l district for example has uh impact fees that um we don't collect but are still a requirement of the development so we can have that comprehensive um uh look at here are all the fees for this project for this type of project and that type of project and here's what it would be for the proposed child care impact fee as well as the proposed public safety impact fee and the council can weigh those collectively well i yeah i think that's just really important each of these uh in and of itself has a very clear rationale but collectively it is a huge amount of money so um yeah that will come back to us um on the facilities um plan is that what you're calling it facilities plan my impression and those more familiar with the field can correct me um my impression is that facilities for child care are somewhat opportunistic someone has a home they decide they're going to do that's their home they don't say oh i'm going to buy a home in this area or rent a home in this area because that's where the need is is that a correct um i would think so in the the the action in the general plan is so broad and i'll be honest i don't have the expertise in that facility plan type of area so when i read that it sounded more to me as an understanding of where existing expansion could go using our existing public facilities like schools um like um i'm sorry uh the boys and girls club um to help guide you know potential areas where expansion could happen a little easier as opposed to doing it in your home um i personally had some hesitations with private homes until i heard from the county that they do those contracts of services because i was like well you you just renovated someone's house how do you know they're providing services and sure enough that loan agreement resolved that concern but i thought similar things but it's more of a guiding of using existing facilities because the idea here is impact fees typically help other public facilities so why don't we you know compound that help by putting the child care facility in the other existing park public facility for example they have their own parks fees so that we're improving even more you know that that area two birds one stone i guess well this will be a future discussion okay i just had a question about the ordinance um the fee adjustment section is that something that um is is kind of used used in other jurisdictions is that sort of correct as well as dictated by state law as well and we have to have certain options for for flexibility so great thank you and i guess my other question um because you're looking for direction tonight on the um sort of the administrative structure yeah i'm really looking for you don't have to make the decision today it took me some time and answering further questions to even gather my own thoughts on the recommendation but i'm very interested into your input and where you want to go with that we can bring that all back together as well if you so decide that's okay and i appreciate the the logic to have sort of this mix kind of um alternative to integration because i we do want to leverage systems we know that we're a small county there are a number of people in the field you know i'm sure that we can make it work for our city and for other jurisdictions and that was my other question when i was looking at the alternatives because it does seem like alternative to might be a nice kind of model or you know thing to pursue um but i noticed that for example it looks like the county was had a significant ask last year i think it was 450 some some odd thousand dollars worth of request for their loan program um so when we're pooling pooling together the larger population of need um you know whether or not we get a sense of how that may impact either the success of um you know centers here and within our jurisdiction versus but i but i think just based on some of the the things you've outlined here uh it's it's it's compelling to look at that partnership also on this really important topic and work with the county who does have additional expertise with regards to evaluating these facilities as well as is really documenting the need through their work um so you know i guess it was do you see any issues though with you know the the the amount of pooled resource versus we get into any issues with the jurisdictional boundaries there or not i know i'm assuming most child care centers would they uh they pretty much house kids you know from all over the county so if you live in san q's but you're in watsonville for work right those centers would be servicing any kind of kids from any parts of the county i think this is where that memorandum of understanding really comes into play um and at least outlining responsible parties from each jurisdiction because while i can stand here and say that we will ensure we will communicate turnover happens and you don't know who's left sometimes um but i have no problem in regards to your capacity question if they are overwhelmed it doesn't mean that staff over there won't reach out to us to say hey here's your applications for your jurisdiction can you help us develop the report um so i don't see a problem with capacity as long as communications open and responsibilities outline in that memorandum um additionally in speaking with the deputy director over there in regard they were agreeable and excited about us potentially joining the program for that pooled investment um and they also stated that i know i noted in there that maybe there'll be administrative costs from them but um from talking with emily if we can keep it consistent with the reporting they do now which is they provide the application or you know the report on consent and there's no heavy workload then she's like most likely that's a mute point so just fyi right thank you happy to hear unless there isn't other questions at this time we'll go ahead and see if there's any members of the community who want to address us on this item please everybody um thank you for your community service i really appreciate the work you do my name's donna saffron i own midtown Montessori and it's a small child care center 25 families and i'm the recipient i note the center is the recipient two times from the um child care community development fee from the county and i am located in the city so i just wanted to say that they actually sprinkle it around um the reporting is really easy for child care providers i am a center-based program i didn't just open my home oh my gosh i can't imagine can you imagine never going home from work um but i have a beautiful center that serves those families and they commute over the hill they come my staff comes from Watsonville so the original topic that i heard about that i didn't come here for was the affordable housing and i mean my staff sit in that traffic every day coming back and forth from Watsonville so i just want to give a shout out for affordable housing as well in any way shape or form and that i believe that child care does need it needs a little extra i it helped me when i was building the center they gave me a sizeable grant it's a forgivable loan and they also helped me when my heater was broken and it's too grand that i couldn't come up with in a second and they were able to help with that so and those are just like really tangible things that um help on a human level so thank you okay seeing no other members of the committee we'll go ahead and return for council action on this item um thank you for your work on this i think this holds a lot of potential and a huge huge need in our community and is a great first step to getting us to helping meet that need so um okay councilmember Matthews and then councilmember Myers um when this idea was first proposed it wasn't clear to me where will that money go however much it is um because we have heard over the years so much about the need for fair salaries for child care workers as well which is a huge deal but this i as i understand is aimed strictly at capital improvements for either expansion or renovation improvement etc so i'm very comfortable with that and looked over the list of the recipients um from the 2019 awards they're just really practical things that small either if it's a non-profit or a home take care would be as you say very hard pressed to just come up with to keep the facility appealing safe and up to date so um that to me is a a nice finite target for this kind of a program um do i understand that the awards for ours would go to child care facilities in the city is that that's fully fully the intent i was looking for it just didn't see it okay um well and then when did you think this would come back early next year with the public safety so glad you ask i have a timeline so assuming it's okay to pair it up with public safety impact fee um we're introducing today i would like some time to finalize and bring you know prepare the mo u for you guys to review as well um i provide put a little bit about six months in there that would be happening simultaneously as i'm working with the county to develop the mo u um the responsible party and police can be working towards their nexus analysis for the public safety fee um and hopefully with your recess in july introduction and implementation of you know each of those in august and the fees affected thank you that i'm happy to make a motion for approval of the recommendation second okay oh i don't know okay so that's true so we'll go ahead and have a motion by councilor matthews seconded by vice mayor coming and the recommendation includes alternative to just for clarification okay great any further discussion councilor brown i just want to make a quick comment and say i really appreciate uh the work that you put into this and the clarity of the presentation was really helpful to see i also think that um working with the county partnering with the county is is really going to be uh make this very effective um as we move forward i know i've worked with the local child care planning council in the past and others those other entities really do have the expertise and they have had this program up and running for decades now so um i i think that that is a great way to approach this so i wanted to thank you also i i loved your enthusiasm and the sort of just straightforward manner you brought to the presentation it was um really well done thank you yeah and i just want to thank you and also actually just um thank the county publicly as well for the partnership i think this is a great example of um you know just local government working together and really solving a really important problem for for folks who are taking care of our kids so um please express our appreciation of the county as well and we'll do that too personally thanks definitely i'll echo that i know that they created this report in a way that would be inclusive so to encourage other jurisdictions to join in and just recognizing how critical it is that we collaborate and this i also appreciated the reference to health and all policies because i think this is what that's about in terms of collaboration in regards to having our mutual interest in community well-being met and although a small um potentially not huge way to influence child care it really the the costs get carried over generally to the um to the clients which is then the families which then it contributes to the imbalance of affordability in our community and this as we're seeing a demographic shift this is a way for us to offset that um using a very practical tool and um and hopefully the developers know that they're contributing something much bigger than than just a fee so with that um we'll go ahead and maybe take the vote so all those in favor please say aye any opposed okay that passes unanimously thank you okay and we have one last item before we conclude this afternoon's agenda and that's ad use and maybe take a two-minute pause if we could sure for a restroom right sorry thank you all right okay let's go ahead and get started we are on the last um item for afternoon uh council meeting agenda we have an adjournment time at 5 15 so i'll just go ahead and remind the council that we'll be adjourning this afternoon with uh around 5 15 um and we'll go ahead and try to get through it all and we'll kick it right over to our our staff to start the presentation thank you mayor and council members lee butler the planning and community development director and i've got sarah noisy with me the senior planner she's been reviewing uh the many state bills that were adopted this year as they relate to accessory dwelling units and um we have a series of changes proposed for you this evening or this afternoon that include both an urgency ordinance to um have our regulations take effect immediately and um also first readings for two other ordinances one which would go to the coastal commission and one that we can have an effective uh date without having to proceed through the coastal commission so i'll turn it over to sarah good afternoon i'll try to keep my presentation to about 15 minutes um this i apologize in advance there is a lot of minutia included in this so we're going to keep it high level if there's anything that um council members want to dive into we absolutely can make time for that um but i'm going to start by assuming we're going to take a high level view of all of this so just really brief background the city of Santa Cruz has been a leader in ad use for decades we actually had an ordinance that led the state in creating ad use um and then we just have made a series of updates to our um local codes uh that went that were last heard by your council in february of this year that um removed parking for ad use um created different standards for conversion ad use and then allowed um family members immediate family members to qualify as an owner occupant for the purposes of our owner determining owner occupancy in our code and then we also adopted a whole suite of changes that were required by the state law at the time so um the state is very concerned about housing there were over 100 bills this session introduced related to housing and land use this is just a sort of overview of the ones that existed as of april some a subset of these has passed and we are now grappling with how to implement so uh related to specifically to ad use there were three bills that were um that were passed the based on the way that these bills become laws the relevant section that we read in order to draft our ordinance was um came from ab 881 um and we worked currently from section 1.5 and section 2.5 comes into effect five years from now and basically that's just about um the remove the prohibition on owner occupancy standards then there are two other sections from the other bills um ab 68 contains the standards that apply now for junior ad use and then um sb 13 contains language that requires jurisdictions to delay the enforcement of um certain building of any building code provision under certain circumstances for ad use so we're going to go through this legislation it's broken down into um really five sections and then an urgency ordinance so we're going to start with development standards the state law says that um ad use attached to single family homes can be limited only by being 50 percent of the home to which they're attached we can't also have another maximum size limit other than that so um then it also says the the bill says later that site standards can't limit an ad you to anything less than 800 square feet so what we end up with is essentially for attached ad use um they can be 50 percent of the habitable area of the main home or 800 square feet whichever is greater for detached ad use we can keep our 10 percent of the lot size as long as it's 10 percent of the lot size or 800 square feet whichever is greater so this does represent an increase in size that would be allowed on many of our