gle family sales in Santa Cruz County. Total sales are captured in the blue bars. And then Santa Cruz specific is the orange bars and that's the makeup of the total. So we started January 2020 with strong sale numbers exceeding 2019 sales by 13%. And you don't see the numbers, but that's from, it went from 74 to 96 County wide. But only a modest increase for Santa Cruz. We saw an 18% increase in Santa Cruz in January from 22, sales to 26. So leading into the spring and summer months when we typically start to see more active real estate market, we start to see those numbers decline and impacted by COVID. So compared to May of 2019 single family home sales are down 38% from 146 to 90 sales and a drop of a medium price of about 10% County wide from 947,000 to about the 150,000. In Santa Cruz, the slowdown is more like 49% from 51 sales in May to 26. And we also see a 7% drop in our sales price from 1,007 to 932,000. There is some cautious optimism that prospective buyers not impacted by the downturn take advantage of the record low interest rates, which are currently set at 3.13 for a 30 year fixed loan. But in general property taxes are one of our most stable sources of revenue and we're hoping that stays a constant for us. Our permitting activity to the left here shows similar trends in the chart. Here you see residential permits in orange and the commercial permits in blue. So we started off again with strong numbers in January and February combined with a total of 320. So in this year we were exceeding our 2019 numbers by 30%. And then we see a sharp drop in May, excuse me, in March and then most significantly in April. That's only about 21 applications in total. And so we do see an increase back in May of this year, but we're still below permitting activity from May of 2019 by about 26%. So that's going from 114 permits issued to about 105. And that unfortunately is also a loss that we will feel in our fees permitting and to see revenues. Next, if we look at our hotel occupancy rate. So we know that previous and current travel restrictions now have definitely impact our tourism industry. So current survey of our hotels with the shelter in place was instituted in March. We see that occupancy rates significantly impacted. So we see a 48% decline of occupancy in March, 71% in April and 62% occupancy in May. We can absolutely expect to see impacts to our TOT revenues, but we won't know those amounts because the city has deferred their payments until after July. But for now we can see through that survey that we definitely are below those numbers. When we look at our local business indicators, we know that our downtown is absolutely the heart of our community and the major activity center for the city and for the county. The economic development has been very active in providing support to our downtown businesses as well as businesses citywide through micro loans and offering reopening starter kits. And that's all been very positive. But unfortunately downtown has also experienced the impacts on the shelter in place. According to the downtown association, about 66% for about 100 of the 150 businesses downtown remain open and operational in some capacity either through internet sales, curbside pickup or actually opening their doors to customers. But we are also sad to see that about 8% of our businesses downtown for about 12 of them are closing their doors or have been closing their doors since June. So indicating that our sales tax is of course one of our major revenue sources with the true impact of those sales. Again, we won't know until after July due to the governor deferring that sales tax. But we do have our April sales tax in and those indicate a 20% decrease from our April 2019 numbers. So that kind of falls in line with our preliminary projections. So our preliminary forecast and action. So in April of this year, our finance director presented to council a preliminary forecast of a COVID-19 impact on our budget and predicted a $6 million shortfall for fiscal year 21. So in response to that, our council approved several budget-saving measures to be implemented in this fiscal year 21. Some of those measures included hiring freeze, a 10% reduction in personnel costs, which the city has already achieved, and saving approximately $5.7 million to the general fund. We also are deferring any general fund support CIP projects. And we've also offered early retirement incentives to our employees and promoting our VTO policy. And of course, we will be seeking female reimbursements and federal and state aid. And actually very soon we'll be receding about 750,000 through the CARES Act distribution to cities to address some of the public and public health and public safety impacts of COVID-19, including those to our homeless population. Council also established a budget committee to review fiscal year 21 budget strategies and scenarios and make recommendations on budget solutions. The city's also invested in a financial forecasting tool through management partners. They'll help develop our budget scenarios and provide better financial situation given all the variables at stake. So I'd like to, at this point, turn the presentation over to our city manager, Mastin Bedma, for an update on the forecasting tool progress at this time. Thank you, Lupita. Also wanted to just provide a little bit more information on the budget reduction measures that we are implementing now. As Lupita mentioned, the 10% reduction in personnel costs was something that we've been working on with our bargaining units just to implement that, particularly in the form of referral, which we prefer in order to avoid layoffs, requires working with the bargaining units and reaching agreement with them. And I'm happy to report that most of our bargaining units have agreed to do that and want to thank our employees for the support there. However, I also want to report that we have not been able to reach an agreement, or we're not able to reach an agreement with our money publishers association. And therefore, as a result of that, we're left with no option, but to issue layoff notices because with an agreement in place, we either have to negotiate changes or implement layoffs. And so we're at a point where we have issued layoff notices. There's a period of discussions that occurs. And so we're hopeful that those discussions will continue and that we'll be able to avert some of the layoffs for several sergeants are effective in July for some of the trainees that are affected. Those won't come into play until September. But I want to let the council know that while we have achieved agreements with most of our bargaining units, we have one more and again, we're hoping that we can have those implemented and that we won't have to move forward with layoffs. But with respect to the projections, I wanted to provide an update on the projected shortfall. As I noted at our last update, the projected deficit was based on limited information about revenue projections as well as the impact of the pandemic. And then several things have occurred. As Lupita mentioned, we've hired management partners to develop a specific COVID-19 forecast that they have developed in 33 cities, mostly in California. And the city council budget committee received a presentation and demonstration of the model using sample data. And they may want to comment on that later. And then secondly, just yesterday, what happened is I had the opportunity to review the model with our city specific data that they've been able to put into the model. And the budget committee will also receive a presentation on that in the council when we come back in August. This version that was presented represents the initial look given the latest point in time six data. And while there is some refinement that needs to occur with the model, I wanted to provide you with a preview because the model is showing a significant increase in our projected deficits over the next three fiscal years. The order of magnitude is at least double what we originally projected and will require cutting between $13 and $18 million over the next two fiscal years. And this is with the use of reserves to cushion the blow. We're fortunate that we have reserves otherwise we'd have to make even more deeper cuts. The primary reason for the increased deficit is decreased revenues along a longer time frame of the prolonged pandemic. And you saw some of that data that would be to share with respect to KOT and sales tax. Now that the pandemic is longer, obviously having a major impact. I wanted to bring this to your attention. I really assume it's possible because it is important to be transparent and to set realistic expectations that we consider the budget. The reality is that the city council will have to make some very