I guess we'll get started. So good morning everyone and welcome to the 12 PM public portion of the closed session of the February 11, 2020 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council. In this part of the meeting, the council will receive public testimony. Thereafter, the council members will move to the courtyard conference room for the closed session. I would like to ask clerk to please call the roll. Thank you, Mayor. Council member is Watkins. Here. Matthews. Here. Brown. Here. Lover. Here. Brown. Here. Vice Mayor Myers. And Mayor Cummings. Here. Are there any members of the public who would like to speak on any of the items on closed session agenda today? You can come up to the mic and you'll have two minutes. You can use the podium. Hi, my name is Sybil Bay and I'm the one that filed the claim against the city for a main water break that happened on my street and damaged my property. I brought my binder today. I submitted all my documentation to the city, but I brought backups today in case you want to take a look. And I also wasn't able to send in two videos that I have that my neighbors took that I have in my phone in case you want to take a look at those. But basically, my neighbor had noticed a wet patch in our shared alley that serves four houses. And I, back at the beginning of last year. And he said, I think you might have a water break, Sybil, or something wrong with your water. And I was, so I had called the water department, spoke to them many times. They came out, kept telling me my water meter was not running, it was not my water. But the water got worse and worse, and pretty soon my entire portion of the alley was wet. But my water meter was not running. So I didn't know what it was and I had to talk to multiple people there. And it's all, you can contact the water department, they have it all documented. I mostly spoke to Joanna, I think her name was, that she probably got sick of me calling. Because I kept saying, what is going on? And it turned out a woman named Leah came out many times. And she said, I think that we have to wait until the rain stops to test the water last, this is last winter. And I said, I need to figure this out because my neighbors aren't happy and it's eroding my driveway. It was basically coming down from De La Viega Park Road, the top of my house. I live on a hill, am I over? No, anyway, I have all the documentation and you can take a look and see what had happened, but thank you. Thank you. Is there any other member of the public who would like to comment on this item? A question, would it be possible to get access to the video? I mean, is there a way, I'm not asking, is there a way we can do that? Just to have access? Yeah, I would suggest that you work with Patty Heyman, our risk manager, to arrange to have the emails and then she can then get them to the council. Leave the binder? Yeah. Yes, yes. And they have all the materials too, just so you know that you submit it, they've got them in their packets too. All right, there's no other member of the public who would like to comment on this. We'll adjourn to the courtyard council and assume for a closed session. Okay, good afternoon and welcome to our 12th, 30th session of the February 11, 2020 meeting of the city council. I would like to ask the clerk to please call the roll. Thank you, Mayor, Council Member Watkins. Here. Matthews. Here. Brown. Here. Glover. Here. Brown. Here. Vice Mayor Meyers. Here. And Mayor Cummings. Here. And if the clerk could please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Before we begin, I would also like to acknowledge that the land on which we gather is the unceded territory of the Owaswa speaking UP tribe. The Amamuts and Tribal Band comprised of the descendants of indigenous people taken to Mission Santa Cruz and San Juan Batista during Spanish colonization of the Central Coast is today working hard to restore traditional stewardship practices on these lands and heal from historical trauma. Moving on, we will start with the introduction of new employees. And I would like to invite up Assistant City Manager Laura Schmidt to introduce Brett Wulman. Thank you, Mayor and Council Members. Laura Schmidt. I'd like to introduce Brett Wulman. He is our new records coordinator in the city clerk's division of the city manager's office. Brett earned a degree in business management at San Diego State University. You know, Ralph graduated from there, right? I talked to him. Okay. And moved to Santa Cruz about nine years ago. His professional experience includes a variety of jobs and banking, plus a recent stint as a compliance specialist. His organization, customer service, and detail orientation were truly standout characteristics in his interviews here at the city. He has a wide variety of interests from reading, writing, running, music, and sports. For conversation starters, he more specifically plays the guitar and is a fan of the LA Clippers and the LA Chargers, which we may not hold against him, I suppose. He may still speak to him, though, and apparently, he was an LA Clippers fan from when they were terrible. So he shows a certain level of dedication. He enjoys exploring the beaches and mountains in Santa Cruz and our surrounding areas. Please welcome Brett. Next, we have Director of Libraries Susan Nimitz to introduce Laura Kern. Hi, I'm Susan Nimitz. I'm the Director of the Santa Cruz Public Library, and I'm here with Lauren Kern. Lauren came to Santa Cruz in 2009 from Temecula. I'm learning my California lingo. Is it Temecula? She came to be a student at UCSC and majored in biology. She joined the library four years ago in a temporary position as an aide, and she's now joining us to be a permanent library assistant at Felton. And I just want to do a shout out to Felton, because it opens on Saturday the 22nd. We'd love to have you all attend. Lauren writes and reads, which is true of most library staff, but she's also a homemade bread maker. Please welcome Lauren. Good question. Susan, what's the time for the Felton? Speeches start at nine. The ribbon cutting's at ten, so you can time in between that. Thank you, we'd love you all to come. Next up we have the Director of Public Works, Mark Dettel, to introduce three new employees. Good afternoon, Mark Dettel, Director of Public Works. It's my pleasure to introduce three of our new employees. Next to me is Jonathan Garcia, he's a new solid waste worker. Born and raised in Santa Cruz and currently lives in Santa Cruz. He has two younger brothers and a pet dog and he used to work for Community Tree Service. He attended Santa Cruz High and he enjoys mountain biking when he's not working for the city. Jonathan, and next to Jonathan is our new engineering technician, Noi O Yan. And Noi was, she was born in China and moved to the United States when she was 14 years old. She attended high school in Round Rock, Texas, a small town outside of Austin. After high school, she moved to college station and lived there for six years to attend school. She got her master's and bachelor's degree there. And then she worked in Austin for two years before moving to California. Now she currently lives in Campbell and she has a fiance and a cat named Coconut. So she didn't name her fiance, but she named her cat, so she shared that. She's worked as an engineering in training with an environmental consulting firm in Austin called LNV. And she worked on a lot of projects like hydraulic modeling treatment plant and distribution design. And the two main projects were hydraulic modeling on GIS and ozone system improvements for their treatment plant, which really works well with our waste water treatment going to tertiary and recycled water. She attended Texas A&M and got her master's degree in civil engineering and a bachelor's degree in biological and agricultural engineering, which is water resources mainly focused on irrigation. And when she's not working, what she likes to do for fun, she loves to paint and draw. And she also enjoys hiking, running, and tennis. And a fun fact that she wanted to share, her name is interesting, Nae O. She said it's really from in 2000 and based on the Olympic Games being held in Sydney. The Nae came from Sydney and the O from Olympic. And it turns out that there was a competition between Beijing, China, and Sydney, Australia, to see who would host the Olympic Games. And if the game would have been in Beijing, her name would have been Jing, Jing Ho. So anyway, it's leaving it up to fate. That's pretty interesting. So anyway, please welcome Nae Ho. And next to Nae is a new equipment service worker, Rafael Landeros. He was born in Mexico in the state of Michicon. He grew up in Santa Cruz. He currently lives in Watsonville. He has some pet, some koi fish is what he has for pets. He's worked as a mechanic for the last 10 to 12 years. He went to K through 12 in Santa Cruz and he attended Central Coast College. Has an accounting certification. And when he's not working, he likes to hang out with friends and family, watch sports, or go to sporting events, camping and fishing. So please join me in welcoming all of our new employees. Thank you and welcome. All right, so up next is the introduction of our new City County Advocate to implement strategies to address UCSC growth plans, Morgan Bostick. Good afternoon, City Council Vice Mayor. My name is Justin Cummings, I'm the Mayor of Santa Cruz, and I would like to introduce Morgan Bostick, our new UCSC advocate. Morgan Bostick has a degree from UC Santa Cruz in Politics and Legal Studies. As an undergraduate, she was an intern for former Mayor Cynthia Chase and Councilmember Chris Crone. Miss Bostick has drafted policy for the Santa Cruz County Jail and Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office. And has worked on various local campaigns as a public policy research assistant. In 2018, Miss Bostick was awarded the Robert T. Matsui US Congressional Fellowship, through which she has worked as a legislative fellow for Congresswoman Barbara Lee in Washington DC. Upon graduating, Miss Bostick moved back to her hometown of Los Angeles to serve as council aide for city council member Mike Bonin, where she was the policy and services liaison for residents and neighborhoods of Venice Beach. And now she is back with us here in Santa Cruz to serve as our UCSC advocate, and so I would like to welcome Morgan Bostick. Okay, next is Parking for Hope Check presentation. So today I'm pleased to announce that the City of Santa Cruz in partnership with the Santa Cruz Downtown Association will be presenting Hope Services with the sixth annual check collected from our parking for Hope Holiday Program. For those who do not know, Hope Services is a Santa Cruz non-profit that provides training and support services to adults with developmental disabilities. In doing so, their crews have helped to keep our downtown streets clean and welcoming for over 20 years. The funds were collected from downtown meters the week before Christmas when the usual rates applied. However, all proceeds this eight day period were designated for donation to Hope Services. Over $182,000 in total has been collected for Hope Services over six years. This means that the total check collected in 2019 that is being donated to Hope Services today is $39,984. We welcome Hope Services team to the podium to accept this donation. Thank you all so much. Sorry, real quick, you too. So we'd like to, as a group, say thank you to the City of Santa Cruz for this funding and support. When told we'd be attending a city council meeting to receive a giant check, our crew felt appreciated and expressed their gratitude. Mark and Eric Brember who a lot in town know as the twins shared how much they appreciate working in the community. Tony said, let me say, we're cleaning up this town and I love it. Thank you, Santa Cruz, for helping me do that. Sarah, over here, said, thank you City of Santa Cruz for helping me have this job. And Cassie wanted to share her thoughts herself. Thank you for this job. Yeah, very much appreciate all that you do. So thank you. Next up, the Mayoral Proclamation declaring February as Black History Month in the City of Santa Cruz. And I just want to read a few lines from the proclamation. National Black History Month in February affords special opportunity to become more knowledgeable about black heritage and to honor the many black leaders who have contributed to the progress of our nation. The mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Color People, the NAACP. The nation's oldest, largest, and most widely recognized grassroots based civil rights organization found in 1909 is to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race based discrimination. Whereas the Santa Cruz branch of the NAACP organizes annual community wide events such as Juneteenth, a Labor Day picnic, and events in recognition of Martin Luther King Jr., such as Youth Day, Gospel Night, and Martin Luther King marches. And whereas since 2018, the NAACP has co-sponsored the March for Dream in downtown Santa Cruz with the Santa Cruz Police Department. And whereas the Santa Cruz branch of the NAACP was founded circa 1949 to address local housing issues and continue to work for decades to promote throughout Santa Cruz County equal economic opportunity, criminal justice, environmental and climate justice, civic engagement and education, including awarding scholarships to high school students who are pursuing post-secondary educations. And whereas acknowledging and understanding the struggles for equal rights in the African-American community can strengthen the insight of all of our citizens regarding the issues of human rights. Great strides have been made in the crusade to eliminate barriers of equality for minority groups and the continuing struggle against racial discrimination and poverty. Now, therefore, I, Justin Cummings, Mayor of the City of Santa Cruz, do hereby proclaim the month of February 2020 as Santa Cruz NAACP Black History Month. And the City of Santa Cruz encourage all citizens to participate in community practices that ensure equality for everyone. And I wanted to present this award to one of the members of the NAACP who just walked in. And so I would like to ask them if they could approach the podium to receive this award. Thank you. On behalf of the Santa Cruz chapter of the NAACP, I'd like to say thank you. I also always add that I am a native, so this makes it even more special for me. I'm just going to take a minute here to read our mission statement just because it's this month. The mission of the NAACP is to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equal rights of all persons, and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination. Thank you again. Thank you.  