I'm going to guess. Okay. Here we go. Welcome everyone to the March 28th meeting of the waterways advisory committee. I was calling the meeting order. And now it's time for the roll call. Okay. Victoria lip type. Right here. Mark Mealy. Go Juan. Here. Okay. I'm going to go with. Terrence Sanders. Dr. Kevin C. Here. Art. Art. Sure. And, uh, Steve chair, Steve. And, uh, Susie Murray is with us today. Is this our first meeting with you in this capacity? Uh, this time around. Yes. We filled in a few times, but another item. Yeah. And crystal. I'm going to introduce myself and Michael. Hello everyone. I'm crystal camp. I'm the admin secretary for planning. Um, This is Michael will Roy. Senior administrative assistant for planning, but he is your recording secretary for. Thank you for being here as well. Um, I'm asked to, um, well, first of all. Read a statement. Um, the city of Santa Rosa is committed to creating a safe and inclusive environment. We'll not tolerate speech or actions that disrupt a public meeting or maybe perceived as aggressive. The meeting or harmful towards staff and applicant team or other meeting participants. Staff will be monitoring and the meeting and ensuring that everyone is participating respectfully. The staff determines that a meeting participant is acting in a disruptive or disrespectful manner. They will first be muted and then given a warning. They will be removed. If necessary, we may also immediately end the meeting. If participants have additional questions or concerns, I should reach out directly to the project planner or the applicant team. Okay. Um, with that, the first item here is approval of the. July 27 minutes. Um, has everyone had a chance to look at those? Um, is there any opposition to just approving those minutes as written? I didn't attend, but, um, The way we refer to when, um, I don't have it in front of me, um, the way into it, that should be a public comment. It should say public comment. And then the way into it spoke on something and it doesn't say that. Right there. Hey. Good catch. Thank you. With that addition, um, I'll just say that the minutes are approved since there's no. Position. Um, okay. Now is the time for public comments. Um, and these are items, um, not on the agenda. So we're not taking public comments on, um, item four non agenda matters. So any person may address the subcommittee on matters not listed on this agenda, but the subcommittee on matters not listed on this agenda. Um, and the subcommittee on matters not listed on this agenda are within the subject matter of jurisdiction of this committee. And we do have, uh, this is also on zoom, I assume. So we will potentially have people coming from the general public. Yes. Uh, but no commenting on, on zoom. Uh, Any comments from anyone in the room. Okay. Um, Okay. Um, The, uh, role of the waterways committee is to review development projects for public and private. They're located adjacent to creeks and waterways for consistency with the goals, policies and regulations for peace. I development identified in the Santa Rosa general plan. Tony code design guidelines and citywide creek master plan. Um, And the committee does not take formal action on projects. It does provide advisory comments to the decision making body. All development projects located adjacent to a creek or waterway are required to be reviewed by the lack. Prior to proceeding through the entitlement process. And with that, um, We're going to have a committee reports unless there's any comment. Um, So, um, I'll give a brief, um, Request and that is that we meet during the summer. Um, and for a tour of the Prince Memorial Greenway, it's a course right across the street, a vital part of our downtown creek system, bikeway system and so on. And, uh, I'd like to have that be an opportunity to discuss both the, uh, potential for that, uh, Creek project as well as the challenges that are being faced in terms of restoration and, uh, improvements to that project. So if that's okay, Susie, I think you mentioned potentially June might work out if. That's just because I'm a little bit of a pansy when it comes to hot weather, but I'll, that'll be the one I'll, I'll favor, but I'll look at June, July and August. And also like to include, uh, open that up to staff to participate in the tour. I think it would be a good bonding experience as well as learning experience. It'd be great to have Steve Brady there for sure. And others who would. Yeah. I will invite Steve for sure. But I'm, I'm talking specifically about planners. Oh yeah. And also there's the creek, uh, stewardship folks who are really vital to what's going on. Um, and Creek too, who do a great job. Yeah. She had her hand up. Please. Um, Canada worms. Is it worth getting someone from park and rec? They're also, since it is part of the park system. I can certainly ask. I'm asking. I'm going to ask too. That's two asks. That's. And then, and then maybe the, um, Bicycle committee might be, be nice to be invited. And then we'll need a barbecue and a full setup. Yeah. I had that right. I will invite, um, Steve Brady, and I will invite Scott Wilkinson to participate. No guarantees that they'll make it at, you know, last time some of our planners did some of our planners did. I'm probably going to draw the line there just cause the, that's really big. Yeah. Yeah. And we don't have a barbecue that size. So. Sorry, what are we doing? Good try. Um, okay. Are there other committee members who would like to give any reports? Yes. Um, So there was a public, I got three things. There was a public notice. Um, and when it printed out, didn't print out very well, but it's about a, uh, a Dutton access to Santa Rosa Creek. Um, Does anybody know about that? I saw the same notice in the newspaper Sunday. Yeah. And so, um, Um, It was a couple of days ago and in the paper, I could probably call it up. Um, Is that a copy of it? Yeah. It's a very poor copy. Just having like a project number. Yeah. Let me see. Is it the ramp on the west side? Yeah. So that's a project that's been a TVW for, several years. Um, And we, What the project is that, you know, The ramp that's on the west side of the creek. So you can get from the creek and you ramp up to done. Yeah. Putting the same thing on the west side. Okay. So that there's, There's access up to that. And on both sides. Thank you. Could we maybe get some information about that? Our next meeting. Um, just to maybe a diagram or a map or something that shows what we're going to be doing. We might even have one online. Let me look. Okay. Update on my item. Okay. That's great. Um, And then the next thing. Is, um, They're having an online meeting. Um, They're having an online meeting. Um, And then the next thing is, um, They're having, um, A salmon restoration conference going on right now. Past three days. Uh, that's where Claire and I were at yesterday. Um, and it was at the Laguna de Santa Rosa foundation. And there were a lot of speakers. I have, I have the agenda. I'll pass it around for anybody to look at. Um, Um, So city Santa Rosa was, was there. Um, Big time. Sean McNeil was one of the main presenters. And when we got to the point where we started talking about, Um, Who's going to lead the effort for the restoration of the Laguna de Santa Rosa, which is what this conference yesterday's conference was all about. Sean talked about how difficult it is for agencies to work with other agencies and that it's really good when there's a kind of a neutral, um, Um, Like like the Laguna foundation, we're kind of trying to pivot to get the, I'm on the board there to do that. Um, But the reason I'm bringing it up here is they, Sean talked about how we got the efforts done with the city of Santa Rosa with Santa Rosa Creek and the Creek. Um, master plan. And it was because of a citizen group and they didn't name names, but it was this guy right here that, that did that. And, and so I just wanted to bring that up. He didn't mention you, but I know it was you and it was about the effort that you did that enabled us to, to do as much as we've done with the creeks here in Santa Rosa. Given that, um, And since we do have a strong tie to the Laguna de Santa Rosa or creeks empty in there, we own the city owns property. Um, there, um, We're completely involved is perhaps we can have, have a short presentation about the restoration efforts here at this committee. I just kind of get us all to understand what's going on. I'm going to pass it around. Um, so I just wanted to bring that up. That's a great idea. I do want to say the word few more people involved. There were. That's why you probably didn't mention names. Couple hundred, but okay, thank you. Yeah. I'm sorry. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. Um, at the last board of community services slash park and wreck meeting, we were talking about, um, Future plantings at a park that's being revitalized. And one of our members who is Native American mentioned when we talk about, um, plantings. And I'm always harping for habitat garden plantings in our schemes here with developers. Uh, she mentioned that, um, there's actually Native American, um, indigenous people connections to a lot of the plants that we talk about. And perhaps as we continue to push forward habitat gardens in projects that we review to encourage, especially when there's public access, I'm thinking specifically about the medical complex that's planned over by Brookwood. Simple signage that both acknowledges the habitat garden and perhaps carefully worded, um, indigenous people routes to a number of plants that hopefully are going in noted. I'm going to have to dig a little bit into that and see. I don't know. I don't know who would know that information. So maybe I can get a contact name from you and I'd be reaching out also so that at the rural cemetery, we can not only put habitat garden names, but unfortunately I only go back to the pioneers. And I named things based on 1850 white people, which is very short-sighted of me. So I'm, I'm, yes, we're learning. It's an evolution. We're learning. Yeah. Um, and I also know the, uh, the landscaper for that project. Um, she works over at Carlisle Masekine Facy. And I think that she would be very interested in hearing some of that information and probably enthusiastic. I can't say the developer would be, but I'm for her. I think that she would probably be very enthusiastic about researching it and getting it in there. Thank you for her. That's what she thrives on. So. Thank you. Yes, Terry. I don't know if anyone got a chance to, or has had a chance to visit the cannery project. That came before. And I got a chance to see it. And yeah, you know, I, it's great to see that project going in and what it, yeah, got a chance to sit from one of the apartments. The things that we talk about is eyes on the creek, right? They're our eyes. They're going to be eyes on that creek. And lucky them, the view that they have in that creek. I happen to see it on a rainy day. So the creek was showing off. I would love to, how would that transpire? Well, it was easier for me because LSR just gets me into everything. But I'm sure that if you wanted to, as a member of the WAC, make that happen because even the work that they're doing right on the garden to the pathway on the creek, it's beautiful. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. I think that's what I would like to see. I think that's what I would like to see. To the pathway on the creek. He has beautifully done. Would you send a. A letter of introduction or something. That would be awesome. I can also contact. The tour guide now. If you would be willing to do that. Everybody that was involved in that project, myself included is very, very proud of that project. So there's not shown it off as, I mean, I can't wait for that. interface between the project and the creek. This was our jurisdiction, but I have watched that building go up. Very impressive. That building went through our SB 35 process, so it was not brought to any boards or commissions in advance, it's visited afterwards after it started construction and a lot of people had questions, but this day really pulled the public process completely out of that to get affordable housing built. That is a 100% affordable housing project, which is, again, why so many involved. It's a beautiful project and it's affordable and it's a home that people can be proud of. Susie, are there dates on either letters of acceptance or occupancy projections for that project yet? I think their occupancy is later 2024. I don't know that for a fact that that was a target. I'd have to check on the building permits and let you know for sure, but I'm sure that Michelle Gervais, who led that tour, would know the answer, so save your questions and I will definitely reach out to her. Thank you, Susie. Thank you, Terry. That's good to know. Anybody else have a report they'd like to give? How about the planning and development department? Is there anything on your end, Susie? Well, let's see. I'll call. Everything I just said. And I did, I wanted to say to everybody here, this is a temporary appointment for me. I'm filling in as the staff liaison here. If you send me an email and I don't respond to you within a day or two, please call me. I answer my phone calls. If I'm at my desk, I answer. If I'm not at my desk, I return phone calls. Steve can attest to that and I'm getting inundated with emails right now. So I don't want anybody to feel like I'm intentionally ignoring them. So that is one thing that kind of addresses my staffing. We're short staffed right now. We are, yeah, we're doing the best we can. We will have a couple of items coming to the board, or I'm sorry, the committee in the next month or two, April or and or May, one is a housing project right along. Gosh, what is the creek? This is bad. I should know the creek. It's right at the down along Bellevue. So is that Colgan Creek? Thank you. It is Colgan Creek. Yeah, so it's right adjacent to Colgan Creek. And so the planner is prepping that packet for you now. And so I suspect that'll come in April. And that, that. Which portion of Colgan? It's on, it's west of, it's west of Dutton Meadow. It's west of Dutton Meadow and north of the creek. So, there's a bunch of housing units there. There's going to be more. Yeah. And it's a higher density housing project, but that's about all I know. Those never came before us. And so this one's right adjacent to the creek. So it's at the furthest southern most point then? Right. Oh, okay, great. Yeah, the southern most point. And it goes up from there. So it fills in the gap between, what is it, Bellevue estates? Something.  And I don't know if they're still there. If they are, they will be removed as part of that project. So is that from LC Allen? Is it? It's just LC Allen. Yeah, just East. So stay tuned. There's some projects coming your way. Are there a lot of changes to the creek side? I don't, I do not know. I don't have any of the details on the project. I just know that there'll be a project coming your way. Great. So. Okay. One comment on the agenda. I wonder if we can't break out, head reports and say planning, economic development department. Cause whenever I look at that, I think pedestrian. Yeah. I wonder if we could probably just break that out in the future. I don't think that would be a problem. I know it's a lot of work. I know you're understaffed. I know, but it's a joke. That's a joke. That's a joke. Okay. How about the water department? Is there anyone here for the water department? Speak to them. Yes, please. See everybody. So normally Steve Brady or Kyle Spomberg from our team attend. I just got a committee member. Thank you for that. Actually this week is the SRF conference, which stands for the Salmon Restoration Federation. So we've been at different things all week and they are a number of seminars today. But it's been a really interesting week. You're talking about what we had yesterday, talking about the Laguna, the Santa Rosa, and some of the loading and efforts to remediate and what we can all do in the different spheres that we're working in. And so what you were saying, we remember one earlier, I attended a fantastic presentation on Monday about communication and engagement specifically with tribal groups using triple knowledge, getting involved much earlier in the process. Entities have typically gotten and not just in the sphere of regular requirements, but maybe really collaborating from the get-go. And then also on Tuesday of this week, Steve and Kyle and Erin from our team led a tour of the City of Santa Rosa restoration projects. We had great attendance for about 30 people. They took them to Princeton, like a greenway. We took them to Streamside and we also took them to Fort Creek. So it was the whole day and just we got a really great response and really got to highlight some of the great work that the city staff are doing. So that's why they're not here today. Going back to the indigenous plants, would you have resources that I could tap into or that Susie could tap into to get some identification? Yeah, you know, possibly. I would like to be a part of that conversation because we're doing similar, trying to get similar connections, especially for space three of the lower program restoration project. We're really trying to increase because as you know, that's near Alcinole High School, trying to get the right indigenous plants and artwork. And so I think we have a similar need and at the same point in the process. So yeah. I'm gonna let you lead that. You are much more involved. Yeah, yeah. Could you keep, do you have my contact information? Keep me looped in and I'm wearing not only my waterways hat, but also my park and rec board, the board community services hat for that. Absolutely. Great. Thank you. I'd be very interested in hearing a presentation before this committee of how the salmon restoration is going, especially as it impacts the creeks. I think the more we know about it, then as we look at projects, we'll have a little insight into what the needs are in terms of creek preservation or development or whatever. And we might loop that into some of these projects. I don't, who knows. So, and when I always look down at the creek and hope to see salmon, but I never have. Hopefully one of these days. It'd be interesting adding to that what the effects of the restoration of Santa Rosa Creek did in terms of salmon population. We're going back many years now, 30 years or so, but still I think it's important information. So we know about restoration and what it can accomplish. Right, that'd be great. Thank you. Anything else on that? No more questions on that. How about a Sonoma water? Is there anyone here representing? Sonoma water? Our agency. Do we want them to be more representative here or just wait for them to have issues? That's a hard one to answer, but what's your thought? Well, I'm on the Zone 1A provided your committee. And we meet next week. And then another plug for the Lugenda Santa Rosa Foundation. Grant Davis is going to be our person at our fundraising event next, take a stroll on sale. Next month. And he's going to be the one to speak. He's going to be doing the Mark McGuire thing. If you've ever seen that where it gets out and he's talking for trying to sell stuff. And so I can leverage him a little bit maybe, but I'm not sure if there's an ongoing reason for Santa Rosa water or if it just needs to be when they have the issue or if we do. See, I like having them here, but I just want to be able to discuss this appropriately. There's no reason we can't invite them to make a presentation on issues that affect the role of our committee because so much of the city has, you know, rest or creeks that have been channelized and so on and other issues with water. Okay, sure. Can I ask if you have a contact name there? I'm not, I don't know who has attended in the past. It's very right. I don't know. Steve Brady. You may be a good one to ask. Steve Brady. Yeah, I'll just, I don't know. If you have a suggestion, please, I don't because it's been so long since we've seen them. Is it more, I think more than a planning sphere or the creep maintenance, because we work with them all the time, but there's, you know, depending on what we're talking about, vegetation management or planning or piecements. I'm wondering if you have, because I'm happy that you work with Steve and find the right person. But I want to make sure that it is the person that addresses. Yeah, I think Kevin's question was the first that perhaps we need to address regarding the, you know, salmon population and so on. But there were, of course, our other places where we interact. Thanks. Okay. Because there is a start. Yeah, because there is an ongoing need. We should take them off the agenda and bring them in just when they need to be. That way it doesn't look like they're always absent. Different. Okay. Any comments by the general public on this item? Okay. I could, if it's appropriate now, I can give a more thorough update on that done screen connection. I don't know when that's most appropriate, but that's why it's gonna happen. I think normal, I think that should probably be agendized rather than just giving an update now. I'm gonna say that's normal. When we have a new authority, that's how it's done. So I think having that agendized for maybe the next meeting and we'll invite you back if that's all right. Yeah, okay. It should be agendized so members of the public are aware of it and listen in. So that's the purpose. Thank you though for suggesting that. Okay, yes. On that note, I saw it in the Sunday paper. I think it's coming before a different city board I had a note to ask. Is it a public hearing or like a council item? There's a council public hearing because we're in the CEQA process right now. So the public comment period on the environmental document ends. So perhaps send us a link to that as a reminder. It's that city council meeting. Do you know the date of the city council meeting? Yeah. Oh, okay. I'm not familiar with the notice that was posted and it didn't sound like it was real legible. Or has it? I know just when I get it. So I'm gonna say, I will encourage, I've done this with several boards, sign up for GOV delivery. You'll get those council agendas and know when these types of projects are going and I will try to work with Terina to get an update when that's coming through and send y'all a link. So, but don't count on my memory. Okay, really sign up for GOV delivery. I can't emphasize that enough. And if you're thinking it's speaking up on you and you haven't heard anything, call me. It was appreciating trying to get anything from the public notice out of the paper that actually went through to anything other than dead ends. Really? Oh, well, that's interesting. I will look, is that just isolated to this week? You don't know. So on our website, and we can do a demonstration for you where there is a clipboard in the lower left hand of the primary, the front page of the city Santa Rosa warehouse. Actually, I think it's on just about every page at the bottom, it's a little red clipboard. If you click on that, you will find agendas for every meeting, including this agenda. And if people are interested, they can go onto the agenda and there's links to all the plans, there's links to the minutes, there's links to every proposed resolutions, applicant and staff presentation. So you can really see, for me, I'm a visual person. So that's real helpful when I'm curious about what another