The hour of 12 o'clock having arrived and a majority of the City Council having arrived I will call this meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council on March 14th 2023 to order and would ask the clerk to call the roll. Thank you Mayor. Council Member Newsom. Present. Council Member Brown is absent. Watkins. Here. Council Member Bruner is currently absent. Mr. Johnson. Present. Vice Mayor Golder. Here. And Mayor Cooley. Here. Quorum having been established we will move forward for public comment on any item regarding closed session. We will have a closed litigation personnel session today. If there is anyone with us in chambers today who wishes to make a comment on one or more of those items rather than this would be your opportunity to do so. Seeing and hearing none Ms. Bush do we have anyone online who wishes to comment? We do not. No. We do not. Seeing and hearing no one who wishes to comment on our closed session agenda we will adjourn into closed session and return at 2 o'clock this afternoon or when we finish our regular business whichever occurs second. Pardon me Mayor Cooley. We have a subsequent need item that I would like to ask the council to add to the agenda. The basis for adding the subsequent need item is that the need arose after the agenda was posted and due to some time constraints it is necessary that the council discuss the item before the next regularly scheduled meeting. The item is a matter of pending litigation it is the lawsuit entitled city of Santa Cruz versus the regions of the University of California. Without objection that will be added to our closed session agenda today. We require that it be adopted by motion and it requires. There is a motion by Ms. Watkins and a second by Mr. Newsom to add that to our closed session. Is there any debate or discussion concerning this matter? Concerning the motion. Seeing and hearing none the clerk will call the roll. Councilmember Newsom. Aye. Brown. Ms. Watkins. Aye. Brunner. Absent. Callentary Johnson. Aye. Vice Mayor Golder. Aye. And Mayor Cooley. Aye. Motion passes unanimously and so ordered we now stand adjourned into closed session. The hour of 2 o'clock having arrived the Santa Cruz City Council is back in session for our afternoon session the clerk will please call the roll. Thank you Mayor. Councilmember Newsom. Present. Brown. Here. Watkins. Here. Brunner. Present. Callentary Johnson. Present. Vice Mayor Golder. Here. And Mayor Cooley. Here. And I recognize Councilmember Callentary Johnson for some remarks regarding Persian New Year. Thank you Mayor. Persian New Year is called No Roo's and it's the first day of spring and it takes place on or around March 20th every year and this year thank you to our Mayor for the proclamation that you issued we'll be presenting that at an event that the city is co-hosting at the mall on this Thursday March 16th from 6.30 to 8 and all are welcome so we'll describe what Persian New Year means and we'll talk a little bit about the women's freedom movement that's taking place today Ryan. Very good thank you for that. I would also like to invite the good folks from Hope Services who are here with us today. I can see smiles so I think I know who's who from Hope Services. We are so grateful for all the work that Hope Services does in our community every single day. Councilmembers here with more experience and I have sitting on this body know better than I do how much that work is so meaningful in people's lives. I would like to acknowledge the Parking for Hope program where the City of Santa Cruz each year decides to use a portion of the money and parking meters to provide additional support for Hope Services and the very good work that they do. I would like to invite Hope Services Manager Heather Perez, Employment Coordinator Jessica Guzman, Crew Supervisor Héctor Castillo and Literary Batement Crew Member Sara and Cassie to come forward. Hi, how are you? Good, good. So here's a check from the five hundred and sixty-eight dollars and three cents is going to put you over the top with your good work, right? Thank you so much. This will help support our programs for six months out of the year to support the downtown Literary Batement Crew. So thank you. You're certainly welcome. Certainly welcome. All right. Bye. Thank you. We're under presiding officer announcements. There are none. Statements of disqualification. Any member wish to make a notice, Ms. Bruner? Out of an abundance of caution, I will be disqualified from item number seventeen as it relates to my employment. Very good. Thank you for that. Additions and deletions, Ms. Bush? There are none. There are none. Thank you. City Attorney Report from closed session, sir. Thank you, Mayor Keely, members of the City Council. The Council met in closed session this afternoon at twelve o'clock in the Courtyard Conference Room. Council Member Brown was not present for that portion of the meeting. The following items were discussed. First of all, prior to adjourning to closed session, an item of subsequent need was added to the agenda. And that is pending litigation, the matter currently pending in the Santa Cruz County Superior Court entitled City of Santa Cruz versus the Regents of the University of California. That item was discussed in closed session. First item on the closed session agenda was real property negotiations. Properties at 333 Locust Street and APNs<PHONE_NUMBER> and 09, located in the City of Scotts Valley. City owned property. Those items were deferred to a subsequent meeting. Item two was a conference with legal counsel concerning liability claims. Those are claims of Laurel Hanna-Baker and DeVita Seliger. Those items are also listed on your consent agenda this afternoon as item number nine. Third item was a conference with legal counsel concerning anticipated litigation. That is, the Council met to consider initiation of litigation on one potential case. As I mentioned, the City versus Regents case was discussed in closed session, but there was no reportable action. Thank you, sir. Ms. Bush, any reports on the Council meeting calendar? No new items, but just a reminder next Monday is a special meeting. Monday is a special meeting. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we are on the consent agenda at this point. These are items which are all clustered together that will be voted upon on one motion. What we will do at this point is I will go around the Council and ask if there are questions, comments, or a desire to move any of these items off of the consent agenda. And then you will be given an opportunity to comment upon and request any item to be moved off the consent agenda for further discussion. These are items six through 14 inclusive on your agenda. Let me see if Council members wish to comment or pull any items. I'll start on my left, Ms. Brunner. Ms. Condard Johnson. Ms. Golder. Ms. Watkins. Ms. Brown. I would like to pull item 10. Item 10. Item 10 will be pulled. And for those of you, this is item 10 is the Santa Cruz Police Officers Association and Santa Cruz Police Management Association tentative agreement for successor memoranda of understanding. There has been a request for extra time on that for Mr. Meisler. That has been granted. So when this item is prepared, Mr. Meisler, I will recognize you for that purpose. And Mr. Newsom. Okay. Let me ask if there is anyone with us today who wishes to comment upon the consent agenda or request that an item on the consent agenda be placed. On the regular agenda. Yes, sir. Good afternoon, sir. I'm not sure it has any real relationship, but I've wondered since the, the August of 2021 Santa Cruz maniac ride out that came to this town with 5,000 bicyclists and calls all kind of havoc. I've been trying to find out if anybody, anybody in the city ever wrote a report on the incidents and that I did a records request for anything that was referred to. 911 calls that were referred to city services. But I would think that given the complete failure of being able to prevent what happened and all the problems that happened that weren't reported that somebody would have taken the time to report. So I'm asking and that's it's a police affair and it has to do with their duties and whatnot. So that's the reason I brought it up right now. Thank you very much. Under all communications were, well, no, I'm sorry. This is not all community. This is a comment on the consent agenda. Thank you. I think what I'll do on that is let me see if, if you would leave your name and phone number. I'll follow through with, with the city manager and chief police, see if we can get an answer to your question. Okay. Well, you've all got my contact information on that yellow hand. Not sure I do. Oh, yes, you did. You got one. Absolutely. Well, I've got it then. Okay. Other people are glad to give it to me. Very good. Thank you, sir. Anyone else who's with us today wish to comment on the consent agenda seen and hearing none. Someone did just raise their hand. Mayor, sorry. Someone did just raise their hand. Somebody did just raise their hand. Let's go to them then. Good afternoon. You are with us online. Good afternoon. I'm going to count to three here. One, two, three. There we go. All right. A motion on the remaining. Mayor, before you go, I'm wondering, I intend to comment on item 10. That'll be the appropriate time when you pull it off the agenda. When we take it off, that's right. We'll be with you then, Mr. Norse. Seeing and hearing no further items, a motion to approve the remaining consent agenda would be in order. I'll move the remaining consent agenda. Motion by Ms. Watkins. Brunner, second. Brunner. Clerk will call the roll. Council member with Newsom. Aye. Watkins. Aye. Callentary Johnson. Aye. Vice Mayor Golder. Aye. Mayor Keely. Aye. Thank you. We are on item 10. And this is the item that was requested to be pulled by Ms. Brown. Ms. Brown, would you care to open on this item? Thank you, Mayor. I just want to say I received multiple requests from members of the public to pull this item from the agenda today and agreed to do so. The item is approval of the Santa Cruz Police Officers Association and Police Management Association contracts, labor contracts, and the requests that I received included concerns related to specific, I think it was primarily related to specific positions and the vehicle abatement position in particular in the police budget. And while that is not something that we can necessarily discuss here because it's not within the scope of our labor negotiations, I wanted to give an opportunity for folks who made this request to speak about their concerns before we take a vote. Thank you. Anyone with us today who wishes to make such comments on item 10? Good afternoon. My name is Leanne Sherwood, and my father was the pastor, associate pastor of the Circle Church from 69 to 85, and I know he would approve this message. This is for the Santa Cruz Police Department and Santa Cruz City Council. This is for all backyard meters and burn beaters, bum beaters.  Same on you. Anyone else on item 10? Good afternoon. Hi. My name is Reggie Meisler. I'm a member of Santa Cruz Cares. I work in a coalition with a large number of other groups to defend the rights of people who live in vehicles and tents. We have a request for you regarding the Santa Cruz Police Labor Contract, namely that you either reject the MOU to make changes to it or you amend the MOU to remove the vehicle abatement officer position and the vehicle abatement hotline from the Santa Cruz Police Force. I'll talk a little bit about why this is a deeply problematic role and speed dial number for our police, but let me first address this in a wider context. People need housing. They need housing they can afford and they need a lot of it at this point. They can't wait 10, 20, or 50 years from now for housing to become available. More people are living in their vehicles and tents every year and so there's a desperate need for people to simply be allowed to exist while our government attempts to address a multi-million unit deficit of affordable housing throughout the state. That is what this is really about. People need a way to exist while they're poor. We need a bottom to this capitalist system that is currently creating a downward spiral of suffering.  We need a bottom to this system because the way things are working right now, people are led to death. They're led to death by exposure or death by suicide. So with that in mind, let's talk about why the vehicle abatement officer and the abatement hotline are perpetuating that downward spiral. For those who don't know, the vehicle abatement officer is a role in the Santa Cruz Police Department dedicated to handing out 72-hour tow notices, also known as abandoned vehicle notices or green tags to nuisance vehicles. For a wide range of community complaints, including complaints which are purely subjective and aesthetic, like general unsightliness. Complaints by neighbors sent to the SCPD are not investigated before a tow notice is given and reporters are not required to provide personal information, meaning Complaintance cannot even be held accountable for false police reports of an abandoned vehicle. As you might imagine then, unfair reporting and abuse in the system is rampant and normalized. Groups like Santa Cruz neighbors are very public about their intention to use this vehicle abatement hotline liberally. Not simply to address public health and safety concerns, but also to address what they consider to be blight in their respective neighborhoods. The biggest target for this program is our neighbors most vulnerable to tow orders, people living out of their vehicles. I've heard numerous stories of the system being used to unfairly target and harass people for simply having an unsightly vehicle, people getting green tags within hours or minutes of parking, people getting green tags while actively occupying their vehicles, officers cracking someone's windshield when they place a green tag on their vehicle, officers telling people move one mile and aggressively chalking that message onto their tires when the law they're citing only requires they move a short distance which is not actually defined. The ACLU recently sent you a letter which I was supposed to give you a physical copy of. I'll send it to you again via email and that letter details how green tags, what the vehicle abatement officer gives out is neither lawful nor enforceable. So why continue to support a program that is discriminatory, abusive, unlawful and unenforceable, amend the MOU or reject it to erase the shameful role from our city police force and stop the downward spiral while we await for truly affordable housing to be built. Thank you. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Greg Benson, Richard Voder. I'm a resident up at the Armory right now and I hope we have more room to get people in. Basically, I believe that the politicians need to have their feet held to the fire or just warmed at the fire but the police, you know, I think we're lucky to have the cops that we do have. I've been in Chicago. I've been thrown 40 feet by two cops and these guys do a pretty damn good job of letting us be foolish and I asked them one day, they said, well, this is what we signed up for. And then I chased them down. I said, you signed up to babysit 50 year old drunken men like me that are older, but and that do no better. And they're like, well, and they, you know, they should not do that. But I've been sober for 14, 15 days and I'm still mischievous, but we need to, like I said, at the Benchlands, I was co-chairman of the Benchlands Council, which means I was the only person that did anything or showed up anymore. That's mischief too. Let's keep the focus on the origins of what's causing things, you know. And we could, you know, the 70 outdoor beds do not really count according to Boise versus Wade and we could flip a lot of sleep if we needed to, but there's other ways to get stuff done and the most important thing is let's remember, you know, the multiple people that have died out on the streets, mostly from drugs, it's not easy to get the cleaners over out there. Let's make things good for them. Let's keep us safe. Let's let the cops go home to their families and let the politicians go home to their families and I will and can stay there. No, no, no, we need them to do stuff until I get to office. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Miss Smith, good afternoon. Hello, everybody. I'm happy to be here. I'm glad you're all here receiving and the rain lad up and the horrible rain, I mean the wind, but people from Chicago are used to it and I've lived in Santa Cruz for 53 years, staunch Democrat. Now, I am here. I am concerned when, well, tell public works to get in gear. Waiting as many people are for the fencing around duck, the duck pond to be removed and there are still lights that are out on the walkway and for those of us who love to walk through the park and through the park and downtown to get to TJ's. And as Sandy knows, I told her I wish that I could get a little commission once a year. I live near the river bank and I walk a lot and constantly picking up trash and thought of mentioning it since low and behold, trash to pick up on my way here. And beyond that, Mayor Keely, I left a telephone message for you that I presume you received. If not, about a brilliant book I want to give you. I like to pass on brilliant books. I said, who can I, who really would love and deserve this besides supervisors? Golden Gates, The Housing Crisis and A Reckoning for the American Dream by Connor Darney. And it's historical and sociological and it'll inspire you all, but for the mayor to take it home and eat it up and read it all up and use it for future. It focuses on San Francisco. Here's what I'll do. I have a policy about not receiving gifts. It's not a gift. It's a citizen input. But you can gift that to the city of Santa Cruz and any of us can read it. So if you would give that to the city clerk, that would be great. Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you. How are you? Thank you. I'm good. I just wanted to take a quick minute to echo what Reggie Meisler said. As many of you know, I spent four years living in my RV. Those tickets, the green stickers, they do nothing to help individuals get housing. In fact, it hurt my family quite a bit. The resentment is still very much in my heart about that whole situation. The money that's spent on tickets could be saved to help people get housing. I spent a lot of money on tickets that could have been used on food for my family, could have been used on a lot of other things. So I do want to echo what Reggie said as the truth. He said a lot of truths that pertain to the unhoused community and people living in their vehicles. And so I think that, again, I will say the focus needs to be on services and not criminalization. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Good afternoon. I'm not sure whether I used up my time. It was kicked off the agenda that the member of understanding was the police. But this concerns the issue that people have been talking about parking. So it's very, very short. So I've been, I think, pretty liberal in allowing people to speak to number 10 without speaking to number 10. Well, this is exactly about the issue of... I'll tell you what. You use your time as you wish. Your time starts now. Thank you, Mayor Keely. In case anybody has a problem with a Santa Cruz parking ticket, I know a legal way to challenge it and win. I've been doing this for years. I'm not going to reveal the secret here in front of Council and Tony. But it's very effective and I've done all of the illegal research on it. So part of the process of the parking tickets is unconstitutional under a decision by the California Supreme Court. So that's all I'm going to say. If you want to talk to me and get in touch with me, anybody can. If you can find the yellow sheet, that's got all my contact information on it. I'd love to help somebody out. Thank you. Well, thank you, sir. Mr. Norris, good afternoon. And hello to the community and the City Council. In these chambers, we are constrained to wedge our groans of pain and shouts of outrage into a two-minute slot. Adding insult to injury, oral communication has been denied its traditional spot today at a time certain, so most people don't even know when to come and speak, unless I've been misinformed. Any MOU, which is what we're talking about on this period, must, of course, severely cut police funding, if not shifted entirely to real community organizations that provide actual services for Santa Cruz. Ask how many times a police officer has helped you in the last five years. Ask yourself that question. I mean, honestly, not do it with any disrespect to individuals who get their salary that way. Police murders and militarization in other places, lack of accountability here, and police collusion with DAs and business interests plagues us. Should more money be spent on funding these armed goon squads that forced hungry and homeless people to eat in the rain in the past week right outside these chambers that happened on Friday? Should we bolster the weaponry of uniform gunmen who drove community members away from here, the seat of government, because they were setting up food under the eaves so that weep would not be rained on? Do we continue to ignore voices that point to increasing discrimination against black and Latino residents in San Francisco and San Jose, and has also been documented here with dangerous and life-threatening traffic stops? Documentation is shown in San Francisco and San Jose. These stops threaten minority folks two to six times as heavily as us privileged white folks. Is this the truth? And this issue, what does it have to do with memorandum of understanding? Well, this is a pay raise. And when it's hard to oppose a pay raise to our employees of any kind, when you have individuals who are violating people's rights without accountability, one has to put that into a real examination before one raises their salaries and commends them for the good work. I mean no disrespect to any human being here or in the broader, water-soaked community. But as a matter of principle, it's important to preserve our First Amendment rights by not being afraid to show disdain and outrage for a local government and a local mayor, amiable as he may be, who has refused to open broader shelter for this winter, but most outrageously for this series of storms coming up. They may be drenched shivering with the only warming center accessible to all on those few nights to be open clothes. The current depot center is a joke. The other centers are too far from town. A stated capacity of less than 30 at depot, an actual capacity of less than 60. Meanwhile, across the street, the civic auditorium lies empty and guarded by the promise of violent force should anyone attempt to escape the atmospheric flood there. It should not be tolerated. Thank you, Mr. Law. Anyone else who is with us who wishes to comment on item number 10? Seeing and hearing none, the matter is back before the council. A motion is in order, Ms. Brown. I will move the item. The item's been moved. Is there a second? Second by Ms. Calantari-Johnson. Is there a debate or discussion on the item? Ms. Brown. I would like to make a few remarks given that I pulled this item and have been in communication with some of you who are here today. So I just want to say that I share your concerns that have been expressed and I'm going to try to speak just to this item here. But I just want to generally say I share the concerns that you all are expressing. I have consistently expressed concern and opposed efforts that are enforcement-based approaches to addressing our homelessness crisis in our community. What people are going through is obviously, you know, really unconscionable. And I'm not saying that to place blame anywhere in this room. We have some major challenges to try to work through. And I think that trying to work on those changes in the context of a labor contract with the people who do this work go out every day. And, you know, I think that that's important that we support our workers. I'll just kind of leave it there. I guess I could say more, but this is a workforce issue as well. And as a management here, as I am, I think it's really important that we support our workforce. And this is an MOU that was negotiated in good faith. But I do take your concern seriously. And we'll continue to work on them elsewhere, else-wise. Thank you, Ms. Brown. Others on this item. Please call the roll. Council Member Newsom. Aye. Brown. Aye. Watkins. Aye. Brunner. Aye. Calentary Johnson. Aye. Vice Mayor Golder. Aye. Consent agenda and additional item 10, or item 10 rather, are approved as submitted. We are on item 15. This is an item that is an appeal of Transportation and Public Works Commission approval of parking removal on Laurel Street as part of the Laurel Street Vision Zero Striping Improvement Plan. Staff presentation. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Matt Starkey. I'm the Transportation Manager here at the City of Santa Cruz. Joined by Transportation Planner Clare Gloglie. And we will hear from Lieutenant West Maury and Director Nathan Wynne is in the audience as well. We're here to talk about Laurel Street and our Vision Zero Striping Plan that we've prepared. So I'll share a little bit of the project background, some of the policy framework that brought us here. Existing conditions that are out there. We'll hear a little bit from the Santa Cruz Police Department on the safety concerns on this area. And then I'll get into the design details to show you what we're proposing. So the project background here, we're taking an opportunity to improve Laurel Street with the Pure Water Soquel Project. This project will be micro surfacing and re-striping the roadway. At a very low cost to the city, we're working on making these improvements. The bigger improvements to this roadway that we've heard from constituents about are not always possible in these projects. Right now we're constrained to just working within the existing curb lines that we have. Clare's going to share with us about the policy that brings us to this project. So the policy framework is really getting to the why of this project. If we wanted to proceed in a status quo manner, what we would do is go out and re-stripe exactly how it was before. And we feel fairly strongly that we have really clear marching orders from mayor, council, and past councils to not do that. To make positive changes in our community that really align with our general plan, active transportation plan, climate action plan, vision zero policy, local roadway safety plan, and health and all policies. And expanding on each of those briefly, our general plan has a plethora of goals, policies, and actions that relate to increasing multimodal transportation, increasing safety, and increasing accessibility for those who walk and bike in our community. Our active transportation plan sets aggressive goals for us to improve not just the number of facilities, but the quality of facilities that we provide. We know there's really clear data that shows when people feel safe walking and biking, they're more likely to walk and bike. And the improvements in front of you today directly relate to that. Our climate action plan calls for aggressive increases in walking and biking and decreasing people driving single occupant automobiles. As you can see from the graphic on the screen, 69% of our emissions in our community come from transportation and mobile sources. That's something that we need to address dramatically if we want to really make an impact on climate. Very recently, we've seen some climate impacts on West Cliff, and we'd like to start turning the tide. With vision zero in 2019, the City Council adopted a vision zero policy. Stated bluntly, this says that no injuries, fatalities, or severe injuries on our roadways are acceptable. So when we look at transportation improvements that we are proposing, we do it through a vision zero lens. What is the safest type of infrastructure that we can put into those facilities to directly address a history of injuries and fatalities that we've seen on our roadways? Our local roadway safety plan did a deep dive into our entire city and pulled out Laurel Street as one of our priority corridors to make changes on to address our history of high collisions. This is direct, indirect alignment with that. And finally, getting into health and all policies and equity. Specific to this corridor, 20% of the trips are made by people walking and people biking, but they represent 67% of fatalities. And that is, for us, an unacceptable rate. Our most vulnerable road users are most exposed to traffic, to vehicles without protection. And so in this context, Matt's going to go through the improvements that we are proposing, but they are all based in the policy framework that Council has directed. And in particular, our primarily safety improvements looking at our multimodal roadway users and thinking about how we can best align our infrastructure with our policies. An important thing to remember with these policies is we're really working on how we move people in our community. And we're going to hear a lot about how people are having trouble parking after they've driven to their homes in this neighborhood. One of the challenges with cars is that they're very inefficient with the space. The graphic on the screen shows you how many people you can move in a 10 foot wide lane. You can see here that it's much easier for us in our city to move people who are biking, walking and using transit, which is luckily the least carbon intensive forms of transportation we have. So think about how we make these changes in our community. It's nice to look at this model on the screen here. We know that there's different groups of people in the community. About 7% of people, this is from a nationwide survey, are in the strong and fearless cycling category. These people will ride their bike no matter what. I'm sure you know some of those people. There's also the enthused and confident folks. These people might be comfortable in a bike lane. And then there's also people who aren't biking yet. They're interested but concerned. And they might not choose the bike now because they don't feel like roadways are safe enough for them. Then there's also a group who I think we'll also hear from that are never going to ride a bike for various reasons. And that's okay. It's interesting to look at these numbers and how they compare to our bicycle mode share currently. We're at about 6% currently, but we really have to grow in our climate action plan. We have to reach 30% biking and walking trips. So what that means is we need to really capture the people who are interested but concerned. And we do that by creating the separated bike lanes that are proposed in this project. So what do we have on Laurel Street currently? Laurel is a major roadway through our community. It carries about 13,000 vehicles per day. Based on the peak hour counts, I believe there's about 300 bikes a day on the roadway. We do see there's a bit of a speeding issue on the road. And I think particularly this is impacted by the curve coming down from California. You can see the speeds are much higher in the eastbound or the direction into the city. Another important piece of this corridor between Walty and Chestnut is 88% of the properties have off street parking. One good piece of good news out here is we've made some improvements in the past that are actually showing that we can make these sort of quick improvements to reduce the crashes on the corridor. So in 2013, the left turn lanes and the medians that were installed actually helped us reduce the two-year crash average from eight crashes a year to two and a half crashes a year. I think that really speaks to how these small improvements actually can make a really big difference for the safety of our roadways. One of the challenges we have as a Vision Zero community, we have to get to zero, not 2.5. So the Laurel Street crash data here in bigger pictures helps us show what's happening out on this roadway. So this is 2011 to 2019, so nine years of data available. I excluded the pandemic years because they're kind of odd travel years. So there's a really high proportion of broadside collisions. That's the major contributor out here, which means people are turning into other people. And we see that in the majority of the violations out there, improper turning or right-of-way violation. Another interesting thing with the data is we see that the majority of the victims are under 24 years old. The demographics actually represent the community. It's about a 50-50 female split. But one thing that really sticks out in this chart is the majority of the people getting hit by cars are people biking and walking, showing an orange on this chart. So here's what we're going to do about it. The thing that we have to change is we need some additional space. And this is what is under appeal this afternoon. And it comes down to the one primary issue here, which is parking. And this is something that we've evaluated very carefully since our transportation and public works commission hearing back in January. When we initially proposed this project, there are 19 stalls proposed to be removed on the corridor presented here. But we heard at the meeting that this was a really big deal for the neighbors. So what we did is we evaluated the site distances or the visibility at all the corners here when you turn in and out of the intersections. And we also looked for an opportunity to increase additional parking. So now what we've done is we've reduced our clear corner site distance areas. And we've also added additional parking stalls on Myrtle Street to change the net parking loss from 19 stalls down to four.  