October 29 2020 special meeting of Santa Cruz City Council. I have a few announcements and then we'll move on to our regular meeting agenda. Today's meeting is being broadcast live on community television on 25 and streaming on the city's web cityofsantaacruz.com. All council members are participating in this meeting remotely and I want to thank the public for viewing today's meeting at home. If you wish to comment on the interim recovery plan instructions are on your screen please mute your television or streaming device once you call in and listen through your phone. Please note there's a delay in streaming so if you continue to listen on your television or streaming device you may miss your opportunity to speak. Call in at the beginning of the presentation when it's time for public comment please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand. When it's your time to speak you will hear an announcement that you've been unmuted. The timer will then be set to two minutes and you may hang up once you've finished commenting. With that I'd like to ask for clerks to please call the roll. Thank you mayor council member Byers. Here. Matthew. Here. Here. Boulder. Here. Watkins. Here. Vice mayor Myers. Here. And mayor Cummings. Here. Today we have one item on our agenda uh it's the city council in number recovery plan workshop um and so with that I will turn the meeting over to well I'd just like to thank everyone for joining us today and you know since uh covid's happened and given the impacts that this has had on our local economy we felt that it was necessary for us to try to come together to figure out what we should be prioritizing as far as work for the next 12 to 18 months. This is the first meeting that we're going to have with council regarding the interim recovery planning and it's an opportunity for management partners who's joining us today to get some input from council members and from the community on what we should be prioritizing as we're moving forward with recovery over the next 12 to 18 months and so with that I'll turn it over to city manager Martin Bernal for further comments. Thank you mayor um I just wanted to start out by just saying that other levels have been very unprecedented times right now uh for any number of reasons and uh you know local government is really more critical now than it ever has been uh to safeguard the health and well-being of our community and yet at the same time we're probably more challenged than we ever have been as a local government in terms of being able to do that and so that makes it really important for the city to be able to do two things in my view at least and that is that we have effective government well organized government that does a good job of providing the services within the limitations and capacities that we have and then two that we provide effective leadership to our community uh and that is uh for me my mind is the number of things you know it's a it's a good good teamwork between the council the staff the community having trust uh respect an ability to work together uh to formulate a vision that we can all work towards despite the there might be disagreements but having clear direction uh establishing priorities and then taking with that taking into account our limited capacities and restrictions that we may have but also that we have a system that can make adjustments as needed and that we can evaluate evaluate what we're doing so that's that's just super critical again in our environment more so than ever that we be as effective as we can as our local government and as the leaders of our community and so that is really the main purpose for us today is to be able to to begin uh some of that work in terms of trying to identify those priorities to uh create structured systems to hold each other accountable and to adjust that needed and to take into account all the various limitations that we have and to the extent normally when we do these kinds of workshops we would have more time to do team building it's a bit hard to do that in this kind of environment but it is really important that uh we work as a team between the council members the department heads and so I certainly would encourage today all the department heads all the staff and the council members obviously to to participate fully uh and to engage uh today's not necessarily where you're going to make final decisions but it's it's a good opportunity to uh lay out concerns issues identified not here from the public here from the community here what we've collected and start to put together that framework that I think is really critical particularly in the months that come as we uh immerse from if you think about it we've got uh four uh ongoing declared emergencies in our community within the last couple years we've got a fiscal emergency we've got a health emergency we've got a homelessness emergency um and uh and we've got a fire in emergencies that's pretty unprecedented in terms of what we're experiencing and it's pretty overwhelming and so again to the extent that we're quite clear and prioritize that is good for our community um so with that um I just wanted to turn it over to um our facilitator today it's Jan Perkins from the management partners and her team who's done a lot of work with the committee the we had a interim recovery committee comprised of uh our mayor and vice mayor and councilmember Watkins who have really helped to develop uh the approach today uh to really get us to uh putting together that initial uh interim recovery plan to the state the next couple to 18 months I'll turn it over to Jan okay thank you so much Martin and uh hello mayor and city council it's really a pleasure to be with all of you today I'd like to introduce the other two team members here with me today uh Gloria Hurtado Gloria if you could just wave you're gonna be hearing from Gloria today and a number of council members have already had an opportunity to meet with Gloria uh virtually uh as we get our council interviews and uh Claire Coleman uh Claire if you could wave as well uh Claire um has been helping prepare materials and Claire was also part of our management partners team working on the financial forecast so she has that background as well um so with that uh Claire let's move on to the next slide uh just the the objectives uh Martina's actually and the mayor have actually gone over these quite well but there are three specific objectives today uh one is to establish three priority areas of focus uh and we'll be going through a process we've gotten a lot of good information to tee that up for a productive conversation and we'll be looking for council consensus and on on three uh key areas of focus for the interim recovery plan periods of 12 to 18 months secondly identifying some key metrics for tracking recovery again we've gotten a lot of good input on what those might be and we have provided some options and we'll be looking for some council direction on a subset of those and we'll talk more about those and then finally um creating a framework for making decisions about new work or services or projects or initiatives that might come up during this period so that the the council and the staff can actually stay focused on the priorities agreed to tentatively agreed to today and then agreed to formally when this comes back to the city council at a city council meeting so those are the objectives today and as the mayor noted um maybe we'll go to nine and maybe we won't go to nine if we can be efficient with our time then let's try to do that as facilitators we um really do focus on um trying to be as very as much efficient as we possibly can and we uh very very rarely go over a time our objective is to always um end a little bit early um so that's a collective and a and a shared objective for for everybody perhaps so with that um we'll go on to the next to the so the agenda sort of the flow of the rest of the afternoon and into the early evening we're going to have just a few slides on the purpose of the interim recovery plan just going to that just a little bit more um and then open it up for public comments which the mayor will handle um and then we have just a few slides on some input that we've gathered then we're going to spend most of the time on talking about the priority areas of focus for the next 12 to 18 months after that then we'll talk about metrics following that we'll talk about the framework for decision making um and these would be on on new items and then as we begin to wrap up we wanted to get some council input about communicating the city's financial condition and the recovery plan so uh just looking for some input we've already asked for some input as part of council interviews and front department heads but we'll have a a short conversation about that to get your thoughts and then we'll wrap up uh and be concluded no no later than nine o'clock so on the next slide um just a few you know zoom guidelines i mean you've been doing this and you know and as martin said it's a little bit hard to do team building in a zoom environment um i know as a facilitator um i will certainly be glad to be back in a in a real room in person it's uh it's not the same but we do our best don't we everybody does does your best um so um for council members um it's nice that you're showing your face and i would encourage you to continue to do that and maybe that is your norm anyway for your council meetings which is fantastic uh for the department heads um i understand that the norm is to not which actually with with as many people that are that are in the zoom room um that's actually helpful to have the council um and the city manager showing your face um the hand raised feature um we may or may not actually need that with so few people that are um i i think we can probably physically see the hand raised the hands raised by council members but we also don't want to miss anybody so um it is a feature that is available and so um it is something that we typically do use in these workshops and so to the extent that that a council member is um trying to say something and and perhaps i'm not seeing that you do have your hand raised your physical hand uh feel free pleased to use the the electronic hand um as well um and then a facilitator either a glory or myself may may call on um the mayor or council member as well as we go through or the city manager as we go through this so those are just a few guidelines just a few ground rules just as we and you know as if we were in in person together we would be going through a few ground rules um always assuming good intent um everybody uh is is looking out for the best interests of Santa Cruz looking out for those interests in different ways perhaps with different points of view and and um with with different objectives but always with good intent um seeking first to understand which really just means listening to other points of view um and then to be understood uh seeking consensus we really are looking for consensus we will be doing some virtual dot voting uh so that we can uh be very clear about what the the council majority wants to do with regards to priority areas of focus but but the goal is always um as much consensus as we can and seeking areas agreement staying focused um gloria and i will do our best to help help all of us collectively stay focused but i invite everyone to um participate in that ground rule as well um and then of course uh showing respect for the process and for every everyone and i i'm sure that you do that so those are our typical ground rules um bike rack as we go through the next few hours there may be some things that come up that would be better addressed in some other forum maybe the city manager needs to come back with information or you know something else and we rather than going down a rabbit hole or getting off on a tangent we'll make a note of it and and claire will keep track of of any bike rack items so it's a time management tool so that we can stay focused on on the agenda today that's what that's about and and by the way if a council members or the city manager have anything that as we go along that you think ought to be on the bike rack feel free to type up and say so okay so um so those are all the kind of housekeeping items so now i'd like to ask laura to talk just a little bit about the purpose of the interim recovery plan we have just very very few slides on this so laura thank you jan this is laura schmidt the assistant city manager i'll just do a brief recap of how we came to focus on an interim recovery plan so claire if you could advance to the next slide please so in winter of 2019 the city council was focusing on putting together a three to five year strategic plan and we had gone through various outreach and information gathering steps with internal city staff and in february and march of 2020 we were supposed to begin the community outreach portion and of course that's when the COVID-19 pandemic hit so um as we worked to operationally respond to the pandemic in the spring of 2020 council members rightfully recognize that the three to five year strategic plan was probably not the appropriate vehicle for us to be focusing on in order to get through the pandemic and then raise our sights to figure out what we're going to do in response to the pandemic to focus on recovery for our community our financial situation and our economics so in june of that year the council voted to create a council committee called the interim recovery plan committee and that was mayor Cummings vice mayor mires and then council member Watkins and that interim recovery plan committee established the three objectives to put together three priority focused areas identify key metrics so that we can actually measure how we are doing for the recovery and then create a framework for decision-making recognizing that as the pandemic changes we have another emergency such as the fire we have the financial crisis we are often faced with needing to be able to make course adjustments and decisions quickly so let's put together a framework to enable us to do that next slide please so um why the focus areas why do we need those it's it's it's basically good governance and it's really important for council and staff to be able to stay focused on a few things especially in this ever-changing dynamic world of COVID-19 and the other unfortunate emergencies that we've been facing in 2020 we also need to be able to implement those changes quickly and then underlying those focus areas we need to develop a robust work plan to say so these are the focus areas these are the items in the work plan related to those focus areas that we need to implement and doing so will be that school of fish navigating and aligned um to get down to one place all together and achieving what we need to okay so mayor i'll turn it back to you for public comment that you are muted at this time if there's any members of the public who like to comment on the interim recovery plan now it's the time to call in using the numbers on your screen once you've called into the meeting please press star nine on your phone and you'll be given two minutes to comment mayor i don't know if the numbers on the screen are what we see but we only see that this so i don't know if they see something different i'm sorry it's something different okay thank you okay so i don't see any members of the public calling in at this point in time so um if members of the public call in later maybe we can open it up to the public comment towards the end again okay thank you we'll we'll keep moving in there okay so i'd like to turn this over to uh gloria hertado all right yeah go ahead started um the first thing that we wanted to do was to collect information and data to inform this process um the first step that uh the city took was the financial forecast and management partners