So it's a great partnership, great continuing program. Thank you for that comment. Okay, I have a few announcements to make, and then we'll move on to our regular meeting. Today's meeting is being broadcast live on community television, channel 25, and streaming on the city's website, cityofsantaacruz.com. Our rules of decorum are on the window ledge to my left, and it is my job to keep the meeting running without disruption. And we ask that you respect your fellow citizens when you're inside or outside our council chambers. I'd like to ask the council members if there are any statements of disqualification today. Hearing none, I would like to ask the clerk to announce any additions or deletions. It's noted on the agenda, but number 14 is removed, pulled by the department, and won't be discussed. Is it the Colvert, or was it the UV? Colvert, okay. Clarify, if I could. It's just to clarify on the agenda, it says the below item was pulled, but it's the above item. That's why the confusion, sorry. So you might have gotten the wrong agenda then, but yeah, it's number 14, the Colvert. Thank you. Okay, oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not on the agenda. Oral communications will begin on or around 7 p.m. I'd like to ask the city attorney to provide a report on closed session. Thank you, Mayor Cummings, members of the city council. This afternoon the council convened at 12 p.m. In the courtyard conference room to consider following closed session items. Item A, a conference with legal counsel concerning liability claims. The claim of Sybil Bay, previously Sybil Biddle. That is also listed as item 11 on your consent agenda this afternoon. Item B, concerned labor negotiations involving the following groups. The police officers association and firefighters local 1716. The former police officers association item is also listed as item 12 on your consent agenda. No reportable action then. Okay, thank you. I'd like to call on the city manager's report and provide updates on city events and business items. I don't have a report today. Okay, council meeting calendar. The council will review the meeting calendar, attach the agenda, and revise as necessary. I'd like to call on the clerk to provide any updates to the calendar. There are no updates. Moving on to consent agenda. First up is the consent agenda. These are items 5 through 16 on our agenda. All items will be acted upon in one motion unless an item is pulled by council member for further discussion. Are there any council members who would wish to pull any items? Council member Crone. Thank you, mayor. I've been requested by members of the public to pull item seven and item eight. Item seven and eight. Is there any other items that are to be pulled? Council member Myers? Vice mayor Myers? I'd like to pull number nine, please. And, okay. I just have questions on item 13, and I just have a comment on item six. Okay, then I have a question on item 10. Are there any members? Can I make a quick statement about the minutes that were just passed around before you get to that? Council member Brown brought up that there were a couple friendly amendments that she had accepted. So we included those, and then there was a duplicate line, essentially making it kind of confusing, you'll see the red lines in front of you, but. Okay, is there any member of the public that would like to speak on any of the items on our consent with the exception of items number seven, eight, nine, the report by council members, 13, you can approach the podium, and you'll have two minutes. 13. It's just a question on it, so. I have questions, we didn't pull it. Okay, good afternoon, council members.  And just to tell you ahead of time, I'm not really expecting you to vote no on this, and I won't hold a grudge against any of you, if you do. But I want to place it in a broader context for a moment. Jesse Street March is a lagoon, a salt water lagoon, or it's a lagoon, it's freshwater, and salt water. And this, and in somewhere in the past, it was filled with a lot of landfill. So the south end of Jesse Street March is extraordinarily high compared to the rest of the March. And it acts as an impediment to any kind of salt water getting into the marsh. The natural flow would be into the marsh. Now, of course, it's blocked by the levy, and now it's called seepage, when it not a natural flow, but it's called seepage because it threatens the neighborhood. And it threatens the boardwalk. I have some questions whether this is an emergency at all considering the timing just before the tourist season. What I wish in my wildest dreams is that instead of spending $80,000 on this, that $80,000 would be used to remove the land flow, allow the ocean, the river water to flow into Jesse Street Lagoon. Because inevitably, that's what's going to happen with sea level rise. And that's the bigger context. This is good money following bad $80,000 down the drain. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any other member of the public that would like to speak on items with the exceptions of seven, eight, and nine on our consent agenda? Seeing none, I'll come back to council. We'll start with council member Watkins comment on item number six. I know I've reached out to the mayor also to express my interest in participating in the subcommittee and also appreciation for forming this conceptually. The thoughts that I had were to consider equity as it relates to women and minorities accessing the industry as well as the youth impacts and social norming. So as potential additions to some of the areas of focus that they'll be examining. That's appropriate. Okay, thank you. Moving on, we'll go to question on item number ten, which I had. One of the things that came up in the member of the public reached out and was wondering whether habitat for humanity could qualify for the Cal homes funding as part of the technical assistance for self-help housing projects. I wasn't sure if someone could comment on that from staff. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Jessica Meller, Management Analyst for Economic Development. So habitat, they are going to be submitting their own application. But we're not partnering at this time because they're focusing on their own application. Thank you. Moving on, there was a question, I think, by Vice Mayor Meyers on item number 13. No, I'm 13. Sorry. Did you pull nine? She pulled nine. Okay, so 13. Yeah, so this is, in part, my question is related to the comments made by Barbara River Woman just now. I guess I'm wondering, is somebody here who can talk about this? I think I saw, you are here, thank you. So it seems that the reason that we're wanting to do this, to buttress the levy, is that the water is seeping through onto the street. It's understandable, but is it in seeping through, if it's doing that, then how do we know it's not seeping in the marsh as well? Is there any way to measure seepage in the marsh first? It is, as Barbara suggests, it's a functioning ecosystem and it needs water to function properly. And so I'm just wondering if you could talk a little bit about what the danger is. And if we don't do something right now without looking at it further first. Yes, my name is Steve Wolfman. I'm a senior civil engineer in the Public Works Department. We're really just addressing the upper seepage that actually goes through the levy. We're not addressing any of the seepage that could get to Jesse Street Marsh. During this year, towards the end of the summer, we had the seepage showed up towards the bottom of the levy. And the Army Corps was quite concerned about the seepage in that. One of the issues with the levy itself is that seepage is collected and we don't want the seepage to bring soil with it and have a catastrophic failure of the levy. That's what this is addressing. So we're really buttressing the levy, strengthening it at that location, and collecting any water that does get through to put back into the river. For the elevation differences, I mean, we're really quite a bit above what could seep under the road to Jesse Street Marsh, that whatever seepage is happening there will continue to happen. And it does happen, we can see it. I'm not sure, what evidence, what test have you all done to see if there is actually seepage into the marsh and that this won't now preclude that seepage? Well, the reason it won't preclude it is because of the elevation difference between what we're trying to buttress the fill. We're not really trying to stop the seepage, we're going to collect it. But it's way above, it's above the road elevation. So the seepage that gets into the marsh would be below the road. And we're not, we're not putting a cut off wall to try to prevent that seepage from happening. So we're quite a bit above the Jesse Street Marsh, any Jesse Street Marsh seepage that could occur. And we have quite a strong letter from the Army Corps directing us to prevent this type of water movement from happening. I could also let you know that the levee itself already has seepage prevention within the levee. The levee was not built as a clay core levee that prevents the seepage. And we see it all the time throughout the city. On San Lorenzo Boulevard and over on the other side in the third street parking lot. So we see that seepage it's collected and it's put back into the river. I'll just say for the record, so-called seepage is good for the marsh. And somehow we have to reconcile that the needs of us humans along with a viable filtration system and a viable marsh. Because one of the low hanging fruit in the whole climate change mitigations is having, is investing in healthy viable marshes. Thank you, Mayor. Any further questions? Not a question, but I will just say there are a lot of people here in the audience and it hasn't been clear given all of the statements that have been made previously which are true. I think it's worth pointing out in the staff report that the Army Corps and city staff agreed that the seepage was an emergency situation that could potentially result in a levee breach or sediment transport of embankment material which could cause the levee to undergo rapid erosion and failure during the next high water event. So this is really a pretty profound public safety issue and we are under many requirements to work with the Army Corps on that levee. I think we understand the longer term issues here, but I just want to put that out because I think it's something that's part of the bigger picture here. Any other questions or comments from the council on this item? Yeah, I'm sorry. The bigger picture is a viable marsh and I'm glad that the folks for the next item on the Amamutin, I think they understand those issues between the conflicts between nature and the sort of human endeavors. And so that's what's happening and playing itself out here as well. And since Councilman Matthews made that comment, that's why I'm also making this comment. Any further comments or questions? Thank you very much. At this time, I'm looking for a motion on the remaining items on consent with the exception of items 7, 8, and 9. So move the consent and with the revised minutes as submitted. Second. We have a motion made by Vice Mayor Myers, seconded by Councilmember Cron. Just a question. Councilmember Watkins did make a few comments about the, was it item 6? And those were not part of a motion, I think. Right. But just accept it as. Recommendations? How do we do that in the minutes, if it's on consent? There was no action taken. There was no action, so we just take them, incorporate them into direction to staff. Okay. Thank you for that. Councilmember Wray. I also think it's fits with the initial directions we gave. I agree. It's in the record previously. Any further questions or comments on items that have not been pulled for consent? Seeing none. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. So we'll return to the items that were pulled on consent, starting with item number seven, which was pulled by Councilmember Crum. I know there's many members of the public wanting to speak on this item. And I'd like to go to the public, but other council members have statements, that's fine. Okay, questions. Are there any other questions by council members on item number seven at this time? Seeing none. We can go to the public for a public comment. I know that there was a representative, Chairman Lopez from the Amamutan Tribal Band, who requested four minutes. And so I'd like to invite Chairman Lopez up to the podium for four minutes. If any other members of the public would like to speak on item number seven, which is related to the protection of the Amamutan Tribal Band's sacred land of Urusak, I'd like to ask that you please line up to my left and you will have two minutes. Good afternoon, Honorable Council of Santa Cruz City. Thank you so much. I'm going to ask you to pause for one second. For those of you who are in the audience, you can't stand and block the people behind you, so thank you. And if you're holding signs up, please make sure that you're holding them low so that you're not blocking the people behind you. Thank you very much. Sorry to interrupt. Good afternoon, Honorable City Council of Santa Cruz, the City of Santa Cruz. Thank you so much for scheduling this hearing to consider the resolution regarding the protection of Urusak and the denial of the sand and gravel mining. My name is Valentin Lopez, and I am the Chairman of the Amamutan Tribal Band. And our tribe is comprised of the descendants of the indigenous peoples that were taken to Mission San Juan Batista and Mission Santa Cruz. People have been on these lands for 12, 14, 15,000 years or more. And if you think of that in terms of generations, or people have been here for 800, 900, perhaps 1,000 generations or more. Many of our members believe that we have been here since creation, and we do not argue with them. We believe it. Today, we're asking you to understand the importance of Urusak. And looking at it historically, I said our people have been here for 15,000 years. Our creation story tells us that creator very specifically picked our people to live on these lands and to take care of them. We did not look at ownership, our ancestors did not own this land. We realized that this land belongs to creator, and the land today, the homes that you own, you may think you have ownership, but truly they belong to creator. And one day, creator will show us all that. What we learned about the lands in those years is that the land is sacred. And it's our responsibility, all of our responsibility to maintain that sacredness of this land.  What was that? Oh, okay. Doesn't say, I'd really blew it if it is, to maintain that sacredness of this land. And today we're being challenged to do that. In 2006, elders came to the tribe, and they said our creation story tells us it's our responsibility to take care of Mother Earth and all living things. We must find a way to get back to it. And how could we, and the federally unrecognized tribe, have been forced out of our territory? Because we cannot afford to live in these high priced areas. Our people did agriculture. And whenever the Silicon Valley and the San Benito and a lot of the other areas, when they transitioned from agriculture to industry to now the Silicon Valley, how could our people live there when they didn't read and write? And had limited skills other than agriculture. It was very difficult. At that time, many of our people had to leave and they went to Fresno, Hanford, Madera. But in 2006 they said we must find a way to come back. And so since that time, we've been working hard, we've been forming relationships and partnerships with Pinnacles, the National Park, California State Parks, the BLM and the Monument. I'm taking too long, I'm sorry. Eurostock is our most sacred site. Our culture, our spirituality, our environment, our humanity has been under attack. For generations and generations, we're asking that be turned around. And we're asking you to stand with us, for the protection of Eurostock. And to recognize that our spirituality and our culture must not be lost. As an unrecognized tribe, we are at risk, at risk of extinction. We feel the federal government, because of our unrecognized status, is waiting for us to either assimilate or to bleed out. We will not let that happen. We will be here until the last sunrise. We will take care of the lands and the air and the water for you and for all people. You'll have up to two minutes just to let you know. Yeah, two minutes, right. I was going to say a tribal representative gave me the daunting task of following Chairman Lopez. My name is Tony Rusimano. I'm here representing the Santa Cruz County Democratic Central Committee and the county's Democratic Party. Last August, the members of our committee voted unanimously to join with the Santa Clara County Democratic Party, in urging all relevant government agencies to deny permits to operate a proposed quarry at Eurostock. The Amamutzin Tribal Band of Kostanoen, Aloni Indians are the descendants of people who lived here for thousands of years, before being forcibly relocated and held by the mission system. Today, they are working to fulfill the responsibilities of their creation story to protect Eurostock, which is the location of known cultural resources and burial grounds. Specifically, we are opposed to plans to operate a cement quarry within Eurostock. It would threaten a Santa Cruz County wildlife corridor, and it would be located within a sensitive watershed of the Pajaro River. The passage of the proposed resolution would add a clear and strong voice in the city's continuing support of the Amamutzin Tribal Band. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you, speaker. Thank you. Before I begin, I would like to offer thanks to the land and to the Amamutzin for their loving stewardship and their refusal to surrender in the face of so many hardships. I'm Dora Shuey, a board member of the Santa Cruz ACLU. The ACLU recognizes the crimes and atrocities against Indigenous peoples for centuries and is supporting several bans in their legal efforts. Northern California ACLU staff are working with the Amamutzin so that their stewardship is recognized in the California legal and governmental systems and specifically in protecting Eurostock. The ACLU membership and many others in Santa Cruz would appreciate the city council's unanimous support of the resolution before you today. Thank you. First, I'd like to acknowledge Chairman Lopez for his courage and resilience to stand in the face of unimaginable circumstances. Reaching out to the United Nations for support to stop our community from committing this crime is sobering. We are in the unceded village of Uipi in the nation of Owaswas, now represented by the Amamutzin Tribal Band and you. My name is Greg Cotton. I'm one of the founding members of Friends of Eurostock, a multicultural ever-growing group that takes responsibility for our system that continues to deny Native peoples' rights and threatens to continue harm. I'm a local environmental researcher who has worked for years in the Pajaro River. This mine is very much a threat to an endangered watershed and endangered species. But this pales in comparison to the unimaginable and irreversible harm it would cause to human beings, both Native and non-Native. Our community has enjoyed an idyllic story of the colonization of this land that we now enjoy. Like the Southern Confederacy, we often omit the brutal part of our history and for obvious and uncomfortable reasons. We name streets and raise romanticized mission bells in our parks that celebrate this brutal history. We are now here today to stand together to turn this tide and transform the very heart of our and the foundation of our community and maybe even heal a little bit in the process. I'm moved and proud to be part of this community and showing up in a meaningful ways to correct the system of injustice. It can be the beginning of something truly extraordinary, a radical notion where Indigenous people are respected and celebrated for who they are. Great leaders, extraordinary artists, spiritual leaders, teachers, neighbors and human beings with spiritual rights. I urge the council to vote unanimously in support of the Amamutian Tribal Band. This is the future. Thank you for being leaders in it. I'll probably keep this short, Garrett, Philip. You know, I don't have an opinion actually about this property because it's far away. I know the details of it. It may well be a historic area that is worth preserving as an open land. I don't know. But I do know that what I see here is, I'll read a little of this, kind of some of this little too harsh, so I'll go over it. But again, we see the progressive Glover Cummings Crone trying to savage private property rights of U.S. citizens, this time four miles south of Gilroy, a real stretch of jurisdictional imagination. I'm assuming it is for political leftist virtuosity, grandstanding purposes, because otherwise it has no purpose or jurisdiction taking sides in this kind of a faraway dispute in the name of the city. Disputes are really handled by courts normally, you know, when it is sort of a dispute and not within your jurisdiction. Does it have anything to do with running the city? No. What is this supposed partnership with Amamutian Tribal Band? I'm not sure other than you both, the progressives anyway, and they share this victim oppressor ideology, you know, yeah. Okay, the sort of, excuse me, I'd just like to say to members of the public that everyone is invited to their own opinion, and we have to respect everyone's opinion within our community, so please, no booing, continue. Okay, I don't see any quid pro quo. I don't know what you get out of that partnership. Let's say it has no place in the agenda. It's more of the anti-developer, anti-economic activity, mistaken victim oppressor, knee-jerk progressive agenda, sticking its nose into a very faraway, none of your business business, taking sides and declaring a verdict that injustice has been done. It's not your legislative job to weigh in on disputes, even less far outside the city. That's what the courts are for. They can decide if that dirt is more sacred than property rights. Thanks. Next speaker. Hello. My name is Erica Sonevich, and I'm currently the conservation committee chair of the Sierra Club. I'd like to start by saying thank you so much to Val Lopez for your incredible leadership on this issue, and thank you to the city council for considering supporting your SAC. And like many people have mentioned before, your SAC is of extraordinary cultural and biological resources, and also is a source of the Pajaro River watershed. And so it's so important that we protect your SAC on so, so, so many levels. And so I am thanking you all for considering this resolution and urge you to please vote unanimously in support of it. Thank you. Ms. Mitrujish Kanrikat Amamutsan Nation. My name is Catherine Luna. I am a tribal member. I traveled here today from Fresno. I want to let you know that I live in an area where the land has been quarried. I want to let you know that there's days where our children cannot come outside, because the air is polluted. The air is bad. We have towers in the valley that tell us when the air is moderate, severe, when you don't see the stars.  That's what you will be smelling when you see the traffic succumb to tearing down our sacred mountain. I'm coming to you in a basic way. I live in the area where they tore down our land, the land of the monos, the land of Chuchansi. This is our land, Horistak. You now live here. It is all our responsibility to take care of this sacred land, to understand that air pollution, water pollution, sound pollution is non-discriminatory. It'll affect you, or maybe it'll affect your generations after your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren, when they walk with asthma, lung diseases, or even may have one lung to breathe with. This is a serious condition of when somebody wants to desecrate not only sacred land, but to take the land down, take those watersheds, stop migration of water life, wildlife, plant life, finned, winged. It's a whole different story when you live it. Today I took the time, today I want to come back home, and I want to see our sacred land, Horistak, as it once was for all of our generations behind me, and all of our ancestors. Thank you. Thank you. You'll have two minutes. Thank you, everybody who spoke. I totally in agreement. It is our responsibility to take care of Mother Earth and all living things. We are at risk of extinction, actually all living things on the planet. And I'm just quoting some of this.  It needs to be stopped. And the previous speaker spoke about how we don't see the stars and pollution is non-discriminatory in thinking and protecting all living things. I have an article here of the honey bees plea. The honey bees plea. And it's about the bees dying from 5G technology, but also this happened over 100 years ago on Isle of White. The bees dying when Marconi put in a wireless communication system, and it changed all life. We need to stop the proliferation of wireless microwave technology everywhere.   Stop the mine. Stop the wireless microwave assault. And I have other articles of the honey bees plea by Arthur Furstenberg of Cell Phone Task Force. So thank you for your time and very moved by the previous speakers here. Thank you so much. Yeah. Is there any other member of the public who would like to speak to us on item number seven? Okay. Seeing none, I'll move back to Council for Action Deliberation. Council Member Crum. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you all for coming, taking your time out of the day right now to be here with us. This is wonderful. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion and a resolution recognizing and supporting the Amamutsan Tribal Band in protecting their sacred lands of Heuristak from the developments of public or private entities and instruct the mayor to send a letter to Santa Clara County. And I just want to quote one thing from our resolution. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the City Council and the City of Santa Cruz supports the efforts of the Amamutsan Tribal Band to preserve Sergeant Ranch Heuristak as open space in perpetuity and to regain access to their cultural and spiritual sites at Heuristak. Second. So I just want to bring this back for a second. Council Member Crone, can you restate? I know that you just read that off, but I'm wondering if you could restate clearly what the motion is. And then if there's other comments we want to make after we've made the motion, I think that's appropriate. But just so for the purposes of minutes and clearly knowing what the motion is on the floor, can you? Okay, the motion on the floor is resolution recognizing and supporting the Amamutsan Tribal Band in protecting their sacred lands at Heuristak from the development by public or private entities. And we instruct the mayor to send a letter to Santa Clara County. Second. So a motion made by Council Member Crone, seconded by Council Member Glover. I noticed that Council Member Glover, you had your hand up and then Vice Mayor Myers, Council Member Mathews, and then Council Member Brown. Thank you, Mayor. I thank you for the motion. Council Member Crone. And thank you to everyone who came out today to address us on this issue. It's been something that I've been looking forward to for a while now and being able to have these conversations and have the force of the city, or at least the voice of the city, behind the Amamutsan Tribal Band, the Friends of Heuristak. The, you know, I went to the walk for Heuristak that took place down in the San Juan Batista area and participated in that action. It was not only powerful, but amazing to see the amount of support that exists for this movement and for the protection of the lands. And I just want to emphasize, because I know that there was at least one speaker that said that it didn't have anything to do with the city. And it's the concept that everything is interconnected, that I think we need to be emphasizing and taking into consideration with this resolution, is that what effects one affects all of us. And especially when it comes to the protection of sacred sites, but also in environmental sustainability and stewardship. If we lose access to watersheds or if we pollute watersheds, if we destroy migratory paths, it will impact not only the people in that immediate area, but as was said by the speaker from Fresno, will impact generations in perpetuity, potentially into the future, especially if we cause extinction events and so forth. So I'm proud to be able to be a part of this vote and we'll be supporting the motion. Vice Mayor Myers. Excuse me. I just wanted to thank everybody for coming today. I was fortunate enough to be part of a research team that actually studied the wildlife corridor aspect of the property for many years. And it is a linchpin piece of the earth that basically links all of the mountains in the Bay Area to the southern Big Sur and beyond. So for those in the public who may or may not know the specialness of this piece of land, from a biological perspective, it's incredibly, incredibly important and it does serve a critical piece of what our landscape in California actually functions through. So I just wanted to just thank you all for your efforts and your work is incredibly important and I certainly will be supporting the motion and I'm very pleased that you brought this all to our city and we are part of a bio region and we need to all be aware of the things that work together here to keep our communities in wellness. Thanks. Council Member Matthews. I'm happy to also add my support to the motion. I have I think a very friendly suggestion that is to add the word adopt to the very beginning. We adopt the resolution and then add the words and encourage the Tribal Council to share our resolution with others as they deem appropriate. And then I also, if that's a friendly amendment, that's better. That is a friendly amendment. Thank you. And I just want to point out I happen to see just pardon. Where are you putting that? At the end of the motion, just say and encourage the Tribal Council to share our resolution with others as appropriate. And I just want to point out magazine article I came across just a couple of weeks ago what stewardship looks like. It's a very descriptive insight and Val is the poster child about incorporating indigenous practices and peoples in a deep view of land stewardship of natural areas. So right in the scene that we're talking about. Thank you. I'll share this with Council later. Council Member Brown. I have just I just want to make a quick comment first to thank everybody who's come out today and all of you have been working so hard trying to raise awareness about this really critical issue. I think that we got a lot of letters of support and they were very moving and persuasive. I didn't need persuading. But I just want to read a couple of sentences from one friend. This is from Rua Bush. I don't know if I got that name right and I don't know if you are here. But it was really a beautiful letter. And so in addition to the kind of environmental wildlife public health issues, obviously that this project or proposed project raises. It's really critical that we recognize the critical foundation of this site as I'll suggest to the Amamutsan. They're U.S. citizens, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz County residents, members of our community, our neighbors, classmates, co-workers and friends. The construction of a gravel mine at Hura Stock would be a decisive blow to the continuity of Mutsan culture and curtail their ability to perform the rituals and ceremonies necessary for the functioning of their cosmology and community well-being. And so I'm really pleased to be here to support this resolution. And I would ask if the maker and seconder of the motion would accept one additional friendly amendment in addition to directing the mayor to send a letter to Santa Clara County, directing the mayor to also send issue a press release about our action today. Yes, thank you. Good idea. Accepted. That was a friendly amendment made by Council Member Brown, accepted by Council Members Cron and Glover as makers of the motion. Is there any other comments? I'll just briefly add on to what has already been said by my colleagues here. I want to thank those who came. I know Val, we tried to connect and I think there was some sort of incident over Highway 17 so it's really great to see this on our agenda. I'm happy to support this resolution moving forward and I'm pleased to hear of the amendments to express that beyond our city and into the public so hopefully we can get more support as well. Thank you. Well, I'd