 Madeline, once we know we have a quorum, I'll get started, but I'll wait for you to let me know whether we have one or not. We'll do, thank you. Thank you, good morning, Victoria. Hey, John, how are you? I'm well, how are you? I'm doing pretty well this morning, it's so nice out. I know it is, there's a little fog to the west, but they still say it's gonna be in the 90s today. It's that time of the year where it surprises me, it swings from the 40s to the 90s, and I just never know what to wear. Yeah, how are you doing, Rafa? Yeah? I'm on mute, good. That's usually John's line. But I kept my mouth quiet well before I said I'm on mute. Usually people, you can see their mouth moving and you're like, wait, so I'm on mute. So would you take it with you? Oh, so sorry everyone, I was gonna say what you were still waiting on member Alvarez. Okay, let's give him another minute and then we'll get started. Wonderful, thank you. Sure. I think he was at the Rosalind Library Ribbon cutting ceremony. So I'm hoping that he'll be able to pop on in just a few. So we can give him another minute, but he may be a little delayed from that. And that was yesterday, was it, huh? Oh, sorry, yeah, that was yesterday. I'm looking at it in old text. Okay, no problem. He should be back. Mondays are really hard for me, I had to miss it. So it was, I was disappointed that I wasn't able to attend, sounds like it was very well received. Yeah, I was pretty bummed too. I looked throughout all my email and I didn't find any information about it. I was like, how did I not hear about this? It was a while back, sometimes when they, we get so many announcements that if they're too far back, they can get easily lost in our long trail of notifications. But it was nicely attended and well received. Well, we're at 10.03. So I'm gonna go ahead and get started. So I'm going to call to order the September 14th meeting of the city of Santa Rosa Economic Development Subcommittee. And I do have some, before we do the roll call, I do have some language that I want to read for our listening community, due to the provisions of the governor's executive orders in 25-20 and in dash 29-20, which suspended certain requirements of the Brown Act and the order of the health officer of the county of Sonoma to shelter in place and Economic Development Subcommittee is conducting today's meeting in a virtual setting. 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 agenda items or public comment will be able to do so by utilizing the raise hand feature, which is feature their hand by pressing star nine on their phone and they will be, they will then be given the ability to address the committee. So that announcement is over and I would like to take the roll please Madeline. Okay, member Fleming here and member John Sawyer, sorry, Chair John Sawyer. Here. And let the record show that member Alvarez is not present. Okay, thank you. Now I'm going to address public comments. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please select the raise 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. Please make sure to unmute yourself when you're invited to do so. Your microphone will be muted at the end of that countdown. So that being said, is there any public comment on items not on our agenda this morning? And Madeline, do you see any comments not on our agenda? There are currently no hands raised for non-agenda items nor were there any voicemails or email comments. Okay, thank you very much. Then we'll move on to new business in 3.1. Jill, are you ready for your presentation? Let me go ahead and promote her. Sorry, one moment, please. Okay, great, thank you. Hello, Jill, welcome. And if you could just introduce yourself for our community, that would be great, please. Thank you. I am Jill Scott. I'm the city's real estate and real property manager. And the reason I was hoping to talk with you all today was because we're working towards, which has been a staff goal and a council goal of taking some of the properties downtown, some of the parking assets downtown and looking for developers to redevelop those properties, including public parking and housing and mixed use to sort of try to bring, not sort of, but to bring more housing into the downtown area. So that's been a goal, as you both know. And I think as everyone knows here that we've been working towards for a long time, we currently have one in process right now with cornerstone and the lot two, which was a parking asset. Since the time that we started this though, some legislation has changed to which I know you've heard me talk about before. And that's the surplus lands act. And that's the state surplus policy. So this will be the first ones, the lots that we're considering doing, which I guess I should go back and say those are, it's garage five, which is the garage on third and D street in the downtown. And then lots 10 and 11, which are behind Russian River and Belly left coast kitchen, those parking flat lots behind those. So those are the three we're looking at to see if there's potential for redevelopment with other outside developers. So these will be the first ones that we'll do through the new surplus lands act. So why I wanted to come today, one was just to update you on where we are because it's been a slow process, which has been a little bit frustrating for everyone. And then also just to explain a little bit what's going on, because I think as we will be coming to council soon in the next couple of months, the process that we have to go through to meet the guidelines of the new SLA, the surplus lands act is a little bit confusing. And I think it's going to be confusing for the public too. And so we're really going to need staff is all the staff is going to reach out everywhere and talk to everyone. We really need council as well to understand what's happening, why we have to do it and then try to help explain this to the community. So there's not confusion. So we have to bring the new surplus lands act requires us to put all of our land into three buckets. So it has to fit into those three pieces. And they don't always, right? I mean, it's like some of them are a round peg in a square hole, it just doesn't work. So there's excess land surplus land and then there's excess surplus and exempt surplus. So not all our land fits into that and these three definitely don't fit into it. So for us to be able to get to the point where we can put these out on an RFP and ask for these developers to look at these for redevelopment, we have to declare the land surplus. But that's where it's confusing. The land is not surplus, it's public parking land. And we still need public parking in the downtown to some extent. So it doesn't really fit the definition of what people see surplus. And so we're gonna be coming to the council with a resolution, which is now going to housing authority and the planning commission for recommendation to council that'll be in the next few weeks. Then we'll be coming to council with the resolution declaring these lands surplus. So I think what is gonna be important for everyone to know is that this is just part of the process. It doesn't mean that the city is gonna go out and just literally nilly sell these pieces of land and not look for quality developments or replacement of some public parking in the downtown. It just means that this is what we have to call it to get through the surplus lands act process. So that's the first step that we have to do. Right now we're going to housing commission, planning commission, housing authority planning commission for a recommendation to council we'll bring it to council for an act declaring it surplus. Then once we've declared surplus, we'll put it on this notice of availability. So we'll on the state website and that goes out to all the developers and there's over 5,000 now and they're mostly low income developers. So it'll go on that list and all of those developers are able to call us ask us questions, figure out if it works for them and then submit proposals. We have to leave it on there for, I think it's either 60 or 90 days. I think it's 60 days we have to leave it on there. If anyone is interested from that list or any developer then the city will need to negotiate which be fairly with each one of those developers for a minimum of 90 days, but not longer. At that point, if there's no one interested or we don't come to an agreement with someone on a low income development with replacement parking then the city can move forward with putting it on an RFP which is open to everyone all developers nationwide. So that's pretty much how we've narrowed down the process with the state and we're trying to work with the state through this process because it's not something that really fits into their guidelines. Although we really have the same goals in mind, right? We want housing, we need more housing. The council wants to get more housing in the downtown. So we have the same ideas and the same goal. It's just getting there is a little different than we had imagined. So I just wanted to come today and kind of explain that process to you to answer any questions if you have it and then just hope that you can understand, obviously you're gonna understand, but if you can communicate that as well to the outside public, so that when they see a surplus action on a parking lot in the downtown, it's not so confusing. So I'm curious, we can't be alone in this frustration about the language that came out of Sacramento. Is there any, to your knowledge, is there anything in the works to try to clarify that language and remove this question about definition of surplus? It's not unusual for Sacramento to make law and then figure out that they've made a mess out of it and then make changes later. Anything that you're aware of in the kind of, in the works to try to clarify and to make it a little bit more understanding and in essence, easier to move forward with our housing needs? Yes, I've talked to the mayor about it extensively. I've talked to McGuire's office. We've had conversations with housing and community service and their director through our outside real estate council who has connections there. And they realized that there are a lot of regulations in here that don't really support municipalities in trying to get housing, which is the goal. And they realized that they need to make some changes and we've offered many changes for them to consider. What we've been told is until the recall election is over we're not gonna see any changes at the moment but we're hoping that afterwards we'll start to see some legislative changes in this. So I think there's a lot of frustration with all of our surrounding municipalities all the East Bay, the South Bay. Most people have just completely stopped trying to do ENAs and DDAs on city property, which is really unfortunate. Really unfortunate because it's frustrating and you have to work with them and they do work with you and they try to make it fit but there's just areas where it just doesn't fit. It's making it more difficult to meet our goals. Well, that's sad. Victoria, any questions or comments? Yeah, I, this is really challenging because I could see what you're saying, this is gonna be a difficult one for people to understand. It's difficult for me to understand why it is this way but I get that there's a process that we're gonna have to go through and we're gonna still try to get it the same result which is more housing downtown while preserving parking or if it can be preserved at the same site that it's gonna be put somewhere else. So I guess what I would ask you is, can I tell concerned residents, business owners and visitors that they will have a place to park somewhere downtown that if parking is displaced behind Russian River will it be, will their folks be able to go somewhere else? Yes, and well, we know Kim is retiring which is a bummer for all of us. Whoever is there afterwards, Raisa and I will work with very closely. We've talked about this in the past to make sure that when there's a development happening or we're during construction of a development down there that we will make sure that people have parking in other areas that those permitted spaces are somewhere else and that parking will either be replaced there or replaced in the downtown area. We do have some surplus even after the county actions we do have some surplus parking still available. So there could be during the negotiation that'll be up to council. During the negotiation there could be a small reduction in a certain area but we really will try our very best to keep the replacement of the public parking either right where it is or very close by. Okay, thank you. That's helpful. Thanks Victoria. So I'm gonna ask that there are metal and are there any community comments at this point on this item? There are currently no hands raised for item 3.1. Okay, thank you very much. Well, thank you. Good luck Jill. Thank you. All the best in trying to clean up the state's language. It's not, although a common need it's sometimes more challenging than others. So good luck with that because we certainly need that housing. Thank you so much and I appreciate your