able Can you explain what that option was? Or is That what the all electric preferred Was an option I honestly don't remember all the details about it, but it it incentivized in some sense the the Coated option to not put gas in but the option was still there Because I think my understanding was if they did choose to put gas yet the rest the house has to become like 15 Percent more efficient or something like that. I don't believe it was 50 So they're required to meet cal green tier one, which is about 15 percent more energy efficient And what is the name of that option? We call it we call it the all electric favored favored that was okay I knew it was preferred or favored. Okay Any additional questions for staff? All right, we have several cards on this item up first would be alima silverman followed by kevin conway Good afternoon, mr. Mayor and other council members. My name is alima silverman. I'm an architect here in santa rosa and a member of the climate action Friends of the climate action plan us green building council And the rebuild green coalition I was at the round table meeting last thursday, although I didn't speak Afterward, I wish I had spoken and To bring a balance to what most of the builders were saying about all electric With it being too hard or too expensive to do Several builders spoke to the fact that their clients didn't want all electric Uh, their clients wanted gas stoves gas fireplaces gas furnaces gas dryers I myself have been a diehard gas stove person until I tried it and I've um, I've now been converted to As soon as I can change out my stove um They also think the all electric ordinance is being shoved down their throats. That was one statement One builder asked what's the rush? Why are you in such a hurry to pass this ordinance?  This is a climate emergency We have to do something different We have to reduce our greenhouse gases So I can sympathize with the point of view of builders. My husband is a contractor I've been an owner contractor myself built a couple of homes But I want to add something here to the discussion something that was brought up at the round table by one of the last speakers a builder named john education Education is needed now for home builders and for home owners to understand the risks of Uh having gas in your home and the benefits of having an all electric home Yes, there will be some people who want gas in their homes just like there's still people who smoke cigarettes even though they know the risks But with education and information about the risks There will be many more homeowners that will choose to build all electric Thank you for your time and thank you to uh, mr. Goon and uh, mr. Oswald for all the work they've done on this All right. Thank you. Kevin Conway followed by diane wheeler Good afternoon. Kevin Conway with friends of the Uh climate action plan. I just want to speak briefly to the a few things But one is the cost effectiveness studies on this have been done several have been done Uh, a study funded by southern cal Edison found the initial cost savings are estimated to be in the range of three to ten thousand dollars Palo Alto study totaled the cost savings of six thousand dollars And here in Sonoma county, uh for fire survivors The incentives for going all electric can be as high as 17,500 And by the way as a lean alluded to uh 90 of the people that switched to induction cook tops say they like it better than Cooking with gas I want to also mention that wolf contracting built 14 tiny homes here in santa rosa for homeless veterans and the cost savings for not running the Gas infrastructure was 30 thousand dollars This was from john morgan who was the project manager With the Most important though is that methane is I mean natural gas is 85 percent methane and methane has a greater heat trapping effect on the atmosphere than carbon dioxide does So with the tighter envelopes that are required in new homes It's even more harmful as an indoor polluter and then when people talk about the unintended consequences of all electric reach code What we have to do is think about intentionally putting more methane into the atmosphere and talk about the intended Catastrophic consequence of putting yet more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere Uh, if someone told you that they were intentionally going to put something in your house that they knew Was harmful to your family and to the environment whether it's lead paint asbestos or methane Why would we tolerate that? PG&E supports this vice president robert kenney says From PG&E that PG&E this is a quote welcomes the opportunity to avoid investments in new gas assets That might later prove underutilized as local government and the state Work together to realize long term decarbonization objectives With all this in mind PG&E supports local government policies that promote all electric new construction When cost-effective, so I hope the council will stay the course and continue to push for an all electric reach code for our city Thank you. Thank you. Diane wheeler followed by laura niche Hi I'm going to read a letter. I'll submit it by email if I don't finish. I'll stop at three minutes This is from john sardar contractor california I'm writing today to share my experience as a general contractor and designer builder of 33 years in the north san francisco bay Counties of sonoma marin san francisco My firm has recently switched from using a combination of gas and electric appliances To all electric the high efficiency of new building envelopes and systems and the cost savings afforded by eliminating an entire outdated and volatile system From my projects has easily allowed the addition of enough solar generation in my projects to enable the buildings the building of z&e Net positive energy homes. This creates local resilience The excess energy beyond living needs Beyond living needs allows for ev charging and enables the development of zero carbon living and transportation systems the homes i'm building As a result are healthier for the owners and for the communities as they have no operational emissions from burning fossil fuels He gives information on a recent project which will be in the Which will be in the email with lots of statistics about that specific project called soul lux alpha In san francisco a six-story building with all kinds of wonderful things happening I just returned from a national builders summit in colorado where other builders shared similar projects They're developing across the usa There was a time when using gas appliances was more efficient cost effective and greener than all electric However with the recent increase of efficiencies created by induction cooking and heat pump systems for hvac water heating and drying This is no longer the case the electric grid also now has more renewable energy than ever before The costs of high efficiency electric appliances are on par with gas And eliminating the entire gas system resulted in and the savings of $8,800 per unit in his project According to the recent rmi report. That's the rocky mountain institute My experience in the field verifies this the savings goes a long way toward paying for the solar systems in order to be z&e natural gas also creates Unregulated emissions in the home and the smaller home is the worst those unchecked emissions are Creating an unhealthy indoor environment the new And continually lowering costs of solar energy storage Are allowing development to become more easily self-powered and be part of the solution to climate change Rather than an ongoing part of the problem I strongly encourage the movement to all electric infrastructure for all new buildings As well as retrofits of existing buildings. He'd be happy to tour his projects with you. Thank you. Thank you Laura niche followed by matt taylor Hi, i'm lauren niche i'm the executive director of 350 bay area and this is climate strike week Kicked off on friday by mostly young people all over the world asking for us to act aggressively on climate So i just wanted to frame my comments with saying we are working through the list Of the least we can do this is literally the least we can do and it all starts adding up And santa rosa is not at the forefront of this. We're not at the tip of the spear But I would like to think that sustainable sonoma Jurisdictions would be at least slightly behind the tip of the spear. So just echoing a lot of other people All electric homes are cheaper up front and this is supported by numerous studies that have been Bandied about including the rocky mountain institute California department of buildings and standards the air district and the nrdc and southern california edison All saying that it's less even up to 25 000 less per home They're also cheaper to operate and I just want to keep bringing that to the forefront If you have solar panels on your rooftop and you have an all-electric home Then your operating costs are minimal and you get to the point where the payback on your solar panels Which is not included in this what we're talking about this reach code, but is Once your payback is over your your energy is virtually free So the other thing is that in order for california to meet its emissions reductions goals They will have to shut down the natural gas infrastructure for the most part So now we're just talking about not adding to it And then we're going to have the much more difficult conversation probably not here about how to reduce that Also, all electric homes Are cleaner and more comfortable according to many other studies So When you have pgd standing up and testifying for an all-electric reach code in another jurisdiction saying that they think this is the right thing to do I think that should be a very serious consideration as well. Thank you very much. Thank you Matt taylor followed by debba Good afternoon. Mayor schweildham City council members and the staff city staff and members of the public My name is matt taylor lead designer with feral faber and associates architecture and planning i'm here to represent Both future homeowners and what would be our future clients as they don't have a voice here In this city action And i'm here also to discuss some relevant info regarding this all electric reach code Um since the fire in 2017 our firm has designed over 300 homes here locally Uh a major portion of those in an effort with the rebuild And of those homes about 95 of them have um Gas ranges and about 97 of them that we've designed have gas fireplaces Some of them also have exterior outdoor kitchens barbecues and that sort of thing that they like to have plumbed in with the natural gas The couple things i wanted to mention today was um The state exemption that jesse had mentioned and encouraging the the city council to look into that Exempting the fire rebuild properties as they once had many of them once had those um natural gas appliances and To exempt them now on january 2020 I believe is not fair for them So something to consider there One other thing is the possibility of phasing in or or providing incentives to these homeowners future homeowners to when they're building a home To encourage them to go all electric without requiring them to go all electric Some of the things that we're seeing people are more willing to give on is Maybe a gas water heater exchanging that out for all electric looking at electric heat pump Mechanical heating in the homes and also even electric dryers over giving up their gas fireplace and or cooktop So a couple things to consider there and I I do want to thank the city staff For all your work on this and and encouragement and working with the local building community as well. Thank you Thank you. Deborah followed by brian ling Thank you very much. Deborah taveras was stop the crime net I'd first like to encourage everyone to go to our website stop the crime net go to our menu And then to our video youtube channel where I was an invited guest speaker in london several months ago I cover much of what the original intent with the smart meter grid deployment was globally As well as the smart meter water grid that is being deployed globally as well Sadly, uh, our kids are being traumatized in skews They're not being taught what john f kennedy was telling us when he gave that monumental speech Just shortly before he was assassinated about the monolithic and ruthless conspiracy Nor has anyone read the report from iron mountain I cannot underscore Reading the report from iron mountain more highly What we see Is a predatory system run by roth child, which is also pgne as well Who is a convicted felon and has breached? All of the requirements under their conviction as a felon They've also been financing and working with russia and other countries all over the world On a new corporation and delivery system called soleran sol a r en This is a new delivery system of energy From satellites back to space Now, I know that you're really amplifying photovoltaic and energy backup storage Savly the battery systems are silicon They're not silicon salt, which they should be their lithium ion batteries that explode This becomes a weapon. This is also the type of battery that's used now in the e-bikes Lithium ion batteries So when we're talking about storage and particularly in the wui areas We do not want to have to report to the fire captains Where the lithium ion batteries are because they do explode it takes a tremendous amount Of additional time to put these kinds of shrapnel exploded batteries out So I am in the wui area I can tell you that we've been told by the fire departments. We are on our own And I can see that we're on our own Because we don't have the two points of access We don't even have really a good one point of access And when I went and saw paradise and I saw the inability to evacuate I see that it is going to be a crowded evacuation situation with all the motor homes That are parked all over the county when they Literally clog up our road systems that have minimal access points to begin with stop the crime dot net the report Brian land followed by john sutter Thank you, mayor and council people of brian ling executive director of the sonoma county alliance Couple things come to mind in the last hour or so When we looked at wui slide five top top Wasn't the title but the first word more restrictive amendments those three words Earlier speaker talked about the negative impacts of our continual incremental additional requirements to build Reach requirements we're talking about now by definition go beyond the existing california building codes The wui we've talked about the electric reach we're talking talking about right now The the rental inspection program next the anti-discrimination tonight All items that are adding to the cost to build remodel and or operate a rental All discontentives to future development in this this area Uh, both before and after the fires the one thing we all agree on is it costs way too much To own a home in sonoma county in santa rosa and we all agree there aren't enough homes We also acknowledge that we already have the most rigorous time consuming expensive process to achieve entitlements of permitting Until staff can find a way to reduce the burdens of this process We sonoma county alliance are asking the council Not to reach beyond currents and future state laws, which already are the most restrictive in the nation We need more homes Not more regulations that lead to reasons not to build them. Thank you Thank you, brink uh john setter hello hi, i'm a remodeling contractor i've been remodeling in sonoma county since 1979 i hate to admit it About 15 years ago. I stumbled into a pg and e energy class Taught by one of my gurus gentleman named rick chitwood And he showed me how stupidly we've been building for many years Very very careless about how airtight our structures are It's like building a refrigerator without putting