just like to say that I agree with all the Council Members who've expressed their sentiments today and want to thank you all again for showing up in such large numbers in support of this resolution. And I think that it was summed up very well when someone said that, to paraphrase, we might not all be from here but we all live here and we have a responsibility to protect our lands and to protect the sacred lands of the Indigenous communities who have been the original people of this area. So with that, is there any other questions or comments by Council Members? Okay, I'd like to all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. Next up is item number eight on our Council Agenda which is the UCSC Grad Student Strike. Before this happens, maybe we'll take a couple minutes if there are individuals who are going to leave at this time, we'll give you the opportunity to exit the building and we'll reconvene in about, we'll give ourselves a five minute break. I try to connect with that part and there's an ad for the while. We'll do it. We will return items that are on consent moving forward to item number eight that was pulled by Council Member Crohn regarding UCSC Graduate Student Strike. Council Member Crohn. Thank you, Mayor. This is a very sort of timely issue too with the stuff that's going on, the strike that's going on right now in front of UCSC and we all know that something has to give here. We have a terrible housing, an affordable housing crisis in Santa Cruz and I'm really happy to bring this issue before this body especially because sometimes the city on a hill is a city on a hill and there's a lot of separation between the town and the gown and I think that the more we talk to each other instead of about each other, I think the better off will be. I would like to hear from some folks present who might like to address the Council so that's really, I don't have any, there's no motion that I would make yet. Are there any other questions or comments by members of the City Council? Seeing none, we'll open it up to public comment for two minutes. Those of you who would like to comment on item number eight related to UCSC Graduate Student Strike and UCSC, please line up to my left and you will have two minutes to speak. Thank you. Good afternoon. Several weeks ago I brought before you documentation about the University's housing prices, which were two to three times the rate of the in-town prices in Chancellor LaRueve's email to the community or to the UCSC community. She talked about housing affordability in town. The problem of housing affordability starts with UCSC on campus and the high in-town rents are because of UCSC's exorbitant prices. This week's City on the Hill, 711 empty beds on campus. Do you guys see the connection? It's because of the exorbitant rates on campus that create the demand for students to move off campus. So I'm sure the COLA would be great for the few graduate students who'd get it, but if you guys really want to have an impact, I mean, Measure M, you create 100 affordable units here, 100 market rate units here, that's nothing. University is projected to grow by 8,500 students. The only really impactful thing we can do as a city is to put pressure on UCSC to provide housing that's at least on par with this city. I mean, could you imagine, instead of being two to three times more expensive, and for those who didn't hear me, four-bedner apartment on campus more than $9,500 a month, that's not with food servers. Two-bedner apartment, almost $6,000 a month. So that's two to three times what the in-town rates are. What if they were one-third to one-half? Do you think that there'd be 711 empty beds on campus? No. I can tell you, as a landlord, rents would drop dramatically. So I urge you, if you're going to adopt this motion, to add a statement about UCSC's culpability in a demand that they lower their rent and provide adequate housing, adequate amount of housing on campus. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker. Thank you, Council, for the opportunity to speak. My name is Sam Hughes. I'm a PhD candidate in the Social Psychology Department at University of California, Santa Cruz. I'm here today to provide some context regarding the situation that graduate students who are striking at UCSC are currently experiencing. Because of the cost of housing in Santa Cruz being so high and housing being so scarce, graduate students at UCSC have had to take extreme steps to afford living here. We regularly take out exorbitant student loans. Some graduate students participate in sex work or sell drugs in order to make ends meet. And some avoid reporting toxic mold for fear of losing their housing. Some have stayed in abusive relationships or resorted to living in their cars or garages. And many choose to skip meals in order to save money. Despite these challenges, many of us work up to 60 hours a week conducting groundbreaking research to benefit our city and community. We work to prevent environmental degradation, improve the quality of math education, work towards ending sexual violence, make pesticides safer, provide recommendations for addressing racial inequity, protect our community from the spread of coronavirus by mapping its genome, work towards improving treatments for cancer, keep mercury out of our food supply, and support formerly incarcerated students re-entering the educational system. Much of that is not paid for us, for our to work. Instead, we're paid wages that do not cover the basic cost of living in exchange for an additional 20 hours a week of teaching. For months, we asked the university to provide us with funding to help address the high cost of living in Santa Cruz.  Horrifyingly, last Friday, the university issued veiled threats to deport international students for participating in a strike. Even worse, the money that they're offering will be taken away as soon as the university provides more graduate housing, which is planned to be above market rates. Their offer is unreasonable and comes with severe punishments for graduates, students who are just striking to get their basic needs met. Excuse me, sir. Yep. Time's up. People shouldn't have to do sex work to earn a PhD. Thank you. Thank you very much. Just going to ask, I know you all were in line before. Yeah, I get that. I'm just saying if you all are going to stand, I'm going to ask that you stand over here and then come up one by one, rather than kind of all stand in front of everybody in the audience during this entire time. So go ahead. You'll have two minutes. Councilmembers, Mayor, thank you for your time. My name is Molly Hafer, and I am a politics undergraduate at UC Santa Cruz, and I'm here to talk on some of the opinions of the undergrads during this strike. As undergrads, a major part of our education comes from the hard work of our TAs and our graduate students. They pour so much into making sure we thrive in our classes, so it only makes sense they should be able to thrive in their home lives. In the end, housing situations have a dramatic impact on work performance. And if one branch of our student body hurts, we all hurt. Undergraduates and graduate students are together in this issue contrary to the administration's rhetoric. I'd rather have my fellow students be able to have food and shelter than know what my grades are. And that is all I have to say. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thanks, speaker. Thank you all. I'm Julia Sories. I'm a sixth year PhD student at UCSC and a Santa Cruz resident for the last five and a half years. In the time I've lived here, I've watched my friends and colleagues grow more and more desperate to meet rent. Between teaching, mentorship, research, and research, most of my colleagues work more than 60 hours a week but have no financial stability. There have been times where I did nothing but work from when I wake up and when I sleep for weeks. But still, we don't make enough to live without severe rent burden. Please stand with us, your graduate student neighbors. Everyone deserves a living wage. Thank you. Here, Phillip. The simple phrase is just stay out of it. You have no business weighing in on labor negotiations between employees and UCSC. UCSC has its obligations to negotiate on behalf of the public as it is a public institution with labor. Something you could all remind yourselves from time to time also about who you are supposed to represent and what American values of individual rights you should represent. Would you appreciate UCSC weighing in on your labor negotiations or anyone in the city appreciate your weighing in on their labor negotiations? That doesn't require an answer because I can answer for you as one who's supposedly you represent. No. You always represent all people, even taxpayers, with sound fiscal policy. You have no defining rod for price discovery that is none of your business or the governments in general really. You are attempting to interfere in a free market. For the work time required, graduate assistants get paid far above minimum wage, far above your own definition of a living wage. I think I calculated the starting wage at 27 an hour. It is a can be a part-time job. You don't live on a part-time job. This is essentially the usual leftist progressive brown comings go over consideration of the public as a cow to be milked again since the money to pay for this will come from the public. And it will probably also actually work its way into higher costs for students because there's no free lunch, you know. Anyway, maybe they deserve more, maybe less. That's up to them in UCSC to decide and exercise their individual rights to do so, not you. It's another exercise in leftist council members virtuosity signaling. Marxist victim oppressor collectivist priority endorsing. Sticking its nose where it doesn't belong. Possible political grandstanding and should not be here as an agenda item. The recall should come soon enough. I see some of you aren't paying attention. Oh, unbelievable. Never seen that before. Anyway, here's a little quote. Price discovery is not a sexy function of markets, but it is critical to the efficient allocation of scarce capital and resources and to the economy as a whole. Did you finish that one? Yep. Next speaker. Hello, my name is Yulia. I am a fourth year graduate student. I am also a striker. I am an international student who has faced veiled threats of deportation as a striker. I am also one of the organizers of the COLA campaign. I can report to heavy police presence on campus, policing peaceful protesters. There was one arrest and apart from violence and injuries that occurred in as a direct result of police enforcement, no injuries have happened. The strike is peaceful and all measures are in place to ensure public safety. We have strike captains. We have people who are ensuring safe passage of vehicles and people. We have throughout this campaign we've collected testimonies that prove that we are paid poverty wages and graduate students live in poverty.  And we ask that you intervene and stand on our behalf. Thank you. Any other member of the public who would like to speak to us on this item? Seeing none, I'll return to Council for Action and Deliberation. Council Member Glover and then Council Member Krum. Thank you very much. I'd like to make a motion to direct the Mayor to write to the University of California Santa Cruz Administration to acknowledge how difficult it is for UCSC graduate students to try to live in a community where the cost of rent far out strips their salaries, express the City of Santa Cruz, support for COLA for graduate students and request the cost of living adjustments and call for an immediate remedy and resolution. So a small change there from the main recommendation and that was to change the words from support the current strike to supporting the COLA for all students. I'll second that. If you would add, I think Mr. Grodberg makes a good point that in the Mayor's letter if he could also address the exorbitant rents that UCSC charges on campus. Accepted. Okay. So there was a motion made by Council Member Glover, seconded by Council Member Cron with a friendly amendment. Can you say specifically what that friendly amendment is because it didn't feel like that came out very clear? That the Mayor would include in your letter sentiment about the exorbitant rents that are charged on campus and those rents essentially setting the market in Santa Cruz because all landlords pay attention to that to the rate that they charge. Again, I'm just going to I'm trying to do this for clarity sake that if you're going to make a friendly amendment or if we're making motions that we state the language that the Mayor that the Mayor's letter address the exorbitant rents that UCSC charges on its campus housing. Period. Period. Period. Now if you'd like to I feel you wanted a conversation. If you'd like to make comments on after we make the motions and the friendly amendments it's fine to make comments but I think it's important that we clearly state what our motions and friendly amendments are so that the clerk is able to capture them and the public understands what the motion on the floor is. So and I accept that friendly amendment. So friendly amendment made by Council Member Crone accepted by Council Member Glover Council Member Matthews. I appreciate the modification in the language and am happy to support it as now proposed. And I just want to point out I'm not going to make part of the motion but point out we had an introduction at the beginning of our meeting this afternoon of Morgan who's been hired as the to staff the effort of the Measure U City County group to deal with the impacts of university growth. And this just makes it very clearly and one of the main directions of her work will be to connect with students and have them convey the impact of university growth on their student experience the quality of their student experience and certainly even the thousands of units that are proposed on campus now currently in the courts but even those don't deal with growth. So for those who are looking a little bit longer in the future and want to become involved with our advocate on that issue you're welcome to get in touch with me after the meeting and and I'll make sure that you are connected with Morgan. Thank you. Council Member Brown and then myself and then Council Member Glover. Just really quickly I'm pleased to support the motion and appreciate the language change. I did want to acknowledge that in addition to the the requests and and letters we've received from people in the community in support of this action we did receive a message from Chancellor Laverie and I did I just wanted to acknowledge that we received it we appreciate the efforts that that she's just talked about initiating and and believe that you know that's a good start but there's ways to go in order for graduate students to be able to you know survive in this community and I also want to just say this is not from my perspective this is not an attempt to interfere with their labor management negotiations. This is response to requests from members a desperate request from members of our community to support their struggle and so you know I just wanted to make those comments and say I'll be voting yes. I just wanted to I'll add Councilman McCrone to stack. I'd actually like to ask for a friendly amendment to the motion first I want to express that you know kind of as my colleagues have been stating you know this is Council's response to members of the public specifically graduate students who've been reaching out to us asking for our support with them and in no way are we trying to influence any kind of labor negotiation. That being said though having come to Santa Cruz as a grad student and not being far removed having only graduated back in 2013 I understand the struggles of grad students