the hour of one o'clock having arrived at the Santa Cruz City Council for the meeting of April 25th 2023 is called to order the clerk will call the roll thank you mayor council member newson present Brown here Watkins here Brunner present Calentari Johnson as it vice mayor Golder here and mayor Culey here quorum having been established we will proceed to our closed session agenda this would be the opportunity for anyone who is either with us in chambers or online to make a comment about our closed session agenda let me ask miss bush do we have anyone online we have nobody online anyone with us in chambers wish to make comments seen and hearing none the council will now adjourn into closed session we will return on or about 2 o'clock not before that for our regular session of the city council at this time we stand adjourned into closed session recording stopped good afternoon the Santa Cruz City Council is back in session for its April 25th recording in progress third meeting let me ask the clerk to call the roll thank you mayor council member newson present Brown here Watkins Brunner present Calentari Johnson as it vice mayor Golder here and mayor Culey here quorum having been established we will move forward on our agenda our first item is item for a master recycler volunteer training program recognition I'll recognize miss O'Malley good afternoon our presentation here good afternoon mayor council members fellow staff and members of the public thank you for the opportunity to come today and give you some information about the city of Santa Cruz master recycler volunteer training program next slide so the program was started in 2018 was our first class it was paused in 2020 and we just resumed this year in 2023 so we started a master recycler volunteer training program because we really started to notice a lot of contamination in the curbside recycling carts in 2017 National Sword was the operation with China and the east stopped accepting a lot of recycling so it was important for us to educate the community about recycling contamination and we also got a lot of feedback from tours and people that attended the tours at facility we wanted to build community awareness and most importantly we wanted to stress the priority of waste reduction so our vision originally the great news is when I first gave this presentation to council in 2017 the vision was just written on a page and there were no pictures so now we have some great pictures that have come to fill this page in the five years next slide so the framework really is 20 up to 25 people they attend two hour sessions weekly over the course of six weeks and then they commit to 20 hours of volunteer service over the course of 12 months curriculum is an opportunity to educate our residents that there is a difference between the city of Santa Cruz are recycling and what we accept curbside but also how it's different in the county and also even for those who attend school up at UCSC and our off campus residents it was an opportunity to prioritize the food education waste reduction and compliance with state and local policies next slide some of the tools and knowledge that we get to leverage with our program through the master recycler program is we engage with city schools we have a Dory pole lending program to mitigate litter from balloons our food scrap diversion program our newly curbside collection program food scrap drop-off in our home composting rebate we have our annual garage sale weekend that's coming up and then Earth Day which we just had this past weekend next slide then the master recyclers at the end of their six weeks of training get to decide how they're going to spend those 20 hours of volunteer time many of our newest participants started to fill their hours this past weekend at Earth Day so they manned way stations at city events community outreach and education tabling they look for alternatives to hard to recycle materials and then they bring awareness to the community about some of our policies like our environmentally acceptable packaging and products ordinance next slide we did have to pivot during COVID as we all know and are still doing a little bit we were able to maintain the participation through online chat groups in social distance volunteering out on the curb to help get carts restickered so that residents knew what went in there and then a monthly newsletter and special guest over zoom next slide so the great news is in 2023 having just adopted our climate action plan it'll be more important than ever to help our residents understand the importance of recycling but as we prioritize waste reduction next slide here's a list we'd like to say thank you to all the participants almost a hundred over these years and Bonnie if I could ask you to just click on that blue link reflections and then there'll be one more arrow to start well when we check back into the video that was uploaded we had some words from some of our master recyclers to share their reflection and their input for a program so thank you for the opportunity to share a little bit about this program and we look forward to coming back in the future with new updates we're gonna see if we can get this yeah just at the bottom the reflections if you click on that gotta love technology thank you very much and all of the volunteers it's just wonderful work that you do and providing an opportunity for other people to help make this a stronger better community thank thank you so much let me ask if if council members like to make any remarks so I think on behalf of the council miss Bruner I just wanted to briefly say thank you so much I know that I've been up at the recycling center and have done one of your tours and not the master recycling program but it's so informative and so important and a wonderful community engagement kind of light bulb on for a lot of people I know that I've gone through the master recycle program and and what a great way to have those people share with their neighbors and other people and to be engaged in events and and I saw them out there for Earth Day so thank you for all of your work around this thank you very good very best wishes thank you so much thank you it all the help you've provided to the city thank you we are on item number five a proclamation declaring the month of May is affordable housing month and I imagine every member of the city council is excited about that I know that every member of the city council has been working on housing affordability for some time as our members of the community what I'd like to do is invite bunny lips come up I'll present the proclamation miss lips come ask her to make some remarks I see if there's some other wonderful people like mr. Lane and others who work in this space thank you mayor and Bonnie lips and director of economic development and housing for the city this is our favorite month thank you very much this is our favorite month of the year and our housing team I just want to acknowledge is at the back of the room so if you guys can raise your hand we have Jessica Jess Andrea Tiffany and Emily and they work day in day out on affordable housing and housing programs throughout the city from implementing our CDBG community development block grant program to doing housing agreements to ensure affordability on new units that are created in the city monitoring those units administering programs for housing preservation tenant assistance emergency rental assistance throughout the city with many of our community partners they work hard so thank you there are many exciting events this month and I think Bonnie may have something she can put up on the screen which shows all the events and definitely that one of the the most amazing first events one of the first events is a kickoff and I know that Don Lane who's here today is is leading that effort and that's an affordable housing month kickoff with housing Santa Cruz County and so you can see the in-person events we do have this flyer with clickable links to register for any of the events on our website under our housing page and if you scroll down to the bottom I'll just mention also there's a lot of great virtual events we at the city are putting on a couple virtual events which are affordable housing finance 101 class and housing choice voucher program webinar with housing authority and so just a lot of great content this month and so hopefully all of you can get out to attend a couple of these events and hopefully we'll see you there so thank you thank you very much mr. Lane come on up mr. Lane's the co-founder housing Santa Cruz County and of course a former mayor of this body thank you so much for everything you do good afternoon sir thank you sir and I especially send greetings to the other co-founder of housing Santa Cruz County council members great to be here thanks for giving me this moment I do I just want to echo the comment about May 6th affordable happy month kind of our launch event and it's set it's gonna be big and diverse we're doing it at Cabrillo to be county-wide we have an author Shane Phillips from UCLA who's a policy expert but then we also have an author a children's book author who's written about housing gentrification in her in her neighborhood in the neighborhood led by a nine-year-old battling that gentrification we have all kinds of different ways people can engage and that's what affordable housing month is about is lots of different ways to engage at lots of different levels so we invite people to come out for that and on May 6th and then all the other events and then one final shout out those guys behind you and you guys right here Santa Cruz is really kicking butt on affordable housing right now there is so much great work going on more to come but just was reminded by is an article I just read that almost half of all the housing units being built right now or how recently built in Santa Cruz are permanently affordable units and that is not something that many other cities are doing so shout out to you for that great work thank you thank you sir very much thanks to all of you back there God love you really appreciate all the work that you do I know that to some extent use your toil and obscurity over and in that don't often get the kind of recognition we're giving you right at this moment but lots of what Don Lane just said about being able to hit numbers and and exercise some real leadership on this is because you're so creative and thoughtful and imaginative about how you can pull in money from any and all sources possible to make the housing that is constructed as affordable as possible so thank you all very much and best wishes to you all thank you council members good all right there we go our next item is item number six and this is declaring the week of April 30th through May 6th as municipal clerks week so municipal clerk which would of course for those of you not familiar maybe with with city government the city clerk's office is the small end of the funnel for getting us to this moment every other week which is to assemble the agenda the packet and provide all manner of other support activities for this governing body as well as for the city generally and we are very blessed to have two outstanding public servants Bonnie Bush who is our city clerk and Julia Wood who is the assistant that do a great job all the time and much the same as our affordable housing people you sit here quietly every other week and help us get our business done and we literally literally not figuratively could not do this without you and your very fine work so thank you so much and we acknowledge your your great work by declaring this April 30th the first week in May city clerk week thank you all you both very much to say but I will be the first to say and I say this every year I recognize that not a lot of people know what we do I appreciate you giving a little foresight of that but I really appreciate this and on behalf of Julia and the clerks team thank you understand you have a new member of your team as well yes we have Brittany who is our admin assistant three our new member of the clerks team so swing by and say hi to her if you guys are in the area very good thank you both very much best wishes to you thank you all right we are on item we are on presiding officer announcements I have none statements of disqualification any member have a statement of disqualification on today's agenda seen and hearing none additions or deletions are there madam clerk any additions or deletions to the agenda there are none thank you so the attorney reports out a closed session sir yes good afternoon mayor good evening members of the city council this afternoon the council met in the courtyard conference room at one o'clock in the afternoon to discuss the following three closed session items the first was a conference with the city's labor negotiators concerning two bargaining groups that se i u temporary employees and se i u service employees item two was a conference with legal counsel concerning liability claims the claims of Brent Barbera and the claim of Christopher Allen moussak those are also listed this afternoon on your consent calendar is agenda item number 17 lastly the council met with legal counsel to discuss one item of significant exposure to litigation council received a report on that item and there was no reportable action thank you sir council meeting agenda madam clerk anything we need you need to draw to our attention that regard nothing all right very good we are on the consent agenda this would be items eight through 26 on today's agenda those of you unfamiliar with it the consent agenda we will take up all of those items on one vote if you wish to make a comment about or have an item pulled first let me ask the council if you have any items you wish to have pulled or further discussion on them councilmember Watkins yes thank you mayor I have some proposed language to add to item 12 so I will go ahead and pull that item 12 that will be pulled any other councilmember wish to have an item pulled any councilmember wish to make comment on any of the consent agenda items seen and hearing none this would oh I'm sorry excuse me excuse me would you like that pulled comment please proceed I just want to say that this was brought to my attention by kids at my house and kids outside of my house that go to Santa Cruz high school along with city school staff and I just want to appreciate that this is more complicated than I think the council initially thought and I really want to thank Heather and Matt and other members of the team in collaborating with Santa Cruz City schools leadership and trying to resolve this issue and unfortunately it's not going to be as quite easy as we thought to fix but I just want to acknowledge that it's people are working on it and working really hard thank you very good anyone else miss Brown I just have a very quick comment on item 27 which is confirmation of the city's commitment to using CDBG funds to I'm sorry 27 no I'm sorry it's the number is wrong number is wrong that I just gave you it's I just had it written in my notes wrong where is it find it okay never mind it's take a second just take a second it's fine no no it's okay we're gonna be here all night anyway so I'm good I'm good so 27 I've got yeah no I'll I'll just yeah my other comments sorry okay okay all right all good all right anyone with us who wishes to comment on an item on the consent agenda good afternoon sir good afternoon my name is James Ewing Whitman I have a couple items on the consent agenda but first I want to say I really appreciate the clerks work particularly in this room probably dealing with clerks in this county professionally for 25 years and extremely dependable yeah so number 11 initiative number 21-003 to a one the taxpayer protection and government accountability act I don't know what to say except that it's extremely comical what