a gasket on the door You know, how well is that refrigerator going to run? um so I took more classes. I eventually became a building performance institute building analyst And I shifted the operation of my business to energy efficiency I got tired of debating whether we wanted pink tile or turquoise tile And whether uh linoleum is better than bamboo I wanted to wanted to do something that I considered more meaningful which is Reduce the carbon emissions of our county so About four years ago We made the full commitment to doing zero net energy retrofits. So that's essentially snugging up the Building enclosure and then Um providing energy efficient appliances And then putting solar on the building to Zero out the utility bill and greatly reduce the carbon emissions And I've come to realize The last couple years the future is all electric We have to as soon as possible Stop bringing methane out of the ground And burning it and leaking about five percent of it before it even gets into our houses So we've completed about 14 Almost all electric conversions Probably the biggest problem is convincing clients You know for years and years and years. We hated electric cooking. I hated it. You couldn't have given me an electric stove But the old resistant stove and the new induction stove are completely different creatures Julia child cooked on an induction stove Anthony Bourdain cooks on and cooked used to past tense on an induction stove The I just got off a cruise ship all their stoves are induction Um, so and you know change is scary I remember how scared I was when I put the first solar on How scared I was when I installed the first heat pump water heater in the first mini split conditioning system I'm happy to say I have not had one customer out of 13 complaining about any of the all electric we've installed Thank you, jim. Those are all the cards we have here. Um Jesse could you reframe what you'd like to hear what feedback you want to hear from council? Primarily we received the the direction we wanted for the fire code elements Today the remainder of the presentation was more an update And if the council so chooses to change any direction, that's your prerogative But we have been provided the direction already to pursue the all electric reach code. Okay, we'll see if we have anything to add Miss Fleming we'll start And thank you, mr. Mayor and again. I want to uh congratulate and appreciate our team for the robust engagement I was not able to attend Because i'm not on the climate subcommittee, but I did see that we had a packed chamber I also was able to attend the builders roundtable and I was able to attend the climate strike here in san aroza and I think that any good decision comes from a lot of listening And I do want to say to the builders who are concerned about this that I really do hear you and that your concerns are not falling on deaf ears. It's just that When I turn on the gas in my home and I look at my five-year-old and I think about the toxins that are leaking into the air I can't in good conscience Support that going forward I know that change is hard, but I can't imagine what year we all got gas in our homes It wasn't that long ago and with an induction cooktop that I use regularly It is faster and easier and it does require a bit of a learning curve But I think that in 50 years if if we're part of the solution that people won't be missing their gas stoves They'll be grateful that we had a planet that we could live on and that we took proactive action to Ensure that that our species is able to inhabit Our area and I think that that they will look at san aroza as part of the solution rather than part of the problem I also want to be clear that we're not looking at you know massive changes here We're looking at a few different appliances that are in homes. I think four appliances We're not looking at totally remodeling all homes for everything Additionally that the one thing that I didn't hear brought up is the fire safety aspect of this I've heard from firefighters that after A lot of the fires were put out during our tubs fire that there continue to be gas lines That were sparking that were flaring and that this continued to provide us with additional challenges and my concern would be that Why would we make a decision to Allow for for this type of infrastructure when we have clear evidence that it poses a safety risk for our residents As well as our firefighters and first responders first responders so with that, um, I'm in support of the ordinance, um going forward and I just want to appreciate our team for doing a lot of outreach and listening Mr. Divits Thank you, mr. Mayor. I actually have a question for you Jesse So when it comes to these building codes if you're going in to submit to do a remodel down the road And you do greater than 50 percent remodeled to the existing home the people would have to meet the reach code compliance No, they would not these codes are actually for new construction. Okay Thank you. Yeah, I'm you know I support moving forward on this just looking at the data And you know in a lot of times we as council members have to rely on the data provided to us and trust that it's accurate and gathered from a variety of Different sources and I think that we have done a good job of doing that here today But looking at the data the potential cost savings that exist for the occupant of the home down the road combined with the fact that We're looking at two million metric tons less than the 2019 Code efficiency home to me is pretty compelling. So I'd like to bring that information keep this conversation going Uh and continue to move forward, but I will say that I will have a keen eye for an exemption for Rebuilding Families I think that's to me that's going to be very important because one thing that this council said that I think that we need to Stay true to is the fact that uh, we did not want we wanted people to be able to move back into their their lives Is you know as they were saturday night and I I just want council to continue To I think maintain that vision Going forward Mr. Oliver's Nothing to add mayor. I look forward to this coming back to us Thank you, mr. Sorry Thank you, mayor Well, I'm one of those. Um, that's very I'm I'm concerned with the um A major change like this. Um, I am looking forward to it coming back to us again I'm I am concerned about the rebuilding whether the victims of the fire and Making it more difficult for them to rebuild So I'm looking I would be looking for a carve out for them um I'm one of those that that has become accustomed to natural gas and I removed my Electric stove when I moved into my house And put in a gas stove, but I also see the writing on the wall I I understand the the the future is Something that needs to be considered Our our environment cannot be degraded Where we can avoid that And I I feel for the for the builders I feel for this kind of major change in in in how they are Going to conduct their business and I also feel for the for the For those that are concerned with an all-electric home and are faced with Not having that choice unless they buy a home that already exists So I'm I'm it's it's hard for me to to to be excited about it But I understand the the need to move forward with the with the reach code It's a I am I am often challenged by People losing their options and this does Create one of those environments where they are losing that option At least in a new home in Santa Rosa So I look forward to coming back Look forward to more more conversation. I'm a little The all-electric favored concept is something I'd like to hear a little bit more about And uh, we'll just see what happens when it comes back. Thank you, miss Gomes Thank you, mayor. Thank you for bringing this forward to us. I very much appreciate the work you've done on it I'm having trouble viewing Saving people over $6,000 plus additional incentives In the rebuild area as Some kind of loss to them It seems to me that that's a population that in particular needs to Should understand the need to reduce Greenhouse gas effects climate effects should be motivated Um So I'm surprised that it's a population that isn't motivated to remove methane from the atmosphere I hope that we can post this Cost savings and make sure every permit has you know, you could save these costs I personally would not separate this group out I think all new construction should should meet This standard When I moved into my new house, I swapped out the gas stove for an induction stove And it has taken me some time to to get used to it, but Just about all my old pans worked anyways a lot of the concerns I hear people say are It's it's actually been a pleasure to use I am also like my colleague mr. Sawyer interested in hearing more about the all-electric forward And would be inclined to go that direction If if we had a fuller understanding over that that direction Thank you again for for bringing this forward Mr. Westerner Thank you, mr. Mayor and first and foremost absolutely agree on Folks rebuilding their home within the resiliency overlay It makes a ton of sense for us to make it as easy for them to get back into this community as they can So that's absolutely not a problem. I I did want to point out You know last friday, we did have millions of kids marching around the world Who what they were calling for was a little bit subtle and what they were calling for was for those of us who were in a position to be able to do so to Take steps that are of minor Inconvenience to us to ensure a future for them And to me this isn't even a difficult discussion. I've heard three concerns about it. I've heard cost I've heard convenience and I've heard catastrophe. Well when it comes to cost, it's cheaper So let's set that aside when it comes to convenience. Okay. I understand people like to cook on their gas stoves I totally understand that but two-thirds of the homes in california were built before you had any type of energy efficiency 29 percent of santa rosa's emissions come from inefficient buildings and houses and we're not even asking to take back your gas stove We're asking you to make a commitment to the future of somebody who might move I see leased up there in the audience in prop 13. That doesn't happen very often So on a new home that somebody is constructing that you could hypothetically move into It is the barest of minimums of what we can do to lower our building inefficiency climate impact by up to 80 That's not a small number and it's a as I said a really minor inconvenience on a Future hypothetical that we get to that point the third Was around catastrophe and I understand the questions about PGD's public safety power shutoffs None of the policies that we do are done in a vacuum and we're going to have to address the impacts of that Whether we do the reach codes or not as we heard from sonoma clean power You still even with you with your gas Infrastructure still have challenges when the power goes down and in fact having the solar panels on the home Which is not our requirement, but is a requirement coming that'll be coupled with the all-electric Actually makes the homes more efficient more Resilient as well and I'd suggest to folks take that $6,000 saving Invest in a battery and you're on your own little micro grid in the event that you do have a public safety power shutoff It makes a lot of sense for our community We'll be bringing back to the council probably about the same time as the reach codes a discussion about declaring a climate emergency And talking about the impact that climate change is having on our future I would be Amazed if the council passed that ordinance while also not taking a step of addressing Our building infrastructure as well with the reach codes. I'm fully supportive of it If you couldn't tell I look forward to the discussion coming back So and thanks for this presentation some of the my comments are what you probably heard during the climate action presentation At that vote I that's the direction. I thought we needed to go In the reason there's something I haven't heard too much of but it's the choice I heard it at the builders roundtable where some even look at my household, you know We chose to go electric. We're choosing to go solar and it's my choice And we're changing some of the the way my wife and I have run our house and the way we've cooked right And as we're doing these changes I think that really has a lot to say that we're going to take a look at the next step Because it's one of the speakers earlier today mentioned. Okay. What about the hot water heater? What about your cars, you know the the number one contributor ghe is our transportation If we can get people to start thinking in a different way and I think this is the right direction But I would like to see a little bit more definition coming back to us when it does come back They all electric favored just I think that is a viable option because yes That would give the choice to the um Buyers and the builders that if you do put gas there you're gonna have to make it up On other parts of the construction and that's why I thought that was really A great way to get us where we need to be going But at a rate that I think more people will be acceptable to change in which will lead to many other things And for me, it's got an absolute with the resilient city overlay There needs to be some exemption there Again living in that area The um, it's not just the thing about Cost getting their lives back together and some people would say well if they haven't rebuilt in two years What's going on the trauma of this community when you've lost their house to throw another challenge on them. It's Walking in their shoes I'm not willing to do that to those folks that have been devastated by the fire So I heard you say just it sounds like they'd be exempt I would not be comfortable going forward with this without that exemption 100 in place I just don't think that would be right to do to those members of our community who've experienced such a So much more of an incredible disaster than those of us that our houses survived But it really I don't want to do anything else. It's going to further traumatize that rebuild effort So with that do you have any other clarifying questions or anything else for council? I don't need anything else. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much Do we need time to set up for the next study session? We ready to go And which city manager assistant city manager is going to be Mr. McGlynn item 3.2 Item 3.2 study session on fee based rental inspection program Carmelita Howard deputy director of housing and community services presenting Good afternoon city council members. This is Dave Gwine director of housing and community services joined by Carmelita Howard our deputy and together We're going to walk you through a proposed rental inspection study session Go next yep good purpose What we wanted to do is first of all confirm it the council is interested in advancing a program in order to do so We're going to go through some program details that you have to select from We also will provide the feedback on a proposed model that we receive from stakeholders And ask for consideration of the existing code enforcement and neighborhood revitalization program models as your current tools So the process today would be if the council is interested in moving forward with developing a rental program We would use this input session to provide feedback Consider those components within a program design that would come back to you in november 19th with an ordinance It would consider things such as your program structure the implementation plan the fees and other components based on your feedback I'm struck by this as the a dated slide presentation. Um, but I was just going to comment. That's not what we've got It's a different slide presentation I'm sorry to say that Can we take a brief recess and I will reset the slides. Why don't we take a brief recess? Thank you. Thank you Okay, are we ready to reconvene? Okay, thank you after a reset we'll start with an overview of our presentation today We're going to unpack a lot of information to try and facilitate your decision regarding advancing a new business model called A rental inspection program. So we start with the purpose. We want to go through some background of other Times the council may have heard rental inspection program We want to outline a process for you to consider We want to show you what we think is the estimated number of rental units here in santa rosa, especially since the annexation of roseland We want to review your existing programs for housing inspections. That's basically the voucher program code enforcement and neighborhood revitalization We will talk about the cities we surveyed for best practices and then we'll review What we call rental inspection component choices if you want to build the program Along with some stakeholder feedback So first the purpose is to confirm if you want to advance a rental inspection program And if so we would be working to bring that back in an ordinance fashion in the november 19 timeframe Like I mentioned, we're going to review our existing rental services And we seek feedback today and ongoing until the ordinance may be in front of you on the best way to proceed So first with some background a rental inspection program is designed to proactively inspect rental units in a jurisdiction Your current program that proactively inspects units is your neighborhood revitalization program And your housing choice voucher program Um in october 2015 some city departments reorganized and code enforcement joined housing and community services And it was shortly thereafter that we held a study session on options to improve code enforcement Surveying other cities for best practices and that was the time we first mentioned that Perhaps that we should be considering a rental inspection program as a part of that City manager approved a study and off we went and that you're going to hear today some of the cities We surveyed from that three-year time span But also during this time the council began discussing rent control and just cause eviction policies And so we were working in two environments. First of all the rent stabilization Just cause eviction seeking feedback on a rental inspection program from pretty much the primary stakeholders And both the california apartment association and north bay associative reliters at that time again three years ago Expressed that they would be in favor of rental inspection program in lieu of the other policy initiatives So then in 2017 a program outline for rental inspection was developed We started meeting with council members one-on-one with stakeholders, but then again the um rent stabilization factor was Was our primary focus and the idea has since been deferred Due to wildfire recovery So this is really the first time in this chamber that you've had a chance to talk about a rental inspection program So our suggested process is if the council is interested in moving forward with the program is get input today Get some questions answered. We'll continue to get stakeholder feedback Hear your ideas of what components in a program you want to have And if so we'll get back on november 19th with the ordinance and the program design based on these features you see So with that i'll turn it over to karma leader to walk us through the next few slides regarding Rental the rental inspection program So, um, this is um, we got the information from gis through our it department that there are approximately about 35 000 rental units in the city. This is a 40 47 percent of the housing stock 53 percent are owner occupied And included here are the single family dwellings. There's 15 178 And these numbers that we included here the single family dwellings. It is one component Of the um rental inspection program that maybe we would like to be able to self-certify right away during the start of the um inspection program and then based on um An opinion from cAA and recommendation. They are they're recommending that we Inspect units that are three or more and there are 13,789 of those kind of units These are the existing rental inspection programs that we have right now in the city We have the housing choice voucher program This is a HUD program and it It has a minimum requirements for health and safety And um, they do a moving inspection when a new When a client moves to a new unit and also a annual inspection I mean an inspection is completed every other year for the regular units And then we have um code enforcement program. They use the ipmc, which is the international property Management code that has been adopted by the city for property maintenance so for fiscal year 18 19 we had 214 complaints based on substandard housing And the neighborhood revitalization um a program in the city it has inspects approximately a thousand units annually and 700 of those units had violations related to substandard housing These were the city surveyed and as you can see Berkeley does all rentals Concord just the multifamily units that is recommended by cAA city of sacramento and richmond Also do all rentals and son louisa bispo has stopped their rental inspection um And also these are the exemptions for some some exempt units that will build five years or less and um and some others that are New within the you know five years are also owner occupied Units inspected by another agency and mobile homes Mobile homes are inspected by the state. So we don't do inspections of mobile homes here So the inspection standards they there's the ipmc the california housing code uniform Housing code and then also the hqs that is done for section eight clients So the first thing we need to do if a rental inspection is a recommendation from council will be to do outreach in the whole city um You know, we've discussed this with the california apartment association Norbar and also the tenant groups and they're willing to work with us to make sure that The whole city is educated of what this new component That you know that what this a rental inspection is and then also the other goal is to use the nrp model in outreach And the nrp model uses a community outreach specialists to make sure that when we go to neighborhoods You know, especially in the nrp model Neighborhoods that they feel like they could trust somebody who can discuss with them what the plans are And another thing we're thinking of is as part of the education is to teach them. What are the resources and requirements that we Do here in the city and also like how can you be a good neighbor? So those are some of the goals that we want and then maybe Using the nrp model We can offer also services that maybe are needed in some neighborhoods that are not available to them right now So another component that council has a choice will be what kind of housing do we want to inspect? Multifamily those are the apartment buildings. Are we going to include single family shared housing? Granny units ad or any other units that you would prefer us to be that you prefer to be part of the inspection And also one of the components will be a frequency of inspections Do we? Sacramento model inspects units once every seven years some other Jurisdictions In do you perform inspections one every five years or we can also Allow units to be exempt if they are able to self-certify Or if the unit passes inspection we can just put them in a self certification program for a number of years so Here is the self certification It's kind of like rewarding the good property owners And so should compliant owners with no violations, you know, they then they can self-certify The Sacramento model All single family units are allowed to self-certify right away And the self-certification is done with their tenants So they both signed the form and then 10 or 20 percent of those units You know can be inspected unduly at random. So we make sure that those who self-certified did it correctly And then for registration um Should we require all property owners to register their units and include a fee in the registration And also should there be penalties for owners who do not register And also these are the exemptions that um, you know, we might want to include include as part of our component choices So i'm doing um exempt newly constructed rental units within 10 years or five years What kind of unit type do we want to inspect? Should we also in um include in the program units that are Assisted by the housing choice voucher program Especially if we decide to use the HQS inspection that's already being done by our technicians Then we might want to inspect the housing choice voucher program from the rental inspection as a You know as a tool to attract landlords to the program And then of course mobile home parks are the responsibility of the states. So we will be exempting those So these are the inspection standards So if we use a If we use the hqs that's done by the housing choice voucher program We will be able to use some technicians right away. So it doesn't look like we are looking for code violations And the decision, you know, one of the decision points will be if we find if a technician finds violations in the In the unit that are egregious for example, you know hanging wires With they don't have enough smoke alarms or You know mold then it can be referred to code enforcement And in when it goes to code enforcement, there might be penalties included If they do not follow what they're supposed to do within a certain period of time And or we can use the ipms. That's already being used by the nrp program and the city So the inspection process we will notify the owner 30 days in advance of the inspection The owner is responsible to secure tenant consent to access the unit Um, and we will also allow owners to request one rescheduling at no cost Seven days in advance so that um, you know, we don't lose the time of the Inspector the inspection must be rescheduled within 30 days from when we sent the letter And then the city notifies the owner within 10 days of finding if it pass inspection or if we will provide a violation list The property owners given 30 days to repair And if repairs are not complete property will be subject to annual inspection And property owner must be present during inspection with the tenant Currently if I can ask you to break we're gonna have to take a brief recess Sorry, so why don't you save this spot where you're at and we'll Come back in about five ten minutes Okay, we're gonna reconvene the meeting sorry for the delay, but um One of the potential consequences when you tried to do an all-inclusive policy sometimes This situation is with individual council members changed so Madam city attorney, would you explain our current situation? Yes, uh, unfortunately As we were began the reviewing the various components it became Clear that there are five different council members That could possibly have a conflict Depending on how decisions are made and the element that is Causing the issue Is what exemptions are going to be included in the policy? So what does the policy encompass whether encompasses all rentals? Not single-family homes Only rentals above four units That decision impacts Potentially five different members of the council in different ways So We have decided I don't know if you want to talk about what the procedure is But that we will come back With a structure in which we'll be able to address that issue With some portion of the council And all of the remaining Elements of the program could then be discussed and considered by the entirety of the city council Yes, so due to those conflicts and with the the way the presentation is currently Designed there's no way that we could have a quorum of the council listen to any information So we will not be taking any public comment So staff will be coming back on a date specific. So we are going to Continue this item until october 22nd And between now and october 22nd staff working in the city attorney's office will reconfigure their presentation So we would at least be able to have a quorum of city council members present All right from council perspective. Do you have any questions go ahead mr. Thank you, mayor. I'll try to make this brief, but uh madam city attorney Yes Is there any procedure or process to where a council that is regularly restricted on on particularly a lot of these rental issues can seek special permission of the fair political practices commission through fact finding and individual because This is happening To so many of us so much and it's getting ridiculous Sure, there there actually are provisions within the fppcs regulations and the Fair political practices act that Allow for this situation where you cannot reach a quorum because you have Too many conflicts and there are mechanisms under those regulations by which Council members can be Randomly selected To continue participation That is not some that's not a process that we would like to do on the fly here today So we want to be able to come back to you when we have a clear path We have the decision-making process clear as well. So both the clear path to to The selection of which council members will be able to participate because we'll only bring it up to a quorum we'll not go beyond that and then How we're structuring the components of the your consideration of the components of the program So that we can get that piece out of the way first and then the entire Council will be able to participate thereafter Well, I appreciate that that path forward that you've created for us. I do because You know, we do want to participate. Yes, and I think that You know the random thing is nice, but it's not nice if we're trying to be a transparent public Or excuse me or transparent with the public Where people want to kind of talk to us about the issue and have a sense of where we stand or what our Concerns are So thanks for for cutting this out, but if there is any way this council could send a letter and You know bring consistency to a lot of these decisions around these issues I think we should proceed that certainly. Thank you and and between now and October 22nd. We'll certainly explore All options that may be possible to have as many council members participate If not the entirety of the council will explore all options, but I'm I'm not aware of a path at this point to do so Okay, so we'll not be taking public comment and we will be continuing this item until October 22nd So we will recess this meeting until uh four o'clock this afternoon Okay, we're going to reconvene the september 24th city council meeting. We're on to item four Madam city clerk. We have the announcement of the roll call Thank you mayor. Let the record show that all members of the council are present Okay, we have No closed session today. No proclamations. Mr. McGlynn. Do we have staff briefing? No staff briefing today. Thank you. Oh and my mistake. I would also like to introduce tyler ledlos sitting behind me He's a resident of south park and he has taken advantage of the opportunity to sit along with the council members to see what it's like From this side of the desk so welcome With that city manager, do you have a report today for us? Yes, I do I want to give a little update on The public safety power shut off watch We find ourselves under Yesterday the city activated the emergency operations center due to a potential power safety Shut off and declared a local emergency in the city of santa rosa As of this morning staff learned that pg&e has reduced the footprint of potential impact and the number of customers that may be impacted by the shut off Early this afternoon More information well later on this afternoon more information will hopefully