The Festival of Coins is brought to you in partnership with the Numismatic Guarantee Corporation and the Royal Mint Museum. So good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us today for the Festival of Coins. Today we're talking to Douglas Mud from the Money Museum at the American Numismatic Association. So Doug, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for your time today. Thanks man, I'm happy to be here. It's a great morning so it should be a lot of fun here in the US anyway. Yes, yeah well it's a lovely day here too, just getting to four o'clock in the afternoon here. It's been a very sunny day for once so we're making the most of it before winter appears. So just to give you an introduction, Douglas took over the position of the curator at the Money Museum in July 2004, that's based in Colorado Springs, he's the author of All the Money in the World which is published under the Smithsonian imprint and I think that was in October 2006 and Doug has just a wealth of knowledge about coins and also about US history so we're going to kind of tap into a bit of that today. So to get started Doug I wonder if you could tell us how you first became involved in coins yourself? Well that's an interesting story in itself because my father was a diplomat, he was an American diplomat and we lived all over the world. He had gotten interested in coins as in college and so as I was growing up I saw coins all around the house and watched him and was interested in it and I began being interested myself at about the age of 11 when I began following him around in Bolivia of all places and looking at Spanish colonial coins and that was an interesting place because you'd have street vendors who would come down from the mountains and they'd bring things that they found there that they thought the tourists or people would be interested in. They realized oh well the American diplomat he's interested in coins and so they bring coins for him so we'd go around the different places where they'd have their stalls or booths set up and they'd show him the coins and I got very interested. I still have my first coin which was a little quarter real with a yama and a castle on it and but I became interested at that point and then we moved to Syria soon afterwards and in Syria I became interested in Roman and Greek coins particularly Roman coins because you saw the ruins everywhere and my parents were both very interested in archaeology and and all that so we went to a lot of places you know Palmyra, Jarash, Petra, places that are some of them are famous as in the movies even with the with Petra now the gallery is shown in various movies but so I became interested in that and I started collecting basically world coins and then started collecting us coins. I had my little book of us sense filling in the holes and all that kind of thing and then once I got to basically high school and moved to the U.S. I discovered girls and football and other things and lost interest for a while I kept everything and I didn't get back to it until when I graduated from college I was looking for a job I applied to be a foreign service officer but it takes about a year to go through the process so I needed a job in the meantime and somebody at the school of College of William Mary actually so a good relation with Great Britain because it's the only school chartered by a king and queen of England in the United States and I got a job at the Smithsonian and after that I worked there and decided I wanted to stay in museums and in 1991 I got a job at the Numismatic Collection there the National Numismatic Collection under Elvira Plain Stephanelli who was a brilliant researcher and in charge of that collection for many many years so that's the basic story that I started collecting again at that point because I was encouraged to in order to learn more about the coins and it was the start of my serious education in numismatics I guess yeah okay so yeah that was one of my questions actually was whether you still collect coins yourself whether you've got a large collection I do collect coins I began with Parthian coins I was being given a tour of the collection when I first started at Smithsonian and I noticed these ancient Greek coins that to me were very interesting to many people they seem to be very similar but and then I realized wow these you can collect these coins versus say Athenian tetragrams or something for twenty or thirty dollars a piece and you know with with my salary at a time that was what I could possibly afford and there were two thousand year old coins so I began collecting those and I branched out beyond a little bit so that I collect metals today anything from Carl Getz metals to 18th century metals commemorating victories and things of of that sort but it's also something that that's an interesting sideline because as a curator I am in charge of major collections where I would never be able to have them myself and I'm in charge of them and have trust for them so I I get to study those without actually having to own them so that's a that's a great thing yeah that must be amazing to be able to just you know find these go and look at these rarities and absolutely up close and it gives you a strange spin you know working with the Smithsonian's collections at at times I would believe that something was must be common there's two of these in the collection it must be relatively common it turns out those are two coins there are two of three known so it gives you a strange spin and then when you start to realize that and learn more over time you realize wow what a privilege it is to be able to work with such fabulous collections and have access to material that truly is you know history in your hands and and part of history in and of themselves the individual pieces are much less the types and stuff okay so just going going back to your your kind of growing up in different countries and also some of some of the research and I you've done that the book you published and just some of the coins that you've mentioned how do you think a country's culture kind of influences its coins why do why you know why why do we get so many different coins around the world what makes what makes the different sure I find that a fascinating that's one of the one of the areas that I'm very interested in is that the messages that can be gleaned from coins you know one of the major arguments for why coins became the important economic thing that they are today is not so much that there was an invention that allowed ease of trade and all that they did allow that to some extent but there was a confluence of of events with the development of the Greek police the the early city with this new organization and new identity with the spread of the idea of coinage from Lydia and this spread the Greeks quickly realized that this could be a means of mass communication that coinage was a way of spreading the information around that a you existed that you're independent and then telling albeit in a very small place and and in abbreviated form who you are and what you stand for and that that idea I think is what made coinage or money as we know it today become the standard that's spread throughout the world eventually because it is used as a calling card for a new nation even today you know a new nation springs up somewhere and even if they know that their economy is in bad shape they've had a revolution or or civil wars or whatever it's important to create money either paper or or coinage that shows that they're independent that they have the ability and when they do that they talk about themselves so if you look at money throughout the world it's one of the first impressions you'll get of a country when you do when you go in and you exchange your your currency for theirs and you can tell things if you're looking for it something that people don't do much anymore really they don't really look at the money and to see what it says but you know if you see money that has the same image of a person on it everywhere you you learn something about their government either it's a monarchy or it's a dictatorship you know if you start seeing images of different people and there's stories about oh this is so and so oh they're great artists or they're great athletes or they're great personages you know something about the country and what what they want others to see yeah and then you'll see images of of oil wells or factories or or scenes of this countryside or agriculture and you can learn something about them that way as well are they a developing nation are they dependent on certain types of exports are they you know so it's it's something that even though in especially in the united states or great britain we don't worry about the the money in the same way as far as looking at it and the messages are arguably a little less important but at the same time there are people who consider them and they mean something as you go back in time it's it's even more important now if you look at many nations monarchies especially you know okay so you've got the king and you've got the coat of arms and that happens for centuries but that's not the only story that's there because you can learn for example in great britain's coinage uh the kings of of england claimed to be the rulers of scotland ireland wales well and then france the centuries even though they never you know there was a very short period where there's a joint king you know one king so you get an idea of of the aspirations and how a nation wants to be seen mm so that's what's fascinating to me because over time you also get especially difficult times the french revolution the english civil war uh if you look at the coinage you'll see some very interesting stories told for example the you know cromwell's uh second coinage his coinage where all of a sudden you've had english on the coins for a short while under the parliament and the date and in all this and they have a very basic coat of arms because they didn't want to be associated with the royal coats of arms which were not national they were more family oriented so you have the cross of st george subtly over the irish harp so they're you know the england over that and then cromwell comes around and he returns to latin he's dressed as a roman emperor which i'm sure he never dressed as in real life yeah and you've got the the cromwell lion overlaying the coats of arms of great britain which is oh uh perhaps he's trying to do something new here yeah yeah it's fascinating isn't it and this i mean there's there must be so many of these stories and moments in history that are reflected in the collection that you have there so this is a this is probably an impossible question but is there a particular favorite story or a coin that has a story in the collection if you could pick one well it's interesting i you know i'm an american and and you'd expect me to be more interested in u.s coins and i and i am very interested in them but perhaps my most famous my the most interesting coin to me in part because it's same but in part because of its artistry is uh the petition crown so an english coin of all things uh by thomas simon and it's an amazing piece because of its its the the amazing design and how well executed it was and then the the fact that in 1660 being able to put two lines of edge lettering around the edge is is technically extremely difficult for that time and we don't do it today there are very very few coins that have that kind of uh detail on them so just the story behind that is something that's very fascinating to me yeah well you aside from being a masterpiece yeah absolutely okay that's that's um i guess that's that's nice to know is you know obviously i'm speaking to you from england so it's nice to know that our coinage kind of the history of the coinage i guess has influence around