as far as how difficult it is to live in town off the stipends that grad students receive especially because housing costs have probably doubled since I left as a graduate student in 2013 and the salaries of graduate students have not seen that same amount of increase and so I totally feel for the grad students in this situation additionally since attending graduate school or beginning I should say in 2007 I have not ever heard of the type of force that's being used on campus ever before and so I would actually like to also as a friendly amendment ask that we encourage the UCSC reduces the amount of police presence of those being seen on campus. Here here I love I appreciate that taking it up a notch and I completely support that addition and amendment and it's an encouragement so you know I think that it's I as a seconder I also do too but and I understand that I think we've had sporadic conversations with our own police department in their involvement in the strike as well and I think they have sort of taken it down a notch because this is a UCSC issue and it's a problem I think that they've created and they can solve it too and just so the public is aware we received a letter from our police department yesterday they were not on campus yesterday and involved in any of the activities my understanding is today they were going to be on campus dealing with traffic related issues so I just wanted to make sure that it was clear from what my colleagues were stating that the Santa Cruz Police Department weren't involved in any of yesterday's activities so just to be clear Councilmember Glover and Vice Mayor Myers Chairman Brown Councilmember Watkins Thank you I think it was I don't mean to question do you mind I think it was Councilmember Crown after this Oh it was Yeah So two things one yeah just to reiterate what the mayor just mentioned we received correspondence from the police chief saying that he'll be instructing our SCPD staff not to participate in any of the I believe enforcement or the arrests that are going that could potentially take place on campus so we're trying to control it that way and I just was hoping that the clerk in the motion I may have forgot the word to support the COLA for all and also the cost of the adjustments and the campaign COLA for all I just wanted to make sure that that was included in there to emphasize the support for the campaign and the work that's going on there we good cool thank you Councilmember Crone I wanted to underscore what Councilmember Matthews was saying because for the first time the city has an advocate that we actually have staff that's going to work with the university between the city and the university and needs help from all of you as well as a lot of folks who are on campus and in making it really clear in Sacramento what the pressures are here because they're not really getting it there right now from our experience and that's what this person hopefully will be putting together research and interviews and taking it to those elected folks in Sacramento Mr. Mayor Myers I just want to thank the students who came out today and you know we obviously have limited we can certainly show support and are very supportive of what's happening with the students here living in Santa Cruz my ask of you today is to also hold us accountable we need to build more housing in Santa Cruz and so please come ask us to do that we have done a lot of work over the last couple years and we still have are not building housing so we you know that's one way to try to make your residents here in the time or maybe your permanent residents here while you you know figure out where what you're doing in the future but we have a housing emergency in our city and that needs to be part of also what what you need to be asking us to do is let's build some housing thank you councilmember brown took yourself off stack so councilmember Watkins sure I'll just I just wanted to echo what councilmember Cron acknowledged about councilmember Matthews comments in regards to having this person now here to help us work with the university and advocate for a better relationship and and moving forward for meeting our our city's needs and then also councilmember brown's comments in regards to hearing from the chancellor and how we as a city need to work with the university to be able to ensure that we have a sound partnership but recognizing that these needs impact our community and impact the university and and I think the students for being here I think also I'm kind of a maybe at a larger level it's disheartening to know that we haven't valued education to the point where we want to see higher education thrive and people be able to make that work because we have such a need to have brains in our in our nation leading the way and and it makes it really hard and it makes it really elite and so I just recognizing the struggle and knowing that that struggle is existing for many others as well I do wanted to get clear I wanted to get a little bit of clarification on the last friendly amendment and I sort of how I heard it or maybe understand it is more thinking about how we would encourage sort of more de-escalation escalation strategies as opposed to force is that reflective I don't know or maybe if you don't mind repeating what you had sure what I'd asked is that we encourage the chancellor to consider reducing the amount of police presence and additionally adding in force would be appropriate I just have been receiving numerous photos from students where they're showing on the order of 50 60 police officers who are on site I personally know of at least three people who have been struck by cops one of whom has a concussion the other who was struck in the abdomen and another who was pushed around and that's just three of other reports of the police using excessive force on the students who were on campus and so it's many of the students have reached out and they've said you know it's really intimidating that there's so many police officers is there anything the city can do I inform them that the city's police officers aren't up there but you know we could encourage that they you know minimize their presence or and also and additionally reduce the amount of force that they're using how about adding campus police just to clarify in the language that goes out does that sound legit campus police but also I know that there's there's reports of other police from other jurisdictions and highway patrol so I would say yeah campus police highway patrol I just want to say just for to help try to help clarify so the way so I I've been at on that end of a I'm not going to say the wrong end because there is no right end I believe of a police baton but you know having been there and as a graduate student at Berkeley what we learn and I and it happens at all the campuses is that regionally police force you know some police forces will come in and if their jurisdictions are willing to loan them out for these purposes then they'll come on to the university campuses so in this case it's highway patrol I think is the only other one but it there could be other local law enforcement I don't believe the sheriff's office has sent people up but so it can be so lot making it kind of law enforcement in general kind of covers whoever might I just have a maybe one more question is that something that chancellor impacts or who makes that call is that the I mean I I guess just for clarification on what that means my understanding it's the university the university yeah mm-hmm the word oh sorry it's a friendly amendment now UCSD campus police and California highway patrol I would say law enforcement I think the the appropriate would be participating in law enforcement yeah mm-hmm and then was that accepted as a friendly amendment yes yeah and I think the word that councilman why could use de-escalation I like that word I don't know if you can want to fit it in there at all or if or if you think it fits in your friendly amendment I put reduced I put reduced use of force that's okay sure or yeah and encourage de-escalation yeah I think that would be different things mm-hmm yeah I'd accept the and and mm-hmm and maybe probably de-escalation strategies yeah it's might as it maybe prioritize de-escalation strategies sure perfect there you go all right accepted reduce force and prioritize de-escalation strategies sounds like the final language all right councilman make one final comment on the campus the organizer for measure you campus growth advocate that's just been hired one of I mentioned she would be connecting among others with university groups with student groups and one of the strategies is well we we lobby to our local our state assembly and senators and they say well of course you're from Santa Cruz you know that's your issue but one of the objectives is to reach out to students where are you from are you from Central Valley are you from Southern California are you from wherever who are your elected officials in the state so that you as a graduate student and your family presumably say we're speaking to you as as your constituents statewide so that we that we broaden the awareness of the impact of campus growth on the student experience here in Santa Cruz to include students from the entire state so I just want to explain a little bit about the that's one of the strategies that she'll be following thank you for that comment all right and I'd just like to let the other council members know and the public know that I'm going to be personally meeting with the chancellor tomorrow to discuss city university relations so if there's anything I know this will be likely a topic of conversation and if there's other issues that anyone would like us me to bring up at that time that I'm going to be going there I'm going to be meeting with the chancellor one so okay seeing no more comments or questions sorry if we could can we get the motion read again oh sure just to make sure we're clear okay I have it broken down okay I don't have it combined sure direct the mayor to write to UCSC administration to acknowledge how difficult it is for UCSC graduate students to try to live in a community where the cost of rent are outstrips their salaries express support for a cola for graduate students the students request for a cost of living adjustment in the campaign cola for all and call for an immediate remedy and resolution friendly amendment that was accepted to include in the letter sentiments about rent exorbitant rent charges on campus and request that council encourage participating law enforcement agencies to reduce the amount of police presence in use of force and prioritize de-escalation strategies all right all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed the passes unanimously the last item we're just so council members are aware we're about five minutes over and we still have one item left on consent which is our city council policy 6.9 council request which was pulled by council by vice mayor Donna Myers and so I'll turn it over to vice mayor Myers I just wanted to state that I'm not going to support the the motion I think we've I think we from what I understand we've used this on two agenda reports and I feel like there was a lot of work gone into what looked to me like a pretty pretty viable process and I understand testing it out in the first couple couple of agenda reports is is always difficult I'm sure between the the agenda folks who were trying to to complete those reports as well as the staff but I feel like I just feel like we're we're just sort of sort of casting aside so I understand we'll have a subcommittee but I'm not going to support that I feel like we just we really are jumping the gun and not really testing this out in long enough period of time that's all thank you Are there any questions about council members council member Watkins I think I too would I too haven't had a chance to actually like try out by writing a report and using it so I think for me I prefer if I'm happy to be part of the subcommittee and I'm happy to look at how we can sort of base it on what's been sort of established but I'd like to fine tune it before just completely resending it personally and I'm wondering if there'd be potential for movement on that while the council looks at some of the challenges that may arise with it as it comes that you experienced in the first agenda reports but could likely go forward even further to then be informed as we look at a new strategy because for me I haven't had a chance to really see what is like substantially flawed about it you know what I mean so I'm wondering instead of just completely resending it if there would be a potential for discussion around having it temporarily in place for trial to understand how to fine tune and improve moving forward that's where Matthews I'm thinking along those same lines that perhaps the direction to go since there was a subcommittee that met and apparently agreed unanimously on it when it was brought to the council council approved unanimously the motion currently on the policy currently on the record the motion could be to revisit the current policy for clarification and streamlining and use the committee that's been suggested here to do that just to give us a chance to make it more workable without abandoning it and I think what was driving the motion that we recently adopted not the motion the policy we recently adopted that is currently before us that was a an effort to grapple with the kind of steady stream of major work products put before staff to accomplish in a fairly quick turnaround which I think most of us would agree has not been workable or satisfying so my preference would be to revisit and clarify the existing policy for streamlining and clarity Council Member Brown yeah I am I was reluctantly supported the policy when it came before us previously because of all of the work that had gone into it I did at the time believe it was overly complicated and could get us into some challenges around how it's interpreted and operationalized so I think at the moment my preference would be that we rescind the motion or the excuse me the policy and you you know use that as a basis for refinement I don't think we need to throw like we don't need to throw it out entirely but I'd prefer that we not be using it and encountering potentially more challenges I think just rewriting it making those revisions in the subcommittee and if I could ask the question Vice Mayor Myers does it are you not willing to serve on the committee in your opposition or because I'll you can I'll you can No, I'm willing to I'm willing to serve on the committee I'm just I'm I'm just expressing that I won't support the the rescinding and going back to the 1998 policy because I I just don't think we've tested out the new policies so thank you if it's not in favor of that portion of the motion any other comments by council members before we open up to the public for a public comment okay is there any member of the public who would like to comment on item number nine which is city council policy 6.9 council request okay if you would like to please line up to the left you'll have two minutes I'm assuming this is about getting items on the agenda I think that would have been nice if it had been clearly stated in the agenda today for the public and I find it telling that it is not the agenda has been an enormous political football and problem ever since the progressives achieved a so-called majority on city council which became effective in 2019 I will note that it has been so political that Santa Cruz Together which enunciated in its public meeting that Drew Glover was going to be a target of their recall which they were calling at the time a special election they perceived Drew as vulnerable and they were going to go after him and they were specifically going to go after him using the homeless