single family lots in the city um we're also recommending that we adopt a size standard for conversion ad use this matches our existing policy interpretation that we've been allowing um if there's an existing structure that is um you know larger than what we would allow a um new construction ad you typically to be constructed um we're all the only size limit we're placing on that is the maximum allowed under state law which is um 1200 square feet so we're um recommending that we codify that at this point and then um the lot coverage standard um for ad use has to be eliminated because it's inconsistent with the language in the state law and it wouldn't allow these um site standards to apply on the lots where they have to apply so also in the legislation um ad use can't be limited in height less than 16 feet we can't require a replacement of any parking that's removed for an ad you and um this is a little bit of a controversial read but they the the state law deleted the only reference to two-story structures that was in the state law um and we did get a letter from assembly member Ting's office sort of arguing our read of this um section and this was a piece that we struggled with a little bit and you'll see when we get to our height one two-story ad use we do have a I think we have a little bit of we've taken a little discretion there we're making an interpretation of the law um so you know this is the place where you know there could be different opinions and different standards adopted in other jurisdictions so um you know the change in height limit is not a big deal around here it went from 15 to 16 feet our setbacks remain at three feet for single-story structures um there's this piece about uh for attached ad use we have this piece in several of our code in our um zone districts where as the building gets taller we require the setbacks to increase and um that makes sense when you're doing you know like a multifamily structure that's like up to three stories tall and it's um more challenging when you're talking about a single family home that's kind of that's built on a multifamily zone parcel to kind of hold it to that standard it creates some kind of awkward building envelope so we're recommending that we delete that in the case of allowing ad use um we're just adopting the piece about parking and then when we get to this piece about two-story detached ad use and the setbacks that we're going to require um we so we struggled with this a little bit um the we don't get so I sit in advanced planning and I don't review projects and so I don't get complaint calls about projects very often when I get complaint calls about projects this last year they have been about two-story ad use that are five feet from a property line from a rear property line like those are the ones that get to me where I sit which is so um based on that based on a few conversations that we were able to have with you know a couple of designers um we feel like this is the right place to land where we would say when an ad use is two-stories tall and it's facing an alley we can have this reduced setback four feet which is you know what the state law allows um for an interior lot um if it's two if it's two stories tall that portion that's over 16 feet um we really feel that should be setback 10 feet from the rear property line based on the correspondence that we received from assembly member Tang and rereading the law and kind of you know hearing out their logic argument um they're arguing that you could do a two-story ad use in 16 feet so we're willing to add that to our code that if you do an ad use in 16 feet you can keep it to four foot side and rear setbacks um as would be sort of which is the text of the law that we have to allow a 16 foot structure in talking with our um you know building folks that's hard to do it would have to be concrete construction it would have to kind of have a flat roof so we're not really expecting any of that but I do think that will allow us to be in compliance with hcd a super quick question yeah the 16 feet at the half point of the um so for ad use we measure to the peak okay yeah for other structures we measure to the midpoint so um further pending legislation um we can only use ministerial building permit processes um so that's essentially a building permit only application and then there's a whole list of situations that the city is obligated to approve and so that includes with a single family home an attached ad u a conversion ad u which we discussed um we were already locally allowing an expansion of conversion ad use in the state law we could sort of offer the state that idea and now it's state law um and that the amount of expansion changed a little bit uh the state created a junior ad u which i'll actually which i'm going to talk about a little bit later and then we also have to um approve a new construction detached ad u up to 800 800 square feet so we've added language to our ordinance to be explicit that we are only requiring a building permit for all ad use um there are a few limited circumstances where well for all ad use um and then in certain circumstances if um a site would trigger would under normal circumstances would trigger the need for um say a watercourse development permit because they're too close to a creek or a slope variance because they're too close to a 30 percent or greater slope um we have to allow them to build an 800 square feet square foot unit even if they are within closer proximity than we would typically allow so we've written an accommodation into our code to allow them to go up to 800 square feet um if the project applicant for whatever reason isn't satisfied with 800 square feet and really chooses to go to you know their maximum that they're allowed a thousand or 1200 and then they're choosing this um you know site plan for other you know for reasons that are not clear to us then they have an alternative site plan that wouldn't require this other type of permit um that's the only situation when we would require them to get uh any kind of discretionary permit so that's kind of complicated and tied in knots but I promise we worked with the um city attorney on drafting the language and the crux of it is there's a very few situations where we might require um an ad you to go through a discretionary process and that would be at the election of the applicant that would only they have a clear path to building an 800 square foot ad you with only a building permit every every residential lot in the city now has now will have that um opportunity um and then we also um so expanding conversion ad use um previously that was our expansion limit was 120 square feet and now it's going to 150 and then um we are adding a sort of a clarifying amendment to a code section and this is in your replacement pages that you got um that we had had in their language that said uh that the you can expand your conversion ad you but it can't exceed the size limit of a new construction ad you so we're deleting that because it's the size limit of a conversion ad you because it's a different size limit and then um based on the correspondence that we received yesterday kind of pointing out this um you know this allowance for expansion and you know there's this debate about whether we can have a size limit at all for um conversion ad use we believe that we can we've cleared that with hcd um so we've added a clarifying amendment about how you use that expansion area um in a conversion when it's close to that upper limit we're all having fun yet that's minutia this is really what we're this is like we're deep in it I apologize so um also further with ministerial permits multifamily structures so now family multifamily parcels that are zoned for multifamily that are developed with multifamily you can now also add ad use so you can add ad use that are conversions you can add up to two new construction or detached the state law says detach new construction ad use staff is actually recommending that we just say two new construction ad use especially with some of these smaller multifamily projects that are you know duplexes or triplexes existing places it might make more sense to attach the ad you to the part to the existing structure rather than build it as a detached so um we don't see any reason to not allow that as an option and then we've just added ad use are now in allowed use in any zone district that allows residential uses where there is another residential use on the parcel so um and then this is the other part of the replacement pages I've handed out this is about removing the date that's associated with existing structures we can talk about the ramifications of that if you want to get into it but we're just deleting the date from the ordinance so um allowing mixed use on multifamily mixed use properties and now creating a junior ad you um these are so the remainder land use policy amendments so junior ad use are small units initially they were created to be they had to be an existing bedroom that was being converted now it can be um this sort of range of options that includes from anything from an existing bedroom all the way up to building a new addition to the house to become a junior ad you but they can't be more than 500 square feet they have to be attached to a single family home um they have to have you know they have the standard for an efficiency kitchen they can have their own bathroom or share a bathroom and right now the way the state law is written junior ad use we have to require owner occupancy and then a junior ad you and an ad you can exist on the same parcel the same single family parcel and then lastly um in the state law they're prohibiting jurisdictions from requiring owner occupancy on parcels with ad use that get permits between the first of 2020 and the first of 2025 so locally we are adopting the um junior ad use standards some of our concerns or curiosities that we had had about junior ad use in the past have been addressed by the state law we shared those with the state and they made changes in the state law so now we're happier adopting what their standards are um and it is this sort of spectrum of options that you could have to be a junior ad you um that could provide like real options for property owners to create something at a lower price point because it could be as simple as adding essentially a wet bar to an existing bedroom and an exterior door they can continue to share a bathroom if they already share a bathroom but maybe somebody has a master suite that already has its own bathroom and already has maybe even an exterior door and then you're talking about putting in some counter space and some outlets it could be very cost effective in terms of creating a separate sort of rentable space in a home um and then we'll allow a junior ad you and an ad you on a parcel with a single family home and then um no owner occupancy between um the dates specified in the state law when we discuss this with the planning commission they um they were really they were really interested in um being more proactive than the state and um given the timeline that we were on there was no time for staff to be proactive this year and um one of the things the planning commission recommended is that we do uh the city consider doing retroactive removal of existing owner occupancy requirements on permitted ad use so um that is their recommendation to your council that we lift owner occupancy requirements on all ad use that exist and all ad use that might be built anytime in the future so other things that are in the legislation there's a reduction in fees we are working with our um other fee charging agencies to work these into our fee schedule um in the timelines allowed um we're also now um figuring out we're updating some of our building code our building permit applications and finalization paperwork to reflect this um right that uh applicants would now have to delay the enforcement of a building code provision under certain circumstances and then lastly the state law does contain language that um renders our our entire ad you regulations null and void if we're if we're not in compliance on January 1 so that's why we're bringing an urgency ordinance for your council okay so um I did want to I want to talk a little bit about owner occupancy so in February when your council considered ad use last year um we talked about options around owner occupancy and lifting that requirement and at the time we were considering it in exchange for maybe affordability or at um after some period of time you know 10 or 15 years of owner occupancy then we would consider lifting that provision and I think there were good reasons that we had those thoughts at the time and I and the situation is different now you know the the state has sort of removed our ability to be concerned about what this may do to the for sale housing market um you know in terms of looking proactive looking um looking forward um at new ad use coming online so the planning commission has recommended that we remove that requirement for all ad use past and future permitted and unpermitted and staff is recommending that we conduct the community outreach that your council directed us to do at the beginning of the year we didn't do it at the beginning of the year because the state law was changing and it looked like we were gonna you know they were going to take owner occupancy away wholesale and we thought why have this big dramatic conversation and then have the state take the option away so um so that continues to be our recommendation is that we go forward and do that that work this next year um the other piece that we are bringing forward this at this point is um this consideration of a provision in the code that requires ad use to add an additional increment of green building points we we have a spreadsheet and um we call it a matrix and points that are assigned to various green building features and ad use are having to have a higher standard to reach than other residential uses um we conducted we did an analysis of the affordability which was what your council directed us to do last year when we discussed this and we don't think it's very likely that um a property owner would elect to be relieved of the green building standard in exchange for providing a deed restriction the payoff period um it's um it's too much of a hit for not enough of a gain you know the price point of meeting the green building standard is not high enough to be to have the relief of that standard create an incentive for affordability um that's our analysis of it and um did we have a recommendation on this I can't remember recommendation is to lift it the recommendation is to have it um remain the same as what is applicable to other new construction so a single family home that is 2000 square feet is actually required to get fewer points than an ad you that it may be 500 square feet so we're looking at um making as basically having a level playing field for the smaller homes which are inherently um going to be using fewer materials and less um energy and and so forth already so that is our recommendation on that um okay so then as I mentioned we weren't able to do any proactive outreach on this um this year given the timelines we were working under and we would like to engage with that in the future so some of the things that we already know we want to talk about with the community are here on the slide like are there more options for junior ADUs what if we allowed more than one per parcel what if we allowed three in a single family home would that be undesirable are there challenges with that would that be desirable maybe that's creating a type of housing that we're not providing elsewhere in another manner in the market um I mean I think these are just interesting questions to ask should we allow them in multifamily housing it seems like you