corporation would want the actual citizens that are the peasants to actually use the laws against the corporations so city of Santa Cruz is a corporation so why would they I mean I think anybody would really appreciate reading some of the dialogue and number 11 I know I had fun yesterday and I'm glad that number 12 is coming up for more discussion I do not support Senate bill 331 or SB 311 about the child custody there's just a lot of stuff going on it just seems to be coming more and more of a bureaucracy and not open dialogue between parents thanks thank you very much anyone else with us today we should comment on the consent agenda mr. LaBerge good afternoon sir an item 16 sure can I ask you to get to the microphone over there please it'd be in the board's packet the letter of the CFSC and asking for forgiveness it's all here yes the city council to pull that from the consent agenda we have a very strong argument all right we'll pull that that's item 16 we'll go ahead and pull that 12 and 16 we will we'll take up separately further on the consent agenda questions or comments I do have somebody online whoever is with us online you are now recognized good afternoon yes thank you this is good as to item 11 I need to consider this public ballot initiative more but I will say for now you are opposing control limits on actual cost or reasonableness in fees that the city charges meaning you would prefer the option of milking the public with both hands like a big fat cash cow win and however you can one of those radical fee hikes is on the agenda today okay I'm planning a little but the essence of the initiative you oppose is that there should be a high bar with rational cost-based reasons and public operation to raise taxes and fees because in California we pay a national max of those and the people are mad as hell and they won't take it anymore it would seem not surprisingly you don't prefer these limits and I think your answer to a fiscal imbalance is always to raise taxes and fees and no size limit of government is too big or any joke justification will do well it's on the ballot and the people will vote this time around not you as you don't get a deciding vote this time some initiatives show up by special interest but I also see the people's interest in this so far I'll give a real consideration when I think about your gigantic 400% increase in green building consultation fees your most convoluted vapor like connect the dots between developers and childcare impact fees and so forth I can see where the citizens are getting the idea of federal government style corruption is finally filtered down to the state and so you know and they've had enough government is a monopoly lacking free market competition which can and does lead to abuse unless there are either uncommon ethics of goodwill or legal controls that produce similar I believe the people really really if they want something they will pay for it is not the only important taxpayer initiative on the ballot the people will have much to consider and why you're sending an opposing letter to other representatives is strange sense really it's up to the people to decide what kind of government they want not you the item 1415 parklets is more of the city raising revenue while benefiting some very special interests while sacrificing and permanently denying the public it's public property right of way it supports unfair competition and has no real public need anymore it doesn't matter soon the public will tire of dining at full fare on the street in parking spaces one wonders if these parklet incentive subsidies that remove parking and create parking fund deficits are essentially paid for now by other people's higher parking fees the accounting is a mystery in Santa Cruz at least to me and I would mention the minutes of the special meeting last week could not possibly have been written to convey less of what said or decided about the city's important five-year strategic plan the meeting had no recording I don't think and some outside consulting agency hired by I don't know who that will quote prepare a draft strategic plan and at some future meeting you will all be voting I I probably on the consent agenda and the only people who are in that room they're the ones that why or whether Baker Tilly whoever they are has it right or is just as instructing thanks thank you Mr. Phillip anyone else online Miss Bush anyone else with us on the consent agenda motion to approve the consent agenda with the exception of items 12 and 16 would be in order motion by Miss Johnson second by Councilmember Brown the clerk will call the roll councilmember is Newsome I Brown I what can I printer I Calentary Johnson I vice mayor Goulder I Mariculee I motion passes and so ordered we will now take up the consent agenda items that were pulled let's start with Ms. Watkins on agenda item 12 thank you mayor and thank you to my colleagues who brought this item forward I appreciate the thought that went into it and I do agree with the direction I think it's gonna be really great for our system I knew this was forthcoming given conversations I had had with our staff and I wanted to also just can propose additional direction for consideration and the context before I make that motion and proposal is essentially when we move to proposing to our community to have a directly elected mayor and a district process that we knew that compensation was something we wanted to look at but didn't necessarily build in and know that there goes a lot of work into that as well so I think it's appropriate having consulted with our city manager to add this to this item and so I'll go ahead and make that motion if I may mayor start with the motion okay so the motion is to accept item number 12's recommendation to approve the city council policy 6.21 district engagement with the additional direction and Bonnie I could send this to you to request that staff conduct a market comparison of mayor and count council compensation amongst comparable cities and bring back their findings along with outlining the process for the council to consider proposing potential changes to council compensation to ensure we continue to stay competitive with the market as well as attract higher caliber candidates to these important positions it's very hard I will say it is really hard to get individuals interested and this won't necessarily impact myself or others right now but as we move forward if we want a diversity of representation we have to understand the impact of compensation that that has especially in our high-cost community and has been brought to my attention from community members as an interest of theirs to explore as you can see if I can get a second council member Brown second step motion on the motion itself miss Watkins yeah thank you and so essentially to have this additional direction within this item seems appropriate for our consideration so that we can understand what choices we might have before us that will ultimately lead to a representative government of our community so I appreciate the second and any conversation that thank you for the debate or discussion miss Brown yeah I just wanted to put this in context this is something that I know since councilmember Watkins and I have been on the council has come up in various through various channels and we've provided some direction that's been pretty general about looking at this over time and we just haven't quite we haven't done that and I absolutely support the and I think it's it's a goal that we've had collectively the different iterations of this body and for myself it's a good time given that it won't affect you know I don't have a personal interest in this because I won't be on the city council by the time we review that and of course the city voters would have to approve something so just want to make say that as well and then I did have a question since this got pulled which I'll ask related to your your thinking and I appreciate it and I I've also have been supportive of efforts like this I know mayor Chirazas when he was mayor wanted to try to get something like this going again take take some time right to make it happen so here we are there are several of us who are just two of us no no four of us it's still who are out large representatives who are kind of not really formally assigned to our district so I'm just wondering how that would work for the coming year you know whether we would be engaging in that as well with with district representatives or if that would just be kind of transitioned in I think as a look would have it each of the at-large council members are residing in what will be the new districts and so my interpretation of it would be that it would also apply to council members elected at large thank you for the question or comment seen and hearing none clerk will call the role on the amended motion do we have public comment or not yet I'm sorry thank you very much anyone with us today wish to comment on this item anyone online that always happens I always bring it up and nobody's right we'll call the roll hello it's great to have a little bit greater understanding of what this actually meant I really couldn't understand it when I was reading it yesterday it's just kind of amazing you know that Santa Cruz County has a lot of really best and show individuals some of you have some really fascinating bios I think that this county I don't know if it's a blessing or a curse to have so many corporate entities that are supporting us in California corporate flags I'm just a little peasant citizen that is an observation of stuff this city council in the county is really pretty amazing you know this morning speaking publicly being lied I suppose got into a nice one-on-one conversation with Gail Newell and I said we should continue this conversation over coffee it's enough for now thank you thank you sir clerk will call the roll member Newsome I Brown I Watkins I Grinner hi Helen Torrey Johnson I base mayor Goulder I and Mary Keeley hi ocean carries and so ordered we are on item number 16 which was requested to be continued by excuse me moved to this part of the agenda by Mr. LaBerge good afternoon sir thank you again mayor Keeley city council I'm here to argue for the forgivability of the 74,500 dollar loan it was originally given in 1991 to create what we call the Darwin house which is a AIDS housing project I'm the chair of the board of CFSC we've been in existence 1981 we have over 70 units of affordable housing but we appreciate may be an affordable housing month of Santa Cruz and we're a key player in that we have housing on Broadway on Darwin on Water Street we have housing throughout the city of Santa Cruz and throughout the county right now we're applying for a four million dollar loan and the freedom area to provide transitional housing for termed out foster children we've been a reliable partner for over 40 years and back in 1993 when the note was the promissory note was written for this the city council that sat in this very room agreed to potential forgivability for that loan and the reason we're asking for that is that freedom from that debt load will allow us to continue to provide more housing more affordable housing in the city of Santa Cruz at absolutely no cost to the city of Santa Cruz the original seed money was from a Red Cross grant following the earthquake so I think we proven we're a reliable partner we want to continue to provide affordable housing in the city and County and the forgivability of this loan will put us in a much better position Mr. Bursch thank you very much let me ask if Miss Lake is here and if she would like to make any comments on this item and I could speak to the philosophy behind that if I couldn't ask them and then you can make whatever comments you wish a good afternoon miss Lake thank you mayor Keely so the the language that mr. LaBerge is referring to did add claws to the loan saying that the determination of forgiveness could be made at a later date by City Council but in contrast we had another $105,000 loan but at the time City Council decided to convert to a grant so really what they did was just sort of delay the decision to forgive that was sort of a common practice back then at the time and now what a best practice is considered to be really is keeping the loan keep having leverage to ensure continued affordability over time and the current staff recommendation is to again defer all payments so there should be no impact to their operations thank you miss lake miss LaBerge and once again CFC picked up this in 2012 when the AIDS program gap and it up disbanding and we picked this up in 2012 and the minutes of our meeting said that part of our understanding of picking this up was that that forgivability provision and the City Council thought about that discussed and authorized it back then and I understand the city's concern for some providers but we're not that provider we're a nonprofit that's been here for over 40 years and we've consistently provided year after year of quality affordable housing so it'll put us in a much better position if this loan is made affordable or forgiven and we're putting a position where we could instead not having this debt loan that we could actually use money to provide more housing in the city and county of Santa Cruz thank you should be considered a one-off from that philosophy because we've proven our reliability and we we've proven our passion for low-cost mental health housing in the city thank you councilmember thank you and thank you mr. LaBerge for saving me on the CDBG that I had a comment and question on there's we have two CDBG and I just found the wrong one so I wanted to ask you about because I recall this being before us and at the time we did decide to continue along the same path that's being recommended today and and I recall there was some discussion but I don't recall the conclusion to that discussion about the potential to provide loan forgiveness in exchange for affordability for that property and perpetuity because as we heard miss Lake mentioned their you know best practice is is intended to try to maintain that to preserve that affordability and we know that's what you're doing but how do we sort of ensure that continues over time if we're making this if we were to make that move I think that's a good question and in legal parlance there's a rule against perpetuity just for that precise reason that this is a 1947 house the next year we're in the process or this year we're in the process of putting almost $30,000 into the rehab and this is CFSC money we're putting into rehab of that the concept of perpetuity somewhat boggles the mind of a day-to-day homeowner the concept that forever and ever and ever and this housing is going to destruct through termites and passage of time and on a yearly basis we're putting in maybe 30 to $50,000 now that to forestall that day but to have it in perpetuity doesn't really make common sense to any landowner in the city we want to be in a position where someday we may rebuild on that land but we're not going to have that housing and I'd say and I understand the city's concerns but when we've been here for over 40 years providing affordable housing we're not cutting and running we're going to stay in and we're going to do more affordable housing and not having that death load is going to put us in a position to make more housing that's that's my for the questions or comments by council members let me if Miss Lake could could join us again for a moment thank you good afternoon again Miss Lake thank you I think that the city's policy would I understand to be the policy about not forgiving I understand the notion of protecting the city's assets which that loan is an asset of the cities and I think that that's the right policy I also think that the reason for that policy is not as persuasive to me in this case Mr. LaBerge has