issue because Drew they knew was an outstanding advocate for the most poor and homeless in our community interesting that we were able as progressives to get one big issue on the agenda and I'm sure Cynthia is going to try to counter this but I really hope that she does not because it was the only thing we were able to get on the agenda for the first three months that would really look toward helping the homeless and it was engineered in such a way that although we started with every potential available site that we could have a transitional encampment it got down to one which was Depot Park and it was cultivated to be an unfriendly community toward homeless and it was specifically used against Drew so to say that this issue is political which our members who are under attack cannot say because they are under attack I am saying this needs to be revisited it needs to be transparent and the public needs to be able to also have a saying what gets agendized thank you yeah next speaker I'll be brief I looked in the binder and I couldn't find information about what what the policy was in 1998 and I would have loved to have read it or made copies or taken pictures so I don't really know what the difference is that's all I'm stating thank you thank you all right good afternoon Scott Graham City of Berkeley has a rather extensive protocol for putting things on the agenda which I have sent to most of you I believe and I think that the group that's going going to look at the revision should possibly use the Berkeley agenda process as a template for revising this policy I mean you don't have to do it exactly the way Berkeley does but a lot of what's in there is very good and I would also like to see the agenda process opened up to the public to make it a public meeting that people can attend maybe not talk to you I mean it would be great if they could talk to you but you know the public the it's not a closed door issue I mean this is the workings of the government the people should be involved thank you all right I'm bringing back to City Council for excellent acceleration Council Member Matthews yes I'd like to move that and before I make my motion I'd just like to say that the policy that we now have before us which it was relatively recently adopted was a really good faith effort by the people that sat on that committee let's let's give them that and the effort was to give some structure to the issues of scheduling and workload and so forth so I just want to put that out there it was not a conspiracy it was a good faith effort to give more structure to the agenda setting process so with that statement I'm going to move that we direct a subcommittee consisting of Mayor Cummings Vice Mayor Myers and Council Member Watkins to revisit the City Council policy currently on the books with the idea of clarifying and streamlining it to make it more usable for both Council and staff I'll second the motion a motion made by Council Member Matthews seconded by Council Member Watkins Council Member Glover thank you I'd like to make a substitute motion a motion to revert Council Policy 6.9 Council requests to its November 17 1998 content send the policy back for further review and refinement by the subcommittee working on the process for new Council requests and adjust the subcommittee to include Mayor Cummings Vice Mayor Myers and Council Member Watkins second okay let's see I have a substitute motion made by Council Member Glover seconded by Council Member Brown any comments currently I'd just like to say that having been one of the members who worked on this policy it was pretty difficult being one of the people who brought an item with that new policy in place and it led to a lot of confusion a lot of I think that for staff and council members who were working on those items as a result there were some conflicts between what came out what was proposed to come out in those agenda items and I think it would be really useful if we as a committee work on an item together so that we can see what are some of the difficulties that we're going to encounter when we're actually putting an agenda item together because that was one of the steps that was not taken when we had actually put this together and so I am going to encourage that while we're still continuing to bring items forward that we do so within the spirit of the new policy but I think that having ourselves be bound while we're trying to refine a policy can become problematic potentially so just want to save that council member Watkins one of the as one of the members of the committee as well I I feel that after six months of trying to flesh out not only what will be manageable for understanding staff constraints I mean we have so many things we want to do and very limited resources so trying to manage that as it relates to priority setting but also in in relationship to the mayor's role and really looking for clarity on what gets on the agenda or doesn't get on the agenda what makes a threshold for an item that is urgent and needing to be placed on the agenda what is what a reasonable timeframe around agenda setting and agenda topics so for me having struggled with clarity and having sort of really felt that a lot of folks didn't necessarily feel there was transparency or clarity that's also what this this is about so I'm a little I support I'm happy to be part of the subcommittee but I won't support the substitute motion by just sort of throwing it all out at this time and not necessarily moving forward with not only a more consistent path for not only the staff but also for us as council members and for the mayor to understand the agenda setting and what makes it to the agenda onto the agenda any further comments okay so there's a substitute motion on the floor made by council member Glover seconded by council member brown to revert council policy 6.9 to its November 17 1998 content send the policy back for further review and refinement by the subcommittee working on the process for a new council request and adjust the subcommittee to include mayor Cummings vice mayor Meyers and council member Watkins okay council member brown I'm voting on whether or not to accept the substitute yes correct okay all those in favor please say aye aye all those opposed no okay so that motion passes with council member Glover crown brown mayor Cummings and it was opposed by vice mayor Meyers council member Watkins and council member Matthews and so now there's a motion on the floor to revert council policy 6.9 council requests to November 17 1998 content send the policy back for further review and refinement by the subcommittee working on the process for a new council request and adjust the subcommittee to include mayor Cummings vice mayor Meyers and council member Watkins there's no further discussion all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed no no all those with council member Glover crown brown and mayor Cummings voting in favor vice mayor Meyers council member Watkins and council member Matthews voting against okay I do have a question council member Matthews what do you anticipate as a timeline for this I think two out of the three of you have been through this partially already correct I would estimate that depending on when we'd be able to meet because I know that a lot of the subcommittees have been forming and a lot of these subcommittees are starting to move forward with their work that I could imagine this could potentially come back within the next three if not four months if not beforehand I would if I could comment hope beforehand because that's part of the problem we do have all these subcommittees there's just so much stuff boiling around right now and the question is at what form does it come forward what are the time expectations so and I think that it'll be great for the subcommittee to work at our first outset of kind of what needs to be addressed and then estimating what timeline we would need to get this back and and my final comment someone mentioned I think it was you that part of the and I wasn't part of the committee so I don't know but there there wasn't as full of a staff input into the process that was concocted as there might have been did I misunderstand that I think there was a misunderstanding we work closely with okay okay that was it yeah that's me and Mars I'll just state for the record that I'm ready to work on this starting next week so I'll be out of town for part of it but I think this is really important and I don't think we should wait three to four months to to try to remedy this like I I just think it's very important that we clarify this a lot of work was done on it let's let's just get to work and get it done appreciate it all right agreed great thank you very much and so that concludes that concludes our consent agenda items for today so next up on our agenda is our agenda is item number 17 general business the order will be a presentation of the item by staff for the council members who brought forward the item followed by questions from council we will then take public comment and then return to council for action deliberation the first item on general business today is the Harvey West Pool subcommittee report which will be presented by Tony Elliott director of parks and recreations all right good afternoon mayor and city council good news is we're sunsetting one subcommittee to make way for a new subcommittee here for the record Tony Elliott parks and recreation department and the a request for city council today is to accept the recommendation from the harvey west pool subcommittee to hire a consultant for feasibility analysis and to approve a budget adjustment to appropriate $50,000 from the park tax fund for that analysis so jumping right to that just to make it clear at the beginning and let's see Bonnie can I toggle from here all right so back in the fall of 2019 we reviewed the harvey west pool item with the city council and the city council directed staff to work with a subcommittee made up of city council members and parks and recreation commission members we met twice back in the the fall or in the winter to cover a number of things that I'll go to here in just a moment but I wanted to cover really quickly some of the figures that we shared with the city council back in the fall of 2019 in terms of the pool's current operations and budgetary impact and then what it would look like on a full-time basis so going back this is actually part of the fiscal year budget conversation with the city council we the city council directed staff at that time to look into options and costs related to operating the harvey west pool on a year-round basis so what we brought to the council was a follow-up from that direction almost a year ago was information on the current operation so the current operation is before you here we spend a net of just shy of a hundred thousand dollars per year based on the current operation that operation runs from March through March through October each year so it's a pretty limited format and Jim Booth swim school is our primary source of operating the harvey west pool so our expenses are pretty low but really our services are pretty low at the pool as it stands what council had asked us to look at originally was the cost of a year-round operation and so the net cost what we estimated would be about 1.2 million per year and we estimated on the high end that we could get up to a revenue of about four hundred thousand dollars per year so the net general fund impact annually would be just about eight hundred thousand dollars per year so just again just to bring those up to reference those figures that we reviewed just about a year ago so the subcommittee met again over the winter a couple times we had two different meetings in the first meeting we talked what I'll call the what and really that is what is the what is the vision what is the vision for the harvey west pool so we talked similar to the conversation we had with the city council last year and similar to the conversation we had with the parks and recreation commission really the what we talked about things like very low cost or free opportunities for for example all youth and Santa Cruz to be able to have swim lessons we talked about the pool as a place where families can gather and have picnics and and spend the day so that kind of that family sentiment and we talked about opportunities for classes and lap swimming and some of those things so really a lot of vision a lot of passion and fire came from the subcommittee both the commission and council side in terms of what could the pool be and that really is reflected in the parks and rec master plan as well the pool harvey west pool is identified as one of the top recreational options and amenities within the park system so the pool is highly favored by the community but the question of what what is that vision really took the the the precedent for the first or the priority for the first meeting that we had the second subcommittee meeting we talked about the how so we talked about the vision of what we wanted the pool to be and then we started to really get into okay how do we make that happen is the pool big enough currently is it ADA accessible do we have the proper technology and infrastructure to run the pool on a year-round basis and so we brought in parks and recreation staff in particular we brought in some of our folks from the central zone Blake Westner is our central zone park supervisor and Blake in a really great way very professionally brought us back down to earth he let us know what the the pool needs what it would cost and so it was a little bit of that reality check which was a good thing so currently currently the really the immediate needs at the pool if we were to open the pool on a year-round basis we would need to invest probably close to a half million dollars so based on the figures that we have at the moment that number is 452,000 that's before the council here so those are really the immediate maintenance needs that we would need to put into the pool immediately to to expand the operations from the current limited calendar to a year-round calendar this number represents the things that we know so there are some things that we realize that we don't know related to Harvey West pool there are a lot of ADA upgrades that we know that we need to make and we don't have costs associated with those yet we also know that the pool is losing water we don't know where that water is going exactly in the extent of that issue and so we know that we are losing water and so that could be another major cost related to the pool so with all of these things said the committee really it kind of boiled down to we have the reality of the condition of the pool but we also have this vision of where we want the pool to go and so what the committee recommended actually was perfectly consistent with what we have in the parks and recreation master plan and that is essentially to further study the pool study the feasibility study the business case and study the market so really to understand from our community what does the community want from a pool in terms of city services what are the competitors so to speak doing so what is what's happening at the Simpkins swim center what's happening around the community and what would it take to potentially build a new pool to expand if achieving the vision really is best sort of created by developing a new pool so the recommendation for the council today from the subcommittee made up again of council members and commission members is to to accept the recommendation to hire a consultant for feasibility analysis and to approve a budget adjustment of $50,000 from the park tax fund for that analysis and last thing I'll say I just want to be very clear had a couple of questions from the community we are not proposing that we shut down the pool or cease operations but