could allow a junior ADU in a town home and that might work in some situations could we allow the ad the junior ADU to be attached to the ad you rather than being attached to the home things like that so there there might be other options around that we're also interested in talking about um we've already had an issue come up with short-term rentals on multifamily properties so currently we would allow a short-term rental permit on a duplex but um we don't allow a short-term rental permit on any property with an adu and this just raises some some new questions you know if you have an existing duplex or triflex that has an existing short-term rental permit are we going to ask them to choose between their existing short-term rental permit and whatever business they're running and building an adu because that's essentially the way our code is written now is they would have to choose one over the other so i think that's worth a conversation and then we would be issuing we would be um working through the process with housing and our department and um whatever other agencies need to be involved to implement ab 587 which allows us to do um tenants in common where there's a property with an adu if it's developed by an affordable housing developer which is a model we have used in the city in the past um that actually was not in compliance with state law so now it can be in compliance with state law the state law has changed so we want to adopt that into our code um and we just we have some working out we need to do about the you know definitions and some stuff with some work to do on that but we our intention is to bring that back for your council to adopt so um our next steps we will be after um adoption by the council will be doing our community outreach both to cover what we have just done what's changed about the regulations and then doing proactive outreach to begin on other sort of policy items as mentioned starting in the spring of 2020 and then the new legislative cycle begins january 7th and i have just done inkling that maybe there will be other stuff about adus coming in the next legislative cycle so i think we'll get to see each other a lot again about this topic which is great so and then we have a portion of the ordinance today that would have to go to the coastal commission for air review so here's our big long recommendation that is printed in the packet i won't read it but it involves adopting an urgency ordinance and then publishing two ordinances for um introducing for publication two ordinances that would be a regular ordinances uh that would come into effect that so the urgency ordinance would go out of effect when the regular ordinance came into effect um and now we have q and a and here's an 800 square foot adu so this is what it looks like and what the floor plan you could get well thank you and i know i know it's we know it's a lot too and so um we'll go ahead and see now if there's any questions from the council in regards to um some of the recommendations so my understanding in simple terms is how are we kind of bringing um up to date some of the state legislation that now needs to be in on the books as well as some of the specific modifications to our local policy um so that's sort of more or less what's before us okay councilman matthews yeah could you go back to your previous one that one so this is all bringing stuff up to current code consistent with state code correct it's it's consistent with state code and then also what we've had in here are um any additional modifications to the green building standards right um which are but then you don't have a recommendation here but it was implied this whole package of other things including uh eliminating the owner occupancy retroactively that would all come as part of some future discussion is that correct yes that's the intention i just have a question we received a letter um yesterday from californians for home ownership did you guys see this letter um and i'm assuming with the urgency ordinance we can't can we make further changes or what i'm just curious what your what your initial thoughts on some of their comments are yeah so we did spend some time this morning um reviewing their letter and kind of going through it point by point and um unsurprisingly we don't agree with them on everything um there are a few there were two things that they brought up that we felt we needed to change and those are reflected in the replacement pages that you have in front of you so they they brought up this um understanding of the term existing as it's used in the state law they talk about you can convert an existing structure um and we and many other jurisdictions had interpreted that to mean existing as of the date that the legislation passed um and consulting with hcd that's incorrect that it should be understood as in the colloquial way so existing as of the point of application so someone could build a garage six months later come in and say i want to convert it to an ad u um so be it that's the state law and um and then the other piece was about size limits for conversion ad use and um i also talked with hcd about that this morning and um they they disagree with this letter they think we are able to set a limit on conversion ad use um we could set whatever limit we like as long as it's not less than 1200 square feet so we're starting at 1200 square feet if your council thinks it should be higher um you're welcome to make a different motion uh so so we did add a little bit of a change about how you how we're applying the um 150 square foot expansion to those larger conversion ad use and that's as a in response to that letter there's the comments that they made about permitting are just incorrect they didn't read our ordinance correctly okay yeah because we do have a building permit only process every parcel can build an 800 square foot ad u with only a building permit every residential parcel in the city so the first part of the letter yeah you you don't agree that their reading is yeah they're looking for a certain structure in our code that we just don't have because we have had essentially building permit only structure for two years already so it's we're just we're not creating that new today and so they're i think anyway that they're looking for a certain structure in the ordinance and not finding it because everything is already that way for us so yeah i think they just misunderstood so that's the these changes reflect this yeah that those reflect our understanding and consultation with the city attorney about the things that we need to address okay thank you for clarifying them nice mayor come in i said a quick question i know that we're mainly just trying to bring our ordinance up to state code um i was wondering if there's any opportunities potentially in the future to um like increase or incentivize you know pro um ad use that would be listed as affordable or if there's opportunities for having um ways that we can incentivize affordability i guess with the production of ad use and junior ad use yeah um there probably are i mean i think that so so one of the other bills that passed this year was um maybe 587 which requires local jurisdictions to put programs in their housing elements that address creating affordability in ad use specifically um and we are fortunate in that we are not coming up on this first cycle so the state has different cycles for housing elements and different different regions are on different cycles and um the abag region which is the san francisco bay area um their cycle is coming up and they're gonna have to comply with that so we'll get to kind of see what they suggest because it's it's hard with ad use i mean especially because we essentially have they've like taken away anything we might offer as an incentive in terms of a site standard it's like really not much left so it then it's so then it's really about money and um that's great if you have it right if you have a source of funds to provide sort of i don't know a revolving loan fund the county has a forgivable loan fund um that's wonderful and you know then that money in case of the forgivable loan you know one of the disadvantages there is it's you know $300,000 and then that serves you know maybe eight to ten ad use and then you're out of money um so they're just the trick the the issue with ad uses there's just no economy of scale like every project is really individualized so um it's tricky and i am glad that we get to kind of see what other jurisdictions come up with first before we have to write our own standards in or policy ideas that's definitely something we're thinking about and looking for you know we some folks are looking for you know maybe pre-approved plans or some kind of you know modular construction can bring the cost of construction down but then how do you tie that into an affordability restriction that comes from the city it's it's a tricky one you know like i think there are lots of things we can do that can bring the cost of construction down and then that would allow people to charge lower rent and still cover their costs and i think those are worth worth doing and i don't know if we can necessarily tie those things to an affordability restriction and an income qualified you know deed restriction that's then enforceable by the city it's a tricky one thanks yeah no thank you we there's something we've we've been talking about and thinking about as well so it comes from brown this is uh related it just occurred to me um let's follow up to that question from vice mayor Cummings um so we talked about the affordability level of ad use and the kind of identification of a trend that maybe they're not so affordable in terms of their where they sit in the market rent uh uh scale and i'm wondering if that are you are you conducting any further analysis of that i thought i remember called that that was happening and because it would be interesting to just um get a handle as we're moving through all this adu uh ordinance revision process kind of get a handle on what's going on with the house the adu market and santa cruise yeah and also i think um for this particular agenda item because we are now because the state is now kind of requiring if they're taking it out of our hands whether or not we can require owner occupancy um to see what the effect is over the next five years i think would be really helpful to have some baseline information so is that happening yeah so i did actually i did a survey of of adu owners this summer and i am still processing the data and when we when we bring back whatever package we bring back in like the summer i will include that analysis with their sort of so my initial read on it is that um adus create like lower cost market rate by virtue of simply being smaller units um but i am not seeing that there's a massive difference in um the rent for like a studio apartment and a small adu it doesn't it that's not jumping off the page to me the one thing that i will say that has jumped off the page and looking at that data is that there are quite a number of people who own adus who don't charge any rent so it's providing housing an extension of the primary household so that's a family member that would otherwise be in the rental market and that is like a significant percentage so just as follow-up i'm to that um we so i know we've received as that survey went out um we've received some messages from uh potentially affected uh people about their unwillingness to uh participate in the survey and so i'm just wondering have you found that you've been able to get a pretty good um response rate i yeah i mean you know you sent out probably like probably 550 surveys and i have 250 back so that's i mean pretty decent response rate i mean one of them came back and said none of your business but that was really only one out of 250 like a lot of folks were willing to answer our 10 little questions so yeah it's unfortunate that people don't want to participate and um it would be great if we had better information about the rents that were being charged or not being charged or how they were being charged and um i'll bring you what i have when we come back other questions can you say what conversion adu is again yeah sure sorry um so a conversion adu is uh create an adu that's created out of um any existing structure so we have an existing garage on a parcel and someone you know adds the kitchen and the bathroom and the um installation and firewalls and now that's a conversion adu okay thank you and um what can you just sum up quickly the why we're at why this is an emergency why we have to have an emergency ordinance um yeah so is this an emergency it's an emergency in that um the state legislation says that if we're out of compliance on january one and we don't have a local ordinance so that would eliminate our local standards for um you know height and setbacks and um you know we don't have a ton of other site standards but we do have sort of standards about moving you know the stairways to be inside basically we don't have a local ordinance as of january one if we don't if it's not compliant with the state law and what i understand is the staff recommendation is that we only go for five years um on the owner occupancy on the owner occupancy um yeah so that's what's in the ordinance right now and um we will be discussing that with the public um when we go to do our proactive work here in the spring um that's one of the we already have kind of that direction from the council to discuss this with the public about you know what are the pros and cons about making it retroactive um so that's what we intend to do that's not before us then tonight right uh no i mean if if there are strong feelings about that i mean the planning commission had very strong feelings about it and made a recommendation to your council so um you know the council has that option but that's not in the staff recommendation that's not in the proposed ordinance unless there aren't any other questions we'll go ahead and open it up to the public at this time are there members of the community who would like to address us on this item item number 25 um and our 80 use please come forward and you'll have up to two minutes thank you i'll confine my comments to the owner occupancy issue and i'll cut to the chase i strongly recommend that you just do what you have to do with regards the state requirement which is that five-year period and not extend it beyond that and not take it for further review because your initial impetus for that was because you were looking at the affordability issue that's not on the table and to open up this can of worms i don't think would do anyone any good this five-year lifting of owner occupancy is going to be a sea change and i think it would be better to just limit it to the state requirement the recommendation from the planning commission was not unanimous and i'd just like to say that i've been here since 1983 at the seven hearings for ad use and staff has always said that it's a balance and the restrictions and limits and size it used to be 500 square feet so the market rate is going to go up if they're now 800 square feet the balance was the most the sort of the what maintained a balance was owner occupancy so what we've had over since 83 is a sort of a slow progression of ad use that have become incorporated in the neighborhoods and they have had an impact but it has not been dramatic 56 percent of our houses in Santa Cruz are non-owner occupied and it's only money for those folks and i predict that with owner occupancy lifted there's going to be quite a dramatic impact on our community i think that speculators will buy up houses and i see time zoning out but the main point is that a property with an adu the value goes up which makes it harder for first-time home buyers to buy that property had a lot more but i hope you