bg and our home program at the state through different policies working with our planning division on inclusionary fee waivers affordable housing agreement And then cross the community engagement. This you know, this is affordable housing months actually this month working with our affordable housing trust fund And the monitoring that we do on affordable housing units across the city We have an interactive housing webpage if you're curious Go to our housing page as part of our Site at the city our housing webpage as part of the two Santa Cruz And you can actually look up any of our affordable housing projects and click This is a little snapshot of jesse street to get a little more info On individual projects and backgrounds And then i'm going to highlight just three of our 2020 accomplishments and achievements and respective of time And just from a couple of these areas So the first is our water street apartment and this is one that We're really proud of that was approved in late 2019. This is 41 units On water street 33 of those are project-based vouchers working with the housing authority and What does that mean? This was completed last year. The developer is for the future housing The architect is ten over studio And we have five sources of funding that go into this project about 4.5 million in city funding across our community development block grant program Across show you another picture from the grand opening community development block grant program Our home funds feed referrals Contribution from our affordable housing trust fund and our former rda So all of those funding sources went in this project to close that gap and make this 41 unit project affordable And so the question always is so what does that mean as far as affordable? Well with the project-based vouchers from the housing authority in that project 33 of those 41 are paying at 30 percent of their income or less utility allowances So that is truly affordable the balance of those units and other seven are paying between 50 or 60 percent Of area median income. So these are deep affordability units that that are being Made available to members of the community and it is a really lovely project Highlight this year is a very recent one. This is our Santa Cruz resilience microloan program This was actually funded through our economic development trust fund We counsel. Thank you authorized half a million In loan funding that we could provide for the community We partnered with Santa Cruz community credit union and they have been just incredible in addition to them Being and working through providing paycheck protection program loans They partnered with us and our servicing our loan program for us. So we deposited our 500 thousand in their bank And we approved on our end and economic development the loan recipients and then Santa Cruz community credit union is actually going to provide them with their monthly monthly statements and fund their loans on our behalf So this is a really great partnership in less than two weeks. We awarded 51 loans Out to our business community and you can see the breakdown there These are the four areas that we prioritized for these loans based on the feedback that we were getting From businesses in the community and the majority of those I would say had applied for Paycheck protection loans and EIDL, you know emergency economic assistance loans And they just hadn't been funded or they were deemed ineligible. So we're really pleased that we've been able to Provide this influx of capital into our businesses to help keep them afloat across the entertainment restaurant retail and service oriented industries We were also really conscious of where these loans were going in our community. We wanted to make sure they were going Geographically across we do have loans from the west side east side downtown I'd also say we have some loans in the sash mill Harvey West and along mission street as well 59 of the loan recipients are went to women owned businesses and 25 percent overall were minority owned So this is a program. We'll come back a little bit later with more detail But I wanted to give you a snapshot Right now and so appreciation to staff. We have two staff members Working on this over the last, you know, three weeks And I will say to pull off from beginning to end the loan program and to get a half a million out to the community It feels like a miracle looking at it, but I really want to acknowledge Rebecca unit and Kathy mince on our staff for making this program possible Um, this is our clean oceans mural and I think this is near to be and dear to many people's heart in the community Obviously, this is a 600 foot wall on bay and mission street. You can see from the top photo Um, it's been an eye sore and a source of graffiti in town and just to highlight our mural program Just for a second, uh, that's really what we do try to prioritize our areas in town that have a lot of Uh view from the community that get also get tagged a lot with graffiti and what we found is by putting Artwork and murals um in large public spaces, particularly in commercial areas It really reduces the graffiti overall and of course it doesn't hurt to have an amazing artist That we have on this project this collaboration that we have uh with taylor Uh, rindbould on this project. What's incredible about this 600 feet wall is how quickly it went up You know, this is obviously next to bayview elementary school Um, but this is a collaboration, um between santa christ city art santa christ city schools The timbrach foundation and of course taylor rindhold Who created this mural Here's another close-up of just some of the detail Um that you can see on this mural taylor is now working with tangia seed a hawaii-based internationally engaged non-profit organization acting at the intersection of culture and environmentalism To further the conservation of our ocean And what you'll see here's just another close-up In the next year we had and it was actually planned for this june, but we're postponing it a year We're really proud to be a sponsor of seawall santa cruise A community-based public art project to help raise environmental awareness and public engagement and issues related to conservation Of santa cruises marine resources the bay area and the world's ocean So we'll be uh one of the international sites for this program And we're postponing it to next year so that we can have the whole community collaboration and fully experience it the way that it should be So this is our statistical budget. Um, and you can see sort of the breakdown across our areas. I will say, um Overall so this includes, you know project support and admin that 10 percent at the top includes legal fees planning services Financial analysis property sales tax, etc Is within that 10 percent our overall budget is 5.5 million that does not include adjustment That i'll talk about briefly for grants And um cdbg and home that have just that has just been awarded at the time of us submitting our budget We didn't know what those um cdbg and home funds So this actually changes our status quo budget slightly it reduces our personnel down to 30 percent And it takes our 68 percent Of the general fund down to 60 percent and our housing and community development increases to 35 percent of our overall budget That's outside funded outside of the general fund I will say arts and culture looks a little skewed here That's because this is only representing the general fund expenditures of arts and culture doesn't include the 1 percent for public art funding Let's see what's not status quo in our budget. Um, again, I just mentioned this our HUD annual action plan We have new revenues and labor offsets and so of course this includes the um COVID-19 CARES Act funding that we have as well So that additional 282 That you received the presentation from tiffany lake on our housing team yesterday as well as an additional staff housing costs offset a personal labor of credit of a total of 134 thousand New grant funding as well that wasn't in our budget. Um, and that's the cannabis equity grant So this was approved by the council on april 28th So we have new grant funding coming in new resources to our budget of 147 thousand and we have a related personnel savings Of 112 thousand and this actually goes across Multiple departments. Um, there's a savings to economic development of approximately 64 thousand planning 42 thousand and the police department about 6 thousand Overall, um, I would say our general fund personnel savings From across the cdbg cannabis affordable housing Trust fund and housing successor credit Is about 200,000 More than than what was originally in the budget What else is not status quo the poster on the right is actually the pangea seed Looking specifically at the arts initiative that we hope to have be able to that i mentioned a few minutes ago Move forward with lec next year as one of the international sites But what is not status quo in our budget? Um, obviously our microloan program Wasn't something that we had budgeted for this year. Um, that you approved that came out of our economic development trust fund I will briefly mention that we can go over this in more detail if you have questions are any trust fund Um, is a source of revenue for economic development activities. Um, it was created after the Redevelopment agency was terminated at the time. Um, when we took the measure to the voters For increasing the transiting occupancy tax with the understanding that 1% of that fund would go towards economic development activity. So We do have a fund balance on this. We're proposing as part of the overall Deficit picture to use a portion of the edi trust fund To address the deficit My hope is that we'll still have some funding available to be able to apply towards additional longer-term recovery efforts in our community But we'll have to revisit that as that picture unfolds over the over the months ahead Additionally what's not in your budget What's not status quo is that you authorized? Actually back in december an environmental is the site characterization for sky park and some of you who were on the council last year We recall that we had a purchase sale agreement for the sky park development that fell out Due to Roughly due for a variety of reasons, but one of the stated reasons was related to the unknown environmental characterization on the site and with stricter state regulations coming in For cleanup requirements We needed to further characterize the site so that we could say what is the true value Less the cleanup that we need to do there to to know what we could actually sell the site for So that will be a credit adjustment to our budget to pay for that Against the future sale proceeds for the sky park, which is roughly estimated in around the eight million dollar range um again and something else that's not status quo in our budget would be the Potential downtown property based improvement district I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation That we have two assessment districts that we manage one on behalf of the downtown association Which is a business assessment and the second one, which is a smaller property based improvement district We've been working with kuma and um a consultant that does property Property based improvement districts around the country and the downtown association to create a merged larger downtown districts With a larger budget with a focus on downtown support revitalization Cleanliness safety all of the top issues that really resonated with our property and business community and business visitors coming to the downtown The impact to the city is not insignificant It's roughly about 160 000 if that is approved by council This will come before you both to accept the petitions from the property owners As well as a contribution from the general fund or from a city fund To pay as property owners the city owns quite a bit of property in the downtown area about 15 percent Um in the district so 160 000 would be the city's share of the contribution So that discussion will come before you in the next month And then finally what's not status quo would be the rent for some of our city-owned properties and to include Uh former rda property is now city properties the del mar Rent on the del mar our nyak building. Um that tenant has left that is site is slated for redevelopment as part of specific station But we've received some pretty healthy rents in the past for that So we do have some changing rent um related to covet 19 We are tracking those we're also tracking those for the larger city For our properties on the wharf and our other tenants and our commercial tenants in our parking garages So that'll be something that will bring to you um coming up in the next months ahead as we're revising On a month by month basis what those revenues look like what's coming in So that we can help um with the overall revenue budget picture for the city And then I will mention as far as the cafe extension and the kiosk As looking towards recovery and reopening looking at how can we safely Work with our restaurants and our businesses across the city in the downtown. How can we work with our restaurants? And looking at cafe extensions looking at our parklet program that we have in the downtown which You know for the last two years it's been more of a pilot But looking at social distancing and and reduced capacity in restaurants We need to think about how can we actually provide that additional capacity safely? Expanding into the parklets might be one area to do that. Obviously, there's some revenue Impacts from that. So these are some ideas. We're talking to now as we're looking at long-term recovery that will come before you in the months ahead And thank you that concludes my presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions that you have All right, thank you Bonnie for that presentation and for sharing all those achievements of this this year Are there any council members who have questions at this time? Council member buyers um Regarding the downtown and I think you call them parklets Is that those extensions like in front of I can't remember In front of the outdoor cafes outdoor cafes. Yes Yeah, we have both the parklets that are in the parklets are actually in that taking over a parking space and yeah Oh, okay, and the cafe extension would be Like in front of the Del Marat You know, I get this question for years. Why do we make it so I don't know complicated to put a couple tables out in front of the restaurant I mean, they're all over the world.  