ublic hearing is typically about four months so we would be way way beyond a shot clock restriction so would you take as a friendly amendment since that was that that's unlike a lot of other appeals that we do um waive the fee for um for city council appeals yes okay with the second accepted okay so there was a friendly amendment to waive appeals yeah here there was a friendly amendment to waive the appeal fee if it were to come before the city council did you um staff have additional insights to this looks that there's some conversation did you have additional concerns or insights i was just going to comment that the ordinance that's in front of you eliminates the planning process and so there would be no appeal because there's no process it's the public works process that is forthcoming that would remain in effect and so that's what the the public works department is working with the attorneys on and so the the suggestion that there be an appeal for the appeal fee be waived for what's in front of you right now there is no process this this would be eliminating that planning process in favor of a public works process so so there isn't an appeal for the planning process that is is now pushed into the the public works realm that makes sense if the conversation could happen at a different time in regards to how the appeal process right how how the application may be heard by the council would be as part of the public works discussion chapter the new chapter 15.38 that's referenced in this is what would identify that application process it would be outside of the planning process to help meet the shot clock requirements we could hold that amendment that the amended i still would like to keep it in there and but but consider it when it comes up when we are talking about the public works policy since it's inapplicable to this essentially process it's just not on the agenda for today we'll get we'll be hearing about this in some may some may sometime soon sometimes soon yes we're working on we're working on all this and and to the point being made is theirs is an internal planning process ours we'll have to issue per actual physical permits for for the work to can take place so that's probably the right place for it all right okay withdraw okay so we um have a motion in a second all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed okay that passes unanimously okay so we'll move along to item number 14 on our agenda and i will invite my colleagues who may be interested in saying a few words this was their presentation for item number 13 item number 13 was the volunteer recognition presentation awards which we took a break in our original thing so we're on to item 14 item 14 is the city of Santa Cruz's commitment for civility and a proclamation joining the initiative to revive civility and it was an item cosigned by council members and before i read some of the elements of our proclamation i'll invite my colleagues to say a few words if interested answer matthews yes i was approached by members of the community with this concept who gave me some references to national organizations pursuing this idea and it's an i an idea that has been well received and welcomed across the political spectrum i think going from national politics down to online communications wherever we look the decline of an attempt at civil conversation communication listening and and discussion has really taken a hit and so i was very happy to approach the mayor with this idea and council member comings and this seems like it should be pretty straightforward and it's simply a proclamation declaring our commitment as a community and reaching out to the broader community to keep this goal and to strive to reach this in in all our discussions it does not bar having strong passionate feelings but just that we will get further and achieve more by by trying to communicate in a civil way and i should say this is endorsed by a very wide range of organizations including a national institute for civil discourse and the goldman school of public policy at uc berkeley so with that it's pretty simple i bring it forward i hope it gets unanimous support by the council and the community vice mayor yeah i would just like to add that i mean we've been dealing with a lot of very controversial topics this year some items that have been very concerning to our community and that we're trying to address in the best way possible throughout the national political sphere as well there's been a lot of tension and many people in the community have felt like that tension has even been kind of infiltrating into the way we engage as a community and and i've wanted to sign on to this as well because even with correspondence as council member matthews mentioned even down to digital correspondence the way that people from the community engage with us can sometimes feel disrespectful and not in a way that's very constructive and so i think that it's something that we should all remember that we're all trying to do the best for our community and the only way that we're going to achieve that is if we're able to actually communicate our feelings with one another in a way that's respectful and so i was very happy when i was approached to sign on to this and hope that we can move forward in a way where we can work towards solutions to our problems rather than point fingers at one another thank you um um council member guver did you oh absolutely yes thank you i appreciate it so i was really elated actually to see this item on the agenda we haven't had an opportunity to talk in depth about the concept of civility since a conflict which has yet to be resolved was brought to the community's attention here in the city council chambers back in february since then i've had the time to think and reflect on the concept of civility politics conflict resolution and more importantly reconciliation after all my work outside of the city council is focused on nonviolent conflict reconciliation so with that lens while i support the proclamation it seems a bit strange to me for us to be having this discussion with such an obvious chasm that exists between those that sit on this body i call it a chasm because it's much more than merely a divide it feels like there's almost a complete disconnect and in that sense of being disconnected there is seemingly very little desire or drive to address it or reconcile it or to move forward and i only say that because the requests to reconcile uh and resolve the situation have gone unanswered and without action it's been about two months since our february 12th meeting and besides a half day session of talking about our political goals with no mention of conflict or reconciliation there's been nothing that even resembles an attempt to bring this body together in real unity but i'll say it again i support this proclamation but i do find it strange for it to come now it seems in some ways rather inappropriate and i say that not to suggest that a pledge to civility isn't appropriate because i think we can all agree that civility is important but it made me start even to ask myself what is civility does civility mean being nice doesn't mean not disagreeing and ultimately the real question is when does disagreement become uncivil as it turns out the history of the concept of civility is deep and intricate and even more interesting is the history of civility talk and how it's been used as a political tool i was listened and listened to a great ted talk by a researcher named teresa bijan and her analysis of civility she covered a lot about the history of civility and how it grew out of the conflict between religious groups in the 17th century when they needed to find a way to dehumanize and discredit those who did not agree with their religious beliefs or we could look at the history of colonization and the rationale used by mainstream anthropologists to say that other cultures were uncivilized and therefore it was okay to invade conquer and take over their lands but bijan draws a distinction between the modern concept of civility and civility talk as a political tool i agree that civility is precious but i think it's time when we start talking about civility to also realize that civility is something that makes our disagreements tolerable it when people talk about civility a lot of times it can be used to stigmatize or make people who disagree with that person look like the bad individual it was a tactic used to silence civil war protesters and even in these chambers the call for civility has resulted in people consistently being cut off at the podium instead of being able to finish their last sentence many researchers and journalists suggest that instead of healing our division civility talk is making the problem worse that's not to say that we shouldn't be emphasizing and encouraging respectful conversation but what makes a conversation civil in our agenda report it says that quote the effect of this trend referring to the lack of civility is to discourage honest and open communication divide our communities and make it harder to work together on the challenges we face and quote i would argue that this is exactly the situation we're in right now on this body with the way that these issues have been handled instead of having to make the effort to talk to each other there has been this awkward pass to allow us to speak past each other or to each or at each other rather here is more support for the argument that i'm talking about in a paper titled democracy civility and the dangers of niceness where political scientist ian ward points out that an ethic of generalized niceness can actually be in many circumstances a mean by which citizens conform to the requirements of unjust social arrangements jane schmidt a local organizer with black lives matter says that civility is actually used to shut down discussion and is often a way to tone police the folks that don't have the power and new york columnist jelani cob tweeted that civility is the cowards favorite tool as when uh necessary because when necessary jesus flipped tables so let's talk about civility as far as what does civility mean it doesn't always mean being nice or palatable or always landing in the middle it doesn't mean standing by and passing by what you feel is morally and ethically right does it mean it doesn't mean accepting what the power structure doles out or does it mean holding people accountable avoiding double speak and addressing issues head on and with courage we're going to talk about homelessness later and three people on this body have proposed that we shut down a community of people with no alternative options for real shelter would you call that civil are we allowing or how about the allowing of the displacement of our low and very low income people artists museum or musicians nurses teachers union workers people of color all of these vital groups that bring diversity and life to our city are being pushed out because of our inability or our unwillingness to establish anything that even resembles real protections for rentals is that civil to me the many researchers and to many researchers civility and morals obligate us to dive deep interrogate and identify what it means to keep what dr king called a positive piece and not uphold a negative piece civility goes beyond being nice it's not because being nice as bhaj says is not telling people what you think about their ideas that you disagree with civility means speaking your mind but to your opponent's face not behind their back it means not pulling all of your punches but not landing all of your punches at the same time and civility is courage so i hope that we can move forward passing this proclamation and not just talk the talk but actually walk the walk as elected officials here in santa cruz thank you i will just um say a few words so i will um just say uh just in addition to the the co-signers of the item that you know as electeds of our local government we have the obligation and responsibility to express civility and to lead in that way and that our community is observing as you are here in our chambers but so are our children and we can't help but acknowledge that there is a different tone at the national level and there are different that tone has infiltrated into local communities as well i will just read the proclamation and each of the council members will receive a copy of the proclamation as well but for the communities uh their benefit as well as those who may be listening at home so the mayors proclamation on civility whereas the erosion of civility in recent years has had an increasingly damaging effect on our communities and nation dividing people from one another fanning distrust and fear and undermining our public institutions and sense of well-being and whereas civil discourse is the free and respectful exchange of differing ideas in a way that respects and affirms all persons while hearing their perspectives and whereas listening to each other seeking understanding across differences and exercising civility assists in the process of working together and rebuilding trust fostering respect among various groups and helping us forge solutions to our most pressing challenges and whereas community members should feel safe and respected while expressing their opinions as well as exploring views outside of their own and whereas heated rhetoric and resistance to collaboration hinder our ability to solve the challenges confronting our community society and nation and whereas civility discourages the use of rudeness, ridicule insults and threatening behavior that undermines the open exchange of ideas and whereas sharing our personal hopes dreams fears and lived experience can help us understand what unites us over what divides us strengthening a sense of shared value so needed by our country and community and whereas civility improves our sense of well-being restores trust among individuals and institutions and encourages us to participate in building strong communities now and for the future now therefore I Martin Watkins mayor of the city of Santa Cruz do hereby endorse the commitment of civility on behalf of the city of Santa Cruz and proclaim the week of April 5th through April 12th 2019 as a week of conversation and encourage all citizens to support civility by listening respectfully to people who have different views avoiding language or communication that is insulting and derogatory to others and supporting efforts to work together across ideological political or other lines that may otherwise divide us so that is the mayor's proclamation on civility I will see if other council members have any comments or if any member of the of the public would like to address us on this item this is item number 14 and you could come forward you'll have two minutes to speak and please line up to my left if you're interested in speaking please good afternoon um this is sort of a weird thing because normally the mayor's proclamations are just part of the of the agenda and they're not discussed or brought before the public or for a vote of the council it's just a proclamation that the mayor makes so i'm kind of wondering why we're we're voting you know there's a vote on a mayor's proclamation and my take on this is that there's also people have the first amendment right to free speech and so whether or not that speech is civil is not a matter of interpretation it's a matter of they have the right to say whatever they want to say because that's what our constitution guarantees so whatever it is that this proclamation is trying to do it should not impinge on people's right to free speech that the people's right to free speech to supersede anything that this proclamation is trying to do thank you all right my name is Elise and this is really interesting because a couple of meetings ago i believe it was the special meeting on march 19th