what we will do I think if the council says today go ahead and hire this consultant with this funding we will keep the pool open and do everything that we can to keep it operating and running we don't necessarily need to put this $450,000 into it today but if we do operate it on a year-round basis a more expanded basis we do need to make these investments very soon we do have some other projects ongoing right now the heating system we've got an on-bill financing opportunity that we're taking advantage of right now to improve the heating and energy efficiency so there are things that we are doing so I just want to be clear that we're not proposing closing down the pool but we would like to further study it so with that I'll look to the subcommittee members to weigh in or happy to answer any questions right thank you very much do any of the subcommittee members want to start by speaking to this item yeah I'll just just want to thank Tony and the staff they brought forward a lot of really good analysis for us it was very obvious once we dug into some of the numbers and actually understood the level of repairs and replacement that was going to be needed plus the mystery of actually where the water is going that the facility is is really degraded from really just lack of any capital investment over the last 15-20 years so I think once we got a hold of those numbers we realized that we you know we wanted to potentially look at something that was maybe a little different than when we envisioned going in but I just want to thank the staff because that analysis I think really turned the tide in terms of how we thought about what we were going to do is what our recommendation was going to be so thanks Tony on to member Watkins I'll just sort of echo the comments that my colleague made and thank the staff as well as my colleagues here and our commissioners who chose to serve as well I think we all share love of this community resource it holds so much potential for our community and really wanting to see it move forward in a way that's informed and so coming from a place of like we want to get it done to like okay this is what we need to know in order to do it right for the future I think is a really a good place to be so I'm really encouraged by moving forward from that place and hope the council will support the recommendation yeah just really quickly I'll say it was a wonderful experience to participate in this process and the meetings in those conversations I really appreciate the commitment if anybody thinks anybody who's out there thinks that the pool is neglected we don't use it as much as we would like to it's not it certainly isn't it's not a reflection on how much we care about the pool and that became very clear to me in those meetings and talking with Blake so and I as one who is from time to time skeptical of funding consultants for ongoing for studies I would say that you know in this case I you know I was really persuaded that this is potentially a real a bridge to actually getting a much better program potentially a year-round program and I think that we have some real opportunities that a study like this can help kind of move us forward with so just thank you all and I hope to forward Council Member Matthews yeah this is I'm going to support the motion before us and I think everyone up here knows when the pool was drastically reduced in its use that was a result of the absolutely severe economic collapse and there has been interest in bringing it back to full city operation and more active more frequency of use and of course the operating expense for that is it's a big ticket and we understand that pretty much all our parks and rec facilities are subsidized to some extent or another but I am pleased particularly that we're looking at not just the market and what's our competition these days it's really important to have that in there but I do like the idea that we're looking at what are the short-term or more immediate basically repair or improvement needs is that correct the obvious and then the ADA currently unstudied and then the unknowns which we'll get into and then am I right in thinking that the study would also perhaps explore some improvements that would make it more competitive and usable for the future so it's not not just fixing up what we've got it's looking forward that's correct that's correct and then given all that and different scenarios for operation there would be different operational costs so we're talking capital and then operation which depends on what market we're serving so what do you what do you see as a timeline for bringing this back it's a great question we don't know yet we could follow up in terms of that timeline I think our hope in bringing this we talked a little bit about the timing of this and bring it back this time of year around the mid-year rather than with the full budget to hopefully get a head start on it so ideally if we could hire a consultant this spring into the summer that that perhaps by this fall leading into the next calendar year that we'll have a good idea of where we're headed into fiscal year 2022 and beyond okay that's realistic and I just want to say this is one more dramatic illustration of the needs of our capital are just valued community assets that have not been maintained and not been improved in decades and I really support knowing what this one will cost and what it can do for us and we got a lot of others out there too agree with that statement I had one question and I'm not sure if this is something that can be answered right now or maybe if this needs to return to council in the form of a memo but some members of the public had reached out and they were curious about the park tax fund and so what pays into that like so what pays into that fund how much money's in that fund currently and the purposes and use of that fund yeah just one second I just I gave something to Bonnie she could put it up right now and that would help us get a visual of it that perfect I'd sent a memo out to the city council as well prior to this meeting I don't know if everybody received it but a memo on the specific breakdown of the park tax and what that what that is how it's collected generally speaking it's an impact fee on development on residential development very similar to the quimby fee it's three dollars per square foot on essentially new residential development that's collected as part of the building permit process through the planning department the current breakdown is before the council here there's a little over a million dollars in the yeah FY 2020 adopted budget a lot of that we don't have the full the full scope of what is encumbered essentially here so there are a number of projects that are tied up or that those dollars are committed to existing projects so anyway I don't have that specific breakdown necessarily but this funds a whole range of things from from trail work to I'm kind of spitballing here off the cuff really any number of projects that are acquisition of land and improvement of a park asset those types of things so quimby quimby is a little bit more specific in terms of what that goes to but the park tax in the municipal code if I recall it's chapter five in the municipal code breaks it down very specifically and it's in that memo that I shared with the city council on what that can be appropriated to very much are there any other questions from council members at this time yeah I was wondering if you'd go farther up on that memo when where it's read oh I think that's a different piece of paper because I had a couple quick I mean I just wanted to go through the numbers with us because I don't I don't understand it since we had the opportunity to do that right now yeah that one now yeah yeah but you know when the park tax was started when was that passed by voters or was that something that even predates that it was passed by a city council at some point in the past you know I think it's it's been an existence ever since I've been with the city for over 23 years so it goes back yeah it's an essentially impact fee development impact fee and that's one we've had on the books for many many years and as Tony mentioned it gets collected what gets collected depends on development and what it pays for is specifically outlined in our code and it's just been an ongoing revenue source for the for the parks on a year-to-year basis and the council every year is part of your budget when you look at the cap funds are allocated from the park from that fund towards various park projects including the Quimby funds and then we we do a fund balance projection for all of our funds including this fund and that's in our budget documents every year as well so you can go back and look at that so it's accounted for on an annual basis in our budget and it's appropriated through the budget process like any other fund in the city and it says it's for the green belt 50% is for green belt and 50% is for equipment or something I mean that's for Quimby that's for Quimby and so if you like look at the 1.2 million ending fund balance 1.2 would that be part of your budget when you start out in June or when we approve the budget process or is that something like that supplemental that fills in gaps that come about during the year so yeah doesn't fill in gaps throughout the year again it's something that we have we have existing projects that are on the books that were approved as part of the fiscal year the current fiscal year budget and in fact we have projects that go back to the prior fiscal year that are still on the books that we're still working through and haven't fully expended those dollars but as we go into the new budget in the upcoming fiscal year budget in the coming months we'll go through a similar process where we will have a whole a whole number of capital improvement items some of which we will ask support from the city council for general fund dollars for those capital items and some will ask for park tax or quimby dollars but yeah again those are appropriated through the budget process each year or carried over as the projects continue forward big picture that fund so the the department parks and department has not to my recollection utilized any general fund capital improvement dollars over the past five years or maybe more so virtually all of our capital improvement dollars come from either quimby or the park facility tax fund park tax fund and so it's it's a limited pot a million dollars sounds like a big number but it's but pretty limited and really all of our capital investment and so we have approximately 60 million dollars in deferred maintenance in the parks and rec department and so that million dollars can go really quickly toward addressing very critical things so the pool is part of that overall discussion but one of many projects meeting potential funding and when you get the fifty five the fifty thousand you have to take it out of something else that's already it was already committed for or in law and the project just hadn't been started yet so we have fifty thousand dollars available that is not tied to a project currently so that's where we're asking supported the council to allow us to appropriate or appropriate that fifty thousand to be used for this use a big portion of or a portion of the overall park tax fund strategically we actually withhold to be ready for potential grant match so a lot of grants it might be an eighty twenty match so we actually hold a couple hundred thousand dollars up to a half million of that million to be ready for any grant opportunities that we can leverage those funds so some of that we withhold as sort of a reserve within that but fifty thousand can come out of the overall bucket thank you it's helpful to know thank you all right thank you very much is there any other council member who has questions at this time thank you very much Tony thank you is there any member of the public who would like to speak to us on this item if you'd like to please line up to the left and you will have two minutes hi Elise Cosby community organizer and also I was in recreation therapy in the mental health field when I started out started my career so I just want to say first of all thank you to Tony Elliott and the parks and rec people and others who did this analysis I really appreciate your work I also want to say that I am hoping that our vision for the for the pool will truly be a public vision inclusive of all classes and people in the public and I think we could have a really stupendous pool what's fantastic about that area is it is still although on the outer edges it's still in the downtown area and it could be quite accessible by bus right now the number four goes there and so I'm really supportive of the $50,000 for the consultant and as Sandy's said so many times consultants can truly be valuable I'd like to use a comparison here of Dave Seppos who was brought in to find if we could have a viable task force to address the rental crisis and the housing crisis and Santa Cruz and I think Dave was paid $40,000 for an excellent effort and I would like to ask that we have another consultant who is truly a advocate for the public interest and to make sure that that happens I would like to ask that the council make all potential possibilities in other words for all the consultants that are interested that we could also evaluate those people and the reason is this I have been to a city pool in Eugene, Oregon which I consider a splendid magnificent public pool it's clean it's beautiful it's family oriented it's also centrally located people can get there on the bus it's just a real asset to the community they provide showers for anybody who needs them for $0.50 a shower so it's a tremendous resource and I'd like for us to consider that as a way to get showers to the homeless population thank you thank you next speaker my good afternoon Margaret O'Shea resident of Santa Cruz on the west side and I attended a couple parks and recreation commission meetings and brought up even when it wasn't on the agenda about expanding the hours of Harvey West Pool so it's been an issue that I'm following I was very happy to see in the Santa Cruz Sentinel that it was on the agenda today so that's why I came while it was waiting I read the February 6th Harvey West Pool subcommittee report and so my comments are brief I'd like to say that a concern I continue to have is the limited hours when the pool is even open at all so I urge the council to make sure that that's included in the statement of work that if one of the options as presented in this February 6th report is continuing with the existing scope of operations March through October each year that that be looked at I won't turn around but I even want staff to know how valued this is that's why I came to this meeting I really appreciate that the department and the department leadership has continued to push for this I thank the committee the commission for looking at this but it is a problem the existing hours because Jim Booth swim school operates it I've even had a discussion with a staff member that there's been lack of communication sometimes between the department and the Jim Booth swim school about the hours so it's advertised as these are the pool hours turns out if you're swimming there you got to be out of the pool by a certain time because they're locking the gate at another time so so we need to kind of fairly advertise the swim hours are X which is like let's say the pool is open 12 to two in the summer for swimming on a Sunday turns out you need to be out of the pool by 130 or 145 and that's I've seen so many families really devastated you get there and you got to get out of the pool thank you so much thank you very much so any other member of the public who would like to speak to us on this item seeing none I'll bring it back to council for action deliberation