They're so inviting Anyway, I I don't know whether the merchants are finding it difficult to do or it's expensive But it just seems that uh, we're just terribly I don't know conservative regarding that Yeah, you raise a really good question I think as part of the recovery efforts We're really going to have to focus on how we support our businesses and our restaurants adapt to Making people feel as they can, you know, come as customers come as Patrons to their restaurants coming forward and I think activating Our sidewalks safely so that you can still walk through And really probably creating more parklets for those restaurants that want to participate in that program So that people can really come down and enjoy our public spaces If I could just add to that, I think I'm Maybe I did maybe the 11 o'clock news last night because we were still all About to go to bed. Um, I think it was specific groove and one thing there. I'm not really sure where it was But it was showing how because of the situation They were all putting stuff out On the sidewalk to sell or to serve It's very interesting and and the commentator talked about how this is just putting all this out for people to enjoy Because they can't go inside a restaurant So it's kind of hand in hand And so I'm glad you're you're looking at it because I really think we're such an outdoor community and people love their You know coffee outdoors and You know whether it's never an issue. So anyway, I'm glad you're looking at that because I think there's a world We could really improve on Great. Thank you. Yeah, just to briefly follow up on that. We've been receiving some emails from folks discussing you know shutting down Pacific Avenue and putting all the allowing for people to eat outside and Um, I think you know, we'll just have to be creative as we move forward I think we're thinking about how we can reopen and restructure our downtown Next is councilmember matthews Good one. I love the report. Um on the oceans mural. I thought I saw in the slide to show just a couple of Little graffitis popping up and Did you ever get enough money to put the graffitis coating on that? I don't know Accounts member Matthews. That's a good question and I'm not entirely sure I remember asking that before she took off and it was still hanging out there as a unfunded last step, but You know, it's a beautiful long mural and you want to protect it as long as possible Yes, I agree. I'll follow up on that way Thanks, Bonnie and for the presentation and for all the different aspects your department does Um, I I was just going to follow up. Could you mention something about the parklets being uh, sort of a cost neutral approach to As a change and I I kind of wanted to see if you could speak a little bit more to that Sure. So councilmember Watkins, I think that It really depends on how we approach it. So I think we can we can have it be a cost neutral. We could have It be something as a recovery effort that we Present a variety of options for consideration. For example Our pilot program does have a cost that the business takes Into consideration and actually pays for the cost of the parking meter if there's a parking meter in front of that space As part of the cost of the program. So what we could Going forward in order to encourage And really encourage both the social distancing and the activation of the space We could cover that cost On behalf of the businesses that wanted to do that going forward So I think there's going to be some options for you to consider when we look at reopening and trying to support our businesses going forward Great and the only other thing I would say um and and I agree with councilmember buyers and that um You know, there's so much opportunity for outdoor experience and downtown having a place for in this is sort of post COVID and we can actually have our kids interact with other kids But you know little parklets for kids to play and have open sort of just a closed off space And you see those little Similar to how we have the parklets for restaurants to sort of play areas too So as we're thinking kind of holistically about that I'll just make a quick plug for that as part of the kind of thought process Yeah, I would say we actually had a working with the downtown association and Had been in discussion of activating a number of our public spaces including uh frazier louis lane So we are hoping to be able to get back to that We're looking at the whole downtown holistically as far as what's the public property versus private and how can we work together To activate some of those spaces. So I think for long-term recovery That's going to be a key area as well to really support people coming back down Downtown and to you know, really engaging in our community Great, thank you Thanks barney for the presentation and all your amazing work You guys are truly the the little the little department that that that does so much I have a just a quick question Just being a patron of many of the of the businesses over on the west side I just i'm wondering um, I know since we have you know actual obligations on a lot of the downtown in terms of You know our roles and responsibilities as a city, but i'm just curious about Um outreach to the west side and the east side I was very pleased to see that um the funding was able to be kind of you know Moved around with different businesses throughout town, but just curious about um You know the resources that you have to actually engage You know with these other parts of town that have These small business districts that are um, you know really becoming part of you know These neighborhoods are east side west side neighborhoods and things like that. So just curious about um your resource base on that and whether that's something that We need to be aware of um in terms of next year's you know budget and resources and things like that Um, yeah a couple of them are mine. That's a that's a great question You know, I will say we were really sensitive to that as we were looking at the microloan program And um one of the things we've done and it's not specific geographically, but um in looking at Recovery efforts in particular is that we've developed a survey It's on our website choose Santa Cruz when you click on covid and it's by industry sector across Santa Cruz And so when you think of you know, west side or think of certain areas There are more types of certain types of businesses geographically dispersed around our around our community and We have a very specific by industry sector. I think we have nine different ones That we're trying to get feedback on on what those needs are versus, you know, if you're in the hospitality industry the hotel Specifically versus someone in manufacturing retail Of you know across some of these areas restaurant We're trying to get specific feedback so that we know how we can help them and what their needs are specific to recovery and long term Um, so that's something that we're doing right now in addition to having a survey on our site We're actually Doing one-on-one calls with the survey to make sure that we have a certain number of responses from each category And working with some industry partners to make sure that we get a good response across across Across each of those areas One of the things we have done geographically over the years and what we really focus on And we're going to need going forward is focusing on our banner program We've looked at the infrastructure development to be able to support Sort of that place making by area So when you look at you know, sort of swiss street and that swiss street courtyard area and that sort of burgeoning retail restaurant area Of being able to create a sense of place and support by that infrastructure So through banners through banners on the east side when you get to the midtown areas How can we help them and help the east by business association really feel supported by our community? So those are two programs looking at beautification areas We obviously have a lot of that for the downtown but looking at those both on the east side and on the west side Or some areas that were that that we're working on through some of the work that we do I will also mention lastly because I didn't mention the presentation Um as part of our resources, which you can access on our business page We are developing business kits for All businesses. They are on a first come first serve basis We are sending those out information about them out to all the business licenses In in our community as well as through our ed newsletter and that includes Their business reopen restart kits so includes hand sanitizer includes social distancing floor markers posters to post on the doors Includes face covering through our volunteer-led effort 10,000 mask projects and shout out to Amanda ratella on our team Who did an incredible job? So we still have a few rolling in But 200 sellers in the community creating 10,000 masks Is quite an accomplishment and some of those are now going to our critical businesses across Santa Cruz So each business can have up to 25 face coverings to go in their special kits so We definitely Look at each of our geographic areas and what those needs are Generally some of the infrastructure Needs on the east side. We've looked at a tree program in addition to the banner program or different things that we think Outside the downtown or things that are needed thank you I Yeah, I think that that's it. Yeah, I was just curious about that geographic coverage and really really excited to hear about all that work So thank you again, and please thank your staff for all their work. They're doing we know it's a hard time Thank you I just had a couple comments and then I had one question For the comments just given this discussion made me think about, you know, we Seen our farmers markets model being successful at being able to operate and function And and we haven't really seen any transmission of covid through those kinds of markets So it'd be interesting to think about, you know, whether or not we could have a similar market for some of our retail Businesses downtown or even sidewalk sales that might be able to beat the function With social distancing implemented since retail is now something that's Been approved for curbside and how we might be able to take that further. So we just thought I'd put that out there um In addition to that, I did have a question about the micro loan program Because it sounded like there's 700,000 requested 500,000 funds kind of the limit of our budget But one of the questions I had with that remaining 200,000 is whether all those applications were Eligible because I know I'm My thought is that my sense is that there were probably some folks from the county who applied for city funds And obviously they're not to be eligible because they're outside of the city's boundary But I'm just kind of curious if but what would what would it take if there were You know eligible grants that weren't able to get funded how much more it would take to kind of support those businesses as well Now mayor that's a really good question We had of those we actually had in the first two days We had to close our portal because we received in the first two days of opening over 90 completed applications And recognizing that we only had 500,000. We didn't want We were concerned about expectations and didn't want people to go through the process of completing a loan application When we knew we didn't have sufficient funding We did prioritize and set up and this was communicated also on The guidelines for our loan program. We were focused towards those four areas. So specifically, you know restaurants that are a cash-based business primarily and without having patrons And that number of you know, folks customers that usually come in were Incredibly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic also service oriented businesses And some entertainment businesses We additionally prioritize those with storefronts recognizing that vacancy and being able to make sure that when It's time to reopen that we have been supporting Those retail and those businesses with a street and storefront presence in Santa Cruz As far as the number of percentage that weren't eligible. There were a handful We had a lot of disclaimers that they're, you know right at the beginning But there were a handful of people who applied who were out of the city And so we did send all of those that weren't eligible That didn't meet our criteria that were outside. We had a few a couple manufacturing That applied that weren't part of our ranking criteria. I think if we had a few hundred thousand extra we Could definitely award those no problem I think just sort of weighing Our overall deficit and our budget from the city. We really felt like we needed to prioritize initially with you know a fairly modest program, but I think that the Software that we used and slide room was really effective in being able to Look at the program applications fairly quickly And to be able to rank those based on the criteria and then our partnership with Santa Cruz community credit union I think we could If there was an interest by the city council, there's definitely an interest by the community to expand the loan program So if there, you know, we didn't include in the first round nonprofits for example, and there were a number of nonprofits that had applied so Um, so could we fund more? We absolutely could if there is an interest to do so Great. Thanks I thank you Bonnie and everyone on the ed team you all do great work small and mighty is a good way to put it I'm always amazed by the work that you all do um, how extensive it is how deep in the community and So I just want to say thank you for that I'm I'm glad that you brought up the 10 000 masks and I'm and thank you Amanda for Spearheading that it's just such a great thing. Um, and I'm glad to hear they're going to be going out to businesses I'm wondering if because I just did recently a little mini tour of some of the homeless shelter expansions that have happened um, and I'm just wondering like the vets all and the armory and Just the armory kind of connected because of the salvation army with the um, laurel the front the laurel street Uh space, but I'm wondering if because they all said that's a huge need for them I'm wondering if it might be possible to or if you maybe already talked about this To channel some small number of them to the for the workers in those places I mean, they do have masks, but they're they're saying that it's kind of a constant need because they're They're really needing to change their mask all the time Yes, councilmember brown. Um, we had we made the masks available to through our EOC Um, so I think 6 000 of them went directly to the EOC for distribution to anyone in our Uncheltered community and also workers working at through housing matters and through you know, that's all they're all available through through that project Yay, thank you councilmember, I'll also let you know that um And to the rest of the council members that in partnership with Bella canvas and the You the U. S. Conference of mayors. We received 120 masks um For distribution and I also gave those to Our homeless coordinators to distribute to folks in our homeless communities and at the different haunts across locations So that's an additional source of masks and there's no further questions from council members I'm going to turn over the members of the public So if you're interested in commenting on the economic development budget presentation that was presented today Now's the time to call in if you haven't already And after you call in, please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand And then when it is your time to speak you'll hear an announcement that you've been unmuted And so we'll give folks a couple minutes to fit you like calling in Comment on the economic development budget presentations Please call in at this time Seeing no members of the public calling in are there any further comments from Council members on this item? saying none Bonnie thank you again for all the work that you do and and your staff For all the amazing work and please listen how we can continue to support your efforts Thank you mayor. I'll let my team know as well Item our fifth presentation of the day is from our planning and community development department And again for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is a presentation You want to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen The order will be a presentation by staff follow-up questions from the council And we will then take a public comment and then return to the council for any follow-up questions or comments And over to our planning and community development director lee bubbler Are you muted? Good afternoon mayor and council members I am going to share my screen here And so I'm going to jump right in The mission for our department is to enhance the quality of life safety and civic pride for our community By providing land use and development services In a responsive respectful and efficient manner We have five divisions that Comprides our 37 and a half full-time employees