late at night i got very angry because i feel i've been witnessing obstruction of the city council procedures and i feel that a lot of the things that have been happening to obstruct a progressive new council from actually being able to set new policy that is actually progressive has been done very civilly behind the scenes and i can also say that i remember a certain council member here who's a landlord downtown was able to get a very beloved priest he was an Episcopal priest in one of the churches nearby removed from his office because he was serving teen soup teen mothers was done very civilly and that person had to leave their posts so what i'm just saying is first of all this this word civil um it's non-actionable what is civil depends on what your opinion is what class you come from what ideas you hold about what's maybe fair play or polite procedure well i just want to say that in my many years of travel into being apart and trying to understand people of different races and classes i've come to understand that my notions coming from very white upper class suburb in new jersey were extremely limited about what civility is and i had to learn that people who are very so-called polite and dignified people who respected the law were doing things that first appeared to me to be uncivil so what i'm saying is first of all i'm sorry that i lost my temper that night but mostly i'm sorry because it hurts me as chris crone said to me it probably was over the top but please don't pass this un unactionable item it's a way for the upper classes to squelch free speech and behavior that they basically don't like i'm norah hawkman and bonnie if we could get the picture of wtf off of this screen that'd be great i know but i'm looking at it and i want to say those three little letters out loud about this item i just don't understand why this is a discussion in the public sphere uh it it certainly wasn't a discussion when members of the minority were in the majority and were distinctly uncivil to the majority so stop this nonsense you know in the 70s we marched angrily for abortion rights we're still marching women began marching for our rights again five years ago african americans and people of color are still marching and they have since the civil war so when you talk about being civil we're living with a mayor that doesn't let people get to the end of their sentence and that is distinctly uncivil this is just a goofy waste of time next speaker okay pretend like you've just met me for the first time so um this is a little exercise in civility so i'm wondering if you can uh repeat back to me after i'm done speaking what i said okay i'm just asking you to try it so in the interest of um not criminalizing homeless people and not making a situation worse my question is um has gravel been dropped at the old river street shelter site where there was a shelter for 80 people second to that question is when pause the time is it possible to create i'm gonna pause the time really quick we're on item number 14 which is um a motion to endorse the mayor it's okay i'm using it as an example you'll have an opportunity oh you're okay yeah okay sorry thank you for letting me finish thanks i understand it's really hard for you to keep it all together okay i didn't i didn't appreciate being interrupted and i'm going to walk away because i didn't appreciate being interrupted thank you okay next speaker well i'll just remind the community that will have a chance we have a chance to hear every person individually whether we agree or disagree with each other they will be given their two minutes of time or the allotted time that will be consistent that i will um ensure that's consistent for equity of voice and um please be respectful and allow each individual person to speak before us without interruption whether or not you agree with them or disagree with them and you'll have up to two minutes thank you um when i saw the agenda and i saw this item i thought oh wow how timely um uh that the recently funded $30,000 funded by your this council here tenant sanctuary organization uh was holding a um tenant counseling and as you recall when a couple months ago i came and spoke against it saying it was kind of a bad look for the city given the content the the constituents of the uh organization but hey you know okay it was passed so i thought why don't i go see what um our $30,000 is buying and offer my 33 years as a landlord uh in Santa Cruz over a hundred tenants a lot of knowledge of um landlord-tenant relations and so forth and offer my assistance and see how i can be of help uh let me just play this video and this is what happened Sunday morning all right you're not welcome very i'm sorry well we're gonna have to have this we're gonna go to the city and we're gonna have a discussion about this you're welcome to do that but this is you said it's funded by the city correct yes or no the program is and so therefore it's a public event not open to you that's all i need to explain why okay i don't think it all came out essentially i was blocked from entering by one of the uh one of the members of this tenant sanctuary so again our our tenants here in this town they really deserve better you know just look at the just look at the web page for project Sentinel for instance and see the services and see the you know the uh balance and so forth they have you want to talk about civility i would start with maybe reviewing the funding and maybe putting it out for a bid again perhaps for something a more civil organization thank you and if i could get a sense of who would like to address the council on this item okay okay great and if you are please do line up to my left okay you'll have up to two minutes okay um i just wanted to talk about uh my personal experience with the civility of the city of satyr crews uh i've been hunted by the police for trying to sleep in my vehicle survive being forced to uh say lose my vehicle and end up sleeping in people's door steps um the the anti homeless laws that have been passed all over california not just here are completely uncivil by any means of humanity like if you have any humanity at all in your heart you would know this is true um there are a lot of laws that are still in a place that are completely uncivil so i mean really like look in the mirror like what are what are we doing like what what is this room doing to address this i think that all anti homeless laws should be abolished uh if you take people's rights away to like go say find their own spot to be safe then you end up with tent cities that are completely like jumped up because people are trying to you know find strength in each other to to to fight harassment um ultimately the a lot of the power that's been given to the police here need to be taken away a lot of the laws that target homelessness all they do is perpetuate it by putting the homeless further in debt um that's completely uncivil so that's all i have to say thank you hi my name is melissa free baron um yeah so what civility means to me you know it's interesting to hear certain members of this council talk about civility when uh they don't give it themselves at meetings civility is you know a choice right to engage in dialogue with people who might not understand as much as you understand they might not be at your level of engaging in certain issues and it is possible to be a progressive and be compassionate and be a renter and not want to walk down the street with your daughter as a single mom and have someone ride by on your stolen bike or have them flash your penis you know to them in front of the grocery store surrounded by trash or have needles dropped on the beach it is possible to be all these things to be a public servant to be a nurse to deliver Narcan to addicts that are odine to also believe that our parks should be for the elderly and children and for people to run their dogs for people to enjoy all the open spaces it is possible to be all these things and i find it really distressing that to be anti enabling of a certain group to be lumped into this category of non-compassionate and someone who doesn't understand the issues and someone who isn't capable of actually dialoguing solutions you know many of us in the community work in these positions tending to people on a daily basis and we understand what it means to be civil ethics as a nurse you treat everybody the same that doesn't that classes everything class gender race it is possible to be all these things wrapped up into one and just to confirm so i have a accurate understanding of who's interested in speaking to item number 14 okay so mr. Norris jule will be our last speaker on this item go right ahead i'd like to say that uh for our town to dictate policies upon a population and then call the resistance to uncivil is not good for a healthy community the reason we allow uncivil discord is so we do not have uncivil actions as a means of expression thank you hello um i lived in santa cruz for 15 years i visit my family periodically my sister's been raising three children here for the last 18 years her rent started at $1400 and now it's $2,800 not civil um also it's an incredibly wealthy town i had a client here who complained about the streets not being repaired i'm complaining about not having a bricks and mortar place for more people who need the darn you know good living facility and so i have an image that maybe we'll get across to people can you see it it says people over profit so whatever middle class is dwindling here to where it's upper middle class and the rest just really poor and then of course the homeless what has happened and what is going on with the budget in santa cruz who owns santa cruz hello you probably all know me already my name is elliot i'll keep this short i think this entire item on the agenda is a huge waste of time because calling for civility isn't going to change people's minds who are pissed off and want to act uncivially however you define it i think that this section of the agenda is a waste of time because people are going to be as civil as they're going to be and if they do choose to be uncivil depending on how they do it whether you're talking about a very nice police officer or a very angry vegan they're going to find a way to justify it and federal law will generally usually back them up because according to federal law i can flip you all off right now if i want i can flip off all the police officers here i can flip off the children that's my right if we care about those which apparently some people don't rights and laws the systematic violence of of the city council city manager's office city attorney's office against the most unfortunate people in our community is not civil we have decades of incivility against the most marginalized people in our community we even bring up proposals at city council that are not civil that will be on the next agenda item that we falsely accuse people as at the beginning of sessions about sexism just because their agenda item has is not allowed to be on the agenda that's not civil there you know as the thousands of people continue to flow on to the streets of our country you're going to see civil unrest and that is largely as a result of intentional policies by bodies like this across the united states so you're darn lucky that it's not more uncivil considering how brutal the policies of this city are against thousands of people living on our streets or trying to survive in this city that is not civil attacking children and in their cars and towing their homes away so that they get to live in a doorway and come to food not bombs and try to find out where there's a shelter and then only to find that there is no such shelter that is uncivil and that's the type of uncivilness that i think that this council and you know who you are should consider it's it's i'm just shocked that there isn't people storming the city council in total anger at the constant arrest and harassment and violence and improper jailing and lack of ability to find housing i miss em okay so we have we have three additional speakers and after the last speaker which is there on my left which will be you carol we'll go ahead and close this item in return for um action another speaker sorry um yeah i think that would be civil to allow everyone who wants to speak to be able to speak and for a reasonable amount of time um that often isn't the case at city council it's been less and less the case over the years we should be having three minutes not two minutes at least that was a tradition but i mean even these are really token amounts of time you really need a different kind of dialogue with the community i mean i was impressed with the dialogue that council member a Glover had the other day with 70 people in the depot park area he wasn't talking to his friends some of them perhaps where he was talking to people who were critical of what he was doing and he was dealing with that in responding to that i think that's important that's what to me is important now you might say civility is really kind of um it's an affectation of the upper class the upper class wants the lower class to be civil and quiet in its poverty and in the differential between privileges and wealth that they have because otherwise they'd have to put them down now we see that happening at city council with a police officer standing aside keeping an eye on the decorum of the this particular body the real issue is power if people have more power then you can have real civility real civility you can have for example agendas should not be made in secret they should be made in a public process here in this chamber a week before perhaps the council meeting not two weeks before not in a way that excludes the majority that was voted on in this election from actually making the agenda which is what mayor Watkins has done with the collusion of the city manager and other members of this council so i think if you want civility unless you're calling for submissiveness which may be what really is the agenda item i would say to this audience don't be submissive whatever your perspective assert yourselves thank you i'm glad the issue of civility came up i think there's two sides to almost everything that comes before a body like this and uh you need to somehow engage people on both sides whether it's the email or coming here and talking and whatnot you don't find real solutions that you know kind of balanced and people accepting of the government if they aren't um if you don't find solutions and you polarized and so i think that people uh that don't have an opportunity to do that we have civil government we can go to vote we can go to precincts and canvass and knock on every door in town and get out the vote to me that's kind of the last statement in the civil government is that we can vote for what we want you know there have been times when we have to protest in this country to get noticed i support that but usually the vote in the end that civilized governments you know dictate the change over time and you will be our last speaker hi um i tried to stifle myself but i couldn't i want to commend you on your bringing up civility i think it's essential i go to a lot of these meetings i went to drew glovers meeting the other night i went to the housing meeting i come to all the city meetings that i can come to we have some tough tough problems that we have to solve we are all in this together if you are afraid to express yourself in a meeting because you think you're going to get snapped at or hissed or booed or yelled down which i've had all of those things happen to me when i was just trying to say what about this or what about that how are we ever going to come to any solutions if people are afraid to speak people being afraid to speak is a function of how they expect to be treated if they expect to be treated rudely