support and your help. You bet. Thanks so much. Bye. Bye bye. So moving on to 3.2 and I believe Sherri Meads is going to be giving us a presentation on short-term housing or Claire. Well, I see both names in my paperwork. So Claire maybe you're gonna be kicking this off. Exactly that, yeah. So good morning everyone. Yeah, I'm just gonna kick it off. Sherri's gonna give the presentation and we're gonna get some slides up here. We just have a few slides to go over essentially the purpose today. I know our next stop last time we met on short-term rentals was gonna be at the city council meeting of October 12th but we're at this stage where we felt it's time and there's some new information we wanna share with you to give you an update on where we're at in the process and talk about next steps as we lead up to October 12th. And so essentially since we last met on this topic back in August, it's only been a few weeks really, it's three or four weeks. But ever since then, because the direction was for urgency ordinance to address short-term rentals, we really have taken an all-hands approach. There are a number of city departments and divisions that are affected by short-term rentals, whether it's in implementing them, monitoring them or enforcing issues around them. And so it's been, Sherri's gonna go over sort of the work that we've accomplished already in the discussions that have ensued around that. But obviously these are the types of issues that as you dive into them, you realize kind of how complex and how many times they touch different parts of the city and also the community. Today, we have most of our city team present just available for questions if you have them. They've been involved from the get-go. So of course Sherri, you'll see today she'll give our presentation. Rice has been a part of this process to date, representing economic development. We have Amy Lyle, who has been representing advanced planning, which is long-range planning and public policy for the city. Andrew Triple, he manages our planning permits. Ashley Crocker, she's been assisting us from the city attorney's office. Captain John Cregan, he's been instrumental helping us representing the police department. Assistant Fire Marshal Paul Lowenthal, representing the fire department and the issues that we experience with short-term rentals. We also have Cecilia from CC Muella and she represents code enforcement. There's a lot of touch points with code enforcement and short-term rentals. And also we have Colin Close today representing water. And so that's the team that we have. There's several others that aren't here today, but have also been at the table for the last several weeks working on this issue. And that includes our communications team, Adrienne Mertens and Kevin King, as well as finance, Alan Alton. And so, as you can imagine, it really does touch all of these different sectors. We'll talk about some of those intersects today, but we wanted to give you an update on what has happened in the last few weeks and things that we've learned and how we might wanna pivot going into the October 12th public hearing. So with that, Sherri, I'll let you go ahead and present that next slide. Thank you, Claire. And thanks, Sherri. And it speaks volumes when you hear the number of people and departments that are involved in creating a responsible and comprehensive ordinance. Government is never quick and easy, but this kind of ordinance is really important and taking the time to both address some of the more serious and short-term needs and then a long-term comprehensive ordinance is really important. So I appreciate everyone's thinking in advance, everyone's participation in moving forward with actually, in a sense, two different ordinances with the same goals in mind. So thank you very much, Sherri. Thanks, I appreciate you letting me interrupt you and look forward to your presentation. Thanks, Chair Sawyer. And good morning, council members and anyone else who's here, all the staff. So like Claire mentioned, some of what I say is gonna be a little bit redundant. The last time we were before you talking about short-term rentals was on August 10th. And at that time, we were given the direction, given the feedback from the public and all the stuff we had looked at so far to prepare a comprehensive short-term rental ordinance for city council as soon as possible. And because we weren't looking at a straight moratorium, we picked October 12th as the soonest day we could get onto the calendar. And what that did was we kicked from, yeah, we're reviewing other ordinances and we're collecting public comment into high gear and really drove full force into trying to accomplish this goal. We developed a city website, thanks to our comms team. And again, a public survey, again, thanks to our comms team worked well with that. And we also have started work on having a public workshop at the end of September. And we were going to target primarily industry folks, but maybe we'll have more time to do even more than that if we get to where we're going. So we continue to look at other jurisdictions and start to actually try to write what we would like to see for the city based on the information we had so far. So next slide, please. One of the things that really is amazing is that the public survey was out for two weeks. And within that two week period, we received, as you can see on here, a huge, huge response. And even we're really glad that there were short-term rental owners and operators included in that number. In addition to just the multiple choice questions, there was a ton of individual comments. So it was obvious that people, this touches them in one way or the other. It ended up being 164 pages worth of survey data. And we just really would like more time to go through that, to analyze it, to make sure that we're capturing everything that people took the time to share with us about this topic. So next slide, please. And as Claire mentioned, we've had a huge, huge interdepartmental effort. People have risen to the task that it's difficult. We've been meeting twice a week. We've been sending out draft information and they've risen to the challenge. And really, it's obvious we're, it's a team effort. There's a lot of people involved. It's a multifaceted, it's multi-departmental. And everyone that has been involved is literally involved in policy creation, implementation or enforcement. So it's been super obvious that the issues are complex and we wanna, we would like to do this right. And so that's really mainly what I wanted to say. And then I'm gonna turn it back over to Claire to go over what our recommendation is at this point. So next slide, please. And thank you, Claire. Thanks, Sherry. Thank you. So there's two things going on. There's the complexity of doing a short-term rental program. So it's not just you pick a permit and it goes through a process, but you need to imagine how it's gonna be implemented. One of the operating standards. I think at our last meeting, we had like 20 to 30 different measures you could attach to an ordinance. So a lot of our work in the last few weeks have been exploring all of those and anywhere from CAP to occupancy standards to parking. And you can imagine there's 10 different ways to attack each of those things. So we were evaluating which one is the good fit for Santa Rosa and we're also trying to digest all the public information that's coming in, whether it's from residents or from the industry. And so we're doing that all at the same time. So that's just kind of the level of complexity of trying to do a comprehensive ordinance from the get-go in an urgency timeline. But I do wanna decouple that concept for a moment because what got us to this point was the sense of urgency of short-term rentals. And I don't wanna lose sight of that because that is a real experience that Santa Rosa is having. We are hearing about it from our police department, from code enforcement, from fire, from our residents. And they're concerned about fire safety. They're concerned about housing preservation. They're concerned about COVID outbreaks with lack of regulation and occupancy. And these are real issues, nuisance issues about spilling into the street, not being regulated, not having a phone number to call because they're not specifically regulated other than a residential unit. And so that's what set us out on this path. So while we were getting into the complexities of a comprehensive program, which would take you from implementing it to enforcement to monitoring it over time, which may or may not involve staffing, needs to accomplish that because it would be a new use we would be regulating. Outside of that, not losing focus of the urgency issues, what we'd like to do is on October 12th is present you an urgency ordinance that would be to address those issues. And to really pinpoint what is the most important, the most important is to have registration or some sort of permitting of these uses and to address anything obviously related to fire safety. And things that we would want effective immediately. And so we're set to propose a, I think, John, you used the phrase surgical approach versus the all hands on deck. What we were proposing is to do a surgical approach and interim ordinance that will get us through this fire season will come back in early 2022, which gives us a couple more months to work with the industry, the residents and staff for a comprehensive ordinance. It may also give us a lot of information, even just having six months of an interim ordinance, frankly. And I don't even know if we need that much time, but even just a few months of that, we may have learned a lot about, are these the core operational standards that work or they didn't work? And so when we go into a comprehensive ordinance process, we would be able to evaluate and amend and adapt because every city is different. We're gonna be different than any other city. So you can't go grab an ordinance from another city and put it into Santa Rosa. We have to fit it into our community. And so we do need that work. We won't get there by October 12th. What we can offer is a surgical urgency ordinance that really hits the key operating standards, making sure people have a phone number to call, making sure we have an enforcement program that we can support with existing staffing while we build to the bigger model or even consider that bigger model. So that's where we're at. And we only have a few weeks really before it leads up to where we have to publish a draft. And we are not there yet with a comprehensive ordinance. I'll tell you that we need more time, but we could be there with our urgency ordinance as described. And then it could be discussed at the October 12th meeting about next steps and what's the timeline for that follow-up. We could be a pilot program for a certain amount of time because we can add a date to that urgency ordinance, an effective lifetime or effective period date, or we can just get to it and get the direction from council that, no, as soon as you can come back with that conference ordinance, come back. And if that's December or January or February, then again, we'll adjust our work and we'll get it done. So that concludes our update. And the next slide, if you wanna slip with that, especially for the public, we are still collecting, we're gonna be collecting comments up into and through and after this process. So I don't want the public to think like they only had a few weeks to comment. Like we wanna hear from the public on this. We just tipped the curtain back and we've got, I don't know if Sherry mentioned, but this survey response is like record breaking. So what it tells me is this is a big deal for Santa Rosa. People want to engage with this. They have a lot to say about it, whether they wanna host an Airbnb or short-term rental or they live by one. There's a lot of communication that needs to happen and we hardly have time to read everything. So we're trying to work as fast as we can, but we're also trying to balance long-term goal or midterm goal with this sense of urgency right now. And so that concludes our presentation. We're here to talk with you about these next steps. Thanks, Claire. Just a question, just two questions. Are you prepared today to give us a sense of those elements that you consider the most important to kick off quickly or are you still developing that top half dozen potentially the half dozen items that seem to be the most pressing for our community? And is this going to be going before the planning commission before it goes to the council? Yeah, those are all good questions. So we don't have any specific content for you to review today, but what I can say is top of the list for the urgency ordinance would be some sort of permit and registration process so we can figure out level the planning field, figure out what we have to work with. Fire safety, which could include as an example, notification or obligation to notify guests of the short-term rental about evacuation routes. These are things that really rise to the top that we need to get done right now during fire season in particular. And then also things like that are, we've