become available As there is a 17 30 update scheduled from pg&e The national weather service has also issued a red flag warning for upper elevations over a thousand feet In sonoma county through 11 a.m. Wednesday and a heat advisory from 11 a.m. To 7 p.m. Today and tomorrow Due to the forecasted high heat and potential power safety shut off Ahead of us the city is Opening a cooling center today and tomorrow at the finley center at the hours of operation or 11 to 11 a.m To 7 p.m. Each day residents and potential outage areas should prepare for the possibility of losing power Conceivably as early as 8 p.m. With a re-energization beginning the following day if de-energization occurs pg&e Anticipates it will take 12 to 24 hours to completely restore power to the city Once pg&e makes the determination to restore that power For pg&e updates and to identify service areas that may be affected by potential power outage residents should visit wwpg&e.com Backslash psps and check individual addresses on png's interactive potential outage map Staff continues to prepare the public for a potential power safety shut off And is monitoring the situation through ongoing communication with pg&e in the county beginning this morning the city deployed field teams and stood up a call a center to Call and make contact with care facilities in known and also with folks that are known vulnerable populations That reside in the impacted areas as the situation involves staff will continue to provide updates to the community through a variety of channels Including srcity.org backslash emergency our social media channels email and through communications with media partners Great. Thank you for that report Madam city attorney. Do you have a report? I just I do not have a report this afternoon But I did want to clarify with respect to the closed session just so the public would not be confused There was a closed session item that was listed on our agenda for a special meeting earlier this morning Um at 10 o'clock that closed session was canceled due to a change of circumstances Thank you. Thank you for that clarification All right item 9 statements of abstention by council members Mr. Tibbets, thank you mayor Unfortunately tonight, I'm gonna have to abstain from the benna valley and sam jones hall roof Given that I think both of the city and the organization I work for a drawing from the same funding pool But also I'm gonna have to abstain from the section 8 housing source of discrimination ordinance tonight, and I just want to communicate to the advocates that I'm personally pretty Disappointed about that. It's something that I talked about when I was campaigning for this seat three years ago And I have provided the information from the fair political practices commission to you And I'm happy to share that with anybody else in this audience I'll be also asking for further clarification from them through additional fact finding to be able to participate in issues Like this coming forward in the future And that's it. Thank you mayor So to confirm that's item 14.1, which is anti discrimination ordinance and then item 14.2 for the sam jones hall and point three and 14.3. Okay Are there any other abstentions? Okay, thank you Mayor's council members reports who would like to start Mr. Vice mayor Just really quick. Thank you to staff. We had about 50 people in this room last Tuesday night Maybe last Wednesday night for the final screening of last october The documentary that was put together that really chronicles the night of the fire What was happening with city staff and and the subsequent response if you haven't had a chance to see it It is on our website And should be up and streamable for you. It really is a fantastic film And thank you to everybody who shared your personal stories and for folks who came out to to check it out Okay, any other reports miss columns? Thank you I have a concern that we have an existing council policy That requires a council seat to be actually vacant Before replacement of the council member who's given notice can be begun And That also means that the current council member in the vote Can't vote for their replacement. It would be I would like to have us agendize This is the first step in that process Looking to revise that policy That once Is given the council be able to move forward with replacement Because then you don't have a gap in with only six council members at some times Because the individual Council member Was elected and should have a vote in who represents their base And it also becomes a significant problem for district seated people when the individuals who select the person from that district Are all people who are not from that district So I think that we have a problem with the way our our policy for Vacating seats is and I'd like to ask that we Agendize a conversation on that at the next meeting I'll second that. Thank you Thank you Any other reports miss flying? Yeah, I mentioned this earlier before we were in our regular council meeting that I had the opportunity to Go to a builders round table where we discussed our all electric or electric preference options and it was robust and we had builders who were in support and not in support and It was great that our staff did that outreach to illicit The input from our building community Additionally, I had the opportunity to go to the climate strike here and I would be surprised if it wasn't the largest Demonstration by youth ever in the population of the world. So it was quite an honor to be able to witness it Great anything else from anyone? Seeing none. All right on to the approval of the minutes August 27th. Were there any adjustments? To those minutes from anyone Seeing none, we'll accept those. Mr. Glenn consent item Item 12.1 motion Contract award coffee neighborhood park item 12.2 resolution Second amendment to the professional services agreement with hagarty consulting ink Item 12.3 resolution first amendment to general services agreement number f 00 1 0 2 1 with ECS imaging incorporated Okay council any questions on the consent calendar? Seeing none. Do we have any cards on the consent calendar? Seeing none. Mr. Rogers All right, mr. Mayor. I will move items 12.1 Through 12.3 and waive further reading of the text second So we have a motion and a second your votes, please And that passes unanimously. Thank you We're not yet to five o'clock. So we won't have the public comment yet. Uh item You'll be actually mean. Thank you item 14.1. Mr. McGlynn Item 14.1 report an ordinance of the city council of the santa rosa amending the santa rosa city code Adding a new chapter 1 0-46 housing anti-discrimination code David guine and rebecca lane presenting Good afternoon, mayor and members of the city council. We're going back after an extended outreach effort to present this item to you again I want to go through the purpose of the ordinance Summarize the conversations we've had with many stakeholders on this topic Review the fundamentals of the housing choice voucher program because if you recall last month there was some comments made about the Program that may be misleading or misunderstood We want to also compare our local ordinance with senate bill 329 You may know that that passed and is on the governor's desk. He has until october 13th to sign that And close with our recommendation So the purpose of the ordinance is really just to address affordable housing Crisis by increasing the housing opportunities for families using rental assistance and have further fair housing for those families Using rental assistance Here's an example of our extended outreach with the time we've had we met with some of these groups some of them multiple times And we even held a facilitated meeting with different viewpoints to see if we could find some common ground And we'll go through some of that right in a minute Here's a summary of the stakeholder feedback If you were representing property owners the industry Realtor industry You would this message is very clear and strong that santa rosa does not need to pass local ordinance Especially with the expected passage of sp 329 there's also The feedback of using a promotion campaign to really promote the program in ways we never have before because it was so misunderstood There was discussions about incentives yet. There wasn't consensus on what an incentive should be So for example a leasing bonus some members of the apartment owners association said that creates a red flag for me Why do I need a bonus to lease to a voucher holder? There's also discussions of a risk mitigation pool Some were in favor of it others were saying well that implies there's a risk if you Leaves to a voucher holder and we had to use that opportunity to clarify that whether you are a voucher holder or a non voucher holder You're still paying your full security deposit to the property owner There was Feedback that this if you pass this ordinance, it should only apply to units of three or more units And if you were representing tentatives you wanted to allow for third party discrimination claims and that basically came from Fair housing in northern california where they do Discrimination investigations all the time race creed color sex and they include source of income and if they found Discrimination of that they wanted the opportunity to pursue Correcting that matter They wanted to apply to all units They strongly urged the council to adopt your own ordinance and they also provided feedback that if there was a violation They'd like to see strong penalties for that And where we showed common ground was again the marketing and outreach of the program Promoting it in ways we've never imagined before and we have some ideas to do that regardless of your action tonight And the feedback for enhanced customer service for owners and renters some of that was based on How long it takes to lease and i'm sorry to inspect a unit and things of that nature and rebecca will be going through that As we go through the program Okay, thank you jave. Uh, good afternoon. Mayor schwedhelm and members of the city council My name is rebecca lane, and i'm the manager of the housing choice voucher program for the city of santa rosa i'm grateful for the opportunity to be here today To answer questions that arose at the august 13th meeting and provide information to council To the public and to our stakeholders regarding the fundamental mechanics of the program, which is where I will begin my presentation So the housing choice voucher program is the federal government's largest affordable rental housing program The program was enacted in 1974 and is an efficient cost effective alternative to government owned housing The program is often referred to as section eight because its authorization appeared in section eight of the united states housing act of 1937 There are a variety of programs under The section eight umbrella of which the housing choice voucher program is the most well known The program is funded by the department of housing and urban development and administered by local public housing authorities In santa rosa the santa rosa housing authority is staffed Out of the department of housing and community services and overseen by the housing authority board of commissioners The program in santa rosa maintains a seven to ten year waiting list Because there are simply not enough vouchers to fill the demand Once a tenant has reached the top of this waiting list and is determined eligible for the program They are issued a voucher to search for housing in the private rental market The family identifies housing that meets their particular needs and ultimately will pay 30 of their monthly adjusted income towards the rent With the housing authority paying the balance of the rent directly to the owner There are minimum requirements that must be met in order for this transaction to complete successfully First the rent must be reasonable when compared to similar units in the neighborhood Or comparable neighborhoods The rent must also be aligned with the average rents for the overall area because that's how the program is budgeted Once a family finds a property that's within the budget range that they've been provided and has completed the owner's application and tenant screening process The owner completes a request for tenancy approval provided by the tenant This request triggers the housing authority's analysis of the rent reasonableness on the unit And the scheduling of the housing quality standards inspection These standards are to basic health and habitability and can include local variances Such as our requirement that a gas water heater Has is equipped with seismic reinforcement straps As soon as the unit passes inspection the tenant is free to move in The owner will then sign their rental agreement with the tenant as well as the housing Housing assistance payments contract with the housing authority The HAP contract largely allows owners to treat their How the voucher holder tenancy in the same way as all other tenants with a couple of exceptions The housing authority must review and approve any approved any proposed rent increases based on rent reasonableness And that requires a 60-day notice to complete the process Also in california if the owner wishes to terminate a month-to-month rental agreement for a voucher holder without identifying cause The tenant is entitled to a 90-day notice I believe it's also important as we're discussing the mechanics of this program To talk about the households we're serving through this critically important resource By federal regulation Eligible families are at or below 50 of the area median income And we must target the majority of our assistance to families at or below 30 of the area median income In santa rosa, that's 32,400 for a family of four Currently of the families we serve the majority 93 percent are elderly disabled or have children in their household 73 percent of families have social security ssi or pension as their main source of income 29 percent are working The average amount that families contribute to the rent is $441 in santa rosa Program-wide the per household contribution from the housing authority is $1028 Families on this program have completed a comprehensive income And asset verification Criminal background screening and attend mandatory orientation to the rules and regulations of the program They complete at least annual recertifications of their income eligibility And annually recommit to following the rules of the program which include but are not limited to Following all the provisions in the rental agreement such as paying the family portion of rent refraining from disturbing the peaceful enjoyment of the property refraining from damaging the unit beyond normal wear and tear And providing information necessary to determine eligibility for the program One of the questions that came up on august 13th was how many participants on the participants on the program violate these rules and expectations While we track the number of Families on the program who leave the program we do not generally need to track the why behind Someone's leaving the program But for the purposes of answering these critical questions and sharing the information requested with the public We analyze the terminations from the last fiscal year and determined what you see here 40 percent of families voluntarily withdrew from the program this includes People who made personal decisions to leave such as an elderly family who moved into a residential care facility In the last fiscal year We also saw a number of lower wage workers who left Sonoma county or the state and chose not to take their voucher with them 28 percent of the program attrition is from the death of the house head of household when there are no eligible household members remaining 14 percent of families left the program because of an increase in household