they're probably going to not talk so we have to be civil to one another civil doesn't mean rolling over it means not yelling it means actively listening to one another it means trying to have an open mind that's civil thank you for insisting on it we won't get anywhere without it thank you okay so that concludes public comment for this item item number 14 at vice mayor Cummings it's been a motion to endorse the mayor's proclamation declaring a commitment for civility in the city of Santa Cruz and join the initiative to revive civility okay i'll second that so we have a motion by vice mayor Cummings seconded by councilmember mires councilmember brown just a quick comment trying to speak directly to the matter at hand i think we've had some wide-ranging discussion about what civil how it's determined i'm just going to say what we all know is that civility is is a subjective right it's subjectively assessed by individuals and groups there's nothing we can do about that as an abstract notion that yes we should all be civil and and treat each other with respect i absolutely agree i'm going to support the motion but i do think that it's it's worth reminding ourselves that again civility is subjective so whether or not we believe that expressions of discontent and and robust political debate is civil or not that's up to us as individuals and i think it's all of our responsibilities to comport ourselves with respect for others in those conversations i'll leave it at that and thank you um for the comment yeah just um so i appreciate the comments made by the people of the community really wonderful to hear the spectrum of perspectives on civility and the topics and the application of it while i mentioned in my initial statement that i do support the proclamation i do just want to go on the record and say that i hope that it's not used to squelch or restrict the speech of people as we move forward and if it does we may have to revisit it but either way uh just wanted to make that statement all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed okay that passes unanimously we have a four o'clock item on homelessness we're going to take a five minute break and we'll reconvene here in about five minutes to begin that item item number 15 tony hill room um and as a reminder the order will be presentations followed by questions from the council we will then take public comment on item number 15 and all of its components and then return to the council for deliberation in action i'll also just briefly remind um the the community and the council of our conduct for city business which includes to be respectful to engage in open and honest communication to be honest and truthful address difficult issues find areas of common ground to be open to different perspectives to keep an open mind to give the benefit of the doubt to role model good leadership and to be considered of each other's time it's my job as the uh presider of this meeting to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to participate participate in uh government in a way that is respectful and open for everyone so i'll ask that you please um maintain quiet while we go through the process and when your turn to speak is um available to you then we will ensure that you have your opportunity to speak without disruption um if there is disruption and i notice that from an individual i will give a warning and if it is repeated i will ask that individual to leave um at this time we'll go ahead and see if we can move right into our agenda and i'll invite up our staff to briefly open the item i'll just remind the community that we'll have an opportunity to hear from you all and now it's the opportunity for our staff to briefly open the item before we have individual presentations okay i'll just do a really great introduction so you'll recall that at your last council meeting um as uh as part of the uh public uh oral communications towards the the end of the meeting the council provided uh some direction with respect to agendizing an item with respect to uh lot 24 reconsideration and other homeless related agenda items so uh that is what is before you so staff went ahead and agendized that and then in addition to that we have some other items that are being brought forward by council members and that's items 15.2 and 15.3 and then in addition the city attorney has some recommendations as well which is items 15.4 so i think the intent now is to go through and uh updates on each one of those items good afternoon mayor and city council members myself chief hydrook and city attorney kandadi are going to provide very brief presentations on their current conditions at the camp an update on progress to open 1220 river street and then current anticipated litigation that we are in the process of reviewing so i'll call upon chief hydrook to come up and provide an update on conditions at the camp mayor council jason hydrook fired chief um and so i was asked to give some conditions on the camp and i'm really going to focus on the public safety and some of the life hazards that we have there since november 1st until today we've had 75 calls for service to the camp which is an unusual clustering of calls within the city we've had nine fire calls some of which even though they're term fire calls they were people driving by and seeing an open bonfire or smoke and so that we we got called we've had three fires that have resulted in total destruction of a tent we've had people that have been transported to burn units because of that we've also had 59 calls for service for medical calls and to my knowledge we've had five fatalities that are associated with the camp some of those are have some concurrent health issues in addition to drug use which is not i mean the cause will come from the corner it's not going to come from the fire department but our concerns for the camp have nothing to do with homelessness or the fact that the camp is there it's the manner in which people are there and the structures that are there we have had a number of fires that have not spread from one tent to the other and i attribute that more to the weather and being wet than the construction of the structures that are there and they're spacing and one of my concerns is that we don't have a specific code for recreational tents we generally don't get engaged with the tent structure until it's 400 square square feet or more and then we require that that tent has the membrane is treated and so that it won't support open flame it'll smolder and a number of the tents down there people are trying to create shelter anyway they can but they are all creating a hazard for themselves as well as the community that they're within because they don't have construction materials it will inhibit flame they don't have working smoke detectors they don't have sprinklers systems that we would require in any residential you know sleeping compartment a number of the tents are covered with blue tarps which in my opinion are solid that are hydrocarbon they have no flame resistive qualities whatsoever and they are connected from one end of the tent or the encampment to the other without any separation in between so that if we did have a fire you could expect it would stay within those compartments there in addition because of the congestion that we have down there we also I have concerns about people's ability to remove themselves at night in the smoke in a high stress situation there's no clear pathways my recommendation if we were going to do any kind of management of this tent would to have clear separation between aggregate groups of tents anything more than 700 square feet would require a 12 foot break in between not only for the ability to exit into access for medical causes which we do but also to prevent flame spread from one end of the the camp to the other and again this these are codes that we have within the adopted fire code that are based on real events and we apply them regardless of your economic status regardless of whether it's a business or a residence and it's when we issue a permit and in this case we've not issued a permit and we're seeing with the weather drying up that this has become a greater potential and usually for us our mechanism other than finding people or holding them to a standard when they build it is we evacuate or red tag a building and we deny you the access or the use of that structure until you bring it up to code and in this situation based on the condition of the people that we have there that mechanism has been removed on a lot of different levels both politically as well as legally with Martin versus Boise that we to to enact safety life safety standards in that area we would have to remove people from where they are to create that separation and I don't know of a good way to pick who gets to stay and who gets to go but it'd be my recommendation that we create those separations within those tents not just for the people that impacted or living within those structures but also for the aggregate community that they potentially can impact all the fires that have occurred have been human caused whether they are intentional or unintentional and we have tried to work with the camp about standards for what you should and should not do with an intent compressed gases are being used for cooking and heating but a compressed gas inside of a tent structure is an affixient as well as an ignition source open flame devices whether they're being used in candles whether they're being used for smoking whether they're being used for cooking inside of a tent that is high piled is you know a recipe for disaster and so we've put those out there this is what you should not do within your structure this is what you should not do within your tent and we're continuing to have issues with that so my recommendation is even if we can't get to the point where this is closed or moved that any homeless encampment or any you know encampment where people are using recreational tents as a full-time living facility that we enact some standards regardless of how they feel about it for their best interest for the community's best interest so that we don't have a fire where we have a fatality or a significant injury to that person who caused the fire but we also don't have a significant injury or a fatality to someone who's adjacent who had nothing to do with that event who chose not to smoke who chose not to have an open flame device they were merely there and so trying to prevent that the impact to the individual as well as to the community questions do any of the council members have questions for our fire chief maybe you said this but how many recorded fires have we had there at the camp since in five months since November 1st we've had nine responses for fires within there i would say three of them were actual fire events probably what you would term a fire but we've also had a number of open burning barbecues warming fires that we were called on but they weren't a significant fire in the sense that they weren't destroying a tent or causing injury thank you thank you any other questions council member matthews and then vice mayor yes you mentioned you felt there was a need to enact standards is that something that would be done administratively by your department potentially but again the mechanism for enacting these standards is removing people from where they are to create those spaces and so there's we have some conflict here between trying to recognize that we have people who have shelter and how they have that shelter is not safe and in order to enact those standards we are going to have to remove people from that place i guess those are two different things developing standards and then enacting them is and again we don't have direct standard for recreational tents that is something a little bit outside the purview we do have the overarching opinion of the fire department that can be imposed and we have some some codes that we can use for tent structures that were not necessarily designed for habitation that have separation with that specific code that wouldn't be developed it would be enacted vice mayor coming has there been any attempt to get the residents at the camp to or work with them to create spacing between the tents and what's been the outcome of that if there has been we've we've enacted we've had some meetings with the camp council they've been very receptive to to meeting the problem has been that no one wants to displace their tent in order to create that spacing and a lot of the material that is there is while might provide shelter it does not provide a any any degree of life safety as far as how it's constructed and how it will react to fire that's where mires i i know at one point there was pallets i think brought in and i'm just curious about whether those are still there or where what what the static status is of those there's a lot of pallets there's pallets that have been used as both material to get off the ground because of wet weather and there's also pallets that have been erected as walls or you know to string you know waterproof material over so there's a lot of wooden pallets in the in the encampment so there's a lot of flammable material it sounds like and as we get in to try or whether it will okay thank you councilmember glover thank you so thank you for your work in getting all of this fire safety stuff under control at least with the recommendations and thank you for meeting with the camp council because it's great to have that representation and interaction with the fire department i've had a chance to meet with them semi-regularly also and one of the things that they mentioned where i met with them last time was their interest in being involved in the cleanup and reorganizing process so just in your opinion if we did identify an additional transitional encampment location to move a proportion of that camp would it be feasible to work alongside the people in that are remaining in the camp to set up the structures and separate them so they don't have to be completely removed to be able to do that but can participate in the process of cleaning yes but i would say that the final say over what lanes would be opened up and what would be removed would need to be held to the experts and not necessarily the residents even though they have strong opinions about it and again most of these codes and these recommendations are based on events that have occurred and coming up with best practices for how to prevent it from reoccurring in the future and i think most people you know they're experienced with a fire in their home and their neighborhood and the wildland is pretty limited to television to maybe a singular event whereas those of us in the profession this is a day in and day out thing and so our experience and what we consider to be dangerous or to consider to be safe i would take that recommendation over someone's desire to remand in place i agree i have a quick question and i'm not sure if you know that most recent information in terms of some of the public health challenges that have come about along with some of the rodent infestation challenges so dr leff wrote a letter recommending closure based on the you know potential for the outbreak of disease i don't have the latest numbers for the types of diseases i do know that we had one case of wound botulism that may or may not have been associated with the camp even though that person had been at the camp we do have rodent control right now in place for trapping they have caught some some rodents but probably not all of them and because of the layout of the of the the tents and with the lifting up of the tents off the ground on the pallets there's a lot of habitat for rodents there and so there is that potential for disease spread not only because the rodents are there and the people are there but because of the proximity and