all gotten the emails, there are some problem short-term rentals and the things that rise to the top in terms of nuisance factors and safety factors is noise, parking, spilling out into the street or blocking, preventing trash from being collected or blocking other access points. So we don't have specific language for you today, but you can see that we're really trying to take the key, I'm just gonna say irritating factors to the point where some of them are irritating, some of them are lead right into safety factors and really touch those so that we can get something accomplished between October and early next year. Now the comprehensive ordinance, the process for that since it would not be an urgency would be to go through the planning commission first. And I think that would be a great way to do that because you're talking about a robust discussion about what are the contents of the policy? How are we going to support it? What are the limits of it? I think planning commission is a good forum to do that with. If it turns out that it's like a land use policy as opposed to a business policy. One of the questions that we have is where is ultimately able to short-term rental ordinance live in the city code? I think we were starting with the idea that it would live in the zoning code. It would be a land use regulated item, but in other cities, they have regulated it through the business and tax code part of the city code. So we would want to consider what's the best approach for Santa Rosa, for intake and monitoring and enforcement because depending on where you are in the structure of the city, that has implications for how you are going to support it. Thank you, appreciate that. Victoria, any questions or comments? Yeah, I have a couple of questions. One is about assistant city manager Hartman. You mentioned that Santa Rosa's not like other municipalities, but so we can't necessarily just go and adopt another ordinance, but I'm assuming that we are looking carefully at other ordinances that have worked well. Can you discuss the elements of other ordinances that have been successful in jurisdictions that might be somewhat similar or have aspects that would be reflected in Santa Rosa's population? Yeah, no, we can. I think Sherry has done some research and I perhaps Amy Lyle as well. So if you guys would like to talk about what we found. Absolutely, so what's interesting is I probably looked at upwards of 50 or so different jurisdictions. Some are coastal jurisdictions, some are different types of areas where tourism is an economic driver. So mountain areas and then obviously just the local jurisdictions. And what I will say is none of them are alike. Some of them require a use permit. Some of them simply require a business permit and then a separate short-term rental type of permit. Most all of them address occupancy, parking, noise. Some of them address a city-wide cap. A lot of, actually I would say most, if not all of them address how many nights a year allowed to be used to short-term rentals. And it varies from Berkeley to Big Bear to Sebastopol in a drastic way. And that's why we wanna really try to focus on what we think could work well here. And it's challenging. So we're totally interested in any input you guys have, things that you would like to see or at least especially considered. But I wish there was one good answer that I could say Palm Springs is great. I mean, Palm Springs has a really comprehensive ordinance that some people say is absolutely the best, but it is extremely, extremely restrictive. So there's just different, it just depends what we wanna do, I hope that helps some. Well, that's really helpful in a certain way to understand that this is a difficult process. And I think where you'll hear me coming from is that around the principles after having heard from so many constituents and that the quality of life, that we do need to get something quickly, but we also wanna get something right. So I'm very interested to hear more about a two-pronged approach where we do something now that I would really only be in favor of that if it really does address the quality of life issues because my residents, the things that they're going to are just not acceptable anywhere under any circumstances. But, and then the broader principle for me is gonna be around housing. I love our business community, but I don't consider our residential neighborhoods to be appropriate uses for businesses. Not to say we can't have any of these in those neighborhoods, but that the principle is always gonna be housing and residential and moreover, quality of life for people who live in those homes. So an affordability for people who can't afford to live in those areas. Thanks Victoria, you've captured my comments well. I think what is challenging is going to be coming up with a comprehensive plan that keeps the bad players from behaving poorly, but also does not overly burden those people who are really adhering to the spirit of the use of these homes. So it is challenging, but I agree with you. It is for me a quality of life, peaceful enjoyment of people's homes. And I probably the vast majority of those short-term rentals are doing that. And that is my hope, but it is that we do lose housing when we have short-term rentals. And housing is of course very important to the council and to the community. So I'm pleased that so far you're able to identify those key components that will be more of a kind of a stop gap. And then very carefully looking at an ordinance that will kind of meet the needs of Santa Rosa, whether they, and I expect some of them to be more restrictive and some to be less so depending on our circumstances. So really appreciate your comments, Victoria. So at this point, if I don't have any other questions or comments from staff or council, I am going to go to the community. And Madeline, do you have any individuals from our community that would like to address us this morning on this topic? Yes, we do have several hands raised for public comment. Prior to live public comment, I would like to state that there were four emails received on this item that have been embedded into the agenda and can be reviewed there. Additionally, there was also a voicemail received for this item, but since that individual had also submitted an email, that will not be played. So we will go ahead and start with public comment. Our first comment will be from Charles Metz followed by Dan Godinio. Charles, I have unmuted your microphone. Do you see the timer on your screen? Yes, I do. Did you want to start it? Yes, absolutely. Thank you very much. Hi, my name is Charles Metz and I'm with Sonoma County Coalition of Hosts. And I do want to thank you all for taking, seems like your guys are going to take more time to plan an ordinance that works for everyone. There's a lot of comments that I would like to make, but it sounds like you might be taking more time to do that in the future, like going through the planning commission. So I really appreciate that. I guess I do want to touch on one point and that's concerning fire floods and hurricanes and other natural disasters. Tourists and guests are the first to leave at the sign of floods, fires, or hurricanes or any other type of natural disaster. Just think if you were in Hawaii or Florida and there was a hurricane company, you care about your family. You're not caring about the contents of the vacation rental that you may be in. I say this from personal experience, it's the locals who are saving personal possessions and rescuing animals and who are the last to leave because I live on Sinead Road and during the 2017 fires, I was saving my personal possessions and loved ones. And my mother-in-law lost her home in that same fire. Ask any Sonoma County host or vacation rental owner, they'll show you that cancellations they received during each of our natural disasters, occupancy goes down to zero immediately. And I know in the 2017 fires, Airbnb hid the listing of accommodations in evacuation zones, so guests wouldn't be able to work there. But there are a lot of entities that when there is a natural disaster that are working to keep people from coming in and also hosts that are doing their best to notify their guests. And I think it's great enacting something quickly, encouraging hosts to provide guests with evacuation routes. And then after danger has passed, VRs and hosted rentals reappeared where they provide immediate lodging for first responders, relief workers, insurance adjusters and local seeking long-time accommodations after a fire. After our most recent fires in 2020, I had guests who lost their home, stay in my vacation rental for more than a month. So these benefits, not only tourists, but locals who can make an income from it and people who lost their home as a way where they can make next steps and next decisions about their personal life. So thank you very much. And I hope you take more time in looking into this. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Charles. The next public comment will come from Dan Godinio followed by Wayne. Dan, I have gone ahead and unmute the microphone. Are you able to see the screen with a three-minute timer? Yes, can you see me now? Yes, your time begins now. Take the state your name for the record if you said choose. Yes, Dan Godinio. Yes, thank you for allowing me to speak. I have pre-written this statement since I only got three minutes. In advance, I apologize for my heavy accent. My name is Dan Godinio. I am a homeowner and a short-term rental operator with one country getaway. I have been doing this type of business for the past two and a half years. I fully support STR regulations so long as they are handled in a sensible and balanced manner considering the mutual interest of homeowners, STR operators and concerned citizens. I am very grateful I came across this type of business as it has sparked my interest in entrepreneurship. I invested heavily in my education and in my business. I attended several multi-day training seminars in Las Vegas, Nashville, New Orleans and San Diego. And now I hold a vacation rental management certificate by the National Vacation Rental Management Association as well as I have now obtained my California General Contractors License. Thanks to short-term rentals, I am not able to help my family by providing them with some work. I am also happy to support the Santa Rosa tourism industry as I am a registered member with TOT taxes, which I do pay quarterly. Vacation homes have been around since pre-internate days and these are not hotels, but rather a different type of accommodation service. Based on my previous recording, it looks like we have a few bad STR operators who not only violate city ordinance and are inconsiderate of neighbors. Unfortunately, these bad operators negatively mark great STR operators such as myself. In my two and a half years of management, I have had no major complaints from neighbors. During my professional vacation rental management training, I have learned techniques to deal with bad guests by adopting smart contracts, applying stiff penalties and embracing new technologies such as noise decibel meters, which help helping empty parties. I also train in establishing good neighbor relationships where an open dialogue is kept to ensure everyone's happy. Personally, I go the extra mile and my own expense to red collar fences and redesign landscaping to help mitigate any possible noise. I also emphasize husband rules so neighbors are not disturbed. I take similar actions regarding trash and parking management. In the previous hearings, a lot of the colors complaints were in particular to an STR operator in Montecito. I sympathize with the colors pain points as I do feel if this vacation home was under my management, there would be no complaints. I will sincerely love to work with you on craft and sensible regulations for shortened rentals. Doing a right, STR businesses can coexist peacefully with neighbors. City resources will not get a burden and the city will continue to benefit with the increasing amount of COT taxes. I am currently working on outreach with other STR operators and vacation homeowners to better provide our recommendations and to better help you craft a balanced regulatory package. Please join the Santa Rosa, California Short and Rental Association on Facebook and please let me know how best I can engage with you on these urgent issues. Again, my name is Dengudino with Wine Country Getaway.info. Thank you for allowing me to speak. Thanks, Dan. You sound like one of the good players. I appreciate it. Madeline. Okay. Our next public comment will come from Wayne followed by Rick Abbott. Wayne, I have unmuted your microphone. Go ahead as your timer begins now. Good morning. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. First and foremost, thank you for the work so far. I am on Sherry's list and have been following this closely as a short-term rental operator and occupant. I urge this committee to continue to ensure that while moving forward, they do weed out the bad operators and focus on the good operators and land on a ordinance that both supports the development of tourism and occupancy within the city of Santa Rosa. Airbnb's and Delike have seen a 67% growth over the last three years. Locally, probably a 41% increase in demand. And Santa Rosa specifically has an A rating for Airbnb's VRBOs and short-term rentals within this area. The current occupancy is 78% of almost 500 rentals in this area. That means people love these. They love to come here. They love to be part of this community. And the trends these days are going to Airbnb and short-term rentals. People don't normally think right out the gate that they're gonna go book a hotel. They look right to Airbnb. So please keep that in mind as you move forward. And I'd urge the committee to continue to explore all occupancy types as a relevant option for short-term rentals in this ordinance. Of course, none of us wanna see the noisy neighbor, the trash, the parking overflowing parking in the neighborhoods. None of us wanna see that in our community. But we do wanna see an opportunity for this to continue to expand and be adopted by the city of Santa Rosa. I have nothing further. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Last public comment will be from Rick Abbott followed by Rick. Rick Abbott, I have unmuted your microphone. Are you able to see the timer on your screen? I see the time. Thank you very much, Chair Sawyer and member Fleming. This is Rick Abbott. The testimony you heard from Santa Rosa residents at your August 10th meeting made a strong case that regulation of short-term rentals is critical in order to maintain the character of our neighborhoods and to preserve our very limited supply of housing. The overwhelming response you received to your city-wide survey highlights how important this issue is to residents throughout the city. As you deliberate on what should be included in an ordinance, realize there is ample precedent for taking a strong stand in support of the local community. Within Sonoma County, the cities of Hillsburg and Cloverdale restrict short-term rentals to commercial districts and the city of Rowanert Park only permits hosted rentals. The city of Sonoma essentially prohibits them entirely. The County of Napa has banned all short-term rentals. The County of Moran has strict procedures that eliminate nuisance rentals. Further afield, the city of Santa Monica allows only hosted rentals. In Oregon, the city of Portland has an effective ordinance addressing short-term rentals. As far away as Bangor, Maine, regulations are being developed to address the abuses of short-term rentals. There are two provisions that we feel are mandatory for inclusion in a short-term rental ordinance. First, de facto hotels should be entirely excluded from all residential neighborhoods. Our current zoning code restricts hotels and motels to commercially zoned areas. Large residences hosting eight, 10, 12, and more people are effectively hotels. They should be completely prohibited from residential areas. Those that are in existence now should be closed and further rentals should be prohibited. Secondly, an efficient and effective process to address future issues should be established. The current use of police and code enforcement has proven ineffective. An appropriate mechanism would make it easy for neighbors to bring issues to the city and would provide the city staff with the means to expeditiously address those issues. That should include the ability to levy meaningful, not just perfunctory, fines, and to shutter continually offending properties within a short timeframe. The County of Marin has instituted such a process. It would behoove you as well as the residents of Santa Rosa to consider their procedures as you establish procedures appropriate for Santa Rosa. Thank you again for responding to the concerns of the residents of all of Santa Rosa. We are grateful that you're addressing this issue and look forward to a strong response to the concerns expressed by all of Santa Rosa. Thank you. Thanks, Rich. Thank you. Our next public comment will be from Rick followed by Eric Frazier. Rick, I have unmuted your microphone. Can you see the timer on your hand? Great, can you hear me? Yes, thank you. Great. Okay, my name is Rick Hoyerman and I'm a hosted host. I have a property in Santa Rosa in the Bennett Valley area. I've been operating as a hosted Airbnb for over eight years. I've had guests from five continents on the planet. I have had a five-star rating consistently over that period of time. I've had a wonderful experience hosting people from all over the world, literally, from every continent except for Antarctica. I live in a neighborhood that is very conducive to the guests' enjoyment of the community in the area with parks, with bikeways, with the natural wonders that are here. I take every precaution to protect my guest's safety. During the fires over the course of the last several years, I have proactively canceled reservations when there was excessive smoke, when there was any danger of any fire in the neighborhood being any type of an issue. I've also made sure the guests are aware of escape routes. Should there be a fire? Because I've had to leave my property due to fire being in the area. Secondly, I do wish that the city council and the planning department look at Santa Rosa individually as a very unique opportunity for us to shape and form rules and regulations that fit our community and not try and look at other communities and what they've done. I feel that some of these communities are quite restrictive and are eliminating the business of being able to allow individuals to have their own business and get their income, supplemental income. I'm retired, I'm 67, my husband's 72. We have numerous health issues that cost us a lot of money to attend to and this additional income is used to pay for those medical services that we require from time to time. Again, I do thank you for looking at this and looking at all the different ways that you can prohibit the bad actors from harming and putting a bad name to the short-term rental business. Again, since I'm a hosted business, it's a bit different than individual homes. But when I travel, I exclusively use short-term rentals because I feel it's safer and that I don't have to deal with an environment where I may come into contact with a commercial district that's allowed and noisy. So again, I hope that you take your time and do a comprehensive study before you enact anything on a short-term basis. Thank you. Thanks, Rick. Thank you. Our next public comment will come from Eric Frazier followed by community member ONEX. I apologize, there's a very long username for that individual. Eric, I have unmuted your microphone. Do you see the timer on your screen? I do, thank you very much. And this is Eric Frazier and thank you for today's meeting. I very much appreciate it. To start off my comments on a good foot, let me do acknowledge the cooperation I've received from planner Amy Lyle and Sherry Meads on this issue. I very much appreciate that. And I appreciate also the pivoting to sort of slow this process down because quite frankly, the August 10th meeting was just a bit of inaccurate information, disinformation I would say. In our research, and as you know, there's extensive public records requests to buttress our research. We show no nexus with RENA numbers. We show no impact on affordable housing on the price of housing and real estate. There's no such thing as venture capital investment in the property of STRs. What was described as somebody owning 12 units or something, I think was somebody talking about a management company that's managing 12 units. There is enterprise in the STR space that has very little to do with the property owner enriching themselves from profit as if that was an enterprise. Indeed, this is a supplemental income that goes towards housing costs. And that's why it's recognized by mortgage lenders to use that income to qualify for mortgages, for instance. At any rate, there's a lot of lies. There is no nexus with schools closing. And we're afraid that those lies were spread like mayonnaise to other jurisdictions that you were researching and sharing those anecdotes that were inaccurate and unfairly painted STR operators. Furthermore, you made an allegation that there's properties not remitting tax. We don't feel there's a foundation to that. In fact, if the city wasn't collecting taxes that they legally have to collect, that raises a serious question for us. Incidentally, the survey was well received and it was launched on this bed of lies. So whatever fears that you mongered and so on and so forth, so be it. Let's read those comments. Let's learn from them. Indeed, people do have concerns. But by the way, if you're to do a statistically compliant survey, you would need about 6,000 individual Santa Rosan residents replying to that survey. At any rate, let's get down to a resolution. We've submitted some of our positive actions forward and they really rest on using existing ordinances to address these issues across all property types. There's no question our research showed up problematic properties in the hundreds, but none of those were STRs. Furthermore, you've demonized STR owners and you haven't allowed them to come forward and explain how they have worked with the neighbors. You've manufactured complaints in order to voice your arguments. So I'm glad you're taking a step back to reexamine that. Thank you, Eric. Our next public comment will be from community member ONEX followed by David Long. Community member ONEX, I have unmuted your microphone. Can you see the screen with the three-minute timer ONEX? Are you able to unmute your microphone? Hello. Hello, wonderful. Thank you. Do you see a three-minute timer on your screen? Yes, I do. Yes, my name is Dr. Harry Albers. I own the property in Montecito Heights that is a 2636 Nautil Drive and it's considered one of the problem properties. Three of my neighbors spoke at the last meeting and many of the things they mentioned, in fact, all of them have occurred in the past. I've been having a short-term run for about three years and all the events mentioned occur between March and June when I allowed a few families to have small weddings on the property. When we realized that didn't work, we met with all the neighbors and decided not to have any more events. So all future events have been canceled and no more have been scheduled. So what was not said last time is that all of the things that were described were in that short period of time and have not continued. I as all hosts, I hope, are working best with the neighbors to do the best thing we can. And I think judgments about short-term rentals should be made on facts. Our property has video cameras everywhere on it and anytime there's a complaint which hasn't occurred in over three months now, we check the video and see if there's an issue. Sometimes people's memories, particularly when they're describing something that happened many months ago may not be as accurate. We have not had any complaints since we've canceled all events. And I think the biggest issue I've noticed being a host for three years now is that if you just have people sleeping in each bed, coming and going to wineries, the property is highly compliant to the neighbors is the events that have been the issue. And we have stopped all events. And so I'm hoping that when you look for the records at two, six, three, six non-pillow drive as one of your problem properties realize that the host realized it was a problem, stopped it right away, and there's not been issues since. So these things are being corrected as they're being discovered. And my phone number is available to all the neighbors around me. And I have not had any issues from any of them since the events have stopped. So I think everyone should realize that when you're describing something that has occurred generally speaking, most of the hosts have been very good about correcting that. And I think regulations should probably be geared towards things that work with short-term rentals and those things that have been issued could easily be just set with limits and regulations. So I just wanna make it clear that the Montecito Meadows Heights that everyone's talking about is my home. I've been here for 40 years. I'm a dentist. We have no more events. And there haven't been any complaints in three to six, three to six months, there's been nothing. And so I wanted to make sure that that's in the records. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next public comment will come from David Long followed by Lilo Kengis. David, I have unmuted your microphone. Can you see the timer on your screen? Yes, I can. Thank you. Chair Sawyer and the rest of the committee and staff, I really wanna thank you for taking the time to dive into what is really a complex issue. I've dealt with a lot of complex issues in my business and personal life. And I always find that the best way to approach those is to try and come up with as simple a solution as possible. And the best way to do that is really to develop some core concepts around what your ordinance is going to look like. And I'm going to strongly suggest that one of those core concepts really needs to be in hosted versus unhosted situation. Not having someone onsite residing at a property can do nothing but invite trouble. It just will happen no matter how many controls you would like to put into an ordinance to try and stop that. There's just slippery slope things that happen that aren't in keeping with the character of a normal residential neighborhood. So I would like you to strongly consider having that be part of the ordinance. And you're just not gonna be able to come up with a limitation on unhosted rentals without impacting and limiting the economic income potential for those properties. So you can't have your cake and eat it too. So you're gonna have to decide are you wanting to protect residential character or are you going to want to try and allow people to continue to prosper off of running unhosted Airbnb's. So thank you for your continued work on it. And I look forward to you developing something that's truly workable and enforceable. Thank you. Thank you, David. The next public comment will come from Lilo Kengis followed by Patty Levine. Lilo, I have unmuted your microphone. Can you see the timer on your screen? Yes, thank you. Good morning. I'm Lilo Kengis and I have lived in Santa Rosa since the early 1960s first in large fields for 28 years, then we moved into the city proper. And right across the court from me at 2359, there is a short-term vacation rental. And this brings me to some criticism, if you will, that or may I say it's a suggestion that in the future, the city staff refer not just to temporary housing, but keep that word vacation rentals in there because that's really what it is. And so label the project. And what we were all shocked about in this neighborhood since there is one right across the street from me, two blocks further down, there's another one. And nobody felt that there had been any kind of blue signs as we are used to seeing for developments that said future home of vacation rental, short-term rental. So the frequency of the turnover is something I'd liked the staff to address as well because sometimes there are new cars moving in twice a week, new people moving in, people moving out, leaving trash, you've heard the whole thing. So what it has done for our neighborhood who's been an established neighborhood, the neighbors know each other, we care about each other, we help each other out, that sense of community, that sense of our street community has been disturbed by people we don't know. Now that same house had been used for temporary rental, for someone who had lost their home to the fire, no complaint, we met the folks, we talked to them, they talked to us, there was no problem. That brings me back to please keep that vacation word in there. Anyway, I appreciate the thoroughness that the staff seems to be devoting to this project and I intend to stay involved and thank you very much. Thank you, Lila. Our next public comment will come from Patty Levine. Patty, I have unmuted your microphone. Do you see the timer on your screen? I do, thank you so much. So I spoke at the last meeting and I live at 2630 Nob Hill Drive in Montecito Meadows and I just wanna address some comments that were made. So this past weekend, the short-term rental next door to us hosted a very lovely group of people from Sacramento and they referred to the home as the best party house they've ever stayed at. And I just would like to say that there were up to nine cars there. I was having dinner on Friday night, a block and a half away and I could hear them a block and a half away. And again, they were really lovely but when you advertise your home as comfortably sleeps 15 guests, on-site parking for six cars, unlimited off-site parking, you're asking for bad situations especially when it's not hosted. So I would just like to say that, our neighborhood continues to experience problems with this home and I support Airbnb. If it was more managed and wasn't being advertised as a party house, I think that that would be helpful. Again, the concern is living right off of Sinead and especially now that Sinead is closed between Parker Hill down through the construction. When you've got an additional nine cars plus, it clogs up our access to leave if there isn't immediate need. So anyhow, I just wanted to give an update on that property and thank you for listening. Thank you. Thank you very much. There are no further hands raised for public comment. Thank you, Madeline. I apologize, we just received one more public, or sorry, one more hand raised and that's from Dale S. Dale, I have unmuted your microphone. Can you see the timer on your screen? I can, thank you. Thank you, your timer begins now. Okay, my name is Dale. I actually live behind the property at Nob Hill Drive. I moved here last September and it's honestly been pretty much a living hell. It's nonstop, flood of people and the owner cannot control who shows up at this property. He's mentioned it many times. A lot of us neighbors actually met with the owner. He assured us that he would change things, certain things. Those things never changed, but he seems to, I don't know, he makes a lot of promises and never follows through. One of the biggest things that strikes me is he boasts about the house rules and I've talked to other short-term rental folks that I know that actually run a well run short-term rental and they're really shocked how the house rules are one thing, but if they're not enforced, they're meaningless and that's kind of what's happening here. Last weekend, just like Patty talked about, there was nine cars here. You look outside and it looks like a parking lot and the cars are parked tandem over on Nob Hill. The cars are backed up on the street on both sides of the road. We had a situation Saturday morning. Recology tried to pick up trash, couldn't make it through the street. So if a recology truck can make it through the street, how does the fire try to make it through the street? It's just really concerning. There's fire pit dangers here. The amount of party rental trucks that come through here is incredible. Like I think it was two weeks ago, we had a truck deliver tables and chairs at 9.30 at night. It's just, it's ongoing. So I'm hoping that the city will put some rules and regulations, take care of the bad eggs that are abusing the system. And that's really what this is. It's just an abuse of what short-term rentals were meant to be. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you, Dale. And we also have one more final comment from Mary Kay Peterson. Mary Kay, I have unmuted your microphone. Do you see the timer on your screen? Yes, I do. Thank you. Thanks for having us. My husband Paul would like to join me and he'd like to say a few words for both of us. Thank you. And again, like others have said, we appreciate the process the city's going through and their choice to make this an urgent matter of concern. We've lived in Santa Rosa for many years. I'm a native of Santa Rosa and a former downtown businessman. I'm familiar with a lot of city regulations, but I'm not a city planner, but one of my understandings is that the city is organized based on zoning for different types of usage. I wanna propose a hypothetical situation for your consideration to give a perspective on the issue we're discussing. If I were to locate the reasonable size piece of property in a residential area and propose building a five or seven bedroom home on that property for the purpose of creating a short-term rental in that area, I'm not sure the city of Santa Rosa would allow that to happen. So what's happening is these are coming through the back door and being created as businesses in areas owned residential. And what we're having then is a conflict between lifestyles. Those of us who purchased and live in residential areas, single family homes primarily have a lifestyle where we know our neighbors and enjoy the peace and quiet of our community. And now we're being forced to live with commercial properties who are there and exist for commercial benefit. Again, I don't think the city would allow me to apply for a permit to build a building structured as a resident for the purpose of commercial lending, loaning it out, renting it out on a regular basis. That's one of my concerns and just a perspective you might consider. The other issue I would suggest is with all of the serious concerns we have with crime in Santa Rosa, increasing on a regular basis, I really feel it's a poor use of our law enforcement resources to have them responding to issues created by short-term rentals. And I would hope whatever resolution has developed, enforcement would be considered that didn't involve our law enforcement resources. I think enforcement is a very difficult challenge for this matter. One of the speakers earlier talked about that and perhaps only allowing hosted rentals would be a solution towards that end, but enforcement is, I think, the biggest, trickiest challenge that you face. Thank you very much. Thank you. At this time, there are no further hands raised for public comment. Thanks, Madeline. And thank you to all who made comments from the community. I'll bring it back to the subcommittee and any final questions or comments? Victoria, on the side. Thanks, Sean. I did have a question. You mentioned that you received tons and tons of comments, which I consider to be a good sign. And that you hadn't had time to sift through them all, which is understandable if there's a lot. Do we have a sense of the breakdown from a small sampling of them? What the nature of these, are they mostly residential concerns or half and half residential owner? Anything along those lines? Yeah, I think Sherry can share some preliminary stuff that we are looking at. There's also different ways to look at the data in terms of pulling it together. And we'll definitely have that reported out on October 12th, but Sherry, I know she spent some time on that survey results. So if you have something to offer today. I can tell you definitely what the multiple choice answers were, if that would be helpful. So, question one was just to choose the option which best applies to you. And the largest response was from, I live and own property within city limits at 69%. Rental property owners were almost 11%. Own property within Santa Rosa, eight, almost 9%. And actually 9% do not live or own property within the Santa Rosa city limits, but that's where they were given a chance to explain why they're responding to the survey. And 57 people did do that. So the next question, do you currently live near or operate a short term rental? Yes, I live near one was 40, almost 49%. I operate or own was 13%. No, was 25%. Unsure was about 13.5%. Obviously I'm doing some really quick rounding here. So let me get to the next question. Question three, if the city were to implement a limit on the number of short term rentals allowed, how should that be done? And 33% said city wide limit 24% said by neighborhood area, almost 9.5% said by street. Almost 19% said within a specified distance from another short term rental. 36, almost 37% said there should be no cap at all. And then almost 9% or 205 people left their own option of how that should be managed. So let me do a control F because that's a lot to get through to get to question five, I think we're on, right? This is very helpful if that's at all encouraging. It is because, like I said, we're gonna do a better job and actually have something to report. This is just all raw data at this point. So question four, where should short term rentals be allowed? They had an option to check all that apply. In commercial zones, almost 49% said yes. In residential neighborhoods, 41, almost 42% said yes. In any residents that does not share a common wall, 40%. In any residents at all, including those that share a common wall, 37.5%. We threw in the wild and urban interface area to see how many people would check that in addition to other ones, that was about 8%. And then about 17.5% said none in the city at all. And 190 people or eight and a quarter percent left a different way to look at the issue. So that's another thing we're looking at. So now let's go to question five. And then what additional short-term rental regulations are you in favor of? Again, people were able to check all that applied and let me just get down to that. 67.5% said a permit license and certification, certification requirements and fees. 38% said a limit on the number of rental nights allowed per year. 41% said a limit on the number of short-term rentals allowed by owner and or parcel. 49% said a limit on occupancy, day guests and vehicles allowed. 41.5% said a limit prohibition or requirement of a temporary use permit for events. 39.5% said require annual review, permit license renewal and inspections. Almost 37% said require that permit numbers be published on all advertisements or rental listings. 47% said extend quiet hours. 41% said require noticing to adjacent property owners. 