that's definitely something that we're thinking about. And I think to the extent that we can put it as part of our scoring criteria, we'd want to look for firms that have worked with other smaller jurisdictions, you know, that don't have exclusively experienced in like really large, metropolitan areas because Santa Cruz is kind of a different place, you know, it's a different, it's a special place that has different special features about it. So that is definitely something that we're thinking about and thinking about how we, you know, articulate that really elegantly in the RFP. Yeah, I would just, yeah, as much as we can to really, to really find the kind of consultant that really can take the uniqueness of the community in place. Thank you. Are there any other comments by members of the council? Seeing none, I'll open it up to public comment. Is there any member of the public who would like to comment on this item? If so, please step forward. You'll have two minutes. Hey, my name is, excuse me, Mayor Cummings, Vice Mayor Myers and council members. My name is Allison Russell. I'm a longtime resident of Santa Cruz and a small business owner here. Thanks for this opportunity to provide input on where density might be focused in our city. I believe the city should prioritize the following seven points. The first one is traffic. Density will make existing traffic problems worse, particularly without new transit solutions. The city has already identified some intersections as being nearly impossible to fix. These include so-called Seabright as well as Seabright and Murray, which for this reason, please do not add density to Seabright, which is not a transit corridor, and it's not wide. And that's strategy number two. I have numbers of strategies that I'm writing about. In addition, please elevate traffic as a key element in density planning. It's very important. Number two, keep buildings over two stories out of residential neighborhoods. Focus density in and near downtown, which already has more of an urban character, as well as a transportation hub and also along River Street. And that is your list of land use strategies seven and eight. The third of my points helps students lower their carbon footprint by focusing some density close to the university. That is strategies 16 and 17. Four, incorporate density into larger semi-industrial areas, including on the west side, and that is your land use strategy number 10. Five, the affordable housing development near Water and Brant's 40 is a good example of density that is not overwhelming. Please keep developments to that size or smaller and emphasize quality of life and design. Density development should work alongside. I just have a few more minutes. I'm sorry, if you could just submit your comments to. Sure. Okay, that went quickly. I thought I had more time. All right. Thank you. Speaker. Mayor Cummings, Vice Mayor Meyers, and members of the council. My name is Walt Wadlow. I reside on the east side on Sumner Street. Regarding this item, if I were sitting among you, I might feel that the effort reviewed density transfer within the city of Santa Cruz is potentially overwhelming for a city that faces so many challenges and opportunities. With regard to the effort, the time required and the potential expense, I'd like to very briefly share a cautionary tale and also some encouragement. I joined the city's water commission about 10 years ago as the effort to help develop desal was coming to fruition. In a meeting with the then department director, I asked if the public truly understood and was engaged in the desalination project. I was told that there had been plenty of opportunities for comment through prior formal processes and it would be far too expensive and take too long to engage in new outreach. A few months later, the efforts of an organized community group and public reaction to potential construction of facilities on West Cliff resulted in a vote on an amendment to the city charter, putting desalination on the back burner and the establishment of a citizen advisory committee after thousands of dollars had been spent taking us down the path towards desalination. That's the cautionary part of my tale. Now the encouragement. The plan that was developed through the citizen advisory committee from the community, true authentic outreach by the current department director and her staff, have resulted in a sustainable path forward for the water supply of Santa Cruz that has broad community support. As a member affiliated with Save Santa Cruz and a number of the other interest groups identified by staff, I encourage you to take the time to develop a plan for housing, especially affordable housing that can absolutely be supported by the community. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker. Members, my name is Kirby Wilkins. I represent Coastal Havens Families on Golf Club Drive. That is building residences for disabled family members. That's in process right now. And when I looked at your list of land use strategies, number three, add additional capacity to Golf Club Drive is the only item on here that has no supporting rationale. So my question is, why is it on here? There's no way to look at this and know why it was added to this list. So that's my question. And I think all of us on Golf Club would appreciate knowing why it's there. I think that's it for me. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Hello, I'm Nate Alex, dot Kennedy at gmail.com. And if you want to call me three, four, six, nine, eight, eight, eight. And beyond that, what I got to say is the land, the dirt in Santa Cruz is worth an excessive amount like New York City amount. And yet we don't have any really tall buildings anywhere in the town, you know, aside from maybe 1010 Pacific and they're limited to five stories when what we need to do just to bring the cost of housing down by having more than enough housing for everybody that wants to be here. And we need to make it so that buildings like that can go at least 10 stories without even needing any special permits or anything. And I would love, love, love, love to see a few skyscrapers come up in this town. We're talking 50 to even 100 stories high. One of those towers would be able to fit half the population of Santa Cruz just like that. Suddenly there'd be so many beds open that we wouldn't be stuck paying a couple grand a month just to have a tiny little studio to call home. And also, no, I need to stick with the subject. That's right. But I think the thing to do is, you know, just zoning ordinances all over town. We need to at least double how high people can build because when people start building double high, we have twice as much space available for people to stay at. So, and I know a lot of people even drew himself have been against big growth in this town, but that's not something I agree with. I think Santa Cruz is now a population of about 50,000 people roughly. I would love to see Santa Cruz become a town of at least 200,000 people. And the only way that we're going to have housing to fit that to fit four times the population is to be able to build bigger. Vote Tom 2020. Before you approach, Mike, is there anyone else who would like to speak on this item? Okay, so you'll be our last speaker. Thank you. Good afternoon, council members. I just wanted to encourage you all to be thinking about the objective standards and really working quickly to move forward with the process of engaging with the community on developing those. I think we all realize that those standards are going to play a big role in what are our neighborhoods in our communities look like. And I think it's really important that we keep the eye on the prize on the objective standards and not sort of let that go by the wayside because as projects come online in the meantime, if we don't have objective standards, there's nothing we can do to stop bad projects from happening. I'm just encouraging you all to keep focused on the objective standards as far as densities and where development should go. I think I speak for a lot of affordable housing advocates when I say that it doesn't necessarily matter where just that we need that density. There's lots of issues with the capital of where like how something's going to be funded and whether or not development projects really are supporting affordable housing, but if we don't have the right sort of zoning in place to allow any kind of housing to be built, it's not going to matter if it's affordable or not because it's not going to get built anyway. So just keep on doing what you're doing and I hope that the community realizes that we can't reduce the density that's already in our general plan. We just have to accommodate it in the city somehow. Thank you. All right, we'll have our last speaker and come forward on this item. Good afternoon. I'm Scott Graham. The problem I see here is that as you go around town engaging the community with like wanting to put more density in different areas, there's going to be a lot of resistance to moving the density from the corridors plan to other places. And what it's going to, to me what's going to happen in the long run is we're going to go back to the corridors plan. That's going to as a default because nobody else is going to want the density in their neighborhoods. And so we're going to have resistance from all, you know, the people that originally resisted the corridors plan and the people that you're trying to move some of that density into are going to resist. And so then where do we put anything? And so to me, that's the big problem that needs to be ironed out here is how can we get density in multiple places that the community will actually agree to? Because right now I see that there's going to be resistance everywhere. Thank you. Bring it back to the council for action and deliberation. I think all we're doing is accepting at this point. Yeah, I actually have a motion. I have a question. So I don't think I'll interfere. I do think Scott nailed the issue before us. I'm really particularly interested in moving forward on the objective standards. And my impression is once we get the approval from the state, the funds will be released and you get going on that. Is that a correct statement? Yeah. Yeah. Our first step will be to release the RFP and start reviewing proposals. And just ballpark, what do you see as the timeframe for that? So what I've been laying out is that we would have, we would release the RFP and we would give people about, you know, between 20 and 30 days to respond.  And then review the proposals and conduct interviews within a month of that. Maybe even within three weeks of that so that then we would be sort of starting our initial community out. We would be beginning our initial phase of the project in May or June. And so, you know, public outreach in the summer is sometimes a little tricky. So I think our real big push on community engagement would happen in the fall. We would probably do some focus groups and, you know, really flesh out that community engagement strategy and sort of do the objective analysis that would be required during the summer months. And then really begin our push on community engagement around these objective standards in the fall. And for the attachment three, which is the potentially affected interest, were you considering that for the outreach for the design standards or this was for the reallocation of density? So this was initially, so this list we are planning to refine just a little bit and then include with the RFP about the objective standards. Okay. And there would be a lot of overlap, you know, in a different project, but yes. Okay. That was just a question. I do think this will answer a lot of questions for us. And just going around to other communities and seeing what a well-designed building does with increased density, with its use in all kinds of different areas. That tells us what we can do with good standards. And that's what we've been missing. So I am excited to move forward with this. I think it's almost a precursor to accepting a level of change in the community. A well-designed contemporary building, I don't mean style, but in this day, compared to the kind of stuff from the 60s, you know, there's really no comparison. I just wanted to clarify timeline. And it sounds like although the realignment of density in other locations is a very long-term and challenging project, the design guidelines, design standards, sounds to be nothing simple in Santa Cruz, but more straightforward. Is that your understanding? That certainly are feeling about it, yeah. So, yeah, thank you for the report. And I agree with Council Member Matthews with respect. And Mr. Graham, you really did hit the nail on the head that we will face challenges with increased density in any part of our town. And that is something that we need to think about very carefully and really engage the community in those conversations. And I'm heartened to hear that there may be some ways to develop objective standards that do allow for us to maintain some local authority around design. And so thank you for the work you've done to kind of figure out how ways that we can move forward. So I look forward to hearing more about that. With respect to the piece, you know, this is also a monthly report on the general plan and zoning ordinance reconciliation effort as per the motion that was made, the direction that was given about the corridor's plan. So I would like to, because, you know, with all due respect and appreciation to staff, this is a pretty complicated, you know, but there's a lot of complications and a lot of complexity here. You know, I really appreciate your efforts to respond to the Council direction. I think that in many ways this report raises more questions. And I don't think that those are questions that we can kind of even begin to discuss here deliberate on and I know that's not the intention today. But I do think it would be helpful for us to get some help as we move through this process. And so I would like to make a motion that and I sent it to Bonnie. I'm sorry it didn't go through one that my council email so and I just saw that so I sent it to you just now from a different. So I do have a motion that is intended to accept the monthly staff report on the general plan and zoning ordinance reconciliation effort. And to send this to refer the report to the planning commission with a request that they provide recommendations to the council regarding options for moving forward with the reconciliation process. I think it's important to to ask our advisory bodies who while they're primarily planning commission is primarily about looking at projects. I think they do have a role to play in helping us with our land use and planning policy. And so I'd like to send it there and see if we can maybe they can provide some kind of additional help looking at the options looking at the you know the material that you've laid out asking questions there and then bringing up something that maybe provides a little more structure for our conversation. Second and I have a couple questions to. So we have a motion made by Council Member Brown seconded by Council Member Cron I also have a couple questions with regards to the motion and then also with regards to one of the public comments and I'm actually next on stack so I guess I'll go ahead. One of the questions I had the gentleman brought up of all the you know some of these different areas that are being expressed. There's additional capacity to golf club drive and just looking at a map and kind of thinking about this idea that we're going to increase density along our corridors golf club drive kind of seems like it's you know like it doesn't really fit that it doesn't look like the criteria it seems like for some of the other areas so like so Cal water mission some of these really active