was a part of that so you all received the financial forecast we did council interviews which all of you participated in we did department questionnaires that each of the departments completed and then we also did a community survey and next slide and i'm going to let laura talk about the the financial outlook because i know there have been some updates so i'll turn this one over to laura thank you gloria um as council recalls the covid-19 pandemic really impacted our major revenue sources and the shortfalls that we're experiencing are just not for the fiscal year 20 that we finish but also the fiscal year 21 that we are currently in and multiple years out it the pandemic essentially triggered a recession for us and for other agencies and across the country so based upon the updated forecast that finance put together in october we went to council and at that council meeting it was a special meeting in october on eight you all adopted fiscal year 21 budget changes that helped us find reductions and savings in our budget of approximately five point two million dollars we uh of those changes 27 of them were one time so those very much helped us meet our financial goals for fiscal year 21 but for fiscal year 22 that means the ongoing recession will continue to be exacerbated until we find fundamental structural ongoing changes the other thing that we adopted in october were there were a net 18 fewer positions and those structural changes reap benefit year over year and all the departments throughout the city experienced reductions um and contributed to that 5.2 million in additional reductions that we found on top of furloughs and retirements and other actions we had already taken in fiscal year 21 that gives you the financial backdrop it's quite serious and one of the things that we're hoping to do as we figure out our focus areas as a city will be able to help inform and improve our financial situation fiscal years and in the coming fiscal years as well thank you i'll turn it back to management partners thank you and that's me um so your your financial outlook uh financial condition will continue to be something that you're addressing as a council as a city um the other piece was council interviews so each one of the council members was interviewed and we collected information on what you some of the priorities you think we should focus on for the next uh 12 to 18 months what projects could possibly be deferred um or or eliminated um we also talked briefly about metrics so what metrics could we use that um would track the recovery and then also discussed ways to communicate this to the public and there were a variety of suggestions the next slide uh department has also completed questionnaires and they also uh gave us um thoughts their thoughts on priorities for the next 12 to 18 months they provided lists of what uh current projects or important work that's already underway they also identified what progress projects could possibly be put on hold uh during the the interim recovery period and also um provided suggestions on metrics and data that may already be collected next slide um we also the fourth will this was the community survey and the community survey was available for 11 days online and there was a very good response a total response was uh 1,835 um and um as you can see that the top five priorities were uh fire emergency medical services or public safety affordable housing park spaces open spaces environment climate action infrastructure homeless services the next slide what we did because there were so many responses we pulled out those who are actually either residents we wanted to focus on the residents the businesses that are within the city students that were within the city and these were the top five priorities the change when we pulled out um the public and the visitors and non non-city residents was that homelessness uh services became a bigger issue for those who reside or operate businesses in Santa Cruz and the environment had a lesser priority when we focused on those who are residents and businesses within the city of Santa Cruz so this is important information to have as background as we start moving forward in developing your priorities okay um I would also like to have a point out that we have prepared a workbook um that was provided in advance to the council and to the public and and um results from the survey are included in that workbook as one of the attachments so that uh anybody who wants more information can get it from the workbook so uh we wanted just to give you the kind of the bottom line highlights and uh in the slides but a lot more information is certainly available there okay so now we're going to move into um discussion of the focus areas um so um by way of introducing this Gloria mentioned that we received information from the department heads we asked them what significant projects are already um on the books already underway that the council has already given direction for um in addition to those uh four emergencies that have been declared and then of course working on the the financial recovery itself um and so we have this list and this is also in the workbook as one of the attachments but we thought that uh starting out with this just as an information piece we're not going to spend a lot of time on this um and this is not for the prioritization these are all projects that are underway and that will continue to to move forward um unless there um is some other action that is taken um but the point of this slide is that Santa Cruz as you well know is a very busy city you have a lot on your on your work plate um it's a as the council and the staff develops this 12 to 18 months uh interim recovery plan and identifies areas of focus it's important just to keep in mind that there's a lot of work going on every day along with the day-to-day management of just managing staff managing the day-to-day services that go on in all of the city departments um in providing core services so so this is just backdrop very important um background information and we can certainly look back to any of this um as we go through our conversation today but we wanted to provide that to you and some in the workbook we have more than a list in the workbook we actually staff provided the status um of each one of those as well so there's there's more information and I know city manager could elaborate on any of these if as we go through the discussion today there's a need to do that so on the next slide Claire okay good so on this one so as Gloria indicated when we did our interviews with the city council and as we did the questionnaire with the department heads we asked what are the the key priorities and we um we heard a lot of alignment actually um you know we did not hear a list of 30 things and which means that um the council is um doing a good job of understanding that that you really do need to focus um and so we were able to sympathize and sort into these eight areas um I am in a moment going to show you another slide because we also heard some some process and principles that will be important to the city council and I'll get into those in just a moment but I I first wanted to share with you the areas of focus that council members um doesn't mean that a majority mentioned each one of these but these came up in our interviews and through our virtual dot voting and after discussion of each one of these then we will see which three of these really will emerge but these are the eight that did emerge as focus areas as possible focus areas the department heads also had a lot of alignment with what the council said the department heads had five key areas that they thought would be important focus areas over the next 12 to 18 months it's not to say that they are not all key areas to work on but as we're thinking about what are the top priorities nothing if you have 30 things they all can't be priorities eight things can't really be top priorities but you can have three priorities and so that's really the the idea is to begin to to narrow but there's certainly a lot of alignment here between the council and and the staff so first going to give you an overview and then we're going to take an opportunity to discuss each one of those this slide that Claire just put up in interviewing council members a number of you a number of you mentioned a variety of things that as you go through your interim recovery plan and develop that you said these are important principles or processes that that that really would be an underlying framework for it and so we wanted to list these and one of them that came out from a number of council members as your health and all policies and to be very mindful of those principles of equity public health and sustainability as you go through all of your work another idea that came up was to continue to look for state and federal resources which there may very well be some some new ones we have the CARES Act now might be CARES Act too and and we know there's a lot of conversation going on about that so there that very well could happen other comments that we heard had to do with prioritizing resources to those most in need it was just more of a of a comment the grand jury reports were mentioned as as something to be mindful of and just keeping those in mind it was also suggested that engaging the community in maintaining parks could be something that by way of as a way to engage people and then in defining core city services and prioritizing them with the idea that that resources are limited as council members well know and so at at some point it may be helpful to actually say what are those core city services and and prioritize those so for these we wanted to share those as a way to to acknowledge that those are also important principles or processes to be thinking about as we discuss the areas of focus so in the next slide we're actually now going to ask council members to begin to talk about these what we would like to do is to hear from council members what your intent understanding that not every council member mentioned every one of these things but we are going to go through one through eight and we would like to hear council members comments about what you might envision these to be so what would be the intent of each one of these because that's going to be helpful as we move into setting narrowing into priority areas of focus and then what and then after the council actually does decide on the priority areas of focus the city manager will be returning with a work plan to meet those and we'll talk with a separate slide and martin will talk about that but but it will be very helpful to the staff to understand what council members have in their minds about these before there's any virtual thought voting so we're just going to go through starting with number one and i think claire has provided some other slides so she can just add some bullet points so i'm now going to open this up council members to offer your comments and not every council member may need to or want to come on out comment on everyone but i certainly want to make sure that all council members have an opportunity to comment on everyone so if you would like to hold your hand up or mayor mayor your first i was just wondering if maybe you could go back to the screen before because since this one only has four and the other one had all eight so i'm just trying to write them down so i can because i think some of these can actually be combined okay so now okay and let me um i thank you they're actually also on page four of the workbook just so you have that as a convenience so because we realize you're you know you you're looking at a variety of different things jen this is goria yeah i just wanted to remind that when we condensed this list into the eight all of these were um priorities that were mentioned by more than one council member yeah so it might not have been a majority but more than one council member um identified these areas so if there was something that only one council member identified it didn't make the top eight so this is sort of a consolidated yeah loose consensus of the council members yeah thank you for clarifying that gloria yeah that's helpful okay so um why don't we go through one by one um so these are the eight and if you want to take a look at that page four of your workbook so you have all eight in front of you um we created the the next two slides just to give claire room to type in some notes so again if we were in person with nice big flip charts we'd be writing it all up there but we're doing virtual so who has comments on the first one on the council uh council member meyers first oh you are muted yeah i think i'm sort of gravitating a little bit towards um where the mayor was going um but i do believe the item number one um could be one of our top three priorities um i think that because of the recession but also the long-term needs of the city which we know are you know we're before even before cobit so our pension obligations are uh cip which you know often is push back and push back um some of the new um pressures on the city so obviously we've learned how um how potentially damaging wildfire can be we now have conditions that may affect our downtown because of flooding so i think um the the new revenue and then also looking at um cost recovery but i also think that the um doing the assessment of the internal kind of the internal workings of the city makes sense right now um you know i i'm reflecting on some of the actions by by different cities and counties right now that have experienced these different natural disasters you know and they're creating they're sort of combining and making departments or making at least interdepartmental teams you know around um recovery and and various things whether it's from wildfire or the you know potential damages from you know watersheds that make becoming towards the cities later on you know deep brief flows and things like that so i i just think number one is for me it would be uh it would be one of the three so i'll stop there thank you okay but mayor you had your hand up next i think thanks yeah i agree with vice mayor on fiscal sustainability and i'm gonna not jump a little bit ahead but i was just looking at the list on page four and i feel like you know with that long-term fiscal sustainability there's a lot there's you know a number of these items that kind of fall underneath that so you know restarting our local economy i feel like you know when we have and also the green economy and downtown investment i mean when we have you know jobs and especially if we're trying to expand beyond tourism as our economic base you know really thinking about what are new jobs that we can create in the community that will allow for um you know people to have the finances they need to go out and shop in stores you know to afford their rents in town and you know i feel like that's all a big part of kind of restarting the local economy and investing in you know our downtown space and then ultimately that all feeds into you know long-term fiscal sustainability because if we can determine what are new you know job sectors that can come into the to town that wouldn't be for example impacted by something like um a pandemic in the future you know that kind of fits in with the the long-term fiscal sustainability but get to the vice mayor's point i think that that should probably be at the top of our list because we ultimately need to make you know maintain um you know our our ability to function as a city and that's going to require maintaining that financial stability and sustainability okay good other comments from council members on the first item again we we want to get your thoughts on the on each one of these okay council member brown and then what can thank you uh yeah i i absolutely agree um i guess i want to say and it's