We're now only removing one stall on both Felix and Blackburn. And then we're adding, again, 10 stalls to Myrtle Street by changing it from parallel parking to angled parking. There's another close up version of what we're proposing to do on Myrtle Street. We're looking out here that the roadway has additional width. There's currently angled parking down by the high school and we're carrying that treatment through the corridor here. Another thing that we heard at the council meeting TPWC was that there was a concern about people having to walk in additional distance if we remove their parking in front of their homes on Laurel Street. So Lieutenant Westmore from the police department is going to come talk to us a little bit about the safety of these roadways. Lieutenant, good afternoon. Good afternoon, City Manager, Mayor, Council Members. Just a little bit about myself. I've worked for the city as a police officer for 22 years and I've worked the west side many of those years. And for most of my career I've been involved with traffic and traffic safety. So just a little bit about me when I talk about this. Transportation Manager Matt Starchy did come to me and talk about the project and asked my opinion about it as speaking on behalf of the police department. I was very excited about the project, being involved in several accidents in that area involving bicyclists and skateboarders and pedestrians. I thought, I looked at the project and I thought it was a great idea. Then he asked me, some of the community members had concerns about that area being a high crime area. My immediate thought was that area is a safe neighborhood, it's not a high crime area at all. So instead of just taking my opinion, what I did is I ran some data, talked to officers that worked that area every day and came back with some information from Matt. So basically in a six, I just went back six months. I went back in a six month period in that area on Laurel Street for Myrtle, Walty, Felix, that whole area. And in that six months, we took a total of four reports from that neighborhood. Two of them were auto burglaries where somebody had broken into a vehicle and stolen some stuff. One case, somebody stole a bicycle in that area and I don't know what the other theft was. But they were all low level property crimes, no violent crimes in that area, which is what I figured from that area. I also talked with officers in that area that worked there every day. They do not feel it's a high crime area at all, they think it's a safe neighborhood. I talked with one officer today, so the last time I went out there was for a bicycle accident. So just to kind of give you a perspective of that neighborhood. One thing I did want to bring up is that our city receives an OTS traffic grant every year, $97,000. Because when you look at our data, we are very high in bicycle accidents versus cars, cars versus pedestrians, cars versus skateboarders. So we actually are granted this OTS grant every year so we can go and try to reduce those crashes and reduce those numbers. And then also I wanted to talk about how the accidents went down to 2.5 a year. Now what happened was with our reduction in workforce for traffic accidents, we reduced the number of traffic accidents we actually took and wrote. So for the data basically. So now for us to report an accident, to get the data, somebody would have to be injured and go to the hospital. So there are more accidents in that area just we didn't report them in an actual official police report. Again, my 22 years, I believe that this area is a safe area. I've had friends that lived in that area that would walk to work. I would personally live in that area. It's a nice area. There are a lot of people walking, a lot of people biking, the high schools right there. We have a lot of students walking around. So the police department is on board with this project, especially to keep these bicyclists and pedestrians safe. Lieutenant, thank you very much for being here. I think knowing some of the tradeoffs we have to make to improve our roadway safety, I'd like to just show you what we're getting out of this project to wrap this up. So at the Laurel Curve, we're working on how to reduce the speeds and the issue of cars turning into the bike lane as people going up and down the hill. So what we're doing with that is we will have additional posts on the roadway here shown in these buffered areas. That will help keep cars out of the bike lane. And that additional sort of vertical object there is shown to help show people to slow down more. We're also adding these speed reduction markings on the roadway. Those are often used on curves, maybe in more rural settings actually, where you create an illusion that people are going faster so you actually slow down as a result. At the side streets, this really ties into the crash data that we saw where a lot of people are having angled collisions. So here we have the widened medians here which we know are a safety benefit for the people walking out there. And we also are keeping the left turn lanes because we know those are helping people who are making these turns into their side streets. And we didn't, when we considered the changes on this corridor, we wanted to keep those because we've seen the improvements and we know how important it is for people to get into the neighborhood. And the next piece is the day lighting and this is what we're talking about with the increases in angle of collisions out here. Thinking these changes will help people see cars that are coming in and out of the side streets more effectively and in addition see pedestrians and cyclists that are crossing, shown in that green and yellow bars there on the screen. This is also one of the elements that we adjusted in our design at the Transportation and Public Works Commission meeting. Initially we proposed 20 feet of these day lighting treatments, but we actually went out to each corner to review them and reduce some of them down to 10 feet to help us reserve parking. And here's an example of this treatment on Myrtle Street. Sometimes it's done with planters, but on our project we'll be doing it with striping. When this gets down to the big change for us is the separated bike lanes with protected corners. These treatments are really shown to reduce bike collisions and they're also shown to reduce crashes for pedestrians and all users of the roadway. One primary reason for that is they're shown to reduce speed, which gives more people time to react to unpredictive situations. And we also know that these improvements will help people in that interested but concerned group maybe consider giving bicycling a chance. So with that we're asking to deny the appeal on this project and to have us investigate further the diagonal parking on Myrtle Street with the neighbors to see if that's an improvement they like on their street. Thank you. Thank you. We're going to now call up the appellant, Robin Belkin, and you'll have 17 minutes to speak and present evidence in support of the appeal. Good afternoon. Sorry, can you talk another mic? First of all, I cannot do this in 17 minutes. Unfortunately there's just too much information about the improprieties in handling. Here's my suggestion, get on with it then. It'll help you get through your minutes. Okay, fine. Good, thank you. Okay, briefly I'd like to outline what I'll cover and try to provide some signposts along the way because it's all complicated. I'm deeply concerned about my tenants that live on Laurel Street and others like them in the neighborhood whose voices are not being heard. They're at great risk for their personal safety despite what the officer says about his 22 years of experience mostly with traffic. And it's a great infringement on the lives of those that live on Laurel Street and their lack of equitable accessibility to their homes by taking out all the parking on their street. So first I just want to describe the location which was up on the screen a minute ago. Then some of the circumstances around that striping and parking elimination plan. Then I'd like to talk about the stakeholders that are impacted by this decision and some of the positions on the matter. Then I'd like to elaborate on my view on behalf of my Laurel Street tenants and many neighbors and more as well as my concerns with the positions of some of the other stakeholders that have driven my appeal on which the city council must rule. And finally fourth I'll state the more equitable outcome I hope we will achieve. First of all though I want to just say that I would like to kind of establish the context for the council in this regard. This is called the vision zero striping plan. So removing parking on all of Laurel Street has nothing to do with striping. And vision zero as we've heard has to do with access and equity. It's supposed to be a holistic approach and all these loaded terms that by using vision zero you're supposed to assume are included in this plan. But in fact it doesn't address accessibility and equity of people that live on Laurel Street and park in front of their homes. And I also want to quote transportation manager Starkey at the hearing. He said at the hearing that he does not know how to balance or measure the safety of the bicyclists the 2.5 per year versus the safety of all the women and people that have to walk from remote locations where they're supposed to now park instead of in front of their home back home. So we're looking at 2.5 bicycle accidents or other accidents per year that safety versus the daily safety and accessibility of everyone that lives on Laurel Street between California and Chestnut. So show of hands how many of you would like to have all the parking removed from your street. So when your guests come over anybody when you have to carry groceries in your house. Let me just say we don't respond to that. It doesn't mean we don't want to agree with you. It's just that. OK, OK, I could address it to everyone in the room here. But I would just like everyone to think personally how'd you feel about this. And again show of hands. You can't show them but think about this. How many of you would encourage your daughters, your wives, your sisters, other friends, young people, old people to walk alone in the Laurel nearing neighborhood over by the 7-Eleven on Chestnut and Laurel or anywhere in that neighborhood at night. It's not OK. It's not OK. And these women were not hurt. Here we go. So I sent each of you and I don't know if you looked at it, a map that was up on the screen. It basically was this one. Would you like us to put that up on the screen? Yes. Do we have that? Please. Can you do that? This won't be taken from your time. Wonderful. Thank you. Let us pause for a second while we get this up for you. OK, this is a Google photo. Google Maps photo of Laurel Street. Go ahead. This is a Google Maps photo of Laurel Street. And you can see on the left is the hill. It's called the Laurel Hill, where all the accidents are taking place at Walty Street. OK, after that is where they want to take out all the parking after the fact. After the scene of the accidents, they want to take out all the parking on Laurel Street, the rest of the way down the road, all the way to Chestnut, which is in the end over here. So just the logic of that alone is not right. It's just not right. And one would hope that the Transportation Commission would address the issues where they are happening without infringing on the daily lives of everybody that lives on Laurel Street with this other kind of stubborn insistence on putting in bicycle ballards and removing all the parking. There's already a bike lane there. So I'm just telling you it's kind of bewildering. I just also want to say that I have another map to put up. There's a clock here for a moment. OK, this isn't the perfect map, but I'm going to have to do it anyway. As soon as the map comes up, we'll turn the clock back on. OK, clock's back on. OK, I just want to point out in black, you'll see the streets that are affected all along Laurel at the top right, where the red curbs and bicycle ballards are supposed to be installed beyond the Laurel Hill. And I'm asking you to note, see where the neary lagoon park is? There's a trail there that is designed, their words not mine, to circumvent the Laurel Hill. It says right on their site, to circumvent the steep Laurel Hill, and it's a shortcut walking to town. And I sent it to you in letters, I hope you read it. Also note in the blue and red, that is the, like, $18 million segment seven of the Santa Cruz Rail Trail. It is designed for bicycles and pedestrians. So why are we spending all this money to try to make this steep, dangerous hill safer, and as transportation manager has said in your agenda packets, putting in those ballards and those expanded bike lanes is supposed to increase use on the dangerous hill where all the accidents happen by 21 to 500 percent. His words, not mine. So why are we even doing this? Why don't we just use the trail, any of the two trails? And finally, if there's really a problem, because he's trying to find the simplest solution to this problem, why don't we just have people walk their bikes down that dangerous hill?  