Council Member Newsom, Council Member Brown is currently absent. Watkins is absent. Brunner? Present. Calentary Johnson? Present. Vice Mayor Golder? Here. And Mary Keely? Here. Having established a quorum, we will move on to Recording in progress. All good. Least to hear. We will move to public comment concerning our closed session agenda for folks who are unfamiliar with that. We will be going into closed session to discuss matters that could be related to personnel litigation, that kind of thing. And we will be then coming back out of closed session, making any reports that are necessary by our city attorney. But this would be the opportunity for anyone who is with us either in chambers or online to make comment on our closed session agenda. The items we will be discussing are enumerated in the Council's agenda, both online and in written format. Let me ask anyone with us in chambers. Seeing and hearing none, Ms. Bush, do we have anyone online? Nobody online now. No one online. So we will bring a close to the public comment. What we will be doing now is we will be adjourning into that closed session that I mentioned. We will come out and be back in regular session, open session at 12.30 or later, no earlier than 12.30. We now stand to recess into closed session. The hour of 12.30, having arrived, Santa Cruz City Council will be back in session and the clerk will call the roll. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Newsom. Present. Brown. Here. Council Member Watkins is currently absent. Brunner. Present. Callentary Johnson. That's it. Vice Mayor Golder. Here. And Mayor Keely. Here. Quorum having been established, we will proceed to oral communications. This would be the opportunity for anyone to address the City Council on a matter not on our agenda today, but under our jurisdiction generally speaking. And we will recognize speakers for up to two minutes. We will alternate in the event that there are folks online who wish to participate in oral communications will alternate back and forth by between folks here in the Council chambers and folks online. Good afternoon. Welcome. Thank you. I'm civilly Simon from New Way Homes and Workbench. And sometimes some of you have asked for suggestions on what the city could do around housing and housing crisis. And I have one I wanted to share, which is, you know, it's one of the first times in a long time that there are multiple big construction projects going on in Santa Cruz. And based on applications, we'd expect that's going to continue for quite some time. And it's come to my attention that the building department staff doesn't have enough capacity to do inspections at the rate really required when this is going on. And so some of our staff have managed large construction projects in other parts of the Bay Area. And experience where, you know, if you're building at 200 units, there might be a period in construction toward the height of it where you've got a city inspector on site six hours a day, five days a week, because there's so many things to check off. And it's my understanding, for example, one of the larger projects in Santa Cruz today, the developer says that there's going to be about two months longer timeframe to the completion of that construction project because of need for more rapid inspections. And my point of bringing this up now is that we're going to be going into budget season. And also that the other thing I would say is that projects pay for this. You pay for staff time with inspections. So I don't think it's necessarily a huge ask. And it's something maybe you want to get ahead on planning if the building department isn't already doing it. I just thought of this one to come share it that, you know, that's really expensive for projects to take any number of weeks longer in construction. Huge cost. So they'd be happy to pay for, you know, inspectors to spend more time more frequently on site and move projects forward. So I just want to think I think that's a part of building department planning that's needed because it just hasn't needed to be a lot of staff in the past in Santa Cruz who had multifamily inspection experience. Thank you very much. And thank you for all the good work you do to increase housing affordability in the city. We appreciate it, sir. Do we have anyone online? Why don't we take the next person online? Good afternoon. Welcome to the city council. You know, yeah. Hey, this is Garrett. After last meeting, I felt really bad for the council while I have given the council myself some attitude by over the last five years. I have never witnessed such organized outrageous behavior as I witnessed last meeting by that mob who employed intimidation and suggested others should fear and acted in violent fashion toward a council and others who gave everyone beyond words. More than time to express their free speech rights, no matter how one sided or logical or senseless their aims, considering the reality is the council is powerless to do anything of substance in the Israeli Hamas conflict. They wanted to us who served the council authority to promote their ideological aims and those in my opinion have little to do with children bomb but to hijack any issue to raise the level of chaos in our city and to make it unstable while destroying western values. I commend the council on their actions. Well, maybe not the one sided original ceasefire resolution, but the patients, the open forum and the promotion of peace, the majority of you thoroughly and finally expressed. You deserve a shorter meeting. I condemn the DSA and all who support them by those means the USC woke, UCSC woke indoctrinated and their groomers and any others who supported or perpetrated that disgraceful display last meeting. Perhaps those rude people holding up fake dead babies and bodies in effigy thought they were at a Halloween party or in addition for weekend at parties, or perhaps they were just acting out the usual so-called social justice adoptive grievance, mongering, ugly, seemed as your, but it was purposely shocking and nowhere near civilized. I feel sorry for you and all who were offended, a great friend or terrified by it that had no place here. I wish you a productive peaceful meeting. Thanks. Thank you. Anyone else wish to address us under all communications. The former mayor city council member and all around civic engagement. I'm going to need just as unfamiliar as you are with this. Yes, thank you. I was looking for it. The hat today is as a member of the committee for a safe healthy Santa Cruz dot com and that as you all know is the combined campaign between the city of Santa Cruz and the county of Santa Cruz to pass revenue measures that will sustain and improve the essential services that we need. I have very exciting news for you. We have just received our yard signs and we have 400 of them. And as you also know, getting a campaign going early campaign season, ballots will drop in two weeks. A lot of people don't even know there's an election and they don't know how important this is for both the city and the county. So I'm hoping that each of you will, I believe you've all supported this.  I know some of you are already doing this. You know how to get ahold of me. But for those of you who are seeing this and don't, it's safe, healthy, Santa Cruz dot com. Log on, endorse, grab a yard sign, support walk districts. Okay. Thank you all. Well, thank you so much. Your leadership over the years on so many issues in this particular were greatly appreciated. Ms. Bush, do we have anyone else online? Let's take the next person online person online. Good afternoon. Welcome to the council meeting. Hi, thank you. I would like to express my concern about California State Assembly Bill 873, which requires California students to engage in a potentially problematic curriculum and media literacy. I'm attentive. I believe to the question of jurisdiction. And I know that you guys already have some stuff on your plate. And in the email that I've sent to Mayor. I've sent it just a couple of things I found online about the importance of collaboration between city councils and school boards and how that can be something very positive and collaborative for for the community. I'm concerned. And I'm just a retired person with a lot of time on my hands to follow the news and a former educator, but I also have some expertise in the fake news. It's something I've published in my in my scholarly work. And I'm concerned with California Assembly Bill 873 sponsored by Mark Berman. Because as I've read in the LA Times, which I've included in the email, there's a specific reference to treating issues around vaccine conspiracies or the events of January 6th as as misinformation or dangerous malinformation. And I realize these are contentious issues, but I think that these are always in times like these where things have yet to be adjudicated. There's a teaching moment and there's a great danger in treating something in a in a doctrinaire way. And, you know, every day we find news that comes up the CDC has its published in the Epoch Times has reported things as misinformation, which were factual. And there is basically what met IEB the journalist is called a censorship industrial complex. And so as this comes up in the future, I hope that you'll be attentive to maybe giving a view to the dangers here. Thank you. Thank you very much with us in chambers wish to provide comment under all communication. This would be your opportunity to do so. Do we have anyone else online, Miss Bush? No, sir, do you wish to address us under all communication? This would be your opportunity. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. As you remember, I was here a week ago. And I said, you who sit here, you are the ones that have to fine tune what it is in Santa Cruz to take on one block in one neighborhood. Between that two minutes and today, did anybody do research on what it would be like in that particular invitation? And if not, I haven't sent you emails, but I do know Fred, I saw you on stage. And you know what sent no said, we got to all come together. So those that know me know I don't get paid. I live on 16,000 a year. But if you come to my house, where I have an office, and we sit down, I'll give you Starbucks coffee promise. I'm Richard Lewis for you who don't know me. And I won't mention who she is, but I believe in her and I know everybody's running to be elected. We've got to change what it is, starting with the rainbow vets to serve vets. So I know someday please put on the agenda a revisit to the kind of youth commission that only the city of Santa Cruz could make with empowerment. And I appreciate what it is that it's going to come from family. And those who don't know me know my brothers Bob and Jack and Jackson Brazil. If we can all come together, if you write down victory outreach, you'll see a pastor from Watsonville. Don't reinvent the wheel, because they can take I saw the chief and the assistant out there. They take kids that have been on probation and parole, and they change their lives. So I didn't know if there's still time left. Aha, I did good. And Fred, now you remember my first name. Yes. All right. Bye bye. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. We appreciate it. Thank you. Anyone else online, Ms. Bush? Okay, anyone else who's in council chambers today wish to address us under all communication. Last call. Thank you very much. We are finished with oral communication. We are on to agenda item number three. This is a age friendly city designation. Kelly Mercer Leboff of the Recreation Coordinator will make a presentation. Good afternoon and welcome. And thank you for your good work. Thank you. Excellent. All right. Well, hello, everyone. My name is Kelly Mercer Leboff. I'm the senior programs coordinator for the city of Santa Cruz, and I have the privilege each day to design programming for the senior population over at the London Nelson Community Center and to partner with agencies throughout the county to support our seniors. I wanted to provide a brief update on the activities of the aging committee since I last presented in May. Now, as a reminder, by 2030, 10.8 million Californians will be an older adult, making up one in four of the state's population. Right here in Santa Cruz County, that estimate is one in three. And by 2034, in just 10 years, the United States will, for the first time ever, be a country comprised of more older adults than children. Now, we have a rapidly growing senior population that we need to start preparing for. The sooner we start community planning with an age friendly lens, the sooner people of all ages will benefit from the adoption of policies and programs that make neighborhoods walkable. That featured key transportation options that enable access to key services and provide opportunities to participate in community activities and support housing that's affordable and adaptable. So today, we're going to be reviewing the local policy initiatives that are creating these opportunities to assess the landscape of aging right here in our region. I'll update you on the city of Santa Cruz's aging committee activities, the master plan on aging governance group, and the age well Santa Cruz County survey. So without further ado, let's get started. So because of these anticipated surges in the senior population, there are two parallel aging initiatives. In 2020, Governor Newsom launched the California's master plan on aging with five goals for 2030. The master plan on aging has mobilized our region, the county of Santa Cruz, city of Capitola, Watsonville, Scots Valley to come up and the seniors council and the area agency on aging to work together to come up with a localized playbook. And meanwhile, the age friendly network designation is actually the US affiliate of the World Health Organization's global network for age friendly cities and communities. And it's a public commitment to a five year program cycle that can be entered at any time. And now once in the network, there's a plethora of resources to help you create and implement an action plan. Now, many of the jurisdictions that are working together for the master plan on aging are also applying for the age friendly designation. And I'm happy to share that as of August 30th, 2023, the city of Santa Cruz has become an age friendly designated city. So I just want to acknowledge the city of Santa Cruz's aging committee for their contributions to our successful application and now designation. Yeah, we can do a round of applause. Yeah, it was well. Okay. But as you might have anticipated, this is where the real work begins. We now entered the five year program cycle. We're just past the enrollment phase. We formed a city wide committee, which will be including older adults in all stages of the age friendly planning and implementation process. And now that we're enrolled in the network, a community has up to two years to complete a community needs assessment and develop an action plan based on the assessment results and the needs identified that influence the health and quality of life of older adults. Now, since both the master plan on aging and the age friendly network both have a community needs assessment, the county has hired clarity social research group to conduct this community needs assessment. Since June 12th, they have been working with a steering committee of Santa Cruz County residents with diverse backgrounds who have a deep knowledge of community needs and resources, either through service or lived experience to help guide and shape the survey. They have also conducted three focus groups to help inform the strategy. So you might be wondering, well, what is that survey going to be covering? Well, there's a survey and a flyer coming your way right now. But in addition to collecting basic demographic information, our areas of investigation include housing. What are the