difficult decisions in the coming months. And Lupita will cover in the course of the presentation the next steps in the role of the budget committee as we move forward. So thank you. I'll turn it over to Lupita and then we can go on to questions once we're done with the presentation. Thank you, Rostine. I'll be covering that a little bit later in the presentation for the budget process, the fiscal year 21 budget. So what you have before you today is a status quo working budget based on fiscal year 20 levels. With no significant increases or reductions to programs. So it's basically a baseline. It's a baseline budget that does not reflect COVID-19 impacts in the revenues or expenditures. It does not reflect the 10% personnel cost reduction that were recently achieved through labor concessions. Instead, the council budget committee will start that process this month to develop our budget scenarios and review budget targets and recommend solutions. And with the help of our financial forecasting tool and as the revenue picture continues to emerge we'll be able to make data driven decisions at various checkpoints throughout the year. So an attachment to of your packet is a list of budget changes and corrections from the proposed posted budget in May. These changes are largely administratively, administrative in nature and they don't reflect council action from budget hearings. Some items in there also reflect a receipt of grants or award of grants approved by the council or change in contractual obligations. Another example of what changes are reflected in the fiscal year 21 are recent actions by the council. For instance, the June 23rd council meeting directing appropriations for the river street shelter lease, the get virtual program and state, permanent and local housing allocation application for affordable housing development. And this last minute inclusion was emailed to you prior to this meeting and it all will also be made part of a public record. So included in the list of changes are those made to our personnel profile. Some of these positions are clean up items from recommendations from fiscal year 20. Positions can't be deleted until the position has been vacated. And so that's why you're seeing this before you again. So starting with the water department in fiscal year 21 is a new classification and water addition of one water chief financial officer to be paid by water fund at the net increase of $43,000. Next we have delete one FTE water conservation manager. This was action from fiscal year 20, but recently, but only most recently vacated. So now we're able to delete that position. And we're also deleting one FTE finance manager and that's a new deletion recommended this year. In the police department, we're deleting two administrative assistants, two positions and deleting one FTE prop and evidence specialist. These are both actions for fiscal year 20 that weren't able to materialize until now. And then in public works, we also have one FTE senior professional engineer paid for by special funds, such as measure D and traffic impact fees. And then we also have a deletion in the human resources department of one FTE administrative assistant. And this is also action from fiscal year 20. So that brings our total allocation of positions to 895.03 FTE. And this is down four positions from the fiscal year 20 amended FTE count of 899.03. Let's move on to CIP. So as I mentioned previously to address the preliminary projection of six million, no new general fund CIP projects were recommended. The 87 million moving forward in capital projects includes those funded through grants, special and enterprise funds. But as we heard earlier from our assistant public works director, revenue available for some of these projects may change given the COVID impacts on all funds. The majority of the new fiscal year 21 projects are in water with a budget of 62.3 million, followed by public works with a budget of 20.4 million. And just to highlight some of the projects in the public works of CIP includes FEMA certification, Levy project, the Isbell Drive pump station replacement. There are four sewer improvement projects in there as well as a recycling center storm. Just to name a few and department heads are on the line to answer any questions that you may have on the makeup of the proposed CIP for this year. And then the graph on the right is the the total unfunded CIP projects and the total 329 million. And the list of projects that make up this total are listed in included in your CIP folder for your review. But I would like to clarify that although these projects, these unfunded projects are labeled as non priority, that I would like to say that that is not an indication of really the status. Some are in very critical state of repair. We do have an, we have been deferring investment in our capital for quite some time, but due to our financial crisis, we're deferring projects again until we can stabilize our budget. So for our next steps, as I mentioned, this is just the formation of the council budget committee. They have met two times to start preparing them for their upcoming work in July. And in July, what you'll see is them continue to meet to review those budget scenarios and start making budget proposals and to form that strategy. In August, we'll be coming back to the city council for a study session to review some of those preliminary proposals to prepare for then for our round one of check-in of budget solutions followed by around two and three in December and in February. Before you is the recommendation that we're making for to adopt the budget. This is the same language that you'll find in your packet. The only difference is what's in underlying, which is including those amendments directed by council from the June 23rd council meeting. So with that, I'll go ahead and open it up to any questions. And I'd like to note that the directors are online to also help answer any questions you may have about their budget. Great, thanks for that presentation. Are there any council members who have questions? Council member Matthews. I remembered that time. I learned last week that Candice Elliott is leaving our economic development department, which is an important career move for her, but a loss for us. And it raised for me the thought of our budget for this year is predicated going forward. Our budget changes on not filling vacancies. I've mentioned this to the manager. It also occurred to me how much we are expecting from our economic development department, which already has another vacancy. We're expecting them to deliver the goods on economic recovery and affordable housing and so much. So my concern with the director to increase any vacancies and not require is, and I know they're not alone in this, placing just probably unrealistic expectations for a small staff to be so much. So I just, I want to raise that issue, just seeing me given the expectations and stakes there. How do you, city manager, finance department, see us approaching that? Yeah, I'll start and then maybe Bonnie can also comment. In general, that is going to be a challenge also because we just also implemented furloughs that in itself provides 10% reduction in capacity, citywide. So there's an overall, not a challenge there, too. And however, the other part of it, too, that's going to be important is for the council to really also, as we move forward with strategic planning and priorities that need to provide that direction because while we do have a hiring freeze in place, we do use it in a way that, you know, it's prioritized. So if there's a priority and we need to hire somebody because it's a crucial or important function, we'll do that. But really the approach is that we can do without it and it's not absolutely necessary. We're keeping it unfilled. However, if there's a need and it's essential and critical, we are filling those positions. So again, I think recognizing that there are limitations and setting no reasonable expectations and reasonable workload will be really critical and important and as well as setting priorities so that we can appropriately allocate and direct the work program and we'll be obviously working on those things in the coming months. The other thing I should point out, too, is that with the pandemic, it really has created a response that has been really tremendous and ongoing and we're also seeing the effect of the employees, many employees just really working a lot more than they have ever really. It seems like it's been ongoing for months now and so I think the organization is also tired emotionally and physically and so we do need a little bit of respect and so I think we'll try to do that as well just to be able to take some of our sanity and our ability to work together. So I just