kind of uh i think this applies to pretty much all of the eight that um you know just to make the statement that the devil really is in the details on a lot of so um we may have different ways of thinking about what is needed to move towards fiscal sustainability and i think i'm thinking in particular with respect to new revenues you know so i i agree that that's a priority and i do think that there's much a much deeper conversation that we need to have ultimately about uh where we're going to prioritize within that you know what are the strategies for fiscal sustainability if we're talking about new revenue uh where are we targeting uh for those new revenues i know that there's some differences on the council around you know what kind of taxation measures we might want to put on the ballot so again um i i absolutely think that number one is should be our top priority and i do think we need to find a way to you know flesh out some of uh those details uh you know as as a as a council i'm just gonna add here because i don't want to keep repeating myself but we have heard you know and it is and i understand the constraints and all of the reasons why we are doing this today um but we are five days from an election and the council is changing so um i don't know that that would cause there to be a significant shift in the the main priority areas um but i do feel uh a little bit it feels a little strange to be doing this today i'll just say that um and i think people in the public have noticed that as well so i just want to be careful about one not getting too detailed but also understanding that we're going to need to sort some of those things out as we move forward but yeah it's a number one is clearly number one for me okay council member Watkins on number one uh thank you thank you yeah no i i think i you know i agree with the comments made um by my colleagues in regards to making this a priority i do think that and we discuss as a subcommittee you know timing and refinement and um you know input along the way so definitely mindful of the fact that there will be a shift in health members and wanting their input and their bias into this as well so i know this is sort of a preliminary excuse me approach to moving forward i don't think uh substantially in terms of the three areas that will come up with will change but as mentioned by councilor brown i'm sure the details and specifics will be uh refined moving forward and i do think that part of that should include how we're really constantly engaging with our business sector and our various partners in terms of um kind of top uh you know top priorities and impacts um that they're experiencing at that time so really being data informed and really constantly consulting with them um to help refine some of the needs because part of what our long-term fiscal sustainability strategies will be is to also sort of support our businesses now from um the immediate impact and then in regards to where i believe the mayor was going i think you know there doesn't need to be um a separation between our long-term fiscal sustainability approach with for example a green economy or i'm investing in downtown so i do think there's opportunity to potentially consolidate some of the various priorities because for me i think a long-term fiscal sustainability strategy to the vice mayor's point really should include resilience to climate stressors moving forward so and that could also lead to green jobs and sort of also generate more opportunities so i don't think we need to decouple those um you know just sort of at this time that's sort of what comes to mind for me okay and i see that council members are using the the electronic hand raised feature so we'll just use that it sounds like that you're used to doing that in your in your council meeting so that's fantastic so council member matthews yes i would also put a whole bunch of dots by this one long-term fiscal sustainability there are a lot of components as i looked down the list pretty much items two through eight are all fundamental to number one yeah you get to thinking about it homelessness arises as a key issue for the business community um public safety arises as a key issue downtown investment green economy obviously relates to long-term fiscal sustainability uh restarting and growing the local economy portable housing and infrastructure quality of us frankly so it's almost to me to my mind it's almost like all of those things are part of that big heading um under the the captions under fiscal sustainability included cost recovery i'd be curious to know what kind of progress we're making on that and what um currently in the pipeline i know the staff has been working on that i i'm just at this moment not familiar about how far along we are on that path it's not going to solve the problem but it's one of the ingredients new revenue i take to mean mostly of a ballot measure of some sort that takes its own path of exploration polling and what kind of returns you get what's the climate etc i would also say a part of that is recovered revenue and that to me kind of relates down to restarting and growing the local economy we've lost so much i mean we need to just rebuild our bailbacks and our koq those are two big ones um it was mentioned uh well and then you know the green economy whether you talk about uh well so so many aspects of our local economy whether it's um environmental sciences or green tourism i mean that that is a very simple theme to a lot of parts of our economy and we actually are lucky to have a pretty diverse economy um anyway not to be the fourth but i i just see all of these threads tying back to the long-term fiscal sustainability okay great council member golder thank you i do just have a quick process question too so would you are you going to go around robin for each of these eight or should we use the hand raising feature you know let's use the hand raise since uh since you're used to using that we'll use the hand raise okay okay so i think um i agree with the mayor in that i think number one and i think um number six and maybe even number five could kind of be kind of combined and um i also the one thing i haven't heard anybody speak to but and i don't even know if it's possible but if from from i mean sometimes we've had to do this within the school district where you're like restructuring departments and so i don't know you know um if for example like departments could be combined out like a cost-saving measure moving forward and i and i can't think of anything maybe off the top of my head but but really looking at that as a yeah a thing and even thinking like public safety is there a way to combine with central fire or other local you know smaller fire departments to save money and then i like the idea that the mayor also said i was thinking the same thing of expanding our tax base with the creation of new industries and luring you know startups or businesses here and um making it i don't know incentivizing starting businesses by keeping these for those kinds of things reasonable or at least um you know comparable to neighboring counties to encourage businesses to start here and stay here and then finally the other thing too is is um i just noticed that they're putting in a target and i know it's going to be in that probably that kmart building in um scott's valley but just any opportunity where there's a vacant building reaching out and doing our best to try and get those buildings occupied so that we can keep getting that tax sales tax revenue thank you councilmember buyers um right everything that's been said is right on i was wondering what provide for public safety could be i mean we have fire and we i i just don't it's just a funny word for me provide i think we are providing and fire and police park you know park staff but i don't know whether there's some maybe as you consultants can help me on that well let me just say right now um we're going to go through these one by one so that we can hear consultants about those so we're on number one um okay but i know that you're on a time uh limitation so i we want to make sure we get your comments so well that that's the only question i you know we'll i'm sure we'll have quite the discussion about solutions to homeless but that was just kind of a quiz of understanding word okay i'm fine okay thank you and uh councilmember matthew one other thought that was on my margins here in terms of the physical sustainability um we read in almost the gen every agenda report our investments in energy conservation across all departments and they're big big chunks of money so that's another area for physical sustainability and also i know we've tried to make progress with technological efficiencies that also give us um being able to do the same amount of work at a more efficient cost so um whether you call those infrastructure or whatever they they are um investments that can yield that can improve our bottom line in terms of physical health okay good okay uh councilmember matthew oh i'm sorry mayor and then councilmember what fine one thing that just came to mind i think when we think about um actions to ensure long-term physical sustainability i think that one thing we have to keep in mind as well is that it doesn't come at the cost of community stability because i think about it just brings to my mind you know there are ways to attract um whether it's new streams of revenue or new jobs but there um at times you run the risk of gentrification and pushing people who've been long-term citizens or middle class out of the city and so i think that while we're thinking about solutions for long-term you know physical sustainability that um it shouldn't come at the cost of our community stability okay councilmember what can so i was just gonna um so that the energy investment can also lead to good green jobs so i don't think that they need to be thought of as separate um and then there's also strategies that as we think about investments in um and areas of our community to ensure that we're doing so in a way that's informed by not trying to um create conditions for gentrification so how are we just being mindful of those i think to the mayor's point as well okay very good okay don't see any other hand raises on that so let's move on to discussion of finding solutions to homelessness knowing that it's a very very big topic um but if this were an area of focus for the next 12 to 18 months what might be your intent i think that might be a better way to to think about it because it is not a short-term issue of course so um i'm looking for councilmember brown you have your hand up first thank you yeah so this is obviously a huge challenge and i think a priority i think we have some opportunities right now to really kind of rethink how we address homelessness and you know i've said it before i'll say it again um you know the approach that we have invested heavily in i don't i do not believe hasn't worked um we are um kind of looking at opportunities to work with the county new um you know new funding streams with with the county uh some of it covet related and others not um has kind of created the conditions for seeing that expansion of emergency shelter um is possible and uh that it it is effective and so you know i really think that you know and and to councilmember mouthy's point that homelessness is a big issue for the the business community well it's a big issue for everybody in the city neighbors um you know it's it's a big issue for the people who are on house as well and so i think that kind of really rethinking how we use the very limited resources we have um for things like waste management porta potty's hygiene um and then really really making sure that our commitment is demonstrated in our cooperation with the county so that we can have a productive uh a collaboration with them so you know i know that's kind of some specific and some sort of vague but you know i i do feel like it you know i think this is a priority and it sounds like others do as well um but i just want to be clear that my uh perspective on this is um not to suggest you know new ways to move people along and pile up more citations i really want to see some actual progress made uh so i'll just leave it there for now but i do think this is a conversation that we you know and and for for that matter we have a grand jury report that has suggestions and we have a cat multiple catch recommendations that we also ought to be looking at um so i think we need to really you know expand our thinking at the same time that we're acknowledging that we have limited resources good okay thank you uh councilmember mire's hard to get the three priorities you know and i think this is this is one that is um it is a priority um but i'm i guess i would sort of put it as number four when i think about trying to get the three and i know we're going to collapse some of these which i think is very doable um but i think that um you know the county's going to come out with the focus strategies report completed report uh november tent and then there's going to be a lot of work with not just our city but all three cities in the county as well as other parts of the county so i think we're at kind of a point time where um we're going to get a lot more clarity um on on where the county's coming from with regards to their you know role and how they're going to start to manage this you know this policy issue and the and the needs of of folks that are in our community so i would um you know i guess i i guess my thinking is you know we need to continue to to play um you know to be on the team with the county but um i think sometimes we do end up kind of stepping into the forefront and trying to sort because it is such an acute issue in our community especially you know visibly people are people are upset by how the conditions they see people in um and so but i think i guess for me i'm sort of i'm sort of uh a little bit cautionary in keeping this as a as one of the top three only because i do think that there is considerable um progress at the county level and um with hopefully some change in investment from either the state or that the feds we can become part of the team and not be sort of the the backup quarterback which i kind of think we've been for a long time so i think we have a lot of good policy ideas that have come out of the cash i think we've there's been a lot of good analysis by our staff on best management practices that are coming out nationally in terms of reducing homelessness as well as both preventing you know through prevention but also through diversion so there's there's a whole suite of kind of policy development that i think has really come to the forefront in the last five years that um i think we hopefully can catch on to the um catch on to the progress of the county and try to try to become part of their their programs their process and so i kind of that's how i kind of ranked this right now which is you know this isn't a one of my top three but it's four or five and it's something that we need to attend to but um it's a real drain on our resources and our staff right now i feel like so we've got to be careful about continuing to throw resources towards this i think our service providers in town too are doing quite well and i've been really impressed with all their progress today thanks thank you vice mayor okay uh council member uh buyers and matthews and watkins you are a muted council member um i you know the county gets the money and they give you that i i don't know what else they do finding a place safe for a big um shelter you know nobody's going to have it in their district you're not going to find a shelter out in in capitol or aptos we we will always have the impact of the actual bodies in our city emeline is here the jail is here it's just simply where they're going to be uh so i it's