department's doing or mine for that matter. So I encourage, if you want me to walk you through that process and then you can share the news with all your followers. What really interests me since the press Democrat is the place of public. I understand. That's the link that should work for anyone who chooses to look. And that that legislative link that I'm talking about is what we're in a transition right now of trying to get that link to be up there. So people can get to their agenda. They see the Zoom information if they don't want to speak as well as all of the supporting documentation. So I will definitely check into that. I understand. So I hear what you're saying. Okay, unless there are any other questions, comments, we're gonna move on to one quick question for Susan. You said there were two projects coming up. I think you mentioned that. I think there are two. I said a couple of projects coming up. We're getting much busier. We've gone through a lot of pre-application. We have a development review. There's a lot of pre-application stuff that happens. And that's, yeah, that's where we're seeing it. So stay tuned. When I say coming up, this one, I know we've actually seen that we have the project plans in and it's early on in the review, the one down on Bellevue. And I know that it's coming to the board. I know that the planner talked to me about it. Yesterday or the day before. I see. Big blur. Okay, the first public meeting topic we have is the Santa Rosa Active Transportation Plan update. And we have, I believe, Torina Wilson. Is that correct? Come on over. Sure. All right, you guys, do we have a PowerPoint, you guys? That, oh, because you have the flash drive and, you know. Oh, okay. So I'm either PowerPoint person. That's always scary. Well, you can slide, you can slide the top hop over for her because this has the, so that she can just, so. I'm sure for that. Yeah, so she can share the screen and all that and things. Should already be loaded for each. You know how to get it over. Don't. But it's open. Are you coming over here to rescue me? Yes. Good. Nice. All right. There we go, it transitioned. Wonderful. So my name is Torina Wilson. I'm the city's transportation planner. I've only been in this position for about 10 months, but I grew up in West County, lived in Santa Rosa again for several years. So it's like I came home, which was fine with me. So my job, I believe that some of you probably interfaced with my predecessor who was Nancy Adams. So that's the position that I'm in. This job is really focused on improving the overall transportation network, which obviously includes things like creek trails. Most of my job really focuses on improving bicycle pedestrian access. And that's primarily what I focus on. And the city has a long range plan that we have had since, I don't know, I think the early 2000s that we periodically update. And I'm here today because we're doing an update to that plan and it's called the active transportation plan. So this is an update. The last time we did it was in 2018. That document's called the 2018 bicycle pedestrian master plan. We're doing a renaming because bicycle pedestrian also leaves out folks who maybe use a wheelchair or their scooters or their skateboards or other ways that people get around. So it's a little bit more inclusive. This plan is, this update is going to go farther than we have in last plans, specifically because the guidance from the federal government, from state government and just best management practices were really learning that when you're planning for an active transportation network, you need to be planning for all ages and abilities. We don't want there to be... Wait, one sec. That's me. There you are. Are we good now? You're good, that was me. Sorry. So we are learning that in our active transportation network, we want it to be available for everybody, right? We don't want to preclude anybody from being able to move about their business within a city. And in our past plans, we tried to do that a little bit, but now there's a lot more standards and guidance coming out from other sources and also just best management practices. So we can start being more aggressive. So this plan, we really are looking at it being more aggressive and planning for low stress facilities. Those types of facilities are creek trails, right? Where you're away from vehicles or if you put in a bike lane on an arterial road, making sure there's more separation or there's some sort of delineator and making sure that we close gaps in sidewalks, things like that. There is gonna be a very robust public outreach campaign and we're definitely gonna be focusing on equity priority communities because a lot of times in those communities, there's a higher concentration of folks who depend on active transportation but also public transportation. And if you think about it, all public transit trips begin or end with active transportation because you've got to get there, right? So that's gonna be an important focus and I'm gonna get to that in a second. Can I ask a quick question? I've never heard that phrase equity priority community. So funny, there's these like phrases that you deal with every day and then you say them like everybody knows what that is, right? So we have a metropolitan planning organization called MTC Metropolitan Transportation Commission. And they have adopted what they call equity priority communities. So they've coalesced a ton of data and identified places in the nine Bay Area counties where equity is an issue. And there's a ton of things that go into that. So they look at things like income, race, age. So seniors can be considered an equity priority community, locations where Spanish is the primary language. So it's places where there's historic, like they're disenfranchised, the investment hasn't really happened in there. Santa Rosa has a ton of equity priority communities. There's a map online that you just type in that phrase, it'll pop up. And I would say the one with like the highest concentration for us is the Roseland area. So that gives you a little bit of an idea of like the type of community we're talking about. So does this correlate well with the Portrait of Sonoma County? You mean in terms of how many we have? No, the areas that are identified. Yeah, it's all over the county. I mean, this isn't a question for your thoughts, so. Okay, yeah. It should, the data that is used to create those areas are same data sources that we use for internal processes and the same that like County would use, same as like County Marin would use. So it should be pretty standardized, but there's always nuance when you have these like regional agencies coming up with these overlays all over. Okay, thank you. So this slide shows you the general scope of work it follows. It's very typical to what we see in any long range plan really right now we're working on task two and task three. So we're doing a ton of existing conditions data and we're also gearing up for a ton of public engagement that I'll talk about in a moment. We have working draft goals and objectives. I'll go over those in a moment. Task five is when we're gonna coalesce tasks one through four and say, here's all of the things that we heard. Here are the proposed project and programs that we can put in place to address those concerns. One thing I think I didn't make super clear is that the goal of this plan is that it's a blueprint for all of the projects and programs we'll implement for the next five or six years. And those are again, active transportation. So sidewalks, bike lanes, access to transit, things like that. One thing I do highlight on this slide is the thing that I'm personally most excited about. It's a little bit unique to the consultant that we have doing this project and it's called active trip potential. So one thing with transportation planning is we can put in infrastructure, right? So that people can walk in bike places but there's also a human behavior component to it. And so this is a exercise that the consultant's gonna go through where they will identify areas in the city where there's a concentration of trips happening by vehicle that we have a higher likelihood of having people transition to walking or biking. So it's usually trips that are a mile or less, right? Cause people don't wanna get super sweaty if they're like biking or walking to their destination. So that's gonna be really interesting because it's gonna be really telling for the relationship between land use like Susie works with and transportation cause obviously they're just, you know they're married to one another. So I'm excited to see that. I think it's gonna be really interesting. This is a slide of our working draft vision and goals. I'm not gonna read this whole slide. I wanna highlight the fact that it says working draft because even though I have all of this information on the slide, even last week, this changed a little bit as we're learning new things about the project and what we wanna have in it. I'll read out the vision. So Santa Rosa is a city where the active transportation network is robust and accessible to the entire community regardless of age and ability to be acceptable for all ages and abilities. The active transportation network will be safe, comfortable, convenient, complete and connected. And then to achieve an accessible active transportation network, Santa Rosa will and then there's a list of criteria and it's things like vision zero. So reducing collisions, making sure that they're safe routes to school, making sure that our system is equitable and it serves everybody, especially those who depend on it and a ton of other items, but they're not very controversial items. It's all things that we want, right? We want kids to be safe. We want the elderly to be able to get to their doctor's appointments, things like that. So as part of this plan, we have, like I said, a really robust approach to community engagement. This is personally my bread and butter before I worked at the city. I was in transportation, but my favorite part of my job was always community engagement because I can't do my job well if I don't know what the community wants, right? I can't, that's just not possible. So we wrote a community engagement plan, which is essentially a roadmap for how we're going to get all the feedback that we need. We're gonna be doing engagement in two phases and right now we're in phase one. We're still pretty early in the process and that phase is discovery. So we're going out to the community and we're saying, where do you currently move around? How is it working for you? How is it not working for you? How can we improve it? And then once we have all that information, we'll move into phase two, where we say, here's everything we heard in phase one. Here's how we propose to address all of those things. Did we get it right? And then we'll make some tweets from there. Throughout the whole community engagement process, so both phases, we have a project webpage that will be live. We have an online interactive map and that is gonna be more focused on phase one. We have meetings with advisory bodies. So obviously I'm here right now. I think this is my fourth or fifth one that I've done and I'm just doing the road show. So I'm going everywhere. And I will be back here, by the way, I should say that. So as I move on, I'll be coming to this committee several times. We're also doing a series of pop-up events. So pop-up events are more informal community engagement where we go where people already are gathering. It's your standard, put up a table, put up an easy up and then you're surveying people. We're gonna do a ton of those. We'll have a more formal public workshop, one in each phase. That's the kind where we invite you to