Well, the mics are on whenever you're ready. All right, I guess we'll get started. Good morning. Welcome to the 11 AM public portion of the closed session of the January 20, 2020 meeting of the city council. In this part of the meeting, the council shall receive public testimony thereafter. Council members will move to the courtyard conference room for closed session. I would like to ask the clerk to please call the roll. Thank you, Mayor. Council members Watkins? Here. Matthews? Here. Brown? Andy. Clever? Here. Sorry. Here. I love that. Everybody awake? Yeah. Yeah. We're all here. Cell phones off. Brown is currently absent, and Vice Mayor Meyers is currently absent, and Mayor Cummings. Here. Are there any members of the public who would like to speak to any items listed on the closed session agenda? Seeing none. I will adjourn this meeting to the courtyard conference room where the council will go into its closed session. I go there, I don't know about it. Split second, it's like, okay, come over here. You want to start? Sure. Good morning, and welcome to our 1148 session of the January 28, 2020 meeting of the city council. And I'd like to ask the clerk to please call the roll. Thank you, Mayor. Council members Watkins is currently absent. Matthews? Here. Brown? Here. Here, no. Glover? Here. Brown? Here. Vice Mayor Meyers, here, and Mayor Cummings. And if the clerk could please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. We'll follow this up with an introduction of new employees. I'd like to invite up the director of planning and community development, Lee Butler, to introduce Lane Zorich, associate planner one. Good afternoon, Mayor and council members. It's my pleasure to introduce you, Lane Zorich. She joined us early this year, or excuse me, in mid-December. And she grew up in rural Sonoma County and found an interest in urban planning while completing her bachelor's degree in geography from UC Santa Barbara. She received her master's degree from the London School of Economics in Urban Studies and Development. And her thesis there researched the role of community-based organizations on poverty management strategies in San Francisco's homeless population. After graduating, she spent time with a nonprofit in rural South Africa teaching entrepreneurial skills through sustainable agriculture to the local community. And then she joined the city of Brighton, Colorado's planning department before joining us here. She's got some great ties to the city and her family history. Her five times great-grandfather, Adina Hecox, was the last alcalde, or mayor, of the Santa Cruz Pueblo before statehood. And he was also the first lighthouse keeper for the city of Santa Cruz and served as treasurer and judge for the county. And the city's first public museum was founded after his daughter, Laura Hecox, dedicated her collection of natural artifacts to the city, some of which can still be found in the Natural History Museum. In Lane's free time, she enjoys reading, hiking, aerial arts, and is an avid traveler. So please welcome Lane. Welcome to the city. Next, I'd like to invite up Chief of Police Andy Mills to introduce Jeffrey Shaver, police and property of an in-specialist. Well, good morning, council, members and mayor. It is still morning. We've got a couple more minutes left. I'd like to introduce you, Jeffrey Shaver. Our police and property evidence specialist, Jeffrey, comes to us. He was actually raised here in Santa Cruz, but moved to Alabama, National Champs. And in 2013, where he got experience in industrial manufacturing and field working with Mueller Water Products, the largest supplier of fire hydrants worldwide. And Marcus, you can keep your hands off him. Thank you. And he came back to California in 2016, where he continued gaining experience in inventory control and reconciling property. He spent seven years of experience now, and now he comes to us where it changes dramatically. And we're so happy to have him. He lives in Scotts Valley, and loves taking his dogs, Bella and Gunner, to the beach for a walk or on West Cliff. And on sunny days, anyway, and then grabbing a custom beer with his friends. So if you're interested in craft beer, this is the guy. So anyways, welcome aboard, Jeffrey. Next I'd like to invite Director of Public Works, Mark Dettel, to introduce George Juarez, Parking Facilities Maintenance Assistant, Connor Pollard, Assistant Engineer One, Kaley Soon, Wastewater Reduction Assistant. Good morning, Mark Dettel, Director of Public Works. And it is my pleasure to introduce George Juarez. He's a new parking facilities maintenance assistant. George grew up in the beach flats in Santa Cruz and currently still lives in Santa Cruz. He's married and has two children, a six-year-old son and a five-year-old daughter. He, as far as past experience, he worked as a supervisor at 7-Eleven locally. He attended Harbor High and some Cabrillo courses focusing on culinary arts.  So please welcome George. I'm going to, next to George is Kaley Soon.  And she was born and raised in beautiful Napa Valley, California. She currently lives in Santa Cruz and has, okay, this is an interesting one, you gotta listen to her. She has a thousand pets, any idea what they are? And they help her clean up her food scraps every day. Worms. They're worms, exactly.  She is a past work experience, ranges from a wine maker to wastewater laboratory technician. She's worn many different hats. However, she thinks she's finally caught, find her calling in waste awareness. She graduated from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo with a major degree in enology. Enology, you know what that is? Wine. Wine making, very good. Science of winemaking with a minor in biology. When she's not working, she loves to play in nature or in the garden to cook and dance to great music as much as she can. And a fun fact she liked to share in high school, she had the opportunity to attend the inauguration of President Barack Obama with her choir. So please join us as our new waste reduction assistant, Kaley. Recycling program. She was also a graduate from our master's recycling program that she forgot to put on here, but I do remember that, so. And next to Kaley is Connor Pollard. He's a new assistant engineer, one. He was born in Riverside, California, and he now lives in Santa Cruz County, off Soquel, San Jose Road, near the summit. He has a mini-doxin named Tiki and two cats, Tiger and Cookie. And past experience, he's worked mainly his entire career in water. He worked for the Water District of Marin County and before that in Goleta, just north of Santa Barbara. He graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a degree in hydrology. And when he's not working, he plays guitar, spikes the snowboard, hike, garden, and read nonfiction. A fun fact is he's a dual citizen of the US and New Zealand. So please join me in welcoming Connor Pollard. Thank you very much. A few announcements, and then we'll move on to our regular meeting. Today's meeting is being broadcast live on community television, channel 25, and streaming on the city's website, cityofsantacruise.com. Our rules of decorum are on the window ledge to my left, and it's my job to keep the meeting running without disruption. And we ask that you respect your fellow citizens when you are inside or outside our chambers. I'd like to ask council members if there's any statements of disqualification today. None. I'd like to call on the city clerk and minister to announce any additions or deletions. Oral communications is an opportunity for members of the public to speak on items that are not on the agenda. Oral communications will be held around 7 PM. I'd like to call on the city attorney to provide any reports on closed session. Thank you, Mayor Cummings, members of the city council. This morning a brief closed session commenced at 11 o'clock in the courtyard conference room to consider the following items. One was a liability claim, the claim of Markle for Santa Cruz Bay, Inc. DBA Deeks Market. Item B was conference with labor negotiators. The city received a report from its chief negotiator, Lisa Murphy, concerning Fire Locals 1716. Lastly, a public employee performance evaluation concerning the city manager position. There was no reportable action. I'd like to call on the city manager to report and provide any updates on city events and business items. Thank you, yes, there's a couple of items. Bonnie, if you could put up the slides, okay, thank you. Just really briefly, once again, the housing staff has asked that I announce the Housing and Urban Development Consolidated Plan that we're currently working on and that we have a survey that's still going and it's up until the end of the month. The survey results are intended to help determine how best to prioritize funding designated for eligible programs, projects, and services in our low income communities and neighborhoods and that'll be before the council. The survey's available in Spanish and English until the end of this month. So there's still a few days left so that the more input we get, the better. And then secondly, just wanted, just pleased to report and let the community know in the council know that our finance department has received a budget award. We've received this multiple years, but once again, the government finance officers association distinguished budget award was provided to the city and essentially reflects the commitment of the governing body and the staff to meeting the highest principles of governmental budgeting and presentations. And the guidelines for giving the award are based on whether, how well the city's budget serves as a policy document, financial plan and operations guide and the communications device. So as a result of the review, this is reviewed by all of the public government officers, finance officials throughout the state and they give these awards nationwide.  And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. Some members have any questions for the city manager? Seeing none, we'll move on to our next item which is council member memberships and city groups and outside agencies. This is a time for council members to report out on actions at external boards, committees, and joint powers authority meetings. For future meetings, please come prepared to provide an update on any meetings or actions that occurred since the last council meeting. So the council and the public can be informed. And so I'd like to know if there's anyone who would like to start these report outs. Thank you, mayor. So I'll report back about the most recent meeting of the public safety committee. We met earlier last week to discuss a variety of issues. One was on tasers, the alternative forms of force that could be used by the police as opposed to lethal force. We received a great presentation by the deputy police chief and one of the lieutenants, Lieutenant Bush, I believe, and deputy police chief Filippo, about the different styles of alternative deterrents that they have. And they brought physical ones to the meeting, which was really nice to be able to see that and have that tactile experience with the foam bullets and the pepper balls and the bean bags to get an idea of what they felt like and what they looked like. As well as kind of get an understanding of their de-escalation tactics and the way that they try to avoid using force as well as answered questions on their policy, so it was a really nice presentation. We decided to table or postpone the additional two items, which were a conversation and an update around needles in our community as well as setting up a work plan because we only had two out of the three members of the committee present. So we wanted to make sure that we had a holistic and group opportunity to discuss the work plan. And we are planning our next meeting to take place some time before the end of February. And hopefully we'll be advertising that for the community to be able to come and participate when that date gets set. Very much. I was part of that and I think that Council Member Glover summed it up pretty well. Another committee I sit on is the community advisory group with the university. We haven't met for a while and there's a lot of, I would consider tension on the university campus. And the chancellor sent out a letter yesterday with some compensation for graduate students. But I think from talking to some graduate students wasn't nearly enough. And she said that she would begin sanctioning graduate students who didn't turn in their grades. So that was a step up in sort of like what the university is going to do as a result of the graduate student grade strike. Very much. Council Member Myers, is there anything to report? I'll report. Excuse me on a couple of things. Let's see, the downtown management corporation. We met last week and we got an update on a number of things. Specifically, what's called the PBID, which is a restructuring of the financing for our downtown district. That process has been going on for almost eight months and so that's going to be moving forward and probably coming towards Council sometime in the, I think, late spring or early summer. That will be a significant step forward in sort of re-looking at how we finance and organize around our downtown area. We also got some updates on outreach in parking garages and making sure people are keeping their things safe and secured and locked up in their cars. The efforts to kind of do more personal outreach in our parking garages. So, downtown volunteers being deployed to be able to help, especially during the holidays folks, just making sure they lock their cars and things like that. So, a lot of good outreach going on in the downtown through our downtown ambassadors and seeing a lot of really positive things from that program. So those were all really good things to hear. The cows working group met just last week and we will be initiating some additional studies. We hope with Stanford University to understand a little more around water circulation there at Cowles Beach. A research group from Stanford University did come to their meeting and made a proposal and we expect to hopefully do that work in April. Also, the Cowles Working Group will be meeting with the Stewardship Council of the Santa Cruz World Surfing Reserve next week. And we'll be updating each other on the work regarding the World Surfing Reserve and some of the stewardship activities of that organization. And finally, I think those are my two report outs right now. The Downtown Library Subcommittee, we met in December. A lot of information was put out around the library remodel. The existing library remodel and our committee will be probably reconvening, I believe in February to look at some evaluation criteria and some other things. So there'll be more coming out on that. And then lastly, I'll just, I did attend the League of California Cities Policy Committee, Statewide Policy Committee last Friday in Sacramento. A lot of really good legislation for us to track this year significantly. And sponsored by the City of San Jose is an effort. It's Senate Bill 378, sponsored by Senator Wiener. City of San Jose is heavily involved in this. And this bill would specifically look at reimbursements from PG&E on the shutoffs. As well as really trying to develop much more, much better communication strategies and command center types of resources for cities and counties to be working together with PG&E. And so this is a significant bill that seems to be moving pretty well through the legislature. Bills are due February 21st, so it's a very busy time in Sacramento. Also just briefly, we did hear that the governor, both in his budget as well as anticipated in his state of the state, will be focusing again on housing funds, homelessness funds. And also has initiated something called the Climate Catalyst Fund, which will, I think, fit with