council member brown yeah so I am ready to make to move the recommendation to accept the recommendation from the harby west pool subcommittee to hire consultant for a feasibility analysis and adopt a resolution to amend the fiscal year 2020 budget and appropriate funds in the amount of $50,000 from the park tax fund I'll second that all right so we have a motion made by council member brown seconded by council member Watkins I do have comments but I didn't want to I wanted to yeah that's yeah so I'll make comments whenever when it when you can put me on the so you can we'll follow up with council member brown council member Watkins vice mayor mires council member crown so I wanted to respond to the comment that was just made by Ms. O'Shea I'm wondering if I don't know that we would need to include an emotion but I'm wondering if we could follow up on that and try to figure out how to make it clear to the public because I could imagine taking some kids that would be a hard thing to pull them out if they're not aware that the hours are actually shorter than advertising yeah I appreciate her making that point and we'll look into it to make sure our hours are accurate as posted thank you council member Watkins I was just sort of going to similarly follow up with that having been there with the trying to find the time and the kids it is it isn't really conducive to families being able to access it and it is a short time and there is an abrupt end so the definitely the clarity in advertising and transparency but also the direction of trying to move to have the pool open more frequently is the intention behind where we hope to be that's Mary Marsh I think you skipped you're good okay council member Crowe what about the other issue that came up what's your thoughts on providing showers like that being part of the work of the consultant to think about having more showers there to provide you know to supplement what we provide now the homeless resources center and yeah I think I think all those are great questions in the context of what could this facility become in the parks and rec parks and rec master plan it even alludes to things like a like a fitness center health and wellness facilities so I think as the consultant goes through it we'd like for them to consider what all of those might look like what could really be incorporated and then how we operate that again from an operation standpoint I think that's the other question but yeah absolutely so you know further questions there's a motion on the floor by council member brown seconded by council member Watkins to to accept the recommendation from the harbury west pool subcommittee to hire a consultant for feasibility analysis and adopt a resolution to amend the fiscal year 2020 budget and appropriate funds in the amount of $50,000 from the park tax fund all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed the message unanimously thank you very much okay next item on our agenda item number 18 of general business is ordinance amending scm section scmc section 15.38 010 and section 15.38 030 regarding small cell wireless facilities this presentation will be by Joshua Spangrid senior civil engineer and stephanie hall deputy city attorney good afternoon mayor Cummings members of the city council I'm Joshua Spangrid senior civil engineer of public works so I don't have a presentation for you I think you guys have seen it a number of times right now so far I'm sure I could pull one up from the past if you guys are interested but basically what we have here are several minor adjustments to language from the last time the ordinance was proposed our city turn I'm going to turn this over to city attorney's office they're the ones who really did it my name is just on the report so hey thanks and I'll be filling in today for Stephanie hall deputy city attorney I'm tony kandadi city attorney this ordinance has somewhat of a circuitous legislative history going back to April of last year when the council introduced ordinance number 2019-06 which would take the city's wireless communications facilities regulations out of title 24 your zoning code and move them into title 15 which pertains to streets and highways a separate ordinance 2019-11 was then brought forward to incorporate wireless communication facilities into title 15 and that was introduced by the city council at your meeting on November 26th of 2019 also at that time were adopted regulations that implemented the ordinance as well as a resolution adopting a fee schedule for processing permits for wireless communications facilities the reason why I mentioned the circuitous legislative history is that when both ordinances came back for final adoption on December 10th the council expressed an interest in additional changes and rather than have a reintroduction of both ordinances or ordinance 2019-11 the council directed that those changes come back in a new ordinance and specifically the changes were to eliminate subsections subsection f of section 1538-010 regarding the purpose and intent the language that is proposed to be eliminated states that the purpose and intent is not to limit or prejudice any individual's ability to seek a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act or any other applicable federal or state law to the extent such requests are consistent with applicable FCC regulations and federal and state laws council directed that we return with an ordinance to eliminate that language as well as an amendment to subsection 030-B4 which states that the chapter shall not apply to facilities for small cell wireless facilities that are suspended whether embedded or attached on communication cables or lines that are strung between existing utility poles and compliance with applicable safety codes as to the reference to ADA accommodations that's already covered in your adopted regulations and as to the reference to small cell wireless facilities that are suspended on wires or cables those are prohibited in your regulations as well so this is really just a cleanup ordinance and I'm happy to answer any council member questions or comments Are there any questions at this time by council members? That's where I come You saw the email I sent to Barbachoy and her response and so that's been changed according to what you just said it sounds like Yeah I agree there's some I would say somewhat ambiguous language in the report as to what the staff's recommendation is but after we've discussed it with staff and internally in the city attorney's office we're comfortable with the proposed amendments as they're presented here Thanks There's no other questions I'll open it up to the public for public comment and if there are members of the community that would like to comment on this item I'd like to ask you please line up to my left and I'll invite up first Satya Orion from EMF Aware who reached out for extra time on behalf of that group and so you'll be given four minutes Thank you Mayor Cummings and Council so it sounds like you've done my work for me already you're recommending these to be deleted and I can just say and thank you for hearing me this was first item was submitted by me not something that was in the ordinance and so I'm just asking it be deleted and the second one I didn't felt just to give you a reason I felt uncomfortable with adding another of taking something that could be potentially added to the wires and saying that it wasn't covered under regulations so I'm happy that it's prohibited currently so thank you for that so I'd like to I want to take the opportunity to have one more request a small change but quite important one to the permit guidelines section of the ordinance section four public notification to G I realize it's not on the agenda today but I'm hoping it could be agendized for the next meeting this is regarding the submission of requests for reasonable accommodation under the ADA or other applicable law I'm at what I'd like to first ask for is that the five calendar day time limit be removed my feeling is that it does not allow adequate time for a person to submit such a request especially if you take into consideration weekends and holidays a five calendar day request could effectively become two business days very short time and I also another small inclusion that we also specifically say include content information for who a person would direct such a request to and I'm assuming public works what their name how to reach them I just I believe that honestly people will make these requests as quickly as possible but it just seems really important that we not that we just do everything possible to make that process as easy as possible easily accessible as possible and not create further access barriers which is what we're trying to eliminate by this I mean the I'm very very grateful that this is even included in the ordinance because it's what it's doing is it's providing a legal pathway for people to potentially stay in their homes who are extremely AMF sensitive and might have to leave otherwise so so I thank you and I and my request would be that thank you for hearing me say this today and that we could bring it back to the next meeting for a more thorough discussion of what would be reasonable considering all that I've said so thank you you'll have two minutes for this item thank you Nicholas Whitehead I want to address you on the larger picture of this very very controversial field of communications technology and the electrical emanations from that there are three areas of accepting your responsibility there's the political area yeah sure you want to help companies that are helping our society communicate naturally you want to do that you want to help consumers and that's probably the majority want these services then there's the legal situation you're in the apparent the authority to of the FCC to overrule any public health considerations is extremely dubious and I think this is going to be proven out historically so I'm addressing you on and asking you to look for look toward the historical developments that might occur but so that comes down to your ethical decision in any future allowances you make for these these technologies you really have to consider the future of public health not only information we have is reliable there are alternative sources of information there are an increasing bevy of speakers internationally and in the U.S. who can address accurately scientifically the public health effects of these high powered transmissions these particular frequencies and I think this this community deserves to hear from them and I would like that to be a publicly sponsored event rather than private groups having to always do that so please look ahead and consider these aspects thank you thank you next speaker good afternoon I really want to thank all of you for so many things but not so much with just blindly following this the existing technology can kind of be linked to every modern western ailment you just have to do the research you just have to ask the questions although it's interesting to hear all the various this and that it really doesn't mean anything it seems kind of unusual to me that the FCC guidelines were developed by Shrewman who came up with this number for a heated thermal effect of 10,000 when biological effects are known to happen excuse me 10 million biological known effects are said to happen between 6 and 200 at the beginning that's quite a cubed order of magnitude so I showed up to speak here about seven months ago 13 people in front of me didn't say what I thought needed to be said and now I can probably say it a little bit differently because I probably have thousand hours of research on this and other subjects in that seven months so there's not much we can do to stop this you know it's interesting I just read something the other day that you know people on airline flights are coming down with flu-like symptoms because of this fast internet service that's coming down from satellites and they're not sure what really to do but when they get off the plane and they get away from that stuff they feel better so there's a lot of synergynistic effects that are going on I kind of decided six months ago that I might as well work with the two ends of the bell curve that'll be the most affected and that's youth and teachers and law enforcement and emergency responders because there's so much information out about this and we're all already affected I mean we've known for over 100 years about these effects and so it's just kind of troubling because it's not making people healthier that's it thank you thank you next member of the public good afternoon Scott Graham part of my feeling on this is that this is a different technology than the current it's a different wavelength than the current cell phone towers admit and there hasn't really been much study on the effects on humans and on animals and insects of these cell towers and I'm not sure if you can legislate like how far apart they need to be because I know the companies want to put them really close together even though they claim they go a mile or further I mean they're advertising on TV that oh yeah these signals go a long ways but then they want to put them every 500 feet so I mean that makes absolutely no sense and you know and the need for it I mean we've already got 4G 5G from my understanding is the only real need for this is so that people can play these high intensity games on their phones right now they have some lag time if you want to play world of warcraft and so in order to play world of warcraft on your phone you need 5G and I mean do we really want to do that do we you know right now I see babies playing with cell phones and it's like we don't know what the effects of somebody giving a baby a cell phone and that kid becoming addicted to the cell phone I mean there's most people are addicted to them already but to be addicted to them from being a one-year-old for the rest of your life we don't know what the effects that's going to have on people and that's absurd that the federal government doesn't allow us to check that out and I think the city should enjoy every lawsuit out there against 5G thank you thank you sir any other member of the public that would like to speak to us on this item no all right you'll be our last speaker I too just want to posit that I really I really feel that since I saw this ordinance being affected the first time that it seemed like it was kind of out of our hands that the federal government if I'm recollecting them correctly wasn't going to let cities refuse the service if we can call it that and I think that you know we have to so I really wish that more people would speak on this we we're out of crossroads in terms of human civilization and we cannot ignore the horrible horrible health impacts and I have to disagree with Scott my understanding is that there have been some excellent studies done on the unhealthiness of 5G and there are countries that will not allow it to be put in their country because they understand the health risk and they will not allow their public to be exposed to that kind of danger and harm and so you know I I kind of see our city council's hands are somewhat tied here but I also feel like you know I loved it when Nancy Pelosi ripped up Trump's speech the other day because she needed to make a statement whether you agree with that or not as a Democrat I feel like it was somewhat disingenuous because the Democrats were responsible for getting us to Trump but on the other hand at least she was making some kind of a statement that you know he is subverting our constitution and again here I feel that the city really needs to make a statement that that on some level you all need to defend our public health thank you all right I'd like to bring it back to council for action deliberation I differ council member brown hi thank you al