operation of the of the structure so thank you for doing the best that you can to be to be throwing softballs as opposed to um using a bat i really appreciate it thank you john uh do we have any hands raised on this item we do not have any hands raised and additionally i wanted to let you know that um the last three items um the individuals who would have been presenting are not available so for the last three items we do not have anybody available for those correct okay thank you okay uh we don't have reports then for the last three items but do we have any public comment on any of those three items if you want to comment on public safety maintenance or housing community services uh please go ahead and raise your hand we'll give you a couple seconds here uh yes we do have an individual one moment okay um and dig please feel free to unmute yourself mr hightell or yes do you hear me yes we can okay i'm public safety just a quick report about julie ard park our active neighborhood watch people are doing it as always and everything is looking really beautiful we've got no homeless encampments we've got no graffiti we've got no drug dealers got no prostitutes but we do have a lot of people walking dogs riding bicycles bringing their children resting on the lawn it's beautiful it's all good thank you excellent thank you thank you gay any other comments i don't see any additional hands at this time thank you very much so uh i want to thank everybody for joining us today this was a good a little bit of a recap and catch up uh we have not met for quite a while my intent is to get get us back on schedule especially now into the summer season so we we will continue to have our meetings working with staff if you have any specific agenda items or issues they want raised during this committee that pertain to our downtown please don't hesitate to send them our way so that we can see about working and getting those into the agenda so uh any other comments from uh vice mayor or john no thank you we're good thank you all and have a wonderful day come by thank you