areas and golf club drive is you know kind of off highway nine kind of going up towards Poggan up and it's kind of offset in this you know it's it's not an area that even currently has much density to it and so I'm kind of wondering why that would be an area. Consider for increased density especially because there's other areas in town like for example many people have criticized having increased density in neighborhoods and this seems like an area that would fall into that such a category so could you just kind of elaborate on that a little bit. So first of all we are not recommending anything on this list I mean in fact there are probably some things on this list that I think are terrible ideas. And these are ideas that we have heard. So I mean really all if you want to look at alternatives if you're talking about changing the pattern we have. You could change it in a lot of different ways ways that I might recommend ways that I might not recommend. And so you know golf club drive is one option as is annexing new land you know I mean this really was just was a brain dump of options. When we go out to the community if we go out to the community with this question I am sure we will have even more options. So that's really kind of where you know where all of this you know pick any of these and we could talk about pros and cons there are certainly pros and cons on golf club drive. There are pros and cons to eliminating single family zoning you know I mean really every one of these is a little bit none of them come with a recommendation I guess is what I'm trying to say yeah. And then the next question I had was for my colleagues because months ago we kind of voted on you know proving staff's direction to come up with objective design standards. I'm just wondering and just want to be clear that this won't inhibit staff's ability to continue to work on these objective design standards is my understanding of the motion. I'm not asked my motion doesn't ask staff to do anything aside from agendize the report they've already produced for the planning commission so there will be some work associated with staffing that commission and you know following up and delivering recommendations to us but that's not my intention. And then my follow up question is whether is that at the next planning commission meeting or when I'm just asking I didn't place a date on that partially because I wanted to I mean I suppose I could say at the earliest possible planning commission meeting. I don't want to. Create a. Constrain a deadline in and not not give an opportunity for that to be a productive process and discussion at the planning commission. I just say that because I know that last year there were a number of. And commission meetings that were canceled and they were sequential and so I wouldn't want to see meetings get canceled when there's an item from council that's been directed to the planning commission and so I just want to that's why I want to clarification. Thank you. So I would add at the next the next possible planning commission where time permits. Second. Council Member Glover and then I still have council member. All sounds good. I just wanted to clarify a statement made by someone during the public comment section of Mr. Kennedy. I am not against growth or density. I am against non affordable housing developments that prioritize people that are not from Santa Cruz or that aren't that are not making it for people that work here. So I just want to clarify that for anyone that's listening or the caught that I support denser housing. In fact, in certain parts of the community to maximize our public transportation systems and so that we can make sure we're developing affordable housing. So just put it on the record. Council Member Crow. The question for Lee is, um, officer, uh, Mr. Willins said talked about number three, additional capacity to golf club drive area plan. He said that's something that was didn't belong here or seemed strange to be on here. Where was he going with that? You know, I mean, you'll have to ask him where he was going with it. None of the things, none of the items on this list are given any sort of justification. Right. You know, none of them are given any, any judgment. Um, this is simply a list of ways that land use patterns could be adjusted. Um, I don't know, you know, we haven't even made here any guess about how much additional capacity could be added to golf club drive. I, I haven't done the math. I haven't, you know, we haven't looked at, you know, this is a preliminary list of options. So as you look at this list, Ms. Russell talked about not adding density to the Seabright area. Is there things here that contemplate that? Yeah, there are some, there are some of the things that talk about, you know, looking at, you know, one of the industrial parcels. There are some industrial parcels in the Seabright area. So that's number 10. There are several that sort of call out specific roadways. Redesignate parcels along existing transit routes or routes where transit service could easily be expanded. That's number two. It mentioned Seabright. See what else here. There are probably a few that contemplate up zoning neighborhoods, you know, where we have RL zoning and a lot of Seabright going up to RM. Oh yeah, and then, and then the final one on the list, number 23, adjust all residential and mixed use development standards to rely only on FAR rather than density standards. That would apply sort of citywide and that would impact Seabright and many other neighborhoods. Thank you. And number 10, redesignate existing industrial parcels along Delaware, Harvey West and Hall Street, which has happened to be in Seabright too. But it reminded me of like that. I think it was the French project. Didn't we, didn't this council approve a big project out there for housing and where is that at? Seabright? No, no, no, this is on the website. Yeah, so the Delaware edition included 400,000 square feet of commercial and industrial uses and going by memory around 225 residential units, some of which are in live work units. Others which were allowed as standalone projects. And there was a proposal to construct 167 of those and they were ready to pick up their building permit. They have not picked up that building permit. They didn't see the market conditions as acceptable. That's where that particular project is at. And as with the other items on this list, there are significant issues associated with everyone. And certainly that is the case with our job producing lands. Makes me think like, okay, so here's 167 units, permits there not being utilized. So what are we doing here? What do we think we're doing to create more opportunities for people to build housing on the west side if somebody's ready to go and they're not, are they trying to sell those permits? They're not trying to sell those to my knowledge. They completed the plumbing electrical structural mechanical building. They were ready to build and did not see the economic conditions as ripe for taking that risk and investing, you know, multiple tens of millions of dollars. That surprised you? I have very rarely seen other than outside of the economic downturn, the Great Recession in the late 2000s. I haven't seen people get to that, developers get to that stage and pull the plug. So they have, my understanding is a number of owners and it sounds like there was some disagreement among some of the others. So yes, it does surprise me that they got to that stage and didn't proceed. Council members Brown, Watkins and then Vice Mayor Myers. I just, I just want to underscore the point that our staff made about this being kind of a laundry list. And, you know, I think one of the main reason that I'm asking that we send this to the Planning Commission is that I don't believe that it's the Councils. It would be irresponsible of us to start having conversations about, you know, moving density around like pieces on a chessboard. You know, I mean, I think that this is, and then any time we have, you know, we start listing possibilities and the public reads that then there is a tendency to think, okay, this is on the table for a decision. And so that is a challenge, but I think that, you know, my goal here is to ask our Planning Commission to help us by taking this brain dump, as you suggested, and, you know, helping us organize it and structure the discussion, make some recommendations to us about how to, how to do that, including, you know, priorities for, you know, I'm not suggesting that they go move the chess pieces around at their meeting instead, but, you know, prioritizing what makes sense based upon a more thorough review to them and also recommending to us how we might go about doing some meaningful community outreach and engagement with stakeholders to try to help guide that decision-making. Council Member Watkins. I appreciate the clarification that Council Member Brown just made in regards to the recommendation because I was kind of confused on that in terms of what is being proposed or sort of analyzed by staff and then to move forward. My understanding, as I read it, is to move forward as originally charted as having an objective housing standards go through with RFP process. And if I hear you correctly, Council Member Brown, the ultimate place that would inform the next stage of it would be the community engagement components, but it would first be vetted through the Planning Commission. Is that correct? Because when I read it, it sort of sounded to me like that. That's pretty much the only thing. It would require, there's no other recommendations in here in terms of the reconciliation, other than that, whatever it would be would require massive amounts of community engagement. Does that sound accurate in terms of simplifying your report? Or do you recommend other components? No, that's accurate. So you're sort of using the Planning Commission as a sort of a sounding board for some of the potential recommendations prior to the community engagement? Again, I think, if I could, just yes, but mostly to give them an opportunity to look at this report, ask additional questions, get additional information as appropriate from staff. So there will be some staff time involved in order to help structure a process for the Council to move forward in directing. If we're going to actually direct staff to do things that are going to take a lot of staff time, I think it would be nice to have some input from the Planning Commission about how to structure that and how to kind of streamline that and use that time most efficiently and efficaciously. Does that answer your question? Yeah, no, I'm just curious. Is that the norm? I mean, I guess maybe I'm just curious about the process. Is that the standard course of action that usually occurs with these types of things? Because what I read is that the community engagement process will naturally unfold, and I think it would take years essentially to do. This would be a multi-year project, at least realistically, no less than three years between the review and then the CEQA, and frankly it will probably take more than that. I think all of these typically set off with that. The typical process would be to engage the Planning Commission and City Council oftentimes during these processes. There's actually a task force or a steering committee that includes both members of the Planning Commission and City Council, but subsets of them along with a larger community group that those ideas are then bounced off of. In various jurisdictions, they've ranged in about 20 to 35 members on that, so it's a large diverse group. And there are significant amounts of community outreach that occur outside of that, but then those individuals serve on sort of steering committee or task force. And those individuals then provide feedback on specific policy recommendations, and those are then brought to the Planning Commission and the City Council with sort of initial public engagement to sort of set the framework for here are the rules that are in place, like SB 330, for example, and setting those ground rules. And then with that understanding, start testing things like the vision that the general plan has, then the guiding principles for the general plan, then the goals and policies. And that's really different from a full general plan update because really what it sounds like the Council is, some of the Council are potentially heading towards, is looking at revisions to the maps. And the maps are informed by the goals and policies, the vision, the guiding principles. And so it's really sort of taking a step back and understanding which of those are really the issues, which are the concerns. And then based on what those concerns are, we would then start looking at, okay, based on those concerns, how would we potentially modify the maps to create those concerns, or to address those concerns? How would we write new policies that would generate different patterns? Different land use patterns on the maps. And so that iterative process occurs together in tandem with a significant amount of community outreach because during each step, we want the community to really weigh in and provide feedback. So, you know, we might have a list like this, and then as we have that steering committee as one potential option, not the only option, but as one potential option, that steering committee could say, all right, we're heading towards these policies. And based on revising those policies to say something different than what they are now, we would say, well, numbers, I'm going to throw numbers out there. Three, four and five aren't good matches for where we're heading, but six, seven and eight are. So that's sort of how the process would unfold. Thank you. I guess maybe if I could get clarification, is that the interest of the maker of the motion to sort of start that process in motion to get that process moving in that direction at this time? By making this referral, my interest is in hearing from the planning commission about what they believe would be useful steps in the process and what it would take. So I don't want to, you know, I don't feel equipped to say, yeah, this is, you know, let's do this at three-year process with, you know, X number of community engagement meetings with these stakeholders. I would like some more in-depth review of that and some recommendations to us. If that's what the planning commission tells us it's going to take, then that's a decision that council would make at that time. But that's not my intention right now. Vice Mayor Myers. Thanks for the presentation. Yeah, I'm looking at the word recommendation and I'm just kind of wanting to maybe put a little bit, maybe provide a little bit more direction if we could to. The commission. And so I'm kind of wondering, because we're asking, we're kind of asking them to answer a big question, because we're sort of talking about a couple of things. One is, as staff has outlined, basically, in a sense reopening a portion or doing a major general plan amendment. We're also asking, or having them consider sort of telegraphing to the community what may or may not be coming without really having a process in place to really understand how the community and neighborhoods fit into this conversation. So, and so we've already had a few people come here today looking at this list and saying, oh my God, you know, it's my neighborhood. We're also though, recognizing that there's a reconciliation needed in terms of sort of the vision our neighborhoods are struggling with some of the things that we have that we were moving towards and a recognition that taking the time to have more conversations and really look at process is probably worthwhile because we may end up in a place where developments are sued or worse the general plan is, you know, and a lot, you know, so there's other methods that people can come out with that I think we want to try to not avoid. So I guess Council Member Brown, if you would consider when we say recommendations, maybe we just use a few examples. Opportunities and constraints would be one thing that I would be interested in. The other is timeline, potentially projected expenses or costs. And then also really kind of getting at the, this issue of sort of what could be perceived as some instability in terms of how, what are communities doing with regards to development in the future. Because I think that does have bearing on some of our other goals around housing and job creation and some of the other things that we're also trying to bite off at the same time. So those are just a few recommendations that I would just offer to see if you could give some examples so that the Planning Commission has a little bit more direction in terms of how they could potentially look at this information. So, I could.  