the world or is at least noted around the world so would you would you say i mean do you have many british coins in the collection then is it a national collection it is an international international collection it was formed with the idea of creating a record of numismatic history from a to z originally so uh back in the 1920s the american numismatic association um consciously made a decision to start a collection and the way they began it was to uh basically begin purchasing world mint sets of the time current mint sets okay and so that was actually pretty fortuitous i mean uh one of the sets we got was an australian set of you know 1930 uh one with the the penny that's now extraordinarily rare and special so the time was good and we had a core collection that was donated by a member and that became the the seed which started the collection we have today and today we have approximately 275,000 objects in the collection ranging from stocks and bonds to coins tokens paper money of course and metals so it's quite a wide-ranging collection we're the focus on us material but the but it ranges way well beyond that we have something like 12,000 ancient greek and roman coins and things like that so it's quite diverse yeah and is the collection still growing do you still get uh coins coming in absolutely we're we're today we're we're due to receive a collection a famous collection actually of about a thousand items of washingtonia so tokens and metals uh celebrating george washington the collection that was actually formed by the the most famous early uh collector or historian of washington material uh william spawn baker and his collection was recently purchased uh on a in a sale and uh it's been donated to us so it's something i'm really looking forward to because there's some amazing pieces in there yeah okay so what's the process once you get those coins you know once they arrive if they're coming today what's the the kind of process you go through did are they all digitally recorded well in this case since most of them but not all of them came from an auction we have the auction records so we printed out the records and we will check in the pieces immediately you know we'll go through the boxes and check everything off make sure that we know what we have and then it matches what we're we're supposed to receive once we do that we'll begin a process which will take a couple months of uh photographing everything and entering them into the database and make them available online this is one of the things we've worked on so in the last six or seven years we've been increasingly putting more and more of the collection online so it's available to researchers and so that'll be our project over the next couple months not the only one but a primary project yeah excellent that's quite exciting then when is that quite a regular thing for for that for kind of collections like that or is this unique this is pretty unique we we've had a few like this in the past this is a very special one it's uh you know we do get donations on a regular basis but most of them are of the order you know grand grand dad died and and we don't know what to do with his points or uh more interestingly you know they form a collection and they want to donate it because it's specialized in certain areas or even uh you know we have counterfeits being sent to us on a regular basis because we will take them get them off the market and use them in our uh educational programming so that our counterfeit class that kind of thing can use material of that sort yeah okay fantastic so when you're not receiving these kind of big donations what what would you say your kind of typical day is that museum well we are we have been focused for the last uh decade or so on cataloging the collection uh digitally so we have uh as I said about 270,000 items probably about 120 to 140,000 of them are what I would call the core collection non duplicates uh material that that is of the right quality everything else and so we are working hard to get all of that fully cataloged in a digital format with photographs and all this we've we've managed to do uh about 40,000 of them now and hopefully we will be done in the next five or six years who we'll see yeah but it's a process it's something that takes quite a lot of time so that's what uh two out of the three people on the staff other than myself spend most of their time doing and then we have you know about a quarter of my time has spent working with that off and on and then I spend a lot of time preparing for new exhibits and doing research and then unfortunately it's like being a fighter pilot you get to the level where you have to do more administration and and all that so I'm taken away by a lot of administration and being in meetings and all that yes but I do occasionally get to work on some amazing things like this collection that will be coming in today yeah fantastic okay so I mean what else does the the museum offer we obviously we can go to the website and see thousands of the coins that are being digitized um what else does the the museum and the and the ANA kind of offer for the coin collectors yeah uh and that's one of the things that's changed significantly over the last uh seven or eight years uh we've been moving more and more into the digital world so that uh today we now have three virtual tours of the exhibits including one that's an an older exhibit on world war one uh where you can actually walk through in your computer and see the exhibit and then what's different is it's not just that you see the cases and all this you can actually go up to the cases and click on them and see the individual coins uh averse and reverse blown up on your screen so it's actually in some ways better than being there in person I mean there's still not quite it's not quite the same as seeing it in person but uh being able to see a coin blown up five or six times or more its actual size means that for somebody like myself where my near vision is getting worse uh it allows me to see things that I wouldn't otherwise be able to see in person because they're too small now if you were at a transportation museum with a giant train or something it's not as important but for numismatic uh museums it's truly important and we've made some big strides with that and in fact we just got an award from the Numismatic Literary Guild in the United States for the best non-trade website this year just a few weeks ago uh based on our history of money exhibit where you can see all of these items yeah so we offer that we also one of the major things that the ANA has is the world's largest lending library for numismatic items uh our library is a numismatic library obviously it has uh over a hundred thousand books peer articles catalogs and we are a lending institution so if you are a member of the ANA uh you can borrow the items it's a little more difficult uh abroad uh simply because of mailing costs but for the cost of shipping you can get you can borrow most of the items in our collection which is pretty amazing yeah that is I didn't realize that that's great and also um you do quite a lot of learning don't you e-learning and yes that kind of thing we we we have an e-learning program uh that is expanded vastly as with most other organizations over COVID so unfortunately our summer seminar which was an in-person uh program every summer for two weeks we couldn't do for the last two years and we've we will be doing our best to restart it in this coming year but uh we began a series of e-learning programs using zoom and webinar features that uh have been very successful we've had something like 6 000 separate users uh and we've we've done including uh creating videos with them uh something like uh 80 or 90 of the well I don't know the number exactly but we've done dozens of them that are recorded now on our website so there's a lot of material that's available uh and ranges from the basics of coin collecting 101 sort of things to uh advanced talks on medieval numismatics or uh introductions to various series and counterfeiting you know detecting counterfeits and uh even some grading portions yeah fantastic so for for people outside the us there's still you know there's still plenty that they can get involved with absolutely because all of this is is available online so uh some of it is uh based on you need to be a member uh and we've got about 20 a little over 28 000 members right now uh but much of it is also available for free you can go on the website and see quite a bit of material including uh a lot of uh youth-based information about coinage that is available for free and we have other programs that are more traditional like a uh correspondence program for numismatics where you can learn the basics about how to begin collecting and and counterfeit detection and things like that where you would sign in online but you would actually get a hard copy of a book that you would then do testing in and turn the results in yeah we have some really great programs for our YNs our young numismatists including coins for A's so if you get a certain number of A's in any given uh grading period you can actually win coins and uh we have a very active program with uh the youth where they can do certain projects as members and as they do them they earn what we call YN dollars and those dollars can be traded in at monthly auctions or in an annual auction which we just had uh two weeks ago where we had uh something like 70 I believe uh YNs signed up and they were using their dollars so not real money but money that they could use to purchase items that are collectible in an auction so it's quite a lot of fun they enjoy it excellent okay and would you say um just looking over the the past two years I think from certainly from looking at the US from here the US coin market or just just um the hobby seems to be really big in the US um yeah I'm just wondering how you know how has it been affected by COVID do you think benefited from some some things it's it definitely has um the market has gotten very hot due to COVID I guess uh there's a few things you know COVID obviously has been very bad in many ways and hurt a huge number of people but when it comes to the people that that had the types of jobs where they could work from home and all that it there was a lot of I mean my theory is basically they people weren't able to go out to uh eat or go to entertainment and everything else they were accumulating money with little to do with it and and one of the things we found at the museum is you know the e-learning attendance shot up you know we had in our first summer seminar uh period when we couldn't run it we ran a series of e-learning classes one or two hours long and we had 500 people signing up and 375 400 people attending these zoom sessions which was awesome yeah and I think it worked that way with the market too because it wasn't just coins it was across the board there was a lot of money that started moving into the e-universe or whatever you want to call it um and so prices for coins went up any dealers any coin dealers that had an internet presence saw a big bump and which is good it kept the hobby going uh what's been interesting that's that's sort of an aberration or it is an aberration is that we've had a lot of big coins the famous very rare coins with the high dollar values have exchanged hands um either through public or private auction and there's been a few of them that have changed hands several times which is not normal you know normally what happens is somebody gets their 1804 dollar and it disappears for five years ten years because they've got it in their collection and these are collectors that want to have this yeah instead here we've had some record prices where a coin some of these coins have sold and then three months later they're on the market again and