a lot of the things we're working on with sea level rise and some of the other items that are coming up. So that was a great meeting to be able to attend. That's all I've got, thanks. Thank you. I also attended a meeting last week, the US Conference of Mayors from last Wednesday to Friday. And it was a great opportunity to engage with mayors from around the country. Many of the issues are issues that we're similarly experiencing here in Santa Cruz around affordable housing, homelessness, addiction, there's also many concerns around public safety, especially in larger cities. But there are a lot of different tools and a lot of technology that was presented around data collection that seems like it might be worth pursuing for the city. In particular, there was a session on economic mobility and there was a 2020 economic mobility report, which I'm going to hopefully be sharing with some of the department heads and members of the city council, which really focused on some of the programs that have been implemented in different cities, ranging from less than 50,000 residents to over 200,000 residents. And really kind of comparing how these programs have been effective in different communities. And I think it would be a good place for us to work from, given that it was a report, looking at 56 cities from around the country. In addition to that, there was a meeting of the Rental Data Subcommittee. There's an opportunity for us to preview sub-technology that could be used for not only rental data collection, but also for code enforcement. And in addition to those two items, it also seems like a really good way to see what housing is available in our stock. What are the different, is it close to transportation? Schools, what are the cost of housing? And so it can be used in addition to a tracking mechanism, but as a way for students to actually find housing within our community. And so we will be meeting again in the next week or two. And then we'll be bringing an item back for council to consider later in February. And those are the only two I have to report out on. Okay, so, and I would just add on that, I was not able to attend the presentation made by the company that has this software. But they do have a record of being able to provide this kind of data collection system. And I think that was something that was kind of hanging us up and our planning staff suggested that with this, some of the challenges that they had thought might arise would kind of be ameliorated. So that was really good news to hear that it may not take very much staff time to implement something. And you'll hear more about that when we give you a recommendation. In terms of Outs External Committees Commissions, the Regional Transportation Commission met last week, I believe, two weeks ago. We had a special meeting and we don't meet at the beginning of January, but we did meet to receive input on the Measure D, Strategic Implementation Plan. This is the, as you all are aware, the sales tax measure that was passed to fund transportation, multi-modal transportation in the county. And the public input that we received by January 28th will be considered and distributed as part of the packet for consideration of the final strategic implementation plan. That's today, so I wanted to make sure that I put a shout out. If you have not weighed in and would like to, you can go to the SCCRTC, the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission.org to provide input to us. And we will be approving that plan at our next meeting. First Thursday in February, we also approved a stakeholder engagement plan for our Transit Corridor Alternatives Analysis. This is the Regional Transportation Commission now owns and is consolidating the rail line right of way. And we are working on plans for how to proceed with use of that. Activating the rail trail, as you all know, segment seven, there was a celebration on Saturday, which I missed, but some council members were there if anybody wants to tell us how that was. So we are moving ahead in those segments. We also are looking at alternatives for use of the rail line itself. And so we are moving forward, you'll be hearing more about opportunities for engagement. And, well, it's not in the city, I do want to mention that we at the Regional Transportation Commission have been working on, and staff has been working very hard on developing the Complete Streets Plan, and safety improvements in particular on Highway 9 in the San Lorenzo Valley. And in response to some of the challenges that we've had along that corridor, I just wanted to say that it's been, for me, it's been really helpful and productive to be involved in those conversations to think about how we improve safety county wide for pedestrians because some areas are more challenging than others. In terms of other, let's see, I'm on the city county task force to limit UCSC growth or to discuss UCSC growth and to negotiate with the university. We have hired an advocate to work throughout the year on outreach and engagement. We have approved that contract, we approved it at our last city council meeting, but I just wanted to call that out, so there will be opportunities for community input there as well as we proceed. And the Area Agency on Aging met, we are moving ahead, taking another step towards developing a county wide coordinated plan for age friendly communities, so all of the jurisdictions in the county will hopefully get on board with that. You'll hear more from the council meeting in February. And I hope that's the plan. And I also wanted to just give a shout out that the Meals on Wheels program is currently in a location where they do their meal preparation behind the senior center in Live Oak. And they are potentially going to be losing that site, pretty likely that they will. And so we had a long discussion about what possibilities there might be to find alternatives. So I just wanted to put that out there, that's a conversation that is occurring in the community. They're not talking about, they're looking for other places, I guess I just wanted to put that out there. And I think that's all from me. Among those that have not already been covered, the revenue subcommittee continues to meet every two weeks. We've been focusing on outreach to the industry. We've taken some initial steps to the, well, to back up for the public. We, as the council knows, have been discussing a ballot measure regarding increase in the TOT hotel tax. Other jurisdictions are similarly considering this item. We've reached out to the industry for some background conversations. And now we'll be engaging some of the other jurisdictions as well so that we have something like a common understanding and direction. And are also working on some materials as we do the outreach that, and this is a result of our first conversations that describe some of the, well, how the city budget operates and what the TOT currently contributes in comparison to our general fund, what an increase might, and particularly what the budget demands are. And interestingly, there's a very shared interest in many areas. So this is still preliminary, but it's, I think, good that we are engaging the other jurisdictions as well. And have some good time to work on this. I did attend the League of California Cities regional meeting in San Juan a couple of weeks ago. We heard a presentation from Paul Mitchell, who is the principal for political data. Incorporated PDI provides amazing political data to anyone who wants to purchase it from him. But very interesting information on trends in voting. Every way you can cut that pie, demographics, what time they vote, who votes absentee, et cetera. So it was a fascinating snapshot. Kind of related to that, I participated on Friday and Martin was a speaker too at the Civic Summit that was put on, attended by over 450 high school students. It was amazing. The key partners were the County Office of Education, Elections Department, the Democratic Party took a lead role, but it was an absolutely nonpartisan event focused on education and registration of voters, very, very high energy and encouraging. So, and the city contributed a modest amount to that, so thank you for making it happen. Let's see, on the Mid-County Groundwater Agency, as I think I reported or Rosemary did. We did complete our sustainability plan for the Mid-County Groundwater aquifer. And that has now been adopted by the Mid-County Agency and forwarded on to the state for review. It could now take, they tell us, up to two years. The state will go through it with a fine tooth comb, but it was really a major achievement to get that, we had a terrific advisory group. So that now has been passed on, we certainly met the deadline. And now we move into an implementation phase, which still has many, many, many components. But for the Groundwater Agency itself, we'll probably go to a less frequent meeting schedule. I reported on the DMC, visit Santa Cruz County. I think I reported a while ago that among its many marketing activities, visit Santa Cruz County worked with community groups to identify some niche markets where we had some potential. One of which was heritage tourism, and they've been working on that, and the other was LGBT tourism. And so they've been working with great partners in the community to develop those plans. And they are doing a training for the hospitality and tourism industry. It's going to be this Thursday on how to create a friendly, welcoming, and appropriate environment, attracting, particularly the LGBT tourism for visitors to Santa Cruz County. It's obviously an area where we have lots of potential and that training has been very enthusiastically received. So I look forward to that happening. Thank you. Well, thank you, Council Member Matthews for bringing up the Civic Summit. It was really a wonderful event and encouraging to see so many youth interested in participating in our civic process. And just asking really thoughtful questions, really excited, I left really inspired by them. In regards to some of the committees, I'd say the community programs committee, if it wasn't brought up already, we had a meeting to discuss the set aside funding. We have yet to reschedule or have a follow-up meeting in regards to some of the recommendations we want to bring forward. The Health and Our Policy Subcommittee, I believe, is a sudden-setting, but we do have the implementation plan that's on the agenda today. The one else that I would add is the Criminal Justice Council had a presentation from some folks in law enforcement as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigations for our region. They were talking about the national impacts of gangs in our local communities. And this kind of came after the conversation around white supremacy and some of these terrorism type actions we've been seeing in local communities. They presented data I don't want to share any misinformation, but essentially kind of sharing that in terms of what they've been monitoring, it doesn't really come up on their radar in this area, which is encouraging. And we do and are continuing to work and monitor those types of behaviors and activities in ways that we can. So that was an interesting presentation. If there's interest in trying to get the PowerPoint presentation, I'd be happy to try to do that and share that with the council as well. And then lastly, I think the Youth Violence Prevention Task Force, they changed their name to Network, and that's a component of the Criminal Justice Council. They're really looking around how to support young men of color and violence in our communities through some grant funding that they have. As well as bringing partners together to talk about trauma and form changes to our systems and really supporting the youth and networking. And so they've evolved over the years. I've been part of them in my other capacity for about seven years now. So it's been interesting as they're re-prioritizing at this time. And I think that's all I have to say. There's nothing else to report. Thank you all for your participation and for reporting out. And then at this time, the next item on our agenda is the council meeting calendar. This is the time to remove or add meetings to the calendar attached to the agenda, which lists upcoming meetings, not items within each meeting. Are there any updates to the calendar? There are not. I have a question. I know, Mary, we've spoken about having possibly a study session on all the state laws coming down. Would it be appropriate that, is that in the workflow right now? Getting a council study session to look at all of different SB 330 and 50 and- I've also been thinking about that. And I think what would be good is if there are state bills or assembly bills that have come down that council members are interested in us having a study session on. It'd be great if you emailed those to me because I've brought that up as well. And members of the community have been interested in better understanding how some of the housing bills and private control bills are affecting people within the community. So if there are any bills that might be of interest that we could have on a study session, I'm happy to receive those and then have a discussion about that. You mean already adopted or in the works? Already adopted. Yeah. Next item on our agenda is the consent agenda. These are items 3 through 13 on our agenda. All items will be acted upon in one motion unless an item is pulled by a council member for further discussion. Are there any council members who wish to pull any items today? Okay. Let's move around. So I, well I have a request for a couple of changes to item five, appointment of representatives to external agencies. And I don't know if that requires that I pull it and make a motion or if we could do that by general consensus, pull it. Okay, so I'd like to pull five and nine. And I just have a comment on item 10. Are there any other? I just have a comment on item 13. Okay. Are there any other items that council members would wish to pull or comment on? So I'd like to look for a motion to move the item. You need public comment. I'm sorry? Public comment. Oh, public comment, that's right, sorry. Would any member of the community like to comment on items that have not been pulled from our agenda? So those are all items with the exception of items number five and nine. Seeing none, actually before we vote, I'd like to actually return for the comments on item numbers 10 and 13. So council member Brown. I just have a quick comment on item 10 is our annual indexing of the city's living wage rate, which is a requirement that city contractors pay a living wage to employees. Conducting business on behalf of the city. And I was involved in moving this policy forward 20 years ago. Two of my colleagues on the council now were there at the table on the council at the time. And I think that while it has a relatively limited impact because it covers city contractors and we don't contract out a lot of work as some public entities do. It has been provided a standard for our community. And at the time, I also wanted to say we worked very hard to include the resources for our nonprofit contractors to also be included in that policy. And it's, as we know, it's a real struggle for nonprofits. And I just want to say that I'm really pleased that we're raising the living wage right now to 19. Dollars. Thank you, 1953. An hour, and I also have recently been at meetings with the Human Care Alliance, where they've done a big survey of all the nonprofit service providers in this community, affiliated with their association, which is most of the nonprofits. And 73% of nonprofit workers in our community earn less than that. They have reported earning less than that. This is a huge challenge for us if we want to be able to continue to have those services available. They do amazing work. And so I just wanted to put that out there that it's really important that we keep moving forward and recognize the need to find those resources for our community partners. Is there any other member of the city council would like to comment on item number 10? I have a comment for item number six. Okay, so item 10. This question for the city manager. Are the workers, I was asked this by a member of public, I didn't have the answer. Are the workers at the current shelter at the armory who work for the Salvation Army? Do they adhere to the minimum wage here? The contract for the Salvation Army is through the county, so it would have to comply with the county's requirements. And I believe they have a living wage ordinance, so if it applies, then it would. All right, let's move on to comments on item number 13, council member Glover. Thank you, yeah, this was something that I was requested by multiple community members to look into. I got a chance to talk to staff via email to get some clarity. There was some questions as to why there was a price difference between the two trucks that we approved at the last meeting compared to this truck. And that's because they're different types of trucks.  