such a huge high priority uh and to think that just piling a lot of money and it is it takes so much more than money is it's part of it is edgeting the community you know nobody will have a campground anywhere near their their street or wherever you want and i really think a lot of it is because they're just i don't want to aim right but i think if they just step back and understand the problem and the issue the census that shows that something like sixty some percent are from santa cruz you know they've been here at least the last five years because they do the census every two years and that's the main question they asked how long have you been in santa cruz um so i uh until we just say to the neighbors in the community help us on this please get involved help you know visit the campgrounds and come to housing matters and take a tour to see what can be done but uh you know they're maxed out our our uh our nonprofits are doing all they can uh you know and they they depend on donors of course you know to help them do so it's such a high priority and until we just 100 percent show everything we have this uh into it we we're not going to help the distances we're not going to help the neighborhoods unless we all agree that it is such a high priority and we simply just can't wait we have to wait for the county to give us the money absolutely but other than that i just see well the reason grand jury they just said years have been spent all this and nothing has really changed our population is much much higher so and i think all of you know this has been a high priority mine for many many years and still is and i guess i'm encouraged because the state and the feds are starting to see the need that our governor has made it a high priority for the whole state so anyway i i will sorry i have to leave because you know this is going to come up and come up in different ways and i think you already know how i feel thanks thank you uh councilmember matthews and watkins and golder the issue homelessness did come up in all of the interviews so i didn't mean in my initial discussion to imply that it's all business community it has residents all the categories you interviewed um i don't think this should be our primary the possibility and i even kind of object to the language fine solution i do not think that is the burden of the city of santa claus i would like that to be support solutions to homelessness and i think that's the direction we should be moving my own opinion um and we have been making progress in that more recently with the county's increasing engagement in the cost of covid um uh emergency um i would so i would like to see real emphasis in the whole increasing of this partnership and member buyers mentioned this is the role of the non-profit others have as well um i'm very interested to see what comes out of the focus strategies support um that's coming to the county um i would like to see and i believe this in focus strategies i have not um been actively involved in that process but i believe there's an interest in um looking at programs that actually are successful in moving those experiencing homelessness from where they are to a better place actually seeing methods of improvement uh whatever that consists of um i i think we don't feel the city should be expected to continue bearing far and away the majority of the impact and so again it's underlying support solutions focused on partnership thank you councilmember watkins uh thank you yeah you know i i just i guess my only additional comments are you know homelessness is so complex and that is on this health is substance misuse poverty there are many faces to homelessness we have a number of homeless children in our county so i think definitely this is not um even if it's not a priority per se it's something that our community that our city will continue to need to work on in partnership with so many others to focus on how we're addressing our homeless population um that being said i know we're also looking at sort of certain things that were our approach to it and one of the things that we're going to have is um a study session on the cahoots type model so as we're sort of thinking about the things that we can do as a city that can be better informed by various models that have worked in other areas um and then in regards to sort of the role that i think this interim recovery but just this really opportunity that we have to um really shift our our systems right we have a chance to see how we're as a city providing conditions for people success and that i think is how how are we and how are we making investments in ways to create good jobs how are we thinking about housing and various and diverse housing opportunities so how are we creating those types of conditions for success in partnership with how are we addressing some of those who are struggling in our in our community as well thank you councilmember golder and then then to the mayor unless mayor did you need to jump in first no okay councilmember golder first and then mayor thank you so i've said this before um and while i really do agree that homelessness is an important issue that we um we need to work on as a society i don't think that we can solve it as the city of Santa Cruz and so even um finding solutions to me also seems not to be like a semantics police but it seems a bit much and i think thinking about it from a long term perspective looking at um ways to increase affordable housing ways to increase business opportunities and ways to invest in our community to prevent future homelessness is something i'd rather see at the top of our list and i think i'm super impressed with um the level of collaboration between the city and county um this year regarding homelessness and like i said i do think that it's a very important and a strong like three and a half but if i only had to choose three it would not be in my my top three at this at this meeting okay thank you uh mayor i'm gonna kind of echo what my colleagues said and so i'll be short but you know having worked on the two by two and especially working um on homelessness a lot through covid uh it's been clear and pretty obvious that um the county needs to take the lead role and they have been taking the lead role during covid and we've been able to stand up they've been able to stand up with support of the city a lot of really good programs and i will just um add that uh although you know i think traditionally it's been seen that the county is kind of divvies out money that hasn't been the case right now with covid i mean with the shelters that they've set up they've needed to hire more staff and those are county employees that money wasn't given to the city and then the city had to go out and employ those people the county is in charge of that and so i think that we need to and and those programs have worked you know i mean the hotels have been working um the managed encampments have had less of an impact and have had a positive impact on the people who've been there and i think what we need to do is highlight to the community um you know what successful programs look like so that we can build on those in the future but really let the county know that we are here to support what they're trying to do and the programs they're doing they're successful that we're in support of that but we should not take the lead role on because that's we don't get the funding for that and that's not our role and the county has finally stepped up to really take the lead role and i think that we need to let them do that and we need to be their support um so you know to the extent that we can continue partnering with nonprofits um that we can you know when new innovative um programs emerge that we can consider you know whether that's finding facilities for them but i think that we need to be more in the role of supporting the solution and supporting new approaches rather than trying to take the lead on you know solving homelessness because it's going to be you know it's it's not um part of our purview we don't have the funding and i think that we'd be much better in a support role thank you okay i think we will move on and to um the next area which is uh providing for public safety which was mentioned by by some council members as a a key area of focus priority area focus so we'd like to hear comments about what that might mean um and mayor do you have your hand up right now if so you can i can go after council member golder okay yes council member golder so this is one of my i mean this is a priority i don't know if it'll be in the top three but i'm gonna say why i think it's a huge priority to me i think um we have a hard time and historically with recruitment and retention of police officers and keeping our police department like full and so i just um and i think without police and fire our residents really aren't safe and something i see that maybe i was the only one that said i said it because it didn't end up on the list but i would consider this public safety is um one of the root causes of homelessness that i see is um drug addiction and um when i'm out in about and i do spend a lot of time walking through homeless camps i don't feel very safe when somebody that's high on drugs is talking to me in an aggressive manner and so i know i'm not the only person that experiences this in homeless camps or on the levee or walking through town and so for me um mental health is one thing but drug abuse and addiction is a whole another can of worms and i think like from a public safety perspective like somebody can be very unpredictable when they're on drugs and i think it you know when someone has drug addiction and i think that causes quality of life kind of crimes because they feel for their addiction and then it just it's like a snowball effect i don't know how to how to um address it other than that but it i think it's something that's important to me i think we're capturing that and like i think i said before too there's not a lot of like education for youth around um drugs in school there just isn't it's not there so it's like that's a problem okay mayor i think you had your hand up next and then we'll go to vice mayor meyers yeah i just think um you know there's been a lot of um push in the community around trying to rethink public safety and that's part of why we're gonna have the study session on mental health crisis response and you know rethinking what that can be and so this fits with homelessness as well because there's been a big you know i think we're at the beginning of a point where we can have a conversation around you know who should be responding to whether it's mental health substance abuse um or homelessness should those be police officers or should that be another group and so i think you know in the next couple weeks we're going to be having you know what will be the beginning of the conversation around that um so that we can really identify you know what are the you know who should be responding to those calls can you start doing things differently um and i mean you can have someone experiencing a mental health episode and that can be confused with somebody on drugs or um vice versa and so you know this is something that i think the public is really interested in and then just i mean given that we've had so many layoffs like as we reopen and you know depending on what happens next year if we have another social uprising covid's still going on you know how do we support our all of our public um safety systems you know fire included so that we can ensure that you know we are keeping our community safe um regardless of what kind of crisis we may face okay thank you uh vice mayor meyers you're next yeah i agree um i agree very much with what um council member colder and mayor Cummings have been stating um i think when we say provide for public safety i think it's almost it's almost kind of more of an analytical type of approach that we need um i do think that we do have a drug abuse and addiction issue that drives a lot of you know a lot of the issues that our community sees whether that's people um struggling with homelessness and not to say the people who are homeless or drug addicts you know drug addicts that that's not the correlation i'm trying to i'm trying to promote here but i do think that to the extent that we understand some of the pressures coming from um the drug aspect of of what i think many of us see in the community understand um the severity of that we just need to kind of i think kind of analyze that a little bit more and understand its role and where it's coming from and working with you know the education system and some others to see if we can really kind of get at that um in terms of that impacts on the quality of life and the success frankly of young of young people and of all people in our community i think that's one piece that kind of plays into these to these public safety issues um and then also i i appreciate that we're diving into the mental health response and police response i think that's another really important piece so um again i think this is um again it's it's a little bit of a number four for me it's it's this it's this real it's these social issues that continue they're not going to get solved in one year or two or three years but um really getting clear on causes on strategies on sort of really structurally understanding our approaches i think are kind of the things that i'm i reflect on when i look at you know when i look at public safety i look at homelessness those kinds of things um even just to some extent affordable housing um these are long plays you know and so but i think that clarity and really understanding our approach might be sort of sort of the priority um so those are my comments thank you okay thank you uh councilmember wadkins next i i appreciate the comments um by my colleagues i think you know for me one of the things that comes to mind is that often when somebody says public safety people think of different things um one of which is to deploy you know officers first responders once uh you know an incident has occurred another is um you know which is brought to my attention about being uh feeling safe as a for example undocumented resident to call law enforcement if there was an issue that occurred um also looking at it through the lens that um councilmember golder referenced in regards to investments in education and prevention and um and that includes public safety and creating those conditions where students are um or youth are informed and um optimal opportunity for their success is public safety so i think i guess where i'm going with this is that i think there's an opportunity for us to sort of um reassess and reevaluate to um vice mayor meyer's point around an analytical approach what are our needs and then looking at how are we making informed uh strategic um kind of investments in our resources that meet those needs based on how we're all interpreting public safety um and and so i mean and so in terms of how to prioritize that um i think you know we can think about what that looks like in terms of the broader context also when we have the conversation around the cahoots model etc at okay thank you uh councilmember matthews and you are muted councilmember um okay having a hard time picked the top three but i would say that um public safety broadly risk is a big issue for me and we all know this goes from everything to the wildfire response to marine safety to gangs etc i mean it's a very broad topic um i think and also i believe this showed up in all the different categories um that were interviewed um to me the perception the sense of public safety is something that's really important to our residents and our visitors and our businesses um do i feel safe and they kind of define that to themselves and um there is it's my perception that there's just a very um