I've heard various theories but apparently some of this may be almost like gambling the the excitement of the auction and purchasing something and then seeing if they could actually make more money at it soon afterwards as opposed to the traditional collector who wants to have this as part of their collection so it's been an interesting ride seeing however everything's been moving yeah and just just think about auctions do you um does the museum have any budget to acquire coins at auction or do you rely just on donations 99% of our collection has been based on donations we we don't have any significant budget for purchases I mean I can I have a budget that is very small you know a couple thousand dollars that I can use to fill out exhibits when we do a new exhibit we need you know a few coins here and there but we don't have the kind of money where you know oh there's a rare colonial us coin it's going at auction for $60,000 no we don't have that kind of money and very rarely have we ever been able to purchase major items but we've been fortunate in that we've had I mean we have a world-class collection especially in certain areas you know our US paper money is spectacular and that's based on mostly but not exclusively one major collection and then we have other things you know we've had things donated over the years that have been pretty impressive you know a decade drama Syracuse things of that sort that yeah dedicated members and people who want to preserve the collections have trusted us so we've managed to accumulate some pretty nice material yeah fantastic okay and just just one last question for you Doug um if someone's just starting out collecting what advice what tips would you give them because sometimes you can look at the subject say Greek coinage or even Roman coinage and it just seems so vast and so complex it can be quite um can be a little bit apprehensive about kind of jumping in so what tips would you give to a newcomer to start learning well first off read about them learn something about them um spend some time to get an idea of of what it is you like because more than anything else if you're going to get I mean this is a hobby uh and people go into it for a lot of different reasons you can go into it to make money well that's one way you can also do it you know if you're doing it as a hobby you need to figure out what it is that you're interested in and then start looking around and see um okay you're interested in Roman emperors of the early period so the the 12 seizures let's say well start looking at the coin see what's available and you find that oh well they're available in bronze silver gold what kind of budget do you have what are you comfortable with with that and then then try to start purchasing them but do it in a disciplined way uh how much money do you have don't go above your budget get the best pieces you can for what it is you know within your range but more than anything else make sure that you're interested in them and stay disciplined it's too easy to start uh just buying things across the board if you aren't interested in a huge amount of uh you know different subject areas and all that there are ways of collecting that can encompass that one of my good friends was creating a collection based on the major um civilizations of the world so he would he would get an he got an Athenian tetradram because of Athens and its cultural and you know cultural and economic importance and all that and then he would get a Chinese coin that was representative of the first emperor uh and he did that where he had coins you know if you looked at the question without having understanding what he was doing it did have a purpose and did have a theme to it but it would seem very scattered because it had pieces from all over the place so you know he would have something from the Italian Renaissance uh all this kind of thing um but there's many many ways of collecting coins so I think you have to one of the axioms we use in the US is buy the book before the coin uh do a little bit of research ahead of time and I've seen people that have had tremendous joy out of their collections in a huge number of different areas you know I know somebody who collects elephants on coins throughout history so yeah every coin that he can find that has an elephant on it is part of his collection yeah uh I know somebody who's collected based on bridges because he's fascinated by bridges and transportation and so you know collections from the collection ranges from Roman era all the way up to the modern day and and features coins from all over the world people metals I mean all sorts of different things yeah fantastic okay well that's brilliant thanks so much for your time and um we're definitely gonna I'm definitely gonna check out a lot of the website and one day perhaps I can come over and see the museum in person that would be good absolutely just make sure we do it ahead of time so I can give you a special tour it'd be fantastic yeah that's the definite then yeah as soon as soon as we're allowed to travel we'll be there but yeah thanks so much for your time um thanks for asking answering all the questions and being involved in the festival of coins have a great day with the the donation that's coming in I hope it's it's a really interesting day for you thank you very much and thank you for the privilege of uh being able to uh participate in this it's a great program so I I hope everything's going very well and have a great day thank you thanks Doug speak soon don't miss the festival showcase for more supporters of the festival of coins


s kind of store that kind of store what kind of leases are working are some of these retail operations buying you know and actually are they leasing and some of them are actually buying the space they're 2400 square feet and you know so it was it was a very good you know hour and a half where I think some eyes were open because I think guiding you know right now we have a development team that you know looks quite frankly let's be honest looks at retail and commercialize kind of a secondary thing and in some ways probably has shifted from where it was 10 years ago because everybody who came in the last 10 developers I'm sorry to say have come in and said we're commercial we're going to build this commercial and oh by the way as a secondary motion we're going to bring in retail developer these people are more residential and bringing on the commercial part of it but that means that they have to be exposed and be realistic and be optimistic about what the opportunities are for commercial both for office and retail space and it worked out pretty well because they went for it and they were going to do more collaboration and we got some really great ideas of who the actual tenants are going to be and it's surprising what some of the tenants are and what is the sock shop of all things right wow who knew I believe a cream rate for ice cream and so forth you can still do those things and so I think the eyes were open a little bit so you might be able to do the very same thing by bringing in a third party and say hey these are possible now get to it I did forget to mention to you that as you know the town center isn't just about those 16 acres it's the whole area looking at what's happening with Sears and Kmart it's what's happening across the street it's safe way and so the consultant that I have in mind I'm also having them look at what potential uses could go into the Kmart and whether that's subdivided but what is out there and what's possible and also having him look and work with Bejal Patel with respect to our Marriott extended stay whether we need to facilitate a partnership to get that off the ground or whether it's a sale but you have an entitled project that is worth quite a bit so just to let you know that that approach is not just solely about the town center but all of us I think this was a brand new coin turn of complementary uses around the town center in the city so I just wanted to add that I just wanted to say that to Jenny's point you know the neighboring center we have to be aware I mean one of our big tax draws right now is Kmart and that's going away I think the city is aware of that's going to happen at some point in the near future we don't know what day but it's one of those things we need to plan for and how that taps into our town center so I'm really like I said I'm very much in favor of you bringing in someone to help I don't think we have the staff or resources or even the right specific person within our city that can help that developer so I think it's a great idea great thank you I do as well have we talked a little about this yes I haven't do we want to talk anything about branding in this section yes definitely yeah sure I'd be happy to add to that so I think you know one of the things that we I've often heard council member Reed say you know one of the things that we need is there there and part of having there there is a brand for our city and one of the things we don't have right now you know when I when I go out I'm at the league of cities where is that well it's near this and you're describing it in a way that people don't know and we need to be on the map and the way you're on a map you would have come out in a positive way and I think we have just this amazing resource here and the beauty of our community or hills or trails nearby mountain biking you know by road biking all these things that we have to honor as a community with the redwood we have hiking we have blizz goes on and on we're 10 minutes from the beach but people don't necessarily think about coming to stay here and making this their destination so we have to kind of change that thinking that the way you do that is through a branding exercise and this does not happen overnight it's like okay hey we're just going to call ourselves the city that is X and suddenly people are like oh it's the city that's X and you know this is a 5-10 year plan to get people to recognize why they should come to scott's valley we have some amazing resources the 1440 is incredible it's part of our destination here and they are spending millions of dollars to brand their center but that also puts scott's valley on the map and so what do those people see when they come back how do we reach out to them and let them know they want to come back here for other things that we offer and I think that's one of the things that we can do as a city and how we can hit on the ecotourism vibe that we have going already but how do we brand that and how can the city do that we don't have necessarily someone in branding here that's something we want to think about or talk about I think it should be considered I was on the a committee with the Chamber well back and started working on that and trying to come up with and it was funny because when Jenny came here and created our web page and gave us the gateway to gave us this title in fact I'm just trying to remember exactly what it is gateway to Santa Cruz mountains it was funny because there were people that were all over the board and we had a really hard time coming up with a consensus to the point that the committee said one of the committee members said we should put it to a vote of people never mind never mind we'll put this, we'll hold this but it was something that there was one of the members was with Gorilla that's what she did and it was really I think a topic that we all I mean years ago it was where sans village well no sans village anymore but it was a topic that we had trouble getting consensus on and it is something that the experts at the time through the Santa Cruz Fisher's Bureau and through the person from this with this background felt would be important so I think you're right on it's just I think it's something we need to do from here and not try to coordinate with