us. We have easels in our room and we have snacks and we'll have free childcare and things like that. And then we're also having stakeholder meetings. So those are where we're personally inviting people that have a vested interest. So it could be like advocacy groups. We have a whole list, it's a pretty long list, but it could also be folks who work at various nonprofits who serve communities that we don't always interact with. This is our branding and logo. I actually, I brought stickers that I turned the logo into, so if you wanna pass them around, I also have cards. I'm gonna leave these with Susie because I know not everyone likes to take cards, but so one thing that's really important about my job and my division is that we have a presence in the community. A ton of our other departments do, right? So like planning and economic development, they're interacting with people all the time through the general plan process or other processes. As I have gotten familiar with my position and public works, I see that our transportation division is not as like in the public as I would personally like us to be. So that's something I'm trying to focus on as much as I can. So when we created a logo for this plan, I made sure that it's not, it doesn't say specifically active transportation plan because that means after I have the plan adopted, I still have this logo that I can use for everything and it's more of a brand for the department. So these stickers I can still be passing out, right? After the plan's adopted. So that's just letting you know why we have that. And I will say we have like about 20% of people who don't understand the logo, so I'm going to explain it. So our tagline is active Santa Rosa. And the reason that we picked that is because the word active is really easily translated into Spanish because it's active, activus.  So that's why the last letter looks different than the other ones. Yeah, it's so funny because like most people get it, but then some people don't and I never know. So I always want to just explain that real quick. Okay, so who's the audience for public engagement? I feel silly having to talk about this because it's everybody, right? There's nobody that we're going to say I don't want to talk to you about the active transportation network in the city of Santa Rosa. That's just not going to happen. But there are certain groups that we need to engage with and we need to make sure that we are. So on the left-hand side, I have a general list of people who we definitely want to talk to. We definitely want to talk to residents of equity priority communities. We definitely want to talk to people who rely on active transportation and also public transportation. Yeah, because walking and biking, you have to get to the station somehow. And then we also want to talk to people who would consider active transportation trips. So people who currently drive, but they would consider not driving if certain situations are true, right? Because if I can easily try to convert a trip, I want to know how I can do that if I'm going to work to do that. There is a fourth bullet. So there are people who will never consider walking or biking. That's going to be true in any community. I still want to talk to those people.  But at the same time, that's not our main focus audience because I want to build infrastructure so that people can use it, right? On the right-hand side of this slide, I have a list of various demographics of folks in the community that I really do want to interact with. Again, this is not exhaustive. There's nobody I don't want to talk to, but I want to be sure that I talk to folks who don't have access to a vehicle or folks who are disabled and maybe can't drive or people in these equity priority communities. Seniors is another big one. Youth is another big one, right?  That's not going to happen. So there's a ton of people that will be communicating throughout the process. And this is my last slide. There's no action to take. I'm just here if you have any questions and I can go ahead and answer those. There is a way that you can help us. We're gearing up for a ton of public outreach which is going to occur in April and May. Are flyers going to be ready in the next week, week and a half? And when we have a really in-depth community engagement plan, so that is going to be just blasted out everywhere. You'll get a copy of it. So the way that you can help is to spread that information. Anytime you hear that there's a public event happening, please let your networks, friends and family, your businesses, whatever it is, let them know that it's happening because I can't make sure the plan's representative of the community if I don't hear from them, right? We do have a project webpage. If you type in Active Transportation Plan, it'll pop up. It should be the first one that you see. And then there's a, if you see on the screen, there's like a blue subscribe button. You can sign up for an email list as well. And you can encourage people to sign up for that. I think that's what I have. Here for questions. Well, thank you for your introduction to the topic. Sounds like you'll be back here again. But I was wondering, is this the time to bring up specific segments potentially that could be included in the plan? Or is that something that would be better covered the next time you're here? Because I have a couple ideas. Yeah, it would be better the next time that I'm here. I certainly take any input at any time. So I would never stop you from doing so. When I'm here next, it will, let me think, it will probably be after the public outreach has wrapped up. And so I can tell you the type of things that we heard and where we think we're going in the plan, like what types of projects and programs we'll see in the plan. So what I hope, and what I'm encouraging everybody to do is for any ideas you have of where improvements should happen, I would really like for those folks to participate either in a public, like come to one of our popups or our workshop, or there's gonna be an online interactive survey where you can like zoom into a map and you can put an icon and say, here's what my issue is here, or there's also in the map an ability to draw a route as well. So there's a couple of things that you can do in the mapping. All of those comments will become public record in the document itself. And that will be what we use to come up with the projects and programs. Yeah. Any questions or anything? Anybody else? Carol. Are you gonna have a popup at Earth Day? Yes, that is actually gonna be our launch. Perfect. Social media, I know there's positives and negatives, but asking or correct to share it, asking waterways and asking us and other people, I don't have a ton of followers, not as many as some people I know, but to share it, it's free that people engaged and get different Sydney groups, a city agencies that may have a social media presence to help you and see what Earth Day. Yeah, yeah, that'd be great. And Wednesday night markets, I assume as well. Yeah, we're gonna do the one, the public works week one, so May 22nd, I think. And there's a ton of other events, we're gonna be at Cinco de Mayo, we're gonna be at the Pride Parade, we're gonna be at, there's other specific planned events that we're gonna be at, but then I'm also working with a ton of nonprofits right now to go to events that they already have. So there's a speaker series with the Common Ground Society, there's Earl Baum Center for the Blind, there's a ton of other places where I'm setting up some more like focused trying to reach out with people. All right, yeah, well, quick on two things, but Earth Day is Monday the 22nd or when are we celebrating here in the city? Celebrating on April 20th, and it's at Courthouse Square from 12 to four. Yes. And then Terry brought up the Canary earlier and that's right associated, I think they're called PDAs with the smart train. Are you coordinating with SMART about working backwards from SMART into the city and where issues might be with the people or are you? With everybody, yeah. Anyone who's willing to listen to us for coordinating with, so yeah. So if you're smart, you're absolutely smart. Yeah, we work also with the city bus program, Sonoma County Transit, Sonoma County Transportation Authority with the county regarding their county campus and connection there, things like that. Okay, great. We have a long list, there's a ton of people. Okay, great, thank you. Terry, let's have a question on your second to last line. It's just who is the audience? Yeah. And I guess what I'm wondering is if you're looking for an audience to share what, I mean like I'm putting in a bike, and I'm putting in whatever it may be that you're working on. When you're meeting with this, who is the audience, you're sharing what? That depends on the phase of outreach. So in this first phase, I'm going to them and I'm pretty much kind of saying what I said to you is here's what my role is, here's what the city's responsibility is in maintaining this network and how can I help you? That's the first phase. It's asking people, what trips do you take? Where do you go? Are there gaps in the sidewalk? Are there, is there a bike facility where you need to get to the grocery store but the bike facility drops and then all of a sudden you're in the lane of traffic or I wanna know places where somebody is riding along on their bike and they feel unsafe so they take a detour. I also wanna know those things because then I think why are we taking the detour? What's going wrong here? Then I'm gonna take all of that information plus the existing conditions that the consultant is creating and I'm gonna say here are all of the projects and programs that I think are going to address these issues that we heard and then we're going back again. So we're gonna say here's that list, here's what we heard and what we think we're gonna do to address it and then that's where we ask, did we get it right?  If I did X, Y, Z would you send your kids on that and then see where that gets us and we'll do some tweaks at that point. Sure, and I guess my last question is it says that you're gonna be general characteristics, residents of equity priority communities, right? There's also non-equity priority communities that also use bikes and also would like to have that sort of interface. So that's also going there as well, right? Absolutely. So we want to speak with everybody. The reason that we have an emphasis on equity priority communities, there's a couple of reasons. One is historical just disenfranchising. So, transportation and other investments don't always happen in low income neighborhoods especially in Rosem, there's kind of an iffy thing because it wasn't our land for so long and we inherited this and I wasn't here for that so I don't know how that whole process went through but so there's a lot of things that need to happen specifically there. Another reason that we focus on them is because there's like historical mistrust of city government and for really valid reasons too. And so we for so many years haven't really heard from that community because either we're not there or if we are there they don't really want to talk with us all the time. And so we need to through these plans make sure that we are very pointed to make sure that we're out there because if we don't get those voices we can't know what that we need to do. On that subject, I was on the Rosalina Anastasia Steering Committee and the city hired a consultant for the outreach and one of the things and I don't know what you guys are planning but it'd be good. I recommend that you go back and look what they did. One of the things was they in consideration of childcare issues and people working they had where they set up for the meetings