Also, the rationale behind it, people ask why are we getting new trucks so frequently and that according to staff has to do with the costs associated with the repairs and how frequently they're in the shop that could detract from effective service. So that is important for us to acknowledge as well as the costs for one of the trucks, the repair costs basically doubled from fiscal year 18 to fiscal year 19. However, with that being acknowledged, I will say that it's a little concerning about how we're continuously acquiring these fossil fuel and diesel vehicles. Especially after the body here voted to adopt the resolution supporting the Green New Deal and looking at ways that we can actively divest from fossil fuels. So I think that we really need to be proactively figuring out how we can start to do that aggressively even with our large machinery. And I would turn the council and the staff attention to an email that came in from Mr. Brett Garrett, I believe, that points to the tipping truck in Australia, which is now 100% electric, as well as their switch over to electric rubbish collection trucks. So I know that one of the arguments that we've heard in the past is that they don't have the distance or the charge to be able to make it or they're not readily available. But according to the article that was provided by Mr. Garrett, they are available. The question is how do we get it here and whether they're just in Australia and then they do cover a sizeable amount of distance. So I hope that we can move towards that as we continue on this path towards the divestment from fossil fuels. Thank you. And to member Watkins. Sure. I just have a brief comment and it's really just appreciation and gratitude to Dr. Tiffany Weis-West and Shepard Kalantari-Johnson for really translating the ordinance, the policy, the recommendations that came out of the health and all policies work into an implementation plan. And I look forward to seeing how it unfolds moving forward. So I just want to publicly show appreciation to their work. All right, thank you. Now I'm looking for a motion on the remaining consent items with the exceptions of items number five and number nine. So moved. Second. That was motion made by Council Member Cron, seconded by Council Member Matthews. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. So then we'll return to item numbers five and nine that were pulled by Council Member Brown. Okay, so item number five is the appointments to be made for Council members to serve on external agencies, boards and commissions. We just reported on some of those. And I wanted to make a request for two minor changes to the list that was sent out and included in our agenda packet. And that is for the Monterey Bay Community Power Policy Board. I have been the representative and am unable to attend some of those meetings due to conflict. And so Mayor Cummings, who is very interested in these issues, is going to take over. And then Council Member Glover has been my representative, or the alternate for that. And he also has a conflict. So I'm hoping that we can substitute me for Council Member Glover as the alternate and I will work with you to make sure that we get those meetings covered and give you, transfer some information. So that's one. The other request is to, as our Regional Transportation Commission alternate to substitute Council Member Crone for Vice Mayor Myers. Vice Mayor Myers serves on the Santa Cruz Metro Board of Directors and she is an alternate there. So she does sometimes fill in for Metro Board commissioners at board members at our commission. And so I'm hoping to just have that additional coverage in case there are absences for both the city and the Metro. And I've talked with my colleagues about this in advance, so hopefully it's not too controversial here. Council Member Watkins. I just wanted to make a request if there's interest. If there's interest, I'd like to continue to serve on the city's schools committee. I feel passionately about that, but can not serve on that committee if there's more interest for those that have been selected to serve, but I'd be happy to do so if there is interest. The other was the farmer's market. And I spoke with Nesh and having served on the board and he expressed that he would like to see me continue on that in that position and I would be very much so interested in continuing as well. And I'm happy to serve on both standing committees and or if others want to serve on one or the other, I'm happy to do that. Council Member Brown. Yeah, so I actually, and I apologize, Council Member Watkins for not contacting you when I saw this list. I wanted, I had intended to let you know that if you were interested, which I assume you would be, that I'm happy to cycle off that and let you continue to do your great work there. Thank you, Council Member Brown. I guess I have a comment that I would like to make on a number of items. With community programs, I'd had a discussion with Council Member Watkins prior to sitting today and also with Council Member Matthews and given that with the standing committee as Council Member Watkins expressed, possibly stepping down from one of those, we were considering replacing Council Member Watkins with Council Member Matthews, who said she would be willing to go on to the community programs subcommittee or standing committee. Additionally, given conversations that I've had with Vice Mayor Myers, we were looking at the composition of the affordable housing ad hoc committee and thought that because of continuity, since we both come into office, it would make sense for both of us to serve on the affordable housing committee and Council Member Brown, who has also been on the housing blueprint subcommittee to be on that committee as well. And so that would be replacing Council Member Watkins with Vice Mayor Myers. And I would just like to say that for the Santa Cruz Community Farmers Market, I'm happy to allow or have Council Member Watkins serve in that role, given the desire of the members of the Farmers Market Board to continue to have her on. I would just like to then see if it would be okay for myself to replace Council Member Crohn so that as we transition and given the uncertainty of the elections coming up that I would stand in that place for that position as well. Thank you. Was that it and get it? We're the Farmers Market to service the alternate. That's okay. Any further comments? So I can repeat back. Sure. So the change would be community programs. Watkins would be replaced with Matthews. Affordable housing. Watkins would be replaced with Myers. Santa Cruz for affordable housing, she's already on there. City of Santa Cruz schools, Brown would be replaced by Watkins. Honorary Bay Community Power, Glover would be replaced by Brown. Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission, Myers will be replaced with Crohn. Santa Cruz County Farmers Market, Cummings will be replaced by Watkins. And as the alternate, Crohn will be replaced by Cummings. Is there any member of the public who would like to speak on this item? Seeing none, I'll bring it back to Council for Action Deliberation. Yeah, I'll move approval as amended. I'll second. So that was moved by Council Member Matthews, seconded by Senator Myers. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passage unanimously. Our next item that was pulled from our consent agenda is item number nine and I'll refer back to Council Member Brown. I just wanted to, one, thank staff for bringing us this overview to provide some background for us on the current housing support programs that we offer, that we provide resources to local community partners to provide these services. And also to make a request that with respect to the proposed relocation assistance pilot program, which I'm totally supportive of, and thank you for your kind of working up what this might look like. I'd like to ask my colleagues if you'd be willing to, and so I'll make a motion to include direction to staff to include $15,000 in first budget discussions for our 2020-21 budget. So that there's a placeholder there should we decide to proceed with the program. Before we have a second on that motion, I'd like to see if there's no other further comment that we open up to public comment. So first, I'd like to ask if any of the council members have a comment on this item. You could repeat the motion, but if you want. I'll wait on the motion. So is there any member of the public at this time who would like to speak to item number nine on our consent agenda? Seeing none, I'll bring it back to Council for Action Deliberation. So the motion then would be to receive the informational report on current tenant assistance housing support programs and current status of the proposed relocation assistance pilot program and direct staff to include $15,000 in the 2020-21 budget for consideration at budget hearings. I'll second that. I have a question, if I may. In the fiscal impact of this item, there's a $10,000 to $15,000 cost. Is that in addition to that or is that just using the $15,000 as the placeholder? Oh, okay, just to clarify that we want to have it there for a budget discussion. Any other comments, questions? You know, personally I would rather have the study first and then come back with amounts. And when all of these are looked at, look at where additional funds might be most effective. A placeholder is a placeholder, but we may see other priorities when the bigger picture comes back to us. Is this money that could be used then for what we talked about in the past where a building gets red tagged and residents are put out on the street and they have nowhere to go and we expect the landlord to put them up? Is there a member of the economic development potentially? I'm Bonnie Lipscomb, Director of Economic Development. My understanding from the direction from the last meeting in November is that the direction you gave staff was to look at developing a program specifically for relocation assistance for tenants who are experiencing no fault evictions. And so that's specifically the conceptual program that we've been working on. We've met both with Community Action Board and with Housing Authority and sort of determined in trying to leverage the funding as far as we can go. In looking at and meeting with both organizations, it seemed like actually building off for the majority of a new program off the security deposit assistance program we have at the Housing Authority. We really cut costs overall because they can do the income verification for those who are already looking to receive some security deposit assistance. So that's where we're focusing right now on the program, but it specifically would be for individuals and families who are experiencing no fault evictions. So somebody who gets the building red tagged and the residents are out, that's not included under no fault evictions? I'm not really sure. I think it most likely would be if they were evicted because of that. I think that would meet the criteria. I'll just also point out that under that circumstance, the code requires the landlord to provide relocation assistance to the tenant. Where I'm going is that the landlord is not going to do that. And it's going to take a while for the landlord. I'm saying when you put somebody out, you want to compensate them right away and then go after the landlord if they're not going to compensate the city. That's the problem with that. That's the loophole in that thing because a bad landlord who lets their building gets red tagged isn't really going to fork over some money for the tenants to move. I could just make a quick comment. So Council Member Cron and I had discussed this and I brought it up at previous council meetings during budget time. And so I'm hoping that we can have that conversation. But given that this was a specific response to the direction that we gave around our early implementation of AB 1482, I thought we would leave it there and just have that put in the budget. And then I'd be very interested in having a conversation about how we move forward. Because as we know, there have been issues with tenants who have been evicted due to red tags not receiving their relocation assistance. And so I'd be interested in working on that as another item. I will just add in the report does outline the other programs that we currently funding we currently have available through Community Action Board, CRLA and the Housing Authority. And the city does provide close to 250,000 in annual support for tenant relocation assistance. So we do have some existing programs as well. Okay. Is there any further comment on this item? So just really quick. I think that we should be investing as much as necessary in protecting renters and protections and earmarking money right now to make sure that's there and then waiting for an analysis and potentially allocating more. If it comes down to that time to make sure that we're keeping people off the streets and supported since we have not been able to implement the necessary renters protections and rent controls to avoid it in the first place. So thank you. So if I can repeat the motion, it's to accept the staff report and create a $15,000 placeholder in the budget for the current 2020-2021 budget cycle. That motion was made by Council Member Brown, seconded by Mayor Cummings. Is there any further discussion? Just because it's not clear in the motion and we have had some discussion in that we would accept the staff's direction for their initial program development as outlined working with existing agencies. So basically I just, it was, my motion was the staff recommendation, which is to do that. The recommendation is pretty vague here. Right, thank you. I'd like to ask the clerk if she has, is the motion clear? I'd like to accept the staff recommendation. And support the direction for the pilot program as outlined by staff. To that extent, yes. Yeah, I'd accept that amendment. I think it is important to clarify that, that we are on board with moving forward, the staff moving forward in the direction they initiated. I think that's a good point as well. There's no further discussion. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. That moves us to our consent public hearing up next. These are items 14 through 17 on our agenda. Are there any council members who would wish to pull items 14 through 17? Seeing none, I'd like to open it up to the community for public comment. Any member of the community who would like to comment on items number 14 through 17 on our agenda today? We'll have two minutes. Hey, Garrett Phillip. My concerns about, this is item number 17. My concerns about the last meeting's tenant free speech political sign ordinance were not addressed by the council and mischaracterized by council member Cron. Let's start over and go slow starting with the SB 337 digest. This quote, Bill would require a tenant to comply with the time period established by the local ordinance for the posting and removal of political signs or in the absence of those provisions by reasonable time limits as specified established by the landlord. That's a summary. This ordinance is not that. It seems like a calculated one-sided special interest political grandstand pandering progressive act of class warfare. Civil law like SB 337 settled a dispute between property rights, tenants free speech rights, and allows local government to establish tenant obligations and restricts landlords policies to restrict tenants rights at minimum reasonable limits, if, as in this case, local ordinances are silent on free speech time limits and tenant obligations. Since no time limits or tenant compliance is expressed by the ordinance itself, SB 337 timelines depend on if a landlord policy exists. I doubt many landlords have such a policy, probably none. This ordinance is solely about shoving it to landlords absent any real evidence that they do anything or any worse than tenant activists with others political signs. I had Measure M signs stolen. If no landlord signed policy exists, your local punitive ordinance would remain in effect forever. Signed blight could ensue. I'm kind of going to skip over this, but my suggestion today is to preferably put in an exception for landlord consisting of an effective time limit on issuing ordinance infractions to be 90 days before to 15 days after any election to which political signs refer to avoiding creating new lease conditions. Or set time limits such as 337 suggests. And the reason for this is that otherwise you're going to actually restrict tenants free speech rights more than if you leave it the way it is. Because I think they will do that to protect their liability very much. Is there any other member of the community would like to comment on this item? Seeing none, I'll bring it back to council. Member Cron. Yeah, I just wonder if the city attorney could speak to Mr. Phillips comments. I'm sure the ordinance has written invokes civil code section 1940.4 which contains the 90 day before and 15 day after election requirements. And so in my view, ordinance is consistent with the state law. If the if the council wanted to include similar or redundant language in this ordinance, we could certainly do so. But it's not required. I don't think I'm pretty good with what we have. Thank you. Any other council members who would like to comment on the answer public hearing. Just wanted to say like someone stealing your political yard sign or your yard sign isn't the same as your landlord, you know, removing your law yard sign. Is there a member of the city council would like to move our public consent hearing. I'll move the consent public hearing agenda. Those made a motion by council member Brown seconded by council member Glover. Any further discussion? All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. Next item on our agenda today is public hearing. The order will be a presentation of the item by staff for the council members who brought forward the item followed by a question from council. We will then take public comment and then return to council for deliberation and action.  Modified regulations related to sale of alcoholic beverages for off site consumption at two parlors and personal service uses in the downtown. And I'll turn this over to senior planner Catherine Donovan. Good afternoon council. I'm Catherine Donovan senior planner in the advanced planning division. And we're bringing forward today some amendments to our downtown plan. Just a brief history. The downtown recovery plan was originally adopted in September 1991 after the Loma Prieta earthquake. And certain strategies and actions were adopted in 2000 which included our list of prohibited uses in the downtown. The prohibited uses were granted a 20 year amnesty and that amnesty runs out on October 10th of 2020. And in that list of prohibited uses are tattoo parlors and the sale of alcohol for off site consumption which in more normal speech just means buying liquor at a store as opposed to at a restaurant or bar. In 2017 we did some amendments to our downtown plan which included an amendment to the alcohol related prohibition. And that was to allow the off site sale of alcohol when it was clearly incidental to other principally permitted uses. And it represents a small percentage of the total shelf space of the business and directed staff to create operational criteria to limit the impact of the alcohol sales. And so we have done as directed and are proposing the following operational criteria. We are proposing to limit the hours of alcohol sales from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. And to the security and location of alcohol in the store would be mitigation that would be approved by the police department. And the single serving containers which were also an item that was requested to be addressed would be limited to two craft beer only. Since 2000 the legal framework established for tattoo parlors has been that they are a free speech right and must be treated as other personal service uses. Social attitudes towards tattoos have also changed and so this amendment would remove tattoo parlors from the list of prohibited uses. Since certain court cases have come down we have not been enforcing tattoo parlors as a prohibited use so this is basically just a cleanup item. The third item we're addressing today is the personal services restrictions in the downtown. Currently an administrative use permit is required in all the sub districts except the North Pacific area. And in the Pacific Avenue retail district the personal services are only allowed in interior spaces. What we are proposing is to allow personal services by right meaning they would not require an administrative use permit except on the ground floor in the Pacific Avenue retail district where they would continue to require an administrative use permit. Currently there is a restriction even with the administrative use permit that they cannot be within 75 feet of Pacific Avenue or 40 feet of the side streets. And we are proposing to allow an exception to that if the space has physical restrictions so that you could not provide 40 feet, an alternative of 40 feet, if the use would contribute to the character or mix of uses in the downtown or if the use would be a significant draw to the downtown. And this would all be part of the use permit process to make those determinations on that use. And there's one other change that we're proposing and that is there's currently a finding for personal services that you must be able to return the space. That the space would be capable of being transformed into retail use in the future. And we had some discussion related to a project in the downtown and frankly if you have enough money anything is pretty much anything is capable of being returned to the use. But that was not the intent of this and so we're simply proposing to add without extensive remodeling. Because the implication is that it should be a fairly easy process not something that would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so I have written out the recommendations for you. I know sometimes it's easier to read from the screen than from your staff report. And there are two parts there. This is a portion of the downtown is in the coastal zone and so for that portion it needs to go to the Coastal Commission for approval. And if anyone has any questions I'd be happy to answer. Matthew. Yeah I do and I didn't get it to you in advance but it may be somewhat related to the personal services uses. And I understand this is part of just the changing nature of businesses that are located in downtowns and so forth. In the downtown plan there are guidelines for what windows look like and some both retail and other businesses. Well some of the retail windows are transparent. You see into the store there's a display others although that you may not see into the store. There's a little setback in the window. It's interesting. There's design. There's pedestrian interest.  That was never part of the design plan. So I just raise this not that it needs to be added because I think it's already in there. But I think it's something to look at maybe in terms of just reminding people as the conditions of approval or the design plans that the whole idea for the street level businesses whatever they are is that they have an attractive pedestrian component. Right. And I think you're correct. I think it probably that those businesses are probably not in compliance with their conditions of approval. So if you have specific addresses or businesses in mind we could look into those. You can just walk around and see and you know it's not rocket science. I think it's intent rather than anything else. Yeah. Council members have questions. It's interesting that Walgreens doesn't fall on this and that seems to me would be a you know calls for service and things like that. You said an email was outside of the downtown zone. What about that flashing light? Are they allowed to advertise alcohol on that on the sign along Laurel Street. You mean the sign in front of their business. Yeah. The only one that's ever been approved in Santa Cruz in about 30 years. You know I don't know if there are specific rules that prohibit alcohol as a flashing light. I'd have to look into that. A couple questions. My first one is I was just curious what portion of the downtown this downtown plant covers the coastal zone. It's right below Cathcart between Cathcart and Elm. So that portion is in the coastal zone. Okay. And I guess what businesses would be affected. I mean in terms of I think I'm speaking in terms of the are there any of these like alcohol distributors or would there or is this more along the lines of like retail and services. For example like tattoo shops that could go in that area. Yeah it would be the tattoo shops and the personal services. Benicio's is is in that area. But they would have to make major changes to comply. Anyway. And then my other question was just along the lines of the current office is because the hours I'm assuming are for offsite purchases of alcohol. And I was just curious what the current hours are. The only one currently that is open past 11 is CVS. Well CVS and Benicio's. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. So I had sent some questions ahead of time just with regards to some of the concerns I had, especially with regards to the restriction of certain types of alcohol or beers and stuff that sold compared to craft beer in the language around craft beer. I noticed in the agenda report under the planning commission and public hearings section, it does acknowledge that there was conversation and acknowledgement that it could be potentially discriminatory, especially around different socio economic conditions and people that are not able to afford craft beers. But I understand that the planning commission voted to move forward with it either way. What were some of the rationale that it would not be discriminatory for people that were not able to afford craft beers? I know in the email that I received, it was saying that people could still buy multiple packs of the other types of beers or vendors could serve single serve craft beers. But, and I don't really drink a lot of beer that much, but it's my understanding that even in single serve sizes craft beer is considerably more expensive than say like a Coors or some of the more name brand cheaper beers. So how can you counter the argument that it would be discriminatory towards poor people? And then I know the other argument was that if they wanted to, they could go up to the 7-Eleven on Chestnut or up to Ocean and Broadway. And there's also the concern of people driving different distances, but if say you're someone that has a ton of stuff that you have to carry with you and you're in the downtown area because that's where you're at. Having to walk an additional five blocks or whatever it might be to go and obtain an additional single serve Coors or whatever it might be. So how can we justify that not being discriminatory? So originally this was part of the 2017 amendments. Staff was directed to come up with limitations for single serve containers. And when we first were looking into it, we thought we'll just eliminate the sale of single serve containers. But we have a large number of craft beer distilleries in Santa Cruz and the surroundings. And we try very hard not to support our local businesses. And so we thought, well we can make an exception on for craft beers. And quite frankly because we were thinking of it in terms of a prohibition entirely and then the exception for the local industry. Before the planning commission, it did not occur to me that this might be seen as a discriminatory action. And then in the planning commission discussion, I also do not drink a lot of beer. And so I'm not really familiar with pricing that much. But there are several things that came up. It's available other than in the downtown and frankly right across the street at CVS. You could potentially, I'm sorry not CVS, Walgreens. I don't know if they sell single serving beers, but it would be permitted for them to. Also apparently six packs of some of the cheaper beers are possibly the same price as a larger single serve. So people who are only looking to spend the least amount of money to get some alcohol would still have that option. And this was originally part of the discussion in 2017. It was brought up by the police department because this is something that is a problem in the downtown with serial inebriates in the downtown. And this was something that they felt would be helpful and that has been used in our use permit conditions of approval in other areas. And so we were frankly just following direction from the city council and the police department and then trying to carve out that exception for our local industry. Thank you. Yeah, just because I had mentioned it specifically by name is being possibly discriminatory in the agenda report and associated with the planning commission hearing. And then getting the report back in the email with regards to the that was passed with two people absent and then five people from the planning commission being present. Just, yeah, just, you know, I don't want us to be creating a space that's only for the affluent, if that makes any sense in that concern. And I understand that you were just following direction and just doing what you were instructed to do. So I'm not suggesting that it was the intent or, you know, the goal to make it discriminatory. But I think that if we're thinking about policy, not only how it can be perceived, but also the effect it'll have on keeping certain populations from being able to be downtown and obtaining alcohol that they may want to consume. There is a concern there. Also, just with that in regards to the enforcement of people and where they're at and where they're consuming alcohol and how that plays into some of the different court rulings that we've run into recently. It's tough, but I appreciate the answers. Thank you. Oh, I noticed in the list of nuisance activities that was provided with regards to the downtown area, there were things. So no use, even though listed as a permitted use or otherwise allowed shall be permitted by reason of its nature or manner of operation is deemed by the zoning administrator to be creating a condition. That is hazardous, noxious or offensive through the emission of odors, fumes, smoke, cinder dust, gas, vibration, glares, refuse, water carried waste or excessive noise. So that could then open up