too many other groups because it was hard to come up with a consensus and interaction Cindy Mancher can you remind me we revised the economic development policy does it touch on this? there's a lot of support for what council member Tim is alluding to in terms of the need or lack thereof of branding and marketing and one of the first steps is really you know the city needs an identity part of the town center was kind of the effort of creating that sense of place and belonging and so also what's really important is getting this kind of process under way is that it really shapes and guides your thinking in terms of capital projects because they all come into play and the council has indirectly done a lot of this already through making grants with for our Glenwood widening for the parking and shoe guard for the trails at Glenwood the intersection improvements that bike lanes on Navara and on Glen Canyon but you're all starting to put this kind of piece of the puzzle together and so we just need someone to come help us glue it and figure out what do we call this and we have to capitalize on those assets like the bicycles and 1440 and all of that we just need someone to help kind of carve that path forward of how we put it all together so I think we've really done a lot of late work but it also will help inform you to your future policy decisions once you kind of know what that identity is so as you can see I'm like all for it but I need you guys to tell me if you want me to do it so so I agree with everything Derek said he's right on and I hear Donna's point about how we this is a topic that everybody it's like everybody's got a opinion on this and there's no limited number to the number of people who want to get involved in marketing us and we should do this and we should do that and I agree we don't want to lose control the process we need to be the ones driving it at the same time there's a lot of work that's already being done that we don't necessarily have to cooperate with but we need to be aware of and if and try to channel in a direction that you know instead of us having to paint the fence ourself we're going to be able to get them to paint it for us right so branding costs money branding professionals we don't have the only way to get them is to spend money we don't have but there are hoteliers in town they're talking about tourism business improvement districts taxing themselves to start to fund some of these areas to promote people who are going to stay and do activities here in this part of Santa Cruz County rather than going to the beach so I agree completely we don't want to lose control at the same time how what's the what's the right amount to explore and engage with other people and see what they're doing and see what we like and encourage what we don't like tweak and try and get to modify things that we do so there's an outreach component here without the city seating control I think is the sweet spot we probably all like to have specific ideas how we would get there without not seating control and maybe maybe in small ways before we define it but just talk more about our benefits our community as to whether it's the budget or whether it's the website or whether it's social media or whatever it is I don't have a specific answer for you right now but I can tell you that I'm working on it and so I'll probably be more prepared to maybe come back with the work plan and give you a little bit more detail as I collect my thoughts and answers I do have feelers out there on a suggested approach but just not ready for all the details yet so this is very helpful feedback from all council though I have the contact of the CEO from the branding company who lives here as a friend and has said that she would be willing to offer services as well just be an extra resource so I can plug you in with that the other thing they brought up at the at the League of Cities was this idea that they're going to be you know the state has not allowed people to deliver marijuana within our force right so we're now going to open for business as a city for marijuana but we have restrictions on it I don't know whether we want to explore as a city they're recommending to cities you know look at how you're going to tax it and we've taken a hands off approach but I don't they're now saying we should reconsider that because it's coming here whether we like it or not so I don't know whether we want to have that discussion but I throw that out there it was something it was something that I noticed too and it actually mentioned our same manager I mean we had just loud dispensaries but a loud discreet medical marijuana delivery but that's been taken out of our hands what we need to realize with that is there's going to be an impact on our police services and with that there will be cost to the city there's there's a real reason to be able to say if the state is saying we have no control then we need to cover our costs associated with this because there will be an increase in robberies and burglaries and those things it just we've seen that already in areas that there are dispensaries so I think it's an appropriate discussion I was under the impression that there were issues with taxing delivery services in general so it sounds like the California city thinks it's an option you cannot tax the delivery coming here it is a question of do we revise rules to if it's going to be delivered well the door is already open do we now allow services within our city limits because you're not going to have if people are delivering to our city that revenue is going to whatever city it's being delivered from unless it's coming from Washington I guess and then it's we delivered to Amazon that would be something else but other than that that hasn't happened yet so for now that would be the way we have to and I would agree that's an issue and yet I also think about our youth and all that I was just going to weigh in that I didn't think we had the authority to tax deliveries and I hear the argument that basically if deliveries are bringing it here whether we want it or not we need to consider it I'm guessing deliveries are still a relatively small component of the overall purchasing but that's a guess that's an unfortunate guess and we should probably have some data for that the other thing is this maybe this is done maybe it's too messy to do this as part of the revenue option discussion but the more the work that I've done looking at how much we can actually bring in on taxing marijuana if we're not if it's not being grown here if we just have businesses that deal in it the it's not a cash cow but that's based on discussions with other agencies probably you know 6-8 hours with work so we probably should have I think it's certainly worth reconsidering I'm not afraid of that at all I don't know I'd leave it up to council thinks or what you think I don't know if that's done as part of the budget process or separate the point I was going to bring up is I think the only thing we can do is revisit the whole notion of our current ban which I'm not unhappy I'm very comfortable with the ban that we have and at the same time I'm happy to look at the data and the arguments for why we should change that we can certainly add that to the list and try to begin some data with our neighbors and find out kind of basically order a magnitude whether it's worth it or not from a financial perspective I would agree that the storefronts are probably not as lucrative as potentially the cultivation and whatnot and that you know the council would also have to weigh in on just how many stores would you even allow so and it sounds like we'll be talking about a tax not a fee which would require a vote of people what guidance do you need from us I think that's adequate any other comments or something we'll move on implement operational initiatives to enhance city services so we will probably be able to come to you as a part of the budget process with our initial kind of assessment and what we found and what we're recommending as maybe a first step of course you know there will be a price tag associated with this so we need to do kind of a cost benefit analysis a part of that discussion but I would recommend that we would keep this on for at least the current year and we could roll it over if we needed to if we're still having the discussion but I think the work has been done for the most part for the current fiscal year so we're kind of got ourselves covered if council wants to implement maybe one of our recommendations then that could be something that could stay on here and so we could modify this as necessary when this comes forward if you'd like but if there are other operational initiatives that you'd like us to look at I don't have any immediate recommendations in terms of waiting for the results of this assessment and getting direction from council which should come as a part of the budget development process I have one I'd like to raise I want to be careful because it's so important that we deal with some of our major issues this year and we have some staffing issues I know when I see the policy guidelines about council standing and project specific committees for increased effectiveness and transparency I'm thinking also about our commissions but I want to be careful because I want staff to stay focused on our major issues so part of my question is I'm not sure how much capacity of staff it would take for us to look at our commissions and if this were to the council I'm not sure how the council members feel talking about things like the need, purpose goal setting for our committees do we set their goals, do they set theirs and in some cases it's clear some cases isn't clear to me in communication in particular how we have communication between commissions and the council should we have joint meetings but that's an impact on us but it would be one way to have more of a conversation so I guess I'd like to look at the feasibility of could we make our commissions more meaningful, more useful do we have the right number of commissions and I'm not sure how the council members feel about this but if we have the capacity to look at that in the context of everything else that's something I'm interested in if council members were also interested I'd be fine taking that up I would like us to also assess the other end of that pendulum which is we given the, as the vice or as the mayor, forgive me mentioned with our staff constraints are we already investing a lot of staff time that we really don't have in groups very well-meaning people who are wonderfully intelligent, smart but we're not utilizing their time properly and maybe we're not using staff time because there's just again this is a small city there are a lot of things that we can do ourselves and so I'm fine studying but I'd like real serious consideration to be given to the other side of that equation we do have some recommendations in terms of building capacity and efficiencies for the council to consider so I think it's a great topic from my perspective and again it's all about priorities if there are two things you'd like us to look at we'll bring back a smaller work plan with respect to this keep in mind that you're going to have a brand new planning commission so if you want to do some type of joint meeting or something prioritize and narrow it down to what is important but we'll certainly put something together for you to consider I think it's a great suggestion I think that's what we have to bring down because I didn't say that clearly but that was part of my thought process while we may take some resources to do some of this at the same time could we be more efficient so I was thinking exactly that and that was my thought too we have some commissions we've had filling or keeping filled and we may need to look at what's more efficient