wanted to highlight that because that is a sensitivity and I think all of us do that way actually, not just the staff, I'm sure you've counseled us with the number of issues that we had and how quickly they changed and how they keep coming up, but this whole idea or issue of capacity and how we manage it and how we balance that is absolutely critical that we make good decisions and we're thoughtful about how we do those things. So with that, I'm going to Bonnie, let's come if you want to add anything more specifically to your position. Not really, I just want to acknowledge across all the departments just sort of echoing what the city manager is saying, I recognize from a capacity standpoint how challenging it is across every department right now and everyone is giving everything that they can. So with that said, it was a surprise, we didn't know this was coming but you were definitely supportive of Candace and the work that she's doing, helping businesses with her HR needs during this time. She worked for us part-time until last Friday and we wish her all the best. It does leave us in a difficult position at a really trying time, but I recognize that we're in a really a difficult position at the city right now. I'll come from a revised. And you're, Captain, you're muted. For the parks, Tony Elliot, is he handy? Yes. Thank you. I think just this morning, a note, a little text from Humber from the, I can't think of his name, but obviously very active in the Grant Street area and the Grant Street park. And he was talking about getting the bathrooms fixed or upgraded. So maybe you could tell me about that. Yeah, thank you. We've actually got our park superintendent Travis Beck on the line too. Oh, okay. In regards to a plumbing fix at the Grant Park restrooms. Travis, if you're there, would you mind speaking to some of those details? Certainly, can you hear me okay? Yeah, good. So we've had a long-standing plumbing issue in the sewer lateral from the Grant Park restrooms out to Grant Street and identified this year that it really was gonna require investments to fix that. So we have a CIP project on the books for the upcoming year to install a grinder unit that will be able to top up any waste that's coming down from the toilets and make it easier to make it so that it's relatively down the line in order to keep us from having to unclog that line regularly as we've done in recent months and years. Great, so that's in the budget. That's gonna happen. That's one of the CIP projects included in the proposed budget. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Nice to meet you, Travis. Likewise. Well, thank you for the presentation. I know that pre-COVID, we anticipated actually a different budget scenario that was looking really positive. So I know it's definitely taken a toll on our city as well as these just across this nation. I guess I just have one, I have a couple of comments which I'll, I could save for later. But one question in terms of grants and allocating resources to supporting our various departments with grants. And I don't know if this is a question for the city manager or who would like to respond to that. But I think we heard from Claire today, knowing her time will be now stretched and thinner. How can we find capacity or support to help the city seek funding outside of what we already have? Or do we have that already as a priority for grant support, grant writing support? Maybe also generally in departments who want to chime in. It does vary somewhat by departments. I think certainly public parks in particular do quite a bit of grant applications and also driven by the opportunity that are out there. So we do try really hard to take advantage of opportunities that come up through state propositions or other resources. The other area that we're gonna have to really look towards and focus on is really to try to advocate for stimulus funding and how can we leverage trying to get through the impacts of the pandemic. And of course the enterprise do as well. Now they're not in a difficult situation as the general fund is. So water for example is in a position to want to take advantage of some major grant opportunities given the infrastructure program that they have in place. So I think we do make it a priority particularly when there are opportunities and we take out that capacity because it is important and we can leverage and take that opportunity. It will be harder but I think actually we will work to not lose any major opportunities if we can avoid that. And I'll defer to any other department and you might want to comment on that as well. I'm maybe just a follow up question. Does that mean that various folks who are involved in grant writing are able to get additional support in addition because often having kind of a position where you have your job and then you also do grant writing, how can that be reconciled or how does that work? It could be a combination of just their priorities and what they're working on shifting within the department. And in some cases it could be getting some assistance. Sometimes there are grant writers that have the appropriate background and skill set that they could quickly help an assistant in doing that. Although I think a lot of our grant writing is done in-house just because we do have that capacity. For example, in parks we have a planner in our various departments. Public works, I think a lot of the staff is very well attuned to what's going on and we tend to do a lot of it in-house. But I think historically we take advantage of our staff and then if we need to we can also obtain some temporary assistance that we need to. Okay, great. I think I guess I want to say what I'm getting at is if there's a way for us to have some capacity to track what potential funding could come through grants, we'd be able to do that given our circumstances. Tim, I know that there's some mention about not being able to come to an agreement with the People with the Police Officers Association. I was just, and I know maybe the public isn't aware that now positions were currently filled going into this but it's like on there may be layoffs. So I'm wondering if you can maybe just speak to where we were and now that there was an agreement of what that means in terms of the positions over at Public Safety and the Police Department in particular. Right, so yes, we do have some vacancies and however in terms of the way we structured the budget and the way we structure the reduction is that in the budget, for example, in the budget before you, we already allocate a certain number of vacancies in our projections. So our projected deficit already included a number of vacancies that we would have. And so when we look at what each of the bargaining units has to contribute in terms of what the reductions would be their share of it, we have to take into account vacant positions to do that. So we did account for some vacancies and provided credit for some vacancies but it's not nearly enough to not be able to have to provide a layoffs. You get to understand how that, you know, as we kind of continue to program what those impacts are for the Police Department and Public Safety and I think it's all departments that are gonna be impacted where we see employees essentially leaving and positions unbuilt. So yes, absolutely. There are no further questions or comments from the Council at this time. I'm gonna turn it over to the general public for public comment. So if you are a member of the public who would like to speak on your phone to raise your hand and we're gonna start with two minutes and then we'll see how far we get but we may need if this might have reduced the time. Yeah, hi, my name is Kaitlyn Hannah. I'm calling in mostly to support the national and local black leaders who are requesting that we start de-investing in the police force to reinvest in social services. I was surprised and actually quite happy to hear that there's a couple of positions that are going to be taken away from the police force. And I know that that's due to really unfortunate circumstances but I do think that this is in some ways a good first step for us to start seeing what it's like to defund our police force and I really encourage you to figure out what other social services we can fund. I think it's really important that we create crisis centers but we have mental health liaison officers that the homeless service center is actually really well funded instead of really underfunded because we know that underfunding them doesn't make homeless people go away. They're still here and these quality of life ordinances got put on the internet recently are just so transparent and so despicable and we can't keep criminalizing poor people and having the police enforce this economic disparity in our city so in general supporting sort of reallocating resources starting now I hope since everything's pretty much up in the air to really support citizens in this city who are not economically advantaged. So that's all thanks for taking my call. Yes, next week you're on the line, you're on the line. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. Hello, my name is Elena Raymer. I've lived in Santa Cruz my whole life. I am also calling on city council to divest from local police at times to move money away from this racist and classist institution as a step towards abolition. I call on you to stop making excuses about what's the county's role and what's your role and just take the steps that are needed now immediately and we can build something better in this place. Thank you. Hello, my name is Margaret O'Hara and I'm a lifelong resident of Santa Cruz. Like many of my fellow commentators, I have called in today to ask you all to alter the substantive city funding breakdown outlined in this budget in upcoming budget meetings such that you do fund the Santa Cruz police department. I ask that you reallocate the $31 million you originally allocated to the SEPD to the budget within the budget before the council to housing economic development and COVID-19 release. SEPD's recent policing tactics including the department's very high rate of misdemeanor arrests coupled with the allocation per this budget of $16.5 million for patrol costs indicate in the various brand of broken windows policing in our community that criminalizes poverty and disproportionately affects our agents of color. So rather than continuing this harmful pattern, I ask that you reallocate these resources to different city organizations to prioritize housing economic development and COVID-19 relief as you've mentioned throughout the meeting today. And further, I ask that you make these changes that you consider these changes and make beneficial changes in future council budget meetings. Thank you very much for taking my call. Thank you. Okay, this is Karen Phillip. Hey, defunding the police has been tried in Cleveland or Seattle's chop zone with disastrous results. That elected officials cower and fail to back the need for law and order for fear of being called racist or actively promote a Marxist mob hijacked and destabilizing movement like the BLM is a very dangerous state of affairs. The progressive left has been throwing a violent fit associated with Black Lives Matter that is destabilizing America and is a civil war where only one side is now fighting. The grievance of occasional and it is very rare shocking violations of civil rights by some police has been hijacked both from within and without the organization known as Black Lives Matter. The systemic Marxist BLM leadership's agenda goes astray and the leftist politics self admittedly mostly trying to defeat Trump and does not condemn the violence that's committed on its behalf. The agenda of defunding or abolishing the police amid false claims of systemic racism has been adopted by all those who wish to destroy America such as communists, anarchists, looters, arsonists and every other group wishing to further its own agenda by supporting what is now a mostly agenda hijacked con. Systemic racism was dismantled 50 years ago with the end of segregation and a dozen major legislations addressing those civil rights. The issue of the existence of the relatively shocking high percentage of Black violent criminals, almost entirely Black on Black violent criminals hardly gets a mention regarding Black lives. The only systemic racism I see is the progressive mob left. Media and educational institutions constantly condemning white men. The council's blatant racial discrimination against white men in recent cannabis license requirements is also that. New gun registrations are through the roof by people who say my life matters. They fear what will happen if the police don't exist to oppose criminal violence. I quote Martin Luther King. Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem. It merely creates new and more complicated ones. Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding. It seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in a monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers. All right, you're on one. Four digits of your number are the 7069, you're on one. Oh, hi, yeah. Can you hear me? My name is Faz. And I'm joining other folks as well. I'm just calling this call to defund the police. I'm looking at this budget and looking at the update and it doesn't sound like this budget is reflecting that the people in this community who have called for defunding the police. And I think that's kind of disappointing, right? We're seeing a national movement right now to defund the police. And I think it has to be understood that when we say that we're not asking, we're not asking to make this community more unsafe. We're asking that the city, instead of policing all its issues, is putting the money towards social programs, towards alternative forms of public safety that are restorative and are not restorative and are protecting the community and protecting the people and providing the services for the people in our most need as opposed to a punitive system that only serves to destroy people of color. And so again, we're calling on the city council to defund the police. I think there's alternative ways of public safety that the city council is really overlooking here. And I would really encourage the city council to look into that, especially when they're coming up and approving their budget. So we really would urge you again to defund the police, reinvest in community services, and really hope that you will consider those calls. Thank you. Thank you. All right, next caller. Hi, this is Scott Graham. I would like to see an across the board, 10% cut in all of the departments, not including what they're already cutting from the concession by their employees to take a 10% cut. I would also like to see the department heads take a 20% cut and pay because they get paid so much. As far as the police go, to quote the chief, he has said that at various occasions that 80% of their calls are about homeless people and homeless situations. And another time said, if there's somebody else out there willing to take this on, then come and take the funding. So that's what we should do. We should set up a different thing, a different agency, a different way of dealing with homelessness, whether it's social workers, whether it's part of public works, cleaning up areas and leaving trash containers so that areas don't get trashed out, whether it's mental health workers and a mental health team that can go for intervene in mental health crises. We gotta set this stuff up so that we can then take that money that the chief has offered through these other programs. We can't just take the money away from the police until we have something to replace it. And so that's what I'm asking you to do is to look forward and try to find a way to set up these alternatives to policing and let the police deal with real crime instead of going around harassing the poorest members of our society, which is what they're doing right now. Thank you. All right, next caller. Can you hear me? Okay. Hey, good evening. This is Reg E. Collin again. I just wanted to say when I think about the budget, what I usually ask myself is, what do people need from the city budget right now? What do maybe the most vulnerable people need, especially in a global pandemic and sort of an economic depression that's paired with it. And we certainly heard a lot about how this environment affects the profits of real estate, hotels, of sale value of single family homes. That was very front and center with graphs and everything. There was even a brief discussion of how to assist these particular problems and small business owners. But there wasn't a discussion of worker impact. There wasn't a graph of lost jobs despite us approaching 30% unemployment. We didn't see any graphs of eviction notices. We didn't see a graph discussing access to food, water, medicine, or shelter, or even healthcare given that we're in a pandemic. So I just, I know that these are things that maybe the county cares about, but you know, that's like the only department that's not on the city level. We have every other department of the county also reflected on the city except for health and human services. And I honestly, I wonder why that is. And I honestly wonder if it's healthy or sustainable to have the city talk about its budget, like it's some sort of investor board meeting and totally divorced from human value and human cost. So I just wanna end this by making a call to defund police and reinvest in communities like everyone else