won't do the owner occupancy beyond the time next speaker please i'm Cindy Forenzi and i'm actually a big fan of ad use we have one and i i think that the the issue with the owner occupancy requirement has changed because the state has changed that so it's not the same conversation that it used to be so i think we do need to have a revisiting of that because it has created the situation where you have two different sets of ad use you have existing ad use and went through the whole process of being legalized and then you have new ad use now that will be either built or will be converted from illegal ad use that exists right now into newly permitted ones that don't have that owner occupancy requirements so the state has already taken that into its own hands out horses out of the barn so in terms of speculators they have every opportunity to come in and buy up either a single family residence right now add an adu or a single family residence with an existing illegal adu and turn it into something that is not owner occupied so i think that it's really a very different situation right now and i think you want to look at also why did the state do this they did this because they're trying to increase supply they're trying to help renters you know as part of their whole packet of new laws to help renters and what the planning commission was saying all but one of them was that if you open up existing ad use that are legal to owner occupancy you know where it's not required then you'll have more rentals available because people would be able to move out of the state if they needed to for family or for job reasons and they were saying immediately we'd have some more rentals and that would help renters so i think it's yeah i think they had a good point there and also what the state was trying to do was trying to get local governments to lift some of the barriers to ad use and i think that it's a good path to follow i support them on that thank you hi my name is kandace again from east morcy um i live in a neighborhood that has larger lots and we have a lot of ad use but it's all owner occupied and it's a very civil environment and there's alleys and there's you know access on both sides of the parcel so it kind of makes sense sometimes to have a single family home and ad you but in most cases i don't know the statistics for our neighborhood but i know for citywide it's over 50 of the ad use are for friends and family and the tendency and i remember this and previous analysis and this discussion that there was on i don't remember the percentage but there was some discussion about the percentage of lower rents that are seen and you mentioned it's even free so um to discourage that in any way by encouraging anybody to sort of buy into our market from anywhere from anywhere in the world essentially and to buy in you know and competing with single families that want to actually have basically an enclave for their family which is essentially what's happening for a lot of our properties in some properties i have three and four generations living in the same property that's actually pretty common now in my neighborhood so um i think you don't want to discourage that one concern i do have though is the height um it sounds like there's nothing we can do on that but there is some concern between the neighbors now and some discussion about solar access if you have solar access and also they build does that mean they can take that away from you that's a question i have and i know that there's not an answer right now but that is a consideration and moving forward with climate change a lot of people are thinking about that so thank you good afternoon i'm scott graham um i think it's a good idea to make it possible for uh homeowners to create ad us that are affordable and one of the policies the county has is that all the permits if somebody agrees to keeping their unit affordable for 20 years they don't have any permit fees for creating the ad you and but if at any time they start charging market rate rents they have to pay those fees so i think a program like that would be helpful to creating more affordable units here in town and i i hope that you can do something to create these kind of units thank you right seeing no other public comment we'll go ahead and return back for council action um vice mayor comings brown matthews i'm just prepared to move the staff recommendations without um including the making sure that we don't include the the planning commission recommendations i'm prepared to second that okay so we have a motion by vice mayor comings seconded by council member matthews essentially moving the recommendation which isn't actually including the planning commission's recommendation but more so involving the community before making that consideration correct yes that's correct um i just want to clarify the one thing that um that we talked about that is not reflected in the proposed ordinance is any change to the green building standard so as the as the ordinance has written it reflects today's code so uh sorry if i could just get clarification so you're suggesting that the in your recommendation do we need additional language in regards to the green building yeah i mean your your council needs to make a choice about what you're going to do about green building are you going to keep that additional increment that applies to 80 use um if so that's the motion you've made that that maintains our existing standard on our existing code um or if you'd like to um delete it then that needs to be part of the motion also i just want to make sure you're doing that intentionally okay i my understanding is that's in the recommendation um it's the bottom of here explicit about it or is that cover what you're describing that is that it's included in the agenda report but just for full disclosures are making sure that you all are aware that would delete that section that requires the additional points for 80 use okay which made sense to me so i support that if that's what's included in your is that what you understood as well as the seconder yes okay okay clarification on that lee or sarah do you guys need that in the motion language no no if everyone is clear then i'm fine i guess i was the only one that was confused sorry no no no problem okay councilmember brown and then councilmember meyers yeah i just want to make a quick comment i'm gonna support the motion i was prepared to make it um and just say you know i think that given that the state has um kind of taken control of this situation you know this is the responsible thing to do and to adopt as an urgency so we can maintain um our local ordinance and um and i also think that with respect to the um the five-year period i'm you know i understand where the planning commission is coming from and i understand the desire to have an ongoing community conversation about that but i do think that um we ought to ask ourselves the question i mean is that responsible public policy to incentivize um investment in our housing market in this outside investment essentially is what we're looking at here um and the owner occupancy rule i think has rightfully um appropriately and effectively provided some balance for that so i think that we should we ought to just go with what the state is requiring us to do now and see what happens um as a result of that and and what the state stops to do in the future i was going to offer an amendment but i don't don't think it'll go so i won't thank you council members um i just wanted to raise um the issue that scott graham mentioned which was a county's the county's program that to me is one of those issues that can be um dumped into the future adu discussions i also mentioned that remember the public who brought up the the um issue with height and blocking solar or blocking sun and properties because as we're going greener and we're you know installing more solar panels on houses if a house is to go up or what have you and it's blocking the solar the potential for another house to receive solar energy just taking that into consideration is you know how we might want to address that because it could cause conflicts in the future as it has in our recent larger scale development yeah that's a record i just wanted to follow up on what council member brown said i just um for the record this i think this action accepts the state mandate which um the record would really have profound impacts on this community i think we should not vote against any uh or not vote for an approval of the removal of the owner occupancy for all uh past and future adus until the larger community has weighed in which it seems like that's the direction we're going so i appreciate that okay great unless there isn't any further discussion we'll go ahead and take the vote all those in favor please say aye any opposed okay that passes unanimously okay we're going to go ahead and adjourn the meeting at this time we'll reconvene here at 7 p.m for oral communications and the evening session it was that have not been on today's agenda um oral communications is about a half hour so we intend to conclude oral communications approximately around 7 30 p.m i just want to thank the community in advance for um the flexibility this evening i'll go ahead and maybe wait for a little bit of attention i'll go ahead and i just want to thank you in advance for uh your flexibility this evening tonight's meeting is quite unique in that we are generally on this final meeting for the year um have reserved the evening meeting for ceremonies as it relates to the transition from mayor to vice mayor and mayor incoming and this meeting today is unique in that we had a lot on our agenda we've been um meeting since 9 30 a.m this morning we wanted to make sure we were able to capture all of the items and um have a limited time allotted for um this evening's item and i appreciate in advance your respect and um awareness of the kind of the unique circumstances of tonight's meeting i also want to thank you in advance for your adherence to our rules of decorum we feel strongly and i feel strongly that everybody regardless whether or not we agree with their opinion has an opportunity and right to speak to us and it's my job and it's the job of the mayor to ensure that no matter who comes before us that we allow their opportunity to speak to us without threat or intimidation or disruption i want to remind those that if i do see our um observe and have to issue a warning because of um disturbance in our proceedings in our ability to move forward with council business i will go ahead and issue a warning if i see that continue i will ask you to leave i don't want you don't want to do that and so i hope and um appreciate your respect in advance for not um putting me in that position and hopefully allowing our decorum to proceed um so at this time we'll go ahead and open up oral communications for any item that has not been listed on today's agenda please come forward and you'll have up to two minutes hi i'm james the person i want to ask a question to is not in the room it's the city attorney but that's okay here he comes i just want to say it's been a pleasure to witness everything that's gone on gone on in here it really has been a pleasure but my question that i have it can be answered at any time is why is it that a citizen cannot ask a question during this time in regards to what was on the previous calendar that's it thank you very much thank you okay next speaker my name is lee broca and i would like to call the council's attention to the respectful workplace conduct policy all employees volunteers and council members enjoy a positive respectful productive work free environment and it goes on to talk about how the council members as well as employees come under the respectful workplace policy after the last council election council members Cummings and Glover were elected and that ignited a little spark in the Matthews builder wing of the party that wanted to call a recall but they needed to wait six months before they could do that legally and they chose council member crone instead of council member Cummings and council member Glover we had just a little bit of a spark and hardly any smoke until the perception speech which poured gasoline on the ember with the allegations of perceptions of bullying and i think that um it would be good if the person who perpetrated that speech would make a public apology because the bullying that went on as that speech went on was that she did not allow either council member that were called out in the perception speech an opportunity to speak and to defend themselves that to me is bullying from a position of power and a violation of the respectful workplace conduct policy and should have been dealt with that way the problem that was expressed in the perception speech was a personal problem next speaker my name is Antonio Mendoza and i'm here to represent the constitution at a stage i took a note to protect it means it's my it's my duty not my right and i see a lot of criminally saying politically correct things going on here in america especially santa cruz whether it's the constitution rights and politically correct police brutality police military militias mayhem and murder okay hypothermia is not a joke health and safety and sanitation is a matter of life and death not only people die in hypothermia they're dying of heat exhaustion because you closed politically correct closed area you can't use a tree for shake i see you're all guilty of treason crimes against humanity and violating the constitution of the state of america i am take back the constitution of the state of america to the people in the united states plus santa cruz you're all guilty of treason and crimes against humanity next speaker okay maybe i'm talking about him too but anyway as the end of garret santa cruz as the end of the year approaches i don't remember anyone thanking the entire city for closing ross camp one and two thank you it is not too late this year for those awful public activists who are outrageously accused council members of being fascists or personally responsible for the deaths of homeless people or interrupted meetings without bursts to apologize and make a new year's resolution not to do it again next year there are those who believe their goals are so noble it wrongly justifies mischaracterization lies and smears of others going back to the last meeting i see now i didn't make it clear exactly how i was mischaracterized by what's called framing by one of the recall council members i'm not going to go through all those mischaracterizations like being right wing as i don't itself identify that way or any diversity whatever because my views are kind of a cerebral and if he didn't get it before he's not going to get it now i understand it was to mr rex support away from the legitimate recall reasons but it's beneath the public office to misuse the bully pulpit and offensive to me the truth is i am a centrist and the progressive left the self-identified progresses left this views of some of the council are the extremist views the only injustice of the recall was that the council member brown wasn't included if you wonder why i say what i do since i really don't ask for anything as the special interests do it's for me really all about the fact i consider leftism and socialism the two most serious threats to our nation today the propaganda of which several generations have fallen for now one more generation and poof goes our excellent nation otherwise happy holidays next speaker please well justin i hope as a mayor you allow a little bit of democracy in these chambers unlike what we've had for the last 12 months we can see the suffering that resulted from the manipulation here by for instance diana who is struggling next to a wall next to ross camp because she has no place to stay and she was