26% said require screening of outdoor activity areas. And a little more than 7.5% or a hundred and... Wait, is that right? Oh, wait, no. 7.5% said none, no restrictions at all. And then 11% or 247 people may have responded up above too but also added a specific comment. So that's what we're gonna be also weeding through. And then should the city consider differing limits or restrictions to short-term rental residences that are not owner occupied? In other words, if a property is not the primary residence of the short-term rental owner. And I got from some of the comments that people didn't really understand the question. So I'm not sure how great this response is, but I need you to repeat it for me to understand it. Should the city consider differing limits or restrictions to short-term rental residences that are not owner occupied? In other words... Was it unhosted? Well, that's where people got confused. And this question was based really on other jurisdictions that had limits that would say, if it's your primary residence and you rented out for six months of the year, but you lived there six months of the year versus somebody that just buys an investment property if you will. So this question maybe should get thrown out, I don't know. But 39% said, yes, there should be differences. 45% said no. 11% said they were unsure. And 103 people or about 4.5% said something else, which is left in, which is in the comments to filter through and get a trend. Almost done. Sherry, so that could also entail someone who was renting and then rents out the cottage in the back. So subletting actually, even if the landlord was not aware of it. So I can see where that question could be seen in several different ways, but I can also see that that would be a concern, the subletting, it takes the owner one step away from the reality of the neighbors. Exactly. Or, yeah. Potentially. Yeah. And then so question seven, how should the city enforce ordinance violations? Again, people were able to check all that apply. 72% said fines. 38% said limit use of property further. 52.5% said removal of license or the ability to operate as a short-term rental. 18% said, well, it just depends on how the short-term rental operates, whether it's owner occupied or not. 5.5% said no enforcement at all. And then 161 people have a different idea or an additional idea of how that should happen. And people didn't just leave sentences. I mean, people were really thoughtful in their responses and some of these are paragraphs long. And then question eight was, is there any additional feedback you would like to add? And 935 people responded to that question and it ends up being about 110 pages worth of data. And I would say that, I mean, I really, I would hesitate to even qualify or quantify what there is a big trend for people that are concerned about housing. There's a big trend about people that are concerned about quality of life, but there's also a good amount of people that are saying, hey, these are fine. They just need to be regulated more. But that's what we're trying to do is slice it up, dice it up, look for trends, look for actual numbers, and get you something that's worthwhile and also help to inform this ordinance. Thank you very much. That was, that's really interesting. And even the question that was a little bit difficult to understand, I think maybe useful in future discussions around residents at like around unoccupied residences, which is another concern for another day. But that helps me to understand, I think that we're really seeing a bifurcation around hosted versus unhosted. And you can hear that in the comments that we received today from our callers. So thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Any other comments, staff, for us today, or we'll just move on to 3.3? I guess I'll summarize since we got through all that discussion and a lot of public comments just to reiterate the next steps. So we are still looking at October 12th. We are still looking at urgency ordinance. It will have basic operating standards, sort of the top tier to address the worst offenses, whether they relate to neighborhood compatibility or fire safety. That's October 12th. We are still writing that draft. It's not gonna be a long ordinance, but we're still writing it, preparing it. Our hope is to have a draft out to the public, posted on our website by the end of next week. So look to our website for term rentals. And we will get that posted up there. Obviously continue to accept comments all the way through this process. That website is where we're gonna put all our information that we have to share. As we do start to compile the survey data, that's gonna be the place where we post it. And again, we're gonna present that kind of information as well at the October 12th city council meeting. That's our short term goal, which we think we can accomplish, which will include enforcement of the urgency ordinance. But we'll continue to work on a comprehensive ordinance. We're gonna get through the public comments, we'll engage with different stakeholder groups. And depending on where we land for the comprehensive ordinance, whether it goes into the zoning code and goes to the planning commission and then up to the city council or whether it lands in the business code and is therefore straight to city council. You know, this is an opportunity to come back to the economic development subcommittee when we do have the bones of that conference of ordinance and we can utilize this form as well at your pleasure, if you wanna do that. But those are the next steps. So the next date to look forward to is by the end of next week we'll have a draft urgency ordinance. October 12th is city council. And meanwhile, we'll keep updating that website on the progress towards a comprehensive ordinance. Okay. Thank you, Claire. Thanks to all of your team on both the short-term and the long-term more comprehensive ordinance. I know it has surprised me the number of departments that it is taking. But I think it's going to be, it's important, it affects a lot of people on both sides of the aisle. And so I really appreciate all of your efforts. It will be well worth it in the long run and look forward to the report on, or the short-term urgency on October 12th. So thank you all very much for the hard work that you're putting into this important ordinance. Victoria. Yeah, before we close up on this one, I did wanna, I was gonna say, you know, it's really clear that through the number of people who contacted me, letting them know that they'd heard about this, that your office and everybody was on this call and all of your colleagues did a tremendous job and outreach. And so I wanna thank you for taking our commitment to engagement as seriously as you did and as effectively as you did. So that's really wonderful. The one thing, Claire, I had a point of clarification. I didn't hear the word moratorium on the short-term. And the reason I bring that up and tell me if it's in there on the urgency ordinance, but I think it's a lot harder to undo things once they're done. And I'm wondering if we could put in a moratorium when it comes to the council next month? We could, but that would be inconsistent with the direction we've gotten from the subcommittee to date. The direction in August was not to do a moratorium. The direction August was to do a comprehensive ordinance. Well, I would have been given you that direction if I thought that we were not gonna have the ordinance this month, I mean, or next month. It was because it was so quickly that I didn't think we needed one, but I certainly think we need one. And if you could be more specific about what would be entailed with the moratorium, because both approaches, whether it's the urgency ordinance or the comp ordinance are attempts to regulate the use not to do a blanket moratorium, but if there are aspects of the use where we want us to craft prohibitions, that's the kind of direction we're looking for. Well, I'm probably leaning more toward, when you say regulations or prohibitions, when it does come to the council next year, I'm probably leaning more towards hosted rentals and rental, really limiting the ones that are not in commercial zones to preexisting ones. And so what's really important to me at this point is that we don't get people who are gonna go out right now and get in on it thinking that, well, maybe the council's not gonna undo it because I already have it. It's a preexisting use. So it's really, really important to me that, am I not answering the question correctly? No, I just saw Sherry had raised her hand. She wanted to speak to one of the comments that you made. Maybe she can provide clarification. I just wanted to mention that one of the things that the comprehensive ordinance was going to include, or maybe still will, is an amnesty period, not a grandfathering in. It was going to allow a certain period for people to come into compliance with whatever regulations those ended up being. Yeah, and so I feel it's incumbent upon me, given the amount of emails and complaints I get from the residents in my neighborhood to say we can't allow any more right now. I get that the short term, the urgency ordinance is meant to deal with the nuisance aspect of it, but I can't imagine why we would be allowing more at this point in time. So I think moratorium will probably be a point of consideration at that cover 12. That's always an option. We will have limitations. I wouldn't say that we've been dragging a moratorium ordinance. And that was my question. It was the October 12th meeting, whether or not during that discussion of the emergency ordinance, I would assume that if the council decided to tackle that one as a moratorium that they could have that conversation. My concern about the moratorium is that it is my belief at least at this point that there are far many, far many more operators that are doing good work as opposed to those that we hear from that are really the very unfortunate bad operators that are really in some ways destroying people's peaceful enjoyment of their homes. So even though it's off into the future into October, if there's going to be a conversation around the moratorium which would potentially harm more people that are the good players, I think that would be, if you agree with me, council member, that we have a full, that'd be in front of the full council. Because it is a pretty big step. So maybe I'm not being really clear about what I mean on moratorium. Maybe I am, I'm not sure. What I mean by moratorium is that we would not allow any new uses. So when I'm in the process of trying to buy a home and get outbid by people who are interested in purchasing homes to put Airbnb's on them. So I think that there is real harm to our housing stock, real imminent harm. So I appreciate if you believe it's something that we should take to the full council, but I fundamentally don't think we should be adding more of these in our residential neighborhoods with the current housing crisis. And we can look at that. I think that's a valid thing for us to consider. What would it look like if we did a moratorium on new uses? We can take a look at that as part of the proposal. So that's on the table for you on October 12th. And the issue there is that it's not necessarily about good actors or bad actors. You could have the best actor come in, but if people can't afford to stay in their neighborhoods, then it doesn't really matter how good the actor is. Good point. All right. Any other comments before we move on? Okay, thank you very much. It's a very important and complex issue. And I appreciate all the work going into it. And thank you, Victoria, for your comments and your concerns. I share them. Okay, Raisa, 3.3. Well, just a quick time check. Are you okay if we spend another 15 minutes on this? We generally wrap up by 11.30, but I think Ananda and I can kind of get through this. Are you good with that, Victoria? Okay, yeah, because the other thing is we have Sokara Shields and if she can be elevated, that would be great as well. So yeah, our interest in bringing this to you is because we have continually not been able to give you an update on the $2 million that council really boldly, I think, put to creating a childcare pilot program. And we have not also in the first phase of that was the resiliency fund that you see on this slide. But in addition, we haven't been able to really give you a quick introduction on where we are with the facility fund, which is the second phase of the childcare program that we had talked to about council with these funds. And then lastly, we want to round up this presentation today on an update on the employer-supported childcare that the chamber has been really leaving on that. But before I start, I just would be remiss if I didn't recognize Angie Gohenshawr with first five. She couldn't be here today, but the resiliency fund and obviously the facility fund, the entirety of the childcare support program would not be what it is, could not have happened without her and first five support. They took the money we put into the grants, the $500,000 and just leveraged that and I'll get into that in a second. And then I do want to acknowledge as well, in addition to Ananda, we did ask the Court of Shields to be here because I want to hold true to the discussion we had last month when we talked about your interest in having equity, sustainability and economy considered in the programs that we bring before this committee. And so really, so Court is here for that equity piece. So next slide, please. All right, so the data we got on the resiliency fund from first five is pretty good. So again, of the $2 million that we got from council, we put in $500,000 for the resiliency fund for grants for artists. And the purpose for this was to, it was during the early days of COVID and so many businesses were closing down. We didn't know how long, but childcare remained obviously a critical need in the community. And so the fund was created to help financially stabilize childcare providers and remain open through the pandemic. And then what I'm not talking about today, at this moment, we can come back later as the $100,000 that also went to or sees because in addition to keeping the facilities open and then eventually addressing a new facility development, we also recognize that we have a pipeline issue when it comes to early childcare educators, the teachers who provide us and potentially those who would open new facilities into the $100,000 that we set aside and actually paid out to foresees was to expand their childcare, I'm sorry, their teacher training program. So anyway, getting back to the resiliency fund. The $500,000 from the city was leveraged with the community foundations support of $177,000 and first five Sonoma County had $375,700. So the total amount of the grant program was just over $1 million. The funds from the city were returned to source. So we had no issue and there was no question about whether our funds will just support something elsewhere in the county. The $500,000 came back to support the city specifically. So there were 180 childcare providers who received funds in total. 