 We're going to submit to us their questions, what their concerns are, issues that we want to talk about, and here use the candidates, and we distill those, and we're going to present those to candidates tonight. Of course, everybody knows that we don't endorse a position on any issue. We don't endorse any particular candidates, but we do think this is an important time that we enjoy bringing this to you. So, here's what our format will be tonight. We're going to give each one of the candidates. Oh, by the way, I do want to point out, for those of you who've come to these over the years, this year's sign of recovery of our economy that we now have wireless. Thank you, Mr. Obama. We do have... The format that we'll be following tonight, first we're going to give everybody two minutes to introduce themselves and say whatever they want to for two minutes. Then, after that, I've got a series of questions. Each one of the candidates will field one first, and we'll go to the next one so everybody gets one first. Now, I have seven questions here, so maybe that's what the cookies will be about. I'm just cutting in and out. Well, then why don't I just talk? Can you guys hear me okay? Oh, probably better. So after each one of these, you'll get one minute to respond to these. Now, folks, when you get 30 seconds to wait for when your time is up, a friend of mine came to you. You see he's a large guy. He looks nice, but don't go over your time. If you have 30 seconds to finish, you'll waive the yield sign. When your time is completely up, you'll go red on it. After that, it's whack-a-mole. If you're very good, we do have two of these extra cookie boxes. I don't think I'm not going to work that. So please honor the time. I will say it always, I think, behooves you as a candidate because it's as concise as you can possibly be. Nobody knows. They don't know what these questions are. They'll be hearing them for the first time. There are none of these issues that are going to surprise you. They're things you've already thought about, of course. Nonetheless, you'll have one minute to respond to each of my seven questions. If you don't use all that time, that's wonderful. So you're much better off just to say what you have to say and then move on. Otherwise, we put a mic on you. At the end of the seventh period, seven questions, the seven questions as we rotate through those, we have a series of just yes or no. You've got a little envelope in front of you. At the end, we're going to go through several different issues and you're going to say yes or no. You're just going to go up and thumbs down. You're just going to hold it up and let us know. So... I know. I'll get around to that. So once that's done, then they'll have another, is it one minute there or two minutes at the end? One minute at the end, then kind of summarize and then we'll dismiss everybody. Dev thinks you should know that my name is John Davis. I think that's probably a liability issue. You know how many John Davis's there are. Okay, so given that, what we'd like to do is just start by an introduction and you get two minutes a piece. I hope that microphone works better than this one did. If it cuts out, maybe we'll just hold both of them up there and hope that... So, Michelle, if you'd like to go first, just give us two minutes and Kelsey, then just hand it right on down the road. Hi, buddy. Help see. It's not working, is it? No, that's very strange. I can't tell. I can't tell at all that it's working. So very strange. So good evening, everyone. My name's Michelle Naroyan. I'm obviously running for Santa Cruz City Council, or else it would be really weird if I was sitting up here doing this. I grew up in Santa Cruz. It's my hometown and I'm running because I love living here. I went away to college, worked in LA, worked in San Francisco. Heartstrings pulled me back here, though. I just kept comparing everything to my experience in San... Oh, there we go. To my experience in Santa Cruz, and it just brought me back here, and I knew that I wanted to stay here for good and make a life for myself, and so I did. And from the time I got back, I've been really active in the community, whether it's been helping people run for office and cells, registering voters. I knew at a pretty early age that who we elect to office makes a huge difference in how our communities run, how our schools are and whether or not we have the type of resources we want for the community. So I just always believed in community activism and being involved in the community. I've been on the Public Works and Transportation Commission for the past seven years. I was chair at one point. I went to bat for neighborhood issues several times. What I didn't think neighborhoods were getting heard and their issues getting heard. I've also been very active in the local Democratic Party where I've been chair of the Democratic Central Committee, which is, I know it's a strange name, it's actually the Democratic Party of Santa Cruz County. I've also worked in the private sector. So I also have that experience working in high-tech companies. I've also worked for the California State Assembly where I worked in public policy for five years for a California assembly member. I think the next person who holds a position on city council needs to have a variety of experience. I bring a lot of private sector experience than many of my opponents do, or I should say co-candidates need to be more collegial. So I hope you consider voting for me on Election Day. Thank you very much. Okay. Can you all hear me? Is this good? All right. Thank you so much for coming out. My name is Lanie Sherman. It's really exciting to see so many engaged people from our neighborhoods here in Santa Cruz. Of course, our neighborhoods are the foundation of our quality of life. Many of you recognize me because I've come and spoken at your block parties. Ever since the beginning of those block parties, I've been coming and doing short 15 to 20-minute presentations about how to keep yourself safe in your neighborhoods, in your homes, how the cohesiveness of your neighborhoods contributes to your safety and security. When I'm not in your neighborhood block parties or speaking in front of you in a candidate forum, I'm teaching in our middle schools and our high schools and also through the department of Parks and Recreation here in Santa Cruz, anti-capital and at UCSC. Mostly I work with young people. I designed a safety skills program about seven years ago, and since then I've reached over 9,000 young people. My job is literally keeping young people in this town safe. I teach them about how to carry themselves. I teach them about how to protect themselves. It's a widely supported program because it contributes to student safety both in the schools where we've identified bullies, we've reduced bullying, we've