sexually assaulted uh four days ago or you could talk about the 14 people that uh with joey who are forced out of the parking garages into the rain in the middle of the night or the police raid the santa cruz police department did this afternoon over a paradise camp and the fact that you can find people living in every doorway because of the manipulation and the corruption of this city council during the last 12 months and particularly during the period of uh since walk and spend mayor so we're really hoping that since i supported justin comings in that election and paid my own money to put out information to get you elected my belief was you might actually stand up for homeless people this is a critical moment in history to stand up for the for tenants and for homeless people and so it's it's um i just hope that you uh start to act a little differently than you have during as vice uh mayor and uh you know just a shame that we have to see this kind of suffering day in and day out and i i urge you to support a resolution to reopen camp phoenix and let people manage that successfully as we were for five days we were the only a d a compliant to toilet in downtown santa cruz for five days so you you can make history as you said in your post this morning by actually doing something on human rights day to help the human rights of the people that live on our streets in our community thank you good evening um at at the last city council meeting the vice mayor was chosen on the basis of an appeal to honor to the honor of a strong tradition of mayorships and vice mayorships being passed to council members receiving the most votes in recent council elections after the council meeting i felt bemused witnessing council support for a declared tradition by council members associated with the recalls of two colleagues from childhood through my voting life i understood that the recall process provides recourse for the electorate to the electorate to remove corrupt elected officials from office this is an understanding widely widespread among the citizenry at home researching the history of local recalls i learned that a recall fever is sweeping the united states in the words of a past executive director of the united states conference of mayors an organization so concerned about the abuse of the recall process they decided to make a film about it like the recall now underway in santa cruz quoting in most cases recalls aren't based on any allegations of criminal wrongdoing end quote reports an article in governing magazine which describes itself as the nation's leading media platform for state and local government leaders to honor another strong important tradition i look forward to the new vice mayor and each city council member declaring their opposition to the frivolous recalls the traditional purpose of recall law is to keep crooks out of office not to suppress legitimate political representation hi i agree with that last gentleman um these these two men just were defending the homeless people with a lot a lot more concern in their hearts than everybody else that was listening at that point and maybe they raised their voices a little but it was not sexual harassment i know it's sexual harassment in fact i was almost killed in a parking garage and i do not like parking garages at all and i do not want to see our library turned into one and no one has ever told me what's going to happen to those trees that are over 200 years old in that beautiful parking lot over there that houses our lovely farmers market which is the best thing we have in our community if you ask me and uh as far as maybe that building in the middle of the pogo nip the last time i hiked in there and still had schwarz and agar's name in front of it you ought to check it out but i'm worried about the ticks and and the poison oak which i always seem to get when i hike in the pogo nip for very long i guess i get them for my dogs but um that building by the um the uh the tennis courts out there can we maybe somehow renovate that and turn it into a homeless community home and give our people some place to live the winter is going to get nasty climate chaos is upon us it's all trump weather now until we get rid of them so we got to get on it and give the people something to look forward to something to hope for a beautiful place to live and i bet the drug and all of the needles and things will go way down if we give everybody happiness thank you next speaker members of the community and the city council there's a nasty new normal setting in around us today Lancaster city council votes on outlawing free food distribution banning groups like food not bombs on the sidewalk same old nimby pretext you know obstructing the sidewalk litter visual blight and undefined hazards to public health the real reasons those unsightly tents and the unsightly people sleeping in them that seem to be in the vicinity of food not bombs groups next friday the reactionary roberts court trump supreme court will consider whether to reconsider the boise versus martin decision that case and the realities of santa cruz's rich folks only rents has forced cops and rangers to dig deep into their pocketbooks their ticket books actually my apologies for other laws than camping it's our pocketbooks they're digging into to drive away visible homeless people interfering with property value and christmas business the traditional reasons for driving them out of sight as rents and real unemployment have worsened their numbers have grown and new myths have become accepted dogma people outside our best are now viewed as addicts alcoholics or loonies required to label themselves as such to get services survival tents in selam oregon so city council there trots out a new homeless ban which they call a camping ban like in santa cruz with no shelter option provisions at least there's more brutal honesty there here we saw in may vice mayor comings and the watkins majority by the suzio hara megan bunch plenty of shelter lies same fake narrative was used to close camp phoenix at ross recently and to duck any winter shelter action tonight but your eyes tell the tale each day elderly and disabled women and men on the streets friendly police driving homeless out of parking garages into the rain night after night and the news titans on all of us or most of us anyway as the cliche goes as the cliche goes if we do not hang together please do not interrupt my last sentence if we do not hang together we will all hang separately thank you next speaker this is a i'll just remind those that are here this is for oral communications items that are not on today's agenda if you're here to speak to the evening item you'll have an opportunity to do that a public comment so this is for not items that are not on today's agenda please pat pitles and a cruise i have a habit of saying things people really don't want to hear i mean all different kinds of people and i simply say if i'm wrong show me where i'm wrong because calling me names and making threats short of killing me is not going to shut me up where do i start robert norris just told us as did many people homeless advocates here what we need to do for the homeless i have previously suggested what the homeless can do on their own behalf that would greatly enhance their welcome to everybody else and that is simply clean up your own crap don't leave it in the forest don't pretend you care about trees when i've been in the forest doing forest work and i've seen what you've done to the forest so please clean up your own mess clean up your fellow homeless person's own mess if they won't clean it up where else do i go uh dug drew clever you got a 1619 thing there that refers to slavery which of course white people are uniquely guilty of which is not true furthermore if white people uh massacred the indians when they came over here which they did which they did uh shouldn't immigrants at least from overseas not come over here uh now that the white people have done the dirty work for them i mean think about that don't criticize white people if you're going to come over and displace the native americans yourself plus all the kids that you have when you get here where else do i go okay let me say something on behalf of muslims muslims did not do 9 11 jews did 9 11 if you go to i told you you'd be mad at me show me where i'm wrong wiki spooked that organ you'll see what i mean your time is in all right i'll i'll just go ahead and remind those that are here for oral communications this is for items that are not on today's genders but this is also for items that we as a city council have jurisdiction over so i'll go ahead and ask that we come forward and speak to those related type topics for another 10 minutes before we move on to our evening session so oral communications will conclude at 7 30 why don't we go ahead and the next speaker please you'll have up to two minutes that was quite an act to follow um my name is sarah minnilday and the reason i came is i wanted to strongly express my support for jr. Glover and chris crown and how much i feel concerned one gentleman here made a lot of sense to me he said what's bothering me the most is that these this recall process i voted for both chris crown and jr. Glover and i respect their stuff but even if you don't this idea of just recalling them is so bad because i think it leads to a new authoritarianism and that is what is bothering me and i i see a lot of problems with that and um i mean i ranting doesn't help privately i rant but this is just really really awful so i encourage anyone who's listening anywhere here on tv to please um when it goes up for a vote in march to vote against the recall please do um that's why i work the elections and um why it doesn't make me some expert you have no idea how hard gale pelerin and all of us work to keep broadening the base keep opening to everybody you don't have to have an idea in santa cruz to vote you can vote at all sorts of polling places you can do this and at the same time avoid voter fraud and it is such hard work and it's so like this and then this and this and we work from six o'clock in the morning to 12 o'clock at night we're volunteers and that gives me a very great sense of americanism again because we're losing some of this this intense hostility between those of us who are poor and people who have money in this county is appalling to me my family it we're the old menelty family in so-called they've been around since god was a pop you know and santa cruz didn't used to have this hostile atmosphere and i don't feel that we need that and lots of political diatribes don't help but i do think that we need to vote we need to have our vote respected i feel like it's somebody said well sarah i'm sorry you voted for drew and chris because we're taking that away from you thank you thank you and the woman with the blue vest will be our last speaker go right ahead hello um this year it may cause your comments surge if you're interested in speaking i advise you to line up to the left and you'll be our last speaker and um and if that's if we get to if we are able to get to you'll have a chance to do that so why don't you go right ahead okay go ahead hello um so this year in may of 2019 it was estimated that anywhere between 2000 and 3200 people are home experiencing homelessness on any given night here in the county of santa cruz um making santa cruz one of the highest in in the country and that was a quote by abc seven news um i'm just here to say that we will accept nothing less than a roof over every houseless person in america we are here to end homelessness um and we are asking for your help to help get us some type of housing before the people have to take it upon themselves to figure something else out again such as the phoenix camp and eventually that's what will happen and we'll be back again just like drew had stated before and we'll be talking about this uh and you know future meetings um and so i just really asking for your guys's help we all are we're all asking for your guys's help that's what the community is saying to you another thing alicia couldn't make it here tonight she has um she's a guest speaker on on a radio station so she'll be here at the next meeting and that's all i wanted to say tonight thank you next speaker and those and those interested in speaking on the evening item you'll have an opportunity at public comment and that's the community advisory um committee on homelessness so this is items not on today's agenda oral communications go ahead hi my name is jim i've been around this community for about 30 years i want to speak on the issue of decorum in the 30 years i've been around this county the quorum in the council has been pretty much friendly for most of those years i had took exception with chris in his first year running or his first term spoke with crick key sugar multiple times back then and didn't really have a problem but after his last term you know heard from staff members that they weren't necessarily comfortable with interacting with him what's been obvious within the last couple years is the decorum is declined and that's the point of the recall it's how people get along it's the attitude you show towards others it's how you interact with staff those things you know getting back to people in the community you know we've heard multiple times over multiple weeks that people message chris and actually chris ever since the recalls come about it's actually been much more amenable to the community and that sort of thing glover not so much um so that's been obvious and i think that's kind of one of the key points of the recall is how people treat each other and going back to decorum and decorum in the community you hear that people in the take back community or the people that don't necessarily like finding needles are you know anti homeless anti this anti that no you know they don't want kids stepping on needles in parks they don't want homeless communities right near their house when crime spikes up they raise these concerns they're attacked by the activists sorry for looking back you know it's decorum it's a communicate conversation Cynthia knows that you know i'm not always the best in email and you know that's gone to Bernal and kandadi have seen that as well you know so i've got my own issues but as a council working with staff working with the public that's important thank you okay next speaker i was getting nervous um i'm chris lilson i come in peace i just want to um uh say a couple things i wanted to ask why um there's no vouchers being handed out when it's rained for five days in a row and people are soggy i want to know like if it gets become freezing is anybody going to get a hotel voucher like i it's my understanding that um it was said in court that you guys would make sure that people have a safe place and um the Ross camp saved me like in all honesty that is what saved me thank god for the Ross camp last year and i don't know i'm nervous sorry i just want to say that like what is this 2020 like where's the compassion the hate is so old school like if we could just have a spot where we can put the homeless so that everybody's safe my best friend died she was a firefighter she wasn't she was somebody and um it means a lot to me to see you know people out on the streets in the pouring rain for five days um i'm blessed i got into page today that i'm in a house but um that comes with difficulties as well as bedbugs and um other things um just trying to move forward and i hate seeing my people i don't want to see anybody else die sorry thank you last night i saw a movie the title of the movie is good night and good luck my name is alise kazby i'm a community activist here the title good night and good luck was a reference to edward r merrow one of the greatest journalists in the history of the united states of america he's