the possibility for us to ban cars from Pacific Avenue then because they're emitting fumes and glare and sound and noise and all of that. Right, just correct. Just want to make sure I'm interpreting that right. I think you could probably make that argument. I don't know how much water it would hold. Wonderful. Just want to make sure I'm interpreting it the right way because if we're doing it for alcohol, which and then classifying the type of alcohol that people can buy, which is more expensive. I think it's like $7 a glass for a craft beer, a single craft beer or whatever when you're out in the establishments and then figuring out how we might be able to make downtown nice in other ways too. So thank you. Right on. Are there any other comments or questions from council members? I have a comment, but I wanted to hear from the public if anyone's. And I will open this up for public comment. Is there any member of the public who would like to speak to us on item number 18 at this time? Seeing none, I'll bring it back to council for further discussion and deliberation. Well, I'm happy to put a motion on the floor with the staff recommendation. So there's some motion by council member Matthews seconded by vice mayor Myers to accept the staff recommendation. Council member Brown. Yeah. So, you know, I'll support the record the staff recommendation and I appreciate all the work that's gone into it. But I do want to say that, you know, for the record, I'm not sure that the direction that we've taken and in particular with respect to single serving. Alcohol containers that we're actually going to achieve any, there's going to be any impact. I mean, serial nebriates, serial inebriation and the relationship between serial inebriation and single serving like airplane models or, you know, individual beers is dubious at best. But, you know, for the, you know, to try to kind of follow through on the previous direction from the council and the staff attempt to move in this direction. I'll support it. I do think I also have concerns about the discriminatory discriminatory potential because I don't see why we don't just include craft beers in the prohibition. But I'm not so concerned about it that I want to try to persuade my colleagues. Any other comments? One suggestion could be to have maybe a report back on any kind of data and outcomes that this may have influenced by this decision at a future time in a potential year or so once enacted. Because I think we want to know if it's making a difference in the way that's intended. So did you say they did discuss like a craft beer like Sierra Nevada? Would that be a craft beer? The craft, it would be, craft beers are defined as those that are made by small producers who produce under, was it 60,000? Yeah. So I don't believe Sierra Nevada would qualify. But it's a tight, it's there. It's the type of license that they have. So it would be easy to check. And you said we thought or the planning commission thought about maybe just making it Santa Cruz County or Santa Cruz City craft beers that would be allowed or that was not in discussion. That was not discussed. The definition of the small breweries is that they tend to be sold locally or regionally. And so we felt that that was significant, sufficient for our purposes. We don't necessarily want to limit it only to breweries in the city of Santa Cruz, although it is our intent to support our local breweries. I know we have a letter here from the owner of Benesios. How much of a lawsuit would we get here? Or if we're taking away, it looks like 60 or 70% of his business. He purchased the business after this prohibition was already in place. So probably should ask our city attorney, but I don't see any lawsuit at all. This is actually loosening the rules rather than tightening them. You agree? Yes. I think it's, you know, for me, I'm happy to cut it back to 11 o'clock. I think that's a good idea. I'm happy to cut their business back as well. But I'm persuadable, Council Member Brown, because I do think that it is discriminatory when you talk about the craft beers. If you're not going to just limit the craft beers then to are the ones that Santa Cruz produces and then, you know, if you have a craft beer from Maine or from Germany or somewhere. I mean, that doesn't make sense to me. So I'm not going to support the motion that's on the floor. The comments. I just, I guess I have a couple of comments. One of which is that with regards to, again, the craft versus noncraft beer designation, I think that, again, yes, it can be interpreted as discriminatory. And I think that my other concern is with the hours because when people leave bars at different times and they may consider getting something on their way home, being able to walk to an establishment is much safer than people having to figure out where's the nearest establishment and then potentially get into their cars and drive to the next nearest establishment because of the fact that one that was accessible is no longer successful. With regards to crime, I understand from the police perspective that that corner has been an area of concern with regards to crime in a long time. But one thing that's just happened that potentially can have a very large impact on that is the closure of Taco Bell where a lot of people used to spend a lot of time hanging out. Some of whom were involved in criminal activity, some of whom weren't, but that was a very problematic site. And having the Taco Bell directly across the street from Benicio's could have been a very problematic, you know, could have created a very problematic situation. And now that Taco Bell is gone, I think that, you know, reducing hours, in my opinion, it would be worth taking some time to see whether or not the removal of Taco Bell has any positive impact on that area. So I'm still waiting to hear from my colleagues. But with regards to hours, I'd become more comfortable with 1 a.m. to start and also having all single serves rather than just craft so as to eliminate any perception of discrimination around that. That would be splitting the baby for me, but I would go with that. I personally don't mind Benicio's cutting back their hours, but if we got a report back on how that situation changed. So I'm understanding you're not going to be supporting the motion that's on the floor. I'm still waiting to hear back from my colleagues. But the other portion of it too is that we've also restricted their production line, right? So we've decreased what they're able to sell, and we're increasing their hours of sale and what they can sell during those hours. So I think that there's compounding effects that might actually be detrimental towards that business in particular and would probably be beneficial to businesses like Walgreens across the street that is corporate and not a local business. So I would then incorporate your comments right now into a substitute motion such that we do not restrict the single beers and also leave the hours till 1 a.m. That sounds like what? I'd like to ask prior if there's any further discussion or support. Well, I'll second it if I can clarify that you're talking about the prohibition on single-serving containers being applied to all rather than, are you asking to eliminate the craft beer exemption? Or are you asking to eliminate the single-serving restriction? Where are we? I'm not sure what. Singlet. I'd just like to clarify that. Yeah, no, I could go either way, but it is discriminatory on the face of it in my opinion looking at this ordinance. So that's why I couldn't support it. But I don't know what the mayor, were you looking to make all single-serving beers still legal to sell? Okay, yeah. I have the hours till 1 a.m. Okay. And evaluate. Yeah, I'll second that. Is that a friendly amendment? I think it should be structured as a friendly amendment, not as a substitute motion. Okay. Could I interject a comment? Just want a friendly amendment. Is it a friendly amendment? Or it should be, excuse me, as an amendment. And I have other comments as well. The main motion. Yeah. Well, as I read it, the craft beer exemption in the draft that's provided to you is an exemption from an otherwise prohibition on single serving of alcohol. So that would be shooters, small wine bottles, any small single serving alcohol container, not just cheap beer. Make sure that you understand that. So understanding that, I think the exemption we're on beer in particular, rather than, or I don't know if there's any further discussion. Single serve. I mean, in trying to limit hard alcohol consumption in downtown and or glass wine bottles and stuff. And I think that if we were to structure it so that we exempted craft beers and just beers in general and single serve, but then put a prohibition on the single, all other single serve alcoholic containers or whatnot. Because then it provides equal access to at least beer, which, you know, and then if people want to go walk somewhere, I guess to get liquor than they can. But our main focus is beer and reducing the amount of, I guess, intense alcoholism in downtown that's available to people. Ultimate goal of the. I would take just the beer. I don't know if it's it's for the second or was that sound right? Fine. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, I think the police chief. That's what I wanted to do is get. And yeah, go ahead. Good afternoon. I'm a little bit confused on the conversation. Limiting just beer or all single sales of alcohol. And just from what I have experienced for 42 years, this can have an impact on the amount of inebriates that we wind up arresting in the downtown area. So I want to be very, you know, whether it's expanded boundaries, strength boundary, custom craft beers, no customer. I don't care. But I think limiting the amount of alcohol people have access to when there's a significant problem of people becoming intoxicated, we make hundreds of arrests for public intoxication downtown. So that's just my, you know, if I can get the clarity for me, so I understand what you want us to do and then go from there. Thank you. I'm just a question for the chief. So with regards to the chronic or repeat inebriate arrests that you're doing downtown, do you have a log of if those are housed people or fall into your category of transient or as I would refer to them as people experiencing homelessness? Just because looking at the 9th District Court of Appeals, I believe there's a footnote that says that cities can't penalize people experiencing homelessness for being drunk in public because they don't have a home in which to be drunken. So I just want to make sure that we're, that not only are we passing something that limits the amount of alcohol to say single serve beers only in downtown, which is what I was talking about. To make sure there's an even access to beer at least, even if it's not hard alcohol or wine and stuff like that. But then also just what you're talking about, about making hundreds of arrests surrounding that, is there data associated with who those arrests are? And are they, and I mean, that may be something that we want to review or the Public Safety Committee wants to review. But understanding and making sure that we're not citing and arresting people, which would be in violation of the 9th District Court of Appeals. Just want to make sure. Well, I would defer to the city attorney on the interpretation of that portion of the Martin versus Boise decision. However, my understanding is that the Penal Code for 647 F, which is being drunk and public and unable to care for yourself, was not struck down by the courts. And so therefore not everything goes. And I don't know that we capture, we could certainly try to capture how many people are homeless versus housed or unhoused versus housed. We certainly don't look at person's economic status and how much they make a year, whether we're deciding that. But I can tell you that alcohol consumption regardless of who it is, in excess of consumption of alcohol, is a significant police problem in the downtown area. And we arrest some of the same people literally over 100 times a year. And I think that is what we're trying to shut off. And so if you look at it one, two ways. If you take all the arrests and then look at, do they have a physical address that they give us? Or do you look at the repeat offenders and extrapolate that out? I think that we could probably take a look at both of that and report back to you at some point in the future. And I think we can both agree, and I'm sure all of us up here want to agree that we definitely don't want a downtown where just anything goes. Because we want to provide a safe and stable place for people to be able to be, but also an equitable access for people to be able to enjoy themselves in one way or another. Sure. Thank you. Vice Mayor Meyers. Actually, Chief Mills, I just wanted to maybe get your thoughts on the extension to the 1am versus stopping at 11. Kind of understanding, you know, later night, what, into the morning, what do you have a thought on that? Yes. The closer it gets to bar closing time, the amount of alcohol saturation goes up in terms of people level of drinking. And it's not unusual at a real late hour to see a pretty substantial line in front of Benicio's.  Whether it's Benicio's or someone else, but that's really the only liquor store that I can think of. I know New Leaf, they're done at nine. I'm not sure about Trader Joe's. And so those are pretty responsible places we get zero problems out of CVS open CVS. I'm not sure how late they're open, but I think that they actually shut off the midnight sales at midnight. So I'd be in favor of bringing it back a little bit in time to a point where people are not as intoxicated and they can make better decisions. But certainly any time of the day, if somebody's a chronic alcoholic, they're finding a place to get that. And that's a different section that we can enforce. That answers your question. I'll just say that for as many years as I've been following and involved in downtown issues, the problems associated with alcohol or public safety and particularly serial enabriates gets back over and over and over again to the single serve. And that's why these restrictions have been included in the first place. And that's why I support, that's why I made the motion and we can certainly get more information on it. And Benicio's, as has been mentioned, staff report and by staff has had years of knowledge that this was limits. Yeah. I could just interject a comment is to be clear. We're talking about access to alcohol, not criminalization of someone for being drunk in public. Right. And I just want to follow up on that the reference made by council member Glover was to a footnote in the Martin versus Boise decision that had to do with a Supreme Court case called Powell versus Texas in which the court looked at the question of whether or not it was a violation of the 8th amendment for someone to be arrested for being drunk in public. And it was a plurality decision in which the court distinguished that from a similar case from California called Robinson in which the court struck down a law that made it a crime to be a serial anibriate as opposed to the act of being drunk in public in the court in the Powell versus Texas case did not state that a homeless person could not be prosecuted for being drunk in public. But a justice who wrote a concurring opinion raised that question as a hypothetical, but it didn't resolve the question. Just to be clear. Or not be clear, but for the police chief. Councillor Glover reference Taco or excuse me the mayor reference Taco Bell at being closed now how significant will that be for stuff that goes on around that area. I think it's too early to tell Council Member crown. It certainly could be significant. However, now without a capable guardianship over that property. That may actually