In code compliance. We've got two divisions rental inspection ensures the health and safety of our rental housing stock Our code enforcement division is mostly reactive to a wide range of complaints everything from Unpermitted Unpermitted construction to inoperable vehicles on private property to people having roosters in their neighborhood You know, it spans a quite a range In current planning they review permits and applications for new construction on private property consistent with general plans owning ordinance local coastal program and other regulations Our advanced planning team Maintains and updates many of those programs and policies And then our administration division provides support for staff and all the other divisions as well as Our public hearing bodies of which we have three that we manage the zoning administrator the historic preservation commission and the planning commission And then finally our largest division building and safety they Review plans for consistency when plumbing electrical mechanical and structural as well as green building requirements And then we have an inspection division that makes sure that out in the field The construction is consistent with the plans and applicable regulations Once you are biggest accomplishments the new permit center the public counter area was completed this year many years in the making And you can see the before and after here. We've got Um Nearly double the amount of space both at the counter and for the public in in the Front-facing area. So we're really happy that we were able to get that up and running. Thanks to our public works team and to Our it team and also to sarah daly on who managed that project on our end Um, moving on to some other additional accomplishments. We Last year, uh, actually, uh, these numbers are for the calendar year of 2019 Because we we do the annual reports and so, uh, we'll uh, we're pulling from those annual reports 117 Uh units approved 15 of those were affordable This is a one that we're, uh, excited to see the tally of, um, we had 158 permits issued 83% of those permits were for affordable most of those were, um, accessory dwelling units but we did have some additional affordable units, um, with the Um, 350 ocean street project which had about 64 units and then when we look at, um The building permits finaled again a huge percentage 71 percent of our new housing stocks that was occupied was, um, affordable to, um, moderate incomes or below and again the reason for this, um, was In large part due to our accessory dwelling units We have also worked really hard this year at improving our, um, technology use to be more environmentally friendly and to better serve our customers We had two of our, um, commissions mostly paperless Before and we've now transitioned to the third our historic preservation commission To paperless so that's saving money for applicants and being more environmentally friendly We've updated our code case tracking systems and automatic status update emails to complaining parties So that's saving time for our team and better serving our customers We've implemented online commenting features for our advisory body meetings Our ad web page has been updated and has tons of great information to save Our staff time and the community time and researching what they can do out on their properties And then we're finalizing the rental inspection payment system So that we can get online, uh, payments in coordination with it We, um, post covid we fast tracked our electronic plans to middle and digital review of applications We've moved to online community meetings and public hearings with our hearing bodies and, um, We have, uh, conducted virtual inspections. So we're using zoom and Face time for our inspectors to remain safe but still complete their work We've done a lot of things remotely to comply with permit Streamlining act regulations as well as meeting internal deadlines And a big thanks to it for helping us out on working on a lot of these projects When we talk about the core services that we provide The heart of what we really do is strategic visioning Providing health and safety Promoting community well-being and providing customer service and each one of our divisions Really does each one of these things from strategic visioning A lot of that happens in our advanced planning division with general plan and zoning ordinance and local coastal program updates But our building division is contributing to changes at the state level for building codes and many of our sustainability efforts fall into our strategic visioning category When it comes to health and safety our building division building and safety is front and center They're plumbing and electrical. They're making sure those are safe. They're making sure that buildings are Safe in an earthquake and that fire escape and rescue standards are met But we do that in our other divisions as well planning is looking at promoting eyes on the street to encourage safety and Encouraging an active community because our built environment really influences daily activities and health And then our green building program rental inspection program and co-compliance services All help support healthy living environments as well On the community well-being ends We conduct environmental review for all of our projects to promote decisions that support our natural environment And we're planning for open spaces and aesthetically pleasing community When it comes to customer service we Directly serve a lot of customers Just in our administration division. They are expected to handle over 12,000 phone calls this year We are expecting to help about 8,000 people in person this year just in planning and building And that is with basically a stop of in-service Or sorry in-person service beginning in March We're On scheduled to complete over 12,000 inspections between building code and rental We're expected to close over 300 code cases issue over 1600 building permits and complete over 3000 building plan checks And then of course our community engagement efforts where we're going out on projects and policies That's an important part of our customer service as well and something that we regularly do Jumping into our budget We have uh, approximately 7.5 million dollars in expenses the vast majority of that is in our personnel We do have a Small chunk of that in services And those are primarily in our building plan check and inspection services that supplements our staff The only thing that we have that is not status quo this year is in prior years We have funded some of our code enforcement efforts actually proactive code enforcement efforts with cdbg funds and That this past year was $70,000 That has shifted to other general fund projects So there's no net general fund impact from that change but we uh, we are calling that out as Non-status quo item because that has shifted in terms of the reimbursements Um, finally, I just want to thank you all for listening here and also want to thank our team for the great work that they do um, not only throughout the year, but also in particular during this pandemic time And we are available for any questions. Thank you very much for that presentation and Really great to hear all those about all those affordable housing permits that are coming through Are there any questions from council members at this time? Okay saying none, I will Turn it over to the community so If you're tuning in today and if you're interested in commenting on the planning and community development budget presentation Now is the time to call in You can find a list of phone numbers on your screen. The first number doesn't work You can try the next number And once you're able to get through you'll want to press star nine on your phone To raise your hand And when it's your time to speak you'll hear an announcement that you've been unmuted You will then have two minutes to address the council Seeing that uh, there are no members of the public calling in i'll bring it back to council For any questions or further comments Council member buyers. Oh, thanks. Um Let's see. What was my oh, I know on the org charter when you started you had a few vacancies Maybe not many but I saw I think maybe two Um Oh, there they are. Yeah one And a half oh and four Are those frozen or are you aggressively recruiting or? What's up with them Thanks for inquiring about that So we are holding off on the recruitment in both Current planning and advanced planning Really, we are in a a wait and see mode for that to understand what the implications of the COVID pandemic are going to be on Development and planning applications and entitlements as well as building requests um, so We've Heard from a lot of individuals that they're going to be continuing their projects And if that If that workload continues, we may look at Filling those at some point, but at this point we're holding off on those We're holding off on some of our building and safety Vacancies as well, but this has been a continual Challenge for us and it's not just here. It's also In other jurisdictions, um, you know, there are a lot of Systemic issues that are contributing to that the the giant downturn in construction Back with the great recession in 2008 Have a lot of people leaving the industry as well as you know, the private sector being able to get a lot more Um Higher wages than what often happens in the public sector. And so that's a challenge We are moving forward with a couple of those Intensively We're seeing if we get a superstar candidate then we may Look to bring some of those folks on board for for that particular For those positions we get work that has to be done. We've got to do the plan checks We've got to do the inspections.  And so we end up paying our plan check and inspection consultants if we do not have the in-house staff So we are trying to see if there's a great candidate out there for a couple of the building and safety vacancies right now And really we're we're looking to see what happens with the Development activity across the board, but we are hopeful We're optimistic based on what we've heard from a lot of the folks that we've been talking to about the continuation of projects And even new projects that are are coming in and inquiring nice Of course Thank you. Thanks for the presentation lee um in regards to the affordability kind of components that you were suggesting in terms of the permits And you mentioned I just for clarity. So you suggested that a good portion were ad use that were Falling into that into that category. Yes Is that is that accurate and do you know because I know we've done so many things in terms of adu policy Do you have an understanding of what it is that has now led to this sort of incentivizing around? um more affordability and ad use So, uh, thanks for that question counts member walkins. Um There's sort of two parts there. Um, I'll tackle the first one. Uh, which is Yes, a big chunk of these are ad use and There were 64 units on this one that are the 350 ocean. This is building permit issued And a big chunk of them were ad used when we did a survey This past summer we inquired about rent levels and what we were able to do is um extrapolate based on square footages of the ad use they were falling into Different affordability levels. So not all of these. I do want to be clear not all of these are de-restricted You know the 64 units at 350 ocean are de-restricted for example But the the majority of these are ad use and those are not de-restricted But they are more affordable by design by nature of their sharing space and by nature of their size And so based on their size, we've we've lumped them into these categories Whether they're low or moderate income and then in terms of The incentives I think you know the state has been doing a lot of things And and I'll note that some of the things the state has done have Basically stolen from things that we did the year before and so I think that shows that we're doing some really good things with our adu ordinances And it's good to see that those are getting rolled out on a statewide level But all the things that the state is doing to promote affordable or excuse me promote accessory dwelling units as well as What we are doing locally to go above and beyond the state are encouraging homeowners to come in There's certainly a big incentive over the next five years Which is the ability of new accessory dwelling units to not have an owner occupancy requirement That is something that we required up until january 1st of this year and through The next five years or four and a half years at this point The state has said you cannot have an owner occupancy requirement. So I I know that that has motivated some folks to Get the ball rolling on their adus and I expect that some of the adu production is related to that And some of these But that said these numbers are are 2019 numbers So these are before that restriction Or that allowance came into effect So We're going to continue tracking this and see how these numbers change in response to those new regulations, but we are Providing a lot of detailed information on our website now, and I think that's helping the community understand how The restrictions have been loosened significantly over the past five to six years and many people who weren't able to or didn't find it convenient to to Develop an adu previously are now reconsidering that That's great. Thank you Hey, I just wanted to follow up on that question real quick. So When we talk about like this level of portability as it relates to adus, but do you have any sense of What that looks like because I know in addition to that when we were discussing our rena numbers last year There were a fair amount of adus that went from moderate into some of those higher Categories in terms of how affordable they were So could you speak to like What percentage of these women are saying that there's 83 of the housing Permissory issue more affordable what Well, we'll see if I can I will pull that up quickly and I'll share that screen with you Just to give you an idea and in fact what I'll do is I will share the screen so that you all can see where you get to it. This is actually coming directly from our Our annual Housing element report that all of these numbers are pulled from there And I'm going to stop my screen sharing and then restart it Well Since I'm having that technical difficulty, let's see if this is yeah, it's not letting me let me try this Oh, there we go. It's on my other screen. So I'll have to share there And start this one Okay Sorry about that on community development web page And if you scroll down to the documents link on the right hand side here, you can get the housing element and your report And as you scroll down, um, this is page five of 16. You can see the actual categories for Above moderate income income de-restricted moderate income Um, non de-restricted and so forth. So here's the 64 units from 350 ocean and then we actually had 51 that that qualified as low income and that's based on those size thresholds and I can follow up with you those size thresholds Um, we're in the housing element and your report, but I don't think that they're Um, yeah, they're not captured in this table And so I don't recall those size thresholds off the top of my head But this is where you can um go and reference all of those Um individual projects and how we came to those numbers Great thank you. You're welcome. I'll tell some of them Matthews referencing the question about vacancies on the org chart that was in our budget finders. There were Or eight pink spaces other pink spaces vacancies Reference back It looked like even more vacancies than Then showed up on the org chart if that's what they are didn't say what pink meant Oh, Sarah there you're muted Sarah. There we go. Can you hear me now? Yeah, okay great Thank you for catching