quite thought of as a hero and the reason is is that while he was at cbs he was a television personality he was a newscaster and um he took on joseph mccarthy during the mccarthy era we are seeing mccarthyism right now right here in santa cruz same thing joe mccarthy did over and over again he would take people apart making up accusations making up claims he did this from the senate actually and he got amazingly far with this it's known as the mccarthy era most of us have at least heard of it and i don't think i'm being too strong here is not a law the term is behavior i could be somebody who couldn't walk and i could try to crawl up to the microphone to speak i could be dirty some people might have a problem with that that does not matter i'm a human being i'm a citizen if i'm a citizen here i have rights and those rights have been under assault ferociously since barack obama signed away our constitutional rights with the n d a day n d a a national defense authorization act a lot of people don't know that please look it up technically we do not have habeas corpus and other rights we need to stand up to this mccarthyism like edward r merrill the only way that this is going to stop this accusations in here say there was feces there was blood there was this there was that we need evidence solid concrete evidence good evening i think every time i get up here i talk about the same thing essentially my first time ever had to do with becoming a sanctuary city and having homes for people and i'm back on the same subject as i often am as many people are and i want to talk just a little bit tonight about the resolution that cash is presenting to have a second camp in addition to the river street camp and as we know we're asking for something very very hard it's not going to be easy there's a lot of nimby there's not a lot of other problems so i want you to put yourself in a certain position first of all last meeting or recently you all voted for health in all programs i think it is and don't forget what people told us over and over again that night that homelessness is one of the major causes of ill health and so that's something we've all along with you because we voted for many of you that's what we wanted you to remember the other thing i want you to remember is when those rains hit after thanksgiving and maybe you were in your car maybe you were running from your house to your car maybe you didn't have to go out at all if you were lucky but just remember how how great you felt knowing that there was a dry place maybe a warm place and that you were going to be able to sleep dry i hope and um i did have my roof leak on my bed one night so it doesn't always last but usually it does so please keep those things in mind because we are here trying to speak for many people who will never come to this mic and so we get up over and over again and we know we're getting through to you but then you have your own other forces going on so i beg you thank you thank you i had something else but i'm just gonna make this super short on the person who spoke before and right at the end started making the anti-semitic comments i think we should make some comment that that was not okay because i don't think the free speech allows for any kind of comment because you've called out people on sh i t so just as a as a city and as a city council that wasn't okay thank you all right we'll go ahead and conclude oral communications at this time um we have uh two items on our evening session so for those that are here to stay for our evening items we welcome you and we also particularly welcome the members of the cash and our co-chairs so tonight's evening item is the community advisory committee on homelessness and it's our initial status and action report to city council for members of the community i'll just go ahead and remind you about procedurally of how this will go we'll have a presentation from our cash um co-chairs we'll have an opportunity for staff to answer any questions that the council may have following that presentation i'll ask that our council please reserve their questions until the presentation has concluded at which time once we have our clarifying questions answered we'll go ahead and open it up to public comment for members of the community who want to address the council on this item and then we'll return to the council for action and deliberation i asked that you uh respect our uh present presenters um i just want to say um from the very beginning thank you uh thank you so much for your time uh for your volunteer hours for your commitment to serve our community we've given you a lot you've rose to the challenge you've dedicated hours you've created subcommittees you're here before us this evening and we have only gratitude for your service to our community so thank you very much for taking the time to present thank you thank you we have a question council member come did you get a sense of how many folks are from the cash that are here tonight sure they could raise their hand for those who are members of the cash that are here tonight and want to be recognized we extend our gratitude and thanks to you as well absolutely thank you for that i'll go ahead and turn the presentation over to you though thank you mayor vice mayor and members of council my name is kandace elliot and this is taj lehi and we're the co-chairs of the community advisory committee on homelessness and the committee has 11 members six of us have a lived experience of being on house and we would like to thank you for the opportunity to be of service to our community uh additionally we would like to thank both city and county staff community members and service providers for their help and dedication in this work that we've been doing houselessness and living outside our complex social issues our work has required us as a committee to bridge differences of opinion and to find alignment and solutions that meet the needs of our community and just a little background on what we have done so far and so the catch has met every two weeks since the later part of july of this year and community engagement has been an integral part of our work so there have been opportunities for community engagement at the beginning and the end of each meeting that we've held and then after each item and that we have we've also held meetings all over town not all over town but in various locations throughout town so we've been in the vet's hall the harbour high louden nelson and the community police room tony hill tony hill so we're trying to provide the community with many opportunities to come to us on this issue we have created different subcommittees you can see public health and hygiene safe sleeping in campgrounds and public engagement or community engagement and the members of our subcommittees have met with a lot of different service providers including you know 1220 river and salvation army housing matters we've met with business owners and housed and unhoused community members and tonight's recommendations are the beginning of our work so we're coming to you tonight with our immediate recommendations and we'll be coming to you twice in 2020 with our mid and long term and i see that that says march of 2010 which is in the past so it'll be march of 2020 all the recommendations that we bring to you tonight have been vetted by the full catch and you know despite differences of opinion and real disagreement that we have and and have had we've been able to move almost everything by consensus so that that tells me that the diversity of opinions that there are in our community which i feel are reflected in the members that were selected for the catch you know that there is some hope for us to move forward absolutely okay so i'm going to turn it over to taj and we have nine recommendations for you tonight all right we'll jump again thank you again mayor thank you council members thank you staff for your support so here we go so we're recommending to the city council to continue to help fund the 1220 river street um shelter program being that it's a working program so let's continue to do the same thing um there's not enough capacity and current shelter programs we'll talk about that more later um so that's pretty much the end of that just continue to fund that particular program kind of the second recommendation is to create an additional or multiple additional managed low barrier ada accessible emergency shelter programs to be opened this winter either inside of the city limits or with shuttle service to the city if the shelter program is outside of the city limits and there are a lot of different um types of shelter that there are that could be fulfilled by this recommendation we also recommend the shelter program to include ongoing feedback with regular meetings between the management and the community um and you can see you know the the estimated cost of this type of program and revenue source as well and the community engagement that we have done so far a note about that particular item is that the shelter program including ongoing feedback with regular meetings between management and the community it's it's basically to get at this sort of contention so that there's one oversight and also um that there is an opportunity for people to adjust accordingly whether it be community members neighborhood um people um or people that are actually in their services so that everybody's voice can be heard um okay so recommend we recommend relocating the shuttle pickup site for the Laurel Street oh shelter program this has happened i believe it's going to be moved to the um sheriff's office is that correct so yay win already fantastic thank you yeah uh next recommendation is for two additional ada portable toilets with hand washing stations uh in the downtown area um we recognize that there is a need for a larger number of um toilets and hand washing stations throughout the city and this was in reference to the Loudon Nelson restrooms and trying to kind of manage that situation just in the downtown um also you'll notice that these are open 24-7 we've had a lot of dialogue about what this would do for anywhere that it's at and we've gone from having them open at night time or having them open just certain hours of the day but it came back that maybe having them open um 24-7 sorry my kids in there yeah thanks uh is that me okay so and we're recommending that the Loudon Nelson Community Center restrooms remain open only to patrons such as the council has moved already we're just sort of saying we back that up currently yeah we talked with um Tony Elliott and various members of staff and found that it would be cost prohibitive to open them up to the general public uh the last kind of immediate recommendation that we had is to expand the catch by one individual this comes from kind of a wanting to expand our capacity place um i think that you know if we could have more than one that would be great but um one would be excellent did you want to add anything there thank you so our mid and long-term recommendation so the first one is uh related to creating new shelter programs that there be input and feedback between management the community and organizations resent representing homelessness when you're creating and implementing and sustaining shelter programs and the next one is that we recommend that City Council fund a comprehensive community engagement program to include facilitated meetings across the community and across demographics and constituents with an independent or especially designated facilitator so we have a public engagement subcommittee but we only have so much capacity to do this work and we think that it would benefit our city to have a real comprehensive deep dive into this um issue across all segments of the community and so at our last meeting we did a small process like this which was basically getting people into small groups and having people that wouldn't normally talk to each other actually talk to each other um and the the vibe in the room to speak a little hippie sorry um it was palpable it was it was a good moment and I think we all feel like it was necessary and and moved us as a community forward and with a small notch so this is why we're thinking let's do a bigger version of this that's what this item is and then the the next item recommending creating one RV sewage dumping site this I believe has actually already been completed and um won't be able to be opened for another year um but has been built um the last item on this slide has to do with the camping ordinance um which we will be returning um to you about in 2020 okay so we're asking that you uh approve these items please um which are the additional portable toilets downtown um again backing you up on what you've already decided about the Loudoun Nelson restrooms continuing to fund the 1220 river street um camp um additional shelter be open this winter if possible that would be wonderful um the covered pickup site we already have that going which is great and another seat on the catch would be fantastic um yeah and participation in discussion of new shelter programs and the facilitated community engagement the RV dump station we think we've got that handled so thank you so and then additionally to indicate additional high priority issues um that you have that you would like the catch to address and then to schedule items to return for deliberation with specific target dates and again we would like to thank you for having us here this evening and giving us this opportunity to work for you and with you and with the community and we'll give it back to you now thank you very much yeah thank you and on a really quick personal note I want to thank the incoming mayor um thank you for your service thank you for your commitment thank you current mayor for your service and commitment and thank you everyone on the council for your service and commitment to our community thank you thank you both for your presentation this evening but beyond that thank you for your dedication and your commitment to serving our city and for your work and countless volunteer hours I also also want to acknowledge we have um former assembly speaker pro tem fred kealy who is volunteering his time um here with us this evening as well so thank you mr kealy um and all of the cash members that are present we're going to have an opportunity for public comment and so I'll go ahead and acknowledge that then um I want to thank you for the presentation um at this time we'll have an opportunity for the council to ask any questions not only of the cash members but also of our staff as well as mr kealy if we have additional questions for the presentation but again thank you for your recommendations in your work are there any questions from the council at this time councilmember brown and then councilmember clever thank you for the presentation thank you for your work I'm really impressed with the amount of work you've done in this pretty short amount of time the um the time that you have all spent and and really putting together uh process for community real community engagement on that note I um wanted to ask you to get your thoughts on the on item seven the recommendation to create and implement um oh no that's the wrong one I'm sorry the recommendation it's number eight sorry recommend that the city council fund a comprehensive community engagement program so um it would be great to hear if you all in your developing this recommendation had much of a conversation we don't get that in your action minutes which I did look through um but uh what you all talked about in terms of how we might go about uh structuring that um it'd be great to hear from you about your thoughts yeah thank you for your question and so I'm on the public engagement subcommittee and we've had kind of a lot of talk about what that could look like um I have