seen infrastructure improvements, and also at home. Turns out that students often teach their parents some of the things that I've taught them. This work that I've done has literally brought pedophiles off the streets and into our prisons and contributed really well to the safety of our community. One of the things that I've learned from pushing that program forward was how to work with a wide range of people towards a common vision. I've worked with police departments, school boards, city councils, principals, administrators, people that often don't see eye to eye on many important issues, but we all agree that our kids need to be safer. That experience, collaborating with a broad range of people will serve me very well as a city council member. Teaching self-defense for the past 15 years, all over the world and for the past decade here in Santa Cruz has brought me a unique perspective on public safety and I hope you'll give me the opportunity to take that to the next level and bring it to governance and policy-making here in our city. I would be honored to have your support. Thank you. Thank you everyone for being here tonight. I think as we talk beforehand this is the eighth or ninth forum and I think one of the things I like about the Santa Cruz Neighbors Forum the most is because just talking with each of you beforehand we have a broad cross-section of issues from water to housing to social services and I think the questions and our responses are representative of all of the issues that are really important to our town. That said, four years ago I was elected to the city council and I ran on a platform to focus on public safety, economic development and engaging our community in our policy-making. Over the past four years I've focused on those very issues as the chair of the Public Safety Committee I've looked at how we provide innovative public safety programs to look at how we provide improved rehabilitation for drug and alcohol as well as mental health services to deal with what has become chronic arrest rate of the same people downtown. Our deputy chief of police has told us directly we can't arrest our way out of this problem I think we're looking at ways to address this problem in a way that's more effective. The other program I've been working on is dealing with working with our local schools and that is Santa Cruz City Schools has approached the council as far as collaborating with them on developing improved safety programs. We've worked with them to establish safe school zones at each of the schools in the district as well as improved security measures to make sure kids are safe. As chair of the library board I've worked with local jurisdictions to make sure we have access for internet for kids and also improve literacy after school programs in our facilities. And lastly to do economic development I'm focused on ways where we can make improved outreach to make starting a business here in Santa Cruz as easy as possible we want to make sure that we have fees that are reflective of opportunities for people to invest in start businesses here. I'm really proud also of my work to establish the first neighborhood grant program where we look at bringing neighbors in to invest in our community. I want to thank you and I look forward to talking further about issues here in Santa Cruz. Hi everybody I'm Cynthia Chase and I've seen a little unfair to put cookies in front of us and not let us meet them yet but I am food motivated so hopefully by the end I'll get another package of cookies. I'm really happy to be here tonight. I came here about 15 years ago as a student at UCFC I transferred in here from the University of Alaska and I fell in love here. I love our community I became very involved in our community I was an intern with the probation department and also here in our local jails and that really got my foot in the door and allowed me unlike a lot of people that I went to school with to actually stay here and get a job that supported me and helped me afford an affordable housing unit later on in my life and that's a huge part of my story I then worked as a probation officer collaborating with all the county departments and local law enforcement treatment programs and rehabilitation to really help improve public safety in our community and then from there I went on to get my graduate degree in social work where I teach at both the School of Social Work at San Jose State and CSUMD and helped educate incoming students about policy legislation program implementation also program evaluation we need to be smart about where our money is going where we're spending in and the effectiveness of programs and then I got the job that I have now which is the director of the GEMMA program which is again a public safety oriented program that's actually reduced crime right here in our community by using evidence based programs that help improve public safety and also improve lives and really what I want to focus on is that none of that would be possible without communication and collaboration with many of you in the community who helped to found GEMMA and also county departments and city who really have an opportunity to work together better to come up with solutions for our city and as a parks and rec commission member I'm also excited to making sure that we're making our parks safe for all people in our community I really would appreciate your vote Good evening I'm Bruce Van Allen this is an honor to be in front of the members of Santa Cruz neighbors and a continuation with the honor of appearing in all these forums I'm running because I've been deeply involved in Santa Cruz community affairs for about 45 years but one of my major areas of interest has been to make the river back into a centerpiece of Santa Cruz instead of a back alley that is now and that means in several different ways we want to restore the habitat because it's a crucial link between the bay and the mountains but also it needs to be a place where everybody feels welcome and safe and this is my highest priority right now is that to get the river back it's got to be a socially positive space and it ought to be the centerpiece of town and I've been working I helped write most of the plans for the river that are slowly making their way forward we finally got that the way things actually get done and accomplished on the practical level is when people see beyond divisions and find common ground forward and this has taught me that the real art of politics is to be able to work with people that you don't agree with about everything but to find common ground so that's the way I do my practice now more recently I've been working very hard to make sure that Santa Cruz has secure water supply we I was in the group that helped steer the city away and I got right in there when the mayor Brian at the time