articulated it they're not going anywhere it's been our partners for 40 years I understand if we make an exception here somebody else going to come in and say well we've been here 32 years and somebody 18 year whatever it may be well that's why we're asked to exercise discretion from time to time so Miss Lake I think the policy is quite good I think it makes sense I think in this instance having an illiquid asset at the bottom of our pile of assets as the city of Santa Cruz is misleading in the following regard that's we're never going to liquidate that asset simply not going to happen so it's irrelevant that it's on our books from my point of view well if we're not going to liquidate that asset and we've got a partner who is trustworthy and it's going to be in their interest to help us get more housing of the most difficult kind to undertake I think it may make sense and I'm going to need a bit of guidance here about whether we can today make a different decision here and now my preference would be to exceed to the request of mr. LaBerge and and the Darwin Street housing project and and go in that direction making some kinds of findings that while we respect our own policy on this it does have we do have discretion and in this case we're exercising that discretion because we do have a long-term partner and because this is a illiquid asset that is unlikely to ever become a liquid asset for any other purpose for us so I'm asking mr. Kandadi would the appropriate motion be to do that or to continue the item and have it come back in some way consistent with the general direction that I'm trying to move in I would prefer the latter because I would want to look at what legal mechanisms we need for sure this is done in an appropriate way am I am I correct though in believing that we have the discretion to do what I just described I believe so but I would also look into that question prior to the council taking formal action let me ask if the council would have any objection to continuing this item until our next regularly a gendered meeting a genderized meeting scheduled meeting with direction to the city attorney to and and the other appropriate staff members and perhaps miss Lake and others to meet with mr. LaBerge and others from your organization and see if it is possible to structure a forgiveness of that loan with certain findings that would not make it a precedent that we would always do that but instead here's a narrowly cast exception around which we have jurisdiction or discretion rather is that agreeable to council members did you make that motion I'm happy to make that motion and I motion is there a sec motion a second motion by miss walk in second by miss brown I'd like to add additional language to ask our staff to explore if we were to move in that direction are there any other unintended impacts that could be associated with that direction as well I'd like to have all the information before I decide and I would just you get to agree to it fair enough I would just ask given that I expect that we will be speaking with mr. LaBerge and also having some internal discussions that the council direct that will be brought back at the May 23rd meeting given our current timeline for agenda preparation it's a little tight to get it back by the night that's fine 23 more than happy to meet 23rd will be the report back date debate or discussion on this seen and hearing none clerk will call the roll do we need public comment because we do have someone online anyone with us wish to make public comment anybody on the phone clerk will call the roll I have one person online we will listen to that person good afternoon are you talking to me yes I'm temp it's Morris I'm actually calling about 481 is this the inappropriate time to do that about the I'm so I'm so hold on say I'm sorry did you say I'm 31 on the I'm sorry maybe my game the numbers wrong but on the gun issue I was calling about that well so let me tell you the item we're on we're on item 16 223 Darwin Street is that the item you wish to comment on no I don't okay we'll be back with you when we get to your item I thank you clerk will call the roll member Newsom I Brown I what can I Brunner I voluntary Johnson I vice mayor Boulder I Mariculee hi motion carries in this order yes we're gonna stand in recess for two minutes council is back in session following a brief recess we are now I'm going to recognize councilmember Watkins for a motion for what reason yes thank you so I'd like to make a motion that we postpone until the first meeting in June item number 33 which is the tobacco product waste update and have that discussion at that time is there a second second second by the vice mayor on your motion yeah just I it was brought to my attention that we have a very full agenda today and most likely would have this request come before us when we got to the item and I wanted to acknowledge and thank our county partner who's here but also wanted to save you hours of your afternoon not necessarily needing to sit here until we actually have this question come before us at item number 33 so essentially looking at how we can move this item up in our agenda and then have the discussion forthcoming at the first meeting in June it was an update but then discussion in and I mean Matt you're welcome to speak to it was just essentially say that we don't have a good we have a full agenda so this was one that could potentially be moved at this time do you have anything you were saying this item from the county yeah what we're trying to do here is is get through our agenda not have you wait until eight or nine o'clock tonight to testify we're gonna post all the way to June rather than eight or nine o'clock tonight but when we do hear it we'll hear it more timely fashion for you you won't have to wait around you have any objection to that you okay okay all right okay good further question or comment clerk will call the roll in the motion council member newson hi Brown hi what kids hi Brunner hi Calentary Johnson hi vice mayor Golder hi and mayor Achilles I motion carries and so ordered we are on the consent public hearing this is items 27 through 29 inclusive we will be taking these items up let me ask if there are council members who wish to pull an item or have a comment on these items yes finally my comment miss Brown okay so I just wanted to say that this is this is a much bigger item on the HUD annual action plan within that we have committed to funding improvements at the Civic Center and we have we've heard from folks from the community about this and I just wanted to say since this is gonna happen with little fanfare I absolutely very much support this I'm glad that we're able to do it at this time and appreciate your your love of our Civic Center which I also love and your continued patronage of the facility so thanks for for being here and speaking up anyone else any consent any public comment on these items anyone with us on the phone or online no okay okay these are public hearings on items 27 28 29 last call for any input or comment testimony seen and hearing none motion to approve those items as presented would be in order miss brown moves miss calling tarry Johnson seconds clerk will call the roll council member newson hi Brown hi what can't I runner hi Helen tarry Johnson hi I smear golder hi I'm here killing oh you're welcome very much all right we are on item 30 this is a public hearing item concerning 530 Front Street and other related matters miss stanger oh it is not miss Tanger it is mr. Butler thank you mayor leave about our director how are you sir doing great how are you very well hello mayor and council members I'm leave out their director of planning and community development and just as a brief introduction to this item back in 2017 the city council approved height increases to the area roughly between Soquel and Cathcart streets south down to Laurel Street in our downtown area plan and that has spurred a significant amount of redevelopment and this project is is one of those projects that was spurred as a result of those height changes and we just issued building permits two or three weeks ago for the front Riverfront project at the easterly terminus of Cathcart Street and we're really excited about the the results that we will see as these sites redevelopment as these sites redevelop on the east side of front street between Soquel and Laurel in particular because they're gonna be offering the opportunity for us to change what the development pattern was many decades ago which is where we had turned our backs to the river and these projects are really gonna offer the opportunity to celebrate the river and the great asset that we have in our downtown with that river as the second level of these development projects will meet up with the newly filled area between the current Riverwalk and the levee or in the second level of the new construction and so I think that's a really exciting component and something that our whole community is gonna have the opportunity to enjoy and I just wanted to point out that the council's efforts back five years ago six years ago now have really made a difference and as these projects move forward I think we're gonna have a really great asset for our whole community to enjoy and with that I'll turn it over to Clara to present the project okay sorry for the delay I'm good afternoon mayor and city council members my name is Clara Stanker I'm a senior planner with the Department of Planning and Community Development I'm gonna give you a presentation on 530 Front Street that's a mixed use it's a development application for mixed use I'm building eight stories 276 apartment dwelling units and 6865 square feet of commercial space so starting with community engagement the project completed a pre-application review in early 2020 after the pre-application review and before formal submittal of an application for entitlements the applicant held a community meeting on May 19th 2020 consistent with the city's community outreach policy for development applications so this community meeting had about 40 attendees committee members expressed questions and comments about design for climate change and solar panels automobile and bike parking unit size and affordability project timeline and building lifespan accessibility to open spaces bird safe design and flooding potential then after the initial project review of the formal application by staff the applicant submitted revised plans that showed a substantially larger project then that was shown to the community because the applicant hadn't now incorporated a request for 50% density bonus so at staff requests the applicant held a second community meeting and this meeting also had about 40 attendees questions and comments from the public included bike parking bike lanes on Front Street building design programming along the levy design of artistic light ballards landscaping water supply unit affordability developer profit and wage standards for construction workers and then while a planning commission hearing was not required for this project the applicant consulted with staff and decided to bring the project to the planning commission at the March 2nd meeting to obtain feedback and a recommendation so the planning commission recommended approval of the project with some additional conditions of approval including for any color or material changes to be approved by the planning director prior to application for building permits for the planning director to refer any significant design changes to a planning commission subcommittee for review a condition to select the mural artist and ensure that the mural proposed for the building is completed along with building construction and conditions to increase the number of electric vehicle charging stations and reduce the potential for clutter on residential balconies so these recommendations are all included as conditions of approval okay so the project site is located in the downtown at the corner of Front Street and SoCal Avenue it's surrounded by mixed use and commercial uses and it's also adjacent to the San Lorenzo River the project area includes four lots as well as an area of city owned land between those lots and the Riverwalk lots have a general plan designation of regional visitor commercial slash downtown which supports mixed use developments and other uses allowed by the downtown plan the city owned land has a general plan designation of natural area and that accommodates undeveloped land including land designated for public recreation and this part of the project site the project will fill the levy or fill the space between the levy and the building and construct a public extension area connecting the new building to the Riverwalk okay so the proposed building is eight stories and a little bit over 92 feet tall I'm gonna describe how the project got to this size and how the buildings is big and also how the amount of and also talk about the amount of housing and affordable housing that we'll get as a result so the base height for projects in the front street riverfront area of the downtown plan is 50 feet this is the maximum building height that would be allowed without an approval for additional height and the base height is shown by the red line that you can see across the elevation drawing the site is located in additional height zone B which allows height above the standard 50 feet up to 70 feet when certain criteria are met with a recommendation from the planning director and approval by city council so this project includes a request for additional height and the resulting building is the additional height is shown by the pink line in the drawing and then if the additional height is approved the project then that project then constitutes the base density project from which the applicant is requesting a 50% density bonus and so the density bonus which is the ultimate project that the applicants proposing here is shown with a green line on the top so as you can see in the chart the resulting project the density bonus project has many more units and also more affordable units than a project that conforms to the base height or the additional height which is the base density project the additional height project adds 13 more low-income inclusionary units compared to a base height project the density bonus doesn't add a greater number of affordability compared to the additional height base density project but as you can see quite a number of those units are now very low income instead of low income okay so talking a bit about the project design the ground floor along front street and so Cal Avenue has commercial uses a residential lobby and an internal parking garage floors 2 through 8 have the residential units that range from studios to two bedrooms the project is generally designed to meet the design standards of the front riverfront area of the downtown plan the downtown plan on this site specifically calls for the Soquel and front intersection to be treated as a gateway to the downtown and this project accomplishes that with a pedestrian plaza at that intersection a well articulated building wall on Soquel Avenue and a couple of outdoor dining patios along the Soquel Avenue frontage this is a view of the building from the south on front street you can see there's a consistent and detailed design that wraps around this side of the building this is a view of the east side of the building facing the Riverwalk and also the north side facing Soquel Avenue on this side the ground floor has commercial and also active residential amenity uses the upper floors are all residential there's the public plaza extension area and that has stairs and pathways connecting it to the Riverwalk and then in the northeast corner of the project which is on the bottom right of the screen there are accessible pathways connecting the extension area Soquel Avenue and the