earnings A family is considered over income for the program when 30 percent of their monthly adjusted income Equals the entire rent 11 percent of families left the program due to a violation of the program rules Because this information was of particular interest. We did dig into this category a bit further The 11 percent of voucher violations you see here are things like not completing an annual recertification Or moving a person into the household without prior permission from the housing authority And many cases these families choices did not negatively impact the owner because the change in the participant circumstances Corresponded with a voluntary move from the unit To answer the questions we received from council and owner representatives during our outreach We separated out the number of families Who were terminated from the program because they were evicted Which was six percent in the last fiscal year One percent of terminations from the program which was two households were due to damage beyond normal wear and tear We take these violations seriously and believe that this data demonstrates That when the evidence is clear the housing authority does act to terminate assistance for those who violate the regulations If we failed to do that we know it would harm our relationship with landlords Which is critically important to the success of the housing choice voucher program The information on this slide is an attempt to answer a variety of questions that focused on the same issue Which was barriers to participation by owners We pulled the information from the records of 361 move-ins that were completed in the last fiscal year to analyze these key points These household moves could be families who were called from the santa rosa waiting list and receiving assistance for the first time Or families who are transferring from other jurisdictions Or families who are already residing in santa rosa and moving to new units within santa rosa I'll start from the bottom of this slide and work my way up to explain these numbers The days to lease represents the number of days between when the owner requested that the lease begin and when the lease actually began And that number is 3.6 days What this means is that if an owner requested that the lease begin on october 1st We were generally able to execute the contract by october 3rd or 4th We believe this data point helps answer the question about the potential for lost rent The majority of the time the reason for the delay was because the housing authority does not overlap payments between units For example If a tenant gives a 30 day notice to a landlord and finds a new unit in two weeks The program fulfills the obligation to the owner of the unit the tenant is moving out of Before it can begin the payment to the new owner When we isolated the prohibition against overlapping payments the delay in the days to lease dropped to two days As we move forward We will be tracking this type of information and study our processes to determine how we can bring this number down even further Or through a loss mitigation fund Help help offset this type of loss for owners It is also important to note that in 40 41 percent of the cases we were able to execute the contract on the day it was requested The middle of the chart Represents the number of days on average that it took our staff to inspect the property Which was about five days in fiscal year 2018 2019 Again, there are many variables that influence the scheduling of inspections and it's important to remember That scheduling the inspection doesn't necessarily correlate with lost rent, which is why we also analyze the days to lease Most owners who have participated in the program know the inspection requirements But if the owner is new to the program and the unit is ready We will work with the owner to inspect earlier than would otherwise be necessary To provide additional assurance that the property will pass inspection prior to the requested move-in date The top bar of this chart represents the number of days between the move-in date And the date when the owner received the first rent payment from the housing authority This number is high. It's about 15 days and we want to improve on this as much as the owners that we talk to Property owners obviously want to receive the payment when a tenant moves in Likewise, it is in the housing authority's best interest to make these payments as soon as possible Because we are not paid the administrative fees to run the program until families are leased Retroactive payments also introduce challenges to financial reporting However, as stewards of federal funds, we are obligated to collect and verify certain information from owners who will be receiving these dollars The most common reason that we are not able to pay Make our payment closer to the move-in date Is because we have not received a signed contract Our copy of the rental agreement or been able to verify that the person or entity that is requesting to receive the payment is authorized to receive it Again, we hope to continue these conversations that have been started with owners and find ways that we can reduce this number and make the payment process more efficient Circling back now to the proposed ordinance that brought us here today We want to focus on the state legislation that is pending with governor Gavin Newsom and identify the differences between the state and local proposals As a reminder about the timeline When council first heard the proposal for the local ordinance on august 13th Senate bill 329 had not yet been approved by both houses of the california state legislature Several local jurisdictions in california had also moved to adopt local ordinances that paralleled the intent of sp329 during the 2019 legislative session Including the city of san ose which heard and passed a local source of income ordinance protection covering voucher holders on august 13th Both sp329 and the proposed local ordinance do the same thing They make it unlawful to discriminate in rental housing based on source of income And define source of income as any lawful source of income or rental assistance from any federal state or local public assistance The intent of the state legislation and the local ordinance is the same which is to prohibit discrimination based on means of payment Where the local ordinance and sp329 differ Are areas where we worked with local owner and tenant interest groups in finding ways to address their concerns about the proposal The first is the scope of the ordinance The proposed local ordinance includes a more narrow definition of an aggrieved person who can bring a complaint The proposed local ordinance also includes Specific definition of reasonable occupancy a change which was made at the request of owners who are concerned that if the ordinance lacked this clarity It could lead to confusion for owners applicants and the city The state level legislation does not include any reference to an occupancy standard Finally the third key difference between the state and local proposals is with regard to enforcement If the city adopts a local ordinance, then the city may bring an action on behalf of an aggrieved person Under either a local ordinance or sp329 the aggrieved person has a private right of action At this time the department of housing and community services recommends That the city council consider introducing an ordinance adding chapter 10 46 To the santa rosa city code prohibiting rental housing discrimination based on source of income Including section 8 housing choice vouchers and other subsidies Alternatively, we acknowledge that the city council could also allow sp329 to apply which provides for similar source of income protections This concludes our formal presentation and david and i are both here to answer any questions that you might have Great. Thank you for that presentation answering all the questions that we brought up our last time So with that council any questions for staff Mr. Vice mayor Thank you so much. So much. Mr. Mayor So I asked uh, both of these questions in our last Study session. I'm still looking for kind of a clear answer on it as a renter How do I know if i've been discriminated against under this program? well, uh, the city attorney may be better able to answer that question but the um, I think the consensus is among All of our conversations and in other jurisdictions that are moving forward with this is that yes discrimination is hard to prove That's correct. It's very fact-based So you would be looking at obviously if there's an advertisement that that indicates No section 8 that kind of behavior or that kind of advertising also any things said In the interactions between the landlord and the potential tenant We would also be looking at patterns Of practice, but it is going to be very fact-based and not necessarily easy to prove And have we had a discussion around metrics of if two if if john and i both apply For the same unit How does the landlord make the determination on who they're giving the unit to if we're both qualified? Have we talked about metrics around that? Uh, we don't and it's me by the way. That's more qualified than john The landlord still has um the ability to the landlord has to consider the two applications equally But can still look at other factors. So credit history Things like that if you've had issues in prior rentals if you've been evicted before for bad behavior So can look at those other elements, but simply can't base it on Where your income is coming from Okay, thank you There question mr. Sawyer now you're side of the story Thank you, mayor Regarding this the same basic topic is selecting a tenant Is it true that that if there were two let's say two two applicants And they were looking one of them. It has a voucher But also but the second tenant had a They were co-joining their income sources One had a Has been at their job for 10 years They happen to have a voucher the other person Um Yes 10 years As opposed to 50 but that's that's beside the point The other person has only been at the job for six months But is but is showing their their income as part of the That which will make it possible for them to move into the into the unit What under those circumstances and you are one person is more more What viable than the other and you say no Um, the no is is that is that is that no reasonable because you can't Because the other person has only been employed for six months at their current job I mean what really what i'm concerned about is it puts the landlord in a difficult position if it's not crystal clear As it currently is whether or not they want to to rent to a to an applicant Um The landlord still may again look at credit worthiness employment history other standards of Kind I was going to say credit worthiness credit worthiness is probably not the right word But you can look at other factors in terms of deciding Which tenant you're going to accept Um, but You simply can't base it on the fact that the source of income is of uh, a program that's of governmental or nonprofit housing assistance, right? Okay. Thank you. Um, and if if they were to If the if the applicant were to feel that they were discriminated against and they went to a third party And said I feel like I've been discriminated against. What's the process? That that third party would would fact find to decide whether they were going to to file suit So the third party suit in our with our ordinance the third party Could file on behalf of the applicant What was the what would be the process by which the third party would?  What's the process? I don't know if you can answer that the I don't I don't know that there would be any discovery Formal discovery process under our our ordinance if you Files you do have a private right of action. It's only the aggrieved person individually that has the The right to the private right of action under the ordinance Foreign injunction though that could be done if you filed suit under either Provision, then you would you would have discovery rights Through the through the courts Let me let me clarify to your earlier question and this does say Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to prohibit a requirement for a grand tour guarantor or co-signer Based on amount of income or credit worthiness So those are the You know those are some of the elements that can be can be considered So what is the what is the purpose? When there was when the when it was added I'm going back to the purpose Hold on just one second sit that far down. Maybe I can just state it so in our Yes, so If we the third party the third party action is what I'm looking for an explanation of what was the purpose of the third party Action why that was so important to be added to our to our ordinance, which is not in the state And how would they go forward as a third party with that third party? What would be the process for them going forward and which is what I assume would be a suit against the landlord For discrimination I'll begin trying to answer that one and maybe get some help from the city attorney Is that was a request that came from Northern california fair housing group because they investigate all kinds of a discrimination And they claim that they have discovered some income discrimination source of income based on people holding vouchers And they wanted the ability to work with that person to pursue whatever legal remedies were available to them So what would that process look like so they go so that the aggrieved Tenant goes to the organization and says I believe I've been discriminated against They they have a conversation. They state their they state their cases. I believe this is a discrimination What is then the next what is the next step for that organization to bring suit against the landlord? What's the what's the discovery process that that would be Really up to the ordinance itself does not describe the process by which the third party entity Would take on the representation of an aggrieved person Or the process they would go forward it simply gives the Those third parties the ability to file a civil action foreign injunction against the discrimination So as as dave mentioned it is specifically Was requested and is is looking to organizations that help low-income tenants In their search for housing and in their search for Fair treatment and I will I will say too that in the audience and I believe people who are planning to be The submitting comments on this item are from fair housing of northern california. Sonoma county legal aid We have representatives here in the audience who might be able to speak to that or incorporate that in their comments but the the difference that We were that we made in the local ordinance Is to more narrowly define the aggrieved person as the individual that's directly subject to the discrimination And that's different than the state Orgments or the state law And if I may add one one other element that under the state law The California Fair Employment and Housing Act Is Enforced Also through the department of fair employment and housing and so Could be seen to be playing that role As a state agency assisting Individuals and families that feel that they have been potentially discriminated against and they will do an investigation And take the matter to court Through a settlement process and then and then to court if necessary We don't have a our ordinance does allow the city to Enforce the provisions of the chapter and it does allow in terms of an injunction for the city attorney to get involved But we don't have the same structure that That that that the state has for enforcement of this of the state anti-discrimination Ordinance which is a very well Well established, you know state agency that has those procedures In place thank you Other questions miss fine Thank you. This question. I believe is for the city