widespread ox for this issue that is a big challenge for um whether people want to invest more in government um whether they want to come downtown whether they feel safe um hiking in our parks etc you know we just adopted the parks master plan and it has safety written all throughout it so um it it can be a bit nebulous and it's broad but to me uh providing the reality and the perception of public safety um it's it's really important and it it will depend on a more effective response to the mental health and substance abuse issues that are so um driving the perception of public safety in the community and the minor crimes what are called minor crimes and that just drives people crazy okay thank you uh councilman other golder so i don't want to be like a gas bag and talk forever on this one but i just have to echo what councilman matthew said this was brought up on a couple of different ones and i think even from um you know an economic standpoint like the perception of feeling safe somewhere will make you want to go there or not like you know arriving in the middle of the night in south polo we were like let's get out of here we don't feel safe whereas like you know some places you want to enjoy and so i think it it contributes to our parks as well like when they just pulled out 255 gallon drums of needles up in Pogonib a couple weeks ago some people don't feel safe walking up there you know so we have to it almost ties into uh broader areas of our of our of our town because it's also you think about like even biking and walking and those kinds of things that you enjoy you want to feel safe you want to feel safe at the beach that there's life parts there or that you know i i don't know i just i think i think yeah public safety it it almost encompasses maybe it could be lived in with something else i don't know but i just think that it is very important thank you councilmember what comes you have to hand up again sorry i was just only the one thing i was thinking is i wonder if some of these broader like you know more collaborative type efforts are kind of encompassed somewhere in regards to like yes we're a partner in creating you know prioritizing public safety in all forms and responding as as needed but thinking about like there's you know this effort underway called neighborhood courts and it's part of this bigger sort of infrastructure and partnerships that are required um for community resilience but also in terms of how we as the city are thinking about our resources and um and and in economic wasn't economically efficient but also um you know socially just i think there's an opportunity for us to do that in an informed data kind of approach but with the other partners okay good thank you i'm there yeah your hands up that's one final comment because i think one thing that we don't think about and this is kind of interrelated with some of these other pieces but when we think about public safety as well you know given the number of people who've been laid off and you know fingers crossed we you know get some financial resources for people who are running out of unemployment and for people who um you know have seen a reduction in ways that are knowledgeable but part of that public safety is also ensuring that if you're living in this community and you've seen the loss of wages that you don't end up on the street because um you know when it's it's when people become resource depleted when they start resorting to other ways means of of gaining resources and so um you know i think that to the extent that we're really focusing on ensuring that you know people are stable in their homes and we're getting resources to people who you know if they need whether it's food rental assistance or what have you that that also fits into public safety because that's a big part of taking care of the community thank you council member brown i just want to echo mayor coming's comments there i think that uh thinking about public safety um as community safety thinking about that more broadly um as other council members have suggested is really important and um i agree that um and this kind of fits in with the theme that came up around um ensuring that people most in need are are served i do think that uh we we have with limited resources again we do have the we have a role to play in housing housing um and stable and so i i just want to um kind of add my my two cents about making sure that that is included in our uh kind of definition and and discussion around the concept of public safety yeah okay um let's move on to the next one which is downtown investment was brought up by more than one council member so what's the what would be the idea of this as a focus over the next 12 to 18 months what are your what are your comments in terms of intent for those of you who would like to comment on this my senator mires is your okay can i get up first yeah i think it's just it just popped up first and then popped up um yeah i mean i i i guess you know i kind of i mean kind of i mean i want to compliment you on this workbook um first of all because um you kind of you guys put this together along with the project list in the back it's sort of um and maybe it's a lot of reading i've been doing lately but it's in that um and i'm sure council member matthews can reflect on this um because i wasn't i was living here then but um i wasn't intimately involved in the recovery after the earthquake but um i i see downtown investment um it really sort of it i would expand it a little bit what i'm kind of seeing in this list is is sort of a kind of a mini uh mini stimulus type of outcome that we could pursue um and you know none of these things are all going to get done in the next 12 18 months obviously but you know putting these things into a package of a sort of economic and community investment stimulus just seems to be kind of popping for me right now as i as i read through the packet um it's kind of like a community resilience and quality of life investment sort of strategy that we could sort of um because when i look at the list in the back um in the very back of the report i mean we do have the housing project so we have three three different affordable housing projects that are coming online but we also have some privately um private housing projects as well so we've we've got you know a significant amount of investment around housing in the downtown um possible uh we've got um also the completion of a of a project called the resilient coast project which is really an investment into our coastal resources so it's our beaches it's west cliff drive it's some of our main features that bring tourism dollars and also provide quality of life for residents and also addresses some of our some of our neighborhoods that need some of these infrastructure investments we've got you know now three libraries that we're going to be building brand new libraries or at least significantly remodeled libraries in two cases and a new library and another and then we've got water infrastructure that's being rebuilt so we we have i mean just quick quick back in the napkin we got about a half a billion dollar mini um sort of well it's not very many that's sort of a stimulus package that's internal to the city of Santa Cruz and i see that sort of as a as a way for us to really think about how to bring jobs how to bring investment i think we need to look at tools like equitable depth development planning which is you know very much um underway and a lot of cities um and i think there's a lot of really good case studies and experts that we could draw on so i i guess when i see downtown investment um i see this infrastructure piece and with that and and these major projects and i also see that providing additional opportunity for some of our local businesses as well as sort of really following some of the things we've learned during covid which is you know the potential for open streets and some other things that we've put in place that have really shown that people really want to enjoy our downtown in a slightly different way so i guess it's a long way of saying you know i think this this for me is one of the top three but i think it's a little broader than just downtown i think it's this package of of really reinvesting and um kind of reinventing Santa Cruz to a certain extent but i would be very i would kind of add this equitable development planning aspect to this so that we sort of have a lens to look at it through which is making sure that we're not gentrifying making sure we're not displacing people and keeping um keeping all communities in place with regards to the outcomes so this is definitely one of the top three for me though so but i think it's bigger thanks thank you so Councilmember Matthews and Golder um this is a big one for me i think it can be um considered really a part of so many others um but it's essential to all of them when you talk about um uh as i mentioned under the long-term fiscal sustainability talk about recovering the critical um coq and retail sales tax um success of downtown is a significant part of that when we talk about supporting a green economy or growing a local economy jobs distances affordable housing infrastructure all of those um tied into the opportunities um that are facing us downtown particularly since we have in recent years revised the downtown plan the parking structure um we're working on the major projects coming forward that connect us to the river um in a way that fulfills uh goals that have been on the books for a couple of a couple of decades um it really is a key priority for me and um whether it needs to be pulled out by itself um the thing that um uh Councilmember Myers referred to i look back to uh following the earthquake um then um based with massive devastation downtown we came forward with um projects for the museum of art and history which is the cultural attraction open space attraction commercial attraction museum building attraction additional height of density and residential uses downtown such a potential now um with uh new parking structures with commercial uses in them um it's uh to me this is an opportunity to um really get some gains in multiple areas that will benefit us well into the future and i do believe coming out of covid there will be uh grant opportunities in all these areas um that if we are moving forward we have plans in place we will we will be well positioned that we certainly through coming out of the earthquake and coming out of the great recession um i think it is a time to um be visionary and be ready to take advantage of our efforts that are available okay thank you Councilmember Golder next um i will echo what the council number said before me i think this is super important and also looking at it from um the broader perspective that that um investing in this critical infrastructure that has been in the plans for a long time and following through with those plans will help the economy help housing help you know support a green economy if people are living and working in a in in close to mass transit and so i just don't want to see any of these critical infrastructure projects be put on the back burner at this point i mean i feel like it was just maybe this year i don't even know if it's even done yet that we finally finished down talent after 31 years um you know the there's still holes in the ground so we have what we finally have some momentum i'd hate to see it come to a standstill because of this i just want to i it's very important to me thank you councilmember uh what comes next oh no i'm sorry um councilmember brown and then what comes so yeah i i guess i kind of want to echo uh what i've been hearing from my colleagues um but i kind of feel like the downtown investment piece is should be brought in that we're going to talk about this as a as a focus area i agree uh that downtown is a critical part of that but we have you know we have small local businesses and other parts of town that are also struggling that are really important to the vitality of our our city uh writ large and i also think that um these and i think you know other council members have said this but i see these as happening they're already in motion as a matter of course and i i don't see us necessarily changing uh you know changing focus in these areas so i'm i'm not sure that i would put it at in my top three um as a focus area just because i feel like it's kind of happening um but i um i do agree that it is important that we kind of stick to the path that you know that we have laid out and uh continue to make those investments and not you know like shift gears uh but again for for me to be able to say that i want this to be one of our top three focus areas i would say it's kind of um in the kind of investment in you know healthy resilient community um that's just my i i like to focus on downtown but i think we need to think more broadly if we're gonna really think about our the way we invest thank you uh council member what comes next think one i guess one of the things i just i think a lot of what i've been thinking about really has been said already i do feel like this is part of the bigger um investment kind of package as was mentioned from um i think i believe the vice mayor mentioned it in regards to how are we um you know creating a um you know in regards to creating a downtown that is um it is about investing in economic stimulus is about thinking of resilience as thriving downtown is often an indicator of how well a community is doing so we need to prioritize our our downtown um and doing so also is a way to forward our equity you know hopes and regards to affordable housing opportunities as well as resiliency in terms of getting people closer to where they work in public transportation and where they can recreate while also providing uh investment for economic stimulation so how are we thinking of it sort of holistically and then also you know in terms of what councilor mass has brought up in that you know downtown's reinvent themselves um over time and so how are we making informed decisions about what we have it had and what was already kind of on the horizon with some of the um trends that we were seeing and then how are we uh how are we moving forward in a way that is um going to be more resilient in the future as well as poisoning our city to receive uh you know grants and funding and supportive effort just to help support our efforts as well okay and councilmember Matthews do you have another comment just a follow-up i'm glad to see that the term affordable housing got added that was part of what i mentioned because downtown is the one place where um most people feel comfortable with the idea of adding density and so um there does seem to be an openness to that and it's an opportunity for affordable 100 affordable next market and affordable projects so i definitely want to keep that on there and um i also just want to point out although it doesn't show up here um downtown really is kind of the uh psychological touchpoint for a lot of the people that live out in the county when they think of Santa Cruz they think they have to think of each and they think downtown so i think it's uh logical um just it's important to be committing okay thank you and mayor coming i'll try to keep it short because i think most of my sentiments have been said you know this downtown investment can also there's a few pieces like green economy restart local economy where i think like that restart local economy and we'll get there but i feel like a lot of these can be embedded under there if we want because and the reason why is because there's so many areas that are not only up and coming but that are um kind of expanding and i mean for example our west side you know po i mean i don't i wasn't here for the in 1989 earthquake but when i arrived in 2007 i've seen a lot of development of the west