Part of the issue that I'm trying to kind of muddle through here is that, you know, I don't doubt that the Planning Commission will take this, you know, equally seriously. I mean, they will be very deliberate about what kinds of recommendations they might make to us if putting some, and so I don't want to limit it. And I also don't want to kind of force them to think about things, for example, costs. I don't think that's necessarily, I mean, that's not their wheelhouse, I think, to come up with what it might cost the council, but I would leave that to staff rather than asking the Planning Commission to give us recommendations about that or, you know, like a budget limit or I don't know exactly what you're kind of thinking about, but it seems like that might be pushing them into a space that is not, wouldn't necessarily help us. With respect to opportunities and constraints, I think I know what you're getting at, but I just am wondering if you could say a little bit more about opportunities and constraints for picking particular locations or like what kind, maybe a little more direction about that. I just want to keep us on staff. So, Council Member Matthews. Can I just clarify, is that a friendly amendment that was not accepted yet? I'm just trying to, I mean, I'll accept a friendly amendment to flash out the recommendation, what we mean by recommendations, but I'm not totally sure exactly what those would be without having a little more. Second. That would have accepted that friendly amendment as well. Yeah, I don't know. It would be Council Member Cram. You asked her a question. I thought she was going to respond. So when we get back around to it, I'll flush that out. So are you, do you want to consider the friendly amendment? Excuse me, I'll consider it once I hear back from Donna after a few other people. Next is Council Member Matthews. This is a huge assignment to throw at the Planning Commission. It's phrased as discussing the laundry list of possibilities for zoning and general plan reconciliation, but it's been told to us and any of us who looks at this and thinks out the scenario realizes it is going to be long and contentious and involve a lot of outreach and staff time and several years. And it feels to me, although it's being told as just moving around the density possibilities, the analogy was made to a chess game. It's just moving one chess piece. It sounds to me like it really is functionally a general plan endeavor. And I was glad that Planning Director mentioned the general plan because there are lots of components to that. And I am concerned that if we're only talking about the housing capacity in various parts of the city where we're losing track, you've said it would all have to at least be overlaid with the existing general plan to see how it aligns or not. But I do have concern that the complexity of this is being handed to the Planning Commission. If such a deep project is being concerned, envisioned, I think it should have a larger group like the general plan group. Next number of years ago, when was it? No, 1995, whenever it was.  It was a very broad group and it was focused on the totality of what the community saw for its vision, not simply some zoning changes. So I'm just going to make that as a comment, an opportunity that we could be looking at is how do we realize our housing goals kind of generally shared in the community, in the abstract, not in the particular constraints. I will just mention transit, everyone's saying sure, put the density on the transit. Donna and I sit on the metro. Our transit system here in Little Old Santa Cruz County is realistically doing its best to hold on, but it's not going to move millions. So I just put that out there as what in fact are we asking the Planning Commission to do. So perhaps what we need from them is some discussion with our planning staff. What's the scope of this thing? And then bring it back to us because if it is going to be multiple years and that kind of a budget, we do have to approve that. That is a lot of money to this kind of a project. So I've got Council Member Watkins, Council Member Meyers and then Council Member Brown. I think I was just, if I remember correctly, did you say that the general plan, if we're looking at 2030 general plan planning, did you say that the first one took seven years? Do I remember that correctly? Yeah. So in terms of timing, I'm wondering if there's sort of a conversation around interim. If the beginning of the planning and outreach for the next general plan iteration occurs in three years from now or begins in three years from now. We would probably begin in 2025. Okay. Okay. So I don't know in terms of just timing in terms of this more robust kind of change. And then I wonder if the new committee that's formed on housing would be, and I think it's going to be consulting with a couple of the planning commissioners, would be the place to have a conversation around this at this time to kind of flesh out some of these details before not having more specifics going to the Planning Commission. I mean, as a possible alternative. Yes, Mayor Myers. So I'll give you some examples. I think, I mean, if we're going to keep working on the motion. So I think a couple of things. So, you know, when I think about opportunities constraints, a lot of that does have to do with the complexity basically of what we're looking at. So, you know, an opportunity may be that, you know, we've had more evaluation. We've had more community feedback. So we do start to see maybe we've seen some job generation. I'm not saying we're going to build, you know, we're not going to do this in Harvey West. But okay, we have a growing cannabis industry, for example, in a place. So, you know, land use changes with economic economic drivers. So things may be be different now. So I think what I'm trying to get at is we're in a housing emergency. And but yet at the same time, we're sort of starting to look at really rewriting our general plan around where we're going to have dense development housing. And so that's to me is a big thing. And so when I think about opportunities constraints, I'm thinking about things like, okay, with this process, you know, how many people will basically sort of sit and wait and see where the chess pieces land. And by doing the process, will that mean that our housing generation continues to sort of slow, you know, how do we plan for that? Is there some immediate things that potentially could move forward? So that's the kind of thing that I think when you when you're talking about something this significant, I think I'd like to make sure the planning commission is thinking in a holistic way, not procedurally per se, or even timeline per se, but sort of sort of globally really understanding the request from us. That's all I think that's really what I'm trying to get at is that with the way it's worded now, it could look very procedural. You know, you could do this, this and this, and that's our recommendation, but I think that, you know, as an advisory committee, I'd like to, I'd like to draw a little more out of them on that with the guidance of staff. Because this is a fairly significant, I mean, this is a significant thing that we might proceed down and we want to make sure we are pretty clear on the ramifications more globally to the community. I don't know if that helps at all. I tried to capture it as timeline opportunities and constraints, and then I had this, you know, the term sort of the stability of our ability to initiate and keep consistent housing production over this period of time. I guess this housing I think is one of the big things that I'd like to know. Does that help at all? Thank you. My understanding is that these are also just examples for consideration, not that they have to tackle each one of these issues individually. I'm not talking about the sites in that list. I'm talking about the overall process that was in the staff report, which is really along the larger question and many of the folks in the community are reflecting and coming up with some compelling ideas. And that's that more global question of not just asking the Planning Commission to look at these sites, but to actually really think back through what people have offered in terms of, okay, we should be building here, we should be over here, we should be matching up to transit. Those are, to me, more global than looking at, you know, a list of 30 places. Okay, so maybe I'm not understanding your comment. I think there's a scale here that I think I just feel like this is a bigger ask of the Planning Commission, maybe I'm not understanding completely. Well, I think that adding those in will make it a bigger ask. I mean, and which is okay with me, you know, my intent just as the staff report does not ask us to contemplate, deliberate on those sites. I'm not suggesting that sending it to the Planning Commission is in any way intended to ask them to prioritize among those sites. The idea is to ask for recommendations and, you know, I would, I mean, I think adding recommendations regarding opportunities and constraints related to the local economy or local economic drivers and the environment for development. One, two, timeline for the process and three, community engagement.  And if that can help us narrow this down and actually make some recommendations that kind of answer a lot of those questions sooner than a general plan update, that would be okay with me. I have to say, I'll just say personally, I think a lot of this could be achieved without a general plan update. I believe that, you know, I've looked at the possibilities. I do not want to bring them out here to have a conversation about them because that's not what we've been asked to do today. I look forward to having that conversation. Maybe we could agendize it for the housing task force related to the FARs, you know, and the different densities. There are ways that this could happen with overlay districts in particular spaces, all kinds of ways. And I just don't think that this is the space to have that conversation right now. We have a long agenda and people are waiting to talk on other items. But I'll just say we're about almost an hour behind on time. And I would just ask whether that could be listed as what you've listed could be some of the examples that are provided so that the recommendations aren't specifically focused on those three points, that those are examples of potential areas for providing recommendation. So providing recommendations, including but not limited to opportunities and constraints related to the local economy and environment for development, timeline, and community engagement opportunities. Does that capture? Yeah. Thank you. So are you withdrawing your friendly amendment then? She just included those examples. I just amended my, I've amended the motion based upon Vice Mayor Meyers request. Okay, with my second. Okay. So, is there any further discussion? No. All right. So we're, the motion is to accept the report and refer the report to the planning commission. So the monthly report on the general plan and zoning ordinance reconciliation effort and refer the report to the planning commission with request. They provide recommendations to the city council regarding options for moving forward with the reconciliation process, including but not limited to opportunities and constraints for local economy, timeline, and community engagement. That motion was made by Council Member Brown. Housing environment. And development environment for housing development. Environment housing development. Okay. That motion was made by Council Member Brown, seconded by Council Member Cron. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. Okay. Moving on to our next item for general business, City Beach Public Access Policy and 2020 Beach Management Plan. And the presentation will be done by Noah Downing, Parks Planner. We only have two hours until we have to stop. So there's no way we're getting chinchin or whatever. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council members and members of the public. The item before you tonight is a two part item. Staff will be asking that the City Council adopt a resolution approving the City Beach's public access policy as well as endorse the 2020 Beach Management Plan. So as part of this presentation, I'll be going into the background of both those items and the reasons why they were enacted, the purpose behind them, as well as the recommendation. So the purpose of the Beach Management Plan is to protect natural resources, provide for public safety and maximize recreation of the beach. It identifies ongoing uses and activities considered development by the California Coastal Commission. So things like beach grooming, volleyball courts, our junior lifeguard program are all considered in there. And receiving one permit for all of them allows us to clearly communicate with the Coastal Commission, streamlines and our agency processing. It also helps prevent misunderstandings. We consider it a best management practice. We're one of a few California agencies that maintains the Beach Management Plan. It's a long standing document of more than 25 years and it's updated every three to five years. In terms of the permit process, we don't typically bring it before the Parks and Rec Commission and City Council. It covers routine maintenance and use activities and is located within the original Coastal Commission jurisdiction. And moving to the City Beach's public access policy. In 2012, there was an uptick in illegal activity and nuisance related impacts. So in 2013, the city adopted a nighttime beach access restriction policy on Cal Beach. There was disagreement about whether or not it required a permit. The city followed some guidance from 1994 related to setting hours on the beach. And declared a nuisance and it was overall exempt from the California Coastal Act. Throughout the years, there's been extensions of that. In 2014, the California Coastal Commission requested that the nighttime beach access restrictions be included in the 2014 Beach Management Plan update. So we did so and those policy has expired and that expired in November 2019. In 2019, the City Council adopted similar nighttime beach access restrictions on Main Beach for six months and that will expire this March. So what are the nighttime beach access restrictions? Essentially, the dry sand is open one hour before sunrise to midnight, but there's limited access from midnight to an hour before sunrise. Or beach goers that are allowed to cross the dry sand to reach the wet sand portion of the beach, but no other activities are allowed on the dry sand. The wet sand and ocean are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And wet sand is sand that is wet from the wash of waves or tidal action. Some examples of the concerns from nighttime activities. In this photograph here, you see that there's potential fire