that so that was an older org chart pre some of the Vacancies we filled so we no longer have any vacancies in admin for example So what you saw on Lee's chart is most updated. Okay. Thank you That's very much Lee. Thank you for your presentation Because you're doing just chugging along. It's great. It's great. Um, and I'm glad to see the the new remodeled You know plan encounter up and operating but nobody can be there right now, but it looks beautiful So I'm glad that that we did get that done and people will be there to use it soon I had a little bit of I've been having a little problem with my my cell phone And so going in and out a little bit one question ahead for you is are we Do we have are we required to update our housing element starting this year? Or is that or count? Is that a calendar year? so, um, I mean It's the the current cycle is um 2015 to 2023 and interesting that you ask because At your next council meeting we will be presenting you with Request for authorization to apply for a grant to complete our housing element and so That is One of the items that would provide us the guaranteed grant funding and that's $300,000 that would be Contributed towards our housing elements. So we are required to update our housing element before december of 2023 and that will be a significant effort and that $300,000 will will certainly go towards A big chunk of the work that we'll need to do in that And do you see any risk? That's great that there's grant funding available. Have you heard? Through the state or anything that any of that those grants that grant funding may be jeopardized I'm just curious. It's such an important thing. You know, this is an important time and period for us to be doing that work and I'm just trying to forecast a little bit in terms of Running into issues without being able to And and not being able to unfortunately update that element. So I'm just curious if you have your ear to the ground on that I have not heard anything about that funding disappearing Um, I believe that specific funding was a part of a bill package that was passed. You know, we've got the Objective standards grant that we're working on right now And this is a leader phase of that and so I think that all of that is is in place and I'm not hearing anything Otherwise and so fingers crossed that it will still remain for us We're bound to update the housing element one way or the other. So hopefully we've got that grant funding to assist Okay, great. That was my only question. Thank you You're welcome. Are there any further questions? Um, for lia the time Seeing none Lee, thanks again for your presentation and for all the hard work that you and your staff are doing Thank you I have to take care of a great day Next up on our agenda is our sixth presentation of the day, which is the city council city attorneys city managers clerks and community programs presentation And so for members of the public who are streaming this meeting If this is a presentation that you want to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen The order will be a presentation by staff followed by questions from the council We will then take public comment and then return to council for any follow-up questions or comments And with that, uh, I will turn this presentation over to laura schmidt assistant city manager Thank you, mayor. Are you all able to see my screen? So as mayor Cummings said, I'll be covering the city manager's office Then the city council budget and then I'll hand it over to tony pendota to speak briefly about the city attorney's office budget The agenda is as everybody else has been doing so i'm going to breeze right through that just as lee did The city manager's office is comprised of 14 and a half full-time equivalents As the assistant city manager, I pretty much act as the city manager's department head for our area We have a funded but Unfilled communication manager vacancy right now And then um an assistant to the city manager homelessness sustainability and climate action and principal management analyst Ralph who does communications and other analytical work in our office And then we have susan as our executive assistant to the city manager and then bonnie leads up our clerks functions when I step back and look at the various Components and functions of our office that our 14 and a half staff execute We have the city's clerks function, which is quite distinct and Intuitive to understand and then administration and communication and strategy Comprised our overall administrative overhead human resources work And then the strategic work that we do with the council And then on the other side of it. I look at it as ongoing programs and Existing work that has come to our office that is usually city-wide in nature And we do on a continuous basis And then we do a lot of ad hoc project work where we're helping idea Develop through their process We're staffing ad hoc committees that come up like the budget committee that was formed on at the april 28th meetings like the Revenue committee that proceeded it So a little bit about our functions our city clerks Not only do they do all of the documentation And work behind the scenes for any of our council meetings But they are also the ones that staff our main public counter and our phones So Anna sherry and rosemary do an amazing job Fielding calls and have to know enough about our entire city to be able to route Our community members with questions either answering the questions directly themselves or getting them in touch with the right department Our person within our organization that can help them They act as our official city record keeper They handle all of our public records requests So any public records request goes through the city clerk's office to then be Sold out to the respective departments or departments that actually can help answer the question They staffed the city council meetings They pretty much take care of the council chambers in conjunction with information technology And they manage our community tv relationship as well as all of our elections And as uh just that acknowledged in a proclamation earlier, it's a professional municipal clerk's week. So many thanks to Bonnie and julia and the rest of the clerk staff for all the work that they do On the administration communication and strategy side. We oversee the city budget and the top department And we help support the city council with Email correspondence and any other administrative support that they need We also have recently really beefed up our communication function within the city manager's office And then this has been critical in the kovat 19 response And then we just do the day-to-day administration of all the human resources and personnel all the contracts and purchasing And to that tizana's an amazing job of handling hundreds of contracts and invoices Anything else that comes across across our desk We also staff joint powers authority and um, we represent for instance at our santa clues regional 911 Board and I sit on the animal shelter board. So we do staff's various joint powers authority And then overall we are the hub of the strategic planning that crosses the city and then we work In lockstep with the city council to be able to put the strategic plan together that we can then execute for you On our programs in standing community work, um, we have an amazing climate action and sustainability manager Uh, tiffani wise west. She's probably one of the leaders in this space in california And I would even say possibly the nation so she does an amazing job Putting santa crews on the map and keeping us on the leading edge Of climate action and our all of our sustainability and environmental work We recently hired brook newman as our new homeless response manager She just started a month ago in the middle of the pandemic, but uh, she's jumped right in and is doing an amazing job already We have the independent independent police auditor function and we also Uh, lead the legislative program for the city We do a lot of contract administration and that includes the santa cruz county core programs And then the other social services grants that we coordinate with the county and then we staff of various standing committees The commission for the prevention of violence against women community programs committee and then the public safety committee So those are the types of things that we do on an ongoing basis and then on any given day week month year We will also get assigned special projects Usually if there's a project that comes up and there is a Department that has a subject matter expertise that can act as a lead department They may end up taking that special project and running with it But in the case if the project crosses multiple departments or is more city-wide Then that will come to the city manager's office and we'll staff and um have somebody on point to read that special project Same thing happens with other ad hoc requests that may come up from the departments the community or the council members We may take an idea that initially comes up as a request Uh, do a little research see if it's going to be seated and sponsored and if it'll turn into something else Or won't be pursued. We'll do a lot of research now on those types of ad hoc requests The other types of work that we do if there are ad hoc committees that come up like the community advisory committee on homelessness And the budget committee the revenue committee will staff those During the duration of that ad hoc work and then it'll sunset and we'll move on to another committee that gets formed So what have we been doing in fiscal year 2020? So I just tried to highlight a few of the achievements for our office on the homelessness front We have staffed and facilitated the community advisory committee on homelessness Ron Prince who is here as a special projects manager Helped build the bridge to the national guard so that we were able to occupy the armory for the first time in several years and get that in place As a winter location that was covered and then We developed the homelessness response position with the help of hr and then we recruited and hired book newman last month We've also worked with the city council to do an off-site and translate That work from the off-site into a six month work plan And then we started our strategic plan With nicole young and we'll be picking that up later on once the pandemic settles down. Hopefully and then Last but not least we have developed a council member onboarding manual that we were able to use with council member buyers And council member golder. They were the beneficiary of over a hundred page document, which I'm sure they've read end to end The other thing we've done this year is develop the robust communication function Ross americot came to us from the city of san San Diego and it's done an amazing job help us helping us Eat this up and without this communication function we wouldn't wouldn't have been able to do the public service announcements and Keep you and our community up to date during this covid pandemic. So that's been some amazing work My being Technical person, you know in my heart of hearts as your former it director. I went and did some Statistics running as far as a council meeting and the city council meeting that the city clerk staff Staff and and does all the work It's not just the meeting itself behind the scenes They touch every agenda report. They have to plan the meeting and figure out the timing of it Respond to and attach all the public correspondence to agenda reports They have to deal with all the in meeting logistics both The normal day-to-day and the emergencies that happen when a mic breaks or something like that They do action summaries and minutes They scan information They do all the budget adjustments that come out of the city council meeting and the resolutions and proclamations and everything So there's a lot of work that goes to standing at the council meeting I counted and we've had 22 meetings including special ones through april 28th meeting That equivalent that was about 176 hours and on average you guys were in Your regular meetings for 9.6 hours the longest meeting took 12 hours and 47 minutes This last fiscal year And I pondered in my mind what takes about 13 hours and so I went out to google And it said on average that the average person Spends about 13 hours in their email in one week So you did that in one night in one council meeting and then I recalled I don't take 13 hours that sounds vaguely familiar. How long was I in labor with my kids? So on average apparently the average baby takes six to 12 hours to deliver So you guys went beyond the average of delivering a baby in just one council meeting And I think in total you had maybe even four council meetings that were 12 hours or more so Justin if I I doubt you'll deliver a baby, but you've gone through a longer Council meeting than it takes on average to deliver one Our city manager's office budget is 6.2 million dollars and covers multiple activities From this section the city manager's office budget with personnel and services and supplies is about 33 percent The commission for the prevention of violence against women is one percent as well as the police auditor function And then city clerk takes up 16 percent with Climate action and our membership induced at three percent of peace Our animal shelter contribution to that joint powers authority is 10 percent of our budget And then between our two social services buckets one for core and the fed-aside Program that we run every year and community programs and services and the coordination of programs with the county Those take up 33 percent in total as well Our non-scat status quo highlights for fiscal year 21 in the city manager's office activity Under city planned events We are have requested an additional news service to be able to find out when The city of Santa Cruz is mentioned out in any press or internet service as well as a little bit bump in our advertising budget Uh, we've moved health and all policies as an ongoing funding from the city council to the city manager's office It was previously its first time in city council budget at 20 000 And then you guys requested that be bumped to 25 000 so that is in the city manager's budget And we also increased the police auditor budget slightly. It hadn't been increased in quite a few years on the clerk side, we are Finding that the election budget is has not been sufficient. And then for the community television budget We have added closed captioning, which is a requirement by law And we've met with ctv the service that they offer and we've received the estimate and included that in our budget As well as the advertising that the clerk's office needs to do for various resolutions and changes to our Just the noticing requirements that we have to do our current advertising budget is not sufficient The other status quo items in our budget memberships and dues are things that increase that we don't really have Control over so the league of california cities, for instance increases their dues We just include the increase in our budget on the community programs and services side We know that our downtown outreach worker and our mental health liaison programs That the county helps us with they received Cost of living adjustments and those cost of living adjustments have been passed on to us So there's an increase in those two programs Additionally, the point in time count is coming up again. That's an every two year function So that has been added to this budget And there are looming adjustments that we don't know enough of yet But as a for instance for the homelessness front We went from a winter shelter only model and that's what was budgeted last fiscal year And as you now know, we have gone to a year round model So that is going to inherently increase our