Riverwalk so here you can see the shaded area near the bottom of the screen between the Riverwalk Soquel Avenue and the proposed building which this area has been identified by the Public Works Department as the location of a future pump station the new pump station is in the conceptual stage it's for pumping stormwater in high storm events it's in the conceptual stage and at this point staff doesn't know how much of this shaded area the pump station will take up as you can see this area includes the outdoor dining patio the accessible pathways and a substantial amount of landscaping the project in this area was also proposing to use to implement some stormwater infiltration to meet stormwater requirements for the project so in an effort to facilitate development of this project while the pump station design is still not known staff and the applicant have collaborated to include a condition of approval that will allow the applicant to construct a portion of the restaurant patio install temporary landscaping in this area and move the stormwater and accessibility features further south on the extension area once a pump station design is known the city will install other public amenities in this area such as lighting or pedestrian pathways and we'll collaborate with the applicant on enlarging the dining patio if that's possible and mutually desired the applicant has also been working on a concept to show how this will be addressed and I believe they're going to present that today okay so finally staff is recommending minor changes to two conditions of approval condition number 11 is a standard condition regarding vacant buildings this standard condition got some updated language late last week and that's shown here and then in addition staff is recommending some slight changes to the wording of condition number 12 regarding the pump station and indoor noise attenuation for the new building on summary staff recommends that city council adopt the resolution acknowledging the environmental determination and a project with their proposed conditions of approval and the revised conditions 11 and 12 this concludes my presentation and staff is available for questions well thank you very much do we have questions at this time from council members we'll also reserve the right to ask you some questions a little later on during this presentation but let me see if there are initial round of questions at this moment okay so thank you very much for your presentation let me ask of mr. Bristow and the Swenson builders for your presentation good afternoon sir good afternoon so first of all I just want to say good afternoon mr. Mayor vice mayor and city council members my name is Jesse Bristow with Swenson builders I'm the development project manager for this project and we really appreciate your time today and taking this proposal development proposal under consideration so while staff's pulling up the presentation just want to first off say thank you to planning staff and public works it's been a long road there's been some unforeseen things that have happened but I think we're able to get to a project that is meeting the overall intent and design of the of the downtown plan and I think we we came to a final project that that meets city's goals staff's desires and our intent for the project so we appreciate that very much I'm ready to open it it's some sense somebody else has it open I just want to make sure the intention is for me to do it I think that's a question I'll do it I'm executive decision thank you I'll try to be relatively quick I think Clara's staff report was very thorough and we'll just try to highlight where we started and how we got here and today so we first originally submitted and a pre application in 2020 and that had 170 units that required a community meeting where we receive feedback from planning staff and city staff and we receive feedback from the community in general and so taking that into account through through 2020 with you know everyone was dealing with kind of an unforeseen situation that no one had ever been in before with the pandemic we took that time to to implement new design take that community feedback and and I think somewhere between mid to the end of 2020 we submitted a full application of 170 units during during the time between 2020 to 2022 during 2020 the state density bonus was 35% California state density bonus and so our original application didn't include a state density bonus but in 2022 new law went into effect where the state density bonus was 50% increase on on your conforming model and so that that was an incentive for us to to kind of redesign the project and that's when we submitted a full application 184 units with the 50% increase giving us 276 units and at the end of 2022 we were deemed complete and believe in March we went to planning commission and received a five five to one approval recommendation of approval to the city council and we're here today so next slide so this is a very rough design early on with our preliminary application we feel we've come a long way we're happy with the design that we we have today but this is what we first presented and and it's obviously it's evolved quite a bit with with staff and community input next slide please so this this was our full first full application in 2020 so this was a six-story building and at 170 units and one note I'd like to make in the front we see that triangular green we call the pizza slice and ended up being a parcel that was owned by parks department staff planning staff and parks reached out to us and asked if we could incorporate that into the gateway they felt that you know was was being underutilized so how can we do that so we took that into our consideration incorporated into our design and took that time and resource to get where it is today additionally we were told to open up the the interface the living interface that we call it the levee deck and right now it's a little close there's a lot of landscaping the next slide you'll see it's it's been opened up where we have the ramping we have some lighting we actually added an amphitheater which I'll speak to a little bit more in detail later and and we opened up the staircases one thing I would like to highlight before we go to the next slide the south two towers go straight up and we were asked by planning staff to have this step back even further to ensure that we have we're more in line with the design standards I believe this is a standard that we could have a wave with a density bonus but we elected not to so the next slide so they they step in to have the building wedding cake a little bit more and this is the final design that you're hearing today so next slide please so just a quick overview we have 184 units in the conforming model and 20% through the city requirement is 37 below market rate units so we have 15% that are very low income and 5% that are low income so we have 28 very low income units and 9 low income units and with that density bonus we are receiving 92 extra units so in total of 276 next slide please and I just want to highlight this is just a quick summary of the unit programming but of the six units or the six commercial spaces those are all conditioned to be food ready if we have the appropriate tenant we do have the designated restaurant space at the north end of the building that's because we wanted that to be the attraction it's where we want in the activity where we would lead people up from more the core downtown such as front street and Soquel and Pacific Avenue leading people up to to the levy next slide please in addition I'm not sure if Clara mentioned this but we have a hundred percent rental I'm not sure if that was brought up so this is a hundred percent rental project it's a hundred percent electric there will be photovoltaic solar on the roof we did have a 22 electrical vehicle charging stations at the request of Planning Commission we up that to 36 and we have 372 class 1 bike parking spaces that means that they're actually secure and in a enclosed area such as a bike cafe or a storage locker and then we have 12 bike spaces that are you know your standard bike lock that you'd find outside we're really trying to encourage multi-modal transportation with this development next slide please so just want to highlight a little bit about the the stepbacks that I discussed so with our conforming project in those 92 units from the density bonus we essentially took the third and fourth floor and doubled them so our fifth floor and sixth floor became the seventh and eighth floor and the top floor requirement in the conforming model requires 60% of the four below so it can only be 60% of the four below we're requesting it to be 74% and that's because we we made the building fatter but we still wanted to make sure that that we're meeting that that step in we wanted to be respectful of the downtown design again I think this is something that we could have waived as far as that design but we're just asking to go up a little higher and make some adjustments as far as these standards we still want to meet them what we build is our as a reputation and has our resume on it so you know we're very conscious of what we do here next slide this is our typical first floor one thing I just want to highlight on the south end or the bottom right of this photo is next to the lobby and leasing is there are two transformer rooms and that's because it is 100% electric so the gas that is not normally sent or historically sent to residential now needs to be made up with more electrical capacity so it does require more transformer rooms and we just want to as we develop the downtown and make changes within our city and try to have a greener future that's just something that be conscious of we're gonna have larger rooms with our walls with I think they're blast doors that can't be painted and it's part of the utility requirement from PG&E so it's kind of out of our hands but again we we think it's a good concept for it to be 100% electric next slide please so I just wanted to highlight some of the amenities here and what we've added to the public interface we do have the two private courtyards on the interior but everything out of those courtyards is publicly accessible all those businesses are operating we as the applicant and the developer are required to maintain and keep that as a safe area we have added the an amphitheater which I'll speak to a little bit more and so just want to highlight the the public interface that's going to be built here and and everyone's gonna be able to use so thank you next slide and here's just the the top floor that highlights that instead of it being 60 percent it's 74 percent but we also have a rooftop garden which is accessible to the tenants and it also serves as a stormwater control method so thank you next slide and so briefly just want to highlight some of those things that I spoke to so on the very south end is that amphitheater so we we've met with coastal watershed and planning staff mentioned that the San Lorenzo urban plan I believe it's called the Slurp has a long-term plan to build an amphitheater in the river that's not feasible with its sensitive habitat so we did have a switchback there pathway which wasn't very open so we feel this is a passive staircase it can be somewhere where people just sit and but it also can be programmed for a play for people to play music and there is a little bit of a bulb out and that is a utility requirement for the utility vehicle so it has multiple functions and we think it serves the levy well and additionally this just kind of highlights where we've stepped back the building and we have those open staircases and pathways up so next slide so this was brought up during planning commission and I'm not sure if Clara brought it up but I think often when you look at one project independently it can be a little daunting with the height so what we wanted to do is just demonstrate what is what is coming today right now we have the Anton project which is on on Laurel in front that's 85 feet and what we want to do is just give it a little bit perspective of how that looks to scale so if you go to next slide please so this is very rough but and it's from a Sketchup model so I apologize to the other projects architects we weren't able to articulate it but it just shows that that you know of all these buildings that you see right now there is an existing building that at 68 feet and everything else that's being built except for the potential cruise hotel is going to be 80 feet and above or between 80 and 90 feet and in our project sits at 89 feet so you see the relationship that will exist as we move forward with with with these types of projects next slide please and just want to show the relationship between the riverfront project south of us that was I believe approved in 2019 might have been 2020 and then you can see in the foreground the library that's at 84 feet so they're relatively similar heights thank you and one more thing I just wanted to speak to is that you know we are providing 37 affordable units that levy interface that we're building and required to maintain that's probably about two million dollars worth of construction but additionally you know we do know we're building for lots of people when we understand that there are impacts and this is I would say 30% of what our total costs are going to be with city fees and in processing and whatnot but I just want to highlight that you know 50,000 is going to the green building education fund we're going to pay about two hundred thousand dollars at the traffic impact fees the school districts going to have a 750,000 dollars child impact child care impact fee which I believe was implemented last year through the city I might be wrong but that's a hundred thousand dollars there and we're paying 176 to fire department safety and almost 180 to police safety so just that one sub totals 1.4 million dollars which is my highlight that we we do contribute in multiple ways and and we're happy to do so we're happy to be here and invest but we just want to highlight that we're not just building marker 8 housing and that's it so thank you next slide and this is our conceptual design for the potential minor modification I do have the actual file if you want to it might be hard to read but essentially the the light blue area would be public works and we have a little bit of a cutback for the restaurant so the restaurant deck is that purple area where we can still have some tables we can still have a pass through and the stormwater control that Clara mentioned we plan to move it over to the area in front of the bachi ball court so potentially we'll have a switch back there for people to ramp up to to the deck and because that ramp that's in the public workspace we just don't know yet so in order for us to move forward with our project and our requirements we're trying to accommodate so and so potentially the bachi court might have to go away but we could probably replace it with some benches or maybe somewhere to play cornhole or something like that so we would like to present this as potentially something if city councils has concern about not understanding what's going to be there we would like to present this as as a condition of this you know you would like to see this happen when we come back for the minor month that allows us to keep moving forward with our design and next slide and that's it so I'm here for questions thank you all right thank you very much thank you staff thank you mr. bristow very much appreciate that we're going to take a five minute break we will be back on this item in five minutes time councils back in session after a brief recess this afternoon we're on item number 30 this is a an item regarding 530 front street development proposal we have received a staff report we've received a presentation by the applicants went