they had childcare available and then there were meals. And so they were like a potluck or some type of meals so people weren't missing their dinner or weren't not able to feed their families and that it wasn't like they piled in from Rosalina but we thought it might have helped and you have just an idea. Yeah, they just did that for the general plan update too. There was a workshop that was Spanish first it was all Spanish and then people wanted English translations and that would be available there and there was always tacos and there was childcare and I helped with some of those workshops and I saw that too that people were much more likely to attend. So we're gonna do those things and then another one is also at the general plan workshops they offered a one day free bus pass for people who attended so if somebody has to ride the bus to that location they got a free bus pass which they could use I think you could redeem it at any time really so just same day or next day and I think that was also something that was successful so we're doing that again. There were a lot of components I remember going to one there were like games there were coloring books up in English and Spanish I don't know what your budget is but they threw literally overwhelming amount of stuff on the wall to see who would engage from which approach. Yeah, totally. That's a really interesting thing is like how to get people into your booth. We don't have a crazy budget, we'll have the stickers we're getting pencils we're getting little stress balls that all have the logo on it. And then I was thinking one thing that I've learned through engagement that I do is that if you can like trap the kids for a second and keep them interested the parents have to stay, right? Because parents won't engage if they're kids just like one and a month. And so we don't have official coloring books but I can easily go into a word and I was thinking I'd create something like draw what you think of when you think of biking and walking and then see if I can get some kids to draw some pictures and that'd be just super cool for public works to have, right?  On that note, get it out to the elementary schools and that's a school project. I think some of the outreach for the stationery it was done at schools. Yes, we have a good resource. Yeah, we have the Santa Rosa Bicycle Coalition or sorry, Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition they have a arm that does safe routes to school and we work quite a bit with them. And so we plan to send all of our materials to them to distribute to all of the schools gets kind of iffy because once it gets to the school you're relying on the principal or whoever that contact is to then distribute because we don't have like a roster of every parent email. So it's interesting. Yeah, but that's a good point. I think this is great. Kevin, you had a question. Yes, like Steve, I have lots of ideas and I do a lot of biking around town. So a lot of those detours you're talking about I use those and I would love to give that feedback. I mean, I do so now and where do I go to provide some of those comments right away? Yeah, you can do so now I can write them down. I saw my card went around you can always contact me at any time you can send an email. And so I think what I encourage people to do is if you have comments especially in the body like this to repeat your comments later too. So I can certainly take them down at any time right now email later on. But when we have the survey out or when we're doing these pop up events or these workshops also coming to one of those because also the more we hear the same comment the more we realize, oh, that's really important. So if one community member says this is a detour I sometimes take it's like, okay, well we can think about that. But if 100 people over here are saying I need this intersection to be better we're like, oh, okay, we need to look at that intersection now. So also repeating is always helpful. Okay, good. Well, I think one of the main priorities for me and I ride the creek trails a lot and the creek trails are for the most part, excellent. And I come from the Southwest right through Roseland. It's the connectivity between those creek trails you know, north-south it's the north-south routes because I'll ride Colgan Creek or Roseland Creek as far as I can. And then I'm trying to get up to Joe or go to trail and that is always the dicey part, especially now because it's hard to access Joe or Dota in Roseland, it's mostly fenced off around. It stops at Sebastopol Road, right? And then you have to kind of work away. You kind of, yeah, getting from Sebastopol Road to Joe or Dota, it's often, most of the stretches are fenced off there are some streets to the cross now but around Mitote and that new Poppy Bank building that, you know, that's all fenced off. Anyway, just in general, I think it's that those north-south. I loved what you said about the low stress because it's hard to find a low stress route to cross from Roseland Creek up to Santa Rosa Creek without going on Stony Point where people are sometimes driving 70 through the middle of town. So I love that. I love all the direction in which you're going sounds great to me and especially looping in the car drivers because I've had several incidents where the animosity between cars and bikes has been a little threatening to me. I also think as much as the cars need to be considered bikers need to be considered as I was driving here this morning I saw two bikes come to the end of a long stream of cars waiting to turn left come around, stop in front of the cars and so they were going to block that whole lane of traffic while they turn left which is understandable as you're vulnerable on a bike. It's also not particularly courteous to the cars. And so as we develop more of a bike and walking culture I think dealing with those kinds of things is a great idea. So I appreciate that. As a short start. I'm sorry. I would, we've mentioned the general plan a couple of times, particularly looking at events and how the success is there. I would really love to see the act of transportation plan explicitly reference and the updated general plan. So that people, whether the average Santa Rosen is probably not going to read these things but people like I would like to see it. I'd like to know. And I'm sure there are others who would like to see that. So the 2035 general plan references the 2018 plan because every time we update this plan I'm talking about you have to do a general plan amendment to make sure that it's reflected. So it'll be, you know. Back and forth. Yeah. It's funny that the general plan update is happening at the same time we're doing another plan. So like everything just moves at the same time. Right. But it obviously would be best if the new act of transportation plan was aligned with and really aiming for the same goals as the new general plan. Yes, definitely. And we could see that. Thank you. I just wanted to say you used the word detours, addressing detours. Another way to look at it is detours are a joy. On my bicycle I always take the detours and I've been riding in cars with bicyclists and why are we going this way? Oh, this is the way I ride my bike and that's the way I get around Santa Rosa and it takes you to the cool places. I don't wanna get on my bicycle from point A to point B the fastest. This is part of the joy of life and please consider that and sharing that with people. It's a transition from a bicycle path to that detour. That's the real challenge and signage at that point would be really helpful. So I wanna just make a couple of comments. I don't wanna get too specific, I could. But our role in many respects is dealing with not only the creeks but the transportation system obviously because we are probably the biggest and most significant source of off-street bicycle transportation and pedestrian transportation. So we play a critical role.  But also there's the citywide Creek Master Plan which has what segments we are pursuing when we review projects, for example, we not only review the location of development but we look at what bike or pedestrian facilities are indicated on the plan and then those become part of our recommendation. So that's a document that I assume is in the citywide general plan but it's there somewhere. And so Kevin mentioned a word that I think is really critical for our perspective on its connectivity and access to the creek paths and to the other paths off-street. And that I think is an opportunity that has not really been fully realized. And one of those is that there are many channelized creeks particularly in the western part of our city that are not connected to each other primarily because there are trails there, water agency trails, maintenance trails but to get across Gernbill Road or to get across College Avenue, not easy. And I will just say dangerous. So we really need to look at connectivity regarding how we access, how we create a citywide bike path system. And it has not really been done. And I brought this up, I don't know how many years ago but it is tough to make sure that you have safe crossings on those major streets. The other is the opportunity to South East Greenway is going to give us because that's going to go across Franquette and Yolupa and Summerfield roads and connectivity between the Prince Memorial Greenway and which is really a crossroads when you think about it getting out to the Redota Trail getting out Santa Rosa Creek Trail connecting to the smart bike path system. So all of this is one system as you know and that connectivity is just at the moment it's I think it's a challenge but it's something we really need to do if we really want to get people off their cars. I'll just leave it at that. I think you know everything I just said but I'll just say it, hope you follow up with all that. It's so funny because like there are, it's a huge city that we have, right? We have so many people that live in it and we have a ton of projects. And so with like almost every suggestion you're making I'm thinking, oh, we have this project and this project that's what we're about to pursue and we applied for this grant. So one good example is there's a US Department of Transportation grant that was for three years of technical assistance and we applied, we heard a month ago that we're in the final stages, we advanced but I haven't heard yet if we got it but it would be three years of technical assistance to help us figure out the most low stress way to connect Principal Memorial Greenway with the future Southeast Greenway site. And it might be through Creek trails it might also be through using like neighborhoods or arterials or we don't know what it is but we want that technical assistance to figure out what's gonna be cost effective not crazy with the environment but also as low stress and comfortable for people to use. Did you say to shut the grant or you're applying? We heard that, so I already replied we heard that we had advanced to the final stages but we have not gotten the answer yet. And this is for what agency? Department of Transportation? Yes. Great news. Yeah. Thank you. So there's a ton of stuff and then over here you had mentioned that lack of connectivity with Joe Radota where Fulton comes down and Highway 12 is there's on April 17th there's gonna be a workshop because right now we have a consultant working on a feasibility study to improve the intersection of Highway 12 and Fulton and it's partially for vehicles because having a stopped intersection on a highway is extremely dangerous and we have collisions there but a large component of that project is how to increase bike ped safety and it's both the North-South but then it's also connecting Joe Radota and that actually