types available? How suitable is the housing? How affordable is the housing and the challenges of maintaining houses? Transportation. What kind is being used? What is the cost, the accessibility, reliability and frequency? What are the need for help and services of our residents? What type of help do people need? What existing services do they use? And do they have to go outside of Santa Cruz to get those services? Caregiving. How, what is their access to caregivers? What types of care is needed? The degree of difficulty in caring? The quantity and quality of caregivers in our community? Ratings of health. How easy is it to make an appointment with your doctor? How would they rate their quality of health? And what is the degree of health challenges that they face? Community resources and social engagement. What is the amount of social contact they have with someone? Do they know who their neighbors are? And how would they rate their community overall? Safety preparedness and emergency preparedness. How prepared are our residents in the face of elder and financial abuse? Natural disasters and area crimes. What is their overall satisfaction with their community? And how are they planning their future right here in Santa Cruz? So the H-Ball Santa Cruz County Survey is currently live through the end of March. It's available in English, Spanish, and large font, both online and paper versions. It only takes about 10 to 12 minutes to complete. Now residents of Santa Cruz County who are at least 40 years of age will be surveyed. And that younger age point allows us to better understand the needs of caregivers as well as our residents plan for aging in our community. And while there have been other efforts to gather information about aging, the California Department of Aging Survey, this survey is much more localized. And it really focuses on the steering committee's areas of investigations and the needs expressed in a series of focus groups. And in order to get the broadest representation of residents possible, we're pursuing a boots on the ground approach. Steering committee members have created a survey outreach and recruitment plan and they're recruiting community partners to host the survey, businesses, and other partners to publicize a survey. And this approach allows us to include a diversity of voices so that a broader palette of needs is gathered. So you're probably like, all right, Kelly, I get it. How can I help? Well, first off, if you are over 40 and you live within the County of Santa Cruz, you can complete the survey. You can also help hang one of those flyers up. And in some locations such as cafes and laundromats, doctors and dentist offices, they'll be posted flyers with those QR codes or the survey links or a request for a paper survey to be mailed to you. In other locations, we'll have a sign, a stack of papers, and a return box like this one. And in more engaged locations, we'll have all the above materials and someone like me helping people complete the survey. We have a robust list of 150 partners, including community-based organizations, faith-based organizations, local businesses, and, of course, government agencies for survey outreach. And if you have a location that you want to make sure is on our list, please let me know. And so if you see the Agewell Santa Cruz County Survey out in the world between now and March 31, please encourage responses. We'll have access to the information specific to the City of Santa Cruz, which will help us create our Citywide Action Plan. So we look forward to keeping you updated in the age-friendly designation process for the City of Santa Cruz, and we invite you to join in on these efforts. And if you'd like to learn more about this process and all the amazing ways we're currently keeping our seniors active, engaged, and connected to their community through recreation, education, and technology over at the London Nelson Community Center, please don't hesitate to contact me or go to our website, cityofsantaacruz.com, forward slash seniors. Do you have any questions for me? Well, thank you so very much. Very comprehensive. Good plan going forward. Thank you for coming here to publicize this.  It's a good thing to think about our future. So thank you very much. Let me ask if there are more serious conversations or comments here. Ms. Brunner. I just have a quick comment, and thank you for providing the survey in print form and electronic form in Spanish and across some of the questions that really dive into demographics. That data is very important in how we inform and shape our policies and how we can know how to best support our community, our residents, and our aging population. And I'm so excited for this. And this is great work. And thank you so much. Other comments? Ms. Brown. I just wanted to say thank you for the presentation and for all of your work to move us through as a city the application process and really develop those networks to think about how we're going to use the information that comes out of the survey. It's a great tool. I've seen it. I've been working with it and with the folks at the county and as your representative to the Area Agency on Aging, obviously this is something we've been promoting for a long time. So I just want to thank you for that. It's great to think about the way this tool can be used. I want to also just thank Supervisor McPherson in this case for really jump-starting the effort to get some resources at the county level to be able to support other jurisdictions and network us so that we really are moving forward together. It's a great time to be thinking about funding, how we're going to use funding and what kinds of programs are needed for serving. The senior population, our aging population. I don't know if I've said this before, but one of the conversations we've had at the AAA has been that we've seen a real change at the legislative level in terms of the willingness to really make progress on resources through the master plan for aging. We talk about it in the sense that we have this whole cadre of legislators who are dealing with this with their parents right now. So often those legislators who are like my age are really pushing this forward and there's so much enthusiasm and even in the face of significant budget troubles this year we are going to hold pretty steady with this funding and I'm just so thrilled that we have a community, we have a space to do this with the resources or some of the resources we need. We'll be having a solution summit to talk through a lot of this in May of this year so look for an announcement about that and thank you again. Sorry I went a little long, but I'm just so excited about this. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. Very best wishes to you on this project. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. We are now on item number four. This is a mayoral proclamation declaring February 2nd, 2024 as Rosemary Menard Day in the city of Santa Cruz. I'm so happy they're doing that aging thing because unlike you mayor I'm not middle aged. Exactly, there will be a day. That's right. Ms. Menard, we're going to do something a little different which is you and I have had about a year together experience. I'm asking Vice Mayor Goldert to actually make this presentation who's been with you a lot longer through your director work at the water department, your interim work as city manager work again. I will say this very briefly that I was so happy that by the time I got elected as mayor and you had laid out all the tracks, all the policies for how it is we have a sustainable water future. That is a remarkable accomplishment and thank you for that. With that, let me turn it over to the Vice Mayor. Thank you. I'm going to be reading parts of this proclamation written by the mayor and on behalf of all of us up here. I also just want to thank you for your tremendous contributions to this community. I don't think people realize what goes into that including being up in the middle of the night when the landslide takes out the pipeline or making sure that the water is potable and treated, making sure that the electricity is running down at Neary Lagoon so it can get treated. Your innovation with the re-pumping of the wastewater back into the aquifers was mind-blowing to me and I just really can't thank you enough on behalf of the citizens and the community that you've contributed so many years here working for us and so with that I'll read not all but parts of this proclamation. So whereas on January 27th, Rosemary Menard arrived, I'm sorry, January 27th of 2014, Rosemary Menard arrived in Santa Cruz to assume the role of water director following a decades-long career in the water industry with Stinson Seattle, Portland, Wanoche. Washow. Washow and Reno whereas Rosemary's commitment to exploring all possibilities in water resources including recycled water, earned her the characterization of Rosemary Poppins by a local cartoonist and whereas Rosemary Menard's unique ability to identify and weave together political policy and community issues allowed for the robust development, prioritization and implementation of work to meet the water department and city goals. Rosemary is also celebrated for her baking skills that led to the water department throughout is that, did I read this right? Baking skills led the water department to the water supply advisory committee process. I haven't tasted your baking but maybe someday. Successfully achieving the green card vote adding several pounds to committee members waistline and establishing a course for water supply reliability for Santa Cruz and whereas Rosemary brought valued experience to financing utilities to develop long-range cost of service analysis and rate setting design that led to the transition and operating budget from 20 million to 40 million and a capital budget that went from 70 million to 360 million. Rosemary never met a process that she did not want to improve and a sentence that she could not turn into a graph or a concept that she could not convert to a confusing chart or graph whereas Rosemary led the water department throughout the historic drought storms plague locusts earning Santa Cruz national recognition as one of the most water conserving communities in the world now therefore I, Renee Goulder on behalf of Mayor Keely and the council do thank you for joining me February 2nd 2024 as Rosemary in the city of Santa Cruz and I encourage all citizens to join me in honoring her recognizing her contributions of her work to ensure public health and safety providing clean and safe reliable supply of water to our community and wishing her well and her retirement. Thank you so much and I appreciate the part about short was never my long suit in terms of writing anything so I always, yeah go on and on maybe I wanted to say a couple of things one is this has been a really happy arrangement for me been here 10 years now and it's been I remember meeting Dick Wilson on the street one day after I've been here I don't know a year but you know this was a match made in heaven was sort of meant to be was like bringing the right skills to the you know with the right mix of things problems and issues and for me that's just been the perfect way to bake a really nice cake and frankly all the recognition that's been sort of coming my way in the last few months and years has really been a really wonderful way for me to sort of close out a long career where I've had I think some really wonderful opportunities to make a difference in communities which for my point of view is like that's that's the gold standard right you can't have anything better than that so I really appreciate the people in the water department they're fabulous they work so hard they get over the last decade that I've been here and I think that you are really lucky we are really lucky to have those folks working for us I said in a meeting with them a couple of days ago that you know I they didn't work for me I worked for them and that's really how I feel so I want to say thank you I worked for you also and I'm thrilled to thank you for that I think there may be other comments let me recognize others for comments miss Brown thank you rosemary for all of your all of the years you've invested in us in the city in our community and for doing it so brilliantly and so with so much care and understanding to I feel like it's a little easier knowing that Heidi is going to carry on in your tradition but the way that you've approached the work the way you have worked with council members with your water supply advisory committee and the water commission and to help us understand what you know a very complex system and I could say a lot of things about that but I think we're to so so competently help us understand enough to believe that we really are securing our water future that is not just a slogan what you have done and where we're headed is you know ecologically sound sustainable resilient and just can't tell you how much we'll miss you but really such a well deserved take a break thank you appreciate it Ms. Contari Johnson is recognized thank you council member Brown said it well you make what's really complex and technical and intricate look as easy as turning on the faucet and having water come out so thank you for that but I also just want to when you were interim city manager I was fairly new to the council and I want to thank you for really holding down the fort here at the city and with us council members I just have a memory of calling you at one of my kids soccer games something had come up and it was a weekend and I texted and said it seemed really urgent at the time I can't even remember what the issue was and I texted you and you said I'm available right now and so you just you really held us together you held the city together and you do this all just so gracefully we will really miss you and just thank you for your commitment thank you you're welcome it's been my pleasure council member Brunner thank you so much and I just want to also acknowledge what stands out most for me is onboarding in 2020 and how comprehensive your slide presentation and information was and how you were able to break down everything about the water department into bite-sized pieces to really understand the work the great work that your department has done is doing the historical context and where we're at and going forward in our future and that secure future slogan so just understanding the needs and the projects and what it takes to have sustainable water thank you for your financial wisdom around a long-term plan and the whole rate change that happened and also I think the national water recognition was mentioned but also little things like the work traits day that you led and really opening up to the community and to our youth and high school students to really connect and get closer to city job opportunities in different fields and I think it just speaks volumes about how you think of things holistically and how you're able to articulate it all for us to understand for the public to understand your team is so wonderful thank you Heidi for taking on and leading forward Rosemary you will be missed but we are so happy you are here and I'm honored to have had the privilege to work with you thank you thank you so much I appreciate it Miss Menard Godspeed and thank you so much great thank you I'll be back I told the city manager a while ago that I'll be one of those people calling in on the horrible communication so just you wait thank you we are on item presiding officer announcements I have no presiding officer announcement statements of disqualification this would be an opportunity for a council member to make a statement if there's an item that you will not be participating in because of a conflict of interest do we have any seeing and hearing none we will move to additions and deletions Miss Bush