some builders we're now on council member questions of either staff or the applicant let me ask if there are questions miss brown you have your microphone up yeah the applicant is here do I see the applicant here yeah justy thanks so I did want to ask a question we had a conversation about the project I I recognize the incredible work that you've done to try to create a project that will accomplish our need for housing and you know also you know be viable for you I and when this project was in a different iteration we we talked about this as well so I wanted I do want to ask you though because and I ask about this pretty much every anytime we make a decision that involves a project approval and how it relates to our inclusionary ordinance and I recognize that I'm not going to go through that whole conversation people kind of understand where I'm coming from but what I see here is you know the new project with a 50% density bonus a lot of benefits have kind of been included in the new state laws so significantly reduced risk for building a project like this I would I would argue the costs are you know there's a lot of benefits a lot of financial benefits and incentives associated with the new state laws you know what they are and what we have here is a project that is now significantly greater height and significantly higher number of units with you know the change I see is you know pretty minimal number of affordable units the level I get that the the depth of the subsidy for very low income units is important and but what we're talking about here are units that are going to be if I'm looking at the figures you know I'm trying to figure this out and it depends on the unit size and the you know whether it's a single person or not but essentially you got to earn $27 an hour to qualify for the very low income units that's that's the cut that's the percentage under HUD guidelines of our median income that's a lot of money for you know very few very few units at that that level of affordability so we're not we're talking about you know again 13% of a project being either low or very low meaning that people who earn 27 to $37 an hour will be able to afford those units and then another 87% which are going to be market with whatever that means we'll find we'll we'll know when that time comes so I just wanted to hear from you a little bit more about why we can't work towards achieving that 15% in a project again recognizing the rules the framework that we're in it seems like we've got a significantly bigger project significantly greater height significantly higher community impact as a result of that which I am not opposed to but in the context of the affordable housing crisis we just I feel like we need to use every tool we can so I'd just like to hear you comment on that I recognize there are other community benefits in the project sure certainly so thank you so right we did highlight the the public benefit of this interface and the cost to build and maintain that we did highlight the impacts the impact fees that are going to the city a part of allowing this type of project to move forward and regarding the HUD numbers one and we don't have control of that so you know as far as that application and qualification I'm not sure I'm not sure if you're limited to that under the low or extremely low but I I don't have the resources or the knowledge right now to to respond to that but the one thing was is that you know it was acceptable for planning commission that our 37 units and we appreciated their their insight secondly when it when it comes to our previous project that we did get entitled which was 130 Center Street we were here and we did present to planning commission that if the project did not get appealed we would offer four more units and we'd go from 31 to 35 over 233 units in total and it was appealed but we did acquiesce to city council members request and we provided four more units but we did that under the guys that we didn't want to set precedent and if we do offer more we're setting precedent you know the project next to us they did a density bonus they didn't have to offer more than what was required I don't think and so we'd be appreciated to be held to that same standard in a in a larger discussion and maybe not appropriate right now but if the city were to come to Swanson with Rena numbers and say hey our total renumbers Rena numbers are we would like Swanson to build a hundred of these units on this site I'd say sure we can do that but I need to build 600 market rate so I think there's a way to reverse engineer it because at the end of the day someone else is paying for it and we don't qualify for for state benefits or federal benefits and grants to allow more affordability so the market rate units are gonna pay for that they're gonna subsidize it some someone is paying for it it's either through taxes or it's gonna be the market rate in it so at this time unfortunately I don't think we'll be able to offer any more the council members questions comments I didn't I don't have a follow-up question I appreciate your I didn't want to leave it like that I appreciate your your comments and I really appreciate your interest in having those conversations I think that's what we mean that's the purpose of planning right and and we have a housing element item on our agenda for later today that is gonna open up the conversation about how many units we need to be working towards and and so really appreciate that as part of your response absolutely thank you thank you very much this would be the opportunity we're going to open this for public comment participation this be the opportunity for anyone who's with us today who wishes to come in on this particular item to do so also those of you who may be watching and want to join online this would be the time to get teed up to do that good afternoon Miss Greenside good afternoon Mayor Keeley and council members in this era the public feels a little bit like David against Goliath when it comes to these incredibly massive buildings and I think that the one that's under construction at Laurel and Front Street the city's website says that is six stories and the developer just said that it was of the representative sorry Swenson representative said that that was 85 feet for six stories this he says his eight stories at 92 feet so maybe one of you could just ask a question about that I think for most people in the community or many many people that if they're shocked shocked at the one at front Laurel the mass the scale of it and this will be even bigger I try to I listen carefully not try to and I still can't quite understand if today you are approving the extra height from 50 to 70 if that's so I would ask you to seriously consider not approving that people who are building these big buildings they get their density bonus which they don't have to factor in to provide below market rate housing so it is still a pretty sweet deal but this feels to us in the community I'm sure there's some others who disagree but I think for most people this is out of scale out of character and when we bring in a lot of market rate to new people that has an impact well beyond just providing housing this abstraction was not abstraction when they're provided with but a very small percentage of below market rate the low-income very low-income people I know earn $18 an hour they won't be able to compete for these very low-income apartments and it's only as I calculated quickly 13.5% so I also when you're presented with schematics like this I've noticed that frequently it's from an aerial view or a higher view nothing shows what it will be like at ground level and I really think that that does a disservice for the ability to imagine the impact of this scale in our town and lastly I don't see the time again oh it's up there where is it oh 22 seconds I should remember that thank you lights in most of these projects they say the lights will conform to ADA requirements and they don't this looks like it'll have a lot of lighting from the commercial residential I think that something condition of approval thank you thank you do we have someone online we will hear someone online at this point good afternoon hello my name is Gabriel Sanders I am the director of housing and community development for the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership and you probably saw in your packet a letter of support from our organization for the 530 front street project the fact is that the Rena number is high this project contributes some of the affordable housing that it's looking for and some of the units that are not already set aside in the project for affordable housing are indeed affordable at the moderate income levels toward the upper end of it sure in that 80 to 120% of my range but that's what we call affordable by design because when you achieve this kind of density on extremely expensive land that's something that everybody commenting should keep in mind I think when you're building on land this expensive it is quite a task financially to make the numbers work both in favor of the community and the developer and fact is developers like this account for at least 80% of development in California so when a developer is able to make something like this pencil we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good so adding 267 units to the housing stock sorry 276 to the housing stock in Santa Cruz is a significant step toward achieving some of the Rena as well as working with the supply and demand that are natural in the market are those the answers to all the housing needs in the city of course not but one thing to keep in mind is it is also a city this is a growing city growing economy and there is high demand for housing and this project meets it I hope that again we don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good and Mbep is happy to support this project with the understanding that helps the city meet its renewables and it is in compliance with the downtown expansion plan almost to the T so we applaud Swenson for making something work on this parcel and we hope the city will acknowledge that and could the project. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good afternoon. My name is Lee Broca. I'm a general contractor 35 years with the license 40 years in the trade. But first I'd like to make a comment is a 22 year resident of Santa Cruz grotesquely oversized compared to future grotesquely oversized does not make it pretty or acceptable. As a contractor I noticed that there's been a lack of discussion about the underground for this building. This building has to be anchored into the ground is not going to be built on a slab there's going to be one two or three stories below in order to keep this building erect and they haven't talked about it and it's so close to the river by the time you're about eight maybe 10 feet down you're going to be at the level of the river in hydrostatic pressure forcing water into a hole. Even if it has a cement wall around it is not something that you can gloss over. You're going to have to pump water out of the basement of this building and away from the foundation of this building until the cows come home for ever. Thank you. Miss Bush someone else online. No. Good afternoon, sir. Nicholas Whitehead. Wow, I'm sorry I fell asleep during the COVID era and missed all those exciting Zoom meetings. Now I wake up like Ripman Binkhole and I see the magnificent edificis being when I first saw the picture I thought are we in Palm Beach or even Mar-a-Lago or somewhere you know. It doesn't look like the kind of thing that you'd expect to see in a small seaside town. However, of its design, the kind of design it is, it is an interesting achievement. I do congratulate the designers. They've gone all out to make it a standout building but it's just so huge. I want to ask a few technical questions. A developer says it'll all be electric powered. Okay, with an enterprise so large, what happens if there's a storm failure or other damaged electrical system? Does that mean we have to turn on a lot of diesel motors? Boy, that's a lot of pollution. Well, maybe they're going to use the power wall, the Tesla power wall, so it's a huge electric self. I'm surprised you didn't answer that question. My final point is circulation. You know, if we keep building these blockbuster designs, is the wind, is the fresh ocean breeze going to really travel? Is it going to be healthy in these buildings and between these buildings? It's something our planners, overall, public and private, should give more attention to and the state should have developed policy on that. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Still no one else online, Ms. Bush? Very good. Good afternoon, sir. Hi, Bradley Snyder. I just wanted to say that, you know, after having lived in several buildings built by Barry Swanson and seeing him develop 555 from scratch, from, you know, from the ground, you know, to the day they topped out until they finished it, and then looking at this new development at Laurel and Pacific, roughly that block that's been developed and just thinking about units that are in the dimensions that I've lived in two Barry Swanson buildings. I lived at the St. George for three, approximately three years and at 425 Pacific for three years. It's been so long, 401, 401 Pacific, excuse me. Basically, they're tiny. I mean, they're very confining and they're really, really pricey. And so I feel a little bit like, you know, it does solve, you know, a concern or an issue, which is, you know, people don't have options to rent the students. You know, UCSC's kind of gotten to the point where, you know, I'm feeling like, ironically, suggesting the city changes its name to UCSankers. It's basically, you know, yeah, everybody, everybody from many, many different sides of that particular problem are, you know, they're struggling for, you know, access to places to rent, but I just don't feel these are going to be very affordable. And then also one concern I have, one definite concern I have is that the scope of the building, the size, the height, if you subtract say the 10 foot or however tall the levee is, 10 to 12 feet, you're looking at 80 feet of, for a very narrow parcel, you're shielding the afternoon sun from the estuary, which, you know, has its consequences on the habitat there. So that's my input. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Ms. Bush, still no one else online? No one else. Anyone else wish to make comment on this item? Hearing's closed matter is back before the council. This would be the opportunity for the council member to make a motion, then we will debate that motion. I'll make a motion. What is your motion, sir? Motion for development proposal at 514, 516, 518, 524, and 530 Front Street involving lot line adjustment, non-residential demolition authorization permit, special use permit, design permit, additional height requests, density bonus requests, revocable license for outdoor extension area, and heritage tree removal permit to demolish existing commercial buildings, reconfigure four lots into one, remove eight heritage trees, and construct a mixed use building with 276 residential dwelling units, including a 50% density bonus and 6,865 square feet of commercial space with design variations to downtown plan development standards on a site in the CBD slash F-P slash F-P-O zone district and within the Front Street riverfront area of the downtown plan. Second. There's a motion. There's a second by Ms. Calantar Johnson. Mr. Newsom, you may open on your motion. Thank you, Mayor Keely. I'm excited for this project. I think this project will be a great addition to our downtown and our riverfront, and by extension my district and our city. The project provides 276 units of much needed housing with 38 of the units being affordable housing and 28 of those units being very low income. And this project will also draw more focus towards the river while bringing more investment into our river walk. And it will also allow for members of our community to live where they work and use alternative means of transportation when commuting to work. So I support this project. Thank you, sir. Yes, Ms. Bush. Sorry, I do just want to confirm that what you were reading, Council Member Newsom, is actually the title of the report. And I just want to confirm that the recommendation is specifically about a resolution. I can put it on the screen if you want or if the staff recommendation. You just read the whole title as opposed to the staff recommendation. Let me see if we can make this a little quicker. By way of clarification, you are moving the staff recommendation. Yes. Okay, there we go. That will be the motion. Agreeable to the second? Yes. That is the motion. Now under debate and discussion. I have a question. I asked the question earlier during question time, but I was just curious. And maybe staff and I may have missed this as I stepped out for a moment. In regards to the pump station and the timeline, did you specify kind of what that looks like in relationship to this development and process? Or could you expand on that? I can speak a little bit and then I'm going to lean on public works. So basically we have a very general concept, but we don't have a design. And we don't know that the timing of the design is going to line up with when the applicant is going to pull their building permit. That's why we kind of do this work around in that area. And I don't know if Curtis wants to come up and speak a little more to that. Okay. Let's do these at the microphone if you had a response. Thank you, sir. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Mayor, Council. Curtis Buzinart, Public Works Engineering. I'm an engineering associate. As far as the timing of it, we're not sure. Shafran Wheeler is a consultant working on it. It's very, very conceptual at this time. Time frame. I really don't know. Katie Stewart is on the meeting and I think she can touch on that better than I can. Let me, if I might ask on that question. Perhaps for some of us, the question is, we approved this project as recommended. You have sufficient, the city then has sufficient space in that property to do it. You need to do going forward. You may do it concurrent with or following or whatever, but those are not in conflict with each other. Is that correct? Correct. Thank you. I think we're good. I just had a few comments, but I appreciate you framing that way, Mayor. That's essentially what I was getting at in terms of making sure that we had adequately planned for that or not had missed an opportunity to adequately plan for that. So anyways, thank you for framing it that way. I just had a brief comment. I know that there was a slide that went up in regards to the different impact fees and I appreciate that slide. I think, and I appreciate the context of community benefit associated with the slide. I, having been really trying very hard my whole time on council to get the childcare impact fee, I am really happy to see that on there. And just so you are in the broader community is aware, we have a serious challenge with childcare in our community, especially as we're thinking about our downtown and having density in terms of people and workforce. So it is a critical component of the fabric of our community and in addition to the other impact fees that are associated with that. So it is about a holistic community and putting that in that context, I think is important to reference and I'll leave it there. Thank you for the questions and comments. Ms. Brunner is recognized. Thank you. I just wanted to ask whoever could respond to how it will be anchored in the ground. I think that was brought up also the question about the six stories and 85 feet, eight stories, 92 feet. So I don't know if that would be Lee Butler or Jesse Bristow or both that could answer those questions that were brought up. Good afternoon, Mr. Butler. Good afternoon. Thank you, Council Member Brunner for that question. I can answer broadly speaking with respect to both of those that we have our experts in our building division, our building official, and our plan check engineers who review the building design at the building permit stage to ensure that the foundation is meeting all the various standards, both the seismic standards as well as the structural standards and taking into account the subsurface water flows that were identified by the prior speaker and making sure that the building foundation is sufficient to withstand the necessary forces in order to make sure that everyone is safe. So the foundation type can vary. I would defer to the applicant if you want specifics on what type of foundation they are seeking to pursue for the project. But we will be looking at it carefully as part of the building permit process and making sure that it's meeting all the applicable regulations from the building code. With respect to the number of stories, if you look at the Pacific Front Laurel project, that project has a first level from the exterior that is roughly 18 feet or so in height. You get that variation 18 or 20 feet or so. And that appears as one level from the outside. There's a mezzanine on the interior there. There are two levels of parking behind that 20 feet. And in portions of that area, there are offices and bike parking. And so that one level is perceived by some from the exterior. Sometimes it can be perceived as two levels depending on where you're at in the building. Similarly, there's a portion of that building above 75 feet. I believe it is where there is an eighth floor. If you're counting that first floor as two, then there's an eighth floor, which is only for a portion of the building, but that's a mezzanine level above some of the top residential levels. So as often is the case with our work, the answer for the number of floors is it depends on where you are looking at it in the building and how you're looking at it from the exterior or counting some of those interior levels. Thank you. Welcome. I also had a quick comment to Jesse Bristow who gave the presentation. I just wanted to also thank you for answering some of my questions. And I appreciate the visual of showing the context of the buildings that are coming around this site. I think that's something that when I talk with members of the public about all the development, it's hard not to look at the entire neighborhood. And if we only look at this one project, I would be crying out for more, for example, very low and low housing units. In the context of the five or so surrounding blocks, we have four buildings that will be 100% low income housing coming up right around it. In the context of the bigger city, we have a lot underway. So it was helpful to see those heights and the context of the surrounding blocks. So thank you because I think that helps everybody understand. And I also, let's see, on my notes, I think that, oh, Council Member Watkins asked my pump station timeline question. And my more further nuanced question on that was why that specific spot versus across the street, for example. Hi, Council Member. This is Katie Stewart, senior professional engineer in the Public Works Department. Hopefully I can give some more context to this. So at this point in the pump station design project, we have completed a feasibility study. So that evaluated all the possible locations along the storm drain line that runs along the toll of the levee where we could potentially site a new storm pump station to alleviate some of our capacity issues in that storm drain. We looked all the way from Josephine Street all the way down to Pump Station One, which is located just south of Laurel Street. And the location that was identified, this is the only feasible location to sort of solve our issues of capacity in existing storm drain pipes that are too small. Specifically the pipe that runs from Soquel Avenue south into the Pump Station at Laurel Street. So you're limited and there's not a lot you can do upstream to reduce the amount of flow that's entering the pipe there. So the current location was the one that was identified as our best and most feasible spot to site this. Thank you, Katie. I think that answers the question for me. And I just, overall my final comment is that, you know, in speaking with a lot of members of the public and some of the emails we've received and comments here in person. I think that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And we must remember that when we speak about something being grotesque or ugly. And we really have to look at the benefits of the housing and the housing inventory that this will bring to our city. And it's our housing demand of housing inventory at all income levels is so great. And I'm so proud of our city. If you all haven't read our recent press release that we are, I think it was 6% of the state. We are one of the 6% of the state that met our fifth cycle regional housing needs allocation goals in all income levels of housing. And so as we enter into our sixth cycle with, I think like triple the numbers. And I think it's really important to really look holistically at each unit as a win-win, especially when we have hundreds of voucher holders that cannot find a unit to rent. And they've received subsidized housing vouchers that will help them pay rent. And that includes even market rate rents in some cases, depending on the individuals. So I just want to put that into context and thank you so much. That concludes my question. Thank you, Council Member. Ms. Calentari-Johnson is recognized. Thank you. I'll just make some brief comments. I had the opportunity to meet with Jesse Bristow and team and staff. So I've asked my questions ahead of it, but I know that a lot of work has gone into this over the years. And I really appreciate the community engagement that's happened. I appreciate community coming to the various forums and providing feedback. And I appreciate city staff and Swenson working those into what we see as maybe the final product or close to final product. I know that while we are going through these shifts as a community, it's really challenging. We don't know. I mean, we can see all the renderings that we want, but we still don't know what it's going to look like and how it's going to feel. And change is hard and it can get messy. But I think what I want to invite folks to do is to be open to it because our community needs are changing. And so we need to meet those needs as my colleagues have said. I'm so glad that you brought up that we were one of the 6% that met the arena cycles and we have a lot more work to do. So it's just, it's an invitation to everybody, whether in support of this project or not. It's an invitation to think about how our community does need to shift in order to meet the changing demands and needs. So thank you for all the thoughtfulness that went into this by everyone, the staff and Swenson and community members. And I'm happy to support this when it comes to a vote. Thank you. Ms. Brown is recognized. Thank you, Mayor. Well, I actually have a question, a follow up question. And then I have a couple of brief comments because I do think and thank you, Councilmember Bruner for asking some of those follow up questions. But one that was also asked was related to the schematics, the renderings showing a particular perspective. And it's a question I've asked in the past about why, for architects and others, when projects come before us, why we don't see that street level view. And because we aren't going to know what it feels like, why don't we try to get a little bit closer to understanding what it's going to look and feel like. And so that question about why we can't have street view renderings. And I'm going to just add in here because it's people come and ask me, and I've asked about it, story polls as well. That would give people a real understanding, I think, or some better understanding. I mean, it's not going to do shading and all of that, but to get a sense of the height and kind of scale of these projects. So why can't we, I guess, why aren't they there and is that possible to do? Why not, if not? I'm going to permit that question. We don't typically do this under debate and discussion on emotion, but could you answer the general ladies question? Yes. So we have a checklist for what's required in applications, but we do require renderings and we do want them to be from the street view to see how it's going to look to a person on the street. We do have that for this project. I didn't show all the renderings in my presentation. I can share some with you now if you'd like. That's okay. I've seen them in the packet. I was just talking about, I mean, that's the schematic. I'm talking about renderings with people and stuff and so, you know, the feel of it, that kind of material. But it's all right. I don't want to be out of order here. It just occurred to me since a member of the public asked and it's been on my mind. I'd really like to better understand that if not here then at some point. And then I do have a couple of comments. Please, go ahead. Okay, so I guess I'll just say a couple of things. I want to clarify what we are doing here today. Just provide some information to help kind of clarify or crystallize what this project is. And I'm not saying this to suggest that I'm opposed to this project wholesale. But I do want people to understand and I want my colleagues to think about the fact that what we're doing here is, we're approving a project that is 106, no, yeah, 106 units more, so 60% more than what was previously approved for this site. And we are getting three additional affordable housing units for that. So I just want to say that because I recognize that we are in a constrained realm of possibility. I've said it over and over. But we have a situation where in this case, the developer is receiving a lot of additional incentives and benefits through state law and has asked for these waivers and concessions, which I know are technically by right. But there are other questions that could be asked. We haven't asked them here. I'm just going to suggest one of them. I'm not asking the question, but this is rhetorically to say, hey, we have, you know, I believe we should be, we could do better and we should be doing better and that we as a body should be asking for more. I'm very glad to hear Mr. Bristow that you are willing to engage in that conversation moving forward because I want to find a way to get to do better. Three more units that are affordable to people earning, you know, around 40 bucks an hour out for an additional 106 units is a pretty significant benefit with not much affordability. So I just, I wanted to be very clear about that. I'm also a bit dismayed by the lack of evidence. There's an assertion that's made as our planning staff generally do about the, this is what is needed in order for this project to pencil out. And it's just hard for me to imagine that that's universally the case that there aren't, you know, questions that could be asked in ways of looking at this a little bit differently when we're talking about such a massive increase in the scale and the number of units in the project. So I just have to say that I can't support it under those circumstances that there's a high, there's a significant height increase and we're again not getting any additional affordability out of that. So I think I'll leave it there and I look forward to future conversations. Further questions or comments? Thank you. A couple of thoughts before we go to a roll call. I don't think it's any big mystery that throughout the state after decades of local governments maybe not taking anywhere near as seriously as they should housing across a range of incomes, that the state of California