side since then um along with the east side and so i think that rather than kind of isolating and thinking of our town in terms of you know where is the central place that everybody's going to be the downtown we have these areas that of other areas that people are going to so also then thinking about you know um economic opportunity and investment to drop the entire city but specific to downtown given the fact that we've seen so many businesses leave and there's vacancies the one thing the one opportunity i do see is an is for us to rethink you know what should be the focus of the downtown and i can't see that as something that's on a 12 to 18 month trajectory really putting some deep thought into you know what we're dying trends so we knew before covid that retail was going down in the city because a lot of people are buying online it's likely not going to come back because i imagine a lot more people are comfortable purchasing online and so that there's not going to be that desire to go back to retail so what does the downtown become and what's and you know what should we be really focusing on when we want to bring businesses into our downtown empty spaces and and i do also want to mention as well that you know because we have so many empty storefronts downtown that i do also see you know they're they're being a need when we're thinking about recovery well that's an area that definitely needs a recovery plan because we've seen how badly it's been impacted and so i think that you know as we're going through these exercises and as we're kind of thinking about you know where our areas of focus i think we need to really focus on what's been impacted versus just what we feel like is important because the downtown has been significantly impacted and we need to try to figure out how we can have that area recover versus something like public safety which yes that's important to everyone it's something that it has is ongoing but when we really think about what has been the most impacted during covid and what needs the most recovery i can then see if we through that lens the downtown being an area that has been negatively impacted that we need to put some attention on in order to you know get it to recover from from covid and the impacts that it's faced okay good thank you okay let's move on to the next one so so our intent just from a process let me do a process check is to is to go through this same conversation for for all eight get your comments out and then we're going to take a break give everybody a break at that point and then we'll then we'll resume so just we'll continuing on with the next one of we heard some thoughts about supporting a green economy so we'd like to hear some ideas from council members as to your intent what is that what does that mean and that may have been informed by this previous conversation too let's see council member matthews has her hand raised first i think you mean it and that yes yes to that in all of this many forms whether it's visitors we we saw the state parks for a big issue or the environment was a big issue for visitors it's our marine sciences it's tech it's energy etc so all of those huge support one of the questions i have so that's just all i'm going to say there is that so rich and i think they're strong support for it one of my questions is this exercise given the fiscal situation that we're facing is the idea to pare down some of the things that are already on our list or to think of new things because that's kind of a big question you're looking at new initiatives shifting of energy carrying through what we have let's say well my understanding is that it's it's not creating new things it's it's um you're in a recovery period for the next 12 to 18 months so you really do need to prioritize and focus your efforts and you already have a lot of on your plate and so this discussion we're going through now is to get your thoughts about what council members individually have in mind as you're thinking about these eight and then we will need to narrow because we will have to have a a discussion and i know that martin will want to weigh in on this about a staff capacity i mean it's from a practical point of view um if you don't narrow what you are going to focus on over the next 12 to 18 months then you're unlikely to accomplish much at all thank you and i get just my final comment there on the green economy to what extent is the market just taking that topic and running with okay i think that's a good comment yeah it may be market-driven okay let's see the next person was vice mayor mayors you had your hand up next and then the mayor after that yeah i see this as um almost almost more of a uh a define a definition problem more than a um and i like the word support in this case because i think in many ways we have we are on the we are on the verge of we have done a pretty good job of creating the green economy here you know we have a thriving solar industry um we have um you know manufacturing that's focused on you know we have one of the pop inventors who invented an electric skateboard you know that is going through the roof we have you know the university is providing various you know resources and and and ways to look at manufacturing various products as well um you know there's a growing robotics and yeah so there's the our green economy i think is is sort of on is sort of lifting off i think um the places um that we can accent that green economy um is is really around calling it such and really recognizing the the innovation that's coming here so it to me this is um it's just to me this is sort of a marketing piece um you know everything from our organic food commitment and small scale food food resource you know food food innovation that goes on here um so i think it's and obviously i think our economic development department sort of has a beat on this but i think this is more of a for me this is more of a of really kind of coming out with what we do here you know we have one of the you know one of the world's only world surfing reserves is here you know that is part of our green economy you know that our ocean is part of our green economy um so i think we just don't call it that and i'd like this to to really look at um a way for us to express this a little more clearly in our recovery um as a community and as a city i think we do it but i think we just don't call it this and we we're not really marketing it so those are my thoughts thanks thank you uh mayor coming next yeah i kind of share a lot of the same sentiments as the vice mayor just really you know trying to do more to highlight um our green industries and then again you know when thinking about um reinvesting in our our downtown or um you know trying to attract other industries like really being mindful of um you know who we're trying to attract if we're tracking outside industries or you know if we want to support um industries that are trying to kind of launch themselves you know really focusing in on those you know green businesses and then something that i think fits into our green economy as well i mean i know green goes to sustainability but also cannabis is really taking off i mean we just got um a report out today from our city schools that the children's fun i think more than doubled this year and so or i think it doubled and so you know this idea that um you know there's this industry that's building and and it doesn't have to be you know manufacturing or growing what have you but you know what opportunities are there within that industry as well to you know really take advantage of since it's in its infancy and as it grows there's going to be opportunities okay good thank you um let's see councilmember uh what comes from then brown i shared um i'm sure some of what has already been said and one of the things i would just maybe offer is i almost see instead of supporting a green economy is how are we really more or less using a climate lens as we're thinking about recovery and by doing so um we'll accelerate a green economy we'll um create more resilient infrastructure we'll lead to good paying jobs which would hopefully lead to more affordable housing and the cost benefit or the to restore sort of the balance of affordability here um so how are we thinking about it i think maybe more holistically and then i think what i um would say is how are we accelerating what we already have and and and moving forward um as intentionally as possible i think we have a lot of really existing and underway but how are we able to sort of accelerate those um efforts and one thing that i found now being on the council is um although i've written grants in my like my other capacity that you know there are grant opportunities out there and there also will likely be more grant opportunities on the horizon so as we're thinking about moving forward with these efforts around um recovery how are we able to have uh resources to help us track those grant opportunities and to help us write those grants to receive the funding to support a number of these initiatives um which include um you know ways to sort of jumpstart our economy and the green economy and climate as well so i don't know where that could fit in as a possible kind of priority approach um but i definitely don't think it's something we want to miss by not having that kind of on our radar good good okay council member brown yeah i uh i absolutely agree about using a climate lens to evaluate a recovery and i you know i think i would just add to that you know our policy in general around um kind of infrastructure development and you know in other areas that the city has a role in you know in performing the work i guess i'd just say and i think that it's this for me supporting a green economy is all is really about integrating you know and and putting putting green jobs and and putting the green economy at the center part of that yeah is marketing and you know the the market's taking care of it on its own but also we can highlight those successes but also really being strategic about uh some how we we um very very um deliberately uh try to integrate the incentivizing and you know and activating the green economy and so i think that you know for example we have you know we have a climate action coordinator and tiffany wise west is amazing at you know trying to find grant opportunities and look at new strategic initiatives and i think that um you know and some of those that have come off you know many building out many grids and and kind of looking at our alternative uh transportation infrastructure build out and i think that um this is a place where that that is something that we should we could as um councilmember walken suggested really kind of accelerate and and kind of and give you know i would just love to give tiffany more support to be able to spend more time um and have a crew that's working on this specifically in cooperation with our economic development department i know that sounds like it may be kind of a new thing but i i do think that it's it's about integration and and cooperation and and and providing the resources that are needed to to really deliberately and and aggressively build this in okay thank you uh councilmember matthews and then the mayor after that okay having served on the uh this standings report for many many years um i just want to bring back in the visitor industry as a part of green economy we've seen so much move to eco tourism and really enthusiastic buy-in on that in terms of where people are choosing to go whether choosing to do how the um uh industry is responding to that in their own practices and um you know i think of uh the things the partnership with business Santa Cruz and also the state parks in terms of emphasizing the themes of stewardship um and whether it's um in our forests in the ocean and the footprint we leave et cetera i think that's that's a huge strength for us and it's it's part of this theme that as others have said uh uh really just needs to be i think highlighted thank you um mayor coming i was just gonna say i i feel like um and i'll be short with this i i feel like after hearing all the conversation that that the the notion in context of a green economy i feel like it's more of a value rather than like an area of focus it's something that we value across all these you know whether it's you know the businesses that come into our city or tourism it's a i feel like it's more of a value rather than something that we want to like really hone in on but i think that we should keep it um you know when we think about you know whatever our top three are you know that when we're thinking of fiscal sustainability or you know um you know recovering from uh covid and the impacts it's had that you know when we think about our economy moving forward and how we look at tourism that we really put the you know of emphasis on sustainability and um environmental protection at the forefront thank you okay thank you so all right so let's move on to next one i don't see neither hands on this one um okay so again there's a lot of discussion about uh the economy in one way or the other so this is a restart and grow the local economy with job and business creation so what are your what are your comments let's take help member gold or you are quick quick on the draw with your hand right well just because i felt like it tied back in with number one so i think this one is super important and then what some of the other council members have said uh that you know outside the downtown there's a lot of thriving business districts on the east side midtown you know um there's the the rebuilding of all those like i don't know what they're called but basically that were just warehouses in the past on the west side and there's some you know plans to put more um live work style buildings out there that i think um could really bring a lot to um you know in in in to our town okay thank you uh mayor Cummings you had your hand up next and then vice mayor Myers yeah again so this kind of ties in with a lot of topics that we've brought up before but i do think that being specific um you know identifying opportunities for workforce development and so i know i don't know if this goes on the bike rack but there has been some work and this was i think one of the items it was on the list before but there's been work with um labor the construction and with our public works water departments you know really thinking about how can we build and you know really start encouraging some of our youth to go into the trades as an opportunity for workforce because um what we've been seeing is that um our trades and the tradesmen within those trades are are you know getting to the age of retirement and there isn't a pipeline to get people into that workforce and so i mean given that that is a very you know in terms of you know what like the education that you have to get in order to enter that workforce which is generally high school diploma and then a lot of training along the way you know what can we do to start building out that workforce because that can be a very viable group within our community and then what are other sectors where we need to have workforce development so really i think that part of you know we start and grow the local like you know in terms of job and business creation part of that job creation being on um the trades and workforce development within the trades okay we'll capture that um okay vice mayor Myers uh yeah i uh yeah i definitely agree with a lot of what's been said um and i think um you know i i go back to i mean i i there's a couple things i think that i reflect on with 2008 and one was um you know the the the stimulus package that came out of the federal government obviously which was really targeted towards um you know sort of shovel ready projects but there was also this this intent to really try to support