80% of them completed the application in English and 20% of them completed the application in Spanish. Next slide, please. So while there were 180 childcare who received grants, 134% of them were Santa Rosa specific. So if we had done this without the support of first five funds and the Sonoma County Foundation, we would not have been able to assist this number of people. The grants ranged in size between $2,500 and up to 8,000 each. Now there's a disparity. So while there's a total of 180 or 134 within Santa Rosa, there about 107 of the grant recipients received funds in two rounds. And so the award amount, the number of awards given is a little bit higher than the number of recipients. So there were 287 awards to the 180 grant recipients. So again, looking at this slide, I just wanted to show you the spread because as we know, our borders are porous. What we support in the county supports our residents as well as what we support in Santa Rosa support the county residents. So in total over 6,000 children were supported, almost 3,000 within Santa Rosa. We have a major need for infant childcare. The bulk of the services that were provided through these grants were for three to five year olds. I will note that what was interesting about this is though that's the largest group, there was a subsection because schools were out, there were additional needs for school age kids. And so these funds went to support a number of things that included having to shift quickly to address the safety needs around COVID, to address overall operations, to accommodate different age groups, develop outdoor needs, I'm sorry, outdoor access environment and then also just if they were accommodating things that they needed, you know, sort of wifi and internet needs. So the bulk of them though were under five years old. Most of the childcare slots are the ability to open childcare comes mostly from home-based childcare centers. So 62% of the applicants were licensed home childcare providers, and that equated to 73 licensed providers in Santa Rosa, and about 30% were centers. Now centers might have more spots, but again, they're a little bit more difficult to open and attain. So again, there's a smaller percentage of who received the grants, but we had 52 licensed childcare centers in Santa Rosa who received the grants. Let's see, so that's the basics of this. Let me see really quickly, if there's anything else I wanna let you know about that. Oh, and the next steps on this fund. So this part of it is completed unless we have a new transfer funding that we want to put in for the grants. Clearly we're not out of COVID, but I think those who have made it through and we've been able to sort of stabilize the providers are still open, but the next step of this is first five is gonna do a survey just as a follow-up to make sure that we understand more completely now that we're where we are with this pandemic, how people are managing with it and their additional needs and any other data that comes out of it. Next slide. So what I wanted, before actually, do you guys have any questions about the resiliency fund before we get into the facility funds? Yeah, okay, yeah, it is what it is, but it was very successful. And like I said, huge thanks for taking the bold leap and allowing us to get to this point. So for the facility fund, this is where I'm gonna have to have Ananda chime in here as well, but the facility funds is, the way we conceded this is to have it be ongoing, to not be a grant program. So we have $1.4 million that we're focusing on creating a revolving loan tenant improvement program. And we ended up on a tenant improvement program because in working with and discussing with developers as well as childcare providers, if they find a space, this is where they need the money. And so for this program, a facility project can be a new construction on vacant or infill land that would be standalone. And we do know of at least one provider who's trying to do this or it could be part of a new excuse project in which a shell could be provided with the cost of that. So the developer can make the shell but the cost would be on the provider to build it out. And we do have examples of that that are current. The other thing that it could be for is the renovation of an existing building for childcare uses. So not previously used for childcare but needing to be transformed. Or the last thing is the improvement of an existing childcare site. And so what this would do was address basically four things. One, health and safety. So in the last point of transforming an existing site, we know we've lost at least one site recently because it had mold issues and they did not have the funds to rehab it or to bring it up to safety. A lot of times childcare programs are right over buildings or buildings that were not initially built for childcare use is so to adjust that. Quality is another issue in the way that a facility is designed and configured can have a big impact on the quality of the program itself. Stability, we find this quite frequently that childcare is a secondary use in a site. So like in churches, et cetera. And so some of our childcare providers are facing addiction or they don't even have a secure place to keep their stuff. So the program is sort of underserved because they have to store everything and bring it back out if the primary use of that building is needed. And then last, the expansion. I almost all of our providers have a waiting list and some are interested in expanding but really find limited or the opportunities that they have to do expand to a new site or limited or it's very difficult. So in relation to the work we've been doing with employer-supported childcare, we do have a fairly decent understanding and I should say and working with Cornerstone on their current property project for Ross Street where they're gonna be incorporating childcare. We have a basic understanding on the cost of tenant improvements. And Ananya, do you wanna to give a sort of overview of what that is? Cause what I have on here is just sort of a breadth of examples, but Ananya you might be able to talk about them on that. I mean, I think you really covered it. And I think main thing to take away from what Raiisa just talked about is the sense that the facility piece in this upfront cost is really the biggest barrier to creating new childcare slots. It is not an inexpensive endeavor and it's not one that people go into as a moneymaker. I mean, it's just a prospect that doesn't pencil out and anyone who enters into this, it's really because they're driven to do so for the community good or because they're passionate about doing this as a career if they're starting it for themselves. I mean, when you look at cost per childcare space, it's this upfront cost that can be anywhere from, I think the average for something new is about 50 to 55,000 per child. When you're thinking about space per child served by the program. And you can find 20 to 30% reduction. You know, if you go to like an existing space that's barely easy to refurbish or reutilize portable buildings can bring it down significantly, but you're still talking about 20 to $25,000 per child that will be served by that program just in upfront costs. So I think that's just the main takeaway that there truly is this need, for something to fill the gap in this, and so a need for public investment is really clear when you start to look at these numbers. So the last part of this, before we get into employer-supported childcare is the options that we're looking at. And so we're gonna bring these things back as we build it out. And I will say, thank you Victoria, because Victoria's been part and parcel of this and has a big interest in continuing to help us develop this program. And so, again, what we're looking at is a loan program, because if we did grants then we give grants and then we have no more money. And $1.4 million is a lot, but it is very little in regards to trying to keep something moving forward over time. And so there's not a lot of loan programs, like tenant improvement programs tend to be grant programs. A lot of times they came out of what used to be redevelopment. They tend to be funded, they were pre-existing. So in looking for really specifically, you know, tenant improvement program specific for childcare, I haven't really found one that is that specific, that's not a grant. So the options that we're looking at for low interest could be some examples that we've seen were like a fixed rate that's established on the prime rate, but maybe is a percentage of that prime rate with like, there's one I can't remember where it's from, but it's a fixed rate established on 70% of the prime rate at the date of the application, but would that be less than 3% for example? Or it could be that we just pick a rate which many of them do and they say, look it's just gonna be low interest could be 3% or 5% or whatever it is. And then, you know, something that was interesting to me that I saw as a variation specific to this and it tended to be used for programs that were community benefiting like this. So it's not just a commercial endeavor, but it's specific for, I don't know, programs like this. It would be a no interest rate with no fees. And, you know, some of them, you know, end up being forgivable, but if we forgive it then again, we lose the ability to recirculate the funds. So these are some of the things that we're thinking about. Regardless, we would outsource the administration of this program. So we do need to retain some funds in order to pay a subject matter expert to facilitate these funds. We would retain our seat at the table, but in speaking with Angie at first five, she believes that first five has the capability to run a revolving loan program such as this and they have really done us right when it comes to the revolving loan fund. And then lastly, while we're thrilled to have the $1.4 million to launch this program, like we did with the grants, we're hoping to get additional commitment that we're hoping that this investment from the council will spur additional investments from other organizations so that, you know, so that it will be a more robust program that we can sort of more fit as we develop and begin to understand needs as they change. And then before we move on to employer-supported childcare, again, I just want to point out, we are going to be including Sakura Shields in this because we do want to again, honor the idea of the equity piece of this and so how we roll it out and what those considerations are will be in consideration. She will, she'll help us guide in that way. And any questions on that before we move on to employer-supported childcare? Victoria, any questions at this point? I do have some questions. At first of all, it's so cool to see this stuff. This is long been a dream of mine. Thank you for making it happen. I'm just curious to know in terms of the operational, the administration of the loans, would it be possible for us to go out and get grant funding from the various foundations at any point in this process for the administration of these types of things? I know my recent experience with the red is that we've been able to secure some funding to deal with the operational part and that there are these private sector partners have been more interested once we in government have put in money. Yeah. Madeline, you can stop sharing because