is saying. We have plenty of money in the police budget and we didn't need to cut all these other departments by 10%. That was a decision you made, not democratically. We could have just cut police as we all have said, police are wasteful. They are spent criminalizing poverty. We spend $30 million on police right now. And I think it's pretty clear that when we have like over 20 police officers just twiddling their thumbs outside during this city hall meeting to protect you all from a dangerous noise protest that maybe you don't need that many police, right? Maybe it's like this amount of money isn't necessary to protect people in this city. So I'll just leave it at that. Thank you. There, my name's Max. I was born and raised in Santa Cruz, but I'm not proud of my hometown. When people ask me why, I often say that we're a community suffering from deep delusion. We have an unearned reputation from my perspective as a progressive city, when in fact we're much more alike the rest of the country than we are unique when it comes to racist policing and an education system that disproportionately funnels black and brown students through special ed and scared straight programs that end them up in college or rather in prison instead of college. If you all commit to work with the community to negotiate defunding the expense of an ineffective police force and reinvest in institutions like every practically everybody before me has called for. Institutions that are cost effective, ways to keep our community safe instead of protecting the value of real estate. There are budget cutbacks that have been made across the board, but this is an opportunity to reprioritize our budget toward a community refund to bolster institutions such as affordable housing, services for houseless people and quality public education. Doing this will be a meaningful step toward making Santa Cruz worthy of that reputation that it has. I think we all want this town to be a model of progressive community of the rest of the state.  So, you know, actions to be louder than words and we've all seen today is the police defile when calls from the community to defund the police. So just know that you're sending a clear message and we hear you, but it's never too late to change course. My name is Adam Novak and this is the third time I've called in to a council meeting to ask you all to defund the police. This message has been echoed by many other callers. Some people have been in opposition, but it really does seem to be the top issue among the citizens of Santa Cruz at the moment is police funding. Can we cut it? Should we cut it? How much can we cut it? What should we do with it? Last time a bunch of people called in about this, all the acknowledgement we got as far as I could tell was when Mayor Cummings said that on Thursday there'd be a meeting to talk about the budget. Today's Thursday, this is the meeting. I haven't really heard any discussion about adjusting the police budget. In fact, I've looked at the budget. It appears to add a million dollars of police funding from the general fund. I'm beginning to think that you aren't actually paying attention. You really must reject or amend this budget. And in conclusion, I'd like to devote the remainder of my two minutes to the sound of banging on a pot, which seems to be the only thing that can get the city council the attention as demonstrated today when the sound of banging pots brought the police out to clear the city hall campus. So here is a pot. Hi, can you hear me? I'm gonna hope so, I can't hear you. Thank you so much for the opportunity to comment. My name is Hailey Brown. I'm joining other collars today in the call to defund the police and refund community services. As a lifelong resident of Santa Cruz, I'm calling in to express my concern about the proposed budget adoption for the fiscal year 2020 through 2021 and which 28% of the general funds are here to be going towards the Santa Cruz police department, seeing a significant increase from the previous fiscal year. From my understanding of manager, Martine Bernal's explanation of this increase during the UCSB NWHP panel on June 20th, this is to account for cost of living increases and not necessarily to account for new or expanded program and services from SCPP. I would nonetheless like to join with the UCSB NWHP in urging you to revise this budget and consider their thoughtful policy recommendations for a community refund. Now during the global pandemic and economic crisis and the civil rights revolution, this is the time to really be extremely discerning where we direct our limited resources. Cost of living increases are affecting everyone in this community and our community members most affected by that on most marginalized populations are the ones with the greatest need for support at this time, not our police force. We do not approve this proposed budget adoption and instead vote in favor of revision that redirects these funds to community programming that benefits members of our community most in need of support. Thank you so much for your consideration. If you know given the fact that the rest of your time is going to be used to bang on a pot, but thank you for calling in and thank you for your comments on this item. So we'll go to the next caller. Hi, my name is Cass Meaghan. I'm calling because I'm a community member who does not support this proposed budget specifically the amount of money being allocated to the police. A 2018 SCPD operations analysis shows that 80% of all calls to SCPD were quote unquote homeless related. Only 15% of calls were categorized as crime. The amount of money being allocated to police is entirely disproportionate to the community's needs because it's especially egregious during a time when we are in a budget crisis. Like many other community members have said before me, we need to restructure where we put our resources now. I urge you to reallocate these funds to education, healthcare and affordable housing, our city most desperately needs. We have the ability to treat the ailments of the people most in need and care for our community members who are most at risk. This must be done through a model of public health, not policing. These most of addressing public health must be adequately funded in order to work well. Council members, I hope you are truly listening to what Santa Cruz is advocating for right now. Please make the necessary changes to this budget to ensure our community is taken care of. Thank you. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, get in there. Hi, my name is Maria Solis Kennedy and I'm also calling to urge you to cut the police budget and to defund the Santa Cruz Police Department and instead to invest in programs that actually benefit our community like affordable housing and social services. Especially right now when so many of us are still suffering because of COVID-19, the city should prioritize our public health and safety and fundamentally the police do not keep us safe or make our community safer. A third of our general fund towards policing is the ridiculous public expenditure, especially when 80% of all calls homeless related and because as we've heard in this meeting of this strain already happening to the general fund right now. As someone I've already mentioned on social media and various other channels, the police department has been quoted as saying, if someone could take the homeless issues entirely from us and stop us from responding to mental health calls, please take the money. This is exactly what we need to do. The police department is unequipped to deal with issues that houses individuals faced and criminalizing this population who are disproportionately people of color is a racist and classist solution that any progressive city should reject. More training is not the answer and more diverse hiring practices are also not the answer. Frankly, Santa Cruz is behind other progressive cities and joining the conversation about defunding the police and reinvesting in communities of color. This is not impossible or pie in the sky but is in fact absolutely necessary. Thank you. Thank you. So can you hear me? Yes, good evening. Hello. Hey, my name is Rachel Chavez. I'm a registered nurse. I've grown up in Santa Cruz. I am also asking you today in the face of budget cuts to commit to defunding only the SCPD budget, leaving all other budgets intact. I'm asking you to further cut the police budget in order to reinvest that money into community services that actually improve the safety of our community like housing, hard reduction and COVID-19 relief. To be clear, I don't want police reform, not better policing, not community policing. I wanna see this city prioritize caring for its community instead of criminalizing it. Every police reform