Rather than inconvenience everybody that lives on the street, not just now, but forever. I will tell you that at the hearing, again in your agenda packets, it says, in quote, a couple of people voiced concerns about safety, walking to their homes from remotely parked cars at night. I counted 41 people being represented, okay? Women called in and they spoke up and they spoke on behalf of their whole households. One of them said, I'm sitting here with all my roommates, I live with seven other girls, and we have been followed, we've been harassed, we've been attacked, we've been touched in the street, and we don't feel safe not having home-adjacent parking to our homes. We don't feel like we can go out anymore. My tenants on Laurel Street, there's six girls in the two-story top levels and three boys right now on the duplex below. The six girls, the first week they moved in, had somebody try to break down their front door, and they had to stand on the other side trying to hold the door, which was cracked by the time we got there. They've had people sleeping on the sidewalk blocking the entrance to their gate to get into their house, camping out on their front porch, and in their backyard. So I don't know if the officers are not there at night. In the day, it has a great walkability score on Zillow, it's like in the high 90s, it has a 99% bike score, it's called Bikers Paradise, and a 45% out of 100 transit score, because people still need cars, that's why. They still need cars because you can't go everywhere people need to go without one yet. And I'm a huge advocate of public transportation, and I hope the day comes when people can take buses and trains and other forms of transportation everywhere, but we're not there yet. Let me see what else here. The stakeholders, we have the Transportation and Public Works Commission. They seem to be working at cross purposes with the Planning and Development Commission. The Planning and Development Commission wants to build high density housing, and they're doing so with skimpy parking. And while they're doing that, they're also encouraging people to build ADUs without requiring parking, because they're just trying to get houses for people. At the same time, transportation and public works is tearing out existing parking. So we're not ready for that yet. We don't have the public safety yet.  So we're not ready to impose this plan on all the residents. We don't have the public transportation yet, and we don't have proper lighting and public safety at night. I will read to you, oh, I have a petition that over 100 people signed online. It's only been up for a couple of days. And it's addressed to you all, Mayor Keely and the Santa Cruz City Council. So I gave you all links, and you're addressed on the... If you would be kind enough to give that to a clerk, we'll enter it into the record. Thank you. We'll resume your time now. So thank you. So over 100 people signed in just a few days. There's support of my appeal and there's support of your vote to reject the Laurel Vision Zero Striping Plan components of parking removal, very specifically. And I'll also say that in the spirit of cooperation, all those signers said that by signing, they also approved all the other changes proposed in the Striping Plan and other ones that have been recommended. Those changes would be properly maintained and enhance the existing green pavement bike lane that's there already and crosswalk delineation by refreshing paint, et cetera. Implement high visibility crosswalk markings with reflectors and in-use flashing lights. Add new crosswalks if warranted. Monitor and reduce dangerous bicycle and skateboard speeds on the steep Laurel Hill by rerouting it altogether to the rail trail or other safe streets or with signage or by simply walking bikes and skateboards down the double-wide sidewalks on the steep Laurel Hill. And with regard to the sidewalks, Laurel property owners paid for them. I had to pay $3,750 for a sidewalk that I do not own supposedly to make it more safe. And now the Transportation Commission is telling me I can't use the adjacent parking to the double-wide sidewalk that I paid to rebave because apparently it's not good enough for people to walk their bicycles down or walk on, I don't even know. But that's very concerning. Also, the signers support add and or expand pedestrian medians, add neighborhood street lighting and police presence, particularly at night. Add speed bumps on Laurel Street to reduce automobile speed where warranted. And the undersigned neighbors strongly urged the Santa Cruz City Council to reject the red curbs, bollards, and parking space eradication in the Laurel Street Striping Plan. They further support the appeal submitted by the appellant of record, Robin Belkin, challenging and opposing the Transportation Public Works Commission's recommendation slash approval of the Laurel Street Vision Zero Striping Plan and likewise support and urge Santa Cruz City Council to reject the Laurel Street Striping Plan in its current form, i.e., the plan should be rejected if it contains provisions to add red curbs and bollards and to remove street parking on Laurel and adjacent side streets. So that you can measure your presentation you have about a minute and 40 seconds. Okay. Well, there are a lot of improprieties. All I can say is I submitted appeal in two letters, one written on December 13th, one written on December 15th. Only one of those letters was included in the commission packets. So on the appellant and half of what I wrote wasn't included for them to talk about. I will also say that the transportation manager who's spearheading this and the spokesperson at the hearing, when he said, I don't know how to measure balance of the safety of the cyclist versus the safety and accessibility issues of all the people that live on Laurel Street, when challenged by the one or two only commissioners that were listing actively and not defensively, he said, this is just our recommendation. The City Council can amend it at its will. So rather than discuss it or defend it or address the concerns raised by the other commissioners, he just said, hey, the City Council can change it if they want to. And he's already alerted us that he doesn't know how to balance and measure the issues of safety between bicycles and the people that live there. So it falls on your shoulders to do that balancing and measuring. The daily safety of all the people that live there and the accessibility and equity of access to homes to move your furniture in and out, to carry your groceries in and out, to have guests and send them safely back to their cars in inclement weather. All the reasons why none of you would want all the parking removed from outside your house, especially in that neighborhood. If you need a couple more minutes, take a couple more, but we're going to try to keep it to a couple of minutes. I want to make sure you get through your appeal. Okay. Thank you. I'll jump to my closing. The general residential parking safety concern expressed today at the Transportation Public Works Commission hearing in both my appeal and online petition is an economic and social justice issue, a women's rights issue, and an accessibility and equity issue. Every renter or homeowner is not a young adult single cyclist. Cyclists don't exist in a vacuum, and they are perhaps the most able-bodied among us. So surely they can walk their bikes down the steep Laurel Hill on the double-wide Laurel Street sidewalks, ride a few blocks over to the rail trail, and or the Neary Lagoon trail, rather than gravely impact an entire neighborhood of hundreds if not thousands of paying residents by forcing them to relinquish their essential street parking in front of their own homes. Furthermore, this area lacks adequate public transportation to intentionally target car owners, for whom we have not provided adequate public transportation alternatives to justify trying to eliminate their cars yet. Our city council ought to look out for these women, families disabled, and mostly renters that seem to be viewed with disdain as if low-density homeowners are justified to have their own cars, but high-density renters aren't. This is a high-density area because there aren't enough homes for everyone to own one. The majority of people can afford to own at current rates. They have to share homes. I'd ask you to try to wrap it up now.  Thank you. Okay. Well, I'll just say that the photographs provided in your exhibits of the properties on Laurel Street that supposedly have parking, that's so ridiculous because a photograph of where people would park a car has nothing to do with how many people live in the house. I have space on my property for four cars, but 10 people live there. Thank you. Appreciate your consideration. Thank you very much. We appreciate it, and pleased to give you the extra time. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. The matter is, let me ask if there are council member questions on this item. Let me see where anybody who wants to raise questions on this item. That's a yes. Ms. Calintari-Johnson. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for a staff for your presentation. Ms. Belkins for your testimonial and the work of the TPWC. I just want to bring out a couple of points Ms. Belkins made and ask if you could speak on them. If you could speak to the striping and parking removal beyond Walty. She spoke about the challenges that hill up to Walty. Why move beyond that? If you could speak to that, that would be great. Yeah. The majority of the parking removal is focused around between the Blackburn and Myrtle Street blocks. There are collisions between bicyclists and cars at all of the intersections on this corridor. And furthermore, we're looking at this two prong approach. It's one, our vision zero goals of reducing crashes, but it's also the goals that the city has to increase by school and walking mode share. And we know how to do that by creating separated bike lanes, which takes the parking up. I would add to that also spot improvements do not build a network. And so only doing this piecemeal does not lend itself to building out the protected network that we've expressed. We want to build out in order to achieve our policy goals. And so doing it piece by piece doesn't make sense. Thank you. A couple more if that's okay. As Belkins also spoke about the strategy of increasing police presence in that area. I know Lieutenant Westmore gave the data that there isn't currently a lot of crime, but can you speak to how much police presence or maybe Lieutenant come up? How much police presence is there currently and are there opportunities to increase police presence in the future? Sure. The Westside officers that work that area go through there all the time. They drive through Chestnut, they go through Jenny. We go to the Neary Lagoon Park all the time. So officers are always going through there. Also Laurel Street's a main roadway. So we're always driving up Laurel Street to get to Mission or the whole Upper Westside. And also we have a lot of activity at the 7-Eleven there at Chestnut and Laurel. And also this whole area is two blocks from the police department. So officers are constantly driving through that area, driving through the neighborhoods, making sure everything is safe. And when I spoke with my officers earlier that worked this area, they drive through there all the time, especially at night too. I drove through there last night, went through the whole neighborhood. Notice that the actual lighting is adequate. It has good lighting there. And it was a very nice, calm, quiet night. Okay, thank you. And one more question. The TPWC had a number of conditions that they put forth that was voted on. Is that included in your recommendation? Yeah, we were able to address the conditions from the TPWC. And we actually want to step further to look at these parking changes. So yeah, we adjusted all of the corners, the daylighting pieces. And then we went and looked at Myrtle Street further to see if we could add the parking there. And those both were able to achieve both of them. Okay, thank you. Those are my questions for now. Council Member Bruder. Thank you. You asked a couple of my questions. I did want to ask about what was brought up as parking equity on Laurel Street. And Ms. Belkins mentioned for parking spaces at her property. However, tenants live there. What can you remind me what the total parking count is for Laurel Street? Not that's being removed, but I know like some of the properties, is there a way to, do you have a number of what you have as parking? I'll try to answer your question. I think to what you're getting to is, is there enough parking for who's there? Is that generally what you're getting to? And it's a really interesting question because many of the homes on Laurel Street were built originally intended for a single family to live there. If you drive down Laurel, you know, a kind of single family or smaller scale multi-family housing. As the appellant said, she has 10 tenants in her home, which is probably not what the original builder of the home thought was going to be there. She has four or five parking spaces. She said many of these homes were built having parking as required by our code, but that doesn't reflect we don't state mandates of how many people can live in those homes. So there is oftentimes a mismatch between maybe a single person that has four parking spaces or a home that has four parking spaces but has 10 people living in it. So 88% of the homes on this stretch do have off-street parking. We didn't go through and do a census of how many people live in each of those homes. What I will say is on the public right of way where we are proposing losing four parking spaces, those four parking spaces are often used for private car storage rather than a public benefit for the entire community, which is what we are proposing today, which is a reallocation of space away from private car storage where many of these homes do have private off-street car storage to a safety improvement for people walking and biking. Thank you. Was there any look at options of maybe a loading zone or kind of the issue and concern brought up about accessibility, moving furniture, groceries, kind of the things that people encounter in their lives and having that option? Yeah, that's definitely a fair question. I think globally we look at those issues, especially when we have commercial businesses on the site. I think if this was a lot of commercial frontage here, we might take a different approach. Small sections of loading would be challenging on Laurel Street itself, just with the width we have and what we're trying to fit in with the bike facilities. If that's something we want to look at more, I would say something on the side streets where maybe we do some time restrictions, maybe two hours, 30 minutes, 15 minutes of loading zones on the side street corners might be an effective way to achieve that goal. For the questions. Not right now. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Watkins. I appreciate the questions that my colleagues already asked. So thank you for getting at some of that. Mine is just in regards to a figure that you mentioned in your presentation with 24 years old and younger, where the fatalities majority. And I'm wondering if that is in the range. I mean, I'm assuming is it the UCSE type students or are you seeing more with the Santa Cruz High students or children like we're within that range? Are you seeing in? Yeah, I'm sure. I wonder if I had it. And what I'm trying to get at essentially is if there's opportunity for conversation around our partners in education, around safe practices, in addition to what is being suggested here today in regards to what we can do environmentally, right? But in terms of how we're communicating with some of the education partners, if that's such a young age range. Yeah, it is really interesting how this group of people really stands out. I think we've heard that there's a lot of UCSE students that live in this area in particular. So they're probably the ones biking up to campus. It's obviously close to Santa Cruz High. And we do programs with other schools, elementary schools in particular about safe biking practices. So yeah, there are other sort of educational encouragement options we could take as a community to help people use the roadways more safely. Great. What I would add to that also is that globally in our city that under 24 is overrepresented in our collision statistics. Getting to equity, one of the things that that does represent is these are populations that oftentimes don't have the means to own a car. And so in thinking about how people have the opportunities to travel in our community, those who have the least means and the least ability are the most exposed to roadway violence. Sure. Yeah, and I think in terms of just learning from these tragedies, how do we inform our prevention and kind of partnerships to support not having these happen in the future? So, okay. Thank you. Ms. Golder. I change my mind. I do have a question that just builds on something that you said. You said there's no way to know how many people could be or there's no requirements.  