concerns related to the timber structure. This is underneath the wharf. This photo shows someone camping really close to the tide line. Additional concerns raised from staff is when you do beach grooming activities in the early morning or when it's dark or foggy, it's definitely a concern when you're operating heavy equipment. There's been slippages of the adjacent hillside during nighttime that has been prone to people hanging out and enjoying the evening. You can't see the notice during nighttime hours. There's been commercial storage of bender items on the beach. So there's just different variety of issues that occur. During last August, there was some camping activities. There was a spike during that timeframe. Bacteria, I don't want to say it's directly related to people camping there. I do think it's notable though because it was a significant spike that happened to correlate to the timeframe. Additionally, there's concerns with needles on the beach. We keep a log of the needles that are collected from Parks and Rec staff. These are needles in these tables which are found within the curfew area. But some of them were found in kelp, could have washed ashore, could have been washed down from the San Lorenzo River. But there are needles that are found on the beach or around the trash cans on the beach. In terms of nighttime enforcement, it is a difficult area to enforce. Essentially, it's 33 acres. It's a large, dark area. There's limited staffing resources to be able to walk or patrol. You would probably require two police officers to make sure they're safe. Police officers need to be close to their patrol car just in case they get a call that they could respond to an emergency. The beach access policy has been an effective tool to help enforcement efforts, among others. Switching back to the 2020 Beach Management Plan update process. In November, there was a Coastal Commission meeting scheduled to adopt the Beach Management Plan. There was a notice received on one of the concerns that was raised with just public noticing and making sure other members of the community were aware. So city staff talked with Coastal Commission staff and we recommended going before the Parks and Rec Commission as well as City Council to allow additional opportunities. And we sent out notices to around 500 members of the communities as well as mail notices. So as I mentioned earlier, the Cal Beach nighttime access restrictions expired in November 2019. Some other modifications to the Beach Management Plan that we are proposing this round is in response to concerns raised by the Coastal Commission. The language allowing for the Santa Cruz Sea site company Beach Deck and volleyball courts has been removed. I guess their concerns is allowing one business to have a certain portion of the beach. As part of that agreement, it allows for public use and it is something that some members of the community really appreciate. We are asking for an extended season for beach grooming. In the past 2014 Beach Management Plan, beach grooming occurred from May through September. We're asking for April through October. Really just the additional month on either side is on an as-and-even basis. He added the potential for a junior lifeguard program to have support features. If you look at some of the state programs, they have storage containers on the beach. We've worked on agreement with the dream and were able to store some of the items underneath the hotel. If for some reason that agreement needed to change, we would need some short term storage opportunities for things like paddle boards and other larger equipment. Also as part of it, we're asking for two additional volleyball courts on main beach that would go from 16 to 18. That would be located within the same existing footprint as they've always been located. It is something where the volleyball players, there was a survey about two years ago and it's something that everyone agreed would be a great fit. So as part of the 2020 Beach Management Plan, we are proposing beach hours. Essentially, we're providing language which would allow for the use of the Santa Cruz medicinal code and council policy 7.1 to allow for the director of parks and recreation to set hours. We would mirror those hours to what the beach access policy has been for the past years. We would have minimum open hours and that would just be for one hour before sunrise to midnight. We would have the maximum closed hours, which midnight to an hour before sunrise, but access would still be allowed for members of the community to cross the dry sand in the wet sand and water would remain open. In comparison to other agencies and jurisdictions, we really feel that this is allowing for more public access. And say Seabright Beach, which just the state closes at 10 p.m. until sunrise, Ais Beach, as well as Natural Bridges. There's other local communities, say the city of Monterey, Half Moon Bay. It's not uncommon for jurisdictions to have closed hours and so this is an attempt to try to allow for us to have certain control over the beach but allow and maximize the public benefit as well. So we went before the Parks and Rec Commission January 6 and they recommended to adopt the city beach's public access policy as well as endorse 2020 Beach Management Plan. They did raise some questions and concerns such as dogs on the beach, currently pets aren't allowed on the beach and so we've relayed that. Those concerns to the police department, they have relayed those to the rangers who will be looking for that. Lighting spillover impacts from adjacent areas and that's something that we're, in terms of our projects, we're going to be working on to control spillover impacts and noise levels from beach concerts. Working with the Planning Commission and Seaside Company just to make sure that the noise levels are consistent with the municipal code. Safety concerns from the height of the berm at the river mouth. This is done through a separate permit but we did hear back from Fire and Marine Safety and relayed the responses back to the Parks and Rec Commission. But those have been heavily analyzed and looked at and we've also added more emphasis on birds to the beach management plan which is in the purview. There was concerns about water quality from drainage onto the beach. So what would these two actions accomplish or what are we asking tonight? So we're asking for the city council to adopt the city beach's public access policy which is essentially just a stop-gap measure to ensure that Cal Beach has restrictions for the next couple of months until we get to the Colsa Commission meeting and allow them the opportunity to hopefully vote on the beach management plan adopt it and then we would be able to order the municipal code set our own hours and follow our council policy in doing so. We believe that the endorsement of the plan by the city council would go a long way in this process to help show the Colsa Commission that this is something the community needs. And mention that and so just to conclude we recommend that the city council adopt a resolution approving the city beach's public access policy and endorse the 2020 beach management plan and that concludes staff's presentation. We do have staff from the police department as well as city attorney's office and parks and recreation to help answer questions. Thank you for the presentation. Is there any member of the city council who would like to ask any questions at this point in time? I actually have some questions. Oh, okay. Council member Weber first. Thank you. Do you have, and I don't think it was in the agenda packet, but do you have any data that shows the Cal Beach effectiveness of the restricted access? It is part of the agenda packet and this was required as part of a condition of approval on the 2014 beach management plan update. But yes, there is some data. I could just read off some stats. And which document is this you're looking at? This is the nighttime beach restrictions summary report for Maine and Cal beaches. And this would be page four under Cal Beach. So the calls for service during curfew hours nearly tripled from 2011 to 2013, from 36 to 98, 135. After 2013, calls for service during curfew hours steadily declined from a peak of 135 in 2013 to 65 in 2018. And during 2013 and 2014 calls for service during nighttime hours spiked contributing to approximately one-third of all calls during the entire 24-hour day for specifically Cal Beach. And one thing to point out is the beach restriction time period is typically what calls for service should be at its lowest point in the day. Additionally, from 2011 to its peak in 2014, the number of police hours spent addressing calls for service during the beach restriction time period grew from 9 to 47 hours per week at its peak before dropping back down at 31, 19, 18, and 20 for years 2015, 16, 17, and 18. And I know that, thank you, by the way, I know that this was something that came up during the last time we talked about the beach access because the calls for service didn't necessarily denote illegal behavior. It was some of the calls were just from people that didn't like to see the people on the beach or thought that they had been there for too long or so on and so forth. I mean, granted, restricting access to a beach and then making it harder for people to be there will reduce in the calls, but do we have crime statistics as far as the impact of the curfew on the beach and whether or not that's had any kind of an impact? I was looking for, I don't know if it's in here. It's hours of time a day when they got there, number of calls inside and outside of the curfew period, total number of bookings during curfew time. And so, I mean, looking at 2019 for that graph on page seven. So the overall, so on page seven, the overall number of bookings decreased significantly after the restrictions were put in place from 2013 to 18 on average nearly one third of bookings per year have occurred during the nighttime restriction hours for Cal Beach. Yeah, and where those bookings for, you know, and so it gets into the question of what were the bookings for and, you know, was it for intoxication or was it drug use or was it camping. So there's a lot of questions that kind of come up from that with regards to the effectiveness of it and then also with us talking about main beach as well and the extension over to that area. So it's just hard to make a decision based off or at least to understand its effectiveness just based off of, I mean, this is just maybe my subjective observation of it, but kind of vague numbers. I mean, it gives the general overview, but it doesn't really provide much detail as to like before the curfew there were this many arrests for paraphernalia and drug use compared to this many that were there afterwards. And I don't know if we have that data from any of the, from the, that would associate or justify the work. Good afternoon, Mayor Cummings, Council. Bernie Escoli from the Police Department. It's difficult to capture some of the information you're asking because you have to realize that a lot of the violations of the law are occurring in the middle of the night. But we're not made aware of those issues until seven or eight in the morning when the leftover debris is on our beaches. Because there's not a lot of people out there. There's not a lot of people awake at two, three in the morning to report those incidents. With this tool, it automatically allows us the legal standing to go down onto the beach and make contact with people to observe what they're doing. Without this tool, then we have to get into walking down there and having the right resources to discover what is actually going on. But most of the time, for example, the photo that was shown underneath the wharf. That's something that we won't observe more than likely until the next day when staff comes in and observes the significant damage, vandalism, fire dangers and such. So, I guess it's difficult to answer your question because no, I don't have the specific crime data, but also keep in mind that we're not made aware of the violations until outside of the curfew hours, if that makes sense. Yeah, it just seems that there's a greater penalization for the larger community because of the actions of a few if we're restricting access to the beach during a specific period of time. Because there might be in the middle of night sometimes people that go down and do unsavory things. But that makes it so that no one else, regardless of their actions on the beach are allowed to be on the beach. It just seems rather unfair, but that, anyway, thank you. I appreciate that, thank you. I just had a question with reference to the Seaside Company deck and volleyball courts. Could you elaborate on that a little bit more? Yeah, so we've had an agreement, geez, I want to say before the 90s. We're essentially, seasonally, the Seaside Company sets up a temporary deck right below their colonnade that has seating as well as access improvements. And there's some volleyball courts that are installed as well. And so the Seaside Company rents those for events. But then also allows for public access. And there's a certain amount of percentage of time that would be allowed for the public to access it. So to some, that's a benefit to be able to kind of have a picnic off at the beach, except be able to sit at a picnic table. And from the Coastal Commission stand, so it's a business using a certain portion of the beach for a certain amount of time beyond what members of the public can use. Yeah, I'm just curious if there's any argument to be made for the public benefit. Because it seems like any member of the public could go and use that deck and there's no restriction on like you have to have purchased your food here in order to have access to this. There's just certain, so during certain portions of the time it would be closed off for the Santa Cruz Seaside Company events and then there would be certain portions of time where it'd be open for just members of the general public. Any other comments? Seeing none, I'll open up the public comment on this item. And so if you'd like to comment, please line up to my left and you'll have two minutes. Hello, I'm Nathan Kennedy and one of the groups I've worked with extensively for the use over the years is downtown streets team. We go around, we clean up needles and cigarette butts all throughout the day. And what I gotta say is as far as the beach goes, we need to remove the pet restriction so people can bring their dogs, but at the same time, the reason those dogs aren't allowed is because there's too much dog poop ending up in the sand. And thus what I think we should do, legitimize having dogs, but make the fine for not cleaning up after your dog way more excessive than it is even now. Same thing with the cigarettes, same thing with intravenous drug use. What we do really need is some drop boxes, legitimate drop boxes that are on the beach or at least right off the beach that are to drop off your sharps. If you are using them and shouldn't be, we still need to have a place where people can properly dispose of them. We find them all the time and we're the ones that are dealing with the disposing of them and dealing with the disposal of needles is very stressful. I can't find a better word than that. But basically we need sharps containers to legitimately get rid of sharps all around the beach. All around town actually. We should have it right next to an ashtray right before you get on the beach. And even put a big bat sign directly on the ashtray. No smoking with the ordinance number and everything, fine amount, all that. But we need to make it so that when people are illegitimately smoking, shooting up whatever they have a way to get rid of their garbage. That and the final thing I want to say is I want to make a retraction to comments made earlier