do we have any additions and deletions to the agenda we do not we do not we are on city attorney report on closed session Mr. Condati good afternoon good afternoon Mayor Thiele members of the city council this morning the council met in closed session in the courtyard conference room convening at 10 a.m. with council member Watkins absent there were seven items of real property this morning's closed session agenda first two involved potential acquisitions by the water department in connection with some water infrastructure projects property addresses are 6,000 La Madrona Drive Scotts Valley and 175 Sims Road Santa Cruz on those two items property owners are Scotts Valley fire protection district and the Yates family trust respectively the council received a report from and gave direction to its negotiator on those items items three through seven involve city of Santa Cruz own property owned properties and specifically negotiations between the city as landlord and different commercial enterprises as tenants those properties are 17 D municipal wharf tenant Santa Cruz Bay Company 17 a municipal wharf tenant name surf life property at 501 upper park road in the city of Santa Cruz tenant name Santa Cruz Shakespeare real property at 307 church street also known as the civic auditorium negotiating parties are the city and the Santa Cruz symphony and property at 1020 Cedar street city and negotiating parties are the city and Atlantis fantasy world there was no reportable action items council also received a report from legal council on two potential initiation of litigation items received a report gave direction there was no reportable action thank you Mr. Condati we are on council meeting calendar Ms. Bush anything you would like to draw to our attention no changes no thank you we are on the consent agenda for those of you taking up item 6 through 20 on one vote and so this would be the opportunity we will start with we are going to give council members the opportunity to comment or pull an item let me start on my left Ms. Brunner any items I had a comment on item 9 and 10 please provide that comment and I'm sorry excuse me and 17 and 17 why don't you proceed with those comments let's see let me go to the title item 9 authorization for application and acceptance of California interagency council on homelessness grant funds for encampment resolution funding program round 3 and that I just wanted to say thank you to city staff for seeking out funding opportunities and grants and that can help in this area and really help support some of the work and collaborating with the county on this so thank you item 10 is severe weather shelter pilot program and this one I also just wanted to say thank you for working to facilitate the operation of a severe weather shelter program for our community and people who need it rather than one off something a little more consistent and also in collaboration with county services health and human services so item 17 this is the Murray street bridge seismic and barrier replacement and this one is to the Murray street bridge this project as was already in process way before I don't know how many years way before I came on to council but my understanding is that because of federal funding and other funding opportunities that we have an opportunity to send out to get another bid that's not so high so I know this work is important but it's also important to be fiscally responsible in this as well so thank you Mr. Colton George Johnson a few just quick on 9 and 10 for pointing that out I just want to point out that we've come so far in our city's response to those who are unsheltered and the impacts of having unsheltered community members in our community so just an acknowledgement and a thank you for all the great work item 11 which is state legislation on rental application I want to thank my colleagues Mayor Keely and councilmember Newsom who I served on the housing element subcommittee for signing on to this just a note on this we've been working with COPPA and they've brought to our attention that there's real disproportionate high fees that are imposed on renters during the application process so I'm hoping the council will support this item and that we can continue to work with our state legislators on bringing something forward item 15 the tobacco grant award I worked in the public health field and I still do have youth and use of tobacco and other substances and these have tremendous outcomes so just want to acknowledge the past work and thank SCPD for their continued commitment to divert youth and young adults from use of substances including harmful substances including tobacco and last item that I wanted to comment on is 18 I'm going to butcher this application plan hopefully I didn't butcher it too much or the HCP and I think it's fitting we just recognize our water director Rosemary Menard that this item is here just a couple of things a tremendous amount of work that's gone into bringing this forward and the regional collaboration that had to take that had to be part of bringing this work forward I want to call out some of those members and give them a thanks their resource conservation district of Santa Cruz County the county of Santa Cruz the California Department of Fish and Wildlife the National Marine Fisheries Service Caltra the Monterey Bay Salmon and Trout Project and I think there are many others and it's this type of collaboration that is really what contributes to our ability for water resource management program and our and our stewardship of our watersheds again I want to thank the leadership of Rosemary Menard and the entire water department on this huge accomplishment and huge milestone and your continued work on watershed protection and the restoration of watersheds and ensuring that the when we turn the faucet we have high quality water that comes out and that we're protecting the water and we as somebody out there we remember Brown said securing our water future isn't just the tagline. Everything we do including this HCP it's embodied there thank you for your work. Natasha Viss with COPA and others who are working with tenants in some of the projects that where they're experiencing a real high burden related to these rental application fees. And so I just wanna say that we're also at the county, there is a conversation about trying to work with our state legislators. So I'm hoping to connect with you all or some of you so we can make sure we coordinate those efforts. Thank you for addressing this. It's a serious problem for low income tenants. And I mostly wanted to take the time to also speak to item 18, which is the recommendation to approve the negative declaration for the anodromous salmonead habitat conservation plan. Conservation plan, I live in that world a little so. I just wanna say a couple of things. I think it's really appropriate to take a moment, even though it's on our consent agenda to comment about this and I won't repeat what council member Callentary Johnson has shared, but also wanna add that this is a plan that has been more than 20 years in the making. And it really positions the city now that we've made it to this point to obtain long-term permits, providing for long-term regulatory certainty for the operations and maintenance of our water system and for other city functions related to public works and the flood control channel from both the Federal National Marine Fisheries Service and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. This is, I can't say how critical this is. Having experienced the challenges over the years as a agricultural water user in my previous life, had to working here at the city. Also wanna point out that Water Department staff member Chris Berry has just really called out the work that he has done. He's led the city's effort to develop and implement a sustainable plan for managing water supply and demonstrating that the city is committed to economic stewardship. It's part of the reason I included that ecologically sound comment earlier when we were speaking to Rosemary's retirement. This is really, through a 30-year career, Chris Berry served the city and really deserves thanks and for his work on this as well. And to the whole team, thank you. I'm not always, I'm often critical of negative declarations off of a CEQA document, but in this case, I'm just so pleased that we've accomplished this. And I really believe in how we're moving forward. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Neuse, the minister recognized. Thank you, Mayor Keeley. I want to very quickly just associate myself with the comments on item number 11 and thank my colleagues, especially Council Member Colletary Johnson for bringing this forward and for letting us support this and for signing on to this. I also want to very quickly just make a comment on item number 12. I want to thank Director Lipscomb and Housing and Community Development, DeWitt for bringing this item forward. This item will help facilitate the construction of 128 units of much needed affordable housing in our community, and will help make the Pack Station North project a reality. And I'm just really excited to see it and thank you. Thank you. This would be the opportunity for anyone who is with us in our chambers or online to make a comment up to two minutes on all items you may wish to comment upon. So let me ask if there's anyone with us who wishes to comment on any item on the consent agenda. Ms. Bush, do we have anyone online? We'll take the first person online. First person online, good afternoon, and welcome to the council meeting. Yes, this is good again. Seriously, Mayor, you're going to cut comments on like 20 items down to two minutes, please. Anyway, as the item nine, while it is true, you originally set up an expensive three-year homeless response plan without all the money to see it through, regardless of that fact, also true the state recently has promised additional big dollars will go to the homeless issue and okay, maybe you should get your hands on some of that. However, this item casually mentions hiring someone to write the grant at unknown cost to us without any actual details of the grant presented. Suggest hiring when not stated here, the actual additional numbers of other new personnel at what unknown cost and hired only presumably paid for by the grant really doesn't say, also in an effort not just to continue or address past planned financial shortfalls, but to expand homeless services once again, without any means to sustain these when this kind of money runs out once again. You should not be so sure that people of Santa Cruz want to turn into an expensive ever burgeoning cesspool of homeless government dependence, but some the lesser level of support does exist to prevent large homeless encampments, which would be the consensus I think. It would seem our current response could become more efficient and still continue to do that without the unattainable lofty goals of ending homelessness for the county taking on future larger commitments that are currently unfunded. This is another example of making future expense commitments without knowing future fund availability long-term, which is a core fiscal problem resulting in the city's unsustainable fiscal position resulting constantly and going to the public with initiatives to grow the government bigger and more expensive despite being told last election that people don't want higher taxes. Where do I get a no on L yard sign? Thanks. Thank you, Ms. Bush, anyone else online? Nobody with their hand right? Last call, please, this would be your opportunity. Good afternoon and welcome. For this opportunity, my name's Moral Craig. I am homeless, but that's not really why I'm here. I'm here because regarding to when I was in custody, there was a civil case, 26 unlimited real properties, a summons, a minute order stating that I was there when in fact I was incarcerated, okay? I'm not gonna have enough time, but in doing that. Let me ask you a question. Yes, please, thank you. So is this, does this address one of the items? Yes, it does. Which one? Well, I think it does because I'm not gonna tell you which one, I don't know, but I know that it has to be. And what I'm going to do is I'm gonna give you 30 seconds. Okay, no problem. Very good. So there's an address, I'll give an example. So civil case, a minute order saying I was there when I wasn't, there's the red flag. Sounds outlandish I know, but in my research at the recorder's office, the assessor's office and the civil department there, I found a document stating Murl Craig, the grantee of California Street. When I did that, I went down to the assessor's office. I hid in California Street as a name. Up came 808 River Street, okay? Connects to 809 Center Street. That's the mailing address. So my concern is, who owns that land? How come I was never summoned? I don't know, I have a connection to it somehow and I need some help. And I get a lot of resistance in this town because look who owns it. Thank you, sir. Ms. Bush, we still don't have somebody else online, correct? Last call, if anybody would like to address us on the consent agenda, seeing and hearing none, a motion to approve items six through 20 inclusive would be in order. Council member Newsom moves, is there a second? Count the vice mayor seconds under debate and discussion. Seeing and hearing none, clerk will call the roll. Thank you, mayor. Council member Newsom? Aye. Brown? Aye. What can this absent, Brunner? Aye. Calentary Johnson? Aye. Vice mayor Goldert? Aye. Mayor Keeley? Aye. Motion passes and so ordered. Next up. Mayor, can I just ask a quick question? Please. I just don't know in process. Normally, we have public comment. The last speaker who spoke, it seemed more of an oral communications comment. I wasn't sure what it was relating to on public comment, but I'm wondering if there is somewhere we can direct that person because they're asking for help and they're not understanding of the process. So I'd just like to, just if there's a minute, if someone can help direct where we can direct that person. Is the gentleman still here? Yes. Sir? Yeah. Let me ask the person, I think either in front of you is Lisa Murphy and assistant city manager. Perhaps you could have a discussion with her. Ms. Brunner, thank you for bringing that to our attention. We are on items 21 through 25 inclusive. This is the consent agenda public hearing item. This would be the opportunity to take up for council member to comment on these items. Let me ask council members, do you wish to comment on, and we'll start now on my right with council member Newsome. Items 21 through 25. Any comments, sir? Ms. Brown. Vice mayor, Madam vice mayor, Ms. Calendar Johnson, Ms. Brunner. Is there anyone with us who wishes to comment on one of these public hearing items? Seen here none. Let's take the first person online. First person online. Good afternoon. Yes. I don't know if this is the time to, I wanted to make a comment about the removal of the redwood tree on the corner of Walnut and Lincoln where they intersect and that, I'm sorry. This is, we're not on that item. Excuse me. If I could ask you to be kind enough, we'll be on that item in a matter of minutes, but that's not where we are right now. So if you would just stay online, we'll get back to you in a few minutes when we're on that agenda item. Thank you for your forbearance. May I ask if there's anyone else who wishes to comment on one of the items on the consent agenda public hearing? This is for item 24, right? Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Council members, my name is Kirsten Paulson with Unite Here Local 19, which represents hotel and food service workers here in Santa Cruz. This LCP amendment paves the way for the development of a high-end hotel on Front Street, the developer of which has written to the Coastal Commission arguing that it should not provide either low cost accommodations nor paying in-lieu fee for such. That is inconsistent with the Coastal Act's mandate to protect, encourage and provide lower cost accommodations. Rather than increase opportunities for housing, this LCP amendment proposes a meager in-lieu fee for building higher than 50 feet at the hotel project site. And when asked by Coastal Commissioners how this $5 per square foot fee was calculated, the city had little to say. $5 is too low, and we would not be discussing this change today if the Coastal Commission had thought it was adequate. At this extremely low rate, the project would only contribute around $220,000 to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, which is not enough to build even one unit of the affordable housing the project would claim to fund. Yet, if you had not removed the housing requirement, this project would have required several units of affordable housing. Removing the housing requirement and setting the fee so low drastically reduces the future availability of affordable housing. Even from housing to leisure, Santa Cruz remains wholly unaffordable. Santa Cruz has a higher median rent than San Francisco, and affordable visitor accommodations are extremely hard to come by. Our members who work at Santa Cruz find that they are unable to live where they work, and our members who live and work throughout this region find that visiting Santa Cruz is prohibitively expensive. After you approve this LCP amendment today, please carefully consider the cost of allowing a hotel development that provides neither affordable housing nor lower cost visitor accommodations in the face of such unaffordability. Thank you very much. Well, thank you very much. Please say thank you also to Enrique, who I serve on a board with, and for all the advocacy that H-E-R-E does for folks at the low end of the wage scale. Thank you very much. Appreciate your participation. May I ask if there's anyone else who wishes to make comment? Ms. Bush, do we have anyone else online? Anybody with their hand up? Okay, very good. That completes public comment and motion to approve the consent public hearing agenda item would be in order, and the vice mayor makes such a motion. Do we have a second? Ms. Brown makes a second. Is there a debate or discussion on any of these items? Ms. Brown, you are recognized. Just want to make a quick comment and recognize the concerns that were expressed related to one of, indirectly related, but related to the ordinance change that we've made and the related LCP. I agree that we are not asking enough of the developer in this case in return for offering the ability to use density bonus for commercial purposes. However, I supported the change because of the inclusion of the possibility of negotiating some affordable housing contribution, and I support the coastal commissions move to change that language to state that the $5 per square foot is a minimum and that future councils on future projects can and I believe should negotiate more for those kinds of accommodations, let's say. So in this case, I'm going to support that, but I absolutely support the coastal commission's response and look forward to talking about the particulars of projects in the future. Thank you for the comment. Seen here none, the clerk will call the roll. Thank you, mayor. Council member is Newsom. Aye. Brown. Aye. Watkins is absent. Brunner. Aye. Lenten. Aye. Maricolder. Aye. With a no vote on 22. Is that okay? What? No on 22, but aye on all the rest. And Maricully. Aye. Your vote is so noted. We are on item 26. This is an appeal of a tree removal permit. As we begin this, we will set some ground rules here.  And when we sit in this capacity, oftentimes the city council sits in kind of three capacities in a single meeting. Those of you that remember the three branches of government, we will sometimes be a legislative body when we adopt an ordinance. Sometimes we're an executive body when we approve a contract. This is where we sit in our quasi-judicial capacity is in these kinds of appeals. We have limits on us that are imposed because of the nature of an appeal. We are bound more by rules of evidence and that kind of thing than we are generally speaking when we address an issue. So I know that both the applicant and the appellant are clear about that. I also wanna make sure that the public is clear about that as well. So how we will proceed this afternoon having this item before us on previous occasion, we are going to ask the appellant, Mr. Frenzen, to open up after a staff presentation in terms of the public participation. You will have up to five minutes to speak. We will then provide Ms. Johnson with five minutes as the applicant to speak. We will then, council members will ask questions. We will take public comment at that point for up to three minutes per person. Matter will be back before the city council and we will take an action. So everybody's clear about how we're going to proceed tonight. Excuse me, this afternoon, I will recognize both Mr. Kandadi and Ms. Keely for any opening comments and good afternoon. Yes, thank you, Mayor Keely, members of the city council. I also appreciate the introduction. This is, as you pointed out, a quayside judicial proceeding in which the council is required to listen to the evidence and make a decision based on the evidence that's presented to you today. There is a standard by which you are... Well, first of all, let me say that we have a heritage tree ordinance which allows the removal of a tree under our ordinance that's found to pose a threat to other trees or to the community in general, pursuant to the criteria and standards that are adopted by the city council by resolution. And under the resolution that the city has adopted, containing those criteria and standards and relevant to today's proceedings is the following. Heritage tree or shrub may be altered or removed if it has or is likely to have an adverse effect upon the structural integrity of a building, utility or public or private right of way. So that's the question that's before the council today and there is the possibility, based on the decision that you make, that a legal challenge could be brought by either the appellants or the applicants based upon that decision. And in the event of such a challenge, the standard of review or the lens through which a court would be required to examine that challenge is called the substantial evidence test. And essentially the court must find in order to uphold the decision that there is substantial evidence in the record to support the council's decision. Now standing the fact that there may be a contrary or competing evidence. So the council has both the ability and the duty to base its decision on substantial evidence. Now what is substantial evidence? That may be found in staff reports in expert opinions of which there are several in your packet and hopefully you've had a chance to review. Also may be found in comments of staff with expertise on the subject. We have today Leslie Keady or Urban Forrester who has several decades of experience in this area. And it also can be based on statements of lay witnesses, individuals who have made personal observations, but only on non-technical issues. You cannot rely on a lay opinion to make a decision that requires expert opinion, like whether or not there's a substantial evidence of a threat to the structural integrity of a building is an issue that requires expert opinion and a lay person's observation about that does not constitute substantial evidence. Let me just point out briefly, you're going to hear from our Urban Forrester was a lot of information for you to evaluate. And then of course from the appellant but what is not relevant to today's discussion are issues that do not go to the heart of the question whether or not there's evidence, substantial evidence that the tree in this case poses a threat to the structural integrity primarily of the building. It's obvious to everyone involved that the sidewalk has been severely compromised by this tree. The recommendation of the staff is based on the issue of the structural integrity of the building and the roots causing damage to that. What is not at issue is for instance, the relative worth of the tree compared to the building as an asset to the community. That's not a relevant inquiry for today's purposes. The value of the tree versus the replacement trees required by the city's adopted mitigation requirements in terms of carbon sequestration. That's not a question that's before you. Whether or not the trees that might be used to mitigate the impacts should you grant this application would sequester as much carbon as the existing tree. The salvage value of the lumber that could be recovered from the tree if it is removed or which came first, the building or the tree. I think there's evidence in the record that fairly conclusively establishes that the building was constructed sometime by 1963, meaning that, and the tree was clearly not present at that time, meaning that the tree is probably not older than me. But that's not a relevant inquiry as to whether or not the tree existed before the building was constructed or vice versa. In summary, there's a large amount of information in the record and under the standards that you've established for evaluating tree removals, the question is whether there is substantial evidence that this particular tree has or is likely to have an adverse effect on the structural integrity of the building. Again, there's several expert witness reports in your packet and I would also encourage the council after you've heard the evidence, if you have any questions or need clarifications to look to staff and particularly our urban forester to who can answer those questions. With that, I will turn it over to Ms. Keady. Thank you, sir. Ms. Keady, good afternoon. Good afternoon. Leslie Keady, urban forester. And Ms. Bush, do we need to figure out how to do this share on Zoom on the bottom of the screen here? Would you like us to share the presentation on Zoom? Okay, all right, thank you very much. Okay, Parks and Recreation Department oversees the heritage tree ordinance and I, the urban forester, I'm the inspector for that. This is not right. Okay, thank you very much. Okay, this is the appeal of the Parks and Recreation Commission approval of application 230089 to remove one coast redwood. This is the redwood looking at it. It sits at the corner of Lincoln and Walnut at 339 Walnut. It is a co-dominant or a two-stem tree that shares one individual root ball findings. The redwood tree is healthy, vigorous, and of normal size and color. The trunk is sound and solid. Two stem tree carry or sharing one root system. No insects or disease present. Additional findings. The tree has cracked the public sidewalk curb, gutter, street, the tree has cracked the sidewalk around the fire hydrant, which could possibly impact associated water lines needed for reliable fire response. Sidewalk repair is not the staff rationale for tree removal, permit issuance. The sidewalk area concerns can be addressed, but it's possible they would reoccur. This is the, on the left, it's the Lincoln Street frontage and on the right is the actual intersection, damage at Lincoln and Walnut. This is the Walnut area frontage and over the last approximately 10 months or so that this discussion's been going on, the sidewalk damage along the Walnut frontage has actually gotten worse. Largely because of the volume of rain last winter, trees are growing very quickly still, and once the water gets into the cracks, then the roots exploit those defects and grow larger and more robust with more moisture getting to them. This is the street damage and the curb area. Findings, tree roots are in contact with the building foundation and brick veneer causing cracks and damage to both. Roots are causing sewer and utility damage. Roots have cracked the wood framing and lifted the mud sill off of the foundation of the apartment. There is past evidence of a sewer leak under the home caused from the tree. The building damage, in my opinion, cannot be mitigated through root pruning. This is not the brick veneer on the outside. This is looking at the corner of the building from the Lincoln frontage and you can see exterior cracks in the foundation. I climbed under the home or the apartment into the narrow crawl space and was able to personally view the cracks in the foundation from the interior of the building. And so you can see there's two notable cracks in that area and small associated cracks that are adjacent to those major cracks. This is the wood framing. You can see that pressure from the root collar of the tree is pressing on these wood structural members, cracking and pushing them slightly out of alignment. And in your right image, the mud sill, which is the wood framing on top of the foundation that's concrete, is lifted. This is evidence of a sewer leak that has stained the foundation of the building as viewed from the interior. You can see the cracks at my arrows, the staining from the septic leak or I'm sorry, the sewer leak. And also, which is difficult to see in this image, but the wall is also bowed slightly on the underside of the foundation from the interior as well as the exterior. And in your right image, you can see again, relative to that crack, the mud sill is being lifted from the foundation. This is an image where they had cut a small hole on the backside of the brick veneer adjacent to the sewer pipe, probably to do some sewer repair. And you can see how the roots have gotten in between the grout areas of this brick area and are damaging that area, which is attached to the foundation. There are roots, and granted, these are feeder roots. So there's two types of roots. There's anchoring stability roots that are larger diameter that anchor the tree. And then you have all of these small diameter feeder roots. And in redwoods, these matting, or these roots create a matting, and then they also exploit cracks and build kind of a denser mat. And obviously, these roots are tiny, and they're not ones that can crumble or damage a foundation, but as these roots mass upon themselves, they can do something called root wedging, which also exacerbates any cracks or defects or weaknesses in the foundation. Again, from under the house, I'm sorry, apartment, you can see there are a number of surface roots. One of the reports says that tree roots don't like it under foundations, but it's quite obvious that in this circumstance, and also partly associated to the species of tree, there are roots under the foundation. There is another picture of roots in the area up against the foundation. And this is a picture of the exterior to show the proximity of the tree to the brick veneer. Another image showing that the brick veneer is separating from the building. One thing I didn't mention is that, again, there's roots that are in all of these cracks, and I think I pointed those out in the slides. So report from a structural engineer has been submitted by the applicant. We had that structural engineer define structural integrity, and also confirmed that the tree has damaged the structural integrity of the building. Additional engineering reviews were submitted by the property owner on 12, 13, 23, after the request for additional information. And then yesterday, another report came in on that. The trees cause minor structural damage and is likely to get worse as the tree grows larger. This tree is obviously genetically predisposed to get quite large and is, again, fairly young in its age. The brick veneer is attached to the foundation. Both are damaged, foundation's cracked into locations. Floor joists are rotting where the soil is higher adjacent to the tree. Root growth is evident in the crawl space. This is shown from the engineer for the property owner, her images of the foundation