Does anybody know? Ricketts? Okay, maybe someone will tell us someday. But that's a question because I feel like there should be some capacity that doesn't seem very safe. And then just correct me if I'm wrong. I was looking on Google Maps or Google Earth and I saw all between this stretch, all but four of the homes are on a corner and the four that aren't on a corner have driveways, have off-street parking. Am I wrong? You're right. That's what I look. So every home is either on a corner or has a driveway. Or access from the alleyway. Or from the other side of another corner, another street parking on their other side of their home. Or the alleyway. Got it. Okay, thank you. Other questions by council members? A couple of quick questions. One is I want to offer another way to look maybe at these older homes. I happen to live in a 135-year-old home, which has, depending upon whether my daughter-in-law is there or not at any given point, two or three of us living there. Many of these older homes that were built actually were built for quite larger families. It is a modern phenomenon to have smaller families in homes. It is not at all unusual back in the 1800s or 1900s when many of these homes were built for there to be much larger families. So I wanted to make sure that we recognized what were these houses built for versus what are they used for now? I don't think it's unusual that a Victorian or an older home has eight or 10 people. That doesn't surprise me at all. I suspect when the original family lived there that might have been multiple generations living in the homes. A thought. On those accidents that occurred to you and maybe you answered this already and I'm sorry if you did because I didn't hear it. Of those accidents that you have recorded here, how many were the fault of the vehicle and how many were the fault of the other party involved? I don't have that available. Lieutenant, from what we know generally speaking, if you don't have the precise data, that's okay, but generally speaking, do we find that auto bicycle accidents or auto pedestrian accidents do split in any particular way in our city? In that area, all the accidents that I have gone to and which speaks to the primary collision factor of a broadside is basically the bicyclist is coming down the hill and the car is going to make a right turn on one of the streets, Walty, Felix, Myrtle, and then the bicyclist crashes into the passenger door or the front passenger side. So the accidents that I've gone to that's usually the primary collision factor and he would say the broadside or unsafe turning movement is the primary collision factor. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, sir. So in that circumstances, from what I've seen and been out there, it's the driver's fault turning, making a right turn in other bicyclists and then most of the accidents that I've been to, I can remember it was two specifically, they were at high school, Santa Cruz High Kids where we had to call the parents out and then specifically college kids. So from the accidents that I've been out there, it's mainly college kids and high school kids. With primarily the cars being at fault or the vehicle, the moving vehicle being at fault, not the bicyclist. I cannot remember a time where we put the bicyclist at fault in that area coming down that hill. Well, thank you for that. That's helpful in understanding this. I do think that the appellant has at least the color of an issue from my perspective and that is the, this issue of not having enough off street parking and the changes in the law as that is developing. I suspect we're going to, I don't think there's a neighborhood in the city of Santa Cruz that doesn't have cars parked one by one by one by one in the evening as people come home and so on. So sort of saying that, well that person can access because they have a driveway or because there's an alley or whatever it might be I think may to some extent ignore or not quite look straight on what this parking problem is that we have. And I think that what the general lady was talking about with regard to, especially women at night, I don't know that there is a neighborhood in Santa Cruz or in most modern American cities where, and I mean cities, not suburban environments but cities where women feel quite comfortable walking around or carrying their groceries from two blocks away over to whatever. So I think there's a colorable case here that the general lady has raised. Now the question is what's the solution to that and I'm going to defer to my colleagues who we now have district representation so I'm going to defer to them on how they want to handle this in their district but I think there's a couple of quite good points that have been made here and I'm wondering in that regard, like I say the council member would do what he's going to do here. If for example you did everything but the removal of the on-street parking, you did striping, you did the ballards up on those coming down from California, whatever it is you're going to do, do you still have a project? Yeah, we still do have a project but we don't have one that would help us achieve the type of goals that we're talking about here. As Claire mentioned earlier, there's a real challenge with creating a cohesive network that people feel comfortable making a choice alternative to cars. I mean that's what people were doing in the 1800s when they had these smaller homes. They weren't driving everywhere, they were walking down down and that's kind of what we're trying to return to in some ways. I think that's, I understand the objective but I think that's good public policy goal. It is one which is certainly complicated by the modern usage of property in the city of Santa Cruz. Understanding that it would be less of a project if you allowed the on-street parking on Laurel. How would you, if I'm trying to probably ask you to do something that's difficult to do but if you think this is an A plus project in terms of obtaining the goals you would like to attain in terms of our public policy pursuit here. If you left the parking, would it become a D? Or would it be a B minus all of a sudden? I'm trying to get some sense of when you say we'd still, I asked, do you still have a project? You said yes, but probably not as good, certainly. Yeah, I think that, yeah I hear you on this concern that's been raised by the appellant and we have listened to the public on this issue and that's why we tried to add parking where we really could which is on Myrtle Street. The real focus of the parking removal is in that corner and so we went out to Myrtle, it's a wider roadway luckily and so we're able to convert the parallel parking to angled parking and that creates a more efficient parking scenario. So we have really, we've done our best to really offset these issues. So with that additional parking on Myrtle, again we're only losing four spaces in the neighborhood. Yes, it's a little further to walk to your front door but I think that's a really nice trade-off for this really great project for our community. And I'm sure that that assessment is in the eye of the boulder, the very last thing you said and I think that's a good comment but I think it's a subjective comment, not that I think it's any less valuable. I think that's in the eye of the boulder, who's having that experience. May I offer a point to that? You certainly should. Yeah, and I think it's really interesting to frame it as the eye of the beholder because some of the things that we heard it's okay to bike out of your way. It's okay to walk out of your way. That's okay but parking a block away is not okay. And so framing it as the eye of your beholder and what policy objectives you're trying to put forward I think is really interesting. Well, good afternoon. Good afternoon, if I may. How are you, Mr. Public Works Director? Yeah, Nathan Nguyen, Public Works Director of City of Sanctuary and Mary Keely, members of the Public Council members. I just wanted to also voice my thoughts as regards to the parking loss on Laurel Street and how critical it is as a component to the plan that's been presented to you guys as we presented to the TPWC as well. While we're not necessarily putting a grade on the current design versus if we had to remove the parking, what would the grade be? It is a critical part to add a removed parking to in order to add these protected bike lanes, these protected intersections. Again, goals that are aligned with our Vision Zero policy. Now, with regards to where we're talking about where the parking removals are at, majority of those parking removals are on Laurel Street between Murrell and Blackburn. The parking that's proposed to be reinstated or what we're seeking direction to to go work with the neighbors on Murrell Street to add parking back on Murrell is within that same block. And so we're talking about parking spaces that are within three to 400 feet of the original parking spaces that are being displaced on Laurel Street but being added back, potentially added back on Murrell. So I just want to make sure that there's a little context. It's not multiple blocks that folks are walking in other locations that does happen. In this case, it is the same block. It's just not on Laurel. It's just on Murrell. It's in that same intersection. So that's where the parking would be re-added. Thank you, sir. And I'd like to respond to that a bit without hopefully being argumentative. I'd like to respond to that. Somebody has to go two to 300 feet further. That's correct. Is I imagine in many cases that would not be considered by folks who have to do that.   So it changes the hardest thing we do as human beings. I understand that. But thank you for your response, sir. I appreciate it. Let me ask if there are further questions or comments by members of the council. Ms. Brown. Thank you. I do have a question because I think I'm not entirely clear. And we did get some communications about it. Could you talk a little bit about the day lighting and the distance? I did read over the attachments and everything and I thought, well, I'm not sure. I can't really tell what that's telling.  So I just like to better understand the distance on, on day lighting for the decisions that have been made here in this plan. Yeah. So day lighting is the treatment we're making on all the side streets as they approach Laurel. Originally what we proposed is just remove 20 feet of parking from the crosswalk back, which would, you know, pretty much just take out one space automatically. We heard that was a problem for everybody. So we went to each side street and we looked at what's called the intersection site distance. And that's where you take a measurement from about 15 feet back from the crosswalk and you look and you make these, these site triangles to investigate how much visibility you actually need through the intersection. So when you do that triangle, it actually can reduce the distance down to about 10 or 11 feet we found. So that was one of the changes we did through extra work is we went back out, we evaluated these site triangles and we reduced our sort of broad blanket day lighting treatment we were proposing to really custom fit it to each intersection to reduce our parking impact. Thank you. That's really helpful. Is there any other comments or further discussion? Questions from the council? Do we go out to the public now? Okay. I'd like to open it up to members of the public that would like to comment on this item. I do have people online also. Okay. My name is Andrew Jarvis. I live at 905 Laurel Street. My house is 120 years old. 1903, bad math. It's been a long day with the trees down. I was going to talk a lot about the day lighting because you've trusted me for the past 25 years to write nuisances about line of sight intersections. But really what disturbed me was Lieutenant's comment that there's no crime in the area. My wife and I were terrorized just a few months ago. I want to... Sure. I don't think he said that. I want to make sure we're clear. He didn't say there's no crime. He said it's a low crime area. There's a lot of crime. I just want to make sure... That's fine. I understand. I take that back. There's a lot of crime in the neighborhood. Matter of fact, I called the lieutenant the other day and didn't get a response back about the increase in crime on Walty Street. We've had our tires slashed, cars broken into, all kinds of items stolen. We've been told by the patrol officers there not to even call or bother calling because they're lack of officers' availability unless it's a violent crime. So there is a lot of crime in the area. The appellate's absolutely right about her tenants. I feel for the older people that live in the neighborhood. I've got a new titanium knee. Yeah, making 300 feet extra makes a big difference to some of us. I can't carry my groceries all the way home from downtown. I'm sorry. I can't even ride a bike right now. I'd love to do so, but I can't. I just want to support what the appellate has said and her arguments about that. And we do support everything else in the project. It all sounds good. But removing all of our parking lowers the value of our homes makes it more difficult for us to get around. We're not all 24-year-olds. And the appellate also had a very good point that the majority of the accidents are on the hill. It has nothing to do with the rest of the street. I'm not sure where we got our statistics from from the traffic thing, but there's a lot more accidents than just 2.5. We see probably 2.5 a week. A lot of people don't respond or report them because they're intoxicated or they're moving too fast or they admit that they've done wrong. Thank you for your time. Thank you, sir. Good afternoon. Thank you all for taking the time to hear about the appeal today.  I'm a father of a 10-year-old son and we are walkers and we are bikers. I will be speaking specifically about the straight and flat stretch of Laurel Street where the existing parking is proposed to be removed, not Laurel Hill between California and Felix. The city does not have the data to justify the removal of the resident parking on Laurel Street in the name of safety. According to the city's own transportation safety reports from 2018 and 2019, there were zero reported incidents involving pedestrians or cyclists in the six-year span, excuse me, between 2014 and 2019. Additionally, using the mapping tools on UC Berkeley's transportation injury mapping system known as TIMS, in a five-year span between 2017 and all the way up to 2021, there were, again, zero incidents along the stretch of Laurel Street where parking is proposed to be removed. This is actually great news. It shows that the existing bike lanes with green striping have already proven their ability to keep bicyclists safe along the stretch of road. Also, removing the resident parking on Laurel Street will not and technically cannot decrease the number of bicycle collisions along the stretch of road. The street parking, on the other hand, is used by my elderly mother, by other parents when they pick up or drop off their kids at their house for play dates, and when they pick up or drop off our child for carpooling. Lastly, please remember that able-bodied cyclists are not the only residents of Santa Cruz who are worthy of your plans and considerations. There are the elderly, the young, the handicapped and disabled, and others who may be vulnerable for a variety of reasons. There is a clear lack of equity mindset in these plans by the TPWC. Thank you. If you want to take 10 more seconds or so, go ahead. It's just a thank you. I sincerely hope that you will listen to your homeowners and residents of the neighborhood. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Good afternoon. Yes, hello. I'm Narayan Wilder. I've lived in Santa Cruz County for my entire life. I was born here. I've been riding the bus since I was 14 every single day to go to school and back for a variety of other reasons. I'd like to address some of what I've been seeing as what feels like somewhat ableist language because disabled people are not just able-bodied people. I am legally blind without correction, so I cannot operate a car or really safely even a bike. I can ride a bike, but my vision is not good enough that I feel safe in being able to see threats to my life and read road signs. I can't usually read them until I am far too close for it to matter. So, you know, there is a lot more. I am a permanent pedestrian, essentially. I walk everywhere. I walked here. I rode the bus for like an hour to get here because I had to route through Quail Hollow because of the flooding and Felton and the whole thing. And so, yeah, there's a lot more than just bikes when it, you know, not just bikes when we're talking about accessibility and these kind of things. And so, you know, we need to really focus on, you know, like they were saying, a network of transportation because, like, yeah, we, there are people like elderly folks who can't use bikes and those kind of things, so we do need to also strengthen our other forms of public transportation. We need to densify our urban areas so that, you know, you don't have to necessarily be driving everywhere to do everything. You can maybe take a bus that's 100 feet from your front door to the store and then back, like, you know, it's not... The focus upon the able-bodied bike rider feels like it erases many other kinds of pedestrians who are not just pedestrians because we're interested in health or those kind of things. It's a much more diverse and complex issue than just focusing on bikes. And that's something I wanted to say. Also, on the hill issue, I'll be really quick, you know, the focus on, like, the hill, the speed at which people arrive at the hill is enforced by the context of the infrastructure around the hill. That is all. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. My name is Chris Tegers. I'm a long-term resident on Felix Street and I encourage the council and the mayor to deny the appeal that there needs to be traffic calming of the ferrule traffic that is on Laurel Street and this project, I believe, will help that. Car ownership, it seems like people are very entitled owning cars. Everything is geared toward the car. If you want to reach climate plan goals, you need to start planning for the future. You know, two households, there's 2.3 cars in each household. And it's just, you don't want to, like, plan for more cars and traffic. I believe the issue is a parking management problem. There is a problem when one household can have potentially 10 parking permits. We don't need to encourage that any more than it already is happening. There's something fundamentally wrong when one house can have 10 parking permits and they want to have parking right in front of their house. If every house behaved that way, there'd be no room for any, where's everybody going to park? The more parking spaces you have, it's going to cause more driving. Traffic calming on Laurel will help protect elderly, less experienced commuters and youth crossing the street and passing through that corridor. I don't know if any of you have been through that corridor or if any of you walk or ride your bikes personally or if you all drive. And so I think that there's a disconnect there with the council not being aware of what it's like to go through that corridor. I encourage you all to get out of your car. If you do drive, get out of your car for a month and see what it's like to go through this corridor. Thank you. Thank you very much. But let me just say for those who are going to testify, when the bell rings, your time's up. Take a few more seconds to finish your thought. It's really okay to do that. Good afternoon. Hi. Hi, good afternoon. My name is Jonathan Gorn. I live right across from the Begoree on Cedar and Maple. I'm also a USC student. Sorry, UCSC student. So I go up Laurel to King and then I go up Bay pretty regularly almost every single school day to get to school. And I want to voice my support for this project. And I want to give an analogy. So they're talking about connected network. And I think that's extremely important because imagine you're driving your car and you're on the interstate, right? And then there's 100 or 200 foot patch of a dirt road. You don't want to... That just doesn't work, right? So the importance of a connected network is super important to encourage cycling. Also going down that hill, although some people are saying there might not be any accents in that stretch of block, there's still the threat that a car door can open and get you on the side. And that's not the bicycle's fault. That's the driver's fault. So this is why I support this restriping. It is not enough. However, it is a step in the right direction. I want the council to consider what's more important for parking spaces or people's lives. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Mayor Keely and council members. I was allowed five minutes to speak for a group of citizens in the neighborhood who would like to request that you deny the appeal. State your name on behalf of the others. Please. My name is Susan Monheit. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, council members. Newsome Brown, Watkins, Golder, Johnson and Bruner. I know some of you. Okay. Your job is to balance competing and conflicting uses. And you're trying to achieve this for everybody. And that's not an easy task and I don't relish. I would not relish having to do this myself. We have built our cities around the automobile. It is practically making our cities unlivable. This city council has chosen many times to begin to implement policies that are for less cars. You're allowing, as the state does, developments with less cars. It's a reality we might not like. There is not room for all of us and all our cars. Laurel Street corridor starting at the top of the hill at California is, I want to say, a death trap. There have been people killed in crosswalks in the stretch at the bottom of the hill. I understand there was a car that flipped over last week and everybody went to the hospital. The speed is too fast. I represent a neighborhood group. We've gone out there with a radar gun and measured the speed of the traffic, both up and down Laurel Street Hill. And the maximum speed is what's important, not the 85th percentile, because it is the maximum speed that has the maximum ability to injure and kill. And that was clocked at 38 miles per hour in both directions. You've got it going up and yeah, free-wheel it coming down. So I really support the Department of Public Works embracing Vision Zero, its Vision Zero fatalities. And our group has worked to take what the city is doing. They feel constraints. We don't feel constraints to implement a full Vision Zero plan. And we have also developed designs, which if fully implemented, if only by painting all of the elements on the tarmac and on the cement, would reduce speeds and create a safer corridor. I've only got five minutes here. The other lady had 20. Okay, you need continuous paint on the bikeway in order to signal the automobile that they are not the only and entitled vehicle using the roadways. Is it a question of entitlement or privilege or ability? The people on bicycles and crossing the streets are not armored, as the cars are. They need protection. The elements of a Vision Zero plan, and this was drawn up by a certified Vision Zero international designer, is that the elements and the intersections build one upon the other in a synergistic fashion that make the safety achieved by implementing all of the elements at the multiple locations along the corridor, it makes it bigger than the whole. Bigger than any individual piece, right? The sum is greater than the sum of the whole... Anyway, you get what I'm saying. We need to slow traffic. You can do it by your design. I would like to see... We would like to see Vision Zero not look like a permanent construction zone. There are elements like elevated curbs instead of posts that line the bikeway that can achieve the same safety objectives. We're going to build a mega-development downtown expansion plan. There's going to be 1,600 to 1,800 new units, minimum 3,600 people, potentially 3,600 cars, entering the Laurel Street corridor, the main arterial to that new huge downtown city multiple times a day. You're going to have traffic increased. This safety plan will protect everybody. It's to protect the most vulnerable, the pedestrians, the bicycles, and the automobiles, and you cannot make the privilege to park four cars on Laurel Street at the expense of the life of the other people trying to use the corridor. You want them out of their cars. I know I've run over time. If you fix the Laurel Street problem, you are supporting your downtown expansion plan, which is going in. I'm sorry to be emphatic. So much I could say. Thank you for your time and consideration. Please look out for all of us out there. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. This is the first city council meeting I've ever been to. I'm in the first one I've come to that. So this is pretty exciting. We're glad you're here. Thanks for coming. So I'm 19. I'm a young student at Cabrillo, and I've used Laurel Street before. I'm here to ask you kindly to deny the appeal to item 15. The city of Santa Cruz adopted a vision zero policy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and serious injuries on city streets by 2030. As all of you are aware, we need to rethink how we approach street and road design in Santa Cruz to achieve these results. That is exactly what the Laurel Street restriping plan project does. And adding car parking back makes absolutely no sense. For a street that is already one of the highest in death and injury rates, making it one of the least safe streets in the city. Car parking for these few tenants is already being made available on residential streets of Myrtle and Blackburn, adding back these few carspace to Laurel Street, a convenience only for these residents and nobody else. We'll create new contact points such as being doored or run over when exiting their parking space. I myself have been doored twice and as my mother, one of which was nearly fatal as I fell into the street into oncoming traffic, my head nearly squished by a two ton vehicle because someone opened their door while I was riding my bike. This was not on the hill, mind you, it was next to Myrtle Street. I do not want the same to happen to other mothers, fathers, young and older children who use Laurel Street every day to access upper bike parking for Santa Cruz High School. The same goes for the future young families or any age individuals who move into the new developments on Front Street and Pacific Street, who will certainly use Laurel Street such as existing bicyclists who use cargo bikes or bikes with children bucket seating. This is not counting those who already used the street to get into downtown. Additionally, concerns of crime, I was not expecting the lieutenant to be here so my comments on that are not worth being brought up because he already overruled me and made great points but on that point, where Laurel Street is not crime free, is of cars and the frequent deaths and injuries they bring upon residents. To make our vision zero policy a reality, we need to move forward on projects presented to us that prioritize pedestrian and bike safety rather than housing empty vehicles. Thank you. Before you leave, seriously, thank you for coming to council. Certainly when I was your agent, the last thing on my mind was going to a city council meeting so thank you for doing that and I encourage you to stay engaged and stay involved irrespective of what the outcome is here today. Thank you very much for being here. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Yeah, it's awesome seeing people, young people getting jumping right in. I wish I had it as well at that age. One thing is I haven't driven a car since for 12 years and learned many ways to get around and find very amazing experiences in Santa Cruz and anywhere without a car. But cars are convenient. I lost my license after 2 DUIs and flipping my car going 110 miles an hour on highway 1, flipping it six times. Didn't have a scratch. Could have killed somebody. I think I might start driving now but I'm just never going to drink and drive. Nobody should. Cars are reality. I love cars. I've got a 65 Jaguar sitting, growing mold right now but they're reality. We've got to figure out a way to decrease their impact, negative impact, but learn your own program without getting a DUI or something like that. That's all. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. I'm the elderly mother who my son mentioned. Would you be kind enough for our record? Would you be kind enough to state your name? Oh, sorry. My name is Keiko Taniguchi. I live in Fertin. I came here to attend to this important meeting. First of all, I don't think removing the parking from the rural street will decrease the amount of accident. It's nothing to do with it. You should have limit for the speeding and the limit for the bicyclist. Bicycle is a very dangerous vehicle. You don't think so. You don't think bicyclists are very innocent but it's not. It's very dangerous. Many bicyclists care for many people many times. That's all I want to say. Thank you. Well, thank you for coming down from Feltin to share that with us. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. My name is Pauline Seals. I'm appearing today unexpectedly as an elderly cyclist who also drives and also, of course, a climate activist. I have to move to make it safer for people to be without cars. I strongly encourage traffic calming, protected bike lanes, and I don't know the specifics on this exact issue. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Seals. Good afternoon. I haven't signed in yet. My name is Michelle Taniguchi. I'm a 14-year resident on Laurel Street and a daily pedestrian on Laurel Street.  