certain industries solar being one of them that was probably the most well known and then concurrent with that the state also passed several of the park and water bonds which were major investments in the billions of dollars and so um and i know just in my work that i do you know that those investments translated into really significant development of jobs here locally i mean you know we we had a we went from a couple of of nonprofits that maybe did restoration work and now we've got you know five six seven plus the university is working in it state parks is much more so i think to the extent that we think about this um i i i do think this is part of the context of um if you know it sort of rolls back to five um and i think it's this whole idea of um really evaluating the kinds of jobs that we would want to attract to Santa Cruz moving ahead um or being known for the place that does this kind of work um such that maybe it attracts um conferences and other things that might benefit you know our t at t so i do think that um i think this is uh important and it it's it's kind of its own animal you know i mean i think it fits with this kind of the infrastructure discussion we've had in the downtown investment but it's kind of the third wheel of of number one sort of infrastructure and and housing investment and those things and then number three would be sort of really creating the workforce for the future which you know now that we've been through covid we know that we have weaknesses in that in the opportunities for the people who live in here and who you know want to be here in Santa Cruz those are my thoughts okay thank you uh councilmember matthewson and what comes i have to make uh a quick comment uh mayor talked about something going in five rec and some people will remember the day when you had meetings and there was a side issue he was talking about sitting in a parking lot and now he's sitting in the parking lot that's a truck we're getting rain um a huge number of our businesses in Santa Cruz and the county are small businesses and i do think our economics we'll talk about what the city does our economic department has done a really good job and i i think it's really important to talk about going to local economy with child and business creation our partnerships with small business development center our co-sponsorship of so many things like think local furs and fanatics's work and all these these small initiatives that engage a huge number of individuals in small businesses are really really productive so i don't want that to be forgotten and um i think that's it and and also i guess the the chamber large number of the chamber members are small businesses so that that's a really important uh aspect of the character of art we have some great big ones that we also have a huge number of small and they're the ones that kind of need uh to pay the help and i again want to commend the economic development department for what they've done in the covid crisis and in the wild part crisis i'm just jumping in there saying what can you do to help our small businesses pay a lot of taxes and that's that's a good thank you um councilmember Watkins um no thank you i definitely agree in that this is um so interconnected in regards to some of the other areas we've discussed um when we're thinking about uh our role as a city we i think have to take into consideration how we're partnering uh with our business sector but also with education and thinking about how for example there's an initiative called the Santa Cruz County College and now career um as for the career readiness now i'm placing on exactly all the different they just enter name but nonetheless there's a collaborative around really trying to integrate um opportunities for our educational institutions to work with the industry to their uh to better have a way for pathways for employment and successful jobs in our region to the point around thinking about how are we generating and working with our um our partners and also thinking about the data and really getting informed um on what the issues are with our businesses what businesses have been able to be more resilient than others and then how are we supporting our businesses and planning for future resilience and um in areas of uh whether it be a natural disaster i hope there's not another pandemic in anytime soon but but as stressors come to communities so how are we thinking about becoming as resilient as possible and supporting our businesses in doing so um it's but it's all interconnected in terms of what um sort of we were talking about with the sort of broader context around uh sustainability and long-term planning okay uh Mary you're had your hand up yeah i also think that this is probably a good area um when we think when we're talking about like green economy and so like average like if we're thinking about restarting and you know we're thinking about tourism or branding like this is probably a good area where that green economy could come in because it's it's a it's a point where we can you know whether it's through visit Santa Cruz or um just advertising and highlighting the different kinds of businesses that are in Santa Cruz like really trying to put that green sustainable brand out there i think would really fit into this kind of area focus okay great okay i think we've gotten lots of good ideas out here and these just like all of the other areas are um about five to ten years way more than 12 to 12 to 18 months so we'll we'll come back to that one uh lots of good ideas um okay so let's move on to the next one Claire okay affordable housing was another area that was mentioned by some council members as a uh an area of possible priority focus so again we'd like to hear comments uh so what would you envision that to be over the next 12 to 18 starting with the the mayor i see your hand up um well i know that you know we there's a number of projects that are coming online so i think to the extent that we can continue supporting those projects and also um just identifying future projects and you know potential sources of funding from the state i think that's going to be critical and one thing that didn't make it to the list that has been in the works and we're going to be talking about it next week and it's going to be custom on that by crack is um that there's a data a rental housing data uh subcommittee and we're going to be having a presentation from an organization called 3di which they have created ways ways to efficiently collect data on rental housing and i think personally that's something that's really important because not only does it feed into understanding how people are being impacted um which can kind of fit into what we were discussing earlier on public safety but additionally you know it can give us a sense of and a way to establish a way to track our housing over time especially with an emphasis on tracking affordable housing because we do know that with a lot of the older mom and pop landlords as they start you know deciding to sell their homes or you know when they pass their homes along to their children if we're seeing a decrease in the number of those affordable housing units it creates an opportunity for us to not only be able to identify what's coming offline but also it gives us an opportunity to advocate at the state level saying you know hey we had all these um houses that were affordable they're all being sold because they're single family homes we need you know we're going to have a really huge you know we have a crisis the housing crisis it's going to get worse we need more funding to be able to you know create more affordable housing in our community so I think it's an opportunity for us to have um you know to put in some kind of data collection effort especially because you know with everybody being financially hit hard and um you know with eviction protections coming offline um with the fire evacuees and then as the university opens what impact is that going to have when we see you know 10 to 15 thousand students come back I think it's really important that we're starting to track what's happening with our affordable housing now because it can be very um negatively impacted moving forward after as we emerge from this crisis and I and I'd also say as well it can give us a sense of how landlords have been impacted as well by the crisis because we do I have heard a lot of stories about landlords reducing their rents but again it's all anecdotal so I think that we could have a really good source of data that can really inform policy moving forward and so that's just one in addition to trying to find opportunities to create more affordable housing. Thank you. Councilmember Golder and then Brown. I just want to say that I would like to also keep the projects that we have on the books like moving forward and then to the extent possible when we're talking about like raising fees for things like not raising fees in the permit process that are going to discourage people from creating these future buildings that can be affordable or mixed use in the next 12 to 18 months because there's a lot of other factors that are already increasing the cost of construction and so if we can encourage it by not I don't know you know making it too too much compared to other neighboring cities. Thank you. Councilmember Brown and then Watkins. Thank you. I so many of you know those who have heard me talk about affordable housing in the past know where I stand on this being the number one priority for me were it not for a global pandemic and economic crisis and city fiscal crisis I would be saying this is absolutely the number one thing and so I do think I want I do want to see us continue to move forward with the projects that we have been you know working towards and I want to really just shout out to our economic development department for the work that they're doing I you know I think that they're absolutely finding those opportunities where they they are arise and they're you know they're working to put it all together to make these three projects that we have in the downtown area hopefully a hundred percent affordable move forward so I definitely don't want any of that to get derailed I and I have other thoughts on how we can make affordable housing more of a priority for the city you know and I think we have an opportunity to talk about that at our housing study session but you know I just want to say that yes continue to do what we're doing but also really really focus you know I think the city has an opportunity here to be to play a stronger role in promoting the development of affordable housing we tend to accept that the market is going to get housing built and that is true and with lack of you know lack of resources for significant subsidy we are you know we are challenged but I do think that we we have other opportunities so really really focusing on you know city property and you know other ways that we can leverage additional sources of funding which again you know I don't want to suggest that that's not already happening I mean that is what our economic development department is doing so you know I just want to kind of put a shout out to them and suggest that this is really a significant priority for me and I do think that we should keep moving on the many of the policies that came out of the housing blueprint subcommittee report committee that I was on with councilmember Watkins and you know and and so and that does involve looking at our fee structures and you know other ways that we can make it easier for people to build and or to build ADUs for example and to get abated units back online I think there's a lot of work we can do there and it's it's sort of happening but I'd like to see that accelerated if possible thank you councilmember Watkins I think I was you know I was just pretty much about to say the same thing affordable housing and addressing the need of affordable housing has always been a priority as long as I've been engaged with the city and there was a year-long effort by then mayor chief that led to a really substantive blueprint to not only to serve existing affordable housing but to see increasing housing while also balancing community vitality and I know some of those initiatives have actually you know they've come to fruition others have been you know put on pause but a number of them really fit into what are an investment in our downtown for example how are we using city-owned properties to create more affordable housing looking at certain parking lots and consolidated parking in downtown was one of the one of the the priority areas but looking at data and having next to studies and being informed by what is the way that cities can create the most affordable housing possible given sort of all of the various constraints and potential assets so I do feel that the housing blueprint session will be a great foundational resource for us to think about where we've seen progress with some of the policies that have been outlined in that document but how are we moving forward with some of the other priorities that haven't necessarily been prioritized at this time that might be more ripe for us to move forward on but I think this also then goes back how are we tying that into ways to create more climate resilient buildings and there's the green jobs and solar et cetera so I think it's all really interconnected and we have really great information already on the books that we can use so those are just sort of my my thoughts on that on on this priority area thank you council member rapheus we're briefly just saying the course on the initiatives we currently have in line looking at the objective standards for design looking at the opportunities for revising ADU we just took some major steps recently to some of the zoning code ordinance changes and i look forward to the to the study session it may well be that the state is leapfrogging ahead of us so i do think there's actually a lot of potential here oh and the other thing i wanted to mention which others haven't i know there's been discussion in the past and some projects in line with employer-based housing with the school district and some of the major healthcare providers in town so that's kind of a little niche but it's an important one for workforce housing okay good thank you okay mayor is your hand up or was that just a uh no okay didn't want to miss you okay so let's move on to the last one number eight it looks like you have vice mayor Myers with their hand raised oh i'm sorry that's okay i thought i had a raise but i realized it wasn't raised oh okay no worries no worries um yeah i won't i not a lot to add i think i think very consistent with all my colleagues on this i i guess the thing that um i think about with this is um really tiny um and i think that uh you know the struggle we have with meeting the sort of perfection of affordable housing um in a sense can pass us by um because we i i believe we need to be ready for the available types of stimulus and funding and other things that come through um post recessions um and again i think um you know using the library as an example we know we've lost significant resource in that funding just you know over the last few years of making sure you know making sure reevaluating the project several times so i think with um housing specifically i i want to also compliment our economic development department and the housing team um you know everyone in california needs to build affordable housing and um the more we look for um sort of the perfect the perfect package of affordable housing um i i fear that we sort of will lose will lose um some opportunity there so i guess um this is this is really hot we have to really weigh our strategy around moving ahead with this as a priority because um the resource is not going to be there forever because other