is actively happening right now. So there is a workshop on April 17th at South Wright Charter School. It's in the evening. If you Google Santa Rosa Feasibility Study Highway 12 Fulton, that webpage will pop up for you. So that is actually a really great opportunity if you're interested in that connection of Joe Radota and North-South bike-ped connections to come and look at what some of the options are and provide feedback. I'd love if anyone's available to attend that. I'll be there. Very good. Thank you. Kevin? Along those lines, you mentioned more guidelines from the state and federal governments. How about money from those companies to accompany those additional guidelines? Is it there? It's there but it's extremely competitive. So we have a ton of grants that we get and all our departments get a ton of grants but unfortunately like the city budget is what it is. And so we really rely on grants to finish projects. And so there's two main issues with getting projects out and how slow they are and it's money and it's staff time. And that's, yeah. I got you. Yeah. Yeah. So a couple of things. First of all, a couple of you were asking about moving your car. I don't know if you want to do that. It's time. It might be the moment. If you want to slip out, we could take a brief recess. Or we have ultimate confidence in Susan. I said I'd stay on beat. I'd say I could be on as good as you did earlier. I'd like to set after. But we are at the, maybe at the tail end of this. I don't know, should we just, are there any concluding comments? Should I ask that? We have a couple of minutes before I think you're at risk. That's really good for me. I appreciate it. Yes. Likewise. Are we okay? Can I get some more stickers to pass out? Yeah, okay, here we go. I have some. Yeah. I will also be coming to Planning Commission on the 11th. So I'll bring some there too. Okay. Yeah. Mark, can you pass her business cards down? We look forward to your return. Yeah. So thank you very much. Yeah, really good show. Thank you. Yeah. See you right back. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. I've got so many. Yes. It's amazing how fast they go. Yeah, I'm proud of that. I didn't even realize I needed them until going to work. I was stopping every day. I just want to take five. Okay, yeah, just the same. Five or a kind of set of videos. Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna hang up. The other ones will miss the next item. I don't believe I asked if there was any public comment on the last item. There is anyone. This would be the moment. We're gonna move ahead to the FEMA Flood Risk Mapping Project, part of the meeting. So, I know we have Claire and Gabe here today. Is that true? If whoever is here, please just introduce yourselves. I guess you do that. It's just for us to make sure that there are you and one of you guys can get their presentation up in. So that was truly meaningful. So I'm gonna send out this line. Yours should be in there, but I wouldn't put it into you. I thought that was a footer. It's a sit-in, I don't think. It's not even, it's just a watershed. That's a watershed, but this part of here is apparently. Are you? It's a watershed. Yeah, and then you should be able to use your arrows to click here. I think so. And there's some light. That's kind of good. So like if you're gonna send it out, you're gonna have more to mount. Yeah, so that might have to do a lot of work. Okay, I have people coming. Thanks for having us. Good morning, Sheriff Inouyez, I'm in the committee. You know me, I think at this point Claire Myers, stormwater and creeks manager, I'm joined today by Gabe Osborn, Director of Planning and Economic Development, which I just learned. I think he said this is your first time at Waterway for president. First time in my 27 years. Yeah, it's one of new minutes for me, but. Yeah, so we're excited to be here today to speak about a topic that, you know, not be more relevant for the city's waterways. We're here today to discuss FEMA's flood risk mapping project for the Santa Rosa Creek watershed. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, as we all know it, is responsible for mapping our country's flood risk and for helping communities develop strategies for improving resilience in the face of flooding. So FEMA has identified the Santa Rosa Creek watershed in need of a map update. So today we'll provide an overview of, you know, what this project is, as well as the project benefits and impacts. We will also go over FEMA's project timeline and how our teams are working together, you know, the stormwater and creeks team planning and economic development. And then we have Katie of Sakura over here from Communications and Intergovernmental Relations, how our teams are really working together to ensure a really comprehensive public outreach. We'll start by explaining the foundation of this project and really, you know, number one, what is flood mapping? This group might have more of a context for this, but most of the folks in the community do not. So we like to start here, you know, and really basically it's FEMA's maps that show the risk of flooding within a given watershed and areas that have a high likelihood of flooding. More technically, FEMA is using model data to identify flood hazard areas that have a 1% risk of flooding in any given year. You sometimes hear it referred to as a 100-year flood. It doesn't mean it only happens once every 100 years. It just means it has a 1% risk of happening in any given year. So what defines a flood? One inch, 12 inches at my house, what defines a flood? I think, I mean, a flood is really anything that reaches your house. You mean like to be within the flood plain? Well, I mean, for FEMA to say you have a chance, a 1% chance of flooding, then what is a flood? And because this is something that affects, you know, people's mortgages, insurance and everything else like that.  Is it defined? It has to do with whether it reaches your property line and then also whether or not it touches structures within your property. Okay. I think you probably know a little bit more about this than I do. And it's also whether or not insurance is required. And we'll talk a little bit more about this. You know, it's also sometimes up to the insurance company, you know, of whether it's how close the floodwaters get to your actual structure. But what the FEMA's flood map does is it shows whether or not a given property or parcel, whether the 100 year floodwaters will touch that parcel. Okay. So let's see, flood maps, like I was saying, it identifies flood risk on a parcel by parcel basis. These areas, you'll hear the term, they're designated as a special flood hazard area. And then for this specific project, FEMA is just doing the center as a creek watershed. You can see the boundaries of this watershed in the purple line on your map. So this includes Santa Rosa Creek and then all its key tributaries, which encompass most of the city of Santa Rosa. That's the gray, you can see the city boundaries in gray, as well as some significant areas in Sonoma County. So the next question is why is it important? And really, you know, in order for the city and property owners and for renters to make decisions on how to best mitigate risk they need to know what their risk is. So mapping areas of high flood risk, can help community members make decisions about things like land use, purchasing insurance, in case there is a flood. And then within the city, helping us decide what kinds of capital improvement projects are needed to get the water back in the creeks and not flooding the city, yeah. Another question. So is there, I mean, I'm looking at Rosalind, our priority equity community area. If you guys have a brochure like this, I cover stat, which would be originally, I guess from Colgan Creek, I don't know. Yeah, you know, we don't have a brochure because FEMA hasn't updated the Rosalind or Colgan creeks in my time since being at this city. Okay. You know, they do it creek by creek. The most recent one was Mark West, which only touched about five parcels at the top of the city. A few years ago, they did Todd Creek, which covered, you know, significant areas. I think that's kind of outside of the city, mostly. Yeah, Todd Creek, again, it's like one. And so I know FEMA does have flood maps for the Rosalind area, but this, their project right now is only for the Santa Rosa watershed. Okay, thank you. So why are they doing it now? That's a good segue. And why is FEMA doing this now? And it's because flood risks change over time and better and new data becomes available. So when new flood risks are identified or new data, FEMA will start the process of updating a flood map in a given area. There's no set timeline for when they have to update a flood map. And they usually just do it when more accurate engineering information becomes available, either through a FEMA funded re-study or when a community makes new information available to them. So Director Osburn now can, we can move into discussing some of the project impacts and also the benefits. Thank you, Claire. As mentioned, my name is Gabe Osburn. We're planning an economic development department. I've not been in front of the waterways. It's great to make the connections and have a conversation and we really appreciate any feedback provided as part of this process. So as a project of this nature, there's always impacts and benefits. In this particular case, when the flood maps are generated, what really FEMA looks at is the elevation of the water level in the creek. And as it rises, it exits the bank. And it's going to hover at a certain elevation and move outside of that bank at that same elevation. So they determine, I think this is similar to the question that was presented, they determined the extent of how far that water will reach out. Not necessarily the level and the depth of the water when it reaches out, just the extent. And then they define what they refer to as a special flood hazard area. So if a structure or a property falls into that boundary, they are in that hazard area. And what that means are really two issues for property owners. The first is an insurance issue. So if you have a loan and a lender is in the mix, you likely will be required through that lender to have flood insurance. If it's a government back loan, it's a guarantee. If it's not, it's a lender to lender requirement. But generally lenders will protect that interest and require flood insurance. If you do not have a loan on the property, it's option. For renters, it's option. So these are some of the educational components we go through is to let people understand the benefits of insurance and what the cost is and connect them to the appropriate resources. From a building standpoint, when we have vacant lots or structures that are in that area, one of the common building requirements is what's referred to as raising the finished floor of elevation above the flood level. Very common form of construction you see out at the river or on the East Coast when you still properties are raised them up. They're taking the finished floor above that potential flood level. So that's a very common building code requirement. Also when large developments come in where you had vacant land and now you're putting a large structure in that vacant land where it's displacing the water and essentially pushing the water potentially further out and affecting other properties, developments have to go through a hydraulic study to determine the extent of that. So there's additional study requirements that go through when you're in a flood plain. Some jurisdictions actually restrict development in those areas, city center of the dozen. There's just more string of requirements about how that development moves