and the city manager said we needed to pause and I said we can't let this just be a deadlock let's find a constructive way to move forward and that led to the process that's underway right now I've been in private business as a woodworker and a software developer I helped people participate in elections and to me this is the kind of community that always goes back so I want a safe beautiful habitat full river and I want a community that in which everyone feels that they have a part and a voice thank you very much folks before we really get into the middle of this we do have two empty seats down here I'd encourage someone to come down and take them also we have three do I do I hear four we still have folks it's going to be a little while also very kind of everybody to clap but that's over for the time being now I'm going to answer any questions because we really want to now among all the questions that we've got one that we are that is conspicuously absent is about water we've got a few of these flyers in the back we'd like for you to grab and take a look at there's a lot of attention going on right now about water as there should be there is a form about a month away so if you'll pay attention to this it will give you the opportunity to go in and really learn a lot about what people are thinking and share your own thoughts so we're not going to talk about water today that's one conspicuously that so now we'll go ahead and begin with the questions Bruce do you have the microphone still and we'll go and let you do the first one and it's going to be an easy one folks and again you have one minute to answer these in 30 seconds Mike's going to start looking at you okay so you have a minute the first question is of course this is a grassroots group and we're all representing our neighbors and concerned about local issues we'd like for you have two you have one minute to talk Mark Cremack will remember this one I used to live on time place in those beautiful art deco art consider of city hall and a bunch of us neighbors said that this walkway that comes down on the hill there towards city hall towards Chestnut street was kind of trashed and it was dangerous and we persuaded the city and Mark really led that but I was chimed in on it and felt proud of having done that and the city up to the other part and helped me to have some truth to that so when I actually moved into the complex that was an affordable housing unit about ten years ago I was on the board the homeowners association and what was very quickly found out was that the renovations that had been done were actually unsafe and many of the stairwells could not be used families could not get in and out of their homes and so I actually was the vice president and president of the homeowners to the builder and actually won our lawsuit to make sure that the housing there was safe for families and children to continue to live in the complex that they took so they worked so hard to afford and be able to live in and so I'm really proud that was something that I was able to be a part of and help a lot of people accomplish about 70 years ago there was a murder that took place in the beach and I know the call so those door hangers hanging around there are something I created as a way to make sure that the public knew how to get in touch with the appropriate agency to deal with safety issues community printers donated all the printing costs and created in the partnership with Santa Cruz and I'm still proud that they're still in use today I also just as a side working in the community is really important to me as a youth police officer in the city to rededicate a park to work with his family to create a memorial at Sergeant Charles Dirty Park and so I think it's important to always work with our neighbors to make sure that our town reflects the values of each of our families a center eight years ago I was invited to teach a safety class at a senior center and I expected to teach sort of my standard class that I often teach but the first thing I do when I sit down with anyone that I'm working with is I ask them to pass the first place and it turned out from working with these older people that lighting was a major problem at their senior center there wasn't adequate lighting and people didn't feel safe so although I expected to teach my normal class I ended doing a community outreach program and improving the lighting situation at that center so those seniors feel much safer in their homes and in their neighborhood now so in my role as chair in the public works and transportation they asked for parking permits for their street because their street basically become an open air metham harrowing doing street and they wanted a cross walk and they put that request in three years ago they had not received really noticed or a hearing from the city on either issue they asked me to come over to their neighborhood and I did I met with them I saw that you were taking your life in your own hands just across the street from their complex and really without consulting with staff I just wanted to put those items on our agenda so they could get heard and they could go through the public process that for some reason hadn't been happening and so I'm really proud to say today even though people weren't necessarily happy with me at city hall that street has the parking permits now and they have a cross walk thank you all good answers an impressive group of people if you want to just hold on and Mike could take the next one now that you've had to imagine the moment you know you're on board and incredible work all of you are doing we're going to ask you to be a little bit critical and prep and pause it as well the next question is considering the city council's actions over the last four years maybe you don't need to be nervous about this one thing they did that you liked and one thing they did you didn't like do you want me to take that first you only have a minute sure okay so I was not pleased with the city's decision to get $6 million to three large health vouchers I thought that was a questionable decision I'm not sure that has community benefit that can be shared equitably in our community and I want to make sure that when we distribute funds from our general fund that it's shared by as many people as possible in our community I was really proud of the city for setting a reset on the decision about diesel and how we're going to move forward with our water I know we said we were going to make sure that the city's ability to listen to citizens that they're willing to put a reset on that and appoint a citizen supply water advisory committee I was very pleased with that decision I'm really proud that the city council and the city manager has made cleaning up Cal's beach a priority it's a budget priority this year it's also something we've taken