the number of people on the occupant load that is within that camp thank you all right any additional questions for fire chief martin okay it's going to say uh Susie is going to speak next on 1220 river street okay thank you thank you and i should have introduced myself Susie O'Hara assistant to the city manager and um as you can tell from chief hyduke's discussion it's an ever-evolving situation out there and even as the weather gets drier and warmer we have additional considerations that we must make um i wanted to give a brief update on the progress to 1220 river street and also just reorient the council to this process it really is um i would say a three-pronged effort on behalf of the county the salvation army in the city to get that program up and running and as we have been moving towards an april 17th opening date um issues have arisen that have caused us to think about how to be most effective and not only opening the program but thinking about how to most effectively engage with folks at the ross camp and ensure that they understand what that program is providing and and understand how best to transition folks into that program so as a brief update um 1220 um is in the process of contract negotiate not contract negotiations but contract execution between the county and the salvation army that um contract will be brought to the board of supervisors on the 16th of april at this point i did just get an update from captain herald at the salvation army they're really poised to open they have been diligently working on staffing as you can imagine with their third program finding adequate staffing to a supported 24-hour program has been challenging so and we you know we are in a at a point of kind of reaching capacity in our community for delivering these types of services so i think that's a different conversation for the council to consider as we think about ongoing needs for staffing for any kind of homeless sheltering operation they have been working very diligently in staffing i do believe that um they are poised to open very close to the 17th the additional prong to that is the city's responsibility so that program will provide shuttle in and shuttle out service and that shuttle service will be provided by the city so we are in the process of hiring shuttle drivers and ensuring that we have adequate capacity to deliver the same level of um shuttle service that we had for the river street camp um we put out a call for applications about three weeks ago um we have received about six applications for shuttle drivers um that is a very limited number of folks um for the time commitment that it's required um ensuring that folks are adequately trained in conflict resolution trauma informed care kind of understand the whole scope of responsibility that we have as you can imagine for instance we have an uber driver that applied this is a very different type of program and really trying to orient folks to the responsibilities of a shuttle driver for a homeless shelter is something that we're taking very seriously so with that in mind we are yes poised to open um we the infrastructure is there my thanks to um mike hopper and public works and all of the other city employees that have really moved quickly including meg and bunch to ensure that the infrastructure is out there and ready so we are we are poised to open I do believe that we need some flexibility to ensure that when we are ready to close the Ross encampment that we take really deliberate and thoughtful time to think about how to transition folks most cooperatively and effectively into the 1220 program and so with that in mind um I do think we need to in the discussion later after public comment really think about an appropriate timing to move forward with not only the closure of the camp but also opening of the river street camp thank you thank you for your report um how many folks do we hope we'll be able to live at the 1220 river street so I I think there should be room for about 60 to 80 people that's individual tents or 60 80 total maybe two in a tent there are 60 individual tent sites of which we are going to reserve 10 for double occupancy thank you any other questions for Susie at the same council member matthews and then just to confirm that would not be the only resource available to people no no so right so the really the intention around the closure of the Ross streak the Ross camp and thinking about maximizing our shelter resources is look across the county and to best understand the bed capacity that we have available I mean the river street camp or 1220 is deliberately built to accommodate our Ross campers and we're really focused on transitioning as many folks from the Ross camp to 1220 as we possibly can those two programs are really tied together from that perspective we also have 60 beds at the vfw we have 40 bed 40 to 50 beds at laurel street there are beds in Watsonville there's beds at the Pajaro shelter there's beds at the afc satellite program and so what we really what's really incumbent upon us to do now is think about how to maximize those shelter options and then also provide additional layers of service for folks there are folks that would might qualify for an sle or residential treatment program there's folks that might qualify for a mental health bed there's folks that might be interested in obtaining a homeward bound ticket so it's really necessary to think about the entire wraparound level of services for folks and not really focus on just one program although i will say that 1220 river street was really built to accommodate folks at the at the Ross street camp thank you councilmember clever and vice-american thank you just for anyone that may not be up to date on that can you just describe the setup of the 1220 site and how that'll run yeah so it's going to run very similarly to the previous river street camp so we expect with a 24 seven program that folks will be able to stay there during the day it will have the shuttle in and shuttle out program that shuttle service runs nearly every hour so there was multiple opportunities to come and go from the camp it'll be fully staffed with managers deputy manager and at least two site monitors per shift three shifts per day a day a swing and a night shift there will be security that's provided by the city of Santa Cruz to ensure that there is kind of a look at the neighborhood and making sure that there's harmony with the neighborhood in terms of the program there will be one meal per day that's provided by the Salvation Army that will be a dinner program and so very very similar to the river street camp the Salvation Army runs their programs slightly differently in that when people come in people are searched although there is an amnesty program so if there is anything that folks are worried about having in their possession it is a no questions asked amnesty program there's an amnesty box so there is potential to leave things that might otherwise be a barrier for folks to entry thank you for the describe and thank you for all the work in putting this together the reason i was asking the setup also was first of the people could know but also you'd mentioned that it was specifically designed for the Ross campers but from my experience and speaking with the people over there the the the structure that you just described is not what they are interested in moving into so i'm just there's a little disconnect there just based off of if it was specifically designed for the Ross campers and then the other question what another one i guess is is there a reason that we haven't explored the transitional encampment model that i brought for that is less expensive and or incorporates nonprofits and smaller populations of paid staff members so i believe this council has discussed transitional campments over the last five weeks so i do believe that those have been considered i will mention i think that the the what i am talking about in terms of those two programs being connected is really about accommodating the number of beds access to shelter and barriers to shelter is individualized so suggesting that the Ross camp or even the camp council might not find the 1220 program be suitable actually does not consider the entire membership of the camp and so i think it's important to ensure that we actually have individual conversations with each and every camper out there to understand their barriers yeah absolutely is there but um so just back to that transitional encampment question uh is it's been discussed within this body and the language and structure has been proposed and to my understanding approved for implementation so i'm just confused why we're not exploring that model at the 1220 river street side i don't believe it has been approved by the council so we're waiting on the on the ordinance language to come back in for final adoption or where are we in that process because i'm a little confused that was what that whole push was initially was to create transitional encampment models that are available to be used in here as we went over the language we talked about the ordinance stuff and that's what my understanding was when we moved forward uh which is why i was a little confused when we were talking about a safe sleeping program at depot park because the transitional encampments are data driven and more beneficial so maybe you could answer that as i understand council uh discussed uh what approach to take uh and chose to move forward with a safe sleep zone uh type of program as opposed to a transitional encampment at at the depot parking lot that was a direction that council took instead of the what you're suggesting a transitional encampment approach and again since then then council took action on march 26 to bring this item back for reconsideration so that's where we're at with respect to so with respect to the transition encampment there's really no no work being done on that as the council you know directed that we focus on uh something else right this is my confusion can i can i add to that actually the transitional encampment discussion has been approved in in the form of a project charter and so um much of what you described in terms of the efficacy in terms of citing um the ordinance changes that were recommended as part of your original 11 point plan all of that was wrapped up into the project charter and that project charter his process is moving forward um with the expectation that we would come back um late summer early fall to um continue on that with that conversation as to um the types of transitional encampments that might be effective in this community after a stakeholder engagement process um in terms of citing the types of programs um and then also how they kind of fit into the larger scope of shelter feasibility that we are looking into over the coming months it just seems strange to me can can you let me know how much the 1220 site under this model will cost to implement i don't have that figure in front of me i mean that's pretty relevant uh just i'm just saying with regards to us to be able to make the the county holds the contract i believe it's on the order of about 75 thousand dollars a month okay and then can we just get a quick reminder of how much money we received from the state uh to address emergency homeless issues and how much of that is still left to implement for emergency shelter options i.e sleeping programs and transitional encampments uh the total is 11.6 million the only amount that is left is i believe 1.6 million dollars for the purpose of phase two a navigation center and so where's the funding for 1220 going to be coming from that's coming from heap it's already been it's already been allocated okay um okay and i'm just gonna this is my last thing and because the whole point of transitional encampments and the reason why i keep saying it is because they're cost effective so they cost tremendously less amounts of money and we can do it with partnerships with nonprofits so i implore this body if we're waiting on a project charter to come back to implement transitional encampments we should expedite that process so that we can implement transitional encampments to solve our shelter issue because right now with all of this 75 thousand i really appreciate all the work but 75 thousand dollars a month to run a program for 60 people is the definition of bureaucratic waste of money like we could do so much more with 75 thousand dollars so i'm just gonna say to the body i think that we should be doing transitional encampments so um it's a different response i just i i do appreciate that the the discussion was turned back to the council so it's a response it's the re excuse me pause for a second yeah if i could please keep your voices down we'll have an opportunity for public comment on this item at this time we're hearing from our staff so it's the responsibility of staff to move forward with direction from the majority of the council with the vote um that has happened over the last several meetings including moving forward with 1220 with salvation army that was direction from the council including the the uh the project charter for transitional encampments that was a recommendation of the council including moving forward with the safe sleeping and and um storage zone that was a recommendation of the council so our responsibility is to continue to move forward with that direction if the council has a will to change that that's the responsibility of the council i'll just remind you or remind the council and the community that part of the river street uh concepts came from the two by two conversation when originally uh moving forward with the closure of the camp too so that's also what was sort of the impetus of that as a proposal okay vice mayor Cummings and then uh council member Myers just curious um what information has been gathered and compiled on the current population at the river street camp at the raw street camp yeah so we have so Megan and I have been working pretty diligently on trying to get information from um the camp council so i think it was two or three weeks ago maybe three weeks ago that we um worked with the camp council to um pass out surveys and that was really the intention of that was to understand how many people were there what their barriers to entry into shelter was in addition to um essentially with the types of programs that we have available um how do people feel like they might fit into those types of programs getting too much of what council member glever is talking about unfortunately we didn't receive any surveys back so we are in the process of trying to think about other ways to get to that information it is very critical that we understand the needs out there um so we will continue to work with the camp council to try to get to that information any other questions for Susie I'm sorry council member Myers did you have a question and then council member yeah um do we how do we certify that an organization or an agency is um basically capable of running any of these facilities do we have any kind of licensing do we look at any kinds of professional qualifications do we understand whether people are even trained in first aid do we have any idea who could run these facilities you just said that we have reached our community is at capacity for providing services we don't have any more service providers is basically what i've heard so how are we going to establish transitional encampments if we're already maxed out and how are we going to take care of people we've had five people die in this camp five people one just this week a young woman that was 20 to 30 years old that is not okay this is not we're not fooling around anymore folks people are dying in that camp do we understand this and this is not about having transitional encampments run by people who are not licensed to do this you have to get not