attorney I'm curious to know in my understanding of how this comes to me and how I explain this to you know Family member with rentals about why they shouldn't be worried about it I'm wondering if it's similar to when you engage in hiring practices where We it is illegal to discriminate against individuals. However, it is really difficult To prove it and I'm wondering if this there is a similarity in practice where The onus and I think you might have said this but I want to hear it again That the onus is on the applicant and not the the provider Or the landlord in the situation to prove that they're being discriminated against That's correct that in any action under our ordinance that it would be the burden of either the grieved person or the third-party organization or the or the city To prove the discrimination and again, it would be very fact-based And again not not not easy to establish Um, this question might be for you. I'm curious to know if there are any Restrictions I don't see any in the ordinance, but um any restrictions or limitations or exemptions on the size of the complex or Single family dwelling or duplex that might be in question You're talking about in terms of the applicability of the ordinance Yeah, does the the ordinance apply to units regardless of the size of the complex if there is more than one It does I'll read you the current proposed ordinance on in chapter 10 4 6 0 4 0 Under exceptions Exception d says nothing in this chapter shall be construed to apply To refusal to rent or lease a portion of an owner occupied single family house to a person as a rumor or border Living within the household provided that no more Than one rumor or border is to live within the household and that the owner complies With the other section of the chapter which prohibits discriminatory notices statements and advertisements So this language is is identical to what's in the state Um ordinance and it means basically that it applies to all units with the exception of an owner renting out a room In their household, so if I'm an owner and I occupy my unit I have discretion full discretion As you would in other fair housing considerations such as Renting only to a person of one gender or okay Thank you. I'm curious to know this is another question for the attorney Does the city um have the legal jurisdiction to differ from the state um if sp 329 were to pass do we have the legal jurisdiction to be More broad and who we allow to bring a claim Uh, yes, we can be um more liberal in our provisions, but we cannot allow for discriminations that would be Uh prohibited under the state law. Okay. Thank you very much This comes Thank you And thank you very much for your clear Presentation I I I don't remember seeing you much before but it's very impressive. Thank you Is it possible For an inspection to be scheduled by the landlord Prior to there being a vacancy so that if they anticipate a vacancy they don't have the length of time delay that they're concerned about Uh, it is possible. Um, it introduces a little bit of complexity uh around um Our right to enter the unit uh when another tenant is occupying it if the tenant agrees If the tenant agrees, um, it would be possible and again slightly more complicated than the inspection occurring when the unit is move in ready, uh, because then The other side of that would be that The tenant can't move in right away. We'd have to wait and make sure That the the prior tenant moved out before we can make payments on the unit There also introduces the possibility that something some damage could occur something could happen to the unit During the move out process. They break a window as they're, you know, trying to move the couch and uh, and that would then Cause the unit to fail. So It's possible and we have done What we sort of refer to as preliminary inspections or pre inspections Many other jurisdictions do the same thing It it's possible and will need to be developed in a way that we can ensure that we're still meeting the federal requirements Of inspecting the unit and ensuring that it meets HQS standards on the day that the family moves in. Okay. Thank you. And on slide 16 it talks about Occupancy and enforcement First let me ask the question about enforcement because it almost sounded like I was hearing from colleagues concerned that a third party could independently Make an action without there being an aggrieved person Under the ADA sometimes a third party can act Without being personally an aggrieved person, for example, you can observe something have happened And take an action under the americans with disabilities act. I think That's not allowed here. Is that right? The the third party has to be essentially hired by The city the state or an aggrieved person I'm just I thought that was the case and i'm making sure The wording that again The third party can get involved only in the case of an injunction and not not as a General civil action for damages. It's only for injunction. Okay, and the wording is By any person or entity who will fairly and adequately represent the interest of the protected class Okay That's interesting. Thank you We have other nondiscriminate we we hire We hire an agency we've hired more than one agency in the past but currently I think we have one agency that does Um fair housing testing and and Assistance legal assistance for us My understanding is that we have other nondiscrimination ordinances Discrimination against families with children is a housing discrimination Persons of color disability Those are all Nondiscrimination ordinances that exist now. Are those ordinances also difficult to enforce? I mean, are that is there a reason we would think that source of income is more difficult or difficult in some way other than those other kinds of disability Discrement non-discrimination clauses that we're looking at So I believe you're referring to the existing federal or state fair housing protections, right? So as a city we hire through Fair housing entity in order to Ensure that we are providing right right. We have a contract with Currently fair housing advocates of northern california. Yes, they do testing here. They also work For referrals that we send them or that independently from san erosa contact that agency and they're following the Other protected classes. Yes, because what we're doing is talking about Within the city of san erosa adding a protected class, right? So one of the arguments i'm hearing is this is hard to enforce And i'm asking okay. We've got other nondiscrimination ordinances Aren't they also somewhat hard to enforce? I believe personally it's still worth having them that we still want to have ordinances for nondiscrimination against Families which has happened Continues to happen Nondiscrimination against persons of color happens Nondiscrimination that's age related Happens It seems to me those though are all also very difficult to prove So we would we have an entity that does testing So is there a is there a specific element to the discrimination on the basis of voucher that makes it Somehow more relevant that it's hard Surely somebody understands what I have just asked I have to acknowledge the If you could repeat the the end it was more relevant than the other discrimination I mean More difficult that it keeps being brought up. Oh, it's hard to enforce this Duh So it's hard to enforce lots of things are hard to enforce including other anti-discrimination ordinances Is there an element here That you think makes it even harder than the other anti-discrimination ordinances because I don't see it I'm not aware of anything that would make this particular form of discrimination more difficult to prove than many other forms of discrimination And you know that may be something that uh our Organizations that work in this field on a daily basis You know may have us May have a clearer answer, but yeah, I think from our perspective. We don't see anything that makes this more Particularly more difficult than other than many other forms of discrimination methods that we would use for other discrimination Cases would be similar to the method. We would use in this if if I'm understanding correctly That would be correct. Okay, and so it Is it possible for us to Maybe not in this particular ordinance, but as we move forward To consider a loss or risk mitigation pool Right, don't we already have one for if we're working with homeless folks? It's it's possible. Yes What we find from other communities is they don't speak to Incentives in an ordinance, but it's a parallel discussion and or could occur before an ordinance is adopted or afterwards Thank you. I appreciate it I'm I'm not suggesting that we need a loss or risk mitigation pool But if it provides comfort to others, I'm willing to consider it Any other questions The ones I had similar to this and I asked last time It is my understanding of this council both last fiscal year in this fiscal year. We did pass the housing first Fund which was risk mitigation landlord incentive and rapid rehousing What's the status of those funds and could they not apply to this? ordinance So yeah, you're jumping over to our homeless services program and you're absolutely right the city council funds rapid rehousing Through our contractor catholic charities and of that amount $534,000 We set aside $100,000 as a risk mitigation pool To property owners who lease To formerly homeless individuals or families To date we have not had to access that risk mitigation pool Most of the rapid rehousing funding has been expended Especially because we use that resource to help displace tenants at the new wave of vista fire a few months ago And staff is preparing to come back to council You've authorized another round of funding in your budget foot for that contract execution Because we haven't accessed that risk mitigation pool It would be the recommendation of staff that the full amount for this year be going to rapid rehousing dollars Help with rent in other words so The decision to help with the apartments that was a staff decision, correct That was a staff decision. Yes when we informed the council that The property owner was dropping the relocation benefits In the moment a week after the shelter So we had to step in and helps prevent some folks from becoming homeless So is there any reason that funding could not be used because it's the same both of these efforts are out of your department, correct? Yeah, if it was the desire of the council to create an incentive There's several suggestions one is we could expand access to the current risk mitigation pool To property owners who are accepting a voucher as well as homeless I guess for me it was like just knowing that The apartment fire perfect Appropriate use if this is something else that we need to do to support I mean, obviously this is an issue in our community or we wouldn't be talking about the anti-discrimination ordinance I would want and if there are some ways that the staff is thinking let's incentivize it for those that may have This belief about who a section 8 holder is and isn't it might be a way to encourage additional participation I would completely want you to be exploring those options because if we're using for one population Why wouldn't we use it for all the populations who are trying to get people housed regardless where they're firmly homeless They'll ask their apartment in a fire or they've never accepted Section 8 vouchers so sure if that was the direction of the council when we come back with the rapid rehousing Contract for this year we could speak to that and so with the funding gives my understanding in june of this last year We authorized another 534 thousand dollars. So what's the status of that funds right now? That's the maybe that's the contract i'm recommending that we come forward to for execution with catholic charities In june, we're looking at whether we should seek proposals for other operators to operate rapid rehousing But now we see that they've expended the funds and we would be recommending that we resource catholic charities for another year with this And would because I think I asked this last time also because that that was my understanding There's three buckets of way you could do it. So you had mentioned 100k was set aside for risk mitigation It would be helpful for me to understand and see how those dollars have been spent You know again that return on investment because of these rapid rehousing dollars We've housed x number of people and I know we just got that updated report about you know last year We housed 301 folks it'd be great to know Did that source you know the rapid rehousing dollars that this council approved successfully Housed folks same thing with this land if we choose to go with this landlord incentive How effective is that is that enough to get more people participating in the section 8 program? Okay, any additional questions go ahead and explain Thank you. I do have one additional question Which is I'm wondering if you can give a really brief overview of the elements of the hqs the inspection Program about how long it takes and what an inspector is looking for Sure So the housing quality standards inspection is that those are the HUD standards for the program It's a it's a pretty basic health and habitability inspection So we're looking for safety issues Broken windows for example, I would have to be repaired We're not looking at cosmetic issues what we tell the tenants when we're going through our orientation is that If there's a you know a small stain on the carpet, we're not going to care about that so much You should care about that because you want to protect your security deposit But what we're looking for is going to be a tripping hazard a hole in the carpet that might present a danger to someone so it is a basic health and habitability inspection and the elements of the inspection are the same across the programs across the country the forms and all the standards are available online at any time Thank you And I did have one question for the city attorney is the way our The ordinance is currently drafted. Is it enforceable given the current state of case law in california? Uh, yes, it is there have been cases Recently that have affirmed very similar ordinances. Great. Thank you Okay, we have several cards on this item. So first up would be Sharon king followed by keith becker Thank you mayor city council My name is Sharon king I am the the property manager at the salvage an army silver crust residents 10 53rd street santa rosa And i'm here to share my experience with offering housing to housing voucher holders Silver crust is a 186 unit apartment community offering affordable and subsidized housing For senior households age 62 and above 36 units are subsidized through the housing choice and bash voucher programs 144 units are project based section 8 The remaining six units are staff housing and market rate units The arguments against running to voucher holders according to a recent article in the press democrat are It represents an onerous contractual relationship with the government agency Housing authority inspections cause delay and unit turnover and irresponsible tenants You know those people My experience This is my experience The contract The contractual relationship is really no more than a lease At least at least renewal time once a year I receive a letter from the housing authority telling me what I will receive from subsidy and what I will receive from the tenant Very rarely I receive a letter mid-year because the tenant situation has changed And causing a change in subsidy The housing authority is allowed If I want to change the amount of rent I give the housing authority 60 days notice and they pay according to their policies About delayed inspections. I have never had to wait more than 10 days When I get a 30 day notice to vacate I let the housing authority know