we don't have another slide for the other pieces of it, but thank you. Yeah, that is the intent. And I think the value of creating this program, not just alone with the city, but including the chamber and the other organizations is that we have more ability, more access to seek grants, but also whatever else, contributions in general. Ananda and I had spent a good year in a cohort through the national chamber executives group that partnered with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, for example. So we do have some resources and intent to sort of follow up with that. That cohort has an interest and has been following our efforts because I just gotta say, we were one of 10 communities selected and we have advanced and are shown to be very successful in our efforts coming out of that. And then, yeah, Angie has talked about and has obviously brought in additional funding. So I think it'll be all hands on deck to get more money. And then I know you know this, but it is a consideration for the one-time ARPA funds as well. And so we'll be looking at all sources and all opportunities. Super exciting. And then the other question is, can we have some sort of easement or control or would it be beneficial or detrimental to have some control over these operators maintaining the properties that we help to retrofit that they are maintained for at least a certain period of time as childcare facilities as a condition of the loan? Like let's say we do a 3% loan, very cheap. Can we say, you know, you have to maintain it like this for X amount of years and or if you sell it has to go to another childcare operator. Yeah, I mean, well, for one thing the sale, the sale part of it is interesting because we have had an inquiry, at least one inquiry where some would say I wanna buy this but I can't afford it. So we could eventually expand it to potentially the acquisition of properties as well in which I would say, yeah, we should have at least for the duration of the loan either for sale or for tenant improvement, some kind of a covenant or whatever it would be. I think we need to figure that out but we have that same interest. I liken it to affordable housing where you're looking not just to create new but to retain what you have and they have some good examples. And I think you have brought up open space examples. And so if we can apply those, I think the answer is that's possible. Anand, do you have any thoughts on that? I think you covered it. Thank you all. This is so exciting. Thanks Victoria. It's the only time coming. It's really nice to see the results in numbers. It's rewarding that the community has come together and the nonprofits have come together. It does take, it takes that to be successful. And so there are a lot of things to go around not the least of which is to you, Victoria, for spearheading this, I think of it as a movement because there are many communities that have yet to identify the nexus between economic success and childcare. So thank you for your, thank you for that spearhead. It's been very important. And it is showing to be very successful and that's just, it is a good example of good governance. So thank you for that. And then just real quickly, we have one last thing because I think this is an important component of it. Ananda can give you an overview of the employer supported childcare and then that sort of rounds out the program. Thanks, Raysa. And really thanks to the full council and to this committee. I'm just grateful for the investment in childcare but really as council member Sawyer just mentioned that acknowledgement of, you know, as support of childcare and childcare policy is really having a place in economic development. You know, that when we talk about funding to increase childcare, we're talking about an evidence-based approach with, you know, a solid return on investment that has been, you know, tracked through multiple comprehensive studies. And so this absolutely has a place in this committee and this department. I can't think of an issue facing Santa Rosa that can't be improved by increasing access to childcare, you know, and it's a current and future workforce issues. A lot of those issues that we talk about up front, but it's also, you know, community health, it's an equity issue for sure. And so I appreciate the inclusion of that lens because it, you know, it absolutely a lack of access to childcare absolutely contributes to long-term systemic inequity in our community. And so this is also a real opportunity to tackle that. So while there's a clear case for public investment as, you know, as council member Sawyer again just said, Santa Rosa is proving to be a clear leader in the realm. And so I truly appreciate that as well and just the partnership to focus specifically on an employer-supported childcare update and to give you a sense of the work we've been doing over the past few years. So we've compiled resources for employers such as return on investment data. And when I say ROI, I mean return on investment immediate return for employers. So looking at, you know, improved retention and recruitment, productivity, those kinds of data. But also I think we find that employers are really interested in that bigger community investment piece. And so, you know, the investment they can make in the community in which they do business and being good stewards of their community. So we also put together tools for employers, surveys and needs assessments to sort of understand their needs. We've been able to put together sample budgets, information on licensing requirements, sample our fees, lists of providers interested in working with an employer to provide care on site. We've had multiple roundtable convenings for employers interested in investing in childcare. And it's been enormously beneficial to have the city at the table as well as our local early childhood education experts demonstrating cross-sector support. Pre-COVID, we were actively meeting with about a dozen employers to look for solutions to their employees' childcare needs. As I think you know, Keysight was the first to decide to move forward with an onsite project. They had gone through the RFP process to choose a provider to work with and had just broken ground when COVID caused a pause to that project. Well, that specific project is on pause. The need today, as I'm sure you know, is greater than it was pre-COVID. As we recover and as people return to work, this will be a critical ongoing effort. The data just a month or two ago, it takes a bit to catch up, but we had lost about two thirds of our childcare slots. And so hopefully that will settle out a bit as kids are back in school and some providers are able to increase their capacity, but you know, it's a tremendous impact. So looking at sort of big picture and ongoing needs and goals in mind and COVID delays aside, I'd say several pieces of this effort are really working well. Taking the legwork out of the initial process for employers and having some of the sort of data and surveys and tools really right at hand for them has been tremendously beneficial. The city council's reduction in fees really also is meaningful. And I'm saying equally meaningful in sort of the reduction in fees is the message that this council has given to the community that an investment in childcare is really important. And I can't understate or convey to you how important that is. So if an employer or a developer is considering making this kind of investment in the community, knowing that the city council and the economic development division and really sort of all of the departments in the city that might come into play also will have sort of the spirit of helping to foster this project forward and supporting childcare that is really critical. It's been tremendously beneficial so far. Now we didn't get to see the full benefit with COVID delays, but I think we will going forward. And I just want to thank you and that asked that we continue that really important community messaging. We've found that the largest barriers really are the childcare facilities and then access to capital. As you saw into some of the numbers and racist slides, it's a really expensive endeavor and that remains the largest challenge for most businesses as well as direct providers and housing developers and anyone who might be willing to invest in this way but doesn't have the capital to self-fund. So there's just a clear case for the need and really I think a desire that we've seen sort of cross sector to invest in this way. And it's the public investment is really critical and I thank you for it. Thanks Ananda with well put. And thank you for articulating the challenges as well. It's good to have both sides of that coin so that we see what's clearly see what's before us. So Coral, do you have some words for us this morning? Thank you, Council Member Sawyer. I think that this is a great example of operationalized equity behaviors in our organization. I think several things are happening at the same time. I think we're addressing the impacts of COVID and the unequal, disequal impact on workers, particularly female workers in regards to childcare and what that's done to women in the workforce. I think that we are looking at childcare development centers as also an economic driver for many parts of the community. It is a small business and supporting small businesses and the growth of small businesses and the sustaining of small businesses, particularly in communities of color, I think is in the city's best interest to create economic success for all of the community. I also think that it demonstrates how we're partnering as Ananda said with across sectors but not only with strong organizations, strong organizations with an equity focus. So for example, first five is developing an equity strategic plan and we can trust not only that our own actions are centering equity in our community but our partners are centering their actions and discussions on equity in the community as well. And I know that working with the chamber, we're also in discussions about possible roundtables whereas businesses, we discuss these difficult conversation topics of diversity, inclusion, equity and how we operationalize that beyond just saying it. And so the chamber is also a strong partner in making these conversations real not only as a partner but as a convener of many partners across the city. And so I think there are multiple ways in which this single topic and this single issue really has long standing impact on how we do business as a city and can serve as a model for other parts of our organization as how you consider these as you're building projects and building ideas for change within the city infrastructure. So very pleased to be here. So much of this started before I was here but I think it really exemplifies the ways in which the decisions the city makes are key drivers for equity conversations across all sectors and it's modeling the way of how we do this for all members of our community. So I think raise them for the opportunity to participate. Thanks, the curl, you know, it is rewarding to see first of all, thank you for your observations. And it's rewarding to see that equity is truly moving in the direction of equity and applying equity to our decision making in economic development is what to some is a new concept. And I think it's really, it's so important and I'm pleased to hear that we're moving in the right direction. I think that's cause it's for a long time, we weren't moving and it's great to know, to hear your observations about the fact that, yes, we are indeed moving in the right direction and albeit feel slow at times, I think that there will be opportunities to expedite. And so I just really appreciate that it's getting a report and the report is good and thank you, very much appreciated. That's it, thank you guys for spending the extra time today. Thank you. I just wanted to say thank you one more time. It is so wonderful to see something that's working across so many areas and all of your hard work, each of you on the call and all of your teams, everybody's done this. It means so much and it's one of those ways when we think about equity, it's in regards to economy when we're intentional about not leaving anybody behind we're intentional about not leaving any of our resources behind. And that's what we can use to, we can simultaneously achieve equity, but also make sure that we're doing the best by our economy. And this is an amazing opportunity and I'm excited to see what happens next. Well put Victoria, thank you for that. I do need to take public comment on this item. We have yet to do that and hopefully everyone can stay on. If not, can you stay on Victoria for public comment? Excellent, thank you very much. So Madeline, do we have any public comment this morning on item 3.3? There are no hands raised for public comment and no emails and no voice mails. Okay, thank you very much and thanks Madeline for your help this morning. With that, if there are no other questions or comments from Victoria or staff, we're ready to complete this meeting. Thank you all very much. Thank you guys. It's a pleasure. Bye. We're adjourned.