cracks. Findings of a continued report from a private arborist has been submitted as a second opinion to support the city staff arborist opinion that the tree requires removal. And in request by the council at the last meeting, this arborist, Mr. Don Cox, did some additional air spade work where he blew dirt away from the roots of the tree near the foundation to clearly make the nexus that it is roots that are bowing the foundation and causing these cracks. And then a second private arborist also reviewed the information for the property owner. That person didn't actually visually see the site, but talked to the owner about proximity of the tree, the species of the tree, and from the images that they saw stated that the trees cause damage and will continue to grow, leading to more damage. The International Society of Arboriculture, their guidelines or their formula for root pruning is that at a minimum you want to root prune three times the diameter out from the tree trunk because pruning more closely can reduce tree stability. The best management practices for root pruning reference that severe loss of stability is common when cats are made at a distance that are less than 1 to 1.5 times the trunk diameter. So the cuts that could be proposed by the appellants arborist are not exactly in line with the best management practices as written. The tree is too close to the foundation to perform this root pruning work to industry standard or to protect the building foundation. And that's my arborist opinion. There was also a report that I hand delivered to you today from another arborist named Mr. Nigel Belton who also believes that root pruning would not be a solution in this case. There's limited space to do that and decay will set in and it'll potentially lead to tree instability. And then there's really no, in my opinion, and also the arborist that I've worked with the applicant, there's no reasonable option to save the tree or prevent ongoing damage to the structural integrity of the building. Additionally, a root barrier cannot be installed to protect the foundation without significant root loss and tree instability concerns. Since the last meeting that we had the arborist, Mr. Don Cox, after doing the air spade work and some probe work confirmed there was definite contact with the wall of the building by expanding root crown of the tree as further evidenced by the appearance of a bow inward curvature on the brick siding at the points of contact. And then also I saw that same bowing when I was under the home. This is Don Cox performing his air spade work where he eliminated a little bit of the dry material and soil that was between the tree and the wall. And you can see that it's in contact for the most part with the building and what you can't see here was confirmed with the probe. I also personally got in there with a shovel and knocked around a little bit in this same area where he probed and the shovel was in contact with wood in contact with the brick veneer. This is Mr. Cox probing the area confirming that wood is in contact with the veneer of the building attached to the foundation. New information from the report I hand deliver today from Nigel Belton dated 120 to 24 recommends that the subject tree be removed to prevent more significant damage concerning the adjacent building and sidewalk. He believes that shaving the root collar at the base of the tree is not viable management option in this situation. And that's largely because of the confined area between the building foundation and the trunk. New information from Jody Collins came in on 12, 13, 23 and tree roots and trunk are already in contact with the building, the foundation walls cracked and bowed replacing foundation with alternative types of foundations is not possible while maintaining the same building footprint. So further, she looked at this and made the assertions that for the tree to remain and lessen further damage potential to the building while anticipating future tree growth, the building would have to be moved approximately 10 feet or more from the tree. This would eliminate two apartments, required design engineering performed to current codes, requiring new wall bracing framing floor joists and first and second floor framing. And this proposal would be very costly and result in loss of income for the units that would be vacated and also theoretically or hypothetically eliminated. More information from Ms. Collins, the engineer, which would be a third review were submitted today and I hand delivered those to you folks. She reviewed the three foundation and retaining wall options. Excuse me from Cascadia engineering, which was prepared for the appellants report on 1824. She concludes that each of these three options would allow for no growth of the redwood tree in the direction of the building and would require portions of the tree's root system to be removed. More additional new information came in after the last meeting. There's a leak in the septic area. I keep saying septic sewer area and it's a $14,000 sewer bill to dig up and replace where roots have intruded into the sewer lines and how they would go about doing that repair to a cost of $14,000. And then I did wanna just kind of bring in a little tree biology. This is from UC Davis Arboretum and these redwood trees have shallow roots and they have these roots that extend approximately 50 feet out in some cases. On either side of the tree for anchoring, they drink, they breathe, they stabilize the tree and as you probably notice, redwood leaves are flat and they wick fog out of the air and drip that water down into their root area and that is one of the ways that they drink and they have a lot of these roots that obviously anchor in addition to small matting feeder roots, which you saw that were invading the cracks of the foundation area. When you root peruna redwood so close to its root collar or root flare, and this is an image of root peruning that I worked with a contractor to do on chestnut, when you cut it into this wood, you end up getting decay, wood decay organisms. You can see the rot and how the roots are dying back here and termite activity. Another slides, set of slides here that show the sidewalk was repaired in 2011 and you can see it looks great in 2011 by 2017 you can see, which was obviously six years, the sidewalk is beginning to be damaged from tree expansion. Also just shows that the tree is still growing very vigorously. Granted, that root repair may or may not have been reinforced. It's still damaging that sidewalk area. The sidewalk, when the appeal discussion began in 2022, you can obviously, if you were out there today, you can see that within that year point of time, everything has gotten significantly more damaged. The sidewalk repair estimate, as council had requested, the public works engineering came up with a detail and a price on what it would cost to move the sidewalk out into the street area and this would require new ADA areas and moving hydrants and street lights and those amenities that are there in the sidewalk be 127,940 approximately and again, as this tree continues to grow, this design will not prevent further building damage. This is the design that they came up with and we do have public work staff here to answer any questions on this design. In one of the reports that the appellants submitted, they talk about different sidewalk materials but they are not adopted by our public works department as being our standards for safe passable sidewalks so we don't do anything other than concrete and that is why we came up with this single detail in response to the city council's request from our information. If the tree were to be removed, then the sidewalk repair estimate is at 8,900 for which the property owner would be responsible versus the 128 approximately $1,000 for moving that out into the street. There was a lot of discussion and conjecture so to speak on the tree's age and there was one that said it was 100 or 150 or 200 years old. This is an image from 1950 that shows in the red circle that no tree was there before the building was built. I found this in a yearbook photo for Santa Cruz High School from 1959, again in the red circle, no tree and another aerial image from 1963 that you can see in the red circle there was no tree which obviously indicates the tree has very quickly expanded. It has very good soil in that area and lots of organic nutrients and then a good amount of water that is in the area that is making this tree grow quite rapidly. Staff recommendation that the city council upholds the parks and recreation commission decision to approve heritage tree removal permit application 230089 and deny the appeal. Professional findings have satisfied the city council resolution criteria and standards that Mr. Kandadi referenced for tree removal and again, how I do my job, the standard that the commission has weighs the evidence on title 9.56 municipal code resolution. The heritage tree has or is likely to have an adverse effect upon the structural integrity of a building, utility, public or private right of way or the physical condition of the tree, health or disease or infestation warrants, alteration or removal or construction project design cannot be altered to accommodate heritage trees and it's my opinion that the property owner has submitted enough information to defend that the tree requires removal. Thank you very much. Ms. Kedi, thank you very much. How we'll proceed from here is we'll hear from the appellant, then the applicant, then what we'll do is council members will have the opportunity to ask questions, we'll then take public comment, then the matter will be back before the body. Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon. I have a PowerPoint. All right, thank you mayor and council members. I feel very grateful that this tree has gotten time in front of the council. It's immense size and ecological value, demands, respect of us all. We have used the last 90 days to reach out to legitimate experts asking the question of how to preserve this magnificent tree. We've also started a fundraising effort where we raise over $2,900 from local citizens who care. If this tree gets protected, these funds will be available for any work that gets done. In our finding, we have detailed reports from two certified arborists, their expert opinion is that there are indeed remedial efforts that can be done. Let me go to the next slide. Yeah, basically, can you put the last slide up in the meantime, is that possible? Okay, sorry, okay. The last slide has the accreditations of our two arborists and the two engineers that came and gave their expert opinions on this. In the video, Monica, one of the arborists says her qualifications where she works in tree risk assessment, this exact specific thing. And her opinion is that there is work that can be done in our reports. One of the challenges for, what we've been trying to do is we did not get permission from the property owners to go on to their property. So all of our expert opinions have been what they can see from the street. If we were, would have been given permission, we could have had an arborist engine engineer look at at the same time, which would constitute a phase three, sorry, I'm forgetting the word inspection, which is where actual information can be found because both arborists and engineers need to work together on any sort of work like this. It is in my opinion, the tree should not have to pay the price for lack of proper maintenance and lack of any preventative measures in the decades prior, but it is not too late. Engineer Mark Ritzen's report states that the damage is minor and there's likely other elements at play rather than just roots. Dave Bolcher's engineer reports discusses legitimate methods to reinforce a building without removal of the tree or any of the buildings units. Mayor, council members. My name is David Bolcher. I am a structural engineer and I'm licensed in California and Oregon. And I'm here because Keelan Franzen hired me to visit 339 Walnut to see if they were, I believe it's in response to the Jody Collins letter that said that there was simply no structural paths forward and I went out there and did a visit and in my opinion, there are at least three paths forward from a structural engineering standpoint. I can go through them very briefly here. The first one is a concrete pure and grade beam system. That is just fancy engineer talk for putting in a concrete beam and then supporting the beam at both ends by a concrete column that would extend into the grade. This would mean that the floor joists of the building are no longer dependent on what's happening in the soil beneath them. In a similar vein, item two is a cantilevered joist system where the existing joists run horizontally. They have a foundation on each end. In that one, we would remove the foundation that's closest to the tree and pour new foundation someplace in mid span. And again, that means that the floor joists in the interior space are no longer dependent on the interactions of the redwood tree with the soil. The third option is a concrete retaining wall which is just what it sounds like. A big retaining wall with a big footing anchored into the upslope side to keep the tree on the outside of the building. And I think the other two things I wanted to share is that on my visit, it was clear that the existing foundation needs work. It was also clear that it did not appear to need emergency foundation intervention. And so we do have time to consider these and other options. And the last thing I wanna share is in response to the letter by Jody Collins from today. The first thing I noticed from her letter is that we appear to substantially agree that my three proposed methods are legitimate and worthy of consideration from an engineering standpoint. Beyond that, she has some conclusions in there that are really about what an arborist or a licensed contractor would think. And I encourage us to view her letter in the light of the expertise conferred to her by the stamp that she has on that, which is simply structural engineering and not project cost or tree behavior. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Dave. It is fundamentally true that if this tree is protected by the choice of the city council today, these solutions will be implemented. If Santa Cruz City cares about its awe-inspiring trees, it will put in the work needed to protect them. We know that it is possible. It is important to think of the future where this Sequoia Sempervirens still stands above our city hundreds of years from now. Thank you. Thank you, sir. We will now hear from Ms. Johnson or her representative. Very barter. Good afternoon. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can. I'm gonna be trying to read from my computer. Don't move that. Now I'm not sure we can. You need to move the, there we go. Thank you. Is that good? There we go. Okay, let me try to bring this up. I was told I only had three minutes, so I wished I had known that I had more because I have not prepared more. Okay, well, let me, for the record, say that I advised everyone via email on Friday and on Monday exactly how much time everybody would have. But that's, it's okay. Take such time as you need. Well, you have up to five minutes. Okay. Hello. Nice to be here. I'm Mary Barter, the owner of 339 Walnut Avenue, an 18-unit department building that has damage from redwood tree roots. This damage has been previously documented by Donald Cox, Master Arborist, Jody Collins, Henry Structural Engineer, Leslie Keady, Arborist and Urban Forester, and more recently Nigel Belton, also an Arborist here in Santa Cruz. Photos from Ms. Collins July 17th report, which you should have show most of what we are talking about, not including the sidewalk. But I think Ms. Keady got even closer and under the building and has more pictures, which you saw. Refer to photos. So the cracking of the, you know, I don't even really need to read this because you've seen a lot of that. The wall of the building does have a slight inward bow and now we know that it's, you can see it from the inside as well as it's obvious from the outside. It's hard to believe that that was constructed that way. And it's right at the tree. The soil elevation adjacent to the building was higher due to the roadward tree roots have raised it up. And it's blocking two foundation vents adjacent to the tree. The brick veneer and the separation of the veneer of the building is shown at the top. You can see that at the top, right at the tree. The floor joist ends are starting to experience rot at the ends where exterior soil elevation was higher adjacent to the tree in photo eight. There were also two cracks. We noticed initially in the stem wall of foundation adjacent to the tree where the tree is closest to the building in photos six and seven. See one vertical one quarter inch wide crack and the other crack is a Y shape one half inch wide and those were also seen on the inside. Oh, my computer just did a strange thing. Nigel Belton's report is recent. I don't really have his key findings. I think he helped talking about the feasibility of the root pruning being so close to the building. I mean, you've seen in the pictures, it's literally like that between the building and the tree. We've needed to fix the sidewalk for almost a year now. Whatever we do, the tree is huge now and will continue to grow in any direction it can. These trees, as Leslie talked about, they like to send their roots out in all directions so that they can create a mat of stability which they're adapted to do in the forest because in the forest, they'll meet up with other roots and they don't just mesh. They actually, the tree roots entwine with each other to provide stability. Those shallow roots will not do that and this tree is encumbered in a space about like this just between the sidewalk and the building is a very, very small space for them to be able to grow. The rotting joist shown in Ms. Collins' Henry's photos would require excavation to repair and that damage shallow roots. The rea... Oh boy, I think I get it. Okay, I'm gonna skip that. So we can't really do those repairs very easily that I know of because the tree is right there where we need to repair. The tree has damaged the joist which we need to take out and repair and the tree is right there. I think we've already had that. The appellants have floated numerous ideas to save the tree from knocking down two apartments and rebuilding as two separate buildings to make space for the tree. They were gonna be able to gain 10 feet on either side of the building for the tree but that wouldn't really be sufficient down the road because the tree would wanna grow further than that. Okay, the two, let's see. And another idea that they had is to raise up the entire two-story 18-unit building that is presently supported by steel beams and post 18-unit building and 18 space parking garage underground. And that parking garage is presently supported by steel beams and posts and holding up the two-story apartment building. So they wanna raise up the entire two-story 18-unit building. Also now about root cutting. So selective cutting of roots. So here's what we're gonna do. Okay, sorry. The appellant went over by about a minute and a half or so which is just fine, not a problem. All right. You take another minute and a half and wrap up. Thank you. Also root cutting, selective root cutting of roots at the building. Root cutting is known to cause physiological stress even when done well. Actually, Monica Buxo, the consulting arborist hired from Pennsylvania by the appellant says that if any roots are cut, removed or shaved, a plant healthcare management plan should be developed to ensure the redwood's survival, structural integrity and health. The redwood should be monitored for at least five years. So it's serious business with potential for destabilization as mentioned by Donald Cox toppling. I wish I had more, but that's what I've got. And I think that I want this, I guess the tree root cutting, I don't know why it's not on this page, but the tree root cutting is a very risky procedure because what Leslie said about you can't cut within 1.5 times the diameter of the tree, this would be required to be much closer cutting because how the tree root, the tree and the building are so close together that you can't even get that far apart. So this is not what's being proposed by the arborist of the appellant is not to industry standards. It's not advisable and it subjects us, the owner, if we were to do that to considerable liability and perhaps other people, the liability also, it's something that we find unacceptable and we would like the city of Santa Cruz to honor its roles and standards and to find in our interest. Thank you so much. What we're going to do now is we're going to see if council members have questions of staff before we take public comment when the matter is back before the council after taking public comment, we can still ask some questions based on what we receive. So let me see if there are questions, Ms. Brown. Thank you. I guess I'm trying to understand the question. I don't believe that I have the information I need to understand the question of slope stabilization. I really focused on this in the previous round and it was raised in Mr. Bulger's letter so I want to ask about it here. What is the, I mean, the difference in elevation between the street and where the apartment is located reflects it's built on a cut and that was what it looked like to me, right? So and I'm concerned that without that tree, the stability of that slope is in serious jeopardy and I worry that there could be significantly more damage due to slope failure without those routes in place to stabilize the slope. I mean, I'm not trying to be hyperbolic. I'm not trying to sidetrack the question but that is a very significant concern for me and so I'd like to just better understand what the, and Leslie, I'm looking at you but it's not your will because you're talking about the tree and the bigger kind of picture questions related to the property but I'm talking about city liability and city work that's gonna be required to stabilize that slope. What are, so anyone who could try to help me better understand this, I'd really like to understand this. Leslie Keedy, Urban Forester. So obviously my discipline is our boriculture but I've been a certified arborist for God going on 30 years now and so there are some engineering questions and these types of things come up and because obviously roots do drink a lot of water and anchor soil. If the tree theoretically were removed then there's two options. You can either leave the stump intact and do a topical herbicide treatment to that fresh cut and leave those roots intact. Which they would slowly degrade over time and as they degrade and the moisture comes out of those roots as they rot they turn into some degree of soil and take the place of the roots. If the roots are at depth where it's anaerobic and there's no oxygen to decay those roots then those roots would largely stay in place. So whatever retreat or volume reduction you might have from roots would be something that wouldn't be immediate it would be over time. The other thing is between all the buildings and the surface there is all paved so it's designed to convey water out into the drains and along the street so as that settles you still have water conveyance on the surface. The other option is to do a cursory stump grinding which would probably be only to 10 inches which would leave those roots in place to gradually decay. So that's how it works from a tree standpoint and I don't want to belittle that argument but neither the engineers for public works because we did discuss this or myself feel that that would be something that the city wouldn't be able to manage and it would be something we would over time be able to see change that we could address through backfilling or repair those types of things. Thank you. Just another quick question since you mentioned having time to consider the potential unintended consequences of the slope and just if you look hydrologically I just would say that it's not all runoff right? I mean there is water moving underneath down that slope underground as well. So I just wanted to say that but also just ask the question what I've also heard is that we have some years to figure out how to manage the tree and so I guess it's not really a question it's a comment. If we've got time to figure out the engineering solution to potential slope failure what infrastructure needs to be put in place? We also have time to identify ways to manage the tree. I'm just wondering if you think that might be the case. Well I think there's two different issues that you're discussing. One is the engineering of the slope and how to address that and then the structural integrity of the building and obviously there's differing opinions as to what that damage is, the extent of that damage but now that we have cracks in the foundation with roots that are invading those cracks those roots are going to continue to make that foundation damage worse which is more costly which could then create further instructional integrity issues with the building. So that's my response. Thank you, I have one last question. How, because we're talking about there's been kind of projections but nothing specific about how rapidly this tree will grow and how quickly its root system will grow. How, like on average per year how, what kind of expansion are we looking at over the next five years? Yeah, so the imagery that I found on the internet dates the tree at being about 60 years old. So if you have a tree of that size now then it's growing at a very quick rate and 60 years it has become a very, very large tree and I think that that growth rate will continue. Now of course we just discussed the amount of water that comes down the slope, that whole area. If anybody who walks the top of Lincoln Street constantly sees water coming down the hill. So there is that, I think also we're going to be mitigating and putting in more trees that are gonna re-knit that slope together to some degree in that vicinity. Now granted we're not planting trees of this volume or magnitude because we have to pick trees that are going to fit in that confined growth space between the sidewalk and the building. But we will be adding new trees, young trees take in much more moisture as they grow. They're going to be drinking a lot of that water that's there. Any questions? By council members at this point before we take public comment, Ms. Collin Tari-Johnson is recommended. Thank you for the presentation and the work, Ms. Keady and to the appellants and the applicants. The appellants, I'm sorry I forgot your name but the appellants engineer was speaking about the Dave three options, three options and three paths to move forward. I wonder if you could just speak to those three options. I didn't get, it was really technical so I didn't get it all down but what if you could speak to that and it's probably hard to tell but what the cost of those would be and I would assume that would be a cost to the applicants, the owners of the building. Yeah, so again, I'm an arborist, not an engineer but I work with the planning department on pretty much any plan that they present on any building in the city. These foundation types, you are looking at some degree of root severance to retrofit with either retaining wall, bridge beam foundation or the cantilever. So you'll have some degree of root severance. You don't have a lot of room to work with because the tree's already in contact with that so hypothetically if you do appear in grade beam then you're pushing out to some degree not only for your trenching but for the installation of that new foundation type. It's much more difficult to retrofit a building than it is to do new construction and so when we as arborists work with the planning department to do new construction it's absolutely typical that we look at these measures and we do these types of alternative foundation especially if we're in 10 feet of a tree. But these are very difficult to retrofit an existing large apartment building that has a lot of steel in it. It just doesn't seem reasonable. And then of course our findings or our charter hears to is the building damaged or not. That's what I'm looking for. These would be very expensive compared to the modest repairs that are required at this time. I would say hundreds of thousands of dollars possibly to retrofit this foundation with these designs in tandem with other professionals to make sure it was done properly. Wherever you submit the piers for your bridge beam or your grade beam foundation you have the tree very close to the corner of the building so inevitably if you sync up here there to span that root zone you're still very close to the trunk and the root collar you'll have to probably shave the root collar as their arborist has already suggested you should or could do and then as that tree continues to grow it's gotten this big in 60 years and another 40 years or 20 years or whatever it probably will be in contact with any of these proposed foundation alternatives not to demean them at all. They're very functional but to retrofit a building rather than new construction is a different kind of worms so to speak. For the questions, comments by council members before we take public comment. Mr. Kundani maybe I could go back to you for a moment. You showed us or you spoke to the issue about substantial evidence and so on. Let me ask a couple of questions. So when an applicant comes in applies for a permit to remove a heritage tree under our ordinance as it exists today if they, let's say they show damage and there's a causal relationship between tree and foundation for example. That's right. I wanna take this up to a slightly larger view of this without respect to this issue for a moment. So applicant comes in, there's a tree. They show a causal relationship between tree damage foundation. Under our ordinance is there before applying for a tree removal permit is there a legal requirement that the applicant do something to try to mitigate that damage before they apply for a tree removal permit? It's not a requirement as a prerequisite for applying for a tree removal permit. The city has the ability to condition approval or to deny an application if it finds that there are reasonably feasible mitigation measures that could be implemented in lieu of removing the tree removal permit or removing the tree. I would just offer that as Ms. Keady has been here almost 30 years and I have been here for the past 30 years. I'm very familiar with the process by which this occurs and it is typical for a person and I've done this myself to call the urban forester out and say can you take a look at this tree and it looks like it's causing damage to the foundation and I'm wondering if I should apply for a tree removal permit and what typically happens in that situation and more often than not the conclusion will be there are plenty of measures that you can take to protect your building and your tree so don't bother applying because I'm likely to deny your application. If it looks like there's a substantial issue as occurred in this case the city would typically require a report from an expert hired by the applicant to support the statement that the tree is causing damage to the structural integrity of the building and then if Ms. Keady evaluates that and agrees with it then an application could be brought forward with her recommendation to grant the permit as occurred here. If the evidence is questionable or if contrary evidence is produced then there's a process that we go through and that's what we have here tonight or this afternoon whereby the council is called to weigh the evidence and make a decision based on that evidence. I think the key is alternative mitigation measures can be imposed if they are reasonable and feasible in light of the costs involved and that sort of thing but also point out that we have standards for removal of sidewalks if a person applies to or if a sidewalk becomes damaged under our city ordinance the adjacent property owner is responsible for the cost of repairing that sidewalk and if a damaged sidewalk causes injury to a person they are also liable for the injury if it's due to the creation of a dangerous condition caused by their failure to maintain the sidewalk. If however they've applied for a permit to repair and it's been denied by the city then that liability transfers to the city. I also think that there's an issue of fairness here in terms of the cost of repairing the sidewalk. If the cost to repair with the tree in place is orders of magnitude higher than the cost to repair in a normal sidewalk replacement scenario then the question is who should bear that cost is it fair to put that burden on the adjacent property owner when the city is essentially saying that the value of this tree to the community is greater than the cost of implementing an expensive repair. So those are some factors for you to take into account. Thank you.  