it's coming down the pike And I never have a delay About voucher holders We accept applications from all section 8 voucher holders But they must be eligible to live at silver crest in order to be put on our waiting list This means in addition to age and income restrictions They must have 7 years of positive housing verifications No violent criminal conditions Convictions no current use of illegal drugs and no evictions in the last 3 years We have a strict and robust tenant selection plan which we apply to everyone without discrimination We have an appeal process which we apply to everyone without discrimination We have and the appeal process has a third party look at the Review the application Just because an applicant has a voucher. We don't automatically offer an apartment nor does the housing authority require it If we decide to terminate a lease due to residents bad behavior We advise the housing authority and they do what they do There's no difference in the behavior of silver crest tenants between those who do And those who do not hold vouchers. Thank you. Thank you. Keith becker followed by jenette mcfall Good evening my surprise surprise attorneys are disagreeing with each other And um our attorney does disagree With the concept that this is in compliance with state law because there is a question of whether it is compliant with Established case law that's item number one item number two is the concern that the passage of this ordinance could have foreseeable detrimental consequences That are not figured through in the way this has been written Lastly, this is never about the applicants or the tenants In terms of an owner's Property and private rights The idea that This ordinance or any ordinance is going to tell an owner that they are forced to engage with a governmental agency is Unfair and improper to property owners. Thank you. Thank you. Keith. Uh, jenette mcfall followed by marlina mark arano Totally you got a copy of the buddhal rights that I asked to be handed to each of you Um, my name is jenette mcfall I'm a realtor part of the oath of my license is I sort of protect property rights Forcing property owners to not consider source of income for rental property infringes on property rights Real estate ownership carries with it a complex set of rights and the bundle rights concept has been Traditionally been the way those rights are described the bundle includes the following the right of possession the right of control The right of inclusion the right of enjoyment the right of disposition Any council member who chooses to ignore the bundle of rights does not belong on the city council The property owners are all through your constituents property owners fund the city of san rosa. Please study the bundle of rights A close study of the addition of source of income to housing Antidiscrimination code clearly reveals conflicts with the bundle of rights The word discrimination is used over eight times whereas Websters defines discrimination as a distinction that is unfair in favor of the other side It is the city of san rosa who's proposing we discriminated against non section eight renters by granting a preference to section eight renters Unfair and favor the other side The ordinance would prohibit landlords from considering source of income including section eight vouchers and other rent subsidies What other to vey what else does the umbrella of source of income cover besides section eight are used interchangeably throughout Yet by definition are not interchangeable source of income absent consideration of source could include found money Money borrowed from a stranger gift money two party out-of-town checks the list goes on An unreliable untimely an unverifiable source of income could result in adverse effects Saddled solely by the property owner I argue that section eight is not income it is a grant it must you must be low income to qualify for this taxpayer funded gift This gift is limited by what can be squeezed from the property owner whose bundles of rights are being squashed The amount of this fund will decrease as property devalues inevitably as a result of this mandate The supply could shrink as owners choose not to rent out to avoid the risk Already supply is already scarce whereas from the loss of approximately 5,000 homes from the fire Instead issue housing unit permits streamline the rebuild for these folks that are trying to rebuild their homes faster See sunday's paper. It looks like the santa rosa officials Won over by an unique pitch to boost Stock thank you for your time Marlene um Followed by chad bola Okay, i'm just going to read this quickly just have my three minutes. Uh, hello mayor schwedhelm council members Thank you so much for allowing me to speak today. My name is marlene more toronto and i'm a voucher recipient When i first received my voucher i was thrilled who wouldn't be I knew discrimination in the workplace But the discrimination in attaining housing took it to a whole new level and it hasn't stopped there September 15 2015 council delayed a vote for an anti-discrimination ordinance june 4th 2015 pd ran an article about a disabled man His wife and nine-year-old daughter's difficulty in using their voucher He had had a heart attack and was on dialysis 95 horrible comments in august 16th 2018 similar article a 75 year old working woman Having difficulty finding a landlord willing to accept her voucher 73 count comments My voucher status was mentioned in a may 2017 article 96 comments i got the most 94 73 and 96 comments Things such as were called feral humans drug addicts mental hoarders prostitutes gang buyingers Personal attacks on me when all I had done was put my own housing on the line And made myself publicly vulnerable for my fellow suffering renters Actually feared for my personal safety. I really did And words have consequences To publicly advertise against a specific economic group No section 8 is a very poor reflection of what we've become We need to start turning back the rhetoric protecting the most vulnerable We cannot continue to normalize this discrimination We need not so much to know what is right and wrong but to be reminded That's what some of us are here today doing And some of us believe we are holy You are holy Don't damage your holiness For when one can harden one's heart Where empathy cannot be reached It's because it no longer exists We help Ourselves as much as our vulnerable citizens perhaps more so By passing this ordinance. Thank you so much for your time and listening. Thank you Chad Bola followed by Patty Goodwin Mayor council members, thank you for the opportunity to speak here today. So My name is Chad Bola. I am a tenant organizer with north bay organizing project And also a member of the newly formed Sonoma county tenants union And in my day-to-day work, I listened to tenant after tenant in crisis Fearful of being displaced So we're here today to vote on the source of income anti-discrimination ordinance Uh, I'd like to make an effort to To simplify it a little bit to me the gist of this ordinance is that if it passes Landlords will not be able to openly Advertise their discrimination against voucher holders. Let that sink in for a second. They can still discriminate Just not openly So it's not a lot to ask for in my opinion We hear every day that we are in a housing crisis We hear it from we hear it everywhere We go that california is in a housing crisis, right if it is true that we are in a crisis And it's true that there's 17 million some 17 million renters in california If it's true that we're in a crisis then I suggest that we respond with urgency Focusing first on our most vulnerable residents just as we would in any crisis situation The passing of this ordinance will at the very least Relieve some of the stress that families experience when facing the daunting experience Of searching for secure housing in the midst of a statewide affordable housing crisis Which is not a crisis for everyone. I recognize that it's not a crisis for everyone and perhaps that's That's why the road towards secure housing is a long one So I've urged iRG council members To uh to vote yes and pass this ordinance today. Thank you very much. Thank you patty goodwin followed by peter chairnoff Hi there, my name is patty goodwin. We currently have 145 residents on housing voucher programs A large number of them are excellent tenants, but when we have issues with a voucher tenant They can become very problematic I'd love to take more but with the current program it's burdensome In the 1980s early 1990s the section 8 voucher program was a great program for landlords The city housing staff were exceptional in working with the voucher tenants as well as us landlords For years now it's been tough We've experienced so many issues and the staff time needed to deal with problem voucher tenants has proven to be extensive compared to the non-voucher tenant problems Tenants would rather move out than deal with the stress of a bad neighbor or fear of retaliation if they put their complaint in writing The biggest hardship is placed on the good resident of our communities The stress on our on-site management team With problem tenants is also another big issue Managers want to know that they have the support they need and not constantly threatened with litigation They have tough jobs and it has been increasingly harder to keep good management teams because of the continual stress of layers of new laws negative press and lack of support Landlords don't ask good residents or tenants to move voucher or otherwise Landlords want to keep all the good tenants as long as possible They become part of the community and they look out for and respect each other Please focus on helping to make this program appealing to landlords appealing to me would be defined as Well staffed voucher housing Team because i'm i'm wondering if we just even have enough staff available Who work with landlords and residents on housekeeping nuisance issues and mutual respect To we want an education program to instill the importance of being a good tenant good neighbor and appreciative of the program Maybe involve current successful housing voucher residents and landlords and education educating new voucher recipients A mediation program that is really a neutral third party that works with landlords and tenants We used to have a local mediation organization scrims that really listened to landlords and the tenants and they were really successful at finding compromises Everyone could agree on I know a lot of landlords that would support funding for a good mediation program If the program was a partnership landlords would participate to courier landlords and subject us to lawsuits Would be a disservice to the rental property owners And especially other tenants. Thank you for your time and service to our community Peter Chernoff followed by caroline pd Nice to see everybody. It's a beautiful day Santa Rosa, it's beautiful And to be beautiful is to be spiritually dutiful I'm gonna share this begin by saying I have great respect for all law enforcement veterans That cherish the u.s constitution For we're under martial law dominated by military industrial complex The hierarchy of the catholic church Usurious bankers and minions of bar association lawyers that run all three branches of government That's called tyranny Our right Is to strike this system into submission And as king once said one man wrongfully incarcerated. So are we all Leonard Peltier has been down 44 years And I say any sentient Is wrongfully incarcerated. So are we all as is the u.s constitution All sentient slaughterhouse bound and the earth under the oil industry I am Peter. I am here commanding action in truth Now to blow the lid off mammons roof Welcome to the reservation Russell means highly recommended to view Russell Russell's welcome to the reservation And so taking into account our current station fires plagues earthquakes and more the vials poured out as found in revelation Have we been given even a clue as I speak from my heart to the hearts of you Unto great spirit. Have we been true? Russell means start in the last mohicans as the last Biblically speaking the last shall be first. That's how it's been cast John Trudell spoke to be careful in this place as the demons will eat your spirit Just who runs this world? Is it the one who now does sear it as Leonard's been down 44 years? The whole world walks a true trial of tears As king famously stated one man wrongfully incarcerated.  So who among you supports this ongoing slaughterhouse status quo? So are you among those complaining and gnashing your teeth? So who do you serve? Who be you asking for direction and relief bob dillon? You got to serve somebody be at the devil or the living lord for only the living lord has the authority to be laying down the sword I am Peter. I am the brother from the east the 40-day prophetic economic strike and all corruptions be ceased I choose to serve almighty Veterans rocket red glare bombs bursting in air proving now That they could never heist the true power and authority of christ as american warriors be now commanded To cease the freeze frame and freeze frame the system till every knee and to the earth be remanded And the u.s. Constitution is free and so to the children and the animals and the likes of you and me Thank you. Caroline. Caroline pete members I'm carolin pete with fair housing advocates of northern california We provide fair housing counseling education Investigation and enforcement services to the residents of santa rosa and Sonoma county We submitted written comments both on august 13th and september 17th laying out our thoughts about the proposed ordinance I believe this ordinance is one step to addressing santa rosa's housing crisis preventing displacement of existing residents And preserving affordable housing in the city of santa rosa as part of its comprehensive housing strategy We wholeheartedly support such a fair housing ordinance and believe it's a crucial step to preserving affordable housing for the most vulnerable populations in the city Who are protected under federal and state fair housing laws? We receive calls from santa rosa clients who allege discrimination in housing But express fear in raising their concerns or permitting us to intervene intervene for fear of retaliation It's particularly true for individuals using housing subsidies because they're aware of the difficulties Based in locating new housing in santa rosa, particularly finding a landlord who's willing to accept their subsidy Earlier this year. We conducted a systemic audit Looking at the prevalence of race and source of income discrimination using housing choice vouchers Our agency only tested properties whose advertisements did not make any reference to section eight However, despite that fact, we uh that we tested properties with seemingly neutral policies Toward housing choice vouchers only two of the 10 paired Investigations in the county included housing providers willing to consider vouchers Eight of 10 housing providers responded. They were unwilling to consider them and their comments ranged from We don't take section eight never done it before and don't want to have to deal with the government To no section eight, but I don't know why to we don't take section eight because we looked into it but discovered the complex doesn't qualify On applicability, we strongly urge the city to have broad coverage That includes all rental properties with the exception of owner occupied single family homes Where the owner is renting a room in the house to one individual, which is the only exemption from state fair housing law coverage Broad applicability will have the greatest effect On santa rosa residents and is consistent with the majority of similar ordinances enacted in recent years On third party actions if agreed parties who can bring