budget substantially Just that aspect of the community programs piece Moving on to the city council budget the city council budget is around $466,000 it's split between 70 percent in personnel and 30 percent in supplies and services The brunt of your budget in those areas are in a couple of accounts and I emailed you all And we have available later for discussion if you'd like to go through it the non-status quo aspects of your Professional services and your most miscellaneous service and supplies accounts And we can go into that if you would like to later The city attorney's office. I'd like to hand it over to tony kandadi at this point if you could jump in Tony Yes Thank you. Thank you Good afternoon, mayor Cummings members of the city council My pleasure to present the city attorney's portion of this presentation today Our mission is to provide the city Legal council and to advocate on behalf of the city and to support municipal operations and programs and community policies Pardon me We're proud of the fact that as a private law firm that we are public servants in the community We live in and we strive to work with the city council city manager and city departments in making Santa Cruz a healthier safer and more equitable Place to live for all members of the community In our to accomplish our mission We strive to support the city council in the accomplishment of its critical and top priorities Uh to provide objective accurate and timely legal advice that facilitates informed decision making And effective policy development by the council And its implementation by the city manager and staff And to provide the council boards commissions and city departments with high quality Efficient and effective legal services advice and opinions And to represent the city's interests in litigation contractual agreements negotiations In land use water and planning and building issues Uh in law enforcement issues and to serve the community and the interests of justice with effective prosecution of municipal code violations and code enforcement Uh to those whose familiarity with our office is limited to the observation of council meetings It's seen it may seem like we're primarily there to provide advice on the brown act and rules of meeting decorum But in fact, we are a dedicated team of nine lawyers Six full time and three part time Two full time paralegals an office manager and two administrative staff The agenda packet that you are provided We have carefully reviewed or participated in the preparation of Most or all of the items on the agenda Whether it's presented by the city manager's office the public works department water parks parks and rec planning or finance Uh, this of course includes your ordinances resolutions and every one of the contracts that are typically approved Without comment on your consent agenda We're also deeply involved in a myriad of issues that generally don't come come before the council at all from Day-to-day advice to representing the city and civil litigation and criminal and administrative code enforcement and collections matters In terms of achievement that's a little bit tricky for me because Uh of the nature of our function Uh, and I feel like we share somewhat in the achievements that have been reached by the city as a whole Uh over the course of the past year A couple of things that I am particularly proud of however I'm proud of the way that my office has handled The city's response to homelessness over the past year Uh, particularly in the wake of the martin versus boysy decision, which continues to reverberate throughout Uh the ninth circuit and the united states In general following the supreme court's rejection of a petition for writ of cert in that matter Uh, that of course is still a work in progress And it has been since I joined the city in 1993 But we work closely with the city manager's office the police department and departments In addressing both the nuisance conditions associated with homeless encampments And nuisance behaviors, but also ensuring that our actions are implemented in a thoughtful way That respects the rights of the community as a whole as well as those Experiencing homelessness and that protects the city from potential liability under the careful scrutiny of homeless activists advocates And activists And civil rights groups like the aclu and the national law center on homelessness and poverty I think it's significant that under the very tense situations that we've Experienced with regard to homelessness over the last year the city has not been sued By any of those organizations and we've tried to maintain effective relationships with Those those entities as well I'm proud of the way that we've maintained effective and constructive working relationships with seven individual council members over the over the years Who's views on a variety of issues have often been very different and And This past year has been particularly one a difficult one in terms of the issues that have come before the council And and council interrelations to be frank And then thirdly I want to give a shout out to my litigation team led by cassie bronson, but also Tori Thompson and barbara choy And stephanie duck We've successfully resolved a number of litigation matters favorably for the city In this past year and by favorably i mean That we've settled cases In an amount that was substantially less than our assessment of the potential liability exposure And thereby avoided significant litigation costs and potential liability In addition, we've prevailed outright in a number of matters including Going back to the end of last fiscal year the kintero matter in which the city initiated a process to Close down the ross encampment behind the ross dress for less in the gate We applaud the shopping center and the plaintiffs File a lawsuit in the united states district court seeking to enjoin the city's closure of that encampment on constitutional grounds In this fiscal year, we were successful in obtaining the outright dismissal of the case And also thwarted the plaintiff's attempt to appeal the dismissal to the ninth circuit u.s. Court of Appeals A more recent example is Uh, just goes back to last friday In which the united states district court for the northern district of california Granted the city's motion to dismiss in David my bird versus the city of santa Cruz Which is a lawsuit that was first filed in february of 2019 And at the time included 32 separate legal causes of action against the city And against 12 city employees in police planning and parks and rector departments In this case the plaintiff's broadly a lead or the plaintiff's broadly alleged a citywide conspiracy Related to the enforcement of the city's surf school ordinance and a separate code enforcement matter series of liability include the federal sherman act which Uh relates to antitrust violations unfair competition laws First amendment retaliation claims and a civil rights cause of action Alleging an illegal search of the mybergs. Mr. Myberg's property The plaintiff sought Well over 150 thousand dollars in damages in that case plus plus attorney's season costs Which should have easily been over 150 thousand dollars I would add that it was resolved at the pleading stage, which means that the city did not file an answer. There was no discovery And so the Litigation was very inexpensive for the city relative to the potential exposure and the issues in the case On january 20th. We obtained dismissal of the case of chase mason versus the city of santa criss A federal civil rights lawsuit against the city which alleged that the santa criss police department improperly An inadequately investigated traffic incident where he was injured The plaintiff sought over 100 thousand dollars in damages plus attorney's fees, which could have easily been well over another 100 thousand dollars So significant savings on that case And then the gomez case involved a police pursuit of a suspect who drove in the wrong direction Approaching traffic on the highway 17 and crashed into the plaintiff's car The plaintiff filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city and the police department and our office Excuse me our office settled the case for no money out of pocket In exchange for a waiver of a 7500 dollar discovery sanction award that our office obtained against the plaintiff's counsel plaintiffs had Previously attempted to negotiate a settlement In the multiple ten thousand dollar range In terms of budget This is a budget estimate prepared by the finance department in consultation with my office It's a little tricky because the cost the city incurs for legal services are dependent on the demand For legal services to meet the needs of the city which fluctuates You can see just over two-thirds is allocated to general legal services providing advice Preparing or reviewing ordinances resolutions and contracts and attending city council Meetings and other meetings on requests and working with staff on a daily basis General legal services are provided on a flat rate basis for the first 275 hours per month And a discounted blended hourly rate thereafter I would note that in 2018 We voluntarily increased the numbers of the number of hours provided on a flat rate basis From 260 to 275 hours with no increase in cost to the city Which effectively resulted in a four and a half percent decrease in the cost of general legal services that are blended hourly rate And our blended hourly rate has not increased since 2017 The rest of the pie is primarily litigation and code enforcement and that again The cost incurred by the city is heavily dependent on factors that are only partially within our control Are rates for special legal services likewise have not been adjusted since 2017 and we are not Proposing any changes for the upcoming fiscal year in some It has been my pleasure to serve as your city attorney for the past five years and to serve the city In some capacity since 1993 when I joined this law office And i'm blessed to have a dedicated team of lawyers and staff All of whom are proud of the work we do and its impact on the city and its residents And i'm happy to answer any questions Thank you Tony for that presentation and for all the work that your staff does and thank you laura as well um and for all the hard work that We have happening in the city manager's office and city clerk's office Uh, are there any questions from council members at this time? Council member walkins I just have a quick question. Um, yes. Thank you for your presentation Thank you laura for reminding us of these really long meetings we had I think I remember that meeting And I remember having to present at one of my daughter's school the day after and Tell the students that we started one day and ended the night so anyways, um I um My question actually is for you tony in regards to sort of the status quo Did you feel like last year was sort of an outlying year given all the kind of the legal Stuff we had going on or do you anticipate that same level of demand this this year as well? So, um, I I do think it was an outlying year in in one respect in particular. Um Well in two respects really That the first is that the issue of homelessness in light of the martin case was front and center with our office um In a way that it's never been before and it and it generated a lot of of work not just on the cantero matter but on uh, managing issues that that that the parks department and the police department and city manager's office have been dealing with Um, we've been much more involved in the day-to-day response to homelessness I think as has city staff in general in the past year And the second is with respect to the demand for services, uh from the city council I think last year was probably Um, let me take a step back. We only started tracking The the time that we spend on the city manager's On city matters by department a couple of years ago So it's really hard for me to provide an accurate assessment in terms of the hours that we've spent on Directly responding to request for the city council. I think that was significantly higher as well Thank you All right council member buyers Oh Laura first for you. I You're right. I have not sat down and read the whole onboarding manual However I do pick it up, you know every once in a while. It's a reference guide and Because I you know things have changed a little bit and uh Department heads have changed. So it's been helpful. Thank you No questions that this and Suzanne has been outstanding because I'm always needing something It's interesting having to sort of set up a home office So she's been so helpful, you know with my ipad and now I got stanford instead of propping it up with pillows And it's just constantly one thing after another but you've been outstanding and for you tony. Oh, I'm running out of battery um It's nice to be back and it's nice working with you again And I'm you're very generous whenever I call or something and I appreciate that because it's usually a last minute You know question and thank you well, I say uh And not a very well-known secret is I generally clear my calendars on the monday and tuesday for council meetings for that purpose Exactly. So happy to do it All right by senator miers Yeah, laura and tony. Thank you for the presentations and um Yeah, tony, especially some of the things that you noted We're really helpful to hear about the work that you're doing in your office With regards to litigation and and other matters sometimes sometimes those are things that Community doesn't realize that you know along with everything else. We we also are having to do that kind of work as well I just wanted to recognize The city manager's department and the staff there. I know the homeless response and the You know the just the difficulty of facing our communities with the in-house populations And people and the folks that we haven't here um, you guys do an amazing job and You know you you act in a very respectful way and I think that You know, you just need to be recognized for the work that you do do and the way that you've integrated You know both national and state models and standards to really try to address, you know Crisis that we have not just in Santa Cruz, but throughout the west western united states So just wanted to recognize you guys for that. Um, and I know it's a really difficult public policy issue and I think you do it with with great Great dignity and I just want to just point out that work that you do for our community So thank you for that work I appreciate that and even though we just hired brook newman Sooby and Megan and the city manager's office have been holding down before and doing amazing work for the last One to two years in this space So They they need to be acknowledged as well for all the hard work that they've done before we were able to Develop and fund this position Thank you Let's see martin burnall. I have the pan raise Thank you, mayor and council. I just wanted to also just thank the staff in our office to do amazing work and We're able to really quickly pivot to responding to the the covid virus which was instrumental in us being able to to get ahead and be responsive to the community and If you just think about everything that we put in place to respond, it's been really incredible and amazing work and The team in our office as well as the whole department head team really deserves a lot of credit for that And I want to thank them And uh, lastly, I I've attended council means for like what 23 years I think they've been probably hundreds of thousands of kids born Well, I was the council means I guess Yeah, thank you, uh, laura and tony for the presentations and Definitely a big thank you to all of the staff in the city managers and the clerks office Um, I won't I'll just echo all the comments that have been made so far without repeating And then