okay so I've heard evaluation of the commission's purpose, efficiency what do we really need, capacity, building opportunities and then also I think we could keep on the technology piece and see how that evolves because that's something definitely work you know smarter not harder and we'll definitely have some recommendations with respect to that for you in the next coming months so did I summarize that appropriately yes I was thinking the communication piece too but maybe that's wrapped in there also just efficient communications yes I think that is certainly an ongoing piece and we'll continue to evolve the next section maintain quality of life for residents so for this one we certainly have a few things that will continue I know that the chief is continuing to work on the body cameras and so that will carry over for the next year where I really would need some help is with respect to building affordability and then the building design standards as you know because the chief pack is going to be addressing areas that work directly really to that and then we can continue to keep Glenwood open space on there because we will be working on the east trails and then code enforcement is also another question mark whether you would like that at least listed on your maintained quality of life for residents goal just one point for the council to consider so I was the main person I think it's fair to say pushing the building review design standards last year since we were not able to make progress on that it was important to me last year it is when I was mayor it's less important to me now so if we can if people want to scrub this we can I agree with the point city manager raised that a lot of this could be addressed potentially through the chief pack so if that's an opportunity to cut and people want to do that that's fine I still think there's validity if we go ahead with that whether it's done through staff or consultant but I just want to throw that out there. I see some value in this but I it does seem we have met the general plan process here but it sounds like we will be touching on this to some extent so I don't know if there's something we do by the general plan process did we pick some of this out? Yes the chief pack committee will be dealing with issues that directly relate to this so they could be coming up with recommendations for council consideration as a part of the update process so that could come before you they could also identify other issues that may take additional resources so one way or another this topic is going to rear its head with you and also if there's things that are coming up in between then that have budget implications that the council would like us to look at in tandem we can certainly bring those recommendations forward to you as part of the budget development process so the question is whether this is just one of those goals that you went out in the forefront that's super important but it's not going to necessarily get lost because it will be addressed as a part of the chief pack process I'm thinking about design I look around town and I know that's where I drive I know the buildings were built at different points of time but I would love to see us without being too prescriptive have a way of having more design standards reasonable design standards so I'd like to see us go in that direction yeah and I'm not saying pull it off the example that I used when I brought this up goes back to a project we approved several years ago where the developer met the parking standards that we called for at the same time the chief of police and the lieutenant were basically saying we don't recommend you approve this project because we think it's under part and so again to me that's a classic example of why we need to do a level set of I don't think Jenny that's an issue that's going to be answered by the chief pack I couldn't be wrong but just where are areas where our standards are out of whack with recent experience and comparisons to other cities and what do they do and what are best practices so that's what I was getting up, feel free I think Taylor might be able to further elaborate but if you know you have the chief pack looking at the 50-50 past practice and things like that there are implications there that will affect parking so it could potentially come up and we have face discussions like that with respect to specific projects that have come before this council but again it's at the direction of the council what you would like to do and see as a goal yeah so it could come up at the same time I'd love it if we never had a situation again where the developer says hey I did what you told me to do and the chief of police says don't approve this it's a bad idea so again that's the most extreme example but how do we make sure and it seems to be the only way you figure out what the answer to that question and any other rough edges like that is if somebody delves into it I recognize this is time and money that is a challenge for us so again I don't I'm kind of torn because resources are so constrained well another area that's blew by as Matt just said we've you know that's I think we're learning from some of these that the developer tells us it'll work and you know years later we're struggling with people over parking in Metro and so some of it sounds like we may be able to work with we're learning so we may be able to focus more and look at some of these projects that created issues later so as part of the chief hat so you know maintain quality of life for residents it's a pretty big manner and we've distilled it down to like seven or eight different checkpoints here could probably do like 15 or 20 I recognize that we can't you can't have an exhaustive list or whatever I think recreation is a big part of it so maybe just keep that in at least in the background or at least topic of discussion you know how we meet because recreation both for team sports and just you know mothers being able to go to the playground and have fun with their kids and fathers for that matter is important and it's important in the mind of people so maintaining that is something I don't want to not endanger in any way so I might just put that in at least in parentheses. The other thing I would recommend we and I don't know if this is the appropriate place for it but there are dollars now at the state level for fuel clearing and fire prevention and I think that's a critical thing for our city and I know that by way of example next to our neighborhood you have the Grand Creek open space there and one of the neighbors after the nap fire came to our HOA board and said how can we make sure that doesn't happen here and so we collaborated with the then community development director along with Cal Fire and the fire department to have a crew come in to clear all the low line brush and that's what ladders and creates the fire in the upper canopy when you see this big white house and so that was done but there wasn't you know that was city property there wasn't kind of an ongoing maintenance plan that there's actually big dollars coming from the state right now to prevent that so I think it would be good if the city had a direction to work with they're probably already doing this but if it's one of our directives it's important and something we want to forget. Excuse me that's an interesting topic of discussion maybe even in the suburbs of the vineyards you know our HOA president has actually brought in our fire department and also Cal Fire to explore what the dangers are of some of the trees you know in the vineyards now when you think about it that's it's just safe but the Santa Rosa fire taught us that sometimes nothing's safe when this conflagration of monstrous flames and 2,000 degrees and so forth and one of the things that I think our HOA president brought up is we have on I guess the books that if you cut down a tree you have to replace it with something I don't know what it is but you have to replace sometimes trees can be both friends and fellow so we might want to consider what we do with that kind of ordinance and what kind of trees it's interesting we talked about the destruction of a sidewalk because of roots but we might have to look at the destruction of a community based on canopies of trees and how big they can get and how destructive they can be under the wrong circumstances so it's something to perhaps think about I like the idea of just looking at the do we really need to have if it's two trees for one but I've seen photographs in real photographs of Scotts Valley from long ago and there were less than half as many trees from the year and I love trees and I want to protect trees but I'm not sure I understand the concept of replacing one with two and I'm sure there's a goal behind that sometimes the trees are small, you have a big tree and maybe that's part of it but I would like to look at that it sounds like an easy thing to look at and was there something I don't know about but would it be easy to come up with a rule about that or do you have to look at more closely? The Planning Commission could probably give us some direction I'll back to Council Member Reed's comments about the design guidelines I don't think we ever clearly said whether or not we wanted that to still be in here I'd like to keep it in Jenny we're giving I don't know for appetite our eyes are getting bigger in our stomach here and your stomach is turning over because we're throwing new things at you again to me this would be I'd like to see us make progress on it but if we're loading you up with a lot of stuff you're not able to figure out where the resources are going to come from this and we need to start cutting I would be willing to cut it at the same time if we don't have to cut it I think it's important to do something on it So to follow up on that I would suggest it might say that yes it's on the list but please tell us if things the other projects take too much time and you can't get to that then just come back and let us know that so we're aware Absolutely so we can do that and I also think we can do some check-ins too if the gene pack is not even touching on that in the way we thought then that really kind of gives us more clear direction more deeply I do need us to kind of whittle down what we want to do with trees and wildfire and some of what I hear Council member 10 talking about is an interagency collaboration with the fire district with Cal Fire so this is a little bit bigger of an animal not to say it's not important I've already started conversations with Chief Kovacs on that I do think that it is a very big topic of discussion in the community we are surrounded by this so you know my recommendation to you is that you would want to probably keep something on this priority list so that we can start being aware of it it may not happen in a year but we should start planning seats and how we can work towards that goal I really would need to be talking to some of the major stakeholders to better understand how what leverage we have and how we can work together and what suggested goals that I could bring back in a work plan for you we have a conversation scheduled next Monday with Chief so I think I can from what I heard I think I could put something together for your consideration when I bring this back to you. Manager would that be a proper topic for the interagency advisory subcommittee is that just about water or is that about other issues like this? So that was developed more about development activity I don't know if that's the venue that you want to maybe broach that I would think Jenny you've got great relations with all your peers with all the agencies I would think you handle that through your sure that would be great that would be my gut reaction it might be something with city select that that could be discussed among the