great pains to really focus on cleaning up our beaches and making them safe for people I think that's something for me that I will continue to say the waves close to Watershed Council and Surfrider to form a coalition to even explore even more deeper ways that we can address that very issue one issue that I think I would disagree with but I will say that we should have done a better job that is the hotel rehabilitation program I think it's one that's not understood as well as it could be it isn't about giving away corporate money it's about providing incentives in the wake of the elimination of the redevelopment providing incentives for the improvement of hotel properties I think we could have done a better job in terms of not focusing the discussion on a particular property because I think broad-based policy means we create a framework to make sure that there can be a solution to deal with this and that would be the one that I think we could have done a better job on I'm really happy that the public safety task force was put together by the Council and I'm specifically really happy with the intervention for young people as well as sort of prevention programs for young people and intervention for people moving throughout the system and then out of that came the down time accountability program which I think is really smart and effective what I'm hearing most front folks when I go around neighborhoods is that when they speak of things that concern them they're really worried about their neighbors being evicted from their ADUs happening here and when people are talking about it to me they're not saying that they're concerned about party houses they're saying that they're concerned about people that are good neighbors and neighbors that they really want to try to keep are going to lose their homes and that they're also going to lose the opportunity to have housing stock and I would really like this to take a look at that and be really thoughtful about having them forward. I was very pleased when the council and this is very significant I'm not the only one that has mentioned it but we were headed in the direction that was going to cause very costly water and huge energy consumption for the South Island the amount of investment in that project and not the football was tremendous and yet the city council did the right thing and now we're headed in a much better direction and I salute that the former mayor Ryan the council did not take action to make public financing of local campaigns of the city's policy this is something that's in 60 different cities around the country it can be done we have a very workable before them and instead they did a kind of minimal measure and the preventing the possibility of the domination of large contributors to our local politics is an important public policy question for our community we don't want to go down I'm sorry I don't know I don't know so I really like the fact that the city just recently decided to fund the downtown accountability program to even go further than where it's gone and we're already seeing positive results of it in terms of not having to reassess the same folks over and over again which hopefully will be really happy to see them doing that I'm not really happy that the change in traffic pattern can happen downtown I talked to so many people from out of town who have no idea like they come into downtown where the town fuck is and then there's that weird right turn you're supposed to take and they feel like they're getting lost so I'd like to see our council come down and know that Ocean Street's not our downtown Michelle won't you hang on and go first on the next one? No It should be David It should be David It should be David It should be David It should be David It should be David It should be David It should be John John I just want to be sure I do not Third question ladies and gentlemen the Santa Cruz's Perennial and perhaps most divisive issue is our homeless can you discuss any perspective solutions or strategies that you support or introduce during the term? Perspective solutions or strategies I think we need to know more about our homeless because we don't really even have a data point to know how many of them are here maybe perhaps many of them grew up here or have lived here for a long time we have one survey that's taken every other year and the only purpose of it is to count homeless people we don't even know the questions that are asked and that conclusion came to the two-thirds of those folks that are counting somehow have a connection to Santa Cruz I'd like to see a much more extensive study done because I want promotion if we just we do nothing to stem the tide of people that either are becoming homeless or people deciding to come here this is going to be a continuous problem and we'll never see our way out of it so I think we need more data because the data that one survey is so different from the experience of police officers social workers and firefighters are having when they are working with folks in the homeless community as I've been walking through a tour which is all I do when you see this is the largest issue that comes from the population and this is a huge issue that if we take as a model with the coal it's very overwhelming because it's so entrenched so it's difficult to grapple with but I think if we start breaking it down into the elements of that those people that are experiencing homelessness then we can start to grapple with it in a more effective way so I personally on the streets of Santa Cruz see a lot of people that are struggling with mental health issues that are experiencing homelessness I see a lot of people that are struggling with homelessness I believe that if we provide services that wrap those people in social safety net essentially our city will actually save money cities like San Antonio, Texas and Vancouver Bridge Columbia have saved an enormous amount of money by intervening recuperative care centers for mentally ill people for example that will free up our police to pursue actual criminals public safety initiatives to better coordinate our services with the counties I think that's our first step I think we need to really look at how we can intelligently thoughtfully work with the trained professionals in social services mental health to really provide some lasting solutions we've seen as chair the public safety committee that many of the public safety issues deal with some of our chronic offenders that have mental illnesses and substance abuse we kind of address those problems helps provide a framework and a foundation to get them out of homelessness the homelessness issue actually does really need to be divided into segments for lots of different reasons one is to be able to tackle it effectively but the other is to really look at where we have resources the