complaints are limited to the individual applicant who has alleged discrimination This precludes the small number of non-profit fair housing organizations to conduct testing to bring any enforcement action Enforcement of this ordinance will be limited and necessary policy changes Unlikely to occur and renters with I just want to say we've been hearing discrimination is generally very difficult to prove And someone who alleges discrimination May have no evidence that a violation has occurred aside from their word Which would not be sufficient evidence in court to bring a successful claim And renters with vouchers are under extreme pressure to find housing quickly so as not to lose their subsidies When they're told by landlords, no section 8 many do not have the time or the will to litigate Especially if the unit is already rented to someone else. Thank you. Thank you for your time followed by kevin connoissec Is this on I guess it is okay say again No, I'll liner first. I'll liner Then then kevin First of all, I would like to encourage really highly encourage The the city council to take up your staff's recommendation and pass this ordinance your staff recommended that Please take that into consideration. I would also like to address something that councilman Sawyer seemed concerned with and that is the third party You know as as a tenant and being a tenant for the last 48 years Um, I have had no third party On my side Unless I go and get an attorney or go to fair housing on the other hand Landlords do have a third party and it's called law enforcement The law protects the landlords If they want me to leave my landlord wants me to leave they can get the police to come in and remove me I don't get I don't have that luxury Also, there seems to be a financial concern And I understand that I completely understand that that landlords have a financial concern They want to be able to and the governor just signed a bill That they can raise the rent five percent a year plus the cost of inflation, which is about two percent So they can raise up to seven percent a year as a disabled veteran. I personally Cannot afford that. I'm living. I live on a fixed income By the way, I also want to say I've heard many landlords talk about how great they are to their tenants and I'm sure they are I have no doubt about that that there are some really really really good landlords out there Nevertheless, they get to raise the rent at least five percent a year every year Every single year That that doesn't take into concern my financial burden I understand that the landlords have a financial burden, but but a renters burden is never taken into consideration All we're asking you to do is take up Just a little bit our side. The other thing I want to say there's 48 percent of Sonoma county residents Our renters 48 percent that's almost half. First of all, that's a lot of votes second of all If if this doesn't pass if we keep discriminating against poor people You're going to have a lot more homeless Not a few more homeless a lot more homeless Anyhow once again, please please please pass this bill take up your staff's recommendation and pass this bill Thank you so much. Thank you. Kevin connoissec followed by sylvia gaigo Mr. Bearer members of the council. Thank you very much I Michelle Zeromsky and I have a law firm here in santa rosa. We do real property law Including the landlur tenant law We're not taking a position on this one way or the other, but it's just informational here And we do what litigation, you know, that's trial law We do a transactional law that's stuff before you say avoid trial stuff and I'm just telling you Ms. Gallagher, I think we're going to have a problem with this thing with the sabi Sterling case and you know, I'm talking about so we're going to advise our clients to that We have a great relationship with rebecca and dave In the house and we deal with them all the time, but it's it's something Section eight we recommend to our clients all the time Our landlord clients we say go for section eight But what they're telling us and I think if you listen listen to patty good one She said well, if it's so great, why is why why are everybody saying no, I don't want to do it And and rebecca what i'm going to say is we need to administer this a little better It needs to be a little stricter Now because that was the idea it was a conservative idea with jack kemp Did this it's a great idea, but we need to administer a little bit Transactional site. I will tell you we have clients have millions tens of millions of dollars who want to invest in Sonoma county And with the state rent control and this sp 329 They're pulling out They're pulling out read the press democrat editorial You guys are advocates to our representatives in sacramento Please tell them this is counterproductive It's all counterproductive if we want housing i've seen all these nice people here holding up their signs They want housing housing to ride all this stuff and everything, but you're not going to get housing If you don't have investors to do housing Kevin just respond to your you're talking to the council. Please continue No, that's it. I think that's it. I just I just think My comment is I think we're being counterproductive I know we don't agree Some of us don't agree on this council, but i'm just i'm just saying If you want housing what you're doing here with the rent control and this thing You're not going to get it because my clients from danver from new york from elsewhere. They're all pulling out so That's it. Just a little piece of advice Great. Thank you. Sylvia Gallego followed by jamie mitchell Is Sylvia In the house Oh guess no Jamie mitchell followed by anita lafellette. Hi, i'm jamie mitchell Sylvia Gallego decided not to speak Thank you for your time this afternoon It's a really important issue for everyone And I guess I just want to approach it From a different perspective Then if we're talking about Investors pulling out and this and that There's more than just the profit motive. There's people that need help and You know having been a resident of sunoma county and santa rosa largely For 40 years I've seen a lot of different anti-discrimination Resolutions policies whatever you want to say That wouldn't get passed and wouldn't get passed and wouldn't get passed You know Gay rights, you know different kinds of things some of the things in housing that julie combs has Spoke about in her time and I understand that As a as a former business person i'm retired now That landlords need to make a profit a reasonable profit And I don't think anybody is against that But when almost half of the people are renting in sunoma county And a lot of those people can barely afford the rent Um Some things out of whack and we know that's happening in pretty much every city in the country that has any kind of a More thriving economic Temperature So I want to urge you to pass this because it's really the very least That we can do and I know that your staff wouldn't have recommended it If the and if they thought that it wasn't you know The right thing to do and that it didn't protect some of the very The ones of us who have the very least protections And I don't think we need to be as afraid if we're the landlord Or if we're a developer Of being able to make a fair profit obviously that hasn't been a problem in housing in sunoma county The problem is on the other end I also had a sex and age Sex and age tenant in my home And it was someone I knew and they did the inspection very quickly the agency You know, we knew what we had to do there were there were no problems And there were no problems when it was time for you know, this tenant to move on And so I just would urge you to do the right thing here and not give in to Um All the overly cautious statements and fear mongering. Thank you so much. Thank you If you want to hold up Anita, um, call first Irma Garcia who needs some translation services first and because our translator has some time Challenges so Irma Garcia followed by Anita Lafellette Thank you all of you for having an interpreter But no solo eso sino por también respetar los seis minutos But not all of that also So throughout the respect for the six minutes When you do this I feel like you open the door for me you welcome me Documentada que tenemos en el condado de Sonoma Not just me but all the immigrant community and in the undocumented that we have here in the Sonoma county Mi nombre es Irma Garcia. Soy parte de immigrant defense task force My name is in Irma Garcia and I'm part of immigrant defense task force Immigrant defense task Immigrant defense task force Thank you mbop No tengo palabras para decirles la avergonzada que me siento ahorita en esta reunión I have no words to tell you that i'm very shameful here at this meeting I cannot believe that all of you that represent all the citizens Cannot care of all your citizens Que se espera de nosotros los inmigrantes indocumentados What do you expect from us the undocumented immigrants? For two years during the fires you have no idea how the undocumented community lives Pero creo que sus ciudadanos y ustedes están peor que nosotros But I think that your own citizens are in a worse place than us I feel sad for all of you Nuestra comunidad inmigrante indocumentada no les pide nada solamente quiere respeto dignidad Our undocumented immigrant community We're not asking for anything from you just asking for respect and a decent place to live Pero de la manera que tratan a sus ciudadanos creo que mejor voy a ocupar ese lugar que tú tienes But the way you're treating your own citizens I think I would have to occupy the place where you are But since you don't accept undocumented immigrants I guess I'm gonna have to stay here That's why sometimes it's better to be quiet But it's not just it's not the solution It's about time to take responsibility It's time to take care of your own citizens Y nuestra comunidad inmigrante indocumentada está aquí para ayudar And our undocumented immigrant community we're here to help There is a lack of money what's more important money or your own citizens Que estás haciendo ahí sentado es tiempo de cambiar el sistema What are you doing just sitting there it is time to change the system It is time to become responsible If we take this seriously we all together can make lots of money Están de acuerdo conmigo do you agree with me Raise your hands if you are agree with me We all together can make that change This is the time let's not wait And this minute that is left I need to take it in silence Because in my heart I don't know who to trust Thank you. I need a laugh a lot followed by paul carol I wanted to uh talk about you said That we're to define an aggrieved person as one that's uh discriminated against And um I think this issue is really about Our inability to in fact enforce the discrimination that's already been going on Discrimination is a human rights violation we've heard from people here today Who have evidence of it Maybe you could go to the source And just follow through on a couple of discriminations that you've heard about And get to the bottom of what that would mean for our community to actually no longer discriminate Their housing is not in our town. I think it's the offices in san francisco So you could have gotten a better review even if you had Ask cdc to Come in and tell us how they're doing with those vouchers. I understand there's 50 percent given out That means that's only 250 left And there's 3 000 people on the street That are homeless So it's kind of a spit in the dark. Isn't it Um what good are you going to do to take up all of our time as a matter of fact It seems to me that we have a leadership committee an attack committee The people on the attack committee are very informed about homelessness And housing situations also They can probably tell you the numbers Of people who really do have vouchers and the numbers of people who are really discriminated against And then you'd get some real information To make your decision on instead of Trying to leave it up to us who you're not going to listen to anyway So I suggest that you do some research actually you're on the leadership committee, aren't you? Mr. Sweatham Yeah, you are on the leadership committee and I think Ms. Combs is on one too so You are have you have a lot of people around you that know the answers to a lot of these questions But discrimination has been going on for a long time You're not going to solve the housing program By following through on this It's a shot in the dark Thanks for your time Paul Carroll followed by Daniel Weinswig Mayor Schoelthelm and members of council The the you know a lot of the property owners here don't want anything to infringe upon their rights The concept of Putting any kind of strictures on property Didn't really start until probably the 1970s And it came about because a lot of people who own property were doing things that impacted society You know like the love Now like the toxic bloom on sabbatical road the toxic bloom under the building on airway drive that Packard left to us Those are the key kind of things that property owners thought they had the right to do And I and what occurred was politicians like you Got the political will to put controls on what people could do with their property And what you need to do now is have the political will To take this small step and it is a small step Because right now a property owner would probably take a client Or you know a potential tenant who's paying 50 percent of their income towards rent Rather than a voucher tenant who would be paying 30 percent of their income towards rent Because they have this bugaboo about dealing with the government And it's a bugaboo On some of its partisan So you have to have the political will The other aspect is you're not asking the landlords to take less rent You're just asking them to not discriminate against people who have vouchers and other sources of income You know like ssdi and various other things that that matter So You know again, this is not that big a lift It's not going to throw You know Property owners under the bus. It's not going to stop development Because you know the whole rent control the issue that they talk about doesn't apply to new construction So it's you know, it's not a real valid argument And this isn't a real value are you know, it's not a real argument as well. So Please move forward with this So that More voucher people might be able to get housed and at least get screened As tenants it's not going to make make them get the place But at least the people will be screened. Thank you. Thank you. Daniel winds egg followed by mike mullins Daniel's still here Looks like he's left mike mullins followed by Irene Nichols Good afternoon, mr. Mayor. Good afternoon council members My name is mike mullins. I'm representing legal aid of sonoma county today miss rubenoff Asked me to express her desire to be here, but she was unable to be here We serve Every year about 600 low-income clients Who have disabilities and many with section 8 vouchers who find it very difficult To obtain housing with those vouchers I'm probably stating the obvious So I'm going to digress from my prepared remarks and try to answer council members combs's question Which I believe if I'm correct wise whether or not the discrimination under this proposed ordinance Would be more difficult to prove than discrimination under other ordinances And the answer is no it would not be more difficult in my opinion However We must Be clear that discrimination of any sort is not easy to prove Rarely do you have the smoking gun of the person who says oh no your section 8 Or no no your color. I simply won't rent to you It is difficult to prove And a lawsuit under the strictures of this ordinance would not be Easily brought And nor would it not be done without forethought and consideration