whether, well, the state of California decided that the new housing policy is being defined in and sent forth from the state capital. City councils or the supervisors have lost enormous amounts of local land use control. If you like what's been going on the last few decades and then you don't like this, new world we're in. If you didn't like it, what's been going on in California in the last few decades, then you have a different view of the state legislation. I would say to those who are concerned about such issues as massing and height and other issues, your issue is with the state legislative delegation and if you haven't already brought them into your conversation, I suggest you do so. We are not the state legislature. We're a city council that needs to comply with the law. This will, however, the change in the state's approach to who is in charge will result in very significant making up of time in the city of Santa Cruz relative to building housing across a range of income categories. I don't think the state has that exactly right yet in terms of how they're trying to operationalize their desire to see substantially more housing and again, if you don't like the current state, I would suggest you speak with the state legislature and the governor about that because that's now out of our hands. We do have some discretion and exercising that discretion is important because building something in Santa Cruz versus someplace else, we all, every city, every community claims that it's unique and you know what? They're all right. Everyone is right. They're unique. Doesn't mean they're better or worse or something, they're unique. So building in Santa Cruz has always been a challenge. It's now, I think, becoming less so, quite a bit less so. I think the state has made it very clear. They are incenting the development of housing generally and they're doing more than just giving a head nod towards affordable housing. But from my point of view, if they wanted to be earnest about it, they would put a multi-billion dollar affordable housing general obligation affordable housing bond on the ballot, which if it's approved doesn't raise taxes because it has first claim on the state's general funds when they're assembling the budget. Those are Sacramento issues. I had my opportunity to be a state legislator and cast those votes and think about those concepts. Now I'm a mayor and I have to deal with the hand that has been given to me by the dealers in Sacramento. And in that regard, and without reference to that, without reference to that, I think this is a good project. Certainly with reference to that, then I think it's a quite good project. I wish there was Mr. Bristow and others with Swenson. We've had conversations about this particular project. I think you've gone a great distance on this. I would like to see two, three, four more units. I understand from your point of view with all the issues that you have to deal with, that's not available to you at this point from a business perspective. I respect that. I think Swenson has done more than a little bit of good development in the city of Santa Cruz. I consider you a local developer. I was telling the Swenson folks that I remember several years ago that the homeless garden project had its annual Hall Day wreath operation ready to go. And they had a downtown space that was ready for them and they was vacant and they were going into it. All of a sudden those folks had a tenant. There was going to be no homeless garden project wreath deal. And Swenson says, well, here we got a vacant office space, go ahead and do it. I think that is who you are. I think that is. And you've proved that time and time again. Asking for more or engaging in the conversation about more, especially in this case, two, three, four more moderate income level. I don't feel bad asking for that. I understand why you say no to that in this instance. And I look forward to the other developments you're going to bring forward because I know what you will do is you will engage us in conversations, especially. And I don't think there's an exception on the city council. For those who are looking to see what is the maximum opportunity for us to meet our extremely low, very low, low and moderate income housing goals. So we will be in conversations with you about that. And I thank you for all the good work you've done. I thank you for taking a hard look at the request for additional affordable units. And I look forward to our engagement earlier in the process on your future projects. Click will call the roll. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to clarify also that the staff recommendation was to approve the resolution with the conditions of approval, but staff actually proposed who edit the conditions of approval and I just want to make sure that those are to be included. The resolution is those amended portions of the recommendation from staff. Yes. That includes that. Okay. Council Member Newsom. Aye. Brown. No. Watkins. Aye. Brunner. Aye. Calentary Johnson. Aye. Vice Mayor Golder. Aye. And Mayor Achilles. Aye. The motion is approved, projects is approved. Thank you all very much for being here. Thank you for your input and your participation. We are on item, tell your wife, let's take 10 minutes. I wanted to do it with my cards. I do what he says. I wanted to do it with my cards. I wanted to do it with my cards this way. And on the back, John, Don Addison, and Gail Pellerin. Yep. City Council is back in session. We're going to make an amendment to our, to the order in which we're going to take things up. We are, instead of going directly to item 31, we are going to go directly to, thank you. We are going to instead proceed at this time to item number 34, proceed of the annual Assembly Bill 841 military equipment report. We are going to take this up in the interest of a couple of members of the public who have some other items that will conflict other calendar items for themselves tonight. And the Chief has been kind enough to accommodate this, this change in the order. So members, again, we are on item number 33. Chief, good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, Mayor and council members. This is Bernie Escalani, chief of police. And I'd like to introduce Sergeant Josh Trog who will be introducing the report, the required AB 41 annual report. And you also received the detailed report with a higher level of details, but we're going to give more of a just a higher overarching review of that report and, and available for questions. Thank you. I'll turn it over to Sergeant Trog. Sergeant, good evening. Good evening, Mayor and council members. Thank you. So just for a little background, effective January of 2022, the state legislature required that we report on all items deemed as military equipment. So in May 10th of 2022, the city of Santa Cruz adopted ordinance and the Santa Cruz police department's policy 705 regarding all of these items. We are required to present an annual report. The report requires approval and the ordinance requires ongoing approval from the council each year that the report is presented. And the intent of the report is to establish safeguards and transparency and oversight for all of the department's equipment that falls under this AB 41. Next slide, please. So these slides, which I will go through fairly quickly, are just an overview of the items that we were talking about with some visual representations to assist. So this slide notes the items in category one, five, two and three, which are the robots, unmanned aerial vehicles, command and control vehicles, and the armored vehicle. Next slide, please. The slide depicts the transport vehicles specialized firearms and ammunition of less than 50 caliber and firearms and ammunition of greater than 50 caliber. Of course, a pepper ball, tear gas, flash bangs or noise flash diversionary devices, the 40 millimeter launchers and associated ammunition, the long range acoustic device. And then item 15 is all other specified equipment and for our policy, the items that fall under that were the department's AR 15 rifles as directed by council at the time that the original ordinance and policy were approved. The graph indicates where these items were deployed or used throughout the year. The yellow denotes training, the light green color denotes in the field, the dark green color denotes AOD or assist other department. And then the blue color, the darker blue color indicates refueling and then the lighter blue color indicates a demo. So with that, the AR 15 rifles were used in training 15 times throughout the year. We did not have a use of force with those rifles during the year. The 40 millimeter launchers were used 24 times by use. That means they were deployed doesn't necessarily mean they were used in the against a person, but they were deployed as a less lethal option in an active law enforcement incident. There were three times in training. We used flashbangs, tear gas in twice in training, firearms, an ammunition of less than 50 caliber. We used in training the command and control vehicles are patrol cars. They get used every single day, providing a metric of where they go and what they do. For the purposes of AB 41, they are quote command and control vehicles and fall under military equipment, but the department only uses patrol vehicles. They're deployed every single day and being able to provide an exact number. The armored personnel carrier, that report is redundant in the AB 41 report to the one that council already received for the bear cat use report. It is the exact same data and how it was used during the year. We requested the use of the sheriff's office unmanned aerial vehicle twice last year. Both were used in, once was to search for a subject and the other was in assistance in mapping a crime scene. And then we used the recon robot in the field twice in training and in community demonstrations. So this is a little bit better breakdown of the bear cat use. It's a little bit easier to digest the data on how we used it. If there are any questions about this, I can go into it at that appropriate time. I'm not going to belabor the point with reading this graph. Next slide, please. So costs associated with all of the equipment. As you can see, the bulk of our costs are associated to training. There are maintenance costs in there, refueling equipment and training courses. Most of the training costs associated here are absorbed in normal department training. This is just a reflection of what the dollar amount associated to the best that we can compile for that training. Next slide, please. So intended acquisitions. We've already seen council related to the recon robot that was approved last month or earlier this month. The department intends to may explore a unmanned aerial vehicle program coming this year. So we are expressing that intention. And then we also are expressing the intention to purchase some ammunition for the breaching shotguns that we have so that we can continue training and have those available for use if needed. We will be having a community event for the AB 41 report. It will be on May 16th, 5.30 p.m. via Zoom. And we will be able to go into the report for the community and answer questions and take comments then. That is the end of my presentation. Thank you very much. Appreciate your presentation. Let me do this. Let me see if council members have questions. We are going to also receive two presentations here from members of the public that have requested opportunity to do so. Yes, please, Ms. Brunner. I just had a, I was curious about the armored personnel carrier vehicle. It looks like three of the four uses were to assist other agencies, Scott's Valley Sheriff and Watsonville. And then the refueling, how does that cost work out for the fuel cost? I was just curious. So when I was compiling this report, I reached out to the yard, the corporation yard, and I asked them for any and all data related to the vehicles that were sent here or that were covered under this report, and they provided me with a spreadsheet and those costs of how much they have record of the fuel that it costs to run that vehicle for the reporting period. So that's where the data for the fuel cost came from. Thank you. For the questions, comments. Ms. Watkins. So for the aerial, is that a drone? Yes, I apologize. No, no, no, I figured as much, but I just wanted to confirm things. Let me go to the members of the public who requested time. Good afternoon. Good evening, rather. I'd actually like to request that Peter Gelblum online be allowed to go first because he has an engagement. Not a problem. Go ahead. We'll go to the online if he's, is he there? What's the time? Am I giving people three minutes? I'm sorry. Am I giving three minutes? Three minutes on this. Yes. Tell me when we're good to go. Good to go. Good afternoon. Good evening, rather, Mr. Goldblum. It is still light out. So this, this in a very significant way is the easiest item on the agenda for tonight because all you gotta do is do what the law tells you to do. The law says it very simply without any kind of opportunity to avoid it. And you need to do it. So what, what it says in the staff report refers to it. This statute, AB 41 prohibits you from approving from renewing the ordinance unless you make three or four findings. So the three important ones are, and this is in the staff report, the military equipment is necessary because there is no reasonable alternative that can achieve the same objective of officer and civilian safety. The proposed military equipment use policy will safeguard the public's welfare, safety, civil rights and civil liberties and see if purchasing the equipment, the equipment is reasonably cost effective compared to available alternatives that can achieve the same objective of officer and civilian safety. I've read everything that's been submitted. You have no information before you, zero information before you in which you can make any of those determinations. So all I asked and I said it's simple is to ask the sergeant or whatever representative of the SCPD is appropriate to answer those questions for you. To tell you what are the alternatives they haven't given in. How does this protect civil liberties and civil rights? There's nothing in the report that tells you that. And by law you are not allowed to approve the ordinance or renew the ordinance unless you make, unless you know those things and make those determinations. So it's real straightforward. If you don't have the information, if you don't have it, you can't approve it. The burden is on the city council members to do this because you're the backstop. There's no private right of action for this. If you approve it without that, those determinations, you are quite frankly breaking the law. The resolution that's been presented to you by staff has those findings in them, but quite frankly at this point, I'll be blunt, that's a lie. You have not made those determinations and you cannot make them right now because you don't have any evidence on which to base those determinations. There's tons of other problems with the submission that you approved last year, but then we just focus on those three because if you do that, I'd be very curious to hear what the answers to your questions are, but please somebody ask the questions that you're looking to make for determinations. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Brokaw, good evening. Do I have my eight minutes? I don't see a clock. You will have your eight minutes. Please proceed. Thank you, sir. The state has codified AB 481 military equipment used by law enforcement in such a way that you council members are the enforcers. This, as I see it, is a responsibility that you may not have realized as you sought your elected positions. For the most part, approving of vehicles, trucks, and other listed equipment is benign, although I didn't know we had an armored personnel carrier. Being a veteran, an armored personnel carrier means something very specific to me and we don't own one. However, when it comes to lethal weapons specifically, sniper rifles and assault weapons, by your vote to approve their use in our urban environment, should someone, anyone be injured or killed by these weapons, I would suggest council members are responsible, as responsible, as a law enforcement officer who pulled the trigger because you allowed it. That's what responsibility is, taking responsibility for your decisions and your actions. This is a serious vote that you're about to have, maybe the most serious vote you will ever make in your life. The law allows you under Code 7075 to set your own rules with regard to military equipment codified under Code 7070 to 7075. You have the power, for instance, to vote to postpone the vote on this report until the chief has made the required public presentation, which he has scheduled for after the vote, and that makes the public participation null if it's already approved. Why would anybody come to a meeting to talk about it? And in my opinion, his report does not follow the law. You have the power to tell the chief to get the policy section 705 corrected to be in compliance with the law. It is not. I'm not here to go through that. I have to say that the mayor and I have had conflicting schedules trying to get together so that we could have an informative discussion. The group that I represent would be very open to having a Brown Act meeting with council to go through the law item by item, even with law enforcement present to rebut what we're saying.  You teach in the university. None of you have experience with this sort of stuff. I'm a military veteran. I've qualified on an M14. I've qualified on an M16. I've qualified on a 45 semi-automatic pistol in the 70s, early 70s, during the Vietnam era. And I'm proud to tell you that when I shot at the target downrange, I aimed over the target because that was the way I could resist. That's not in my remarks. I'm sorry. I got carried away. The questions I'm going to ask are questions that council should be asking. The job assigned to you is to ask questions of law enforcement and not rubber stamp what they have given you. You have as much time as you need, you do not need to rush. With regard to the Bearcat, there is no mechanism in the SCPD policy manual, which is part of this submission, to ensure that the borrowing agency, Sheriff, Scots Valley, Watsonville, that they follow our procedures. We own that equipment. We have created procedures by which we as a community want to see this piece of military equipment used appropriately. It is our moral responsibility to ensure that our values are enforced when that equipment is used by others. There is no enforcement mechanism in writing on the policy. 705 or in the report that was just presented to you. Number five under Bearcat, demonstrations. Listed for the Citizens Police Academy, which I attended with Miss Brunner. List no complaint. However, I did emphatically object to the Bearcat being on display in front of the police department for an extended period of time before and after it was used as an adult jungle gem for the attendees. When we set the rules for the use of the Bearcat, it was to be used for very specific things. Parades and demonstrations were excluded. The demonstration could have easily been in the walled-off parking lot and not on display for the public who were coming and going at commute hour. There was no need for it to be there, and my complaint was blown off, and obviously it's not registered. On 11-16-22, you list the training costs of $78.50. Are you kidding me? That's about what we pay with benefits for one hour of one law enforcement officer. How many officer person hours were involved multiplied by their wages, the benefits, the cost of amortization because of the use of the vehicles. These are the kinds of costs that are required to be public knowledge. The general statement, the following general statement that appears in the report in writing for every category is insufficient and not in keeping with the law. That statement says, annual costs for personnel, training, transportation, and storage were absorbed into the department's operating budget. I didn't tell you anything. The law requires specifics. How many dollars were spent on labor? How many dollars were spent on materials? How much value was lost because you used the equipment? These are the kinds of costs that are supposed to be in this report. This kind of a statement is what I'm going to give you a new word, copaganda. This is copaganda and 481 was crafted to make that transparent. Absorbed isn't in compliance with the law item by item costs, not generalities. Statement two, our group has been trained by the American friends in every aspect of this law. We've studied it, we've presented it to the public on a forum on 481. We offered to help SCPD comply with this law as they prepared for the report because I was told it was labor intensive, a lot of data. We offered to help so that we wouldn't be going through something like this. I'm seeing 23 seconds, that must not be accurate. Pardon? I'll be glad to run the meeting. When you're elected mayor, you can run the meeting. We offered to do this so we wouldn't have to try and do this in eight minutes and in front of the public. The chief's exact words in response to my offer were, I have to go feed my kid and he left the building. I can't make this up, this is accurate. Category eight, fire... What you can do is wrap it up. Category eight, firearms greater than 50 caliber, shot guns, launching shotguns. How many times were they used under color of authority in the past 20 years? What's the annual cost? Firearms less than 50 caliber.   You've got your eight minutes, your time is up. Thank you very much. Anyone else wish to comment? Good afternoon, good evening, sir. I don't want to dwell on the negative because, you know, it's very serious. We're talking about basically higher ordinance than normally be considered normal for police enforcement, the law enforcement arm of the Department of Justice. Well, okay, the last three officers that have died in the line of duty in the county, to my knowledge, well, you could construe how they died is, you know, the use of military technology. Now, I know that it's just, you're talking about gun rights. But, yeah, I want to say that drones, first of all, drone technology is very invasive.  There's no one flying around in that thing.  If you look at what happened before the last election, the presidential election with Kyle Rittenhouse, if you know what happened in that scenario, he began to be chased by protesters when a drone took off. The moment the drone took off, he began to be chased by protesters. And then he was cornered and what took place in his very, very serious business. So what really contributed to that situation, and I know this sounds like maybe something you've never thought about before, but it was, you know, the drone in that situation kind of whipped people into a frenzy. Now, we've had all kinds of demonstrations in the city of Santa Cruz far, you know, over the years. We've had them block off Highway 17, close campus. That happens every February or, I forget if it's February or March when they close campus, but you know what I mean? We have all kinds of demonstrations, I mean, just ever so frequently.   And having military technology really doesn't protect officers to any huge degree in those scenarios. And then the crime, the other, like the criminology, the standard criminology analysis, I don't really see them as very necessary. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Good afternoon. Good evening. Good evening. Yeah, I go after room for 10 minutes. We skip over some items. I want to talk on 34. If we skip over 31 and 32, I know we're going to skip 33. Yeah, and we will be returning. Okay, great. So what was it? This item four weeks ago was like 44 pages. Two weeks ago it was three pages. Today it's 53 pages. Believe me, I would have loved to have commented on 30, but, you know, I've got other places to go and I want to be efficient. You know, Mr. Keely, you made a comment about the state making these laws and regulations, so I'm just going to read this as part of it because it works for whatever this one is, 34. You said the state, so I'm going to say it slightly differently. The state, deep state, has made enough issues as clear as this is progress or this is idiocracy. So how this affects all of us in law enforcement, first of all, since 1917, the city and county council members are controlled by their city and county managers. You guys are just following scripts. Now, I've said before, without law enforcement, we don't have enforceable laws and those personnel are doing a very important public service. So yeah, about every officer to my knowledge has still issued their own AR-15 and they're required to know how to use that. I think that's really important. You know, it's not that difficult to hit a one foot sphere at 500 yards. It's not that easy either. So I'm in some disagreement about some of the priorities here because once again on those 53 pages on page 10 of that, on the military weapons allowable, the microwave weapons came up on page 10 and that's just an elephant in the room that is affecting all of us whether we want to acknowledge it or not. I've spoken before about how only teachers and youth are being thrown under the bus more than law enforcement because of the unshielded frequency devices and I made a few people laugh in this room for saying I had my hands on a phased ray antenna.  I'm not sure but that was a great mistake. So things are going to happen the way they're going to happen. My understanding and I wrong all the time is that law enforcement really became connected as a paramilitary force in 1996 in this country. Now, if you were to interview law enforcement in the United Kingdom 78% refused to say that they're part of the masons which is a completely different subject. So it'll just be interesting as far as how we're all going to choose to be personally accountable for ourselves and other people's safety and welfare now and in the future. Thanks. Thank you, sir. Ms. Bush, we have someone online. Next person online. Good evening. Few people currently. Good evening online. Three, two, one, we'll take the next person online. Good evening. Hi, this is Scott Graham. I was just wondering why they're seeking the approval for this before the public meeting. I would think that you, as our representatives, would want the public meeting to happen before you approve this as soon as you're putting the cart before the horse with what they're doing here. The other question is, who will this military equipment be used on? Will it be used on the public, members of the public here in Santa Cruz? Is that what it's for? Or is it for some invading force from outside the country? How often have these military equipment been used in the past 20 years or so? Like Lee was saying, he went through a bunch of things. This is category 10, firearms less than 50 caliber sniper rifles. How many times under the color of authority have they been used in the past 20 years? Category 11, missing what is it? Category 12, flash bang tear gas pepper balls. Flash bangs explode in a decibel that caused permanent hearing loss. If you want that on your contents or a lawsuit about it. Tear gas is governed by AB 48 as much as different than you have seen historically. When is it time to replenish tear gas that is inspired? I would hope you'd ask why we need it in the first place. How many times used under the color of authority in the past 20 years? Annual cost of having this tear gas. Category 13, LRAD. Another device that can cause permanent hearing loss. How many times used under color of authority in the past 20 years? Annual cost of this item. Category 14, 40 millimeter lockers. Used because suicidal person refused to comply with a command. This is a good example of what the Santa Cruz Police Department should not be doing. Assault weapons do not track firearm usage. Carbines, sea handouts, LMT carbines. 556, 223 rounds damage. Hollow point bullets explode when they hit something. These are considerations. Consider that you must resolve to approve the Shirley report. There are many more issues with the 705 policy manual to bring into compliance. It's really unbelievable that this is before you right now. I would say that the best thing you could do is put this off for at least another month. Or maybe two months. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anyone else online, Ms. Bush? We'll try the other person. Try the other one. Okay. Good idea. Good evening. Good evening. If you are online, good evening. Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. I'm here as a member of surge showing up for racial justice. I'm Santa Cruz County. And I, I want to just. Yeah, reiterate the. Call to, to not make a decision today because. Because there hasn't been the public conversation. And to make a decision today before that, it would go against the intent and the purpose of the law. I also want to. Double the emphasize how serious this issue is. And just in case. In case you haven't had a chance to read the law, like the very first paragraph lays out a lot, like the acquisition of military equipment and its deployment. It, it has an adverse impact on the public safety and welfare, including increased risk of civilian deaths, risk to civil rights, civil liberties, physical and psychological wellbeing. And significant financial costs. It's more frequently deployed against black and brown folks. Well, I changed communities to folks. But I'm reading from the law, meaning the risks and impacts of police militarization are experienced more acutely and marginalized communities. So I just want you to really take to heart how serious this. Your task is right now and that you're. Our oversight body. You're the ones responsible for this. The report does not appear to be complete at all. They're the issue of how, what the agreement is with other, with other agencies when we don't, when we loan out equipment, that needs to be super clear. The, so tear gas. So the bear cat is a huge one. And there needs to be a lot more detail on that. And so tear gas is, is governed under AB 48 and AB 481. And tear gas. Did you know it was prohibited for use in war by the Geneva convention because of the impacts it has on human beings. It's flash bangs. It's also mentioned permanent hearing loss. These are things that can contribute to death. But they're, they're euphemistically called less lethal. Please take the time you need to study this issue. Well, thank you so much. Anyone else with us online? Miss Bush. All right. Matters back before the council. Miss Brown. Thank you, mayor. So I have, having been involved in this, this decision, the past year when this law was initially passed the state law and brought to us a first round of inventory and the initial ordinance. A lot of questions were raised. And I think the police chief, thank you at the, at the time you were open to including some additional information in that inventory. And I appreciate your willingness to, you know, take, take this issue seriously. As members of the public have suggested this is, you know, the council has been given through AB 481 some serious responsibility. I may not feel that way, but we really do. We may not have asked for it, but here it is. And as we decide how to implement a law that's like arguably very convoluted, difficult to interpret in some places and kind of vague, it's, you know, we are challenged and, you know, the goal of this bill was on increased understanding and transparency. And I'm not really feeling like it's achieving that goal. That's anothe