slices within the homeless population vary and the resources available to support them vary we need to be really smart about all the different services government agencies that are actually out there providing services to the general homeless population or the specific populations within it so that we can be really smart about our resources and that we can collaborate and use them more effectively and target the areas that we can spend our money wisely and also not be creating a lot of redundant activity we have so many people in this community that are committed to homelessness from law enforcement and first responders rehabilitation and housing we need to be communicating and working together so that we're making sure that we're being the most effective two years ago was when Sanford actually experienced the onslaught of mass homelessness and so I remember when we didn't have that and it's a problem that was created partly at the federal level with massive cutbacks in housing subsidies by then President Reagan and it's also something that is a state phenomenon because we're an attractive state and it's a coastal phenomenon because of climate and a lot of things going on that draw people here at all income levels and it's a local problem in that we have been so divided over it that we have lost the opportunity to be constructed I'm an ally of the smart solutions to homelessness the new movement which says let's treat people with respect let's find what individual people with different conditions whether it's addiction or mental illness or learned by social behavior to get the help whether it's to be accountable and pay for their problems but they also need the kind of help that allows them to dig their way out of the situation that they're in Thank you, Bruce if you would mind handing them the mic today David, I'll let you go first this time and here's a song for you In the past 21 months more than 6,275 needles have been found on the streets parks and beaches at Santa Cruz can you help us understand the way you think about solving this problem or is there more than the needles themselves? I think that thank you for the question because I mean as chair of the public safety community we had at least 150 people come to our council meetings to address this issue we took action by one working directly with our county professionals in terms of having our city staff work with them to identify opportunities to address the issue of discarded needles they continue to need that the meetings resulted in reform of the needle exchange program where they have actually county staff is now operating it rather than volunteers that may not have been administrating the program in a way that met our city needs or even county health expectations we also are looking at further ways where we can work to provide better opportunities to not only provide health care for these people who need it but also looking at ongoing reform through better public meetings at the county level which weren't taking place earlier I think it's something when we look at areas there's still a problem and we continue to work with them my thought is I think that we need to identify ways where one where we have this issue we look at opportunities to have the administrators of the program kind of meet more directly to the city so that they can meet our city expectations so I know that this issue actually was really brought forward because of concern from the community and so I want to make sure that that stays in the forefront of how there are collaborations and conversations between law enforcement first responders park rangers that are out there now and continuing to talk to neighbors about what is happening in their individual neighborhoods because there is such a wide variety of how this issue impacts each individual neighborhood and then of course health services where it's great that they're taking over the responsibility of the needles and collection and distribution but we need to keep that dialogue going and we need to also be measuring the impacts that we've had so far and see where else we can do some more work when I take kids down to the river for looking at the wildlife or taking water quality measurements the last thing that I want or that their parents want is to encounter a needle and the dangers that come with that and this is something that's very serious what I have learned is that with the evidence shows from all over the place that the best thing is to have a professionally run needle exchange program that without that the problem would get far worse and having a good professional needle exchange program allows the people involved in it to make sure that the people that they're meeting about needles get access to services on addiction treatment and so on rather than feeling isolated and therefore not dealing with their own problems so I do think we need a strong needle exchange program but I also think that this is a matter of possibility and I need to speak out when we see something that troubles us as well as when we see someone in need of help so it's a walker by all of us that really addresses. Thank you. I think it's indicative of a larger problem Santa Cruz does have a high rate of drug use and you know it's really interesting our needle program here hands out twice as many needles as Santa Clara County's needle program yet we're around one fifth of their population so that a huge amount of people using meth and heroin or using needles for their drugs or we're giving out way more than we should and so that's something that I think we need to figure out and one thing is we don't have a strict one-to-one policy we have a lot of exceptions for it and I think that gets reflected in the amount of needles that you see in the inline neighborhood so I think we can have a needle program and maybe have some different best practices around having needles out of health as well so improperly discarded needles are a huge safety problem that all of us need to grab with and I know that the needle exchange is a device issue but I don't know of any effective alternative Miami, Florida for example doesn't have any needle exchange program and they have a much worse problem with improperly disposed needles than we have here San Francisco has a more robust program than we have and they have fewer improperly discarded needles I'm really glad the county has taken over this program I feel like this is one of the ways it's administered and I'd like to see us start a conversation about for example mobile units like San Francisco has I think that that reduces the impact on specific neighborhoods and also allows us to reduce the number that we find on the streets because there's a mobile unit going around to pick those up so I'd like that conversation for example to be started Thank you down to the down the