have the opposite effect over time. Because it before you had people in there who could call the police who had video cameras that were operational and so forth. So until that gets torn down and developed, it could become a blight problem in the city for right now. It seems like it's doing okay. We're not getting an increase in calls for service there. And there's it appears to be this antidotally fewer people hanging out. But I want to see it over time before I can say that that's going to be effective effective use of that property. Thanks. And I just wanted to say anecdotally and my two walk along ride alongs with the police. They took big bottles fifths of gin and vodka off the two people in two different situations. Which I think is a bigger issue than than single use beers and which I would just have a problem with as far as if we're going to exempt them craft beers and not other single use beers. So I think that's why I put that forward. I had a very interesting conversation with the manager at Trader Joe's. And from his perspective, it is pretty dire the situation as far as stolen alcohol. They have a store policy where no employee can confront anyone who is stealing alcohol, can't go after him, nothing. In fact, someone was fired at another Trader Joe's for confronting someone for stealing alcohol. He himself saw someone steal two bottles of tequila and went to him and said, hey, could you bring those back? And he says, I don't have anything. And the guy just kept walking. And he was saying the word is out that, you know, this is what the situation at Trader Joe's, which I find really disturbing. But I'm not sure what exactly to do with that information other than that this exists, you know, this situation exists. And Trader Joe's does a good job of burying the alcohol now in the middle of the aisle and it's not near the door, either of the doors or anything. I know I said, well, what about a security guard? And he said, well, corporate wouldn't want that. That gives the wrong impression of what kind of store we are. So I don't know. And I know we've worked with CVS to get a security guard or maybe it's a security guard for the whole shopping center. I don't know if it's just for CVS. So I think my understanding is that social impacts of density of alcohol outlets, the length of time they're open usually have an implication in terms of our society. And that you do have more people accessing alcohol, more people under the influence of alcohol. And that's not really what I think we want or are trying to strive for. So I support the recommendation to change the time frame. I also, I don't really, I'm not sure if I follow the single consumption conversation in regards to the craft beers and then the noncraft beers, but in terms of all single use. I mean, so in terms of that distinction, either you're going to have single use potentially or not have a single use, but to have it just for beer seem somewhat are sort of strange to me. Do you want to clarify that in terms of, because a single use could be as indicated, hard alcohol, wine or whatnot? Right. And we originally, given the direction in 2017, our original thought was just to prohibit the sale of single serving containers. But then the issue of our local craft breweries came up. And since a lot of our local stores do make a point of carrying our local products, we wanted to have that exception just because of the support for the local industry. I don't know enough about the overall problems with alcohol to be able to say whether allowing beer but not other single serve alcohol would be enough, would do what we wanted to do by that prohibition. I just don't have that information. And if I could add, I think if the council is heading towards the direction of allowing single serve beer of any type, then it also raises the question about other single serving types, you know, whether that's hard cider or the alcohol seltzers or if that is malt liquor, for example. Are those included? Are those not? Some of the considerations early on, if we were excluding one, how would we differentiate, you know, if we say over a certain alcohol percentage, for example, well, there are certain beers that are very high alcohol content. And so I think if the council is going in that direction, there should be some discussion about exactly what you would want to allow in terms of not just beer, but also does that allow for hard cider? Does that allow for malt liquor? Does that allow for other types like the white claw seltzer that has alcohol in it? I'll just say that I think that that's one of my concerns, too, with this, is that a lot of craft beer can have very high alcohol percentages, and other types of domestic beers can have actually like lower alcohol percentages. So if we're making an exception for beer that costs more and has, if the arguments we're trying to keep people from consuming these products because they're going to be, you know, potentially more neighborate on Pacific Ave. If we're giving them access to alcohol with higher content in terms of craft beer and not providing an option for lower content, then one could say that we're actually, you know, providing access to single-serve alcohol that has the potential for having more adverse effects on individuals. And so I think it, and that's why I think it's, you know, from my perspective, you know, providing domestic and craft was the intent of that. It also, you know, it's come to my attention as well that this doesn't preclude people from purchasing packages. So if there's a six-pack or what have you, it doesn't preclude them from that. But I do know that for some craft breweries, they do sell larger volumes in single-serve, and some of those are our local industry. So that may be the issue that's occurring here. So I don't know how others feel, but that's... And just responding to Lee Butler's, when we're just talking about beer, beer is beer. Isn't there a definition for that? So the others would not be included. It's only single-use craft beer or, I don't know, corporate beer. We're even going to call that Budweiser, et cetera. So I think that's the only, and I think if we have a report back in six months, four months, that it says, talks about arrests, talks about what's going on, you know, in that area, I think the council would be amenable to changing this direction. In terms of the report back, I'm a little concerned that any statistics we would bring you would be hard to interpret because we've got the other factor of the Taco Bell closing. So we might bring you statistics that seem to indicate something, but we wouldn't be able to tell what was the cause, whether it had to do with our ordinance or with Taco Bell closing. That may be true, however, we're not looking at just that intersection. If we're looking at the crime data, we're looking at the entire downtown area, not just one location. I don't believe this is targeted just towards one business. This is, we're looking at all the outlets. If you do have more questions about the environmental changes that we're suggesting at CVS and some of the other stores make downtown, you know, Sergeant Jones is here and he can certainly address those as well because we are trying to deal with that side of the problem because, frankly, a lot of this does come from theft. And so it's kind of a very complex problem, but we would give you data from as much data as we can pull from all the downtown area, not just one intersection. This got way more complicated than I expected. And it seems to me, I think we want to move forward with most of what's here. And so one possibility would be just to prohibit the sale of single-serve containers, period, and get rid of the exception for the craft beers and all that other stuff. Keep it clean. I'm happy to do that. Is this a friendly? Yeah, it will. Kind of want to get a read, but I would be happy to change my original motion to say. Move the staff report as presented with removing the exception for craft beers. Or we could just vote on the amendment up or down and then vote on the main motion. I'll allow Councilmember Watkins and then Vice Mayor Myers and then we can vote on the amendment. My understanding is the interest really is around the removal of the single use access. And the craft beers was sort of an exception to try to support the local industry. But the overall intention was to, in general, have that be less available. So I followed the logic and I appreciate that. I also wanted to make sure I was clear. Did you, Chief Mills, say that CVS is open until midnight? And I know that there was a proposal to have it at one, but it's also recommended to close at 11. So I'm wondering if we want to change it to midnight for consistency. The CVS is open until midnight and the proposal would not require that CVS close at midnight just that they not sell alcohol beyond 11 p.m. Oh, this would apply to them. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I think my, thank you for clarifying that. I think I'm fine with the amendment around the single use. I think that makes sense. But I do share the Chief's sort of goal in terms of really trying to ramp down availability into the later parts, especially at 1 a.m. So I think if we are going to kind of be looking at this as something we might get some information on, see how it's working. There's a lot of moving pieces in this. I'd be much more supportive of going with the 11 p.m. stop right now rather than starting at 1 and trying to go backwards. So that would just be my hope. Just say that the idea of, you know, if we're going to do prohibition, then it should be, I think either we are going to have to figure out which ones we would include or we do a prohibition. So I'm happy to go on that route. I do still think though that having a later time would at least midnight would help for the fact that some people even get off work late and need somewhere to go purchase alcohol. And then the other concern I have is that if people are drinking and want to access something that they can take to their house, that they're not inclined to then get into a car to drive to you save or days or any of the safe ways around town which are open. And that folks who live in that area can easily access some of those stores by walking rather than getting in their cars. And so that's the real big concern I have around the 11 p.m. cut off. And then I had councilmember Brown and councilmember Glover. Yeah, so I, this has been a longer discussion than I anticipated as well. I am inclined to say, again, I don't have a strong opinion about whether we, with respect to single serving containers, it's all or none. But I understand that the logic that the, you know, the police chief has suggested that there may be a problem there and or there likely is. So I'm, I would be fine with the prohibition on all single serving containers with a report back. I get recognizing that we won't be able to make any, you know, causal determinations, but we can at least get a sense of where things are going from your perspective. Perhaps in six months after the prohibition, I would like to give businesses time to kind of with other, other regulatory changes we make. We give time for the business to sell whatever their current stock is. So if we could just make that possible, if that's the direction we go. The amortization period is until October. Well, that's right. It isn't here until October. Thank you. So, so we should consider that also in terms of the data. Anything we take from now to October will be inconclusive. Oh, correct. Thank you. Thank you for reminding me about that. So our report back six months from the date that this is fully implemented would seems like it would be reasonable. In terms of the hours, I agree with the mayor. You know, I think if we really want to think about how to address the concern that we have that in the direction that the previous city council provided about limiting the impact of alcohol sales. I think that allowing people to purchase alcohol when they're getting out of the bars at a location that does not require people to drive. When their, you know, their faculties are impaired is makes sense to me in terms of actually addressing the concerns we have. So I think that, you know, you having a one p one a.m. cut off time and seeing how that goes is makes sense to me. Over. Thank you. I support the later time for all the reasons that were mentioned. Also, I do want to acknowledge the intention of past council direction in supporting our local craft brew businesses. And I want to, you know, I don't want to have that be kind of pushed out of the conversation because of the complexity of identifying which single serves and which and not which single serves. I would like for us to say all single beer is exempted across craft and domestic distributors. But everything else for the time being like wine and liquor and all that other kind of stuff could be prohibited until after the data came back from the six months after the implementation of the policy. So I think with if we are able to extend the time to one one a.m. to avoid people unnecessarily driving and incorporate exemption for all single serve beers to be able to support our local businesses. Then that should be a good place to start personally. I guess what my only thought was the midnight seemed like a better hour to me because the longer of a place is open serving alcohol in an area where you have more density alcohol outlets usually leads to more alcohol consumption at a later time. And so for me in terms of the intention behind this and the locations in terms of access. I mean, we know density of access to healthy foods or other types of pro healthy type activities is the things that we want to move towards not necessarily density and length of time for more alcohol outlets personally. So for me, I think a compromise could be midnight. But I think the intention is to not have as much consumption at that late of hour. And in regards if I if I if I could maybe get clarification in regards customer Glover. We're you suggesting to add back in the craft brews into the exemption. No, the exemption to allow all single serve beers so that you were specifically saying beer yes just beers so that it's not discriminatory against people that can't afford single serve craft beers and allows for people to have access to just beer but limits the amount of liquor and wine that people can consume or purchase in those areas. So just to interject one of the things I'm hearing some can some consensus on is that there is a possibility that we can reduce the hours to midnight and add back in beer. And the impact of which would be that we're not discriminating one against people who can't afford expensive beer but then to we're also supporting our local breweries. And so for those other those other types of alcohol that were mentioned like malt liquor the spritzers and some of these other types of alcohol, we don't really have local industries that produce and manufacture those types of drinks. So given given that I think that maybe there's some area of consensus around this that where we would be able to limit the time to midnight and then bring back in all types of beer. So and there were two more comments one by Matthews the other microne. Well basically there are a million moving parts to this thing and I am interested in doing the things that we have to do tattoos and so forth. And get some improvement on the offsite alcohol sales I am willing to change the hours to end at 12 midnight. I do think that's reasonable cut cut back on on the cut off time. And I'm fine to go back to beer only with the exception of beer that will be some improvement. Maybe not what everybody wants but so I will modify my original motion to say that regarding the operational criteria. It would limit the hours of alcohol sales to between 7am and midnight. And