this country has tried has failed. Despite chokehold bans, implicit bias trainings and body cams, police have continued to murder black people with impunity. The San Jose police department shot their implicit bias trainer with rubber bullets. Policing is inseparable from white supremacy and thus beyond reform. Beyond that, reforms cost money and the police budget is already the majority of ours at 28%. While we as a city dump money into a system that is fundamentally racist and irreparably violent, I have patients who recover from chemotherapy in their cars. I have patients who have to decide between being short on rent or buying life saving medications. I have patients who have to decide whether to pay Uber surge pricing to get to an appointment on time or risk missing an appointment because our bus system is underfunded and has limited routes. Now's the time to imagine a new vision of what safety and community look like. Please defund SCPD and reinvest in our community. Thank you. My name is Sabina Holver. I'm our resident of Santa Cruz. I'm calling to ask that you use the budget shortfalls to defund the police. I agree with the many previous colors at the last city council meeting with the shameful library vote. I heard derision against those that were calling in that they allowed and well organized as if that was a bad thing. Your job is to actually listen to the people right now when they are overwhelmingly telling you that they do not feel safe with the police in the city. This is the first step to take this where there's considerable power over people of color and the homeless in the city. Please listen to your constituents. We are organized and almost calling because defunding the police is not important to us. If we're organized enough to call up a city council meeting at 6 PM on a Thursday, we're organized enough to vote. Thanks for your time. Hello, my name is David. I'm a member of the sunrise movement here in Santa Cruz if you haven't heard of us for a nationwide movement focused on climate change. But of course, as an environmental organization, we understand the interconnection between climate change and racial injustice in this country that so many are protesting right now. So we are joining for these calls to defund. And we actually put out an online forum that's gotten over 60 responses so far and just figuring out how we could use these funds better for our community and the overwhelming majority of people were talking about supporting the houseless. And so we were planning on just reading a quote here on that so many before me have read and that was about a chief mill called to say, we don't need this additional funding if someone else can take it. But another thing that was left out there was that he was saying the county actually has the resources to do this. He said the county has both the responsibility and state funding to provide the leadership. So the question we have is why haven't you moved forward with making another nonviolent branch of trained professionals that can actually better our community and help the house with human tier. And as an environmental organization, we also encourage you to look into regenerative programs that may serve a way to regenerate this house with community such as things like, for instance, the homeless garden project on the west side here and other ways we could just gain employment or give employment opportunity to the homeless population here. That time and time again, scientific studies have shown that things like gardening, land restoration and just working with the land has a lot of mental health benefits. So using that money to not only create a task force to, of course, instead of police being first responders, we have mental health experts being first responders, but also regenerate the land and our communities here. We could better use those funds with the police. So we will hope that you listen to all the voices on this call and reject the current proposal to increase the police budget and reallocate these funds to better serve the community. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, next caller, Yvonne. Bird of homeless United for trip and freedom. And to all those listening, the council isn't listening. They have no intention of decriminalizing basic homeless survival behavior or cutting the police budget. The $30 million budget, obviously ridiculous. And innumerable intelligent and reasonable arguments have been made today. Worker job loss, healthcare, renters, the fate of elders, council acting like a board of directors. I think the community needs to do is decide it's going to get together and take the direct July 4th. I'm not mistaken at the town clock. There's a protest at 1pm and our council members can attend this if they want to be more educated and then actually try to do something. But you see, I don't think it's reasonable for us to give these endlessly reasonable arguments again and again, it makes us look like idiots to do this without taking significant action. The city council meeting today was held without any kind of a good advanced notice. So people couldn't even look at it with any clarity in terms of the budget. It was a shielded from the community. He refused to put speakers outside so people could hear what was going on. And the civic auditorium was not used even though it's been repeatedly asked for. Could be used as a safer indoor venue with people safely distanced. All these things are been asked for for years. The council is interested, must be interested. The community has to take the action. I think the next speaker, 4931. Sorry, I'm trying to put my hand down. Alrighty, folks, thank you. Thank you. All right, next speaker, you're on the line. Hello, this is Carol Paul Hamas. Thank you for taking my call. I'm calling to ask you not to defund the police. I think anybody who's paid attention in the last several weeks with this woman with the shooter there and the carjacking that happened yesterday, among other things, realizes that we do need a police department and we appreciate the services of the Santa Cruz Police Department. The people who are calling to defund the Santa Cruz Police Department don't understand that these calls are misplaced. The services that they want, we used to have, I worked in the juvenile justice system for 35 years at a time when we had, in my opinion, a more functional system that cared better for people. But the state dismantled those programs. And those programs need to be reconfigured and brought back so that we do have what people are calling for, which is more mental health services, more drug and alcohol services, more homelessness services. But the funding for those services, all of you who want to defund Santa Cruz Police, the funding for those services comes from the county, not the city. So I hope that all of you who are so passionate about reconfiguring the system and moving the money will go to the Board of Supervisors needing to express this, where actually it would be probably more appropriate. I really support the police budget. I worry that we lose police officers now to other departments that pay better over the hill. I think we need to try and maintain as much of the budget as we can in this time. I know it's gonna be challenging, but please do not defund the police department. Thank you. Thank you very much. Last four digits of your phone number, zero, nine, five, four, you're online. Again, the last four digits of your number are zero, nine, five, four, you're online. So you know this box, I'm gonna keep moving down with the colors. Hi, my name is Andrew Carlson and I'm a longtime resident and business member. And I think there have been some really excellent points that have been made so far. And I'm not sure I could talk in terms of eloquent, so I'm gonna keep this really simple. I really don't know how to teach y'all to care about people, like it's really fundamental. There's a lot of really hurting people in this county. Like I used to do undergrad research in business school. I looked at social benefit programs. And fundamentally, like you have to fund this stuff. And I don't know where, like with the budget. Were y'all listening? I'm a little confused because like, I feel like we made it pretty clear how we wanted the budget to look and whatnot. And that hasn't been reflected. So I'm not really sure what else you'll respond to. So just remember that like we are paying attention. And if you're not going to enforce the will of people, we are gonna remember this come voting time. So like, even if you are limited in the way that you distribute resources and whatnot, like make a statement, say that you support abolishing qualified immunity and that you're not going to absorb the legal responsibilities of your officers