recently gone through a public engagement session with Puma the progressive urban management associates who are looking at the downtown business improvement districts at which included meetings with key stakeholder groups there was a survey and so this type of formal public engagement I think would be a great way to go I think also maybe to get a little more to what you're saying as well um it would be a pretty comprehensive and widely publicized meeting of the minds if you will um as we've all seen there's there's a lot of contention just to call it what it is um and we feel like one of our jobs as the catch was to kind of um harmonize all the forces in our city and so this particular item personally might be I feel like might be one of the most important things that we do and so it's going to be pretty large in scope um yeah maybe if I could just briefly say is this also one of the um and I'm looking to you city uh city manager and routine or not the roles of the new incoming kind of position around the homeless manager position sort of facilitating the engagement process etc oh yes of course I think uh the role is would include assisting in regard and also uh really being out there in the community uh involved with the various uh stakeholders around this issue I would say yes that makes sense okay thank you councilmember clever thank you yeah so thanks for the presentation catch reps I know it's been a long road since July with all the different meetings and I'm sure more work than maybe some some of the representatives or members were anticipating um so really excited about some of the recommendations uh there are other ones of course that are a little less awesome but that's just my personal opinion and I think may be shared from others just curious you mentioned in the beginning that um the decisions that you were making were able to be achieved through consensus which is really great um were all of these recommendations achieved through consensus no can you tell me more about them I don't have those I don't believe either of us have those notes with us but we'd be happy to send them to you and to the whole council okay great and they are in the meeting notes that were attached yeah absolutely I was just curious because um you know and also just how has the experience been working through the process I mean your opinions as co-chairs do you think everyone's felt heard and engaged throughout that process um I think that's an excellent question and thank you for asking it um it mirrors exactly what's happening here in city council um at times it's been contentious at times it's been quite harmonious um and everything in between um we have as co-chairs we've tried to make sure that every voice is able to be heard and that everyone comes to the table partly because personally I feel if people's voices don't get heard they just get louder and so if we can um usually we try to get consensus but if if someone says you know what I don't agree with that then we vote on it and it's a democratic decision but it's usually logged that okay well somebody didn't agree with this and then we move forward and try to uh have a spirit of um corroboration there's a word in there somewhere synergy that's great and is it a 50 50 50 plus one voting thing or how do you what's the process with that uh yeah no it's just uh by um majority majority yeah okay so it depends if they're in our bylaws so it's either two thirds or a simple majority depending on the item that we're voting on okay that's wonderful um I just the reason I asked these questions there's a reason right Charles uh is I've been just contacted by uh multiple members of the catch uh with regards to concerns expressed about the uh process as well as uh feeling heard specifically and one of the troubling ones most recently brought to my attention was the decision or recommendation on the Loudon Nelson bathrooms so was that a 50 50 vote was that a two thirds majority vote so I don't again have that information in front of me and you can find it but I would like to say that that was not one of the items that we moved by consensus so we did have a vote on it right yeah um it was just I was contacted um by a concerned member of the catch who is someone who I believe is currently having the experiencing homelessness and uh they had expressed that they had been outspoken verbally and physically providing props and other kinds of things to push for the reopening of the bathrooms but had felt so disregarded by the process and unheard in the in the body that they had decided to stop attending the meetings which is when yeah the vote was held on the Loudon Nelson bathrooms and it's my understanding that if that person had been there and voted against the recommendation that came forward then you would not have been able to achieve your two thirds majority uh and that recommendation to keep the bathrooms closed would not have come back before us on the council so it's uh it's it's a little disconcerting um just to have that experience shared with me from someone who is currently experiencing homelessness who are the voices in my opinion that we should be centering around this process um so I'm dismayed about the Loudon Nelson I understand the logic and the arguments that we heard from the staff from Loudon Nelson as well as the director LA its perspective and the costs associated with it but uh understanding this process understanding the purpose of the catch and then also to have not only that member but other members as well come to me and um express concern about the process it it's I think maybe we could work towards addressing that in the future moving forward to make sure that isn't happening and ideally I've made sure to stay at my at a distance just to not interfere with the process but I think that since we're talking about it and you're here for a report today that we should bring that up and have it be on the record that we can maybe focus on that a little bit yeah so I think that there are two points that you're making the first one is related to the Loudon Nelson center bathrooms in particular and council can make whatever decision you would like to make related to the bathrooms the other issue of someone being a part of this committee and not feeling like they can be engaged is something that we're aware of and endeavoring to work on and and we we hope to be able to reconcile with this person great and there's multiple people on the on the body that have approached me about it but hopefully it gets addressed thank you as you I think may understand from the deliberations that happen on this council that we're not always in agreement absolutely and you know sometimes our votes go one way and sometimes they go another way and that is the process that we have decided to participate in in this country as our as our process of governance that absolutely I don't think we should be discounting the importance of democracy but also in a body that's specifically made up to address the issues and needs of people experiencing homelessness to have those on the body who are currently experiencing homelessness feeling like their voice is being ignored unheard and then what advocating on a specific issue and when they are not present to have that issue brought forward for a vote so just just put it out there and hopefully we can address that and I don't have to hear those complaints anymore from the members of the catch um so uh with regards to your recommendation to add a new catch member um who what where how what are your thoughts is it a person so we have asked that the catch be able to decide how and who and so we don't necessarily have a particular person in mind so what we would like to do is look at the makeup of the current committee and see where there is some lacking experience and then fill from that okay and um let's see here I guess uh there was a question that came up when I was looking at the agenda report was the the number cited at the 1260 per month for the two porta parties is uh it's my understanding that's for both bathrooms I'm sorry say that again please the $1,260 per month that would be allocated for the opening of the 220 for our bathrooms and sanitation stations those will be for the two do you did the catch talk about locations for those yet uh we have talked about locations but we thought that might be better put in your court also I want to say about this particular thing is that this is a it's a bit of a pilot program because partly whenever we have thought about putting a restroom in a particular location you can imagine the amount of feedback negative feedback that would come from that and so you know we kind of want to let's let's get one let's get it happening first see how we can build it as a good thing because of course it will be and then do more as as that one gets started so again so this is sort of a pilot program just the beginning it's a start wonderful I'll stop there for now but thank you for those wonderful answers sure thank you any other questions councillor meyers did you have a question uh councilmember gleber asked most I just want to thank you for your service though and um also just I know this is a huge barrier committee members and it's a really really tough hard subject to dive into um I'm really impressed with the work that you've done to date and um just want to thank you for all your time and your effort and uh hope that we can you know move forward and keep up a productive focus on our houseless population for the next few months and some ideas uh solidified and activated thank you did you have a question councillor yeah thank you um yeah I hear it's more you bit off more than you could might want to chew uh people have been telling me there's a lot more hours involved and I appreciate your service as well um question I wasn't going to ask but it just came up was why are some of the um votes majority and others are two-thirds how does that work I misspoke and us can speak to that better and Fred could speak so they're all two-thirds sorry do we have a member of staff who is here who would like to come up and speak about the bylaws thank you Megan thanks Megan thank you hi um Megan bunch city manager's office we um the catch put together a set of bylaws and I believe the it is two-thirds majority we can look it up and confirm for you guys and um you're welcome we can give you access to it it's on the website um and there is bylaws for the subcommittees as well um so we've got two separate bylaws associated with the catch and I believe it to be two-thirds as you stated thank you thank you Megan thanks and um picking up on what councillor Glover the the 1200 and six I'm glad to see that these two porta potties are ADA because the ones we have out right now are not necessarily ADA uh accessible um why 1260 a month what I checked in with a couple contractors and they said they're paying between 125 and 168 a month for the porta potties why are we looking at two porta potties for $1260 it looks like Megan's coming up to me okay the um then those numbers came from the um the rate that we are currently being charged for the that service and it includes I think the difference in price is the service so if you're getting service daily it radically increases the the cost the total cost and so that's where that came from and we chose to put those numbers in there as a service daily based on the existing porta potties that are 24 seven um that are in the parking lots currently and the um after speaking with parking they made it clear that we need service if we're going to put something out for 24 seven we need service daily because they won't be usable um if we're not servicing them daily so I'm assuming that's where the cost differential probably comes in thank you I appreciate that um sorry I'm just going to go ahead and pause I didn't see who made that statement but I'm going to go ahead and ask that you reserve your comments for when we're going to have public comment at that time we'll be able to hear from the community we do have limited public comment but that will be your opportunity to speak to us and if this time it's now for council to have thank you very much okay we're going to go ahead and continue with council questions going back to um the porta potties at loudon nelson I heard from a member that it was eight to four eight votes in favor four against uh one vote would have decided to change that um did um and I heard about the cost from uh tony elliott did you all talk about volunteers possibly picking up the slack and using a volunteer program rather than um having you know letting the cost you know win out yeah definitely that's something that I specifically spoke about on multiple locations um when traveling out of the country I've seen that model in other places specifically in restrooms so something I brought up um there are various channel challenges to that as well as financial challenges as well this is um this was the recommendation that our subcommittee put forward forward at the moment and again these are just our beginning recommendations we want to continue working on some of these issues this is not the end of the story I'm sorry it was such a close vote um on the one about 12 20 river street uh I'm understanding that we're going to start moving people February 15th I mean do we have another place for that and how's that you know how what are you thinking in in those terms looks like city manager martin Bernal wants to speak to that if you want right so the river street uh I believe it's mid march that is sort of the deadline for uh the water department to be able to start their project there so we're currently working on an alternative site for them but that has to be obtained by mid-march when do we have to start thinking about like asking people to change locations just so folks are aware of that we've been doing that for some time so yes right now we're working on that right now thank you and why do you um the one on uh adding a member what's the thing about what do you think about adding a member why is that why do you need another member I didn't understand that exactly and I know the workload is heavy so we we had two members who have decided to um leave the catch and we have added an additional two members one of those members um that we added is a person who has a lived experience of homelessness which we felt was a very important voice an additional voice to add um but we feel that we've also um that there could be capacity for us to bring on someone who has a little more experience with um policy development and you know navigating um different levels of government and this kind of work so that would be 14 members or 13 members 13 13 total right now you have 12 yes thank you um so going over to the um uh sewage dumping and it looks like if I could pause you mr. at council member chrome looks like we have Megan sorry we have 13 members currently so it would be go it would go up to 14 14 thank you thank you um what it sounded like you said you kind of like glanced over oh another year we'll have a dumping area for RVs I mean what why are we waiting and why can't we have a dumping area why can't we use that even during construction why can't we use that particular site looks like we have run around a couple plumbers and they said that that doesn't seem like it'd be a difficult thing we'll go ahead and invite up run prince to answer that question feel free come right thank you mayor um yeah run prince city manager's office I'm working with the water department and I've talked recently to the project manager and we're going to try to figure out a way to actually create an access point for that so we're working on that I don't have a guarantee that we can pull it off based on where the equipment needs to stage on the site during construction but no I think you know I should have an