stand you we'll let you go first it's kind of a new problem actually I'm not I recall seeing it but there seems to have been an increasing problem with RVs parking in neighborhoods in question or waste down the streets or down the drains but that goes directly into the bay do we need an ordinance to prevent this from happening or can you propose some other kind of an effective approach send me a voice I haven't heard this come up so this is new for me too I would say that there's obviously some challenges here in terms of public safety and public health risks and also just the way that neighbors are feeling about having folks parked in their front doorstep so I would have to learn a lot more about this is the first time hearing about it so I want to talk to neighbors and find out I think this is probably an issue that impacts some neighborhoods more than other neighborhoods and really hear what is that there's somebody not even saying yeah yeah so I would really want to hear from those folks and hear about what they've experienced and maybe their suggestions and really take those into consideration and potentially yeah bring it back if there's an ordinance needed but I really want to learn more about the issue before I can say yes we need to move forward on that going back to 32 years ago when Mass Homeless broke out one of the things that happened right after I became mayor was we got a letter from the principal of Santa Cruz High saying that they had noticed that fall that there was a surprising number increased number of students who didn't give a home address and when they looked into it they discovered that they were living in their cars the economic conditions they were going to lease their home many of them parked right around the high school so the kids could get to school so to me there is probably a poverty aspect and a housing cost aspect to this on the other hand we have a lot of visitors here and all the other reasons that we all know of as to why people want to come here and live cheaply and so I too would want to really learn and understand who are what's missing there that they might need or what can we do to protect neighborhoods from any effects and I certainly don't like it if people are emptying their sewers into the storm range which does get either to the river or to the bay and that's unacceptable so yeah this has been an identified problem and there are some streets where if you go actually pretty close to my neighborhood where the new restaurant sake is May Street in that area you do see a lot of RVs on that street and you do see a lot of the waste that they leave and it's pretty unpleasant and pretty stinky and like I said this is literally a couple blocks from my house it's a really hard crime to enforce I mean it is a crime to just you know take your raw sewage from your toilet and just dump it on the street how we catch people doing this I don't know how we do that but if there's a way to address it and someone has a good suggestion something that I would consider so the original question was if we need an ordinance to address this issue and I consider an ordinance sort of a very extreme measure which of course we're going to take after we've had a very thorough dialogue and conversation with the community so this question is new to the neighbor's forum and it's new to Afghanistan I haven't heard a lot about it as I've been walking but I don't think it's a new problem in Santa Cruz it's kind of perennial thing that we struggle with here in town it would be unacceptable to dump sewage and I think the bigger thing is we need to engage neighbors and let them know that as city council we're available and interested to hear their concerns we want to listen to their concerns and work towards solutions for everybody some of that might involve an ordinance or enforcement but I think a lot of it is going to involve community policing and empowering people within their own neighborhoods to take some priority and we've heard this at the CalSpeed special session meeting that this was a problem where there were legal discharges so council took unanimous vote and forwarded this for review by our public works and transportation commission it's also something where other residents have looked at in terms of where you've got RVs that take over two or three spots so I think we look at how we kind of address that we have no station in the city those and other places so we can eliminate any sort of waste in our waterways thank you thank you all I'm sorry to bring that to you but I think I think we'll be hearing more about that has everybody gone first now right and we it's time for you to go first again and this is a question that of course the neighbors are very concerned about but it's something that we see some changing over time here can you guys hear me we want to know what your perspective is on commercial development the same groups we've given these last few years we've got a lot of change a lot of progress in that but there's also there's an excruciating experience with La Bahia and that's all that's moving in a positive direction now but are there some lessons in general guidelines that you would like to see honored for the future commercial development having businesses that generate sales caps it's one of the main ways that local government in California now has to increase revenue because the property tax is no longer a significant source of revenue after Prop 13 and so I completely understand and agree with the city leadership that has felt that adding commercial developments has been a desirable thing and that's that is different from hotel tax which is another source that's under some local control so on the other hand to me the idea of just getting big growth or even big tax revenue numbers if it means it's based on minimum wage jobs and I have a problem with it because that means that the burden of that benefit is being put on people that might need two or three jobs in order to pay the rent and feed their kids and that's not right and if they hit a crisis then they're going to need more city services to deal with that so I think that the city has a responsibility to make sure that if we do have commercial development for the economic benefit other whether to the private economy or to the corporate tax we make sure that the whole part of it the jobs as well as the revenues that are good and equitable for our community we're pretty built out of Santa Cruz we don't have a lot of land left to do development so when we do it I think we need to be very very wise about what we do and there's a development that's going to go in at 555 Pacific Avenue it's been an ugly dirt lot and it's kind of one of my pet peeves and talent has been allowed to exist that way what's going to go in there is space for commercial type businesses whether it's retail