and stuff. Like this is all like locating through. You're on the wrong side of history here. I don't know what to tell you. Like, but please, like just like take a stand even if you can't do it voluntarily, but please either redo the budget. Shane, I'm a local resident for a few years now. I'm calling to echo their calls to use the budget for short calls to defend the police. Let's look at the history of this model of policing in America. Prior to prohibition in the Civil War, the self had slave patrols, whereas the North had a policing system that enforced ethnic hierarchy. This continued after the end of the Civil War with the KKK and police down there continuing to enforce racism and ethnic hierarchies. And basically the police became close to a gang because of when prohibition was instated because of corruption. Prohibition ended, the police were professionalized. And what happened is that there was no focus on anti-racism in the police. So even though the enforcement of ethnic hierarchies among what are now called white people was ended, there was no reform to address racism. And the police are still used today. That model continues today, almost 100 years after the end of prohibition with the police still enforcing hierarchy of class and race. That's why a lot of us believe that it needs to be be funded. You cannot reform a system that's fundamentally broken from the bottom up. And so please listen to it.  This is the time to show some leadership. Thank you. People have pointed out earlier, but I will belabor the point, because that's what I do best. When people call the police in Santa Cruz, that's in Georgia to find it's because a homeless person is existing in a place that's deemed inconvenient. As we all know telling someone to move along just that. They move like what, a quarter mile, and now someone else is gonna complain about them. Real productive. At a previous city council meeting, our mayor said he did not want this conversation to conflate homelessness with the national conversation on policing. Justin, you and I are in complete agreement, which is why I homely suggest that we address the fact that about 80% of SCPD's time is spent responding to homelessness. I completely welcome the separation of policing from Santa Cruz housing policy with open arms. And mayor, I invite you to make good on your words by defunding SCPD. Throwing money at this police department to move the homeless from one place to the next is not only creating a continuous cost for the city that will never go away and is completely ineffective, but also acts as an opportunity cost. That money could be better spent invested in bold reimagining for the city's housing crisis, which would in turn remove much of the supposed need for policing. Medicine Hat, a city in Canada, has the same population as Santa Cruz. They actually ended homelessness entirely. You can go look it up and we can learn from them. Everything from more safe parking to eviction protection to true public housing instead of this BS affordable housing that just ends up being market rate, removing institutional barriers, stacks of concurrent services. I could go on and on, but none of that means anything if the city is not willing to be bold and to grow its spine facing.  And no, giving SCPD little go-pros or in our sensitivity training one time isn't bold. That's just polishing the same turds. So I would like to suggest let's stop turds polishing and try something very different. Thank you. Thank you. This is Gail McHelty and I'm calling. I live in Bonneville. I have two children who go to school in the city of Santa Cruz. My children do junior garden in the city of Santa Cruz. We spend a lot of money in the city of Santa Cruz. I would like to speak as a mother and I told her, your daughter and my daughter Evee play soccer together to point out the fact that we are in a moment right now, allowing us to stop each of us unfolding. And for my job, I'm a climate actor. Today that's not directly related to policing, but it is because racialized racism, white supremacy is at the core of all problems and they cannot be disentangled. And this moment in time, these decisions you are making are huge. And we as a world are in a moment of learning and rushing right now is not the right. And the decisions you are making may seem small and inconsequential, but they are not. And we need to really slow down the money that has been spent into life-giving solutions. And that really is the only way forward. It's our only hope as a human civilization. We are in a moment of evolution, nothing less. And these are not small choices. So please think carefully, realize that our kids' lives, all children's lives around the world are on the line. We need to recognize that. Thank you. I want a baby at the same time. I may not be able to speak right now. Thanks, though. I'm Elaine Edwards. I'm a resident of Santa Cruz. I've called in several times. I'm not going to belabor all my points over again, especially since they've been dismissed repeatedly in the calls with people's cheatsmails, the numbers that we're putting forward, were waived aside callously, I would say, ignoring that they are in fact from the Campaign Zero database, which is based on the FBI database, that's the Santa Cruz Police Department, perpetrates more than 98% of departments in the county. If he would like to refute that data, then he should make all the arrest data from the Santa Cruz Police Department transparently available to the people. And when off of that, I would just go on to say that a lot of things have been pushed aside, saying we should be speaking to the county, that we should be looking for grants, that we should be making these programs happen before we leave from the police. The police are an active agent of violence in this community. It would go a long way just to reduce the police presence in this community. If we did nothing else, that would improve the community. I'm calling on us to reduce the police budget by 50%. Thank you so much. I am an older female living in the county for Santa Cruz for over 20 years, and in the city for over eight years. I wanna tell you about a recent experience I had the beginning of April. I happened to come upon an unhoused young black man surrounded by nine police officers. The police were called because someone called 911, stating that he was going to jump off a bridge and was suicidal. This occurred in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday. There is not one mental health professional present. In most situations, I've watched five to 10 cops surrounding someone who was unarmed with absolutely no mental health professionals, crisis intervention, anything like that. And even with the one social worker who works with the police, who was not there on this occasion, but has been out with the police before, I witnessed her only giving out a piece of paper with phone numbers of places to call, most of which are not functional. We need social workers that don't work alongside the police that have no conflict of interest. Police officers are not social workers, nor should they be. No amount of training will make police equipped to handle the vast majority of calls they get because what is needed is a robust social safety net with an armed, not an armed response. We could afford to vastly expand these services if we stop spending a third of our general fund on an ineffective police response to social and economic problems. Even though the city of Santa Cruz only 2%, or 1.9% of the population is black, the unhoused population is a much higher percentage at 8%, so we should be looking at that. We should be helping them. During COVID-19, there have been more encampment suites and more RV towing than before COVID-19. This is, again, CDC's guidelines. On numerous occasions, city officials claim they would follow city guidelines, but obviously this is not what they are doing. Instead of policing homelessness and property crimes which have been proven not only to be ineffective, but very expensive to address this, we should be investing in services that help those in the greatest need such as affordable housing, mental health, and housing homeless. Our public safety approach needs to be compassionate and restorative, not punitive and destructive. Give that money to crisis counselors, community meditators, mediators, and other systems of care. Please check out Kahoot in Eugene, Oregon, the city where George Floyd was murdered. They've already tried police reforms like body cameras, sensitivity training, and they have proven ineffective. Now they're moving towards completely disbanding the police. We have an opportunity to follow suit and exemplify how progressive we say we are here in Santa Cruz. Thanks. Thank you. Next speaker. So I want to echo all of the calls to defund the police and just add one other thing in there which is that since the murder of George Floyd, the term structural racism has been all over the news. We've been talking about, people have been talking sort of waking up to the fact that racism is more than just ideas in the heads of individuals that exist sedimented in institutions. And so as you're thinking about what to do in this budget situation, I think that you would do well to reflect on what this term actually means.  