and tony I wanted to also thank you for uh, this time around really highlighting the behind the scenes work that that Goes on and and laying that out for us because I think it is something that Um, the the public isn't probably not so much aware of And even for ourselves because you know, we have interactions with you during the council meetings and closed sessions And also of course when we call you usually last minute and you know Your office and you and your office are always very very accessible and Reachable and you get back to us quickly and it's just so helpful to know that we can get that kind of advice good advice kind of on the spot so Yeah, just send send a thanks as well to everybody in your office and um Keep on keeping on For some reason, I think everybody in my office has been watching the whole budget presentation to that And what am I surprised? Uh, councillor matthews and this is their 15 minutes of Thank you. Thank you both for your your presentations and again, um the ability to Grapple professionally with very high profile emerging issues And you know at the same time The remarks about all the work that goes into the relentless every two weeks meetings, I mean everything All the different reports hands on the reports eyeballs, etc That has to sink in apparently seamlessly But it's not I mean it's it's not without a whole lot of work. So it's just so appreciated week in week out Thank you all the time. Hey at this time, uh, I'm going to turn it over to The public to provide comments Or anyone from the public has questions So if you're interested in commenting on the city council City attorney city managers clerks community programs budget presentation Now's the time when you can call in And after you have followed the instructions To join the meeting you'll want to press star nine on your phone to raise your hand And when it's your time to speak you'll hear it announced that you've been unmuted and you will have two minutes to speak And then there's no members of the public who are wishing to join to comment on this item Uh, I'm going to bring it back to council for any further comments council member weapons Thank you, mayor. I just had one last question, but really want to echo my colleagues sense of appreciation for our entire city manager's department and staff the city attorney staff and We get to see first hand just your stellar team working on an ongoing basis and just really high caliber groups So, um, thank you to everybody. I can't wait to see you again. Hopefully soon. I'm missing them in the office But I had a quick question in regards to the to the core funding. I forgot to um, ask earlier Is that what's the um, sort of the thoughts around that in terms of the cycle and next step because I think I remember it being extended the year So if you could or if you have any idea of what that's looking like, um, it's going to get a sense of that So the budget that we put in for fiscal year 21 per county directive It's the status quo from the previous year They were in the process of going through a new strategic planning and coordination process to create a new rfp And develop a new methodology for the next round after next year but that was um smack down in the middle of of ramping up in January, February, March and then the pandemic hit. So from what I understand at this point is We're probably going to add on another year of Of carrying forward the existing allegations But they may be able to squeeze in some covet related applicability to Where the funding disbursement goes but that's still to be determined So at this point we carried forward from fiscal year 20 the same program to 21 And then the county will let us know as they get back into things if they're going to change the allocation methodology at all Great. Thank you All right, cool. Tony. Thank you again and thanks. Thank all your staff for all the hard work they do and um, I'd also like to just echo the Special thanks to the city manager's office, especially for um, how rapid they were to respond to Even when we were just beginning to hear about COVID-19 coming into our area I think that it's because of those efforts to really Kind of shut things down really quickly and shelter in place really quickly That have aided in our ability to have a very low Transmission rate and a low occurrence of COVID-19 within our community. And so, um, Thank you all for your hard work and great decision making Leadership. Thanks. We appreciate that feedback and as martin said, it's been a huge team effort So all the departments have banded together. So it's been a wonderful fight to see everything everybody working so well together Thank you All right, we will move on to our next presentation for the day which is for our police department And so for members of the public who are streaming this meeting If this is a presentation you want comment on now it's time to call in Using the instructions on your screen The order will be a presentation by staff followed by questions from the council We will then take public comment and then return to council for any all questions or comments And so at this time if chief annie mills is on the line We can move on to your presentation Uh, good morning. Good afternoon, mr. Mayor. We're having some public getting the Video portion because the host has stopped it. So maybe morrick and open it for us or somebody else can Well, uh, first of all, thank you so much for the opportunity to share what the Santa Cruz police department has been doing And and on behalf of all the men and women who work as officers detectives Rangers Cfos our professional staff We couldn't be more thrilled with the team environment that we have and pressing forward with some Fantastic initiatives that we believe can really make a significant difference here in the city of Santa Cruz You know, it's interesting that as we press forward during the year um You come up and you wind up with a worldwide pandemic That throws everything off the kilter But the response from the men and women who are the essential servants of our community They switched to 12 art shifts immediately. They worked around the clock They did everything they could possibly do to make this community safe in spite of the uh apparent risk to themselves And what was interesting to me as the chief and having done this for 42 years Uh, I did not hear one ounce of complaining or hesitation But just charging full speed ahead making sure that we did everything we could possibly do I had to work with the community and make sure that some people were safe So my undying gratitude goes to the men and women Of the Santa Cruz police department and all sides of the department both sworn in civilian You know, we started off with the mission statement You can see on the screen is that we're committed to self serve selflessly and compassionately Through collaboration and innovation And I think that really sparks before me what we have tried to deal with the last couple of years here in Santa Cruz police department Think about how we work with the community To collaborate with them and then to innovate and find ways to target specific problems and deal with those problems as opposed to randomly Doing enforcement where it doesn't make sense And so as a result, I think what you've seen is our folks very heavily focused on solving problems in our community And pursuing criminals absolutely where it's where it's needed and necessary And doing so in a way that's transparent responsive to our community needs So as we go through this presentation, I'm going to have Deputy Chief Estalane start off with talking about What he sees from his position as the administrative deputy chief and then our budget analyst Patricia Dodge will give you the information on our budget and what that takes a little looks like So we'll break this into a few areas. Uh, we'll be bouncing back between the three of us And uh to make sure you can hear us will be unmasked during our talk and the rest of the time We'll have masks on and uh keeping our social distance. So first up will be Deputy Chief Estalane And uh to give you a department overview our achievements top of our court services and then Patricia will talk about the Working budget in the status quo budget and then some of the unavoidable costs that we're going to incur this upcoming year And then obviously certainly handle any questions you might have So first up is Deputy Chief Estalane Oh, never mind. I'm taking the uh, I've been corrected by uh by my staff This is our organizational chart that you see in front of you. We have two significant divisions One is administrative straight up that handle investigations recruitment Uh, our management analyst our record section and uh, they're a pretty darn busy unit As part of this, uh, we were authorized to hire up to 102 people We've actually uh, our 94 budgeted positions And we are currently at 91 sworn positions with 20 people in backgrounds. There's no doubt reminded. We could Well go well over the budgeted positions. However, we've obviously put a Put the brakes on because of the COVID-19 crisis And we're going to wait and see how this shakes out Over the upcoming uh, a little bit We have 12 cso's 12 rangers and 18 professional staff their budgeted positions also On the operation side is headed by Deputy Chief Lebow And he has all the uniformed personnel in our department Uh, this last year we screened 1100 applicants We put 433 applicants through the investigation process Excuse me, uh screening process And then 45 people went through backgrounds. We hired 20 So we're almost at completely full staffing And for the first time in many many years and that's a due to the hard work of a lot of staff members including west morey Scott Garner Dan flippo burning up galani And a lot of other officers who did the screening of these folks as well as our background investigators, which have done a great job So, uh, this is the structure of the department and uh, now we're moving forward And uh, we'll have to adapt and move and overcome the challenges that lye had but we're ready to go and make sure that we have Bernie Good afternoon, mayor Cummings and council members So As the chief was mentioning related to our staffing one of the Many achievements that we're very proud of here Is we were able to put together two specialty teams Due to our staffing levels. We were able to Pull some folks out of our patrol division Um, and have them focus on special Neighborhood problems that we try to apply different strategies to this and find some solutions Uh, the hero team which stands for the homeless engagement resource officer That team brings a different type of strategy They do very little if any enforcement, but they work closely and collaboratively with other city departments and and the county To find resources for people that have found themselves living in the On the streets of the city of Santa Cruz And and try to find Solutions for them and get to the root of the problem of why they are born living homeless so Then the second team the neighborhood enforcement Neighborhood policing team They apply a different strategy. They uh, they go out and do you know strict enforcement They're using the law enforcement tools and the laws and ordinances given to us to As a different type of strategy to solve problems within a neighborhood They also work very closely with other city departments To find solutions to the problems so both these teams Were a luxury for us in the sense of once we were able to get our staffing levels up We were able to raise our level of service to the community in solving solving problems We are extremely proud of the strides that we've made over the year of 2019 related to threat assessment and de-escalation Our staff has gone through a tremendous amount of de-escalation training crisis intervention training We were able to purchase Tools to make our officers more effective in the field Related to de-escalating very dangerous situations That ultimately ended ended safely instead of tragically. So we're very proud of that One of the things we also did if you remember 2019 we Hosted the pop conference the problem-oriented policing Conference here in the city of Santa Cruz first time ever and had hundreds of representatives from law enforcement You know scientists from all over the the world that came here to the city of Santa Cruz to really study the profession of policing And lastly was a threat assessment we We also established our own threat assessment protocol that is currently being used across the country And what that does is really gives us a tool to assess Mass casualty threats that we oftentimes see over the internet or social media or something To really give us an idea of what the problem is that we're dealing with The volunteer program we are extremely proud of the amount of women of this program. They have brought so much to our organization The program has built up to over 40 volunteers In 2019 Uh, I got some stats here that are really amazing as a folks in 2019 They put in over 400. I'm sorry 4,500 hours of service for our organization and for the community of Santa Cruz And that's compared to just over 1100 hours in 2018 so The 40 plus numbers that we have as our volunteer in our volunteer program have done a tremendous job Again thinking of different ways to provide a high level of service to to the city And these folks have done a great job for us And last but not least of course one of our main functions is to Prevent or reduce crime and so These numbers will show you a trend of the last four years of Accomplishing exactly that In all of these categories you will see from 2016 to 2019 The men and women of this organization have worked extremely hard and have Really produced great results For the for the community is in relation to the prevention or reduction of crime I believe at this point Patricia will now take over related to the specific budget conversation Oh, no, I'm sorry one more our core services um You know enforcement is one of the ones that's out front and center all the time every day every night investigations In in 2019 the detectives in our investigations section Addressed over 1600 cases throughout the year All the way from, you know major violent crimes to property crimes Our community involvement or also I'd like to refer to it as community relations We over the last couple of years have built such a great relationship with The stakeholders in our community through social media the volunteer program that we already mentioned And just all of the continuous outreach has created such a great trusting relationship An inclusive relationship with our community that has really built Itself over the last couple years to a lot of hard work with choice flasky in our community relations Um unit and then lastly uh records our record section They really do all the important work behind the scenes that nobody really gets to see But just an outstanding number i'd like to share in 2019 they processed over 15 000 police reports And 6 500 citations On top of that they managed to work through on average 54 public records requests every month for the year of 2019 so that group of men and women to be commended Just as much as the men and women out in the outfield every day for their hard work behind the scenes Next i'm going to talk about our budget In terms of our data full budget i'm zooming way out here so you can see a big picture The other two slices of the pie are professional services and then basically everything else So this is the big picture and now i'm going to take you into a deep dive of our professional services contacts So again, this is only nine percent of our total budget And the vast majority of this nine percent is um dedicated to our 911 call center contribution In in addition to that the little small pieces of our professional service contract budget