or offices I'm not sure and then on the top few floors there's going to be pretty much high density home buying opportunities smaller units one bedroom studio and two bedrooms and I think that's the type of commercial development I'd like to see in town now maybe there's some potential for the front street and along there there's a lot of kind of accredited looking buildings that maybe we could have a vision there but I think kind of a big excuse building is a way to build here in Santa Cruz for the future so the question was about guidelines for economic development one of the guidelines of course needs to be generating tax revenue that's what we hope economic development does one of the guidelines that we need to have is a community benefit so we need to make sure that that tax revenue can be distributed equitably in our community we need to make sure that that profit stays local as much as possible so that's going to involve I think one of the guidelines one of the guidelines we should have are some easing on restrictions for locally owned businesses so we can encourage locals to start our businesses here I think one of the guidelines we also need to keep in mind is maintaining and enhancing the quality of our lives our neighborhoods and our natural environment as we develop so we need to accommodate growth while we maintain the quality of our lives and our natural environment that makes our life so fun you know investing in our community I think is a priority and that doesn't mean commercial development it's also creating affordable housing opportunities for people to live and work here I think those are the mix of values that we need to to focus on as a council we see that you know it's very difficult and expensive place to live so having the opportunity to create new jobs in Santa Cruz is something that we are focused on as a council I appreciate Bruce's comment of that value one of the things that I feel that it does though need to do is reflect you know the neighborhood concerns we worked out with PAN we were able to successfully get a new development with also addressing some of the neighborhood concerns and I think that's key to how we kind of move forward to collaboratively and I think that how we look at our fees and provide a new investment in the neighborhood infrastructure also reflects how we can provide for new investment in commercial development but also respect the values of the neighbors where those new developments might take place the one thing that I talk a lot about is that we're thinking about not just what we need right now but whatever we do right now how is that going to carry forward for us in the future and one of the challenges we're dealing with now is the fact that we built out and now we don't have much choice but to build up and so what I want us to be thinking about when we're looking at guidelines is what can we do that is sustainable for our community and the environment using things that are taking into consideration our resources and how limited they are to the use of that space that does preserve the quality of life and does allow for a broad range of people to stay within our community meaning that we need to have small units for individuals like myself who stay here after college and also for families who are getting started and want to have homes here so whatever we're doing we need to be thinking about the future and how is this going to translate into the coming decades for our community if you know my baby you might be going first on this last one it's kind of a blue sky kind of a thing and I know you've thought a lot about this but let's just kind of take a moment to think about the possibilities for the future here Santa Cruz itself perfect as it is like each of its residents can enjoy growing in ways that do not necessarily mean getting bigger nothing personal to anybody else but we're talking about quality and the primary reason why we live here is because the quality of life and we've heard references to that tonight we've discussed a number of related issues to that but can you share with us your big picture priorities that might help make the future of Santa Cruz a higher quality than it is today yeah we set priorities in one minute so I'm just going to focus on one and I would like efforts to do the first citywide parks master plan in the last 30 years what I'm looking for is an inventory of all the opportunities we have better investment on parks speeches and open spaces for not only our community and families but also recreational use I'm also interested in establishing an endowment so we set a long-term fund that invests in those parks for the long term where we look at ways we can go above and beyond what we're trying to invest in I'm also focused on public safety initiatives and I think they really prioritize what I believe is one of our cities primary assets initiatives and I think the work we've done to establish the downtown accountability program I think is one or we've seen another community that's been successful and I'm looking forward to continuing that deep work with the county so that we can develop lasting solutions I'm really proud to be an alumni of UC Santa Cruz and I go to a lot of alumni events and one of the things that I really want to support is investing in young people starting at Carrillo transferred to UCSB and they're committed to our community they want to give back and I think there needs to be a lot more opportunities to keep the young brilliant minds that are coming out of both Carrillo and UCSB here to address a lot of the issues that we talked about tonight there are people whose families are here hopefully they can be here for the next generations and they can help move forward the sustainable solutions that I've been talking about tonight so that's something a lot of effort into creating that pipeline for students especially local ones to stay here and reinvest in our city I'm sure this is predictable but to me what will turn Santa Cruz from a gem to a jewel on the Monterey Bay is to have the centerpiece of our town the river be a wonderful beautiful safe place for everyone to enjoy and that includes economic development which hasn't got potential there right in the center of town where jobs and shopping and a lot of houses already are we can have intensified beautiful and appropriate scale urban development along the river and along with the habitat restoration and the safety and the recreational value in the public art and the making the river into the centerpiece it was the reason that Santa Cruz is located where it is and for way too long it's been treated you know when the original industry was located here and we need to completely turn that around and that's what I've dedicated I've worked on it for four decades and I think I have a few decades to go and that's