if you're going to be taking care of by a government agency that is our job our job is to make sure that people are our public is safe and the people who are under our guidance are safe so until i see some way that we are able to provide all of this this assisted go ahead and go ahead and then i'd really like to make sure i'd really like to make sure all right all right all right i'm gonna go ahead and stop me somewhere else anyway i'm just going to remind the community i'll remind the okay we're going to go ahead and take a recess if we can't continue on with our meeting so i'm going to remind the community that you'll have an opportunity to address the council during public comment right now is the opportunity for us to have questions of our staff to share our perspectives of our our proposals and then to hear from you at that time we'll have an opportunity to hear from you if there is disruption i will have us recess and we'll try again and if it continues to happen we'll continue to do the same if we're unable to reach a conclusion tonight then that is how it goes unfortunately so i appreciate in advance your respect and ability to withhold your comments until the appropriate time which will be during public comment okay do you want to further your question i apologize for the pointed question that i'm asking but i'm just curious whether or not we have any way of evaluating the capacity and if you could just speak to a little bit more of that i'd appreciate it thanks absolutely and i'll give some additional context when we when we were in the process of trying to open river street camp um we found no available nonprofit to run that program and that was for a myriad of reasons um the the length of time for instance that we're planning on having the program open the ability to recruit on behalf of our of our nonprofit providers to do that type of work for a short period of time for instance um different value systems on behalf of our nonprofit organizations in terms of what emergency shelter actually is and how to accommodate the population that we're needing to serve um that caused the city to move forward with running the river street camp on our own um we also gained a ton of information through that process this go around um in research of transitional encampments in research around um contracting methods and who what kind of nonprofit NGOs you would be looking for you need nonprofits that have government related experience you need nonprofits that can um think about um the fiscal risk all of the responsibilities that an organization might be taking on to serve this population we have a very small number of nonprofits in our community that can meet these expectations and we have found um from both the city and the county that through our conversations around who might be able to run these types of programs the list is very short very short and for folks that um let me go back um to meet the demands that we have that are ever evolving that are crisis in in level um that is something that our community is having a hard time meeting those expectations and so I I will say with any um contract we have a procurement process we have a contract process that requires many different levels of professional um responsibilities um that is across the organization in terms of our contract um methods and processes um that it would be no different for this um we would expect to do an rfp and see what kind of responses we would get um and then go from there and just real quick one last question the so I know working with state grants I do a lot of that professionally um there's usually quite a lot of restrictions in terms of how funds are spent is there any within our grant contracts do we have a requirement for any kind of certain kind of service qualifications or anything like that for this kind of thing well absolutely and with the heap heap and cash funds it's even more stringent um but yeah I mean in performance metrics um what our expectations would be in terms of um measuring what success looks like and also having kind of those contracts um stipulations really spelled out absolutely that would be part of the process thank you okay so we'll have a few more questions for Susie and we'll have more opportunity for um discussion later so I uh we'll go to councilmer crone and then council member brown and then council member clever council member crone questions for Susie yeah thank you um did we have a letter uh from the ACLU this this week um threatening litigation if we close this camp do you see a role Susie for the ACLU and their uh real juggernaut of of of of resources that they could bring to bear on something like this in a way that the city and the ACLU can work together on an issue such as homelessness so after my presentation uh the city attorney is going to be talking about this subject so um I'm happy to provide my perspective on that but I do think um generally speaking it is incumbent upon the city to bring in um a diverse cross section of stakeholders into this conversation and I think the ACLU would fit into that as well thank you and the question of course I have for uh Martín Bernal it says that uh I guess in your um letter to the community you said there were 100 uh folks living at the Ross camp how did you determine that um that was the best estimate that we got from our fire department from when they went out and evaluated the site so that's just an estimate based on you know staff out at the site when they've done inspections so we haven't taken a census or uh you know as as um Susie pointed out no evaluations or there have been attempts as she described there have been attempts as she described yes but but it has not been successful in the letter we have says there's could be up to over 200 people um at that camp thank you mayor okay council member brown question for Susie I'll pass thanks do you have additional question yeah just two quick ones um thank you for doing the outreach to remind you to please keep your voices down so that we can uh hear uh council member Glover at this time thank you uh thanks for doing the outreach to the non-profits in the faith communities it's really important um can you just describe the outreach process to specifically churches and faith communities with regards to the establishment of transitional encampments yeah so we held a community-based meeting um probably I don't know three or four weeks ago it felt like five minutes ago um actually had a significant significant number of uh non I'm sorry faith-based programs um come to the meeting it was highly interactive um really trying to describe um both transitional encampments and safe sleeping programs I will say the outcome of that meeting was quite positive there is a lot of faith-based organizations who are interested in being a part of the solution although they really need more information about what is being asked of them and they also um you know really want to be a part of dialogue as to all types of different solutions I mean I think our faith-based partners um have volunteer um you know uh volunteers that outnumber probably a lot of our different sectors in our community that are really interested in helping with the issue around homelessness so whether that being um food drives or blanket drives or the whole kind of spectrum of different in kind resources that a faith-based community can provide I think they are poised to offer that however um during that process we really wanted to get to a question of um is one of our local churches interested in siting and or operating a transitional encampment and folks just didn't really have enough information at that time to be able to say yes to that so I'm just uh be as clear as possible you're saying that there are people and organizations like churches that have expressed interest but are just waiting on additional information for the potentiality of siting on their property or running a transitional encampment I would say that they're interested in dialoguing across all different kinds of solutions I think there's a lot of fear about encampments in general as we've seen I don't think our faith-based partners um have any less challenges around what it means to cite a transitional encampment on their property or in their neighborhood than any of our neighbor organizations I think it's really about getting more information as to the program model and how it would be run and really thinking about um how it would be um kind of harmonious with the neighborhood and so would you maybe be able to get me a list of the faith-based organizations or the organizations in general that were present in that meeting I'd love to see that great and then just the last thing you mentioned that there was something that came up in the conversation that helped you to identify a difference in values could you expand on that a little bit more on what you mean with nonprofit organizations yeah yeah so I um you know it's we have a number of nonprofit organizations that have boards of directors that are helping to guide the vision and direction of those organizations each of those organizations are working to solve homelessness in different ways and as we work with these nonprofit partners we must try to balance our needs with their program delivery and what they are intending to do and I would say that as it relates to even the type of shelter that they are comfortable in in providing different barriers are are identified through that process and so trying to get to a conclusion as to we need a certain type of program that meets these these needs and removes these barriers that is a different conversation with every nonprofit that we have in this community and some some are flexible and some are not very flexible thank you thank you susie okay at this time we'll turn it over to our city attorney for a brief update from him on anticipated litigation yes um first of all in response to council member crone's question we did receive a letter yesterday from it was jointly signed by the ACLU of northern california and the national law center on homelessness and poverty and what the letter essentially does is it points out as we've already discussed at some length the martin versus boise decision and and it asserts that the planned closure of the ross encampment in the manner that the council has previously directed would likely run afoul of the eighth amendment and fourteenth amendment principles discussed in the martin case have to say having it takes issue with a number of different items first of all with the city staff's assessment of the number of overnight occupants in the encampment with the adequacy of both the number of alternative shelter options that the city has identified and the adequacy of the of the shelter options based on the standards enunciated in the martin case just as an example um in the martin case there's a statement that says we hold that so long as there is a greater number of homeless individuals in a jurisdiction than the number of available beds in shelters the jurisdiction cannot prosecute homeless individuals for involuntarily sitting lying sleeping etc in public that is as long as there is no option of sleeping indoors the government cannot criminalize indigent homeless people for sleeping outdoors and the point that's made in the acle letter is that an alternative transitional encampment in tents and sleeping bags in their view doesn't meet the standard of being beds indoors i think different language in the martin decision suggests that that's an overreaching reading of the martin case but there are ambiguities in the the decision as well um they take issue with the plan to have shuttle in shuttle out services i think some of the information that that appears to be assumed by the authors of the letter are that cities only identified one alternative site for the ross camp residents to relocate i think susie has spoken to a number of different options for potentially relocating the campers or the occupants the letter also however offers to enter into a dialogue to discuss the issues it also takes issue with the draft standard operating procedures that are included in your packet for your consideration this afternoon but doesn't really give specific comments on that but i look at it as an invitation to open a dialogue it doesn't expressly threaten to to file suit but certainly at least implicitly does if the aclu proceeds that the city is going in a manner that's inconsistent with the martin case i will also add that yesterday i received an email communication from someone who's apparently one of the occupants of the encampment indicating that a lawsuit was being filed against the city seeking an injunction or preliminary injunction to enjoin the closure of the ross camp and i received a packet of documents just a few minutes ago that appears to be a file stamped complaint for injunctive and declaratory relief that cites to a from appears to be the same folks that communicated with me by email yesterday okay we'll go ahead and i'll go ahead and remind the community one more time that we're going to have an opportunity to hear from you at this time we're having an opportunity for staff question and presentation obviously i fully agree that the martin versus poise decision constrains the manner in which the city can proceed to to close the ross camp i don't think it it precludes the city from doing so but i think we have to be careful and that's one of the reasons why i've proposed a set of standard operating procedures to to guide that process like i said the martin decision has some ambiguities and it raises some questions and whether or not i've touched all the bases or have proposed something that a court would would endorse under the standards set forth and martin i can't be certain of that but i've done my best to provide a reasonable proposal for the council's consideration thank you mr kandadi are there any questions from council members for our city attorney kandadi the vice mayor coming you mentioned there's constraints around our ability to close the camp can you kind of elaborate on that like what are some of those constraints well first of all we have to be able to offer alternative shelter options we have to provide a process for allowing or assisting the occupants to preserve and and relocate their belongings we have to give advance notice before moving forward with the enclosure or with the closure to the extent that there's property left or that people don't have the ability to relocate all of their belongings we anticipate storing that information or storing that property and making it available to individuals who claim it and we have an obligation under existing state law to maintain that property for at least 90 days under the civil code so all of those procedures are built into the standard operating document that you have like i said the aclu takes issue with some aspects of it you know i think it's worth having a dialogue with aclu to see if we can sort those things out okay thank you uh councilmember meyers then councilmember crone can you clarify if we offer shelter for someone what are the bounds around that is there a length of time is there a location is there do we have any way of understanding i i just heard our staff let us know that there's a number of of potential shelters throughout the county does it need to be within a block does it need to be i'm just curious if you have any guidance or idea or basically guidance or thoughts on that i think the martin case definitely stands for the notion that there has to be real alternative shelter space available okay i'm going to go ahead and say that that's a warning i i've heard you speak out many times at this point um you will have your opportunity to speak to the council during public comment as everybody else here in the chambers bill as well so please refrain from