about Drew Glover. And what it was, it's stuff I've heard through the grapevine through other people for a while, I apologize that I wasn't able to do some fact checking first. And last but not least, Tom 2020. Thank you. Next speaker. Is there any other member of the public who'd like to address the council on this item? Okay, please. Surge. Okay, and four. All right, so those, the next four people will be our last speakers. Thank you council members. My name is Chris Reyes. I'm from the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk Santa Cruz Seaside Company. I wanted to just add a little context to the beach deck issue. And but first, thanks staff for their work on the beach management plan. It seems like a pretty simple document, but there's a lot of interested parties involved in that. It takes a lot of work to navigate this through it. We start talking with them, you know, well in advance. And so I just appreciate their work getting us to this point. We've had that beach deck in place for, I think over 20 years and it's always been authorized and part of the beach management plan. It sits at ground level right in front of the coconut grove. And the use agreement that we've had in place since the beginning with the city and the Coastal Commission is that we're able to use it for private events, 40% of the time and open to the public 60% of the time when the deck is in place, which is basically roughly May to the end of October. And so we were hoping to be able to continue that. Coastal expressed a lot of concerns. We don't sell anything on the deck. There's no rides on the deck. There's no concessions, private groups rent the deck. And so we worked with Coastal on this when they expressed concerns and wanted to get rid of it. We were able to crunch the data of usage over the last two years and show that we're only using it about 33% of the days that we are allowed to use it. And then in increments of time, looking at that data, because when we use the deck for private event, we close it at about 1030, open it up at about 2.30, 3 o'clock when the event is over, and it's open to the public before and after. We're able to show Coastal Commission data that the deck is actually available to the public about 90% of the time that it's in place because the events that we have are so short. And they just ultimately felt that they didn't want any private usage of anything covering Sandy Beach. And so we weren't able to work through that. We offered to make changes to the hours. We offered to do more on the notification side. We put signs up when the deck is not in use by us. It says open to the public. You can come down there any day and see people having picnics and what not on the deck. We clean the deck. We provide security for the deck throughout the day. So that's the context. I just wanted to share that. Thank you. Thank you. All right. I'll have our next speaker. I didn't know it was suit day. Sorry. Thanks for all the work. And absolutely I couldn't get through that 426 page report either. And I absolutely understand that people sleeping on the beach like has an effect on commerce and tourism completely understand that and sort of agree. My issue is that I'd like you to consider is that the Coastal Commission says that it can be limited for public health and safety issues to and also gives freedom for controlling public nuisances. But defining anybody sleeping as a public nuisance seems challenging in court. The safety issues were just completely not shown for the clearing of the open beach. You're talking about underneath and not having fires or something. OK. Then say no fires and suffering. But those people on the beach the needle count was actually lower than. And I believe Tony Elliott at one Parks and Rec meeting said that they were mostly in the trash cans and over by the levy which had nothing to do with people on the tents. And the fecal coliform numbers you would need more than one year to compare the numbers. And you could open the bathrooms too. Again not saying that the beach is our best place for it. But to just blanket stay say public nuisance and public health and safety lets you do anything with homeless moving them around and continuing to play whack-a-mole. It's not really helping our public discourse. Thanks. Next speaker. I'm Elise Caspi and I'm speaking today as a citizen more than an activist. I find the entire setup down at the beach to be our cake. Kind of out of the Eiffel Tower Parisian spectacle type of economy of the 1800s. I think that it is completely backwards for our current times in terms of environmental stewardship public access and really considering our beach and where the ocean meets the land is an incredible resource for millions of people who come to visit Santa Cruz over time. I think that we need to get away from an exploitation extraction use of the beach where we have you know thousands upon thousands of tourists coming to a very small area with you know huge parking lots paving over toxic waste being dumped, cars and SUVs being allowed to drive unawares. This is archaic, it's distasteful to me and I think we could do much better. To have a really nurturing and nourishing point of view not an expletative one but one of where we really value in church our beach area. I'm horrified by the cars driving on to the wharf at this day and age. I find that egregious and to compare that site to some sleeping people who are generally sleeping there because our economy and our elites and our government are so incapable of providing living wage jobs and affordable or low income housing. I find it a fetish an obsessive fetish and to get into this idea of demarcating dry sand from wet sand and to have more heavy policing of an area. Well, that's fine. I'll probably be leaving because it reminds me of New Jersey where I came from. Yucky. Okay, next speaker. There, I just wanted to mention that I'm concerned about this beach management plan, particularly the curfew issue from a public access perspective. The California Coastal Act states that the legislature finds and declares that the basic goals of the state for the coastal zone are to maximize public access to and along the coast and maximize public recreational opportunities in the coastal zone consistent with sound resource conservation principles and constitutionally protected rights of private property owners. I'm not aware if after, if this curfew goes into place, if there would be any beach in the city of Santa Cruz that would be open after midnight on the dry sand portion of the beach, to me that's really concerning if there aren't any publicly accessible late night beaches. Regardless of the use, I think there are legitimate uses at any time of day for recreation. If we're trying to use the curfew as a tool to mitigate some of the problems that we have with unwanted behavior or sleeping on the beach, things like that, there are lots of ways that we could mitigate the illegal behavior, like with increasing patrols of the beach, and then someone mentioned increasing our number of sharps containers for problems like needle disposal, keeping the bathrooms open, and as far as people sleeping on the beach having an alternative place in the city where people are allowed to sleep, I think the summer people ended up gravitating to the beach because there wasn't a law preventing them from being there, and if we had this curfew, obviously that changes. So it just is moving people somewhere else. So if we don't have a place for people to go, people are going to find somewhere to be regardless of where. You'll be our last speaker. Good afternoon, Scott Graham. Having followed the cases of Malibu Beach and Martins Beach, in those court cases, they always mention the mean high tide as being the line where the public has access at all times, and it's not the wet or dry sand that they talk about. It's the mean high tide line. And so I think what needs to happen here is the city needs to find out from the Coastal Commission or from the Lands Commission where the mean high tide line is, and you're not going to be able to restrict what people do from that mean high tide line down to the water as far as their public access, because that's guaranteed by state law that people have public access to the beach below the mean high tide line, not just the wet sand, not to stay off the dry sand, because some of that dry sand during various times of the year are below the mean high tide. And so to tell somebody, well, you're on the dry sand, so you're getting a ticket is ridiculous, unless they're above the mean high tide line, according to state law, they're allowed to be below the mean high tide line at all times. Thank you. I could bring it back to Council for Action and Deliberation. That's more of a math issue. There's a great deal of both precedent and effort that's gone into the consideration of beach curfews in recent years and the inclusion in this plan. And I just want to point out in our hard copy, this is the correspondence about the beach, largely about the beach curfew issue, and it's almost entirely in favor of continuing the very limited curfew, reminding that the beaches are largely an economic driver for our local economy and widely enjoyed by residents of the community. There was a great deal of thought given to this, and I believe there is a good conversation with Coastal Commission, and I, for that reason, think it's important to both approve the public access policy and endorse the beach management plan. So I'm going to go ahead and make that motion. Motion made by Council Member Matthews. Is there a second? Seconded by Council Member Watkins. Council Member Glover. Thank you. I made, and the last time we talked about this, I think I made my first perspective abundantly clear with regards to my thoughts on the restriction of beach access and not to disregard the stack of paper that Council Member Matthews just showed with regards to correspondence, but also I think it's kind of problematic in the way that the problem was presented in general and in the fact that we, as a city, which we talked about last time, also created the problem. So I would love to support this item if I was guaranteed that the individuals, especially those experiencing homelessness that would be directly affected by this continued curfew, which essentially criminalizes them from being on the beach or having access to it at any specific time, were guaranteed shelter in some way or another. We had an actual plan in order to make sure that they would be able to have a place to sleep. We've been having this conversation at least since I've been in office in Seoul for the last year. And long before that, and I find it very difficult that we continuously, as well as including some of the ordinance suggestions that will be coming before us eventually from the police department, continuously make our public spaces less and less accessible for the poorest and most vulnerable in our community and instead shift to criminalization, penalization, curfews and different kinds of ways to, as it's put, detour certain behaviors, but in reality keep poor people from specific spaces in our community. So it's disappointing that this is back before us again, and we haven't made any progress on solving that shelter issue. I just wanted to ask the city manager, what is the plan? I don't think anyone up here wants the beach to be a sleeping zone or a camping zone. Yet, there's hundreds of people every night that need a place to sleep. What are we doing? Well, as you know, homelessness is a major issue throughout California. And I don't think there's any overnight solution to it. But as far as what the city is doing is working with our partners at the county, particularly now when there's been an opportunity to be more proactive on some of these issues. As it relates to having more resources, the state has provided more resources to focus on trying to address some of these issues. So it involves what I've talked about on a number of occasions, which is to expand our shelter capacity. We're working with that on the county. Also, the county is interested in revising their system whereby individuals can go through the sheltering system and be provided with assistance to get into housing. So not just having a housing system of individuals, but a system where people can make themselves get the services that they need to move on and get into permanent housing. So those are all reforms that are more longer term. In the meantime, with respect to some of the more short term, we are in the process of acquiring property to establish navigation centers. The county has a goal and the recommendations from consultants that were hired to look at our system is to create navigation centers throughout the county. So that there are places where people can access services, both day and sheltering services. So that's a long term plan. So in the meantime, again, we address the situations as needed based on the conditions that are taking place in the beach areas, a different area, for example, than some of the other areas. And the city does need tools to be able to respond to different circumstances. So these are some of the tools to address the particular circumstances on the beach and there are other tools that are needed to address the other situations throughout the city. One more question from, I guess, Tony or Noah. This body doesn't have to act on anything right now, but the Coastal Commission is going to take it up anyway? Or are they waiting for us? No, we have the meeting scheduled. This is an opportunity for outreach. It's also an opportunity for us to present this to you. And if the city council approves it as written in the beach management plan, under our municipal code and council policy, we would essentially move forward or Tony establish those new times. And then if conditions change or there's a desire from the city council to review it, that's something that we could revisit that at the local level. So in a sense, it allows for that flexibility over time. If there are recommendations moving forward over that five year period or new conditions arise, which allow us to ease those restrictions, that's something that we can just have that discussion here without returning back to the Coastal Commission. Thank you. And I just wanted to say for the record, I agree with Council Member Matthews that the beach area is an important economic engine for this community. And again, I don't think anyone up here thinks it should be a giant campsite 24-7 or even half of that time. But I don't think we're doing a very good job in finding places for folks to sleep. But I'm not going to support this motion not because of that, but because I would like to hear from the Coastal Commission first what they say about this report. And then I think that it would be better for us to act then. That's Member Brown. So I just want to make a couple of comments. We went through this conversation in the fall and at the time I said it, and so I won't repeat, but I just want to kind of very quickly say, I too am dismayed that the recommendations that come before us to help to try to manage the issues that arise because of our unhoused population are, you know, primarily, entirely punitive. And I recognize that we need tools to address and manage issues as they arise. But I believe the city has failed. We have collectively failed for decades now and we are failing every time we are at this dais when we do not have any proposals for alternatives, safe spaces for people, places where people can actually be. And until we address that issue, we are going to continue to get recommendations about limiting access to spaces in the city. And I do not support that approach. I will not support that approach moving forward. In this case, I do believe that, you know, we also have a responsibility to do what we can to kind of to manage the issue. What's the word I'm looking for? To ensure that there is some, you know, quality of, you know, access and use for the broader population. And yes, it is an income generating area. Whatever we all think about that individually, that is the case. And we ought not to be, you know, making decisions based upon whether or not we approve of those activities. I think we should be making our decision based upon what is best for the community at large. So in this case, I do, I will support the recommendation. But I want to make it clear with that caveat that I do not support this approach as a general approach to the issues that we're dealing with. Any other comments? I'd like to repeat the motion which is that the city council adopt a resolution approving the city beach public access policy and endorse the 2020 beach management plan. The motion was made by council member Matthews seconded by council member Watkins. All those in favor please say aye. I like for Drew. Yeah, I think he made it clear that he wasn't going to support it as well. So maybe that can be a note. And so I'll just call the vote. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. And for the record, I would like to hear what the Coastal Commission says about the report. So that is council members Watkins, Matthews, Brown, Vice Mayor Myers, Mayor Cummings. I know council member Crone and council member Glover absent, however having expressed not being in favor. All right, moving on to the next item of general business. This is item number 23, request to direct staff to draft the city policy regarding Santa Cruz Police Department's use of surveillance technology. And I'll just give a minute for folks to kind of get resettled before we start this item. Okay, I'm happy to start this item off. So on October 25th, I participated on a facial recognition and surveillance panel hosted by the ACLU. With Lee Hepner, A to San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin, Matt Cagle, ACLU Northern California. Tracy Rosenberg, Executive Director, Media Alliance. And around 40 members of the community had attended this panel discussion. And they expressed a desire to have some policy implemented to restrict the use of facial recognition and predictive policing. And to have a more transparent policy around surveillance as it relates to law enforcement within the city of Santa Cruz. And so council member Glover and Crone also expressed interest in working on this item. And the ACLU had drafted policy that had been implemented in other communities which I provided to the police chief back in December. On January 6th, council member Glover, myself, Chief Mills, met to discuss ordinance language that had been proposed. And to identify areas of concern and find areas of agreement within this policy. This was also sent to the city attorney's office on January 13th. And he proposed a few areas of concern that he offered to discuss with the council members who brought this item forward. Considering the amount of time that had been dedicated to reviewing this ordinance and the additional time needed for input. And how that would likely exceed the eight hours, which if council members are to bring items to staff. If they exceed eight hours, we need approval by the council. We are bringing this item forward today. Additionally, since at the last council meeting we implemented a policy around placing items on the agenda and this was the first time we tried using that policy. And personally, I was away in DC at the US Conference of Mayors. And there were some issues between communication and staff and council members were putting this item on the agenda. And so when the item was placed on the agenda, a number of community members had reached out to us, for example. Because the item that's proposed are the recommendations that council member Glover, myself, and Chief Mills had agreed on, however, a red line version had not been proposed. And so some of the members of the ACLU, they had noticed that some language was missing and they actually wanted to have a broader discussion around some of the language that was removed and the policy in general. However, today, we are here to discuss this item and the motion for this would be to, well, I won't repeat the motion. I won't say the motion because I don't have a motion, but the recommendation that it has been provided was to direct staff to draft a city policy that would increase oversight of the Santa Cruz Police Department's acquisition and deployment of predictive policing and live facial recognition technology for the purposes of investigating crimes within our community. And so I'd like to open the floor to any council members who would like to speak towards the item or if they have any questions. All right, seeing none, I'll open the floor. I think I do have one, and thank you for bringing this forward and spending the amount of time. I know that you've collectively put into this. I just want to ask, for the purpose of investigating crimes, and this is just an honest question, I don't know the answer to it. What is the possibility for existing technology or future for assisting in the identity of victims? So maybe we can just, as there's a discussion, include that. Sure, and one thing that I'd like to clarify is that through discussions that Council Member Gleller and I had with the police chief, this was something that was brought forward to our attention is that the police for law enforcement purposes actually do use this technology to find victims and identify victims. One of the big concerns is around live facial recognition technology. So live videos that are identifying people in real time and how the technology that currently exists is very biased. And so this policy, and in addition to that, predictive policing has also proven to be very biased. And so the intention of this policy or ordinance, however it's to come forward, is really to limit the use of those technologies until they're proven to reduce or eliminate bias around the way that they're used. The police have indicated that they do use facial recognition technology for photos of potentially missing children or around, sorry, the word escapes me. But trafficking, yeah, correct. And so this wouldn't inhibit their ability to use this technology for the purposes of trafficking. And so that's why we were also more encouraged to bring this forward at this time with that information. Council Member Gleller. Thank you, and just to provide some clarity because some people that are either watching or listening or maybe even us on this body when they hear that the live facial recognition is bias, what does that mean? And there are studies that have come out and published by the New York Times, for example, that shows that algorithms that are associated with live facial recognition software falsely identify African American and Asian faces 10 to 100 times more than Caucasian faces. So there's an incredibly high rate of misidentification, especially of black and brown identified people within the systems of live facial recognition. So it's problematic to say the least, sure. I just have a question on the item in the packet, excuse me. So the most, or the recommendation is to direct staff to draft a city policy. So, and then include it in the packet though as an ordinance. And is that the, that's the intent, is the ordinance? We have, so kind of as this, and this is also kind of fitting in with the new policy that we had adopted. There's been discussion whether this should be a policy or an ordinance, and that is a question that's up for debate. And also for review by the city attorney. And I'll just say that this is the, as this being the first time we've used the council policy 6.9 for putting items on the agenda. One of the things that we've been realizing is that there's a lot, there's still a lot of areas to be worked out with this policy. And it was, there's some difficulty with, do we put this on in the form that it's currently in, but then recommend policy or ordinance? It was really difficult to see what was the best way to put this on the agenda. And so I actually personally have expressed that I think that we need to take that, the policy that we passed around setting agenda items, we need to, I think we need some more time to reconsider what it looks like in terms of staff time, what it looks like in terms of how items go on. And so I just wanted to express that as well, because it was difficult. Thank you, yeah, and I just want to maybe clarify for people who may be following at home or have the. So when we say draft a city policy, that would be a new city council policy, that would be a council policy then. Is there a policy, possibly an ordinance, yes, correct. Thank you. Is there any other questions at this time? Seeing none, I'll open it up to a public comment and I see that there was a member of the ACLU who reached out to me and requested four minutes, so I will allow that. We're going to tag team. The ACLU Santa Cruz wishes to thank Mayor Cummings for his interest in facial recognition and for bringing forward the ordinance crafted by the ACLU in Northern California. However, on behalf of the 30 social justice and civil rights groups prepared to speak in support of the surveillance oversight in Santa Cruz, we will not be able to support the watered down draft version provided in the packet. And we insist that the draft goes forward in this referral to be the original draft submitted by the ACLU and Oakland Privacy. But the staff be instructed to meet with the ACLU and other privacy advocates to discuss potential changes in the language in order to fully understand their impacts prior to return to council. These surveillance oversight ordinances are not new. They are used in dozens of cities, countries, and transit districts worldwide including 7 in the Bay Area, Oakland, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Palo Alto, and Barth to name a few. They are proven and tested models for surveillance oversight. We want Santa Cruz to start from a proven model that works, not a hasty improvisation. The starting point should be the original draft provided and sudden revisions, and the sudden revisions among other problems. I would just like to interject a personal point. All of the laws in discussion about this is based on the African American Asian problem with identification. The issue is surveillance state intrusion into your personal being. So the ACLU has written a model ordinance to cover these kinds of issues. And we are concerned that the draft ordinance that it sounds like you, Mayor Cummings, and Drew Glover, and Mills worked on together, really doesn't do any justice to the model ordinance written by the ACLU.  The problems with the revisions that have been suggested, there's a number of them. Number one, it does not contain a meaningful description of what surveillance technology is and what is included in the oversight framework and what is not. It does not restrict to the emergency use of surveillance technology to the particular incident that is the emergency, and that creates a giant loophole. It does not prevent the use of facial recognition software by an outside party or vendor on behalf of the city. And so in that regard, it doesn't ban the use of facial recognition technology at all. And it does not provide the community with an ability to respond to non-compliance. Basically, any enforcement has been removed from the ordinance itself. We need to make sure that it's not just, that even if our current staff are following the procedures down the road, there might be some future city employee or city council that doesn't, and there's no remedy for that. And we also think that the ordinance should apply to all city departments, not just the police. And so really, the ACLU has written this ordinance that is in practice all around the state. It's supported by a lot of community groups. If you move away from that ordinance, you're getting into all kinds of murky area. Surveillance is a big deal, and it's a technology that the framers have no, they didn't know about facial recognition technology, and so we really need civil rights scholars and people who actually understand the law around this. And it's the police state that's at risk here, but also really serious issues with discrimination. And we want to make sure that the policy is in accordance with the ACLU model draft. Any other member of the public who would like to address us on this issue? You'll have two minutes. Good evening, I'm Scott Graham. In the fall of 89, I was here when the earthquake hit. About two and a half weeks later, I flew to Germany, and the Berlin Wall came down. While I was there, after a certain time period, Americans were allowed to go into East Germany, East Berlin. And so I had to go through checkpoint Charlie. That was the only place I was as an American. I was allowed to enter East Germany. But the first thing I noticed when I got to the east side of the wall was that all the surveillance cameras were broken. People had thrown rocks at them and they were just dangling from the street lights. And the Stasi, which was the secret police, but they weren't quite so secret, spied on everybody in East Germany. And so the first thing that East Germans did was get rid of those cameras. So they weren't being spied on continuously. And here we are in this day and age, going headlong into being surveilled continuously. We're putting devices in our houses supposedly to help us manage our house and get information, but Alexa is actually spying on us. And police all over the country are asking citizens that have personal surveillance cameras around their houses or around their businesses to allow the police to have access to those cameras. And so we're going into the same kind of situation that East Germans were relieved to get out of, all in the name of safety. And safety is not necessarily freedom. Thank you. Next speaker. So requested direct staff to draft a city policy regarding Santa Cruz Police Department's use of surveillance technology. I don't think there's much we can do about the control of surveillance. My first and only trip to Europe in 1986, one of my managers opened up an envelope and he was really upset because they got him a speeding ticket for going 90 miles an hour and with the technology back then. You could clearly see his face. He was upset that he got caught. So that's technology that's been more than 30 years old. There's a lot of technology that's more than 100 years old. This thing tracks everything I do. The only thing for sure that I know it's not doing is I have the front camera taped over. Besides that, tracking me is doing everything well beyond facial recognition. Thanks. Next speaker. Not a lawyer, not a lawyer. Just wondering on the wording, would it also cover the cameras that were put on West Cliff that were the public works put up some cameras for Santa Cruz neighbors and it was watching parking and stuff? It would cover that kind of thing too. And the exigent circumstances that's referred to, that there can be surveillance in exigent circumstances and it has to be kept. I think that needs to be defined a little bit better. It's sort of fake. Thanks. I'm just going to ask if there's any other person who'd like to speak to us on this item after the person who's about to speak. And seeing none, you'll be our last speaker. Basically, I would like to ask that the council consider the ACLU's recommendations. I did go to hear a workshop presented by the ACLU at the Resource Center for Nonviolence on this, and it seems like they have a deep and really close history of examining these laws and the use of surveillance by bodies like the police. And I think that their recommendations are to be listened to and followed with a lot of respect and to just really take what they're saying in