forward. There's also temporary and ongoing impacts to staff. Obviously because of the additional building requirements, there's more time that goes into the review of those applications. Next slide, please. So in addition to the impacts, there's also benefits. The main benefit is it lets the community better understand the risk. For many of us that are fortunate enough to purchase a home in Sonoma County, it's one of the biggest investments we can make. This puts people in a position where they can make the best decisions about protecting that investment. It's also about where to live. People assess risks and they can determine from a runner standpoint if they want to be in that area and they can go in upfront knowing what the potential risk is. It also really helps us from a capital project standpoint. Once we understand the extent of flooding and watering exiting the bank in a perfect world, you would never want that. So how do you form capital projects around those mitigation measures in the future to keep that water contained in those waterways? Next slide, please. At this point, I'll hand it back to Claire to discuss the timeline. So the FEMA flood risk mapping is a multi-step, multi-year process that includes FEMA coordinating with local officials and technical staff and members of the public as well. So maybe I will walk you through each of FEMA's steps and their timeline. And I wanted to note too, it's important to know that throughout this process, the city also is communicating with a large number of groups and stakeholders, including FEMA and local officials, our regional partners, and especially our impacted community members. To help our community members navigate FEMA's process, our teams work together with KDC communications to develop a really comprehensive outreach plan. To help folks understand what's going on, I think our goal is by the end of this process, anybody whose property is affected by the flood map knows well in advance before being informed by their mortgage lender. And they have the opportunity to understand what's happening to provide input into the process, to provide any concerns they have about the technicality of the studies that went into it. So much like Tarina was telling you about her roadshow, we are on a parallel roadshow. I was laughing, we were in the same room last night together, we'll be together next week. We're really starting with hitting all of the different community groups and agencies right now. And then in the coming years, as we talk more about FEMA's process, we'll be getting into workshops with members of the public having FEMA workshops, just making sure that everybody who's impacted by this has the opportunity to ask any questions and have the best available information. So, phase one of FEMA's process, they call discovery. They're just wrapping up this phase, literally this week. And this is a phase where FEMA gathers local flood data and information from the community and institutional knowledge that we have, the city, Sonoma Water, Sonoma County. So they do this in close coordination with the community to really prioritize their mapping and risk assessment. And then also for mitigation and planning assistance in the future. So as I said, the city, Sonoma Water and the County of Sonoma have been working together closely with FEMA to get them the data from the recently completed Santa Rosa Creek flood study. And then FEMA will use that data along with their own data in their analysis, which brings us to the second part of FEMA's phase two, analysis and mapping. We have just entered this step of their process. And this is really the part of the phase where the phase where FEMA is using information they gathered from the city, combining it with their own data to develop what they call preliminary flood maps. These are not the final flood maps. These are their first attempt at what they think the extent of the flood plain will be. For again, for the Santa Rosa Creek watershed. The analysis and mapping phase is estimated to take about a year. So we anticipate either the spring or the summer of 2025 for them to release their preliminary maps. That takes us to phase three, which Gabe will go over. So really the first step when we see the maps is a preliminary map release that is given to the local jurisdictions. So we will have the opportunity as the city center rows are reviewed, Sonoma Water comments are communicated as part of that process. Ultimately it results in a draft map that's released to the public. And at that point, FEMA runs really point on the community meetings with the city participating in that process to let individuals know that these maps are coming. An important piece to that is actually an appeal process for this. As you can imagine, a project of this nature isn't doing a site by site analysis of every single parcel to determine the uniqueness that may result in that map moving or not. So they actually have an amendment process that's part of their appeal where a property owner can submit essentially an alternate analysis saying that there are unique items to their parcel that would cause FEMA to rethink where the flood waters go. That could be that the elevation of the home is different, it's been raised, there can be a variety of different pieces. It's a very technical analysis and it often does require the services of a licensed engineer to compare that. So as part of this process, we want to be sure that we're communicating with members of the public correctly so they understand that that 90 day window, you really have to prepare for that upfront on the very end to get the appropriate resources in place to do that. We're anticipating that the preliminary maps are released in summer of 2025. Okay. Could a property owner see this coming and get detailed information about if you do this to your property, then this will infect you. They can mitigate basically. Does it give them an opportunity to mitigate before? It becomes an official map. And they could, and I'll talk about it a little bit. There's actually a way, once it becomes an official map that you can actually mitigate after the fact too. So basically what it boils down to in this particular appeal process, since it's such a short window, you're likely attempting to convince FEMA that their findings are incorrect. So you're challenging your data. Once the map is generated, and we'll talk about this in the next slide, there isn't a map amendment process. And I'll just touch on that now. So what happens once that map goes into place, that there can be a variety of different things that cause those flood of waters to change. One of the bigger being that there was a larger capital project that took place in the area that kept that water in the bank. It could be that development takes place and they raise the site. So they do more of an onsite mitigation. You can submit for a map amendment. FEMA will review that to say, okay, you've done these things and that's resulted in this changing and they will amend the map as part of that process. So after the preliminary maps, we get a letter of final determination. This is when the maps really go final. There's also an effective date that goes along without the new flood maps. The maps are available through FEMA's website. They are running point on this. We're really directing people to that. Community members, like I said, can amend the map during this process or for the life of the map. That's an important piece. So we'll educate individuals on what that process looks like as well. So the flood map adoption is anticipated and I know it's a fairly wide window at this point and we'll neck this down as the process evolves but we're anticipating spring of 2026 to spring of 2027 after the final map supports. You won't be able to advance the slide. It's going to be an issue with the start. The community has died. Slide's not changing. No, it's black. Died. Good dive. Do you have a look at that? No, we're not in the talk. Well, we can talk, let's just see. Oh, we're going to come up here. I'm following you. So you just blocked out. Maybe I can, if you can elevate me to a panelist. Oh, you are. I should be here too. Can you finish it? Yeah, go ahead. Oh, okay. Which I mostly talked about communications. I could talk a little bit more about. I think is that. I should be able to do it. Almost the last slide and we can talk a little bit more about communications. We have a slide that you will get up there. We have FEMA really takes the lead. This is their map update. And it's our duty as the city of Santa Rosa to make sure that the members of our community know about this, but really it's making those linkages between FEMA and us. So we have a slide with a number of the contact information for the different areas within FEMA. If you have questions about the study, if you have questions about insurance, we have developed a website for the city of Santa Rosa that has much of the information you have in your brochure, but along with a pretty extensive FAQ, I'm a renter. What does this mean for me? Was climate change included in this? Anything that we could think of that a community member might want to know, do I have to have insurance? Will I be able to find the insurance? And so that is available. We can share that with you as well. But yeah, there's a lot of resources both within FEMA and within this city that we're making available to the members of our community. That was about it. Does that mean anything? Yeah, the only thing I will add is at this point, obviously, their communication is very high level. We don't know what the maps look like. Once we start understanding what the maps look like, it's more targeted focus on the individuals that are actually affected and then we have a more defined audience. So it really is understanding how our audience will evolve through this process and making sure that we're giving them the appropriate resources and the appropriate attention to make decisions, to get in touch with flood insurance programs. I know insurance is a big issue in the state of California right now, and that's probably some of the major feedback that we'll receive is how did they obtain it, what happens if they can't afford it. All of these things will come into that equation and we'll do our best to make sure that we're informing people and correcting them, connecting them, excuse me, to the appropriate resources. So this is the slide you were discussing. Exactly. So you can see the srcity.org forward slash FEMA flood mapping is the city's website. There's a link on there too to be notified, again, the list to be notified about future communication. And then you can see on the website, FEMA's phone number, their email, their website. And I will add, they have been really great partners in the last year or so communicating with them about data. They're really forward thinking and volunteered to come out and be at the meetings. So it's been really nice to see that. Great. You had a question. Yeah, on the 90 day public comment period, I know the city and the county have properties within here and probably state and federal also, is that their process also to make comments and or is there a different way those agents, as those governments are going to be able to interface with FEMA? You know, they're actually, even prior to the 90 day public comment period, typically FEMA will reach out to the city and the county and some water to confirm their, give them a chance to look at the data. So we do, we have done this, just because we've been working with them so closely, during the discovery phase. I don't anticipate too many comments from the city, but we definitely do have that opportunity as well. Okay. Come on. Thanks for the presentation. This has been really