Organitorial services are three percent Special assault nurse examiner program which will now be in the county and sanitary about three percent We spend three percent of this nine percent of our budget on background investigations and that's something we do before hiring folks onto our workforce And then the next biggest category is ocean street private security So you'll see there are a few other items that take up one percent and a lot of much smaller professional service contracts Items that are less than one percent of this Nine percent of our budget In terms of the other slices of the pie another nine percent of our total budget 24 percent is dedicated to Shirdi bonds. This is a category that we actually don't have control over You'll see that 11 percent is spent on small poop and equipment And that's a little bit bigger this year than last year because we need to upgrade our mobile communication units that are in all of our vehicles And that's an upgrade that needs to happen as a piggyback to the r&s system upgrade that we're involved with Our vehicle work order charges are shifting as more of our vehicles are being Procured through the enterprise Program which seems to be saving us a good chunk of money which allows us to expand the small tools and equip that budget To accommodate those new in-car computers Aside from that Closing and equipment that's only four percent of this nine percent of our budget And four percent health communication services four percent on our building and facility of a plane And then we included a whole lot of details on the far right side in terms of our other smaller costs That are dedicated to this part of terms of what's not status quo this year We actually were able to do a pretty amazing job of accommodating all of the other cost increases within our budget Mostly because of savings on vehicle lease costs One area that we were not able to accommodate into a status quo budget was the cost increase of the 9-1-1 call center So our bill goes up It's coming year by 30 $30,000 and that's what we aren't able to absorb So historically over time it does not Factor into a status quo budget for the police department is sort of something that is assumed to go up every year And with that, uh, do you have any questions? All right. Thank you for that presentation and thank you for all the hard work you all have been doing especially Given the constraints of COVID-19 and and all the concerns with it You all continue to do a great job for our community and we appreciate everything you do I'll turn it over to council member brown for the first question I thank you for the presentation Lots of good information in there and thank you for all the work you're doing Everybody on the force right now. I know it's a very challenging time and uh, you're Willingness to kind of step forward and and find a way to continue to provide critical public safety services for our community is is very much appreciated Um, I have a couple of questions to her relatively small and then I have a bigger picture. Um, so, um When you're talking about expenses, um, the sexual assault nurse moving to the county I think I've kind of vaguely tracked this but um, does that mean that there would be a budget reduction? As part of that, um, I'm I'm wondering if we then would be supporting The the program and through a contribution to the county Or what's happening there and then just kind of a small one and maybe I've heard this before and I just don't Remember, but what is pepper ball maintenance? It's I just it made me curious It's probably a very small amount, but what is that? um, and then the The final question is kind of the bigger question, uh related to Uh, you know everything's in flux. I know but uh given the challenges That we're kind of we're faced with now and probably into the future How are you thinking about? Are you thinking about maintaining the the organizational structure and Kind of policing the regional or neighborhood policing teams and the hero's team or is there any reorganization that is going to need to happen? um, just what's You know, what are you thinking along those lines? On your first two questions, the sexual assault nurse program moving to the county will increase costs for our department However, those were costs we were able to absorb in our budget. So they're not beyond the status quo pepper ball Is five hundred dollar a year cost and that is one of our de-escalation pools all right thanks All right. Yeah, there's an expiration date on the on the gas that's in the ball. So yeah every place of that The verbal service As far as what the organizational structure will look like Once we get through this, I'm not sure yet We're waiting to kind of find out what the Negotiation looked like with the city manager's office council and and the Associations And so depending on what that looks like. They're very well in the effort. You have to be a restructuring of some kind um And reducing the level of service that we're able to give to the community But we'll see what that looks like and if there's a way to work around it We're committed to neighborhood policing no matter what's formed at the end Uh, and that is the strategy that we're using as a community and I think that the crime data is showing a slide from 2016 Is indicative of Of us being on the right track Um, but uh, we're adaptable We'll we'll move and uh as general with crystal said you have to Uh, you have to make sure that uh, you're changing for the environment. So we're changing Thank you Council member fires Thank you Hello, Andy. Uh, I think of your arrival And uh, it was like double whammy. We're brand new but right then the Boise Homeless case came out Which I think had a huge impact on the way we do things in our homeless population and uh, tony certainly talked about it But uh, because right off the bat, we had to take a look at the homeless a little bit differently And I just want to commend you because I knew it could not have What I want to say, I'm sure it wasn't easy. We've had long time Protocols that we've been doing in Santa Cruz and this sort of made that a little topsy-turvy So I just want to thank you for your work on that and and how you How you managed it. I'm sure it's not quite over yet Uh adapting to that. Um, but I appreciate it and I would only run into you And we're always talking about the homeless because that's what I was so involved in so now it's nice to get a wider view of the department And what you're all doing So good job and Call me, you know, I'll I'll call you but if you've got any questions or want to seek my advice I wish you would do that I think that was the only question. I not really a question. Oh, and then the third whammy is now we have the pandemic so all three of those have been a really unusual time I think no other questions Well, thank you for that, uh council member and we appreciate your support our entire department does It's the men and women who are on the field taking care of business that are actually getting the stuff done And we appreciate their efforts, you know, uh going back to uh, mr. Kandadi's presentation I really do appreciate the expert council that I've gotten from him and that rolled early on when We he and I collaborated and made sure that we were on the same page because we were pretty sure this Supreme important decision was coming which it did and it put us in a place to avoid significant litigation because of I think what was a good decision made at the at the head of the city, so We're in a good spot right now. And but we need to deal with some of these magnanimous problems Council member Matthews I was glad to hear that you're uh, almost fully hired to the budgeted number. I'm curious. Um compared to sometimes in the past, uh, how many What do I want to say not in active service because of interiors or we were something like that so are those all on the street or what's the Kind of temporality out of commission number there Yeah, so thank you for that. Um at one point we had uh, I believe was 18 people In our department Right now we're down to two. Oh my god. We're still working with the human resources and working with Um, helping people that need to be retired because they're injuries. They were not going to be able to come back from Uh, as well as transitioning people out in terms of retirement. We've been able to hire and get us almost full staffing We do have, uh, I think, uh, seven people in the academy right now And uh, and I think a couple of people in field training But everybody else is deployed in the field other than two people who are currently Injured and one was off to the injury. The other one was a non-duty injury. So We really feel positive. We're doing the work, you know, in a good space and doing, uh, doing well Thank you if I had a question, um, regarding just the Like how well your the performance of the department's been kind of seeing these downward trends in crime statistics and I kind of the questions kind of related to the structure of the department. So is there any I mean given that it seems like a lot of engagement that police officers have Are with people who are homeless or experiencing mental health issues within our community Is there any sense of kind of expanding if we continue to see these downward trends and crime statistics expanding more of those homeless engagement resource officer teams Versus kind of the neighborhood policing like how do you kind of foresee and I know that, you know, we're all kind of um It's a black box right now with regards to covid, but she's kind of, you know, as we're seeing these trends go down What are your thoughts on, um, kind of having Bigger homeless engagement teams versus neighborhood policing Yeah, so thank you for that mr. Mayor. I think that uh, there's a couple of things that are uh salient points here Uh, the hero team has been very instrumental in helping us achieve some goals some important goals One of which is they got numerous people into housing They've been going out contacting people helping them Uh, I know that just before covid started they'd already gotten I think seven or eight people Uh, that's into into housing permanently So that's the value of having a team out there like that and making sure that they're taking care of that kind of business On the other hand the neighborhood policing team, uh, is very important also Because we do have a lot of higher-end drug trafficking in our city We have a lot of problems that uh, very well could be caused by Narcotics in terms of mental health. So we do need someone to do that side of the Of the uh, of the investigations that proactive work In addition to when we get problems such as burglaries or a robbery series I need someone who can go out there and really Shake the bushes and see what we can get And so that team has been very instrumental in doing those things So as you know, we get lots of emails from people to city council to be city manager Someone has to be the enforcement arm to handle that. So Our hope and our goal is That if as we can keep the amount of staffing that we need To continue to raise both of those teams to a point Where we are as effective as possible and then look at other teams other teams that we have considered for instance is Is helping probation and parole control some of the people that are currently out probation and parole We see the same people that we arrest all the time. Somebody's got to hold them accountable And and the absence of a different organization. We're willing to do that And so we arrested a guy last night currently on on release from a different burglary case Well, somebody has gotten to do that and so our neighborhood placing team is an important enforcement tool but Just as critical as the hero team Our goal though is to get the county Mental health services to work with us as part of that team to maximize our best to maximize our team to make sure Excuse me that the people with the resources are actually out in the field helping us accomplish this path And so if we need to leverage the resources and others as well. Thank you Vice mayor Myers. Yeah, andy and And your team. I just want to thank you for that presentation. I'll just make it brief I just wanted to compliment you and just kind of encourage this kind of thinking in terms of the way that you have Structured some of these community inputs in terms of you know, neighborhood and And you know downtown and other things, especially I think about the police volunteer program and some other innovative things You know your walk around town last year Um, I think the one thing I hear a lot of is and I know this is a time intensive effort, but you know the the ability to actually got, you know Um our officers and our police leadership, um, you know integrated in the community as well as You know having Having not just an officer show up, but a volunteer or a trained person that's dealing. You know, it has been trained to deal with certain issues Um, I think it just sort of spread your presence around the community in a very positive way So and I'm especially um, thankful for the creation of the hero hero team so, uh, I congratulate you guys on a good year and um And uh, hopefully we'll get through this covet thing in hopefully in one piece But thanks for your work and please let your department know of my thanks Appreciate it a number of walk-ins and actually um, oh there we go Sorry, I apologize. I got kicked off a couple of times. I think I'm good um, but I do want to just also echo the appreciation and things that's been said and um Want to just also suggest or just share if there's anything that we as the council can do to encourage your partnership with the county in regards to social workers or mental health liaisons Please let us know. I think that's a critical part of being able to holistically reach kind of that population that definitely needs um those skill sets and uh, hopefully will lead to um more uh Long term changes for some of the repeat Folks that you have to encounter so if moving forward, there's something the council can do to support that relationship going forward Please, um, please let us know Okay at this time members of the public are interested in commenting on police budget presentations Uh, there should be a list of phone numbers on your screen And if you could please follow the instructions to call in Once you've called in you'll need to press star nine on your phone To raise your hand and when it's your time to speak you'll hear an announcement that you've been unmuted and the time will be set to two minutes And so we'll just pause for a few minutes to see if anybody wants to call in on this item Mr. Mayor while we're waiting if I could just make a comment um, the hero team was not my idea um as much as important as it is it was actually uh burning a salante and is Implemented and how's they are see it's running it And I just think it's important to show that some of other leaders have really stepped up to be innovative and thoughtful about what they're doing And as far as community engagement is concerned, that is so vitally important And uh, we were actually set to have three community meetings to support covid yet To discuss the quality of life Or this is I know that you and others are interested in And hopefully as soon as this is left in or also find a different way to do We'll make sure that engagement is there Chief and thank you thank you for uh Upload it for all the work that you all have done to get this program up and running Given that uh, there are no members of the public who um Wish to call in I saw that counter brown had her hand up. I think I accidentally lowered it, but uh Do you have any comments? I just wanted to say one more thing. I feel like maybe I should just Wait till the end of the questions because I always come up with something more But I thought it