prohibiting sale of single serving containers with the exception of beer. I appreciate that council member Matthews. But it did occur to me about hard cider and we do have quite a market. We do. So that's not that's not part of this and we don't want to exempt local hard cider. If I may make a comment on that is that this is just for single serve. And so I think that for local hard cider if people wanted to for example grab a six pack of hard cider they would be able to do so at that time. But they wouldn't be able to have a single serve. And so I think that kind of as our colleagues have mentioned you know trying to take a step forward and moving in a positive direction that this might be a compromise for now. And then we can get a sense of whether or not for example folks who are producing cider being negatively impacted. And I just want to point out as well it seems like the craft brew industries who reached out to us. And I think that we're covering them. Some of those do also produce ciders. But if their main the main product that producing is craft beer then I think that that wouldn't be as big of an impact on those businesses. So this might be a way for us to be able to move forward on this at this point in time. I'll withdraw my amendment. And vice mayor Myers. I was going to make another comment about cider but let's move on. I just want to before we vote. I do think it's really important to have some type of evaluation around the original proposal from the staff and specifically the police chief around the stopping of the sales at 11pm. So I don't want to lose track of that. And I think we need to just make sure that I don't want to put it in the motion but I'm just hoping that staff is clear that we should we do need to evaluate that. And I'm not going to vote no but I think that's you know really important part of what we're trying to do here. And I just want to just ask for point of clarification. Or I guess I would just point out that I thought I heard the mayor suggest that malt liquor would be excluded from the definition of beer. I think you need to make that clear in the motion so that we can say in the regulation that beer excluding malt liquor be provided for sale maker of the motion. That detail is out of my wheelhouse. If I could get a comment. I would suggest that malt liquor in the other thing that you may want to consider is the size of the beer. Whether it's a gallon beer or a 12 ounce beer. I mean there's all kinds of large beers out there. It's an expert or anything but. I'm just going to add malt liquor and let it go at that. I think you're going to entertain a size at 24 ounce. Remember our goal here. I would just say that 40 ounces generally are malt liquor. So and I think that in general for what craft breweries are selling a single serve larger beers are generally around the size of 24 ounces. So let's put that out there. Thank you. I appreciate all of the movement and amendments or changes that people have made thus far to address the issue of discrimination. I would just caution that malt liquor and 40s as Councilman Brown so wonderfully said there are songs about it.  Something for your money. So I'm a little hesitant with the inclusion of the prohibition of malt liquors associated with it and figuring out what the sizes are. I mean this gets into a longer conversation and I know that we need to move forward. But it's just something for us to be conscious about is that malt liquor is usually a focus of poor people when they're consuming alcohol. So if we prohibit malt liquor it's better than prohibiting all domestic or low cost beer as opposed to craft beer but there are still aspects of potential socio-economic discrimination in the restriction of malt liquor. I believe Councilmember Meyers suggested that or Councilmember Matthews excuse me suggested that it would be beer and malt liquor exempted from the prohibition. No. I thought it was the other way. So beer but not so only beer not malt liquor. Not malt liquor. Did I? Yes, that's what you said. That's what I understand. That's why I made that statement because it's still discriminatory. Anyway, liquor from the exam show. That's what the motion is. Is there a definition for malt liquor? I don't know. Yes. As opposed to beer. Understand. But sometimes the craft beers are at, I don't know, eight, nine, 10 percent. Malt liquor is a type of beer that additional sugar or syrup is added to to fortify the alcohol content. And I do believe just from a quick search that malt liquor may have higher alcohol contents than average beer. I mean, and this gets back to the conversation of craft beers and how they have higher contents of alcohol than your average beer. But if we're restricting people to only being able to purchase say Coors and Budweiser, which average to be I think between five and five nine and their alcohol content. Is that equitable if people can buy higher content craft beers, but not higher content domestic or low income beers in the same establishments? One thing if I could, if I may, that I would add is that the benefit is to not have people under the influence to the degree that they could be. So in the end, I think it's a healthy direction to move in this way, regardless of the type of beer and alcohol content. I mean, there will still be access. And the hope is that there won't necessarily be, as to the level that we've seen, cereal and ebriets accessing more alcohol. Hopefully they can access more healthier options and less alcohol use. It's a big issue. But given that, I would like to call a question. There's a call to question by Council Member Matthews, seconded by Council Member Cron. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Aye. So now to vote on the item, which is- Yeah, what's the vote? Oh, that one. There you need to vote on the item. Okay. So the motion, my understanding is to accept the staff recommendations for the downtown amendments with the exception of the hours being from 7 a.m. to midnight. And also prohibition on singles serve alcohol with the exception of beer minus malt liquor. All those in favor? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The passing unanimously. All right. Moving on to our next item. General business item number 19, amendments to the Santa Cruz municipal code section 15.38.010 and section <IP_ADDRESS> regarding small cell wireless facilities. And I'll turn it over to the City Attorney. Yes, the request is to continue this item to your February 11th, 2020 meeting. Late last year, the council directed that we return with a certain amendments to the existing small cell wireless ordinance. And we have been working on that, but it was not ready for the agenda packet. So the recommendation is to merely continue this item to February 11th. So that moves us on to our next item, which is the Newell Creek Dam Inlet Outlet Replacement Project, approval of plans and specifications, authorization to advertise for bids and award contract. Our presenters today are Heidi Luckenbach, Deputy Director of Water Engineering and Management. And we also have our Water Director, Rosemary Menard here today. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council Members. I'm just going to give you a very brief introduction for this item. As noted, Heidi Luckenbach, our Deputy Director for Engineering is here, but also the project manager, Leah VanderMottin. And they're going to give you a quick overview presentation of this particular project. We asked to put this on the general business agenda for today, because this is a project that has a price tag about in the neighborhood of 60 plus million dollars. And it seemed really important for there to be at least an opportunity for presenting what the project is going to do and kind of how far we've come in all of the work to get us here. It's a key project, one of the first of the big projects that we've been working on. And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to Heidi and to Leah. Hi, my name is Leah VanderMottin, as Rosemary said. I'm an engineer with the Water Department and the project manager for the Noel Creek Dam Inlet Outlet Replacement Project. As said, we're asking for you guys to approve the construction contract documents today, the plans and specs, and also authorize staff to advertise for bids and award contract. So I'll provide a brief project overview and then I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. So to provide a little bit of history here, the Noel Creek Dam was built in the early 1960s as part of the overall water system expansion project. And that included the Graham Hill Water Treatment Plant. These together have brought water supply reliability to the city and both a combination of being able to have the storage from Loch Lomond Reservoir and the treatment. So the Noel Creek Dam impounds Loch Lomond Reservoir. And this is our only water storage facility, our surface water storage facility. And it's extremely important for supplementing our water supply during peak season demands and during heavy rains when other water sources are more difficult to treat. Dam safety is a priority for us. The dam is routinely monitored by city staff, consultants, our consultants, and also Division of Safety of Dams, our regulatory agency. DSOD is what we often refer to them as, requires regular monitoring and reporting. And as needed, they can require rehabilitation or replacement of certain elements of the dam. I just wanted to reiterate that the dam we manage is safe and do in large part because we have a rigorous ONM program and we work closely with DSOD. This picture here shown on the slide is a photo of not too distant repair we made on our spillway as a result of an inspection prompted by DSOD for all dams. And with our spillway we showed very minor wear and tear. Just an example of how we work with DSOD. So with that said, that kind of brings us to this project. In the inlet outlet of the dam has aged and it is out of compliance with the modern standards and is required by DSOD to rehabilitate or replace. And this project started back in 2015. And at that time we were looking at both rehabilitation and replacement. And early on in the design phase we decided to move forward with replacement for a number of reasons. We did a thorough comparative analysis and determined that replacement was ideal for a number of reasons. We had the least operational impacts during construction on our water supply. There's no extended disruptions to the city's water supply. Significantly greater infrastructure life for replacement. It would also ensure that we could meet the current DSOD drawdown requirements in the event of an emergency. There are fewer construction unknowns with replacement. And it also, there's a number of enhancements that we're making with this project that increase the city's operational flexibility of the facility. And so access to the site and environmental stewardship is also improved. So just to orient you, this photo here shows, first or show up, okay. So you can see Lachloman Reservoir here. And here's the crest of the dam, existing control building here. And this is also at same locations where the proposed control building will go. Here is the downstream face of the dam and down at the bottom is the toe of the dam. And so this will help for some next slides. So here is one component of the inlet outlet works. This is the outlet structure. As you can see in this picture. And just to make sure everyone's aware of the purpose of the inlet outlet works. We use it to not only just allow for operational and emergency releases from the dam, but we also use it to inlet component is diverting water from San Lorenzo River and pumping it into the reservoir. We also convey water out of the reservoir to the Graham Hill Water Treatment Plant. We make releases for in-stream flow requirements for creek habitat. And those are all done through the inlet outlet works. So it's a critical component. So the proposed construction project has, we have a 3D video that you guys can look up on the website, the project website. Here's one shot from it. This project will be one of the most expensive and technically challenging projects in the water department's history. It includes a tunnel, as you can see highlighted here, that goes around the dam and into the reservoir. So it starts down at the toe of the dam about 1500 feet and ends in the reservoir. There are three vertical inlets here at different depths that allow us to collect water, different water quality, and also provide redundancy. The outlet structure, the proposed outlet structure is here in this orange color, here's the existing. And some of the improvements I was talking about will have a culvert crossing, which allows us to not drive through the creek anymore to access the facility. We've raised it up, so it's out of the flood zones. One of the things just involves, you can see there's quite a bit of earthwork dredging in the reservoir, earthwork down and grading down at the toe of the dam. So here is a timeline of kind of where we came from and up till today. We have just some milestones here. Like I said, in 2015 it was started with planning. It was in 2017, we completed 10% design, 2018 50% design. And that was also the time when we decided to move forward with replacement. We also started our state revolving fund loan application in 2018, which was, you guys have heard about before. In 2019, we had a number of meetings with the Water Commission presentations. In May 2019, the city council certified the EIR. And in September, we finished the 100% design. Here's a schedule of the project through completion. If approved, we will begin the bid period right away and it will be done in March. Regulatory permitting will also be expected to be completed in March. Award and notice to proceed in April, completing the final, the financial agreement with the loan with the state. In May, substantial completion will be about two years later and project close out April or August 2022. That's all the information about funding. As I said, we are just about done with our application process with the state drinking water revolving fund loan, which is a low interest rate loan. We're using Corolo, a consultant that's helping us navigate this application process and help make sure we comply with everything. There will be federally funded rules associated with this loan. And the anticipated package sign off eligibility date would be May 2020. Do you have any questions? Are there any questions for staff? Seeing none, I'd just like to say that seems like a pretty daunting project. So, cool congratulations on the design and best of luck. I'm sure we're going to love to hear how this project goes over time. Is there any member of the public who would like to speak on this item at this time? Seeing none, I'll return back to council for action and deliberation. Vice Mayor Myers. Is there questions of staff or anyone who is going to go ahead and just move the recommendation? Second that. So it's motion by. Go ahead. You can read it. So I'll move to approve the plan specifications and contract documents for the Neal Creek Dam inlet and inlet slash outlet replacement project and authorized staff to advertise for bids and award the contract in a form to be approved by the city attorney. The city manager is hereby authorized and directed to execute the contract as authorized by resolution number NS-27563. It's a motion by Vice Mayor Myers, seconded by Mayor Cummings. All those in favor, any for the discussion? Just a quick comment. I just, I want to thank staff. I tend to do this when I look at these projects and you bring us a presentation that really helps us make sense of these project that is a massive scale. And so I just want to say that I think for the general public that's that's listening. This is a huge undertaking and it's necessary one. It is going to have a really significant long-term impact on our ability to have a secure water supply. And so I just want to highlight that and say, you know, there's really no way to express how massive and daunting of a project it is. And I'm really glad that you all are, we have capable, capable stewards of our water system on our staff. Basically my comments as well, this could have gone on consent. You can see there's zero controversy on this. And it's really a testimony to all the work and the confidence we have in our staff to bring this forward. Just to say that this, the history given to us in our staff report, I recommend it for reading. Over 12 city council actions moving this forward over a period of five years for this project alone. And it's impressive. And thank you. Are there any other comments by council members? So I'll call the vote. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. Maybe for our next item, I'll give council members and our staff a five minute break. And so we'll come back at 2.15. The direction that we're following from the, there it is. We are following from the last two times we appeared before the city council on this item about the general plan and our zoning ordinance and the level of development capacity that are accommodated in each document. So first I'll go through the direction that we got at the last meeting on November 26th. We were directed to do some information gathering about the number of units that might be, that are currently sort of accommodated and planned for in the general plan versus what the existing zoning, if we take, make an assumption about the existing zoning, how many units are zoned for in that area. And then also thinking about properties or locations or alternative configurations where the delta of those units might be reallocated throughout the city. And then secondly we're also, we have an update on our direction that we got on October 22nd about the objective standards grant that we submitted. So a little more background to the, in answering this first question about what's the sort of existing development capacity in the mixed use high density area along Soquel and Water. We need to take a look at the way that the zoning code and the general plan work together to regulate development. So there are, in the zoning code, they, in the CC zone district, there is actually no density that's stated for development of residential units when they're part of a mixed use project. So when a mixed use project is proposed on a CC zone site, that development is essentially regulated via site standards by the height that's in the zoning code, the setbacks that are in the zoning code, the parking requirement, and then also additionally the floor area ratio, which is established in the general plan. A floor area ratio, we call it an FAR, so I will be using that jargon. I apologize, I know it's going to slip out. So a floor area ratio is a ratio between the area of a building and the site on which that building sits. So a floor area ratio of one means that the building covers 100% of the site to a level of one story. A floor area ratio of two would cover 100% of the site to a height of two stories. So very few buildings that we would allow to be built actually cover 100% of the site because we require parking, we require setbacks. So you can start to see how a floor area ratio combined with the height limit sort of gives you an envelope of how a building might fit on a site and how that bulk might be regulated. So that is currently the way that we regulate mixed use development in the city on any CC-zoned property, which those are a long mission, soquel, water, and parts of ocean. So in answering the first question from the city council about what's the development capacity in the general plan versus the development capacity addressed in the zoning code, you know, for mixed use projects there really is no difference. They are the same because the both documents work together to regulate that intensity. So in answering that question we considered the standard that applies for residential only project. So we do allow in our CC zone district with a use permit the construction of residential only projects. So apartment buildings or condos, and we have a standard for those. They have to meet the same standard as our RM zone district, which has a density between 30 and 39 units per acre. So considering that as our standard and then relying on the methodology that was included as an attachment to the staff report for estimating the capacity of development that's contained in the FAR found in the general plan. We came up with an estimate of about between 2,500 and 2,600 units that could currently be accommodated in those 91 sites along water and soquel that are currently designated for mixed use high density in the general plan and zone for community commercial development. So comparing that to the RM zone district standards that would apply for residential only projects in the CC that gives us a delta of about 1,600 units that are accommodated in the general plan versus what is currently zoned for in the zoning if we take that point of view. So that's not an insignificant number of dwelling units and your council had asked for options of where they might, where those units might be reallocated or also other ways in which we could allocate them. And we've provided you with a pretty long list of 23 different options, different patterns of development that could be established in the city. And that list was generated through ideas that we've heard from the public in the past, ideas that have been floated in the media, tools that have been used by other jurisdictions, both currently and in the past. Every one of them has pros and cons, right, and they would, as you could see sort of reading through the list, they would generate some really different land use patterns with really different causes and effects. So at this point we're not recommending any one of them. We haven't done the math about how many of them we would need to use or which ones to accommodate, you know, a total of 1,600 units. Again, as we've said many times and I'm sure your council is well aware, this would require a general plan amendment because we can't show any loss of development capacity under our general plan within our boundaries. So obviously that could trigger additional environmental review if we change the pattern that was initially considered. And we would want to have really inclusive and equitable community engagement and it's a relatively long process, making that kind of a change to the pattern and the maps that we have. So the next thing that I'd really like to talk about is our progress that we've been making on our RFP for objective development standards. When we were here in November, we said we'd gotten staff level approval and we were hoping to have word from the state any day now that we had gotten the money and that is the same answer we have now. We've gotten staff level approval and we've had some back and forth with the state. They asked for a little bit of additional information on a certain couple of things and we are sort of expecting at any moment that we will be, those funds will be released to us and we'll be able to issue the RFP. We have a draft of our RFP but we're still kind of working through it right now, thinking about all the different ways that this project could go. We've been looking around at some of our existing objective standards. The example shown here is actually from our downtown plan and thinking about what are the key features as we develop objective standards for multifamily housing. What are the kinds of things that we want to think about? How have other places done this because we're not inventing the wheel here. This has happened elsewhere before so we've been kind of looking around for examples and thinking about that project. I should just mention we have done sort of the initial step in thinking about the outreach that would happen around this project. We started with a list of potentially affected interests and identified a bunch of different groups and individuals and categories of folks that we would want to include in our engagement and address their interests even if we couldn't include them. For example, children is one of the potentially affected interests as we develop standards for multifamily housing. These are places where lots of children are going to grow up. So we want to be thinking about how are we accommodating that interest even if they aren't maybe actively participating in our community engagement. We did that early on because we want to include that with our RFP. When we send our request for proposals out we want to make consultants aware of sort of the breadth and depth of community engagement that we are hoping to pursue with this project. So that was also included with your agenda report that initial sort of draft list of potentially affected interests. And in thinking about this project we are getting pretty excited that this is really an opportunity for creating high quality design at some really visible sites around Santa Cruz. Multifamily housing really contributes a lot to the character of a place a lot of people live in multifamily housing. So we want to have these standards be things that really reflect Santa Cruz and really accommodate a lot of different points of view. So we've been looking around the way that some other places address the need for objective standards. And I brought an example here from Redwood City. So yes, this is a jurisdiction over the hill so it's a little bit of a different scale than what we would expect here in Santa Cruz. But I just thought this was interesting. They actually have regulations for architectural character and they define six styles of architectural character and then they allow them in different locations based on this map. They also have specific regulations for public front edges that vary based on the type of street if it's a side street or a primary street or a boulevard that has like a median. They have specific standards for building placement and landscaping and height and where how buildings are sighted on the parcel. So this one is like very detailed. I don't know that our project would be able to get this detailed depending on, you know, based on the budget that we have. And it's still kind of just interesting to think about we could actually potentially regulate architectural character in an objective way. So what they've done here, so we have this map on the first this identifies zones and then the bottom piece here that you'll see and this isn't really large enough to read. But it just you can kind of get the idea that these different zones have names and different architectural styles are permitted in different zones and prohibited in certain zones. And so the very last the very bottom row here is the contemporary architectural style, which is the cut sheet that I pulled on the top. And you'll see that's really only allowed in one part of their downtown. They don't allow it elsewhere. They want things to be neoclassical or craftsman or Victorian and sort of reflect other parts of their city's history and character.  So it does include guidelines, a lot of guidelines rather than strictly standards. And I think that a lot of these guidelines could pretty easily be converted into standards. And this is still a pretty good model, I think, for us to be looking at as we move into this project of, you know, providing really clear examples of like this type of window, this type of balcony, this type of awning. This is, you know, this is what we're looking for. And these are the regulations that describe these things. So I'll just show you now, oh, and then this is also, this is another sheet from one of the building, one of the sections about facade regulations. And I just wanted to point out they have different facade regulations on different street types, which I just think is really interesting. And sort of one of those things that really creates neighborhood character, how wide is the sidewalk and how does the width of the sidewalk relate to the height of the building and how do you feel as you walk down the street. So those are the kind of things that we're thinking about with this project. And so this is a project that came in on, this is on El Camino Real. And this is not a bad development project. It's in the contemporary style. It reminds me of the library that was at my university. You know, it has kind of an institutional feel. It's not a bad project. And this was the proposal before they had fully complied with the requirements of the downtown plan in Redwood City. And this is the after. So after they've gotten full compliance, the building has changed. It's still relatively the same mass and square footage. And the building looks different, it relates to the street in a different way. And to me, I drastically prefer the second one. Again, this is a different scale than maybe something we would expect to see in most neighborhoods in Santa Cruz. But I think it is sort of interesting to think that like this is, you can write objective standards that can get you from here to here. And that is what we are going to be looking to do with this RFP is looking for consultants that can help us get to this level of detail. So with that, our recommendation is that your council accept the monthly report on the general plan and zoning ordinance reconciliation effort. And we are available for any questions. Thank you very much for your presentation. Are there any council members who have questions at this time for our city staff on this item? I just want to make a quick comment. I and I'll make other comments in a bit, but I don't have specific questions right now, mostly because the report is very thorough and kind of provides an opening for further discussion. And I have lots of questions, but I don't think there are questions I would, you know, ask you to try to answer right now because I think there's a lot more conversation to be had. So that's what I do. So it's not that I'm not engaged. I do appreciate all of your work. And I'd like to hear from the public. I just have one, just I think the report. Let me just make sure the RFP has been issued or not? No, it hasn't been issued yet. We don't have the money yet from the state. So we're hesitating to release the RFP until we actually have the money. And I guess just based on your presentation just now. And really what I think is the thing that are, you know, a lot of people in our community are struggling with is, is this the sense that these things, you know, these, these new developments are going to change, you know, the character. So I really appreciate you pointing out how other jurisdictions are starting to think about this. When you do an RFP like this, are you able to just sort of describe our existing kind of land use situation here where we have, you know, a lot of, a lot of single family homes that are now budding up to sort of, you know, these, these areas that may be looked at for mixed use or other. You know, I think it's important that we, when we do this process that we are hiring a group that acknowledges the uniqueness of our land use pattern here and the types of, the different types of neighborhoods we have. And so are you able to articulate that in the RFP? I mean, is that something you guys have thought about in looking at that? Yeah, I mean, so to a certain extent we can articulate that in the RFP. And then I think, you know, to the sort of more helpful piece is that as we select a consultant, you know, step one is going to be a tour of the city and really talking about, you know, these specific locations and looking at those interactions and edges as they happened, you know, between neighborhoods and other, between neighborhoods and then between neighborhoods and commercial districts. So yeah, I mean