why I want to be understood so this one might sound strange I know that you know we've got issues of high drug use we have issues of trying to have more jobs here I'd like to see more people really bad traffic they get to our city gateway at ocean in 17 and honestly it doesn't look like a town that takes a lot of pride in the fact that we're the gateway to the national marine base sanctuary it doesn't scream treat our city with respect when you're here it doesn't say pack your trash when you leave the beach don't leave plastic I want a gateway to the city that is Santa Cruz that is beautiful that's not artistic talent that we have here in Santa Cruz and create this amazing gateway to our city so when people are here they treat it with respect and they get the message that we care about our city as well and studies have shown that when actions like this are taken crime goes down graffiti goes down and so that's one project I'd like to work on I work with young people so part of what's driving me to run for city council is wondering what kind of town they're going to inherit what kind of town they have a safe sustainable affordable place to live so one of my priorities I think we've done a remarkable job preserving greenbelt and open space but we have a remarkable amount of pollution in our green space and in our open spaces I'd like to see a collaboration with UCSC students that aims at cleaning up Palo Beach identifying the source of that palogy or bacteria that's growing there that's causing so much pollution I'd like to see the same thing that collaboration with UCSC students that are in our river as well my other big concern for the future of Santa Cruz is of course the neighborhoods and that's partly because of my involvement with the block parties but it's partly because of my involvement teaching self-defense and safety skills so I understand that the tighter our neighborhoods are the safer we are in the city so one of my big concerns and priorities for the future of Santa Cruz is strange to make that cohesive and I also really like to work on reducing traffic that's probably going to be a big right thank you thanks for having me folks thank you very much before we move we're going to move down to this upper-down section I'm just going to read this issue and I'm going to read this issue you need to hold it up so everybody can see if everybody else can see here can they stand up stand please stand oh god don't thanks everybody up there sees this we're just hopefully you know what that's where by the way folks I didn't want to say it's not one of our questions tonight but I think maybe some of the other council council members here will go along with me on this I know the one question that you're often asked as a council member but you can never really come up with a good answer is what's the matter with you it's not a very question it's not a very question I just think you want to down prepare if you're ready if you're ready for support or not that initiative providing for and the first one is license plate readers now if you're not familiar with this there is it's kind of a new issue well it's whether or not you support an initiative providing for this now this is this is also something that there are ACLU standards out there provide for privacy but the issue is in case somebody gets the license plate or even part of it there are only a few exit routes out of town it takes a few minutes for that word to get around and the license plate readers read them notify police elsewhere and help them as they leave town or go to other parts of town so that's up or down what do you think what do you think what do you think what do you think did you mean when you said additionally did you mean a ballot measure I don't mean anything about it I think I think are you interested in would you even entertain a discussion what the boss would you have supported well I'm with conditions I could get with conditions that's good guys you know that's fine well here's your second one and some of you have tipped your hand on this D South with San Cruz what You can go sideways, you can go sideways, all right, okay, we're finding out what we want to know, all we know. Can you hear the question? We're not hearing the question. What a loud punch. The last one was the development of the river levee in new commercial and recreational zones. License plates, I mean, well, we're not telling them up or down, we're telling them to reveal what you think about this and hear the judge from that. So let's not force an end up. If you want to go sideways, you'll be revealing that. Okay, so we're back to development of the river levee in commercial and recreational zones. Hold up, sign for us, please. Thank you, our friendly crew. Allow the university to expand and provide for student housing. Retention to rainwater or Santa Cruz, perhaps residents. More community gathering places and events like the water development ordinance. This is where developers pay for water conservation projects to replace the water in the projects we use. So those are all up. What a friendly bunch. How about an east side entrance to the university? What? An east side entrance to the university. Um, no. An eastern access road. An eastern access road to the university, yes. Okay, well right now we have one. Will you continue to support the unruly gatherings ordinance? Oh yes, there it is right now. It's really not up for discussion currently, but ADU is the accessory to all humans. There is some concern as to whether or not they will require that both humans be owner of the well, that at least one of them has to be owner occupied as opposed to one being unoccupied and the other not. So ADU is always rented. The main house can either be unoccupied or not. That's what the question is. Do both of them have to? Can both of them be rented? No, the question was getting rid of owner occupancy. Yes, that is a question. Are you in favour of getting rid of owner occupancy for ADU? Good. That's the question. Well now the ADU will be rented. At least one of the properties has to be owner occupied. You will know. That's the current law. Are you in favour of getting rid of the current law of owner occupancy? That's the question. Do you understand that? I'm willing to get rid of owner occupancy law. That the owner has to live on the premises of the property. Which is current. Are you willing to get rid of that? Okay, thank you. Thank you. And that's the last one. This is going to be a wrap. Thank you all very much. Thank you all very much. This is a great turnout. And it's a good group of Michael Feisty. But I just want to thank all of you for not staying and helping sitting on your couches. But to come out here and participate. We're very appreciative of that. Thank you again. Thank you again to all of our candidates. Thank you so much.