mayors among all the jurisdictions there are conversations that are being had about having an interagency interjurisdictional meeting on this wildfire topic that I'm kind of betting through community members are bringing it up so it has taken off so why don't you let me kind of digest this bring some points back to you and then we can kind of further refine that at maybe the meeting on the sixth if that works for council. But Derek's point was that there's money available too so. Yes and what I need to understand is whether we are eligible for that money we do not have a fire department and so whether it has to be through a fire agency or whether there's a collaborative grant with all of us that we could get that money. So you asked us about trees and whether what you expected what we would expect you to do on that it's not a burning issue for me No pun intended. But I know you have thoughts about how important that is. Lower priority. I think generally just with all these things I think where it's going to come to is got a lot of issues here at some point we just have to trust your ability to prioritize what bubbles to the top and just keep us informed. And so if a council member thinks well maybe this needs a little bit more consideration then we can correct you then. But until then I mean we have discussed a lot tonight and I think you have to kind of synthesize in your mind what's the best way to move forward and then let us know. You asked for feedback earlier about the affordability housing affordability and I know that's an area we're struggling with staff right now because we have some staff turnover and so it's likely we won't have a lot of resource this year to approach some of those issues that were raised last year with the committee. So that's a very very important topic so I would love to leave it on you to recognize that there's only so much we can do. One thing I was talking to Habitat for Humanity yesterday and they would love to talk with us about some programs that may not necessarily involve city staff but ways of encouraging people to work through them to you know build a vanity unit or whatever and so I'd like to hear what they have to say but I bring that up in the context and they may not have a direct impact on staff so maybe something like that would be would fit into this as a discussion point easily. So would you like to leave that on and says as it's feasible or would you like to have that on? I would say as feasible but I we're hearing your point is full what's the... I would like it to go away. You would. Okay. Well you know we have some series and I mean that in the most sincere way. I know you do. Sorry we needed some commentary if it's getting late. So maybe we do take it away but maybe we there's still a role for the affordable housing committee certainly as projects will be. Yes there always will be. And maybe still a discussion place for things that could bubble up. Specific ideas so even this work on the list we still may have an opportunity to discuss it over there. Absolutely. What others think about that? I know it's a community hearing about affordable housing. I know that. Does any other council member have any input on that? I know I had my own contributions last year to what the committee could consider that we weren't able to get to so but I know we can only do so much. Yes that's correct. If there are if there are opportunities though like Habitat for Humanity that come up that we think you know the investment is worthwhile because of the huge benefit then of course we want to bring that to your attention and to ours. I guess I'd love it if I thought we had the capacity but I don't think we have the capacity. Would you direct to us taking that one? Okay well I think I have enough direction to put together a draft work plan for your consideration for the next meeting. Do we have any comments about this? We'll move on to item two 2019 inter-jurisdictional committee standing local committee and project specific subcommittee plans. So may I just to keep this very brief as you know each year the mayor brings forward a recommendation and has a discussion about council member appointments to inter-jurisdictional committees standing local committees and project specific we will be doing that again standing local committees as you know are subject to the Brown Act and the project specific committees because they meet infrequently and are of a limited duration they usually have an explicit purpose are not subject to the Brown Act I would want to encourage council that if you feel that there is a need for a subcommittee and the need is immediate then you would want to establish that tonight if you don't then we can establish it when the time arises they are always there for you but you do not have to make appointments to a subcommittee that is not necessarily in need at the moment so with that I would like to turn this discussion over to the mayor. Thank you so I did meet on a really brown act individually or talking individually on the phone cases with each council member and got a feel for what they wanted to do what they might be persuaded to do or what they didn't want to do so I tried to take that into consideration and I did not get back to all council members with any definitive but I put all that together and come up with some ideas and recommendations trying to honor the past process here of honoring the expertise and continuity of those who were serving on the existing committees also looking for new opportunities and in particular because former council member Agnewon left the council and we have now we have council member Tim here that created some new opportunities for mixing it up certainly always changing who would be on some of the subcommittees so here we go I would say that in particular I've got an alternate bunch of things so if anybody wants to be the alternate instead of me for most of these I'm certainly open to that before you go too far I'm not sure I told you that I would take the arts council back at you I think I had got rid of but I would take it back since I know you're taking several things on I don't think we talked about that one it's the second one after I made oh there it is thank you okay thank you so we'll start at the top and during the past year former Agnewon was represented and I was the alternate I did go to one meeting I've been talking to council member Tim he seemed to have an interest in being unrepresented in an and I would be willing to still be the alternate to that unless someone else had an interest so any thoughts about that anyway okay moving on to the arts council so hearing that I would suggest that council member Lynn to be unrepresented I guess you have been in the past they didn't have an alternate before they did not are you okay with not having an alternate I've done it for about eight years probably ten years so I'm dialed in and I did not fill in as an alternate I know moving on to city selection committee that would be the mayor vice mayor and that is a meeting of the mayors each month from all the cities in the county and the CAO sits in that meeting as well so we would leave that one mayor vice mayor okay city school district joint subcommittee we have council a member and vice mayor Johnson on this and I know they both have a strong interest in continuing on that it's not that I so much had a change in heart but I think as much experience as Derek has with the school district and so forth I think it would be better if I turned that over to him similarly and I know he told me he has a strong interest I have a strong interest as well but I would agree that we would be great on this committee because you have such a great work relationship with the school district already so it would be read in ten that sound okay? are the staffs taking note of all these? moving on to criminal justice council and of course whatever wind has been actively involved on the council and also serving on their executive committee and I used to have a strong interest I know more in the midst of some things that I wouldn't want to see it change right now I've been this as an alternate but I don't know is there a place for an alternate on there? if I have in town I just never miss one I don't even know if you're there but you can certainly attend if you chose to okay I'm okay with staying this someone else were interested okay then moving on to the Scottsdale general plan advisory committee so when the council set this up last year we appointed the mayor and vice mayor although this is johnson slash reed and they're most of the way through this and they're doing a good job and it's an important sub committee you know they're part of the larger committee from the community and I think continuity is really important here I know we also have council member tim in a different role as the chair of the plan commission sitting on that so he certainly has a stake in it as well but to me makes sense to keep the two existing council members that are on that again it's almost certainly one of among the three two of us should be on that and I think moving forward I think Derek has the expertise in terms of there's really only two more meetings am I right Taylor? essentially two or three there'll be a series of meetings probably two or three regarding transportation and then probably two regarding land use and then there'll be some final hearings but I think the bulk of the work has been done but there'll be some key decisions coming up in the spring here you know I'm willing to hand it again I don't want to put too much on your plate there but if you're willing to kind of do that I can handle it I think that would be a good cross-section of you know both new and old and getting rid of the old I mean that in many ways so many ways I'll make the other old the experience the experience I think that would be a good trade off okay now we haven't got through so there are other ones we'll keep staying on them but we'll get to them and talk about them so is there something else you want to pick up since you're does we go down the list? okay so next we have the hazardous materials advisory commission and we've relied on one little from the fire district to for that one I understand he would still be there to do that okay management plan, project development team there's a mouthful I believe that is complete because they did they did come up with a plan it's been out there a couple years their plan was well they still have some projects I understand they might be following up on but the plan itself is done so I believe this team wouldn't go as interagency advisory subcommittee which covers water, school, fire and city and issues as the city manager mentioned earlier we've had the mayor on that and the ultimate was council member, former council member Aguilar so I would be willing to sit on that as mayor and I believe that council member Reed would be fine with being the ultimate that's worth everybody LAFCO council member will be at that seat Scotts Valley is we rotate this seat with other agencies so we will not we will no longer be on LAFCO for this coming year well no, it will be in June I mean through May I will be there to tell them I just understood that I will be terming out but it will be after the May meeting so then you're okay with staying on as okay I just understood that I can see another column being at like explanation okay legal California cities council member Aguilar was on this one former council member Aguilar and of course council member Tim has obviously been already involved with the legal California cities and has expressed an interest to to represent us with the league so that's how to find everybody Reed, the only thing I would add there just do we have the ability to name an alternate to that like I know you can for when you do the voting delegates