hand. I personally can't really get into the details of this issue because it's an issue that to me we're so far down the road. What I want to speak to is the constitutional right to freedom. The pursuit of happiness, freedom. These are the things that I'm constantly seeing on these agendas that are being shut down like the last issue. The beach represents freedom. It's a place where we all go because the expanse of seeing that ocean with the beach, it means freedom. And to be able to go to the beach and enjoy oneself without fear or to have to have a lot of money or whatever is important. Similarly, to be able to live life, just to be able to live without being constantly surveilled, particularly nervous about the whole facial recognition technology. And I really wish that I could speak to that. Combine the bias issues here and the predictive policing issues here. Chief Mills at MLK Day at Loud Nelson said that he is basically they're revising or they're going to actually dump their predictive policing because it's so biased. And so I just really want to ask that people consider, why are we really getting into all this surveillance? Is it really preventing crimes? Thank you. And so I'll bring it back to Council for Action Deleration and Council Member Cron. Thank you, Mayor. In the interest of time, I think that we, I would love to have seen a red line version as well. And it doesn't, the two don't match up. And it seems like there was some confusion here. I would make a motion that we send this to the Public Safety Committee and that Chief Mills and our city attorney also be involved in reviewing this ordinance and that it come back to the city council no later than the second meeting in February. Second, can I just really quickly ask a question of my motion maker? Would you include in that consideration of the stricken language that the ACLU is asking? Yeah, I would expect that we would look at the Oakland and San Francisco ordinances as well. And they see what the ACLU language was originally that gave it to us. We have Council Member Watkins. The agenda report, it specifies that this would involve community outreach. That the timeline would be approximately three to six weeks. And that there would be sort of an assessment of various policy options. I'm wondering how that's different than how the motion on the floor is different than the recommendation before us. Or the intention behind the agenda creators. Do you see variation in terms of what was sort of generally outlined in the motion before us? In regards to the process that's been kind of established in your agenda report versus what you're suggesting now? Because I think it sounds to me quite similar. Or maybe I'm Mr. I wanted to include the Public Safety Committee. And I wanted to make sure that the original language that the ACLU put forward gets re-evaluated with what's in front of us. I'm assuming that came up, came to us from staff. I guess just for clarification, if I may, that it has it listed that it would include going to the Public Safety Committee. And that it would research how the ordinance could influence the impact. So I think it covers that, right? Okay, I'm just, sorry. Senator Mathews. And given that, my only concern is timing. Getting to public safety, getting a gender report, giving adequate time for community input. And then getting back to us for a good, solid report and discussion. The timeline here refers to three to six weeks. I don't know when public safety is scheduled to meet, etc., etc. So there again, I think to say, at the earliest feasible meeting gives a sense, but it'll lock us into an unachievable. With the same manager. If I may, I think when we worked on putting this together, I think that consideration was given to going to the Public Safety Commission. And the timeline reflects being able to do that, the three to six weeks reflects being able to do that as well. And again, I think the intent wasn't to put forward a particular proposal of one sort or another at this time. It was to essentially put forward the council approval to move forward with bringing something together and what that process would be. And that doesn't exclude or preclude the ACLU's version or anything like that. So I just want to be clear, that was just, the intent here was to simply bring it forward for your consideration and your direction, and then it'll come back to you based on the input from the Public Safety Committee and the public within this time frame. It's member Crone, and then I have Glover, Brown, and then I'll add myself to stack. I'm okay, I'd leave it up to the mayor to schedule the time on the agenda that it comes back. I don't know if you have an idea of when you'd like to see it come back. So is that a question to me? In the motion, well, the first question is, when is the next Public Safety Committee meeting? So we were going to have it between now and the end of February. With an email I received from Chief High Duke. He says that the 26th or 27th of February, based on our schedules. So that would be the goal, which is approximately four weeks, which falls into the three to six week timeline. And that would provide enough time for public input, not only to have the department heads look at it and provide their feedback, but also for people to come and participate in that Public Safety Committee meeting to give their feedback, as well as potentially get the input from the ACLU. So mine, when you said, if I'm correct, that the 27th or 28th of February? 26th or 27th. 26th or 27th of February, so then the earliest it could come back would be the first meeting in March. It falls within the time frame, so, okay. And, did you have any other comment, because you were next on staff? It was just to make sure that we, if it was kind of a statement or a question to the maker of the motion, is just to make sure that if there are any other necessary or affected department heads that might need to look at it to make sure that we give them authorization to spend time looking at it. So I don't know, I don't know how big of a deal it is, but directing the police chief and city attorney in any other affected department to review the red line version of the surveillance ordinance as necessary. And send the red line version of the ordinance to the Public Safety Committee meeting to prioritize it at its next meeting in February for discussion and action. So that we can take action on it in the committee. And then also, there was a request from the ACLU, and I don't know if you want to include this, but also instruct staff to meet and confer with the ACLU and associated organizations to address their concerns. I would take that as a friendly amendment if that's okay with- Second. If that is going to be a friendly amendment to the main motion, then I'm going to have to ask that you restate what the current motion then is on the floor. Current motion on the floor was to- Well, I mean the current motion with the amendments, because it seems like there's a lot of overlap between the two. So if we just repeat the motion. What he said is fine. That's, you know, I'd agree with that motion if you want to make that the motion that's- So would you like to withdraw your motion and then have Council Member Glover restate? Okay, I'll make, I'll leave it to you with John. Okay, so I'll make the motion, thank you. I'll make the motion to direct the police chief, city attorney, and any other affected department head to review the red line version of the surveillance ordinance as necessary and send the red line version of the ordinance to the Public Safety Committee to prioritize it for the next meeting in February for discussion and action. In addition, instruct staff to meet and confer with the ACLU and associated organizations to address their concerns. I'm waiting to see if the clerk was able to capture that. I did. I tried to have that cadence. Can I just clarify, are we still seeing come back, bring back to Council at the first meeting of March? First meeting, yeah. I'm not sure if it matters, but reports are due on the 27th of February. I guess to the makers of the motion, they'd be able to draft the report in time for the 27th of this meeting, it was on the 26th. Yeah, let me just pull this up really quick. I know we're out of time, let's go like this and then go here, 27th, which is Thursday. Mayor, I think just to clarify too, the three to six weeks time frame was based off of just looking at the police department. So if we're going to include other departments, which it sounds like that motion is leading towards, we may need more than three to six weeks to consider how it impacts the other departments. So I just wanted to throw that on the table. Thank you. And sir, go ahead and we'll just respond to that. I think that this ordinance specifically is just looking at the police department and then later on, if we wanted to expand it to other departments, that was just because of the new council policy for staff time, if for some reason there was another department that for some reason was identified as needing to be brought into the conversation. We wouldn't have any conflict with making sure there was direction from the council on allowing them to participate and spend staff time on the analysis. Okay, cool. Council Member Brown, myself and then Council Member Matthews. Thank you. Yeah, so a couple of things. First, I thank you, Martin, for helping to clarify that this was not about bringing a particular policy forward. Although it was a little confusing to me, I think, and members of the public who contacted me because there is an ordinance included in the agenda with the agenda item. And it is a different ordinance than the one that community members originally brought. So it appears that the plan is to use this one. So that being the case, there will be some discussion about bringing an ordinance to us for a first reading or a policy that makes me feel more comfortable. And then secondly, so I seconded the motion and I support including the additional language regarding Department Head review, but not asking specifically that those Department Heads be included in the loop. And Council Member Glover has raised a challenge that is related, but I want to finish with this piece of the agenda item and also talk about the way this council policy that we adopted at our last meeting affects the way we do business here. And so I'll, if I could, raise that afterwards. I think that there's some challenges with it. This is the first time as Mayor Cummings suggests that it's been utilized. And I'm not sure that the way it's being interpreted and operationalized here is really getting at answering the question or concern that we raised, that council members raised when we referred this originally, which was about helping us understand how to get an item on the agenda. Not thinking about kind of having to have the foresight to decide at every turn. What we need to put in a motion to ensure that there isn't a delay and staff is going to come back and say, well, this is going to take more time. So there's that kind of, I mean, it feels like it's just over complicating what was a pretty simple request. And so I'd like to try to address that after we finish here. I know it's not, that's not specifically the agenda item, but because it's referenced in this agenda report, I'd like to just try to resolve that. Okay, Council Member Matthews. I'm simply concerned about the timeframe if the Public Safety Committee is meeting on a certain date and the staff report is due the next date. I think I'd prefer to have more time to be thorough on the agenda report that comes to us. So that is put it off to the subsequent meeting or say such and such a date or the next meeting as feasible. I think rushing an agenda report on a topic that's this laden with issues doesn't do us a service. Thank you, I can understand your concern, Council Member Matthews. However, I did just check with my colleagues here and we are able to meet for a Public Safety Committee meeting. Not on the 26th, unfortunately, but on the 27th. Now I understand that that is the same day as the agenda item is due. But if everything is completed ahead of time with regard to the agenda item, except for the report back from the Public Safety Committee experience and recommendations that come from the Public Safety Committee, then a quality agenda report can be created by those that are the ones that brought it forward. And still be able to meet that timeline that we're anticipating. It's completely feasible and since I don't believe, and I don't want to assume, but I don't believe that it will affect you in any way, since you're not involved with any of the committees or any of the process, then I believe that we will be able to accomplish the goal. Are there any other comments at this time? Seeing none. Wondering if the clerk could repeat the motion, just so the public is clear. Try what I got. Okay. Direct, the chief of police and the city attorney to review the red line surveillance ordinance as necessary and send the red line ordinance to the Public Safety Committee to prioritize it for the next, this part change, to the next meeting in February for a discussion and direct staff to meet with the ACLU. And then return back in the first meeting in March. And we'll just again, if possible, because I just want to be completely transparent. If possible, that's fine. I think that that provides some flexibility as well in case the report doesn't get done in time. Again, just want to be honest. First meeting in March, if possible. All right, we'll go call vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. Oh, and then before, yeah. So I'll go to councilmember Brown to address the other concern. So I said this when we adopted the policy. I kind of cautiously agreed to sign on because much work had been done to try to give us something that we could use as a guide. However, given the experience with this particular agenda item, and kind of the way that I see this policy, at least in the early stage, being implemented or operationalized, I'm not, like I said, I'm not sure it really addresses our concern. For example, we're not actually getting information to help us understand how much time, aside from more than eight hours, who will be involved? It's just not sufficient information to help us make decisions for prioritizing, I feel. So, I mean, if we're gonna do this this way, I would want to know how much time, how long it's gonna take, the anticipated timelines, which staff are gonna be assigned, not the individual people necessarily, but as an analyst, as an engineer, depending on what the issue is. And it just seems like we're making it so complicated that it's gonna be difficult if we really go down this road. I'd like to make a motion that we rescind this policy 6.9, council policy 6.9, and direct staff and perhaps the mayor and vice mayor to consider alternative ways of addressing the agenda, agendizing issue. Not, not. You might want to consider making a motion to agendize that for consideration at a future meeting. I meant to ask you about that, so can we agendize for the next council meeting consideration of council policy 6.9? We're sending council policy 6. I'll second that. Councilor Matthews. To that, I actually thought it worked relatively well here. I took the intention to be that, is the council interested in investing such and such chunk of time in this issue? And clearly we are. And so we've kicked it to the next step with a collective approval of that issue. So I think it's actually worked pretty well. I would say if you do want to consider it, reconsider it. Maybe just say at a future agenda. Because we have all these things piling upon us. So that's just my opinion on it. And I'll just weigh in. I've personally found it a little difficult. I do think that when it comes to, for example, items