communities will we'll take it and you know they'll take advantage of those resources especially when it comes to to um offsetting the cost of building a unit of housing which of course has gotten very expensive in our area so i think there's a um this is uh this is an important priority um i think it rolls into some other things but i think it's um there's an opportunity cost here that if we don't sort of really really evaluate and get on you know are able to really move projects forward i think we could potentially lose some of those some of those resources thanks okay thank you okay great thank you okay the last one is infrastructure improving and maintaining infrastructure so i wanted to get your thoughts about what would be your intent if this were a focus area for the next 12 to 18 months um it looks like uh the mayor has his hand up first and then uh council member uh golder and then matthew just had a question with this and this one in particular because i feel like between this one and affordable housing there are for example projects that are underway and you know are we thinking about in addition to what's already happening what would we want to do or would we want to or just those projects like as they're now my understanding and martin certainly can clarify is that it would not be new projects because of the lack of resources but rather if this is an area of high priority than the than the staff and the council would really be focusing in on this over the next 12 to 18 months they you know under the the reality of there are limited staff resources and financial resources i would add that the you know recent years the focus has been on really funding for infrastructure which there might be an opportunity to tie it into the the item number one to some extent also as it relates to potential grants or stimulus to be able to move forward with the particular projects particular with this stimulus like as it was noted before where um there was an interest in activating the economy and moving forward with ready shovel projects so i think that's where it kind of ties in um and of course a lot of it the infrastructure needs that we have in our community revolve around our facilities our park systems those are really the the more significant ones so if new dollars are available which they may be from the federal government you know have shovel ready is that what you're saying our team yeah yeah i think they're definitely that that would be an opportunity and also it could tie into some of the other like some of the housing projects those provide also opportunities to improve infrastructure okay good okay with that then mayor did you want to comment because that was a clarifying question i think yeah i guess i'll just i i mean like i feel like you know the library is something we can't stop on because you know we like if we were to say this isn't a priority i feel like there's still projects that would keep moving forward that's why no one declared it because i know our you know our work master plan's coming back um we just voted on you know getting in contact with the library so i guess for me i'm just kind of wondering is the idea that we would think about other infrastructure projects because i mean it like in water for example that something that we're you know we're not going to stop investing in the infrastructure on water so you know if the idea is that we would try to think about new projects um versus kind of continuing to move forward with these i would say no i would say maybe uh only if the opportunity comes up obviously to to move forward with existing projects um or to you know in this time period to identify funding for for future projects but no we wouldn't initiate new projects i feel like there's no i mean like for some of these it's kind of like there's no way we can stop with some of the projects that are right there's so far away or the or like you know like the library like we can't it's not like we can just say you know we're going to pick three and because we didn't pick infrastructure we're going to stop all work on the library so i just wonder if oh right that's great that's great there are some for example as you noted the uh enterprise funds the water system you know those are those are funded there's a funding source for them those are perceived uh the the the limitations are more on the general fund the library project that has funding there's bond funding there's parking funds so some will proceed because there are funding sources there are deadlines and they have to continue um i think i think uh and uh i'm not sure what the all the uh the rationale was for the divisions that listed this on there but uh if the question is are we going to be able to make uh improvements or add projects that are not within our existing sort of scope or that are funded or that are in the general fund in particular the answer would be no because there is no funding for for infrastructure projects in the general fund um and uh also you know just disturbing capacity to do so uh you know there are there are those exceptions that uh were noted around enterprise funded or that are already funded um but otherwise it wouldn't be a less flex some like i said if there's a the similar package that includes funding to be able to make some improvements that we already know we can we can take advantage of it for example making some parks improvements or some a lot of times for example we are taking advantage of making um as you as you've seen on on solar projects on um uh HVAC uh energy energy conservation projects that sort of thing um so we you know we'll continue to get advantage of those opportunities as they come up so i think it is a let me just comment and then all the other council members do want to comment naturally on this because it is an important area it is always um a bit challenging and in terms of setting priorities uh when you do have a number of projects that in fact are moving forward and you want to continue moving forward the the idea here with during the interim recovery period is is for the council then to say though for the next 12 to 18 months we're really going to focus on these three areas whatever they end up being and just because you have projects moving forward doesn't mean that shouldn't be a focus area because things don't happen just because they happen they happen because resources staff time are put into them and if that turns out that infrastructure is indeed one of the council's top three priorities for the next 12 to 18 months and then when we get down to that voting then that should uh that should emerge so it shouldn't i just wanted to mention it should not be the thought should not be well it's going to happen anyway you know it's what are what are the council's priorities i mean that's really will be the question when we get to that point of voting but having said that let's just hear what council members had on your mind especially those of you who mentioned infrastructure as a priority starting with council member golder so to me this is a super big priority um probably number two because i think sometimes you can use you know deferred maintenance as a strategy to save money but then eventually um the cost of repair or replacement is going to be greater and so to the extent we can move forward with the projects that are already on the books i think that this should be a number two and including but like you know the war for the metro project the library other water projects and things like that that we can't just ignore or you know bill um end up costing more in the long run thank you uh council member mathies and then uh life fair buyers um this is definitely a priority for me the we could fold it under number one we could get the economy back going many of those other categories as well um the enterprise funds um my mind uh are are moving forward and have the staff support and funding to do that um i do want to move forward with some of the other major ones that have been mentioned already and particularly because right now i think they are not only necessary but an opportunity so uh i talked to staff members yesterday just writing grants like right now so um i think we have so many unmet needs that are a high priority whether it's um um energy savings or like pedestrian improvements or whatever so um they are projects that want it's an opportunity to actually get funding funded and move forward and and they do fit into this longer goal thank you uh vice mayor um Myers uh we're not doing a very good job of picking things off our list um yeah i mean i think that this is it's a council member colders um you know mention of sort of sort of the deferred maintenance um problem that sometimes you know where we end up um having you know having to fix things at a much more expensive cost um again i kind of think of this as i think i'm understanding from Martine that you know these kinds of things aren't necessarily going to stop but you know there's a certain level of commitment that we you know just have to acknowledge either we can't make at a certain point in time this one seems a little out of sorts with our 12 to 18 month sort of timeline but this is one i know i i i mentioned in the um i think in the interviews so i i guess i think that um curious about our kind of the new revenue source and what it means with regards to infrastructure and i specifically i'm kind of really focused on sort of parks because it is general fund um dependent and i look at some of um of course there'll be grants but there's also going to be you know there are parts of our parks that really do need the you know improvement and maintenance aspects to this so i i i kind of see this as something we need to be thoughtful about when we create or we define the new revenue source that we might be targeting um and i think specifically um based on some of the the survey results i think specifically for our parks parks and open space needs um there's real risk that those areas could be heavily impacted um during this downturn if we're not thoughtful about um how what what our priorities are about about those specific um places thanks thank you i'll count remember what comes from then brown um i'll just say i appreciate the comments made by vice mayor mires in that our parks are the most vulnerable in terms of our infrastructure without kind of the enterprise funding to support them um you know i think one of the things that we also have underway is our um coastal infrastructure and sort of our climate resilience coastal planning that's occurring so how are we thinking about that as part of the infrastructure conversation um absolutely looking at grants and revenue sources but also remembering that um when thinking about infrastructure we can also think about how it is tied to creating good paying jobs and creating local workers for those jobs and even really seeking out to get the work the workforce that has um has the sort of the populations that have been left behind to be those workers so i think it's just part of that holistic conversation i do agree in that um either we're paying for it after it's broken but we have aging infrastructure like most of our nation really and and it's unfortunate that we haven't had more investments or support at the kind of the federal and state level to support infrastructure but hopefully um more funding will be on the horizon and we'll be able to make some of these um really critical investments if not we're we're gonna have to fix and pay for them later uh but how we're thinking about the parks because they're the most vulnerable i think is a really important point that that Vice Mayor Myers brought up thank you councilmember brown and then mayor i was also going to uh call out uh parks and open spaces i think that it's it's really we are really at risk here of um taking a step backwards and we you know we have this amazing some that um if we let it go is going to be a lot harder to um kind of get back to um you know good management practices and all of that so and and that is partly infrastructure but i see that more as a services question um and so i think that we just need to um maybe that's a uh bike uh bike bike thank you i don't know why the wouldn't come thank you and yeah and i agree you know i i don't think that we can um we can ignore uh infrastructure but i also want to remind everyone that we kind of say this every year at budget time i mean at least my time on the council and other years when i've watched as an absurd you know been an observer um you know we always say it's a priority and then we never have the money to really make those investments and so i think that um if we make you know to the extent that we want to make this one of our three priorities i i think that we need to be really focused about what we mean there because we can just continue to say year after year infrastructure is a huge priority and here's our big list of you know the capital program that never gets actually funded so you know i think that um i think that there's within this some some uh you know maybe prioritization within the infrastructure category that um we ought to be thinking about and you know i think that staff has has done a great job of kind of honing in on what's doable where the funding sources are and but one thing i just want to add into the mix is um you know i think that we've made a great start with our commitment to the rail trail and so that's an alternative you know transportation infrastructure that will serve us well in the long term and i think that um that's an area where you know i'd like to see us put some more focus on you know in terms of you know bike pad infrastructure and um you know that's again probably a longer term thing but since we're talking about all of the infrastructure i thought i would just add that in the mix but yeah it it's you know it's hard to keep saying it's a priority and then see that it kind of you know it's hard to fund and it's just right now okay uh mayor commings and then councilmember matthew yeah just kind of hearing from you know and my understanding is correct but if you know the if the idea is that for example you know we have a number of infrastructure projects that are coming up the library with the affordable housing the metro with affordable housing i would actually consider the the pipeline project with um the construction of the affordable housing with office space for dientes and the health center along with the wharf along with the rail trail you know i think that it was touched upon by a number of my colleagues that you know in addition to that being investing in infrastructure it also creates jobs and part of that is creating the affordable housing that we're saying we need so if my understanding of around you know you know improving infrastructure and investing in infrastructure if that is kind of falls into that category then i think that that would be you know definitely like number two on the list because it would actually achieve a number of the goals that we're trying to get to around workforce development workforce you know stimulating the workforce creating the infrastructure that we need and then creating housing and also you know also in addition to creating those things we're then we then also have another way to draw people to our community so whether it's people being able to bike from one side of the city or from capitol to the west side or whether it's you know attracting people to a new library or a newly renovated wharf and knowing that the longer we wait to renovate the work the work the worst it's going to get you know i think that that hits a lot of the goals that we're trying to achieve so if my understanding of you know investing in infrastructure encompasses that then i think that would be you know one of the goals at the top for us okay uh councilmember matth