making comments and if you do again i will respectfully ask you to leave the chambers okay please proceed yes the um the constraints that the court looked at in the martin case one specifically involved uh shelter space but that required participation in religious activities of the court found under the establishment clause that not um force someone to stay uh in a in a shelter situation that required participation in really religious activities to someone who um who didn't believe in in those activities the other had to do with um the length of time that a person could stay in the shelter so uh one of the shelters that one of the shelters that the the court looked at only allowed occupants to stay there for a short period of time and then they would have to leave so um so that's one question that's raised the court does not um do a good job of explaining specifically what constitutes an adequate shelter space um and i expect that that issue will evolve in the courts over the coming months and probably years um but but it does indicate that a temporary shelter is uh adequate for purposes of of closing the encampment it doesn't have to be for unlimited duration i also don't accept the principle that the alternative shelter location has to be completely barrier free for instance i don't think that um the court would uh would require that um the shelter space allow illegal activity to occur um or allow uh activity that's so disruptive that other uh occupants of the shelter can't peaceably enjoy um the shelter space so so i don't accept the notion that it has to be without any barriers but i think there are limitations on the barriers that can be um that can be placed upon access to the shelter additional question council member question thank you um when you say um we have to uh provide alternative shelter options i i think the point in time uh study said there's over two thousand homeless people in santa cruz does that mean we have to provide shelter for two thousand people um yeah it was pointed out that the two thousand figures actually countywide i've heard the number more like um 1200 or thereabouts and not all of those people are living under the stars some are sleeping in vehicles some are couch surfing um the martin case isn't clear on that point at the one you know the broad holding is that so long as there are more homeless people in the community then there are available shelter beds indoors that um the ordinance prohibiting camping on public property is unenforceable against homeless people but it goes on to say our holding does not cover individuals who do have access to adequate temporary shelter whether they whether because they have the means to pay for it or because it is realistically available to them for free but who choose not to use it i think in order to implement the martin decision in a practical way you have to be able to say to an individual who's on public property you have an alternative to camping here therefore you have to leave um i don't think that a court would say that you can never enforce an ordinance that prohibits camping on public property for someone who would simply have to avail themselves of available shelter space um i also think that the martin case doesn't stand for the notion that an ordinance prohibiting camping on public property is enforceable against homeless people under all circumstances for instance the city could declare certain areas of the city where camping is prohibited uh and and not prohibited other locations um so that there are areas of the city that are available shelter or at least available places for people to shelter themselves in the city um but not the i don't i don't read it as it's a free-for-all for you know open camping in all city parks and public property thank you another question for council for a city attorney i just want i had a follow-up question on that so if we so we've tried identifying areas throughout the city for example and many neighborhoods have have you know come out in opposition of any type of camping area been in there um going into the neighborhoods and so my question is without having available shelter space um and identifying areas for camping where does that leave the city in terms of enforcing any kind of laws around um restricted restricting camping and camping bands the problem is under the current circumstances based on the martin decision are ordinance that prohibits camping on public property throughout the city is unenforceable and so that's why the police department has um administratively taken the position that it will not enforce uh 636 violation citations at the present time um which in my view is is a temporary remedy only and uh ultimately we need policy direction from the city council to amend our ordinance to make it more consistent with the martin case one more question yeah one more question um and how does that relate to other laws that um that make homelessness illegal so the answer to that question is that the martin decision is couched in very broad terms under the eighth amendment to apply to the situation where a person is cited for violating an ordinance that they can't help but chew uh that they can't help but violate due to their personal circumstances um and and how far that goes is uncertain under the case law but the martin decision did cite a united states supreme court called uh vau powell versus texas in which the supreme court looked at and it was a plurality opinion so it wasn't a majority decision but it but it examined the specifically the issue of alcoholism and being drunk in public and said you know obviously a homeless person who is drunk in public has no choice but to be drunk in public um because they're an alcoholic um it didn't go so far as to say that an ordinance prohibiting being drunk in public is unenforceable against a homeless person um but that is one way to interpret the not the martin decision itself but its legal import as it is interpreted by other courts and i expect that courts will be looking at that question question for mr gandadi and that pertains to uh i think i don't know if this was the language that vice mayor coming was looking for but that laws that disproportionately impact people experiencing homelessness because that was part of the uh 11 point plan that was referred to earlier in the meeting but that was a 90 day turnaround time for that data so like another 30 days hopefully we'll be able to see the the results of the different laws like smoking loitering camping urinating all that kind of stuff correct well yes those those types of laws tend to have a disproportionate effect on homeless people um obviously alcoholics who have homes to go to can get drunk at home right um those alcoholics don't have that option okay thank you okay so that i believe concludes the updates from staff regarding this item um this is a sort of a somewhat unique and i'd say a little bit different kind of complex sort of approach so what i want to um do is ask uh for just sort of a brief summary of the two individual council sponsored items that are before us now and then i've received a number of requests for some presentations for public comments so we will have some extensive public comment on this topic and then an opportunity to revisit in more detail the the two proposals before us council member brown just a question your intention is to have the public speak once to all of 15.2 and 15.3 so what we'll do is and i'll just sort of uh so what we'll all do is so for 15.2 is an item sponsored by myself uh council member mires and council member mathews um 15.3 is a subsequent item uh sponsored by council member brown and vice mayor comings um i'll just briefly say and then i'll turn it over to my colleagues to briefly make their comments on our item that you know over the past um i think five meetings or so we've had extensive conversation and suggestions around solutions and i think what we have before us are two potential pathways and i just recognize that this is evolving it's complex it's um really difficult social challenges that we have before us public health challenges that we have before us people's lives and um you know and there's a there's a level of gravity to that and i hundred percent recognize that part of our jobs um as as leaders who are elected is to make sometimes tough decisions given the information we have at the time even how even if it's not clear and i think what we have before us is an opportunity for us to choose two different pathways so i'll go ahead and um just sort of preface it that way um turn it to my colleagues to just maybe make a few brief comments about the item and then uh and then to uh council member uh brown and and vice mayor coming to make a few brief comments about your item um and then we could potentially open up to questions for uh a short bit but then allows some public comment so we can return for action and deliberation just a point of order if if there's three items um would you and people can't comment on each one but i mean council members will be able to um would you be willing to give folks three minutes on each thing one that's one minute per item if you go 9.2 9.3 9.4 instead of two minutes i will um allow for three minutes for the numerous organizations that are speaking on behalf of a number of folks um i will allow that my the process i will um pursue is to allow any individual who would like to make a brief comment to come first in one minute um and they can self select in that way them to have the presentations and then to reduce it to two minutes for um other folks that would be the process that i would just make a motion then because there's three items three clear items and we're only giving them one minute per item that we give each person who comes to the podium uh the opportunity to speak up to three minutes then i suppose that you would probably want to incorporate in your motion some sort of modification to our oral communications time which could that would likely impede into that time and or would you suggest that we pause at 7 p.m. for oral communications yes no we're not this is not an opportunity for us to hear from you this is not we'll have a chance to hear from you thank you you can make a moment you can make a motion if you like make a motion for for three minutes if there's a second second okay so there's a motion to have every individual who wants to speak up to three minutes is that correct yes pause for oral communication at seven o'clock and to pause for oral communications at seven o'clock to allow for that to happen okay motion by councilmember crone seconded by um councilmember glover yeah um i know that typically we've been providing folks with the opportunity for one minute and above um and so i wonder if that's in order to make sure that we get through all the people who want to speak if we if sticking to that model might be a better opportunity if there are people who want to speak for three minutes um you know i think that we did have an opportunity for people to call in and or to uh write the mayor and request extra time and so i do think that um in the essence of time it would be good for us to you know sticks to that model because oftentimes it seems like a lot of folks um want to get their their point across in the minute we have a huge turnout for that these days and so i don't know if it's necessary that we have three minutes at this point in time councilmember brown and then councilmember matthews can we can we maintain that model and give people who want three minutes three minutes but they have to wait of course as per your the model that you've established which i think works but so people who want to speak for a minute can self-select speak first and others who want more time given the complexity of the issue i i am inclined to give people a little bit more time here and we got a lot to sort through um and people are here and interested in weighing in and they're going to be weighing in on a variety of of items but but i think we can still get to the one minute for some people okay uh councilmember matthews there's obviously a huge number of people who want to speak on this i think the motion on the floor is for everyone to have three minutes is that correct have i understood that's correct um but i incorporated the friendly amendment from councilmember brown that if folks who want to speak first um can go for one minute if they want to choose to speak for just one minute and those who want to wait can wait and speak for three minutes um my own feeling is there's a great deal of overlap between these suggestions and people um i prefer giving the advanced or the expanded time to those groups representative groups who contacted in advance giving the quick one minute giving others two minutes for the package of item 15 uh issues because we are also going to need a good deal of time i believe to deal with this ourselves but that still gives everyone a chance but i think um i would prefer that three minutes for a group one minute quick comments for those who want to do it and two minutes for the remainder that is still going to really tax and the interest of time motion to call the question okay so all those in favor please say i i any opposed no no okay so that passes i believe with councilmember brown vice mayor Cummings councilmember crone and councilmember glover in support of modifying public comment time okay just for clarification that that's still going with a one-minute model don't allow people one minute that's how i that's how i do it but if you want to change that you've voted to change that so that's what this there you have it that's incorporated into it okay so we'll go ahead and move on to the two different proposals that are before us under five point two and five i mean i'm sorry excuse me 15.2 and 15.3 um 15.2 was an item to um resend lot 24 approval for sleep safe sleeping to revise the ross camp closure plan and to form a community and expert panel on homelessness that item was brought before the council today by myself councilmember matthews and councilmember mires we'll go ahead and have a few brief kind of comments to sort of overview of the item and i'll turn to to do that okay thanks and i think everyone in this room appreciates the changing landscape of these issues and the complexity so given that i want to just explain that the item that we will be bringing forward has some modifications to what has appeared in the printed agenda it's it's largely the same but with some modifications so i just want to explain after we've had all the public commentary and questions and comments from council members what we'll be bringing forward as a modification will be largely along these lines and i should say i wanted to put this on the floor now so people knew about it so the first element would be rescinding the council's prior approval of lot 24 as a safe sleeping and camping site and not pursue further campgrounds in city neighborhoods and parks so that would be the first one the second the second item which called in the printed agenda calls for confirming the april 17th closure date of the ross camp with alternative shelter needs to be met given information that we've received in the intervening time both about legal issues that have been raised and the delay in availability of the 1220 river street camp that language would be changed to the following motion to postpone consideration of the closure of the gateway encampment and opening of the 1220 river street program until the april 23rd meeting to allow further evaluation and consideration of anticipated litigation so it would it would not confirm the april 17th closure date as written in the printed agenda it would defer consideration of what to do about the gateway encampment and scheduling in the opening of 1220 river until our next meeting because as you have all heard stuff