that may come forward. So if there is a council request, for example, if a council member would like to have all the data on any facial recognition, for example, that's been used in the past two to three years. I think that that's something that we need to fall under a policy like this. Or I think that it will be appropriate for council members to bring that as an agenda report for consideration rather than making a motion, for example, at a meeting. I think that was kind of the intention of this policy. But having worked on creating this agenda item, it proved to be much more difficult. And I think that we do need to have a policy like this because we can get more buy-in to something before we move it forward. I just think that it would be good if we had a little bit more time to really understand some of the intricacies of this policy before we move it forward. Because as council member Brown mentioned, there's often, or when it came to this policy and actually the next item, there are recommendations for staff and to not work on other policy to work on other related business for the department. But it's unclear because there wasn't any information provided as to, well, why does that person have to stop working on this? How much time is this going to take? So it just seems like there's still a few holes that need to be filled in this policy before it can be adopted and implemented in a way that is productive. So I realized that this agenda item is a good opportunity to discuss the context in which the policy is applied. But the policy itself is really a different subject. And so that really should be a different agenda item. To cease conversation. Right, so I think the motion to agendize it for consideration at the next meeting or at a future meeting is perfectly appropriate. But discussing how the policies implemented as part of this discussion I think is going a little far field of what the specific agenda item is. So I'm going to just stick with agendizing this for the next meeting for, so to agendize council policy 6.9. For consideration of revisions. So we can have that conversation. Well, I mean, so we can, I can say rescind, but you know, you want to ultimately revise, right? And that's the, I mean, I agree that we should have something in place. And I'm just not clear this is what we need. So rescind or revise? Rescind and or revise. Council policy 6.9. I'll second that. Is there any further comment? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That's unanimously. And so that moves us on to our next item, which is item number 24, which is the evaluation of the potential use of project labor agreements, community workforce agreements or other approaches for city construction projects to produce long term community workforce and local business benefits. So, I also brought this item forward with council members, Crohn and Glover, and just to provide some background on this item. On June 24th, 2019, I attended the Monterey Bay Central Labor Council dinner and had the opportunity to sit with representatives from the OE3 Building Trades Union. We had a discussion around project labor agreements and how they've benefited many local communities. During the fall, I followed up with the building trades and was able to meet with Manny Panero, CEO of the Monterey and Santa Cruz County Building Trades, to discuss community workforce agreements in further detail. Manny was able to provide me with a draft for consideration, which was circulated to the city manager, the city attorney Tony Condati, Rosemary Menard, and Mark Dettel on December 10th of 2019. The water department and public works were pointed out as being the departments that would be most affected by these agreements in the city. I met with Mark Dettel on January 9th, 2020, and many of the other department heads who expressed concern about the agreements. I met with those other department heads on January 17th. It appeared that there are legitimate concerns around emergency projects, projects that require technical expertise, that may warrant some exceptions to this kind of policy. The one thing that both groups were able to agree on is that we would like to help build and sustain a viable local trade workforce, and that these types of agreements have the potential to be beneficial for supporting those efforts within our community. Again, this was another item where we implemented our new council policy. And so it came forward in a way that was a little bit difficult in terms of putting together our agenda report. And again, just also making the point that it would be good if we could review this policy before we implemented any further. And so with that, the initial recommendation was to direct staff to conduct an analysis of the potential for using a project labor agreement, community workforce agreement. Or other applicable approaches to increase community benefit for the local skilled trades and construction workers and produce other long term community benefits as part of the completion of city construction projects. And with that, I'll hand it over to my other colleagues who worked on this. If there's anything else you'd like to add to this. I know that there's some gentlemen in the audience today that have been really waiting and they probably really enjoyed this meeting because it's been a real humdinger, but I'd love to hear from them and so I'll hold my comment. Okay, is there any other council member who'd like to say anything at this time? Just workforce agreements in general are incredibly important in every way that we can support the unions in our community and ensure at the same time local employment is crucial. So we'll talk more about that afterwards, but I'd love to hear from the community about their thoughts on the topic. Are there any other council members who would like to have any questions at this time? Okay, I'd like to invite up Manny Pinero for four minutes. CEO of the Monterey and Santa Cruz County Building Trades to give a short four minute presentation on this. Good afternoon, honorable mayor, honorable council members and your staff here in the community of Santa Cruz. I'm Manny Pinero, CEO, Monterey, Santa Cruz County and Building Trades. I have something here I just want to share to leave with you to get this going because I think there's going to be some great discussions. In the audience, you're going to be hearing from Nicole Gehring. She's from the ABC, the Association of Billing Contractors for quite some time in some ways we're alike. The fact that both of us are both from the construction industry, but for very different reasons. I believe in the opportunity for local people to be able to make a living wage that gives them dignity to thrive within their community of Santa Cruz. While they make great profits for the companies, they work for also the being done with skilled and trained people that live right here in your community and take great pride in what they do in your community. Nicole works for the ABC Association Building Contractors, which only represents 0.03%, that's 0.03% of construction companies throughout the whole entire United States, all 50 states. And with this, it lowers standards of wages so the companies that pay salary that can make more profits off the backs of underpaid workers they represent. In the city council meeting 2019, Eric Christiansen, also an ABC representative, brought so much repeated negativity that the Antioch City, City of Antioch Council, asked him not to return less he could find more positive messages to bring to the community and to the council. I know a lot of you, council members, go unappreciated. But I guarantee that passing the PLA, also community workforce agreement, will not go unappreciated by the members of this community. I thank you for your time. All right, I'd like to invite up any other member of the public. You'll have two minutes to discuss this item. Good afternoon, Mayor, council members and staff. I'm Ron Cheshire. I'm a former CEO of the Monterey Santa Cruz Building Trades. And I'm now director of education and training. Project labor agreements have become quite the thing in the state of California. One week ago, well actually on the 22nd, six days ago, we submitted a $900,000 proposal to the state of California. On behalf of the counties of Monterey, Santa Cruz, and San Benito County. What the proposal to the state was was for SB1 funds in regards to transportation. Now the city may be getting some of those funds in the future, but several of the public entities around the three county area will be getting those. The state encouraged public entities to enter into project labor agreements with the various building trades. Because number one, there is a need for skilled trained qualified individuals in the industry. There's going to be work upcoming. One of these days our representatives federally will decide to rebuild this country. And there will be a lot of infrastructure work also. Two is the fact that work in the state of California in regards to the infrastructure needs trained skilled qualified individuals to be working for companies that can competitively compete for contracts, okay? Now, project labor agreements aren't new. They've been around for quite a long time. And because my time is limited up here, I will say that we are more than amenable to sitting down, providing any information to the council in regards to this in the pet. I guess that's it, so we'll be happy to work with you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor Cummings and members of Santa Cruz City Council. I am Nicole Gehring. I am the Vice President of Community and Government Relations for the Associated Builders and Contractors Northern California Chapter. We've got over 500 members who are committed to safety, quality, and skilled and trained workforce in the industry. We've got a large number of members who are working here in the community who would like to continue to do so. These types of agreements will disenfranchise them, and you will be displacing people potentially making them homeless if they're not able to work on projects. Their community, or they're going to have to drive out of the community and try to find other places to work. I'm pleased that you're going to take the four to six months to take a look at this. You're reprioritizing what I read, some other of your high priorities in order to take a look at this. There are other approaches, there are workforce development plans you can put together. There's ways to do it and be inclusive so you can include the entire diverse construction industry. We don't need to do the one size fits all agreement, the standard PLA that was put before you that actually precludes the local community here from working. And any apprentices here who are not part of union construction apprenticeship programs. We also operate apprenticeship programs and we also have pre-apprenticeship. And we have worked with homeless committees and we've put homeless people to work and we don't want to see them disenfranchised. We work with the Salvation Army, we work with parole and probation in many communities. And we would love to be able to continue to do that and do that here as well to build your workforce. The project labor agreements in this area, they've all been delayed. Anywhere from one and a half to three years, they've all had increased prices. There's a number of different prices. I can give you the names of the projects if you want them, but in the shortness of time. All the ones that have been done in this area have been delayed and increased price. So that's something else to consider or they've received one bid and they've been 62% over the estimate and canceled. Look forward to working with you and including local stakeholders to make this an agreement for everyone. Thank you. Good afternoon. Apologize if this is choppy or short. I was at school this morning at 6 AM, got out at three in Castleville and got here as quickly as I could to attend this meeting. My name is David Rourcamper, I was born at Dominican Hospital here in town, I'm born and raised. My wife was born and raised, I went to school here in town, I work here in town very gratefully. I am a second year apprentice, HVAC technician for Sheet Metal Local 104. As is very well known, it is hard to live here in town. The cost of living is very expensive. I did not move here, I was born here and working in the local community, I realized I needed to do more for my community and more for my future family. This community work agreement or PLA would make it possible to live, work and raise my future family here. My brothers and sisters and I in all the building trades will thank you to provide us with the utmost quality of work that we can provide for you here in Santa Cruz. That's about it, so thank you. Next speaker. Hello, my name is Saban Couples, I'm with IBEW Local 234, which is the electricians union for Santa Cruz County. I'm here to speak in favor of the city of Santa Cruz moving forward, implementing a community workforce agreement. I'm native here to Santa Cruz, I grew up less than five miles away from this building. And I was fortunate enough to have gone through our local five year IBEW electrical apprenticeship program. It's given me the training, the skills and the knowledge to become a professional journeyman electrician that I am today. There are many like me in this community that would love and would be proud of the opportunity to work on local projects. Contributing to the growth of our community is not only something we can personally be proud of, but also something that we can show to our children and generations to come. Local residents working on local projects puts money straight back into our local economy as well. This is why I urge you to implement a community workforce agreement. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Good afternoon, Mayor and Vice Mayor, Council members. My name is Jesse Bristow with Swanson Billers and just like to highlight that we don't really bid public projects. So we don't really have a race in the source. We just wanted to kind of provide some insight as being a construction developer for 32 years here. We have so much volume that we're an open shop. So we hire union subcontractors and non-union subcontractors. And so about four years ago, I think there was an economic study of union labor. I think 16% was commercial projects, 16% were union. And then about 2% to 3% were residential. So just really highlights that there's a small labor pool when it comes to union shops. As I mentioned, they need more training, they need more work. And maybe that's an incentive for you to do the PLA to create that. But because the pool is so small here, you'll actually be pulling from union shops over the hill. And technically it wouldn't be local. I don't believe there's any union wood framers here. But we just want to highlight that it's going to be an added cost. So to take that into consideration, because 90% of your mom and pop shops here for electrical contractors, all of them, they're non-union. And historically, it's non-union. So you're actually competing with unions over the hill and the unions that exist here. So just something to take into consideration because we want to be building it. But it beats a contract that the city would be pursuing and something they should consider. So, thank you. Speaker. Afternoon, Mayor and Council members. Stephen Cry, training coordinator of plumbers and steamfitters local 62 Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. I come before you today in support of the proposed recommendation of directing staff to conduct an analysis of project labor and community workforce agreements. As a training coordinator and former apprentice, I've seen firsthand how these agreements, benefit apprenticeship programs and the underserved portion of o