I do, okay. So of course there's a lot of things written in our ordinance. There's a lot of things that are in this resolution as the tree has are likely to cause a damage to the structural integrity of a foundation a public right of way or utility. In a lot of cases, you know, you could look at it and say, gosh, you know, over time almost every single tree in our city could result in seven degree of damage. And there's a lot of people that say, Leslie, that tree is lifting the sidewalk and I need that tree permit. And I say, you know, you're going to work with us on the heritage tree grant. We're going to do some modest route pruning at a good distance from the tree or we're going to uncover everything and look and see what we can and can't do. We may end up doing a combination of leaving some routes, reinforcing the sidewalk, pruning some routes, but there is no guarantee that they're going to get a permit even though the language in the resolution says that, yes, it's damaged their sidewalk, they get a permit. We would work on the grant to repair it because it's a reasonable action and we save trees that way. And that happens in every community everywhere. And in addition to that, the utility. Now trees grow into power lines all the time. I don't give tree permits for those. Trees grow and break old clay pipes and cause lots of different sewer backups and defects in health issues and those types of things with leaks. What I would suggest in that case, even though the ordinance says we give a tree permit if it's likely to or has damage to the structural integrity of a utility, we just do an ABS collarless pipe, we install something. So even though things are written a certain way, I try and use that reasonable person mentality. But I think in this case, the mitigation measures not only leave a lot of people subject to liability if the trees to topple. Hypothetically, if we force them to route prune in a situation where the tree is this close to the foundation and in contact with that foundation and the tree falls and somebody dies, then the city gets brought in, everybody who's touched it is then at least asked questions in this scenario. So I feel that it's very expensive. I think with the best engineers and the best designers and everything and best arborists, sometimes you can do these types of measures but what is the reasonability of that and then if it's, it just feels like in this case, it is onerous for this property owner to have sustained cracks in their foundation that are this large leaks already that have occurred in their septics or their sewer system, just the type of damage and the expense to repair. I think warrants a permit. Thank you, Ms. Keady, let the record reflect that council member Watkins has arrived at the hour of 2.36, please do, welcome. Thank you, I apologize for being late today. I had to work conflict but I wanted to, after consulting our city attorney, let the community as well as my colleagues know I was listening to this item on my drive from on array to here and he suggested that that is considered rehabilitation enough to be able to participate in this item. So I've been paying attention to all that has been said and I appreciate the opportunity to begin. That's correct. Very good. Thank you, Mayor. Well, thank you for dialing into the right radio station. Good for you, appreciate that. Thank you for the answer to the question. I appreciate it, both Mr. Condati and Ms. Keady. Unless there are other questions before we go to public comment, other questions before we go? Okay, let's open this up for public comment. Anyone who wishes to address the council on this matter, this would be your opportunity to do so and in the event that we have folks online, we're going to toggle back and forth. Mr. Meiberg will take you first and then we'll take someone online and we'll toggle back and forth. Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Council people. I hope I can get this in in three minutes. I lived on California Street across from the high school. So I wanna talk about hydrology. I try to put in a gate post and the 18 inches depth. I hit water, a running stream. That stream continues through the high school and leeches out the high school wall. A lot of it's subterranean and continues down exactly where this tree is. So if you look at what's happened to the sidewalk there, it's not only been lifted, it's subsides in areas that has never been addressed in anything that I've heard why the sidewalk subsides. I know what a sidewalk looks like when it's lifted. This is also partially subsiding, indicating there's something going on under there that is removing mess. So I would introduce this as a major new introduction of information that Condati, city attorney, was saying was a condition. The second one was in the time that I lived there for 25 years, there were two major car crashes into the building exactly where this curve is, where the tree is. The one required rentals to be temporarily suspended. I think there were people in the building when the car crashed into it. So as far as the warping on the inside of the wall showing pressure, yeah, could have been the car crash. It was substantial. So that brings me back to some of the benefits of this tree over here. One of the benefits is it protects that building because that is a very difficult curve to negotiate. People go too fast, especially when it rains. When it rains, that tree, in addition to that, and I think this point comes up, is stabilizing that area, the amount of effort that'll have to go in once this tree is removed will be enormous. I've done a lot of retrofitting construction, and I have to say with all due respect, I have a lot of regard for Leslie and her opinion. She doesn't know construction. So that takes me back to the information we got from David Bolger over here. To do those remedial actions of cantilever or bridging are not that onerous and for Leslie to come up with figures like a couple of 100,000, I think Mr. Condotti said that unless you have expertise in an area, it doesn't count as evidence. I think that counts. Now, in terms of besides stabilization of benefit, is a tree of that magnitude, is a self-sustaining, let's go finish this one. It's a self-sustaining, self-inventing production plant. It turns carbon dioxide into oxygen. There's an enormous amount of traffic there. There's a high school there. So in terms of a community benefit, sure, it's just a tree, but it's more than that. It's a production plant. So please do everything because our heritage ordinance states we should do everything, do everything in favor of it. Also do not make a decision today until hydrology has been done. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. For those of you who want to provide testimony, it's two minutes, it's not two and a half minutes, it's two minutes. If you get to your two minutes and you need to wrap up, take another five, 10 seconds, that's all good. Please don't abuse the rule on this. We have someone online. I do, but I also just want to clarify. I gave him three minutes. You want three or two? Excuse me, three minutes. Keep your comments inside, three minutes. Let's take the person online. Good afternoon. Hello, my name is Shalom Dreampiece-Compost. I have a couple of comments to make. I would like to refer the city council to pages 174 to 175, 26174, 26175, and also to 2635 and 2636. Mary Barter has stated that she is the owner of the property. In August, she stated that her and her husband co-owned this property with Dr. Jonathan and Karen Fielding and said they were involved with a group that advocates for trees, I don't know the exact words. So I just, I went to the assessor's office. I looked up the ownership. The ownership is Barfield, LLC, which I assume stands for Barger and Fielding. And then I note that the Fieldings are members of the board of TreePeople, TreePeople.org. And when I look at, you can look at their website and you see that they're members of the Board of Directors. And then the webpage about us for TreePeople says, our work and I bolded some stuff when I put it into the agenda packet or I emailed it. Our work, trees need people, people need trees. Born in 1973 from the hopes and dreams of a teenager, TreePeople is now one of the largest environmental organizations headquartered in Southern California. We have inspired, engaged and supported more than 3 million people and I bolded here to take action for our environment by planting and caring for trees, unbolded in forests, mountains, parks and I bolded our neighborhood. Our unique, engaging and proven model and powers communities to plant a more resilient future and to take personal responsibility for greening these neighborhoods. What I would like to hear is that the, that what I'd like to hear from the Fieldings. The Fieldings have a specific, do I say agenda when we talk about reasonability of the conditions for removing the tree. I think the Fieldings are sitting in a whole different plane than Miss Keedy of the City Council, Mary Barter. I appreciate everybody's work but I would like to see the Fieldings speak up to get something in writing from the Fieldings to say whether they want this tree removed or not. I know, I wanna make sure the Fieldings get the four reports that the appellants submitted because they were talked to, I think that's all I need to say. Thank you, Shalom. Good afternoon. Welcome. Hi there, my name is Onika. I'm cutting my speech a little bit so I can keep to three minutes. Firstly, I want to say that when making the decision on whether or not to cut down this tree, I want to try to encourage you to set aside the politics and look at the facts. The facts being that mitigation solutions here are possible and might even be possible without damaging the tree. We'd have to look further into David's evidence he brought up. It's been stated by multiple professionals and the community is asking something of you here today and we hope that you listen. We don't want this to turn into a he said, she said, we know there are multiple professional opinions stating different things on the appellant and applicant side. There has yet to be an arborist and a structural engineer working directly in conjunction together, which is typically what might be recommended for this kind of situation. And we ask for your consideration of collaboration between these professionals and city staff to find a true solution. After thoroughly reading all of the agenda reports submitted by city staff and the property management, I believe that mitigation solutions have been ignored in order to retain the status quo. I believe that mitigation, oh rather already, the motion to proceed made on September 26th directed staff to conduct additional analysis exploring alternatives to tree removal. But the report written by Parks and Recreation didn't even mention any of these potential mitigation measures or budget adjustments to support those measures. I don't really think there is a question of if there's evidence of damage. It's clear that there might be potential damage. The question is of time, how much time do we have? And the question is of how do we find out how to mitigate it? For this report by the Parks and Recreation to successfully explore mitigation options, there should have been independently hired professionals explicitly given the task of finding solutions. But all the reports quoted are from professionals specifically hired by Santa Cruz property management, making them inherently biased. The main report quoted by Jodi Collins even states that the property management specifically asked her to quote draft a letter stating facts that there is no way to keep the building the same size and build alternative foundation types. So that was her directive, just by the way. After a few emails with Leslie Keady, who I do really appreciate, what I have realized is that staff members choose to rely on standards written 20 plus years ago, in 1998, tree heritage ordinance, without questioning them or attempting to diverge from code written when society was still using dial-up. The unfortunate reality may be that time and resources have gone to waste in the last three months in the collection of data for this meeting, which was indeed just to set it up for failure. We did our due diligence to hire professionals with the exact directive of finding mitigation measures and even with limited access, we were able to collect viable options for mitigation which do not impact the footprint of the building and support an ADA compliant sidewalk. Hopefully, you've thoroughly read our submitted reports and suggested mitigation measures that demonstrate proceeding with the protection of this redwood tree truly is possible. I personally quite enjoy seeing these redwood trees on our city skyline and the protection of these large specimens is extremely important and the thoughtfulness before we're moving in. If there are systems placed to aid people, Santa Cruz will be better in 100 years than it is now. Thank you, I'm sorry about that. Do we have anyone else online? We do. We'll take the next person online. Good afternoon and welcome to the city council meeting. Good afternoon, thank you so much. I appreciate you all taking the time to hear this issue. I would like to share some things from the EPA's website. They actually recommend green infrastructure as one of the biggest ways to mitigate the flooding that's occurring from a lack of rainwater retention due to higher UV index and also soil erosion. So what they recommend is actually auditing city codes. They say that anything as of 2023, anything with the words roof, curb, edge, or tree needs to be audited in city codes. And the reason they recommend for this is because local codes are not in accordance with their recommendations for green infrastructure. The city of Santa Cruz has historically done a really wonderful job of preserving green infrastructure. But I think there are some concerns that potentially that's not gonna be maintained in the future. So as of right now, what was brought up was that young trees can actually take in more water. That's actually not accurate, unfortunately. Old growth trees, which this tree is not an old growth tree, but it is 50 years old. Older trees actually taken more water during heavy rains. On their website with green infrastructure, the EPA suggests that pavement is a huge barrier to groundwater. All of the asphalt there that's being suggested as being repaired as well as the