has been flying at us and there's a great deal of ambiguity there's interest in speaking with aclu and other parties so that's that's what the revised amendment will be the item as it appears in the printed agenda calls for forming an ad hoc expert council on homelessness with representatives in various subject categories to advise the council on policy and in talking with people listening to the community and trying to see what would be actually most helpful at this point in time that language is going to be changed to the following form a community advisory committee on homelessness to evolve the scope and membership of this community advisory committee to focus on three stages community education and engagement developing short-term solutions and longer-term policy work and that would still include representatives from various areas of expertise that touch on homelessness and there is we can discuss when we get back to the longer discussion amplify a bit on that how that committee would be structured but anyway i just i want to put that out there it's somewhat different than the item that appeared in the printed agenda councilmember mayers i'll defer my time to councilmember Cummings okay if you would like to take a moment to briefly introduce your recommendation 15.3 whatever i'll just go first so given the urgent need for alternative sleeping areas in order to meet shelter requirements to close the current camp in compliance with martin versus boy's decision after the march 19th city council meeting the two by two committee meeting had been working on this the assumption that the safe sleeping program was going to come online on march 26 the city council voted to agendize a motion to rescind the decision to turn parking lot 24 into a safe site for sleeping and camping the city reached out to the county in an effort to set up a meeting with the two by two committee prior to today's city council meeting which was set for last monday april first on the evening of sunday march 31st an email was sent out to cancel the homeless two by two committee meeting and no meeting was scheduled with the two by two committee to discuss how we were going to move forward with providing alternative shelters after the decision had been made to not use lot 24 and given that we had no opportunity to meet and discuss what kinds of alternatives we would be able to utilize in order to meet the needs of sheltering people who are at the camp councilmember brown and i decided that we would recommend what we have proposed today we were hoping to receive and get the community to receive an update on the city county joint action plan for emergency shelter provision and encampment management including efforts to identify locations and resources for permanent year-round shelter and navigation and day services and we were also directing staff to develop and implement an interim site management plan for the gateway encampment consistent with the measures outlined in the report that we provided and including cleanup site sleeping space layout installation of additional hygiene and security measures ongoing and interim operations management with the management plan to go into effect no later than the opening of the river street campground we proposed this because we understood that if we weren't going to have alternatives online that we would need to do something and at the point in time where we have not been able to identify sites within the community it seemed that it would be best if we were to try to recommend and work with staff to get a plan for managing the current site as it is and to have that coincide with when 1220 came online and as we know we had an additional proposal from other council members and I think that ultimately what we're trying to do is see if that there are alternatives that we can bring online to meet the needs of the community in addition to that as we've been provided with new information regarding the legal challenges we have around martin versus boysy I think that we are still hoping to stick with this model and then discuss this further after we hear from the public and I want to let council member brown providing it for the comments thank you I think I think vice mayor comments has well summarized the rationale and content of what we're proposing here I would just make a couple of related comments one I actually don't believe that these are completely mutually exclusive or diverging proposals competing proposals I think there are elements of them that we should be looking at and considering we did not include them the motion to rescind lot 24 because we understood that to be already coming to us based upon a motion that was made at the previous council meeting so it wasn't that we weren't wanting to include that for example secondly I think the discussion about community advisory committee is not mutually exclusive with rationalizing the gateway encampment on a temporary on an interim basis really what's a question here is are we going to vote on a date to close the Roth camp or not and even that seems to be for the moment potentially off the table so I just want to say that that's that's I don't I see I think that we should be able to talk about all of these and figure out where the council has agreement and where we don't when the time comes I'll ask that we consider these as individual items but I'll get there after we hear from the public so I'd like to do that. Mr. Congatti? I just want to make sure we keep in mind that the draft SOPs are also part of the discussion public has an opportunity to comment on and you had previously addressed that I don't think I need to go over it again because I touched upon it at the introductory remarks okay so at this time I think it'd be appropriate to open up to public comment knowing that we'll have an opportunity for further council action and deliberation so what we'll go ahead and do is allow for any individual who is interested in speaking to the council in one minute to come forward and be given an opportunity to speak first once we conclude from hearing from folks who are interested in addressing the council in the one minute time frame we'll go ahead and open it up to the groups who requested additional time you will have your three minutes and then any other individual thereafter can also have up to three minutes to address the council you want to speak for three minutes you got to wait behind everybody else that's correct so any member who's interested in speaking the any member who's interested in speaking to the council in one minute please come forward and we'll go ahead and hear from you okay you'll have up to one minute sorry hi um go ahead and go ahead and pause the time this is a line for any interested individual who would like to address the council in one minute please line up to my left you can stay there if you're interested in speaking to the council for one minute please make your way up forward to my left in some way and we'll be given your time before we come I'm going to go ahead and wait until we have an opportunity so that the individual who is going to be speaking to us can be heard so if you can please keep your comments down okay we'll go if you could please keep your voices down all conversation in the chambers can please stop at this point we have an opportunity to hear from the community and you're welcome to go forward please okay thank you I just want to make two quick points one is that um I became aware this week through talking to Ryan Coonerty that there already is a safe parking space program available and he sent me a flyer and I think it would be awesome if I know it's not your responsibility to tell the community what the county is doing but I think it might alleviate some of the stress and angst we all feel and the responsibility that we feel that we're the only ones doing anything so I was happy to hear that there are 15 churches with all these parking spaces and they're potentially available for referral which is awesome and then secondly because I'm a little neurotic and I like to count things I tallied the letters again there were 477 pages of letters um 324 in support of Myers Watkins and Matthew's proposal which represents 80 percent of the letters received are in support of your proposal thank you thank you next speaker up to one minute I just want to get a little clarification on lot 24 go ahead unlock 24 have you taken it off the table or you're still considering it it was a little confusing how you guys worded it go ahead and pause this talk I'll just clarify for the community that right now we have various proposals we have not taken any specific action on lot 24 that will be one of the actions that we will we will revisit after we hear from the community okay thank you councilmember and if I could just add I believe there's general agreement on that appears that there's no I would agree with that okay next speaker and you'll have up to one minute as a public servant and someone who provides nursing care under federal lawsuit I find it galling that you guys are still going to keep studying the issue and keep a camp open where bodies are piling up on yours and the county's watches you are sending a team out of there of non-medical people to hand out thousands of needles one who is a fake nurse who used to work for the city of Santa Cruz who it is unlawful in the state of california to represent yourself as a medical professional I find it disturbing that you are so uneducated about the issues you need to talk to people who know what is going on mr. Glover I have never seen any data that you propose for transitional encampments where is the data your own city staff has no surveys to even identify the people or their needs at camp Ross this is unacceptable thank you I have a quick comment question this is a huge problem we're a small community have you reached out to federal and state agencies such as FEMA and the National Guard for assistance in either planning logistics financial help might be something to look into if you haven't next speaker you'll have up to one minute my name is Dave Willis I just want to say do something it's time and it's way past time for all this talking do something take action you yourself have said people are dying how dire how serious is that I mean it was a lady up here she was talking about $75,000 a month what does that mean is that a thousand dollars a person a night that's crazy money so you asked her a dollar amount she don't have that information and you asked her a couple other things she don't have that information she goes to a meeting and don't have material if I come to you I'm coming like this I'm saying he's carrying too much check her work who's doing her who's checking what she does don't just rely on what she's saying you all are smart smarter smart people do something now on that time for talk that was 30 years ago show us something I just hope that the city council will not close the Ross camp until another long-term solution for the homeless in Santa Cruz has been approved it makes no sense to deny homeless people a place to sleep at night or to be in community with others we all live in Santa Cruz and we need to treat everyone with kindness and respect no matter what their circumstances are none of us know when we may become homeless because of the high costs of housing loss of a job a medical crisis or a local climate disaster thank you I would just ask whatever action that the council takes that they do still encourage the enforcement of at least some of the laws that we have specifically the drug laws I'm very concerned about the current state of affairs with needles in the town it's not a needle exchange it's a needle giveaway needles need to have inherent value and it should be a one-for-one exchange if it was that way we wouldn't see so many washing up on the beaches in our pathways and in parks thank you hello coral broon in Santa Cruz I live at the tannery I do believe I'm the only one here now that would have any comment I mean speaking about it and I'm fine with the Ross camp where it is if it's to be there there are concerns about what the city said they would do they would modify some of the where the porta potties are and I know that's probably difficult but when people have to cross through there that's one of the things that if it's going to be a long-term proposal that maybe that it would be better that neighbors could you feel like they could access it and they could walk through or they could pass by there instead of avoiding it completely and having more hatred I'm not sure but I'm trying to be civil and I know that's about emotion so it's really the hardest thing I've done today thank you hi I'm Frank Desimone I've been in Santa Cruz since 1974 I'm about to move out because we can't take it anymore I live on market street I'm part of the grants grant street park neighborhood and our concern is going to be if you do close the Ross or gateway encampment then is the grant park and other parks are they going to be invaded that's a very big concern of ours but mostly mostly we're concerned about crime that's what's going on and it needs to be addressed and the police need to be able to do their job the da has to do their job you have to have facilities to house these people they're criminals the criminals need to be addressed that's what's putting a bad mark on all these homeless folks it's the criminals all right hi my name is Megan before I had a kid I used to prepare my speeches for city council I have a phd and I have a really good job her father was diagnosed with schizophrenia earlier last year and lost his job and we are both currently homeless me my daughter and her father and so I just want to make a point that not all homeless people are drug addicts or criminals I think there are criminals at the top of our elite political system and I'm hoping that this political system and figure out a way to actually say you know what if I have a house and a roof over my head I'm gonna take some time to be grateful and less time thinking how awful people are that don't have those same privileges and so thank you very much for the time and also this is not going to go away you guys are in the tech central you guys are busing people from Silicon Valley to come enjoy the pretty shores here and you're going to have to figure out if you're going to displace the people can you give something in place of what they had that is dignified thank you hi I'm Cynthia with Santa Cruz tenants and I just wanted to talk about getting a lot of letters from homeless constituents and tenants it's you're elected and you're to represent people who don't have a lot of power and they're not going to be the ones that are going to send you a thousand letters and they didn't have a million dollar program organizing them throughout the anti-measure m campaign that left them with a great organization like the landed folks in the town so it is your responsibility to represent those people without a lot of letters and so I appreciate when you go and speak with them directly because that is how you will be communicated with by the people who elected you students are busy they're doing finals or they're on break and they're not sitting writing letters to the city council but they elected you too so please don't worry about all the letters piling up are any additional members of the community who would like to address the council in one minute okay I believe that you would be next if you're in line if you can please line up to my left go ahead I'll do my best to keep this one minute um so I was at the encampment a little over a month ago for the first time and as a side note I felt safer there than I did in the area that I live downtown which is about a few blocks from the police station um a member of the encampment spoke with me there um who has a lot of connections