answer for that in a week or two do you have any idea why we can't use the yacht harbor uh where the RVs dump now in the yacht harbor yeah they told us that they're they're at capacity and because we did check into that specifically and they said that there wasn't really an option due to I guess the infrastructure the size of the the lines they have and and whatnot so they're they're just keeping that for just a few RVs that I guess that park there or camp there thank you very much and I want to compliment you on the use of trying to get a more comprehensive community engagement program with the wisdom council and stuff thank you and thank you for your service yeah thank you mayor okay thank you unless there aren't any additional questions at this time we'll go ahead and open it up to public comment Mr. Keely please come forward do you have some additional comments madame mayor members of city council my name is fred keely uh it's been my privilege to serve as essentially the the presiding officer of the catch I do not have a vote the mayor council asked me if I would do this to help in essence manage through the catch's work I wanted to draw your attention to an action that the catch took that is not in the report to you but the catch asked if we would make you aware of their response and that is this this goes to the question of the referral that you folks made of the camping ordinance to the catch uh mr. kandadi the city attorney briefed the catch on the Boise case and the degree to which the county excuse me the city's ordinance is could be at odds with that it was a lengthy presentation then the catch at the last meeting that they had which was last week uh debated and discussed this issue at length about what you had sent to the catch with regard to the ordinance and asking the catch to return with their thoughts advice and council at a meeting in january in that regard the catch interpreted uh the information they've received both from mr. kandadi as well as folks who uh spoke to the catch during their meetings to essentially see that the Boise case which precipitated your desire to have the catch look at the ordinance uh the catch is convinced that there are essentially two aspects to that one is any ordinance this is a layman's interpretation so i'll try to do it that way and and certainly willing to be to stand corrected on it it is the catchest understanding that essentially this issue has two component parts to it that you can have a city ordinance or a county ordinance or local government ordinance which defines where and where not you can camp sleep etc the import of the Boise decisions seem to say that the degree to which you can regulate that camping activity corresponds directly to the opportunities truly available for folks to have a place where they can in fact camp or be outside sleep outside etc so the catch's interpretation and what they wanted me to convey to you is that they're pleased to take on any assignment that you send them their thought is twofold number one they would like to be able to come back to you with both parts rather than only on the ordinance with both parts which is to say if you're going to have an ordinance with with restrictions and limitations then where is it that you can be uh that that's what the Boise decision was about secondly that in order for the catch to do its due diligence in that they are requesting to be able to come back to you in february rather than january because from their view we're sort of they are sort of finished for the year in a sense and we'll regroup so if they could have a bit more time that would be helpful thank you madam mayor thank you members thank you mr kealy okay well we can go ahead and revisit any kind of action that we want to take after we open it up to public comment unless there are any additional questions at this time we'll go ahead and do that i'll just um remind the community that we have a sort of a unique uh evening tonight and it was advertised on the agenda that the public comment on this item is going to be limited considering the fact that tonight's um evening is really dedicated to the transition of mayor to mayor from mayor to the incoming mayor and vice mayor and we really want to acknowledge the ceremony of that um you will have opportunities to speak to us on this item in um future uh meetings and we respectfully ask that you um um remember that and um and we'll go ahead and maybe reduce the time to 90 seconds tonight so that we can try to get as many people as we can in um be within that half hour time frame and we'll go ahead and open up public comment on this item for uh for a half hour and then we're going to go ahead and close that and return back for council action and deliberation and then move on to the ceremony of the transition from mayor to next mayor so um we'll go ahead and invite those who want to um speak to us on this item councilmember guver motion to um kind of bring time back to two minutes and and have public comment go until there's no one left that wishes to speak second there's a motion by councilmember guver seconded by councilmember crone any further discussion yeah oh okay councilmember yeah just uh to speak to it it seems inequitable wrong undemocratic strange um and just inappropriate to be cutting public comment on issues that are incredibly important and that we're going to be taking action on there's people here obviously there have come to speak to the issue and I think cutting it prematurely without even knowing how many people are here to speak is rather insulting to the public that came to address us on the item so that's why I think we should at least give them the opportunity to speak all those in favor to extend the public comment time please say aye opposed no so that fails with councilmember crone and guver voting in support brown Matthews vice mayor Cummings myself and Myers voting against so we'll go ahead and stick to the time frame that was originally advertised in hopes that also the community could reach out to us in advance we'll go ahead and conclude public comment on this item at 845 and we'll try to hear from as many people as we can within that time frame we do welcome to hear from you at additional times and um definitely recognize that this will likely include recommendations to have additional comments for further items that will come forward councilmember brown if I could just make a quick comment because I didn't make it before the vote um I just want to say that um this item obviously is of critical importance and deliberation on it and uh the the council's actions about how to proceed on these items is also critical um however we did receive notification that um tonight the agenda it's agendized as receiving this report and that um action to be taken on these items will come to the council for discussion and there will be opportunities for people to to weigh in at that point and and I hope that we agree to move forward on this community engagement process so that where there will be ongoing opportunities so that was my reasoning for for um not supporting extension in general I really think that people should be able to have their voice heard especially on this issue and we need all voices at the end right and I appreciate you providing the additional context okay so we'll go ahead and start at 90 seconds um feel free to go forward thank you um I just wanted to show you guys that while I was standing here someone brought me up some donations of ponchos uh for the unhoused community and I'm very grateful for that but I'm still disgusted with you guys and your lack of um action uh you're getting ready to take a six-week break it's my understanding and we still have people that are vulnerable they're out there on the streets their stuff is getting swept on a daily basis we have no alternatives for people to go um I heard someone say adequate shelter alternatives should be discussed at the same time as the ordinance I want to stress adequate like um opening up the vfw providing another 40 beds or something that's not going to work that's not going to fly that's not adequate if you want to criminalize everybody for acts of survival you need to have some sort of alternative you need to have a place for people to go shame you know shame you guys are getting ready to go and enjoy the holidays you had a lot of time you had a lot of time to make sure that people wouldn't be suffering on the streets and and they're still going to be suffering the bathroom proposal was for six restrooms it wasn't for two Keith with food not bombs even found people to pay for them and he only asked for a permit process to allow them to be placed we know where they're needed um so you know not to irritate anybody but we've known that for a while that's already kind of been established I feel like you guys are backtracking you can do better you owe it to this community to do better meanwhile I'm working really hard but I feel like you guys aren't thank you should I just start yeah um so I'm on the catch I'm in the community engagement subcommittee my name is Amy and I just wanted to add a couple of items to the report one of which is that one of your instructions to the catch was to look into the wisdom councils and that's an ongoing process it's taking longer than we thought it would take and so that's part of the recommendation that we've made to look into facilitation both in terms of like a contracted person to do community engagement and possibly also a wisdom council so we're still looking into that I wanted to let you know um my understanding I mean this is a life and death kind of a situation that we're talking about for the population that is sleeping outside at this time and there's so many assumptions and so much vitriol flying back and forth that I think the community engagement part is really super important and the staff person that's coming on board um would probably spend according to a police department staff for about 20 hours a week on an extensive say six session community engagement process I just want to give you a sense of that piece I also want to say that on December 17th our next meeting we have another community engagement like active session on camping and safe sleeping and so eventually you're going to get to sighting and that's when you're really going to need the community engagement piece and I think I just want to reiterate how important I think that is on this issue um and it's sort of like everyone's thank you thank you next week good evening my name is Catherine Herndon and I just want to read four sentences from a new book I'm reading from the library called how to be an anti-racist by Ibram X Kendi K-E-N-D-I it is outstanding and I've read many books on this subject this one it's brilliant and very engaging I highly recommend it these sentences do not refer specifically to racism they are relevant to what we're talking about right here Americans have long been trained to see the deficiencies of people rather than policy it's a pretty easy mistake to make people are in our faces policies are distant we are particularly poor at seeing the policies lurking behind the struggles of people please change your policies thank you Phil Posner um I just came back from Mexico in Mexico in front of or next to every uh toilet area bathroom and they offer paper and they get a few coins there's so many opportunities for catch not I admit I think you did a lot of work but there's so many creative things that catch could have considered in terms of the porta potty issues the bathrooms I for example very puzzled why porta potties 24-7 but not a loudened bathroom where you could have someone be monitoring it lastly I'm here especially to thank Drew Clover and to wonder how many of you from catch and this city council read the impassioned committed statement that he wrote out of his own personal experience you are about to as you have to so often deal with issues of suffering in order to know what suffering is you need to feel it you need to experience it that man did and we owe him a great gratitude Nicholas Whitehead an earlier city council signed on on behalf of the city to the universal declaration of human rights which definitely states that in any country in the world people have the right to shelter health care and such so um we should be adhering to that I believe advice was given to certain city council people tonight that making any decisions important decisions about shelter might violate the brown act the brown act is a human creation I think we have to act on higher principles than that you know there was a building available in in the town for shelter space but a very high official in your city government told me that that was not going to be used it was not going to be opened in the middle of these storms because it was too small to meet the demand that's a very strange argument to hear large shelters are inherently dangerous I I've been helping a homeless disabled woman and she was attacked in one of the principal shelters in town and her leg was slashed open you see it's to do with size you can't monitor the safety of everybody unless it's real small another homeless friend of mine Rory was arrested three times in one day for trying to seek shelter from the storm under under a parking garage that's incredible that's incredibly crazy all right I'm going to go ahead and ask our next speaker to come forward you'll have up to a minute and a half I respectfully request that those who are in the audience just remember that you'll have your time ideally and to give the respect to those who are speaking before us at this time go right ahead you have 90 seconds okay I'm gonna talk really fast and thank you guys for doing your presentation and Fred that was awesome and you're super clear about stuff and I know you guys are a little nervous so there were a couple things that yeah you are a little nervous and so I'm gonna do add a couple of details on it the bathrooms our committee actually did talk about a spot and one spot by Loudon was something that we had talked about not particularly voted but it was sort of a conversation we were having um and the 1260 doesn't include damages but the damages is part of what's being considered for Loudon and the so that number starts getting inflated but the bathrooms are stored to seeing clothes small so just to be clear on that and it's just a pilot program of two to see what sort of damage happens so maybe we'll do more um and the cost for Loudon is the 80 000 for cleaning it at lunchtime that the library uses for an external person but Loudon has their own maintenance guys it wouldn't actually be a cost so just putting out those numbers are a little interesting um the you guys never voted to actually close the city the Loudon bathrooms and it was something I tried to explain to the catch sort of repeatedly and as somebody said today with being nervous and stuff that they still think that and that wasn't something that you had said before um please direct so we would ask for other uh citing and another program so we actually need you to direct staff to find it so that it actually becomes happening your time is up and that's it thank you next speaker please come forward you'll have up to 90 seconds all right how you guys doing today I'm seeing a road show I'm on the catch committee um I've been slack in the last couple of weeks I've been having some personal issues when the catch first started uh you guys brought up the uh opening up the Loudon Nelson bathrooms and I distinctly remember that I brought that up a few times in the catch and I see that it was not dealt with the way that it should have been dealt with and so there I proceeded to go ahead and bring in a sign so the bathrooms were closed and brought in pee bottles for everybody and I understand that was probably not health-wise but I mean that'