interesting. And it makes me more interested in that Santa Rosa Creek blood study. I see Claire, you're the contact on the website. Can we see that flood study online? You can. Well, you can see on the website, we have put links or we will be putting links, I'm not sure if they're yet. I don't see it here, but. Okay. So then they're coming. So we have been submitting the data from the flood study to FEMA and bundles over the course of three phases, basically to make sure, first we did the hydrology, which is looking at the storms and how much water is coming and where is it coming. Had them look at that first to make sure that our methodology was sound. Then we submitted hydraulics, which is what are the shapes of the creeks? What is the ground? What's the topography? Where is the water really gonna go? And then just this week, we are submitting the final stage, which is all of the data. So the hydraulics and the hydrology reports will be put on that website. So the numbers of the public can see and within those they'll be maps that show what our flood study shows as the inundation extents. But we wanna be really clear that those are our models that we have and FEMA's flood maps won't match those exactly because they're doing their own analysis. We don't expect tremendous diversions, but we just wanna be clear that the public doesn't look at that. And think this is exactly what the boundary is because they will change. Well, that leads to my other question, which is looking at that flood study, is the city anticipating at this point any major capital infrastructure projects that are gonna be needed to mitigate the risk? And can you give us like a thumbnail sketch in a minute of where those might take place? Yeah, yes, and we are. And we already have conversations that are happening with the Army Corps and looking at funding because this is gonna impact a lot of individuals. It's pretty unusual for a flood map to come into an area that's so developed. A lot of these areas haven't been mapped before. And so typically you wanna develop flood map prior to development so that you keep development out of it. So it's really too important to us. I think one of the areas that we see the most flooding is actually downtown because the flood study has really highlighted the inadequacy of the East street culverts to accommodate a storm of that magnitude. And so the water is jumping the banks as it hits the culverts at East street here. And we're seeing flooding where we are in city hall. A lot of the flooding is on the south side of the creek going down into the Burbank area. And the highest in the city is down near Spinster Sisters where the freeway where 12 and one effectively acts as like a berm and keeps the floodwaters there. And so that's one of the major projects that we are anticipating meetings. How are we gonna deal with that? That's helpful. Are there any discussions in that context of the whole idea of daylighting the creek and through city hall? There's a lot of discussions. Okay. Yeah, you know, that's something, I know my team is very interested in, you know, and... So are we? Yeah, from a flood mitigation standpoint, you know, it's like we got that language into the general plan update, you know, the importance of daylighting. And so that's something that we're looking at and we're looking at, like I said, with the Army Corps. And then also Sonoma Water, who's been a really important partner and, you know, co-funded the flood study, they are actually in the process right now of doing a hydraulic analysis of what it would look like because the culverts of their infrastructure, they're not actually the city's infrastructure, they're part of the Central Sonoma Watershed Project and Sonoma Water did them. So they are doing a hydraulic analysis to look at what would happen if they removed the culverts, you know, what would the downstream impacts be? Would there be more flooding downstream? And how, you know, how would that impact in the bigger sense? And so it's something that we're in close communication with them about this. Great. Thanks. And Clive, just to note, those, the Central Sonoma Watershed Project is listed in the timeline along with the hydrology and hydrology support. So great. Great. Thank you. All right, oh, good. Are there other questions anyone has? Thank you. Very informative. Yeah. Yeah, I'm very good. We learned a lot today. Yeah. This is great. Any questions, comments by the audience? It might be. Thank you. So unless there are other questions, comments, suggestions, I will close this meeting adjourned for the day. And yeah, go right ahead, go right ahead. Thank you. I just adjourned it because I'd go ahead. I'm sorry. Huh? I was wondering at our next meeting or two, we could get some updates on projects we've reviewed in the last couple of years to see their progress. I'm thinking specifically of the, not any more apartments out on Highway 12, close to mission, the storage unit buildings. Interested in that one. Also interested in the Brookwood Medical Center project, anything that involves planting and pedestrian access, not so much the cell towers, although the cell towers may be of more interest to the neighborhoods that they're close by, which might also be of value to us to hear about. And the other thing is I still look fondly back at the Colgan Creek field trip we took. And the woman on her, I don't know if she was on foot or a bicycle, but went to Steve Brady and said, I need more poop bags. It's like, whoa, there's a volunteer out here. The volunteer network that exists for the Creekway specifically, I don't know if there's an overview on that, but to hear about the different creeks that are supported by volunteers and how the city can support these volunteer efforts more across the board, especially with Prince Memorial Greenway being active and South East Greenway coming on board. And it also has creeks. How do we foster the sense of community volunteerism and the city's ability to facilitate and coordinate these efforts? Any good points there? Yeah, thank you for adding that. Yeah, maybe we could talk about how to do that, but that is an important component of what we're trying to accomplish. Do you have any questions about that, so it'd be difficult? I've already handed it off to Claire. We have a lot of metrics. We track everything, whether we know the number of volunteers or the number of hours because there's students involved. And so we actually have a report so we can go back and maybe get Kyle's phone work, who is the city, the CSB, what that stands for, the Creek Stewardship Program Coordinator. And we can give you all the details about that. So that would be great. There's also the interface with Parks Department too, because of legal ambiguity, I guess you'd say, in the Principal Memorial Greenway area between land owned by the city, land owned by Hyatt and so on. So that is a topic of concern. So thank you for your presentation. I think we're up for the month and we may have a meeting in April or May. And I think it's almost definite for April. Okay. And I'll try and get some updates. Yeah, I'll get some updates for you on these projects when we come back. Great. And I will not be at the April meeting and if there's a May one, I have to miss that as well. So Art will be taking my place here as chair for those meetings. Recalling on you. Okay. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. See you soon. I won't do the rest of the day. Try.


So, this actually isn't the worst place to be during a lightning storm. As long as you're inside and the windows are up. Not safe? Golf carts, convertibles, gazebos, porches, open sports arenas, or natural overhangs like cliffs. And though 9 out of 10 people survived it, getting struck isn't as rare as you think. More likely than dying in a plane crash. And it's getting more common with climate change. So get inside, and once you're there, stay away from all plugged in electronics and water. Yup, mom's right, lightning can get to you in the shower through the pipes. And if you are stuck outside, separate from others and stay away from open water, open spaces, anything metal or tall structures like utility poles or trees.


Tell us about the top three campaigns that have really worked for you and have been Dreamstrips. Okay, so I don't know if I have had Dreamstrips but I would love to, unfortunately, to make a Dream film. The first most, I think, film which I really, you know, put a look back, I really enjoyed making and I think it did very well as well with the NS Cafe stand-up, I think initially, when the script came to me, it had a celebrity in it. So, for first, the client was great, Pratik from Mechan at that time, Madhavaj, he was a great team. So, we irated a lot and we changed the script to what the film eventually became. I think it had a bright blend of storytelling, humor, emotion and I think the film did really well for the brand as well. So, I think that's probably my, if I have to go back, if I am most familiar with films. There's another film which was great fun, the film was the Imperial Blue Men. I think it was a film where this husband comes looking for a ring because of the strong anniversary and the salesman kind of recommends a bigger diamond because, you know, but it's all looks and it's all discussing diamonds. The subliminal story was, you know, not saying what you would get it. So, I think on a brand-like Imperial Blue, such great storytelling and I think we came up with that guzzle, Ajay Kilal wrote it and Amar composed the melody and the guzzles were hit because they were still using the track, I don't know, 12 years later. So, that's a film which I really enjoyed making as well. And there's another film which I don't know if people remember it. It's a much smaller film but one flows to my heart because this is for Vodafone. It was when Vodafone used to get SMSs with, you know, life messages and stuff like that. So, it was a campaign, I think, Rajiv Brava at that time, a movie, I wrote it in the campaign. It was a single shot film where his wife comes in, she comes in very angry and she comes in, my husband peeks up in front of my husband, his husband is reading my paper. And then she keeps throwing a cushion hat in anger and then he keeps giving it back. And she keeps throwing it till she gets tired and then she sits down and suggests that they can have a conversation. So, basically, a calm mind can face whatever's wrong. But that film was great because no dialogue, single take and super performances. And I think we had shot a film with a lot of cuts and Rajiv came and said, should we just try a single take? And I think we just did it in the last 10 minutes and then that was the film. And it's one of my closest. So, I wouldn't say it was one of those big films that people would look back after years but it's a film which is close to my heart. But then there are so many films, it's tough to pick a favourite one. Top of the mind, these are three films.


This image captures a 220 by 110 light-years portion of our galaxy's bulge. It contains over 180,000 stars. A survey team is analyzing these stars to see how old they are. The question at hand is did the stars within the bulge form early in our galaxy's history 10 to 12 billion years ago, or did they build up over time through multiple episodes of star formation? Some studies have found evidence for at least two star-forming bursts, leading to stellar populations as old as 10 billion years, or as young as 3 billion years. Now, a comprehensive new study of millions of stars found that most stars within 1,000 light-years of the Milky Way center formed 10 billion years ago. But the study is not conclusive. The James Webb Space Telescope will be used to help find the answers to this question.