My elderly disabled mother and my elderly mother-in-law will not be able to park close to our home. Our family and friends will have to circle the neighborhood to look for parking. Friends and family who are disabled will be unable to visit our home due to the parking, lack of parking. As noted in the city's traffic studies, the major traffic issues on Laurel are at the intersections of Felix, California, and Walty. The street parking down the street has zero impact on those intersections and the crashes happening there. Removing parking also creates safety issues for those parking at a distance from their homes, particularly women at night. This issue is brought to the attention of the Transportation Commission by many women only to be totally dismissed by all but one commissioner. This safety issue is not unfounded. Just a couple of days ago, my neighbor had a trespasser in her yard attempting to enter her home. I had someone attempt to break and enter my home just two weeks ago. We have other dangerous situations happening to women in our neighborhood. Removing parking blocks away will not challenge the number of accidents caused by speeding vehicles on Laurel Hill. The city needs to create a way to slow down bikes and cars on the hill and all the way down the street to be... Sorry. Lost, particularly coming down the hill from California and Walty and by putting in blinking lights and our stop signs and crosswalks at Myrtle, Felix, and Blackburn. Please do not misdirect our city funds by needlessly removing our parking on Laurel. Thank you. Thank you very much for being here. Good afternoon. Hi. Christine Hawley. I've lived in Santa Cruz since 1966 and I mostly ride a bike. And I don't really... I wasn't expecting to talk, but in terms of safety, it's totally complicated. I don't envy you trying to figure it out, but just one thought I had listening was on King Street, they've made bicycles and cars share the lane. It's really slowed everyone down and made it much safer for everybody, the passengers, the drivers, the bicyclists, and the pedestrians. My thought, since when I go down that hill, I pick up speed probably close to 20 miles an hour. If you just painted those... share the road signs, you might not have to do the more expensive stuff, and it sounds like most of the accidents happen by that hill, not further down. So that's just a thought of a way to slow down the traffic without a lot of expense. The one other thought I have for long-term safety, and I've thought about this for years and never come down or written a letter, which is kind of lame, but oh well. The whole car door opening in the bike lane is so scary when you're on a bike. And when I went to the Netherlands, they had the cars next to the street and the bike lane protected by the parked cars and the sidewalk. And I would just like to ask that maybe we start considering doing that. If we move the bike lane, so it's pedestrian bikes, parked cars, moving cars, it would save a lot of lives in terms of bicyclists. Thank you. Thank you so much. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. I'd like to suggest that as a compromise, let's start by implementing all the safety measures. Hang on just one second for me. I want to make sure that we're using... I am. Okay. So I want to make sure that I'm from a protocol point of view. Are there others who are going to speak? We're going to take the folks who are online. Then you'll have your opportunity to come back up. Oh, you've already spoken. I see. Yeah, that's right. Thank you. Thank you for being understanding. Ms. Bush, we have several folks online. Is that correct? Let's go with the first one. Good afternoon. Hi there. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. I don't mean to disrespect this issue in any way. I support safety for all citizens, housed and unhoused. I just wish that our public works leaders felt the same way. I would like to see public works staff spend the same amount of energy they have here, preventing the deaths of our unhoused neighbors as well. I was quite disturbed to see that city staff quietly tried to repaint parking spaces in Delaware Avenue, Shaffer Road, Natural Bridges Drive, with no public comment, no democratic process, and did not really do any of their magic math to figure out if this was going to be life threatening to them. And so where is the transparency? Where is the care? Where is the interest in reduced parking with the repainting, restriping of hundreds of parking spaces in that area? But we're focused so much on this one strip of road, which I understand this is an issue for people, right? This is an issue of safety. And I want to support the folks who want to make the changes necessary because I think not making the changes is not great. But it's just, you can see the discrepancy here, right? You can see the discrepancy of who we care about and who we don't care about. So let me just say one last thing. Council Member Brown, cops are not labor. Cops break strikes. Cops are the enemy of labor. Police unions are not labor unions. Thank you. Another person online, please. Good afternoon. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Ron Goodman. I am your first transportation and public works commission chairperson. I apologize that I wasn't able to be there in person today. This project had a good discussion at the last commission meeting, and many good suggestions were made. In my opinion, the commissioners and staff carefully considered all of the speaker's comments. Staff did, I think a really impressive job of updating the project with respect to those comments, including reducing the impact from 19 to four spaces. To me, the process worked really well, and it feels really good. It's not always the case, and I think this was an impressive example of process working. If we want dense housing downtown, we need to start encouraging alternatives. Yes, not everybody can ride, but if people don't feel comfortable riding, it's not reasonable to expect anyone, but the most intrepid to do so. A big part of increasing cycling in our city is making facilities that feel safer and protected bike lanes are a critical example of that. These types of facilities are especially important on key downtown corridors like Laurel. At the commission, one speaker stated that their household had six cars. It's really not practical for each resident downtown to be able to own and park a car, especially in our denser housing future. So I understand that it's challenging and does create problems. There's no perfect answer here, but this is an important project that begins to address our need to promote alternatives. I hope you'll deny the appeal to this thoughtful Vision Zero project from your public works department. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Ms. Bush, our next person online. Thank you. Good afternoon. Hi there. Good afternoon, mayor and council members. My name is Bodhi Shargal. I'm a young person, often a cyclist. And I am a community member. I live just a couple of blocks away from the area that is being discussed. I go to UCSC and I ride my bike up there almost every day. Taking Laurel Street is about equally as fast as taking Bay Street. And I choose to take Bay every time because it's simply a safer place to be on a bike. I don't think I need to explain to the council why bike lanes are beneficial on issues of public safety, mental health, climate, equity, just on and on. We know that this is a goal of the city that goes along with our climate action plan and the goals that we've set out for the year 2030. And there's going to be a lot of smaller decisions like this that come up that are going to be where the real decision making happens that determines whether or not we meet these goals. It's not going to be one vote that's held in 2028 to determine whether or not we fix climate change. It's going to be these kinds of things that happen in unexpected places. I was really interested to hear the language of intersectionality and equity that was brought up by the appellant and I think that it misses the point that transit equity is a hugely intersectional issue. You know, we have to make it possible for people to get around without cars because the people who aren't able to own cars are disproportionately poor, people of color, all of that good stuff. So I think that the original Transportation and Public Works Commission restriping plan is in line with goals and for reasons like those and many, many more encourage the council to deny the appeal and support the original Transportation and Public Works Commission plan. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chagall. Ms. Bush, we have yet another person online, correct? Thank you. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. I'm going to try once more. Good afternoon. Let's go to the next one. Thank you. Good afternoon, council. Ryan Mechel, current vice chair of the Transportation and Public Works Commission, calling in in support of the staff recommendation and in support of our original decision to deny this appeal. I think the other commenters have put it much better than I could at this point, but I just wanted to reiterate some of what they said. First off, from a policy perspective, council, both present and past, have set goals in the general plan and our climate action plan and a vision zero plan and among other plans. These are really great goals, but they were only goals. And now it's time to implement these goals. And when we go into the implementation phase, we have tough decisions. This is one of them. But if we do want to achieve the goals that we set out in years past and continue to strive for going forward, we must make these tough decisions, even if they are challenging in the moment to make a better future for our city and its residents. Speaking from a personal perspective, I am somebody who does not own a car and I commute solely by bike to work up at UC Santa Cruz. Even when it is more convenient for me, I generally avoid a Laurel Street. It is in its current state, it feels unsafe, even with the striping that is there. But I believe this plan would make it feel much safer for myself and others who either currently ride a bike or hesitant to ride a bike due to safety concerns. If we want to cut down on traffic deaths and traffic violence in the city, removing four parking spaces, seems like a very, very good compromise to me. I'm sure we'll have more difficult decisions in the future, but this seems like a non-brainer to me. Staff has gone above and beyond addressing the concerns of the appellants and other citizens. And I think you should go forth and deny this appeal. Thank you. Thank you very much. Ms. Bush, our next person online. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Hello. My name is Nairi. I'm a resident in the west side and I frequent Laurel Street as a way to commute. I do sometimes commute via car there, but I'm also frequent pedestrian and bike rider on that road as well. And I support having the bike lanes on Laurel Street and denying this appeal. I think it's crucial that we take bold steps to create a robust, protected bike network to make vision zero a reality in our city. We all know that that cannot wait. We can't push climate change needs further. My question is why should we be prioritizing people's desire to be able to park their private vehicle on a public road over public safety and climate health just so they can be right in front of their doorstep? Our public roads need to be prioritized for everyone, especially those who are vulnerable to traffic fatalities. That's people biking, walking, rolling, anything along this corridor. Unfortunately, the reality is that we cannot meet everyone's need for door-to-door parking while achieving vision zero. The shift away from car reliance in our city and worldwide is going to be an uncomfortable one. And these little steps like these are going to get us to them, but it's a vital step that we need to take for the health of our communities and our climate. So, yeah, I appreciate you having me. Thank you very much. Okay. We have... Yes, hello. Next, good afternoon. This is Garrett Philippin. I'll be brief. I'd like you to add my name of support to the Appalachian's protest as far as parking goes. Ask yourself, are the parking spaces themselves actually what is unsafe? I would add riding a bike is inherently less safe and actually quite dangerous compared to car travel at any speed. I don't believe for a second, bikes don't wildly speed down that hill. I see all the time unsafe bike riders taking wild chances in general, including routinely running stop signs. But I get it that bike lanes are somewhat blind spots for cars turning right, and bike riders need to understand this problem, approaching intersections somehow, and solutions to that that make sense are needed. I see a lot of bikes that flop their right away, I think on some perceived kind of protest principle at their own considerable risk. Maybe that is part of this problem, even if cars are held at technical fault for accidents. I can plainly hear the bike Nazis that don't care for other forms of freedom of travel, and this added discouraging of single-use car travel that's pretty Nazi also as far as I'm concerned.  Thank you, sir. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. You probably need, there we go. Hello. Hi, good afternoon. Yes, my name is Kershaduram. I've lived 300 feet from Laurel Street for the last 20 years. I am a bike commuter and pedestrian, so I know the street very well. And I have actually, even though I teach bicycle safety, I have been hit and knocked unconscious on my bike by speeding traffic on Laurel. And so I'm encouraging you to deny this appeal. Yes, I'm sorry it's painful for a very few people. My partner and I walked the street after 10 p.m. We met in the pouring rain for an hour with Matt Starkey. Thank you, Matt, for enduring the neighborhood group. We walked the street and we found that there were about, there's a house there, by the way, that has two houses that probably has 10 cars, 10 students. So they would have to walk 30 seconds around the block. Luckily, they're fully physically abled. And there was, every night there was at least 10 spaces. I don't really think you need the parallel parking. I think that would be a waste of time and energy. Because around the corner on North Laurel and North Myrtle and South Myrtle, there is plenty of parking. Now Michelle Taniguchi, I know there's two spaces in front of her house, but when her disabled family members come, she does have two very wide, she has a wide driveway and two cars. So I suggest she do what I do in my 94-year-old father visits, is he gets to pull into my driveway and have the one parking spot. So I support this. I know people are very addicted to their cars, and it's going to be hard to change. But thank you. And thanks for thinking about making our city a safer city and safer so that I was on the Transportation Commission for years, and people are always wanting safer, and it feels safer to get out of their car. Thank you. Well, thank you very much. And thank you for your service on the commission. I believe that Mr. Kelly is next. Is that correct? Good afternoon, Mr. Kelly. Thank you so much. Hi, this is Kyle Kelly, also a Transportation Commissioner now in school board, but I'll be speaking in my personal capacity about safe routes to school. This is an essential connection for Santa Cruz High School, Mission Hill Middle, and even Bayview. I've talked to some parents that currently do not have their kids walk from the north end of Laurel over to school on their own because they're worried about Laurel. And the safer we make this route, the more parents like those will be able to walk and bike to school and feel more safe doing so. And then I'll actually take cars off the road. So I really, I just want to see more safe routes to school and then we continue on with the current plan that we have for safe routes to school. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Kelly. Thank you for your service in so many ways in the community. I believe Ms. Kiroga is next. And I am very sorry if I mispronounce your name, which is likely. Good afternoon. Hi, good afternoon. It's Kiroga, Lola Kiroga. Thank you. This is also my first meeting. I'm a resident in the King Street area and I'm a UCSC student that meets by bike and I live my life car free. I'm encouraging the council to deny the appeal to the proposal. I'm one of those bike riders who rides their bike everywhere, no matter what. I want the freedom to live this lifestyle safely. But it is difficult when your city doesn't prioritize cyclists and have strong bike infrastructure. I avoid biking on Laurel every time I need to bike downtown because it always feels unsafe, even on the flat areas because a painted bike lane isn't enough. I always take a detour through California Street to go through Walnut Street because it's a much smaller street, but it's a lot harder for me to get where I need to go when I need to constantly be taking detours to get on safer routes. If there were protected bike lanes on Laurel, myself and cyclists and Santa Cruz would feel far more encouraged to ride on Laurel and feel a lot safer. It's an insult to say there's already a bike lane on Laurel and that should be enough because having a painted bike lane isn't true safe bike infrastructure and doesn't protect cyclists from cars. It's literally just paint on the ground. We can't expect people to take detours or walk their bikes because realistically people are going to ride on the dangerous road regardless. So why not make it safer to do so? And it's unrealistic to expect cyclists to walk their bikes because it's an inconvenience and it doesn't make our mode of transportation equal with cars like it should. We deserve equal respect and rights as car drivers have. Again, we have to go out of our way constantly when we want proper infrastructure that requires car drivers to make a small compromise. Like what a horror when the cars are inconvenienced, but we're inconvenienced all the time. Bike commuters don't commute because of the infrastructure we have, but we often commute in spite of it. Thank you for your time. Well, thank you very much. Two more folks online. Welcome. Good afternoon. Good afternoon and thank you so much for all the time that you've spent on this issue today. My name is Candice Brown. I'm also on the Transportation Public Works Commission and was the one that entered the motion originally for the bike lanes with the conditions as seen in the minutes, but I also was one of two commissioners that accepted the appeal because I felt like there was a great need to do redesign on that project. I also still feel that that is the case because the whole reason for doing this in the first place is for Vision Zero and one of the other commissioners that was a champion of Vision Zero on the commission also voted for the appeal. The whole goal is to reduce the accidents down to zero and it's really important to reduce the speed of both bicyclists and cars, namely cars going down that hill and this design does not really address that issue in many ways, which I don't have time for today. So there's still an opportunity to do redesign there and by accepting the appeal, you would encourage the staff to do that. As far as removing the parking, if you were to do that, I still think there's a need for some type of loading in certain areas along the street and also there's the opportunity to change the daylighting because the daylighting isn't just removing parking, it's also visual barriers which has not been looked at in some of those streets. By removing two parking spaces does not mean it's necessarily safe and in fact, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation citing that was in the staff report was actually for only 10 feet, whereas in the plan it's 20 feet on many of the intersections. So just by changing that alone, you could add back five parking spaces. So there's still opportunity for changes. We on the Transportation Commission including myself who was an avid bicyclist in my youth, I went to Davis. I stopped biking because of almost two near-death experiences on my bike and I'm certainly looking forward to the opportunity to do it again with some new bikes. So thank you very much for considering this and for your time. Thank you, Ms. Brandt. Thank you for your service on the commission. We have one more. Is that correct, Ms. Bush? One more? Good. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Mayor Caley, council members. My name is Phil Boutel. I'm a former transportation public works commissioner and I was chair of commission when this came before us for the appeal. I'm calling in to repeat what most other commissioners said. This was really an illustration of fantastic process by the city. The commission is there to accept the first level of appeal. The appeal was denied, but staff still responded to those concerns as brought up by the appellants and by neighbors. And staff, I just think it's important to highlight that staff did an excellent job of directly responding to those concerns. Through their agenda report attachments, you can see the calculations, geometry regarding how much actual removal is needed for day lighting. There was the interaction with the police department regarding safety in the neighborhood. So as well as photo documentation of the existing off street parking. So I just want to highlight that this is an exemplary version of process that happened. And as such, I think you should support staff. I don't think it does need any redesign. And I will just say in regards to the last call, I guess I consider myself one of the original people advocating for this. When I first joined the commission in 2015, I brought vision zero to city staff and I've been fighting for it and I still I'm fighting for it. And I think vision zero is certainly accepting when projects like this absolutely need to go through. And so for me, as again, I know a couple of commissioners voted against it. It was five to and I really think you should deny this appeal move forward. Let's make Laurel Street the transportation corridor that it nearly can be. Let's make it the safer so it can handle both all the transit that it gets all the cars and all the bags and walkers. Thanks so much. Thank you for your service on that commission. Further testimony. Before the council on this item. One more opportunity if anyone is with us in chambers that would like to do that. Seeing and hearing none. The matter is back. Before the city council. Ms. Collin Tarr Johnson is recognized. I have a motion. Please come up. I apologize. You do have a rebuttal opportunity here. I believe that is five minutes. Is that correct? No problem. Thank you. I'd like to propose a compromise. I don't know why we're racing to implement all these things that are so controversial and affect so many people so drastically. Why not try implementing all the safety measures that have been proposed. And suggested in addition. Minus removal of the parking and installing parking ballards and let's just see how it goes. Also why are we not directing people to the rail trail that is designed for this just a couple blocks away. And the nearly lagoon wildlife refuge trail a couple blocks away that's designed to get people to and from school. It says on their website to circumvent the Laurel Street steep hill. I'd like to read some comment from the online petition. From a resident I live on Laurel and a house with five other women and we have repeatedly been harassed by strangers outside on the street.  There have been men that have had the guts to even sleep in our backyard and come through our gate and up on our porch to take things like furniture and bikes. Our cars have been broken into and we have had multiple attempted break ins. We understand the police and city can only do so much but it would be dangerous for us to walk from the side streets to our front door especially at night. We are all college students and often get home late from school and work. Please take into consideration the people affected if this plan goes through. Here's something that I wrote to Lieutenant Morey and he didn't respond though I asked for him to respond. As I'm sure you're aware Santa Cruz has about a D plus crime rating. It is safer than only 3% of U.S. cities and is number 17 on the list of top cities in California with the highest number of thefts per 100,000 residents and the mean numbers of robberies assaults burglaries thefts and auto thefts is not just in quote bigger but quote much bigger than the state average.  According to the Bureau of Justice statistics only 30.7% of women who are raped report the crime. So many if not most women do not feel comfortable walking alone in most neighborhoods after dark when streets are mostly abandoned whether lighted or not. Therefore when the concerns of those 41 women who expressed their valid concerns at the hearing and surely there are many more that were not represented at the hearing are dismissed and the plan is pushed through anyway who will be held accountable. Regarding the references to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The greenhouse gas emissions that are going to be reduced by taking out the parking are basically irrelevant in this case. If the Transportation and Public Works Commission wants to reduce greenhouse emissions as I advocate they need to develop public transportation so people won't need cars. If you just do it by taking out parking you can't park your car anywhere that's just a public nuisance. My house is on Laurel Street mid block. There is 48 feet of red curb between my house and Myrtle Street and on Myrtle Street the intersection has pop outs that are red for 48 feet. So my house is in the middle of the block. There's 48 feet. Only need 20 for sightlines but 48 feet already of red curb and they're proposing to paint the entire curb red. Oh by the way on the other side is the Salvation Army which is already completely red curb. I don't know why because that would be really great parking. But in the middle of the block so all the reasoning and explanation about sightlines and 20 feet from the intersection and a new thing in your packet about zero I don't even know what it was called does not apply in this case and perhaps some other cases. Finally I will note that when I called the transportation manager to ask him if there are any other residential streets in Santa Cruz that have parking ballards and red curbs lining the streets he couldn't think of any. But then he said oh but on Bay Street it's red on one side so I drove up there because I'm a UCSC graduate I don't remember whether people live there or not. So I went up there there are no red curbs there are signs that limit parking weekdays in during the day and you can park at night when not many people are riding bikes and on weekends so that's a suggestion to I don't advocate it but it's better than painting the entire curbs red from now on for everyone that needs to live on Laurel Street and finally we're not talking as many people have referenced about four cars versus 2.5 lives the cars are driven by drivers and I am trying to explain that all 12 spaces on Laurel Street are being removed we're talking about 12 people every day that can't park there and there are spaces that are supposed to accommodate them around the corner that's not safe to walk from at night it's just not. So it's not four cars versus 2.5 people a year it's 12 people every single solitary day that are going to be exposed to an unsafe situation if you take out their parking thank you very much. Thank you very much. With that the matter is back before the council and I will recognize council member Colin Tari Johnson for a motion. I sent the language to Bonnie and I'll read it. Please do. Will you have that up on the screen? Good. Motion to adopt resolution number NS-30 119 denying the appeal and upholding the transportation of public works commissions approval of the design and installation of the proposed striping on Laurel Street between Mission Street and Chestnut Street including mitigation conditions set forth by the commission and to the extent possible ensure the commission's mitigation conditions are implemented prior to or simultaneous distriping and removing of parking. Part two direct staff to continue to pursue grant funding to increase lighting on Laurel Street and also to pursue additional diagonal parking on Laurel Street with neighbors. There is a motion. Is there a second? Second. There's a second by Mr. Newsom, Ms. Colin Tari Johnson you may open on your motion. Thank you. I want to thank the appellant. I want to thank all of the neighbors and all the community members who came out and spoke. This does not have to be a cyclist versus car drivers or cyclists versus them. It's all of our community and as we evolve as a community we'll have to make incremental changes. If we look at pictures of Santa Cruz 100 years ago or 50 years ago or 20 years ago it didn't look like it did today. And these changes can be really difficult. I'm in the green bar area that you all showed. I like riding my bike but I'm not comfortable riding my bike so I am car reliant. My kids 13 and 15 are in an area where they think they're confident. I'm not so confident that they should be riding some of the corridors. I'm not. And they ride Laurel Hill every day to go to Santa Cruz high. So I understand the challenges that are before us and I do think that what has been brought before us that was altered based on the discussion at TPWC is that incremental change to help us get there to help me get there and to help me get there. I appreciate specifically that we moved from 19 spaces removed to four spaces removed and I understand that it is not just four spaces. It's other individuals that are reliant on those parking on Laurel. We reduce the length of daylighting. There's a number of other conditions so I know that's part of what you're recommending but I wanted to explicitly name it in my opinion. I think it's a really important issue and I appreciate that it's being brought up and as Mayor Keeley said earlier, it's a broader issue that we really need to focus on as a city. I'm going to directly speak to the commissioners on the commission for the prevention of violence against women and I know that some of my colleagues sit on the public safety task force but I want to take this specific issue about safety of women. I think it's important to make sure that there are other ways that we can address this because that's something that is important to me and I believe is important to the rest of the council. I'll leave my comments there and allow my colleagues to weigh in here. Further on this motion? Ms. Brunner. Thank you. A lot of reading. A lot of talking and listening and this was an interesting project and there was a lot of components to it and listening to everyone who spoke today and everyone having their valid reality and experiences and while, you know, safety was brought up as a major concern, I think this project addresses all of the safety that we have to consider on our roads and I appreciate the mitigation results from the commission and staff directly influenced by the input from the community and so thank you for calling that out explicitly. I do support the motion. I was going to recommend that our public safety committee explore further concerns of safety for this neighborhood. I know that a white male police officer may feel safe but someone else may not feel safe. The data that was presented is someone's experience and, you know, I'm happy I have gone out after getting this agenda report and gone to these streets and this area and I went at night, I got out and walked and drove Myrtle Street to see where the diagonal parking would be and, you know, I'm also someone who's comfortable walking alone at night downtown as a woman and so I understand that doesn't make it right or safe to someone else who does not feel safe. So there's a larger issue here that was the primary concern that I was concerned about with this but I don't think it's in place of this very great project and so I think it's both and and I'm happy to suggest that we explore other ways we can continue to have safety be a priority in this neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you. I recognize Council Member Newsom. Thank you. You know, I want to thank everyone who came and spoke today and shared their thoughts on this agenda item. I agree with the notion or what Council Member College Ari Johnson said about how this is incremental change but I think it's positive incremental change within our community. I do take seriously as I'm sure everyone on this Council does of the safety of those who live within our district and within the city and I support efforts to go to the Public Safety Commission and to the Commi