concrete is not gonna halt rainwater runoff. So some of the water damage that's causing, potentially causing those roots to grow under the foundation is not gonna be mitigated. However, public works has graciously put forward a really beautiful crosswalk design, pardon me, that actually matches the design that the EPA has on their page for low impact development and green infrastructure. There are ways to reroute the sidewalk. The question is whether or not the city is willing to look at public works, whether or not our lovely city manager, Matt is willing to look at ways to negotiate those funds, whether or not we're willing to take the time to look a little closer. And so far during this meeting, unfortunately, we haven't heard any strategies put forward by the council, by the arborist or by anyone directly being paid by city funds. I so appreciate the efforts that the council makes to hear a lot of really important issues, but in the age of climate change, whether or not it's legally accessible for us to talk about carbon or for us to talk about the longevity of a tree's life, it is very important for us to think about. The EPA suggests that we can save $31,000 a year or more by navigating this and creating green space. So thank you. Afternoon and welcome. My name is Laura Tate. I moved to Santa Cruz when I was 12 years old from the LA and I was just astounded by the natural beauty here. Not just up in the mountains where I lived in Brookdale, but also throughout the whole county. And I have come to know Santa Cruz as a place where the community and the government protected its natural environment. However, over the past several decades, I have seen more and more development and more and more trees cut down, including redwoods and heritage trees. It is important to protect our natural environment, to protect habitat for a wildlife and overall life, and to protect the legacy of our, the Santa Cruz legacy as storage of our natural environment. And this is why I support the effort to save the redwood tree located at 339 Wallant Avenue. As to what came first, the building or the tree, I submitted photos to the council from the UC library archives that are dated from the 1920s and it shows the corner where the tree is and silver other trees, but not the building. The photo shown earlier by the city shows the wrong corner. Also, a letter submitted by Gillian Greensight, a member of the Sierra Club Conservation Committee. In her letter, she noted that she was out on a walk at the UC campus and came upon researchers who are measuring growth of redwood trees. They've been measuring these big trees for a five-year period and she wrote, I asked about the results. Over five years, the big trees had grown in circumference from a low of one millimeter to a high of eight millimeters. One millimeter equals 0.1 centimeter, in other words, a very slow growth. And at that rate, this redwood tree in 20 years will have increased in circumference at the high end by 32 millimeters, which is one and a half inches. So that's the letter she wrote, it's submitted with a packet. So while it was noted that the tree's environmental values should not be taken into consideration for your decision, I want to note the reason redwood trees are so critical to their environment is they capture more carbon emissions than any other trees in the world, including in the Amazon. And it's because of their longevity. Sadly, 96% of Santa Cruz's old growth trees are lost to logging and development. It is critical to save trees that are so important. And there are alternative solutions proposed that will save this tree and protect the building. It is possible if the city and this community are willing to take a stand in support of our natural environment. The parents have held fundraisers to hire structural engineer and arborists and to propose these viable solutions in the community has stood behind them. The appellants and the community are committing to holding more fundraisers to help pay for these available alternative solutions. And the community is there to support them. I urge the city council to take the lead and show the world that we are close towards our environment. And we will do what is necessary to protect it when it's possible. Thank you very much. Do we have someone else online? We'll take that person online. Good afternoon and welcome to the city council meeting. Hello. Hi, this is Jacob Pollack. Can you hear me? Yes, we are. Oh, great. Yeah, this is Jacob Pollack. I'm on the perks and recognition, but I'm not here on official commission business. Just a second. Let me do something over here in my other front that's destroying my concentration. Okay, so I think the Santa Cruz community is better with trees. I mean, it's part of what makes this Santa Cruz and part of why people live here. It seems to me that the basic question we're looking at is whether we value the tree enough to try to save it more than the profit that can be made from a rental business. The tree, I mean, sorry, the building under its footprint can be modified to accommodate the tree. It will cost money and it will cut into the profit, but it can be done. If someone wants to make a business profit in our community, from our community, they should respect the norms of our community. Trees are one of our norms. We have an ordinance to protect them. This ordinance should not be seen as like a technical nuisance to development or a piece of red tape to overcome when it's desired. For the above reasons and all the reasons put forth and both because the tree and the tree ordinance were there, when the property was purchased, I don't care about when it was developed or built, it was purchased with the tree there. The business owners should have to conform to the norm of our city's love for trees and absorb the cost of protecting the tree as part of their business plan and part of the protecting the community they've chosen to do business with. I believe we can preserve the tree. I also believe it's in the city's best interest to accommodate the tree through paying for sidewalk repair. Finally, I fear that allowing this tree to be destroyed for the reasons stated will imply that every redwood tree in Sandwich Creek should be destroyed. I don't believe this is in the city's best interest. Please accept the appeal and save the tree. And just as an aside, I feel like the city has gone to quite a lot of expense and trouble to make the case for the applicant. I would like to have seen the city go to a lot of trouble to make the case for protecting the tree as well. Okay, thank you very much for your time. Thank you very much. Good afternoon. Welcome to the city council meeting. I'm Joseph Schultz. A lot of stuff has been said here has been to the point. I'm glad that it's difficult to cut trees at all and I'm proud that Santa Cruz has a heritage tree ordinance to make it somewhat difficult. It wasn't difficult enough for the tree in front of my former house and it went down with very little, and so I feel, especially guilty for not working hard enough to protect trees. I think it's important for us to see that the intent of this heritage tree ordinance was to slow down the slaughter of trees around the county. But anyone with a cursory knowledge of history in Santa Cruz recently knows that we've lost a lot of very precious trees. The specifics of this particular case obviously are important, but staff has gone to great lengths to make sure that we do not look at the larger picture here but only at whether this particular tree caused a specific kind of particular damage. I think it's important that we go back and see what are our larger societal goals here? We need to be thinking about the common good as well as an individual property owner's good. Thank you very much. Thank you, Joe. Someone else online, Ms. Bush? We'll take that person online. Good afternoon and welcome to the city council meeting. Yeah, this is Garrett again. A real quick one here. In reference to the first speaker's lay opinion, as to there being an underground river causing sidewalk subsistence, I guess it is, since mention was made of a broken sewer line, I can say for sure in those cases, a bit of soil falls into those cracks, the sewer cracks when it rains over time and it's washed into the sewer system which undermines the sidewalk or street and is a more likely explanation for the sidewalk falling in as well as the streets and you see that all over town. Also, when extraordinarily heavy trees put their increasing weight over time on sewer pipes if they happen to be located next to them and the tree grows over them, yeah, it can break them but it can also push the whole sewer lateral down creating slope problems and flow clogging problems and also it can even, if enough of that goes on, it can even then pull the lateral out of the main sewer connection causing a similar subsistence effects in the center of the street. This I suppose can happen over and over and over as the tree goes heavier, even if you replace the sewer in the same spot somehow. Thanks. Thank you. Good afternoon, welcome. Well, this is a little bit unusual. I am a tree talker, I'm a tree whisperer. There we go, now we can hear you, thank you. My name is Andrea and I'm really happy to live here in Santa Cruz. This is a little bit unusual. I have channeled information from Tom. I spoke to him, I'm a tree whisperer and a tree talker and I'm here to give you his message. Esteemed mayor and city council members, my name is Andrea and I am a tree talker. I'm here to represent Tom. The dream question, whom the landlord and the city wish to remove based upon a complaint you received or complaints. I'm here to tell you that I spoke to Tom directly, people videotaped me. And it was in regards to a fundraising event that happened on January 9th on Walnut in 2024. Tom is precisely 254 years old. He told me, personally, he's six years older than the founding of this country. He is greatly appreciative of having a chance to be heard and these are his words. Hello, I am Tom, a 254 year old California redwood. The city of Santa Cruz was literally built around the surviving trees, my brothers, that were not cut down during the clearing that took place before the city structures were built. I have seen many changes in what is now the city of Santa Cruz. I'm one of the few remaining redwoods of the city. I'm a guardian of the city as are the other redwoods that still exist in the area. We look after the city energetically, bringing forth energies of protection and love to Santa Cruz and all of its residents. I have happily been in my spot until now. Andrea has been very kind in helping me to speak to all of you city council members. I ask you now to please do not remove me from my home. This has been my home, my place, since birth, 254 years ago. There's no need to remove me. I pose no threat. My roots are very strong and I pose no threat to anyone. The city council needs only to please fix the sidewalk. There is running water underneath the sidewalk that loosens the cement, erodes it from underneath the apartment building. Your city council arborist and you as council members are invited to hear what I have to say directly. To you through Andrea, she's my official representative in this matter. I again urge you to not cut me down as it would upset the balance of the trees in Santa Cruz because guardian trees are not as plentiful anymore. Not as plentiful as they used to be. I urge you to come speak to me directly with Andrea as my representative and translator. Hear me out first before making your decision. If you do decide to cut me down, the trees in the area will not recover and a sickness will take hold among the trees and they will choose to perish. Just let me finish this. Leaving an opening. Take about five seconds. Leaving an opening for many negative things to be in the area of Santa Cruz. Andrea will concur on a time and meeting space. Thank you very much. And directly, well, just let me finish.  You had your time. Thank you very much. You're 22 seconds over. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. We're gonna take the next person online. Is there someone else online? Thank you. We'll take that person. Good afternoon. All right, well, okay. Let me, before I leave, will you all meet with me? Your comment, your opportunity is finished now. It's not an opportunity. I'm asking, I'm actually extending an invitation. If we don't engage you in a conversation, your time is over. I know my time is over, but I would like to know if- And please step away from the dyes. I just need to know if you are willing. No, we're not engaging you in the conversation you want to engage in. Please step away. It's just a question to all of your members. We're not doing that with you. I just need to know if you would meet with me. Please step away. Look, I just need to know, would the council members be willing? Can you- Okay, cut off the microphone. We stand in recess. We're not gonna do this all day, but the city council is back in session. We are on item 26. We are under public comment. And before we resume that, the council is back in session, following a brief recess. I am going to repeat myself for the sake of the people online. You have three minutes to make your comment. You do not have three minutes and one second. Three minutes and 15 seconds. Three minutes and 30 seconds. Three minutes and 42 seconds. You have three minutes. At the end of three minutes, stop your testimony. That is how much time you have.  Good afternoon. Please proceed. Hi, my name is Emily Love and I've been here for the last meeting and the meeting with Parks and Recreation as well regarding this issue. And I agree that it seems like not all the options are really considered before approving the application to remove the tree. I think going in forward in the future, there should be more due diligence when considering removing a heritage tree, which is why they have that designation in the first print, first place. And it shouldn't be based off of the appellants and community members that are going to the effort of trying to find alternative options. I think that local government should be responsible for finding all the options and not just coming to a quick conclusion of remove the tree. Excuse me. I think that there has been a lot of community support. Shown through public comments previously and today and all the funds that were raised for this issue. So I think that there is a lot of evidence that this is an important issue. And also it seems like removing the tree isn't the perfect solution. There is that river running underground and it could cause a lot of problems. So I think that there should be all those issues should be considered going forward. Thank you. We have someone online. We'll take the next person online. Good afternoon. Welcome to the city council meeting. Good afternoon. My name is Veronica LZ. And just in case anyone was not at the September meeting, I am the blind person who complained about the sidewalk and how challenging it has gotten. And I just want to say that I love this tree. I love this town. I'm a long time resident of Santa Cruz. I'm not a tree expert. I don't know anything about the geology. I really don't know the answers, but I do know that please remember that part of this discussion is pedestrian safety. I kind of cringed when I heard Ralph Meinberg describe the intersection and how scary it was. As I go walk out in the street and then guess at some random point to get back up in the sidewalk. And I don't know how far it is to a driveway. I just know my dog now takes me to some random spot and we step up on the curb. But I don't know what that's like for someone who's using a mobility device, how far out of the way they have to go. And I just, at some point during my lifetime would really like to be able to just cross straight and have a nice sidewalk,