but you certainly could do it this the league California cities unless you're on some type of policy committee or something like that you probably don't need an alternate but they're usually going to the division management meetings and you'll have guest speakers and any council member actually could go to that okay so the only reason I brought it up is there have been times where somebody's attending regularly but then something comes up a business trip somebody's sick and all of a sudden they can't go and it's a choice or it's a choice do I go and get everybody sick with a 100 degree fever or to make sure our city isn't represented so I guess just a question for us to consider you know to what extent should we name some of these alternate especially something like this that might involve some travel on occasion so it sounds like the only absolute responsibility is voting at the league that's correct otherwise everything is actually open to any council member right so my point was there might be something that's important that we need to weigh especially given as you noted earlier city manager that the governor's budget is proposing potential sticks as well as carrots for cities on housing and there's a lot of things that could come out of the legislature that could be really problematic for us so just wanting to make sure that we've always got a strong voice there so to council member Reed's point can I send a proxy if we're not unable to attend for some reason that's okay absolutely so it doesn't have to be named ahead of time by the council? no and would there need to be council approval of that proxy or would council member be able to do that any council member could attend so it could be whoever is available to go and if a third party wanted to go hopefully there's not a browning tissue but they can attend as well so I think you have the discretion again it's just the voting delegate that is the big issue moving on to the library advisory commission and Ellen Kupos has served as well as a representative but I understand there's a new person Jim Landriff who would be representing us so well that was sort of the choice that the friends of the library recommended they would be perceived as a good guy that's why Sylvie was here I did see Sylvie here who came for that point okay and the next one here is the a trooper library facilities financing authority and library joint powers authority board and here we have our city manager representing us so that's what she would continue to and then we have the library financing authority which has to do with as I recall the sales tax the library sales tax that we all pay and Councilman Reed has been on that yeah that has to be elective yeah and so I understand you would continue to be on that yeah that would be great mayor I appreciate that there was a meeting I wasn't going to be able to make and the council formally identified councilmember Johnson as my alternate to that so I went one time yeah we have to take action to name him as the alternate yeah that should be noted here assuming the council wanted to keep him as alternate you're still fine with doing that councilmember Johnson I should say vice mayor Johnson okay moving on to the Santa Cruz County consolidated oversight board this is a countywide roll up of all the old RDAs and we have three alternates there it sounds like all three of us are okay with still being alternates myself the vice mayor and councilmember Reed sounds okay then we have the Santa Cruz County integrated waste management local task force which has representatives from the county and cities on recycling issues and waste and so forth and I have been the representative and we've had various staff of public works be the alternate I like to swap that I understand that that's happened in the past where staff would be the primary representative and I would be the alternate I did find it I enjoyed it I found it to be technical they get into a lot of technical issues they're good at explaining it to people like me but there was a lot of technical talk I had mentioned I had previously been assigned and I had Scott Hamby I've been talking with him it was so appropriate for him to be involved I chaired that with the mayor that I mean it was good to have some awareness but it's really appropriate to have staff level involved in those decisions that you're working with I agree the only caveat I would add to that is there were times where they did take up policy matters that were traditionally done by elected bodies and it would be really important whoever the public works does it mean was they had sensitive antenna for when they needed to check in with the city manager or the mayor just on direction or if something was more a policy issue rather than a technical issue which is most of you and Scott was really good about that on some recycling issues and styrofoam and things that he would notify me and kept me involved and I'm sure your correct council member they do talk about policies in fact there was even discussion recently about hey do you think how could this be more successful should we go city by city or something broader and they said well with our city we're probably more likely to follow something to support something much broader than just our community and typically there's a review of all the pending legislation that's out there that someone may want to weigh in and we do have a number of issues out there particularly when we talk about organic recycling for food waste probably at our doorstep so that's coming so hopefully that but I would certainly step in as needed to express in that side of it okay next we have the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission and the Vice Mayor Vice Mayor Johnson is represented there and I know he still wants to indicate he still wants to keep doing that you've heard him speak quite a bit tonight about the details of their latest and council member Lynn has been the alternate I would like to be the alternate myself I have a strong interest in transportation and regional transportation commission and council member Ben seems so kind of from Metro also so it was no need in doing both okay everybody let's see Santa Cruz Metro and council member Lynn is a representative there and they don't allow them because I had no discussion with them so what happens if you're not able to go and I know you always do go but it's fair we're actually sworn in and so if there's there's quite a few of us I didn't go I wouldn't have a voice so okay and there's and on top of being that I'm also on their budget committee which is strange for me because that was the one I at least wanted to be on but I'm learning a lot so there's the two committees we actually meet twice a month okay Santa Margarita Grand Lauder Agency Joint Powers Authority this is the super agency that the states are working to us in this sense City of Casa Valley, City of Santa Cruz Senatorside Water District Scottsville High Water District Sanctus County and Sanctus City yes it's the county as well and then the Wook Park, Water Owners and so forth so anyway customer Lynn has been our representative there and I've been the altered and I've been going to all the meetings at customer Lynn's suggestion and I've learned a lot about water and want to learn more but the primary role of the council member has agreed to be my alter that recognizing she doesn't have to do what I was doing in the learning phase of being going to all of us and alter it so do you still find that? as I said when there's important things I'll still be there and I'll keep you apprised of course because I know you have an interest Seniors Advisory Council I've been serving in that capacity and I enjoy that and we have lots of things for our seniors but if anyone else has an interest let me know otherwise I would continue that the Monterey Bay Community Power Policy Board so this is made up of this is the course we're now getting our power through them they're essentially the purchasing agency that's buying green power for the grid and although we still bear these bills to PG&E and PG&E still owns the lines and PG&E has some issues right now at any rate I've been appointed by the city selection committee to this position because they had to appoint somebody so if anybody has concerns about that but we also would need to appoint an alternate if anyone and so I would suggest perhaps Council Member Tim is the alternate if you're interested, still interested in that and if anyone else is interested you don't have too many yet I still have more just a reminder it's a two-year rotation so capital is rotating off or rotating on and as an alternate you would need to go to that because necessarily unless I was not able to make it then there's the Monterey Bay Community Power Operations Board and the city manager has been following that role and it is made up of city managers on the operations board so the operations board as with the policy board establishes bylaws that determine who is on the board so the operating bylaws say that all the city managers are on the operating policy as all elected officials and should point out both the policy board and the operations board were rotating on into those seats of capital previously had that and they agreed to to not quite finish out their term and allow us to that would be interesting this is at Santa Cruz County Board of Directors dealing with tourism issues throughout the county and that representative would represent Scottsville, Watsaville and Capital all three cities so we're rolling on this one and recently it's been city manager has been on there Charles Montoya from Watsaville was the representative on this before the city manager we I think we do have an option to be able to have an elected rather than I believe councilman Reed served on this committee in the past so anyway the city side committee again did appoint our city manager as representative but I wanted to revisit that because there are options if the council wanted to go in a different direction but I know the city manager is very very interested in that. I think several of the other city managers are also serving yeah the interest is purely because Maggie Ivy has shared with me that the questions that come up are less policy nature more operational more fiscal related and the prior city managers have told me the same thing which is why Jamie Goldstein who was in the seat previously had recommended that a city manager fill that position and that's completely consistent with my time on the board it is and I think outside of the one slot work from the small cities the only other thing Santa Cruz has appointed representatives elected representatives who have seats on that but given the overwhelming importance of tourism in Santa Cruz you can see why they would have some people there so I think I think Jenny is more than capable to do a great job OK next we have standing local city council committees traffic safety committee so this has been councilmember Blaine and former councilmember Aguilar they meet as needed which when something comes up and so here I understand why would suggest councilmember Blaine perhaps councilmember Tim sounds like maybe Vice Mayor Johnson might be thinking about it OK OK I know interesting things come up sometimes economic developments economic developments economic development committee we have Vice Mayor Johnson and councilmember Reid on this and it sounds like they both would like to continue they have a long interest in that former housing committee that has been former councilmember Aguilar and councilmember Bied and I'd like to instead have myself and councilmember Tim on that that's the perfect mayor I was just going to say I appointed myself under the because I was mayor that year and we wanted to make some progress on things so and Steph we