would be that you know, I just felt really compelled to highlight again the Hero's team and the work that you all are doing. Um, and thank you bernie and hosé For you know coming up with this Because I think we you know we hear most of the communications we get about police activity You know is negative either they didn't you know people the police didn't respond they feel unsafe or interactions with uh Are unhoused community members and so I just wanted to say that um for All of those there are so many more positive Interactions and I've seen some of those uh and ride-alongs. Um, you know knowing that the the Hero's team the people on that team, you know really understand what is what resources are available No get to know people in unhoused community members and and what their needs are and so I just feel like That it's just really worth highlighting again and saying thank you for everything you do and Keep on keeping on I'll follow up with that because having Going up in a neighborhood that did not have uh where The police were not as as positive and weren't as nice to mediate myself from Uh, I definitely since I moved to Santa Cruz and just over the years I've had really pleasant engagements with the police In our community and I've been really have felt safe in this community with our police officers And I think that as councillor brown said, you know, we on the national level We hear a lot of negative things about police officers But I think our community has really done a fantastic job and our department's a really fantastic job of trying to Be positive at any rate with the community and so to the extent that we can kind of celebrate Um, how positive our police force is I think we should continue to do so because we do a lot of really good work to um to You know really protect and serve the community. So thank you all for your all your efforts Councilmember buyers This is rather a self-serving question But um Because I was on the council when the building got built. How is the how is the building working out? I mean it's old now. Well, it's not old old, but um Is it holding up do you need more space? Is it already? You know to something or other Well, thank you for that question, but uh, it is fantastic. So whoever designed it build it I know he belcher was uh, heavily involved and uh, probably leading the path But this is a phenomenal building. We're Bursting the seams, but we're good for now and we appreciate your thought on that. Yeah Oh, good. Thank you. Good to hear. I do still have the uh, I mean it was very slightly controversial because it was going to add a lot to the budget The shooting range or the practice range We do And uh, and our officers use it to make sure that uh, We get what we aim at. Yeah, because you said I think had a drive to selenus or something Watsonville's practice. Okay. Good. Thank you Sorry about that. I just wanted to say thanks again for being here and for providing that presentation on our police department And with that, I think we'll move on to our next presentation. So at this time We have our eighth presentation of the day and so everyone knows This is our second to last presentation. So hang in there everyone But our next presentation is from our fire department And uh, our presenter will be our fire chief Jason. Hi, dude The members of the public members of the public which came this meeting If this is a presentation you want to comment on now at the time To call in using the instructions on your screen The order will be a presentation by staff followed by questions from the council We will lift a public comment and then return to the council for any follow-up questions And with that, I'll turn it over to Jason. I do our fire chief Good afternoon, uh, mayor and city council Jason. I do fire department Joining me today will be paul for that our oes manager and pma along with division chief rob od And they'll be taking over some slides as we get into it and i'm going to start off by giving a uh the agenda which is the same as all of our other Departments that have been presenting And i'll get into the structure of our department, uh, which is uh has not manifestly changed in a long time We have a fire chief principal management analyst who is our oes Runs our office of emergency services We have one division chief that's in charge of fire prevention One division chief who's in charge of operations and as a 24 hour operation We always have someone here. Um, and we respond every day and every night to calls for service We are primarily a response-based agency. However, within our fire prevention and our oes We do a lot of planning and mitigating and trying to minimize risk so that we don't have to respond However, we do respond on a very frequent basis Going on to the next slide The major divisions within our fire department are operations and that's what you can think of of a fire department when you call 9 1 1 When you have a medical emergency when you have Uh an accident when you have a fire, uh, that's what we call operations And there are engines. There's trucks. There's battalion chiefs But those are the folks who respond out for a call for service within fire prevention We have Many activities that fall that support operations But those are the people who are making sure the building standards are adhered to that any complaints or life safety issues are followed up on And just as importantly when we do have a fire, they are the ones who are doing the fire investigation And ultimately if it is a criminal act Ensuring that we are able to prosecute and remove those people from harming the community Within marine safety, uh, we have uh full-time staff as well as seasonal staff And uh, they run the gamut from what people think of is a typical lifeguard operations Someone in a tower contacting people letting them know of dangers. Um, all the well all All the way over to 24 hour response for um people who Are uh in the water at night and for that rescue Um and underpinning all of this is ongoing training Many of the skill sets that we have are perishable skills that you have to maintain And we have standards for OSHA. We have standards for the fire service that we have to maintain In making sure that uh when called upon the men and women of our department are able to provide that service In a safe efficient and and competent manner Um, and and our skill set is is pretty broad. We are not just a fire department We are an all hazard agency We will go from a structure fire to a vehicle accident to a cardiac arrest to a diabetic emergency Um, and and having all those different skill sets, uh, you know readily available is the goal of training Within OES our office of emergency services They are the ones who are making plans for what you make what might come And then enacting them when it does happen and right now we're in the middle of An example of that as far as our response to COVID-19 And activating our emergency operation center and coordinating our response within the city Ensuring that we have the proper supplies that we have the proper communication And just as importantly that we have the proper documentation so that when time for reimbursement and federal and state aid Comes due that we have that documentation that allows us as a city To minimize the financial impact of what COVID-19 has been doing to All of us and then lastly we have administration, uh, which Supports all of these other functions and make sure that we're doing what we need to be doing on a daily basis Next slide Inside the department, um, I gave you an overview of our different functions And internally we have what we call our three fillers and those are our personnel our response in our community And almost everything we do is run through these three things. Um, this is how we filter Our response and our engagement And the engines the stations, uh, those are that's equipment nothing happens without our people There are most valuable commodity and so really we want to make sure that they're safe Um and very unsafe environments that they're prepared And that they're effective and and confident and that really drives most of what we do And then as a response agency, we have to be available Most of our calls for service are very time dependent whether it's a fire a medical vehicle accident or rescue um, and so our response is Getting the right equipment with the right people with the right training To that problem to resolve it and minimize the impact of the best of our ability And then looking at the community what the impact is, uh for Uh the different events that occur within our community what we can do proactively To to minimize that and later on you'll hear uh, Paul Horvath And rob oady talk about some of the things that we've done within the community as far as engaging the community for being prepared Uh for both wild land for earthquake Disaster management and making sure that um That we're minimizing and giving people the tools apps in our response to take care of themselves Next within response These are kind of our broad categories for what we respond to on on a daily nightly basis and obviously we're a fire department and for fires, uh, whether it's a wild land fire a structure fire a vehicle fire Um, those occur and most of them occur at times of the day when most people aren't aware of them Last year we responded to almost 9 000 emergency calls for service And now those 147 were fire related, uh, whether they were a structure fire a wild land fire or a vehicle fire Uh, just this afternoon. We had a fire on the east side on epi street. Uh, second story bedroom um, and so those do occur and that's our That's one of our primary functions, even though it's one of our Not as our frequent as some of our other calls for service. However, they can be incredibly impactful Um, ems and medical calls. Uh, we are advanced life support agency. We provide paramedic local service And that does take up the bulk of our overall call volume And last year we've responded to nearly 5 000 calls for service for medical aid Then rescue Is an all hazard agency and is an agency that has the city that's really varied We have everything from a harbor to a university to redwood forest a river an ocean a wharf And so rescue comes in a lot of different, uh, categories for us and we provide Both water rescue as well as vehicle extrication cliff rescue, which entails technical rope rescue and last year we responded to 57, uh, cliff rescues water rescues And and then kind of rounding out that is what we kind of term as a public service And that can be everything from a vehicle that is sheared off a water hydrant to a broken sprinkler to an odor investigation Um, and then lastly, we are also part of the master mutual aid system within the state of california with cal oes and You see that every summer where there's a wild land of fire, uh, in northern california or in southern california And we respond to support that during that time period with the understanding that when we need that support It will be available to us And that's something that happens on an ongoing basis. Uh, and where we do get reimbursed for that Uh, the state has a plan for reimbursement so that we're made whole at the end of the day But it is uh, so that when an area has a unmanageable disaster or event that the right resources are able to be available to mitigate those those, um disasters So next, um I'm going to have uh, chief odie, uh, discuss some of the next slides for marine safety And uh, he'll give you an overview a little bit more in-depth about what that division does Hello Marine safety Division that we have Um, provides uh, pretty comprehensive level of services Primarily, uh, it's our beach lifeguard service that we do during the summer season. Um, which stretches Um, part-time from uh, Easter through Memorial Day and then full-time service from Memorial Day to Labor Day Then reverting back to a part-time schedule Weekends only until Halloween. Um, and that that beach lifeguard service obviously entails staffing towers on the beach and the wharf As well as patrolling other, um Areas along west coast that can be hazardous um of the Attendance that we recorded at the beach over the last year. We had a 1 million over 1 million Visitors at the beach that these lifeguards are responsible for Um, in addition to the lifeguard service they provide during normal business hours Which is usually about nine in the morning till seven in the night We have on-call core of marine rescue personnel that work in conjunction with our marine safety or our rescue Summers that are on fire and do as well. They team up After hours are on-call to respond to water rescues within the city actually within the county if needed Of the on-call marine rescue and the lifeguards that we have for the summer They performed over 300 to 369 rescues That was both in the Santa Cruz city area and in the beaches of Capitola where we were contracts to provide service Um We also provide Pwc, which is personal watercraft or rescue craft. We have four of those units available And not only are they available for rescue, but we will be proactive controls when conditions require it we've also Again after for seven years been providing a contract of lifeguard services for the city of Capitola Recently been suspended due to a covid and budgetary constraints for the city of Capitola, but that's something that we have done and done well Additionally, we hosted the 2019 California Surf Life-Saving Association Board of Directors meeting here in Santa Cruz That association is an arm of the United States Life-Saving Association comprised of about 30 different chapters within the state They all came up here and discussed issues And policies that direct the actions of lifeguard agencies throughout the country also participated in a 2019 NorCal shark safety workshop which They utilized actually to update a shark safety SOP or matrix that we have in place which was actually fortunately utilized Over this last weekend to ensure safety of all people in the water and on the beaches Um See they also assisted Santa Cruz police department in enforcing or advising and educating beachgoers of the beachclosure during the shelter in place recently and Next slide So our training division our training division is uh Again, it's sort of the The backbone or foundation for keeping us all up to speed on the required training that's necessary to stay safe and remain effective Um for everybody out there um We just completed uh where we completed the regional Santa Cruz county fire academy Uh, we that's in conjunction with multiple departments within the county that includes washingtonville aptos and um central fire Where we all put a new uh personnel through a pretty rigorous 16 week training, uh, which includes the number of technical certifications that are required And as of today, we've put um four people through that in the last year that are on the line and uh and work Um, so that's another great partnership. We have with other agencies within the county Well, the training division also hosted the Santa Cruz county fire investigation series Which was required to have us to allow us to be much more effective in that in investigating and potentially prosecuting arson events within the city It also allowed us to implement. Um, not only on call but shift investigators within our department and we've actually read instituted a Fire investigation task force within the county that allows it all to help each other For large-scale events if they occur Another thing that the training division did over the last year was implement a new uh technique or approach to the structural firefighting It's a b e s event inter-search Really allows a safer more effective coordinated approach to fire control rescue and overall suppression And so once we have that all trained we actually were instrumental in ins