within the encampment at that time a while ago he estimated those at a minimum 90 people there since then as you're well aware the encampment has greatly increased in size likely exponentially and um his current estimate is closer to about 100 145 and I know this has been a lot of discussion on to we don't have an accurate census and stuff like that and that's something that needs to be prioritized but at the same time even though it is difficult because people are coming and going we absolutely need to make sure that there are enough adequate shelter beds before we do um any sort of eviction of the Ross camp for reasons that have been not only moral reasons but also legal reasons which have already been brought up regarding the ACLU um hinted legal threat etc we can't afford again for both a moral reason and a legal monetary reason to not have it next speaker please well I'm gonna go ahead and okay that's a warning and if you have an outburst your book well the next I am managing the meeting if you don't agree with me you don't get to do it I'm gonna you'll have your time if you want to wait for the three minutes that's how it's going next next outburst and I'm going to go ahead and ask you to leave respectfully please you have one minute I um live in the oceanview park neighborhood um I understand it's a very complex issue involves real people and their lives but I like the proposal that you guys have made to study the issue with an expert panel I think the the issues are complex and need to be looked at but we also have to I think take a look at everything in the community are we maximizing our I understand we're having a sales tax revenue shortfall what are we doing to you know make sure downtown is thriving at its utmost what are we doing to help these people who have you know who are out there I understand that but I agree with the Myers Watkins Matthews motion to take care of the community as a whole and then address these issues as you can thank you thank you next speaker most people and most people in static I'm sorry please go ahead and I don't I can't see who that is or else I'd be giving you a warming warning please keep your voices down if there's one more outburst I'm going to pause the meeting we'll take a break and we'll reconvene in five minutes so we'll go ahead and hear from you with your time anybody who's interested in speaking will be given their time you if you're interested in speaking in one minute you can speak now after that we'll go ahead and open it up for anybody interested in speaking for three minutes please most folks in Santa Cruz are working right now that the hardworking citizens they don't have time to come to this meeting I actually quit my job because I'm so upset about the way things are going now I encourage all you folks most of the people in Santa Cruz don't know who you are because they're too busy working they don't get to watch the tv shows go out and talk to the average citizen wherever you go don't tell them you're a city council member okay because everywhere I go people are upset that we've got all these tents let's move them moving to river street as a temporary basis we want to help these people but not at the expense of the hardworking business owners and citizens of Santa Cruz Miss Myers Matthews and one other person seems to have a common sense solution where we're not penalizing the hardworking people of Santa Cruz and I guarantee you it's more than 80 percent that are not in favor of opening up parks and homeless encampments don't work the head of the Obama administration homeless experts says they don't work thank you thank you hi my name is Danny I grew up here speaking strongly in support of Justin and Sandy's proposal as exciting as it would be to get to be part of the developing case law to have Santa Cruz be part of that developing case law around the criminalization of homeless people I don't think that's the role we want to play I think we need to play the role of figuring out how we like look at something like an unsanctioned encampment and make it work for people I don't think bulldozers are going to solve homelessness I don't think bulldozers are an acceptable solution to people dying in that camp and I'm really excited to see the city council focus its resources on figuring out what it looks like to engage with the people there figure out what they want and figure out how to make that place a safe dignifying place for them to sleep thanks my name is Lee Broca and I can do this in a minute the last time I saw council council member Matthews we talked about healing the community and bringing people together I see promulade displayed on the desk an equal sign my father is gay I understand that but I hope for you that equal sign means equality for everybody and that includes the homeless people there have been a lot of words spoken here and I read an old deference to the city attorney I read from the appellate decision martin v voisey and in this decision they say there will be no further appeals the next stop is the supreme court the panel held that cruel and unusual punishment clause of the 8th amendment precluded the enforcement of a statute prohibiting sleeping outside against homeless individuals no means access to alternative shuttle the panel held as long as there's no option for sleeping indoors I'm going to go ahead and ask that you the government cannot criminalize indigent homeless people for sleeping outdoors we're going to go ahead and have you conclude your comments you had an opportunity to say okay okay so we have a well we have an opportunity for we're going to go ahead and take a five-minute break we're going to have a five-minute break and we'll reconvene in five minutes from now yep five-minute break reconvene our council meeting we are on item number 15 and we have concluded the one-minute time for any interested community member who wanted to address the council briefly in one minute now would be the time for group organizations who reached out in advance to address the council on behalf of the organization that they represent I've received a number of requests from various groups the first being from mr. Norris representing Huff you'll be given three minutes I'd prefer that we go through the group organizations now this would be now the time for group organizations as somebody who's okay so you will go you will conclude after the last of the three of the group organizations before we open it up for general community okay so Lynn Renshaw representing Santa Cruz together was the second organization I heard from and you will have up to three minutes to address the council I'll go ahead and remind the community before we begin that I anticipate that you can maintain quiet so that we can allow each individual to be heard when they are at the podium without disruption and that could go for folks that you agree with and disagree with that everybody has an opportunity to address us to be given their time I try to be very consistent on equity of voice in that regard for the three minutes or two minutes or whatever that may be that they have and want to remind you to adhere to that if there is a disruption and you have already been warned and you continue to disrupt I will ask that you leave the chambers if you have not been warned and I noticed that you are disrupting the proceeding and the individual's ability to speak I will give you a warning and if it continues the second time I will ask that you please leave okay so this time Ms. Renshaw please speak you have up to three minutes okay Lynn Renshaw Santa Cruz together com homelessness is a serious and complicated problem requiring compassion very substantial resources and sophistication are also necessary in recent council meetings there is a pattern of voting on a single possible solution late at night with perhaps 10 minutes of discussion this process yields rushed flawed ill conceived and frankly outrageous proposals like putting a homeless camp by a soccer field used by 1500 kids or the original proposal to potentially locate the Ross campers next to westlake elementary school or council member glivers proposal to put the camp on the soccer field see any public health risks there this council process is inadequate we support mayor Watkins council member Myers and Matthew's proposal to slow down study best practices for ending homelessness and compare costs and likely outcomes we also support the council proposal for no new homeless encampments particularly not in neighborhoods by schools children and families the council's yes vote for an encampment at depot soccer field was outrageous it outraged thousands of people suddenly feeling threatened by potential public health safety and environmental risks of further sanctioned encampments the map of potential encampment locations in neighborhoods put thousands on high alert people are watching this vote the united states interagency of homelessness caution cities against sanctioned encampments quote creating these environments may make it look and feel like the community is taking action to end homelessness on the surface people stay staying within such settings are still unsheltered still living outside and remain homeless and oftentimes these settings are not providing them with a truly safe healthy and secure environment unquote the united states agency further finds that camps are expensive hard to manage and maintain and difficult difficult to close even if intended as temporary please take time to find a better solution a few questions how much per person per month did the river streak encampment cost would it be better to invest that amount in permanent brick and mortar shelters for lower long-term costs is there a million dollars in the city budget to run an encampment next year in our city's homeless policy please balance the impacts on 65 000 citizens against the desires of 100 Ross campers please balance the input of all those communicating to you here today against those who cannot be here to speak due to work please listen to the community before proceeding with ill-conceived inadequately vetted and rushed land-use decisions please represent all 65 000 thank you our next um i'd like to now invite up rafael sonanfield who would be speaking on behalf of friends of depot park and you'll have up to three minutes yes i'm here on behalf of friends of depot park to urge the city to rescind the current plan for lot 24 today i started friends of depot park to give a voice to people in my neighborhood who are shocked by the way the city rushed through a plan for a shelter program without involving input from the community or providing clear answers to questions about how the program would be operated my goal from the beginning was has been to improve the processes around how these decisions get made community engagement should be a core value of governance especially when making policies on divisive issues without the community being included in the process the city is playing with fire people fear what they don't understand to quote the great philosopher yoda fear leads to anger anger leads to hate and hate leads to suffering we need to move forward together as a community today we have an opportunity to forge away forward from the gridlock on the issues of sheltering our our unhoused community councilmember matthew's plans uh calling for no transitional encampment will most certainly result in a lawsuit being filed against the city and a temporary injunction being issued preventing any immediate action being taken to close the ross camp assuming the city prevails it still has the legal responsibility to offer a shelter or alternative public space to people evicted from sleeping on public property there will be new movements to occupy other public properties without a sanctioned shelter management plan and we will be having a new conversation about how to close a new unsanctioned camp and where to send those people in short order the vice mayor has proposed a plan calling for the ross camp to be replaced with a managed transitional encampment but the proposal hasn't addressed the timing of when this plan would be implemented and as currently written could result in further delayed action passing this plan would clarify how the city intends to deal with the direct issue of the ross camp but is currently a narrow proposal that doesn't directly address meeting the needs of the surrounding community neither plan addresses how the city will continue to meet its obligation to allow public sleeping places or offer adequate shelter if a group of people takes unilateral action to occupy public property the vfw and salvation army are set to close in june as is the river street camp which is going to be relocated in the end of june the crisis we're facing as a result of a nationwide systematic issue unaffordable housing drug epidemics and lack of mental health care we must maintain public safety for all while focusing on finding long-term solutions with county state and federal government we encourage you to create a proactive framework to tackle both short-term and long-term issues uh to to solve short-term and long-term issues or else we'll be stuck in a cycle of poor outcomes hostile relations between the community at large and homeless people and limited progress i'd also like to add that in the spirit of unity i am personally supporting as co-author of the statement that phil posner with conscience and action is making next thank you i will invite up now keith mchenry with food not bombs to speak on behalf of the organization food not bombs yes thank you um i am first of all the the moving a camp to depot park i think it was intentionally designed by staff and having sat here and watched it to generate as much opposition to solutions to homelessness as possible and that's what we have seen um then um there's i i know that food not bombs was never approached about managing a like participating in a self-managed um camp and some of our volunteers actually have lived and cooked at such camps in seattle and have former residents of those camps many years ago and have a direct experience so it was in fact um in 1989 food not bombs participated in a self-managed camp of about 400 people in front of city hall in san francisco where we provided food their meeting sanitation and the only reason it was closed because of people objected to seeing homeless people or internally displaced people in their community and we were forced out with riot police now that lack the reason that the night circuit court of appeal upheld the the eighth amendment which is a eighth amendment is cruel and an unusual punishment is because that is exactly what it is it is cruel and unusual punishment and uh so these the thing i really urge the community to consider is that these are humans these are people the stories of how maybe somebody ends up being injured on the job for instance a acquaintance of ours who sadly died of stage 4 cancer um uh and and then big ending up on pain medicine that he can't get off because there's no way there's no access to treatment in this community i spend the try i try to get somebody to to call janice you've got to call like in my experience 60 days in a row you miss one day the 60 day starts up again so the same people that are opposed to ross camp opposed to camps anywhere are also opposed to the siting of drug treatment centers um you know dr leff explains that he gets funding for mental health and drug treatment in this community but the same people that come out to demand that there be no campsites that we get rid of the homeless and so on are the same people that stand in the way of these solutions and so the a beautiful thing would be if the city council all of us started to consider these people our relatives our neighbors our friends people with real lives and real stories and not dehumanize them thank you i'