wanted to stay on it because that was such a passion of hers so I'm completely fine with that we have another video we're getting there to the last page we have now project specific city council subcommittee these are ones that live in a duration and and so we first have the town center subcommittee that hasn't been meeting and at least in recent times I know the council is expressing a desire to on the current where we are right now council would meet as a whole and talk about issues to come to as staff is doing certainly interfacing with the developer at this point so forth so this seems to be like one we don't need anymore however we could reconstitute it if we found that we had a need for it so everybody okay with that if it's not meeting then it just lies dormant so in order to qualify as an ad hoc committee it has to be for a limited duration and for a specific purpose and so if we allow it to continue and be dormant it's still existing and it's not really a limited duration anymore or it's a longer duration than it's typically permitted for an ad hoc committee so then applying that logic does that mean basically that every committee on here on this list these five we should only make appointments if there's current work for them to do okay I just got in our senate margarita water committee the attorney made a strong point and it came up in a couple others that being a lot more rigid in that that beyond six months they're saying they should be eliminated or transferred over so converted over to commission or reestablished when needed she did a good job with that she boiled down a complicated subject and something that was fairly understandable okay next one is the Glenwood open space subcommittee we have different some of these are reading Glenwood open space the purpose is done we have our master plan and so forth so that would go away budget subcommittee we talked tonight about the role of the budget subcommittee so we've that much to stay in place and I think it should remain the mayor and the vice mayor science subcommittee I know we have slight issues in town but I don't see us getting to anything in the near future given staff staffing and so forth and the need for probably some resources in that area so I would suggest quite a bit of work but we've been at a stand so we haven't met in probably a couple years now so I would suggest we take that away for now but then we do bring it back we have a stand okay and the last one on here is the library facilities upgrade subcommittee my understanding is that they have been meeting about what to do with the library in Scotts Valley here and how we best use the space and resources and so forth and we have council member Reed and vice mayor Johnson on that I know they both have a passion for the library and so I would suggest we leave them on this if that works for everybody and we might cover everything there's nothing else that's on this list well how do we I mean given the legal instruction that we how do we continue it beyond the six month so what we are recommending is that for those two subcommittees the budget subcommittee and the library facilities subcommittee that we would come back to you with a resolution specifying exactly what tasks those subcommittees would perform and the duration of the committee and then at the conclusion of that time there would be a report from those committees they would be disbanded and then we have constitutions we needed didn't we already do that with the library subcommittee like the council took action on the theater group and one of the there's like a six point action plan that we the council took action to assign them work to the subcommittee this is a new recommendation that when you form a subcommittee to codify it in a resolution and I've gotten clear direction from the council on the budget subcommittee based on our earlier conversation and because of that staff report and direction council we also have clear direction on what the purpose is for the library upgrades did I overload anybody yes thank you let's see and we probably have future agenda items you do need to make a motion mayor and have the council vote on that yes thank you so I have a motion to approve the appointments that I would suggest any other comments all those in favor say aye aye motion passes unanimously absolutely okay I'm there so future council agenda items can I have anything can I mention something earlier I'm trying to think of what it was they're saying none I'll look to suggest one convene to co-session and the co-session subject is the city manager performance evaluation under government code section 54957 staff attending will be the city manager and city attorney and we will reconvene reconvene and announce any action taken afterwards


Today we will discuss image enhancement using frequency domain learning outcome at the end of this session students will be able to apply image enhancement algorithms in frequency domain contents in this session we will discuss some basics of image enhancement in frequency domain. Then we will see the ideal low pass filter which is used for smoothing an image and ideal high pass filter which is used for sharpening of an image. Let us see first the frequency domain concept which consists of DFT that is discrete Fourier transform and how the discrete Fourier transform of an input image will look like. So, the DFT of a two dimensional image can be visualized by showing the spectrum of image component frequencies. For example, this is a input image in spatial domain having coordinates x and y and if you convert this input image which is in spatial domain in frequency domain by using this discrete Fourier transform. We get the image after some modifications in the transform that is just we are using shifting operation of a discrete Fourier transform property. So, here this is a U coordinate, this is a V coordinate and origin of the coordinate is at the center where here in spatial domain the origin of the coordinate is here top left whereas origin of the coordinate in frequency domain is taken at the center for easy implementation. Let us see how we can implement this DFT for image enhancement. Let us see how we can use this DFT for image processing and for image enhancement in this particular class. So, to filter an image in the frequency domain we should follow these three steps and these three steps are given in this diagram. So, first step is what we have to compute the discrete Fourier transform of a input image named as f of x y. After pre-processing it is applied to this block that means here what we have to do is we have to find out the discrete Fourier transform of this input image f of x y and we get the output in the form of frequency domain named as capital F of u v where u v are the variables in the frequency domain and x y are the variables in the spatial domain. After that what we do is we multiply our DFT of a input image with the filter function h of u v which is also specified in the frequency domain.  Keep in mind in spatial domain filtering operation is done by using convolution operation, but in frequency domain this is converted into a simple multiplication operation. Then finally we compute the inverse discrete Fourier transform of this result so that we can get the information that is image back into our spatial domain which is named as g of x y which is an enhanced image after some post processing. So, let us see how we can implement different filters for enhancing an image using frequency domain. So, first we are studying ideal low pass filter which is used for smoothing an image. So, what it does is it simply cuts of all frequency components that are this specified distance d 0 from the origin of the transform. So, if you look at this diagram there are three. So, actually these three diagrams are just same concept, but represented in three different ways. So, this is represented in 3D view, this is represented in image view and this is represented in coordinate view.  If I multiply this filter function with our input image what will happen is wherever 1 is there only these portion of the input image will maintain and that corresponds to low frequency values only low frequency values are maintained and high frequency values are cut off. That is why it is called low pass filter. Same thing is represented in coordinate system that is this is a distance d 0 that is from the center of or we can say radius of this circle. So, up to d 0 the value of the filter function is 1 and after d 0 the value of the filter function is 0. So, this on x axis we have distance of some pixel from the center that is called d of u v and this is a filter function h of u v and in 3D view the same is explained here. For example, this is u coordinate y coordinate in frequency domain and at the center we see the highest values that means this is a h of u v and up to distance d 0 and after that distance the value is flat that is 0. Now, one more important is changing the distance changes the behavior of the filter that means if I change this d 0 to some another value say d 1 then the effect of that will dominantly we will see in the enhanced image. So, let us see what is how to represent the ideal low pass filter in the form of transfer function. So, the transfer function of ideal low pass filter is given as h of u v is the distance of particular point is less than or equal to that radius d 0 and h of u v is equal to 0 if the distance of the particular point or pixel is greater than this d 0 where d of u v is given as that means distance of that particular point d of u v is given as u minus m by 2 square plus v minus n by 2 square raise to one half that is simple Pythagoras theorem is used to find out the distance of pixel from the center where m and n are the size of the input image in rows and columns. So, m rows are there and n columns are there in a input image. Let us see the effect of ideal low pass filter we are applying this ideal low pass filter on this input image. Here this image and some high part of this lady is here explored more. So, here we see these blemishes we can find out. So, ideal low pass filter used to remove blemishes in a photograph given in the this figure. So, here after applying this ideal low pass filter if you observe here this is blemishes are reduced if further the same ideal low pass filter is applied we see that the blemishes are vanished off. So, this is what one of the application of ideal low pass filter. Now, let us have a question what will be ideal high pass filter transfer function you pause the video and answer the question. So, the answer is given this slide that is ideal high pass filter naturally the transfer function of the ideal high pass filter is reverse of that.  So, H of u v is equal to 0 if d of u v is less than or equal to d 0 and it is 1 if d of u v is greater than 0. So, in way the ideal high pass filter is also represented in three different ways this is a three dimensional representation this is a image representation this is a coordinate representation and if you look at here the value of H of u v up to this d 0 point is 0 whereas, value of H of u v if the input pixel value is greater than d 0 it is 1. So, let us see the effect of this ideal high pass filter this is a input image and we are applying this ideal high pass filter with different that is d 0 is equal to 15 here, d 0 is equal to 30 here and d 0 is equal to 80 here. If I go on increasing the image gets more and more sharpened just you look at if the image is that means distance is 15 we see that this image is not too sharp, but if I increase this to 30 the image is sharpened and here for 80 it is more sharpened references for preparing these slides this digital image processing by Raphael C. Gonzalez and Richard Woods by Tata McGraw education the book which is I used for. Thank you, thank you very much.