And a budget in which the largest single expenditures on a militarized police force indicates to me that there's no real interest in Santa Cruz in addressing racism at a structural level. You don't get a claim that you're against something called structural racism if you're voting to continue funding that structure. Led by radical black activists around the country, other cities are taking these conversations much more seriously than we are here in Santa Cruz. Minneapolis is disbanding its police department. Los Angeles just voted to cut $150 million from theirs. When we say that we want to defund the police, we do mean that the money that is currently being used to patrol, criminalize and arrest disproportionately black and brown people should be reinvested elsewhere into more effective and less violent forms of public safety. The $30 million a year that we spend on policing, nearly a third of our general funds is being used overwhelmingly to address nonviolent property crimes. We're sending cops in to spend 80% of their time dealing with the household population, meaning that we're deliberately aiming them squarely at the most racially diverse segment of our city. We spend half of the police budget on solving crimes, not on solving crimes, but on patrols that disproportionately stop detain and arrest people of color and bring into every situation of threat of incarceration and for some deportation. Carol Pojimac just made a comment about that the money should be found elsewhere for these programs, but I think it really needs to be stressed that we're not just talking about like where are we gonna find the money to fund social programs. We actually do want less policing in this town. We want no policing in this town ultimately, but less would be a start because it's about the structure itself. Thank you. Can I follow? Donald Trump is the greatest leader America has ever known. His face should be the fifth face on Mount Rushmore. We doubt socialists make America great again. Long live big Donald. Good evening, Mayor, can you hear me? Yeah, good evening, Mayor. My name is Kevin Vogel. I'm a resident of the city of Santa Cruz and I am calling you this evening to urge you to fully fund the Santa Cruz Police Department's fiscal year 2021 proposed budget request in the amount of $31.2 million. The most important core function and the primary responsibility of our local government is to provide adequate public safety resources to keep our community safe. The only way to accomplish this is to fund the police department at the level that they have requested. Any reduction in the police department's operating budget will have disastrous results in a department that is already challenged by an extraordinarily high volume of calls for service while at the same time, they are struggling with recruiting and retaining the staff necessary to keep the city of Santa Cruz safe. Police do not be swayed by political pressure from anti-police armchair activists who have absolutely no idea how a police department needs to be funded to operate effectively. Instead, I urge you to listen to your staff or the experts and appropriate the $31.2 million funding that they have requested. Thank you for taking my call and have a good Fourth of July holiday. I'm just gonna get you on the line. I'm not sure that person was about thank you, unmuted your phone, we're gonna have to go to the next caller. I wanted to just say that I think it's absolutely disgraceful that in a time like that we're in, a time where racist institutions are at the forefront of the media, I think it's absolutely disgraceful that our city government is even considering increasing the police budget right now. Times when it's becoming clear as day that the police institutions, you wanna put it across the nation or defunding their police as a way to mitigate or as a way to try and dismantle some of these racist institutions, really considering giving it more funding will know how to make you care because the information is clear and it's abundant.  And then look at the numbers because they all add up. Thank you. I feel that I just wanna echo what I've heard a lot of people say. I really strongly support defunding the police. I think it's despicable, the idea of giving such an institution more money right now. And I think it's despicable that you sick them on the people trying to make a little noise outside those protesters. I think that was bad to do. So yeah, I would urge you to look inward. I would urge you to listen to some of the people on this call to whom I'm sure you're ideologically opposed. But if you could try to see yourself in a broader context, if you could try to see yourself as making the future, I don't think you wanna be on the side of something that is clearly going out. Thanks a lot. This is a final call. I'd like to comment on this item and have it commented on it already. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you for taking my call, mayor Cummings and all the council members. I'm also calling to ask why you haven't discussed defunding the police. Why you think that defunding the police at the same level you're defunding everything else in the city is equitable or fair or just right now. The police budget has increased 25% since 2016. And crime is going down, but our misdemeanor arrests are going up. You've heard from everyone that we aren't happy that the health lists are being harassed by the police. I watch this every day out my window at work as right now the police are going up and down the street, moving people along, asking people not to be there, but where are they supposed to go? And what is our city gonna do to make sure that they have a place to be in community with us and to be a community? I really just ask you to seriously consider that in your budgeting decision tonight. Thank you. Kate, you're on line. I'm the resident of this county and I want to echo the call to defund the police immediately. We've seen time and time again that the police are not the appropriate means to respond to mental health crisis, houselessness or poverty or other community needs, like health that require extremely qualified and equity and especially with mental health crises, they are not equipped to respond to these such calls. And this is a crisis that we're in. We need to respond accordingly. So I call to support measures that support our communities for health, mental health, housing and equity in our county and in our city. And I also call to defund the police and listen to all the callers that have and all the points that have been made in this manner and really call this into consideration. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, this is Brandon and I am calling because I would love it if you guys could defund the police. Just kind of want to join the chorus of voices trying to make the point that our police are not keeping us safe. They're oftentimes doing real damage to citizens of this city and county. And I would also just like to encourage Mayor Cummings and city council in general to maybe participate and listen a little bit more with the protests that have been continuing, especially before you started calling the cops. Anyway, thanks. Yeah, okay, next caller, you could please unmute your phone. Hi there. Thank you Mayor Cummings and council members today for having this forum and listening to our community. I am a longtime resident of Santa Cruz County. I am black and I've lived in Santa Cruz all of my life. I'm echoing all of the calls that have been received tonight in terms of defunding the police. I really hope and really want for Santa Cruz to be an example within the state and across the country in terms of listening to the needs and asks of our community and that our desire for the police to be defunded will be put into consideration while you make your budgeting decisions. Thank you. Thank you, your honor. My name is Neil Mick. I've been a resident of Santa Cruz for about 20 years now. And I'm also calling to ask you to defund the police. But I'd like to, and I agree with everybody that has spoken earlier, but I would also like to just drill down on another angle. We're in a pandemic and the police, it's clearly obvious, are not enforcing the health codes. It's obviously outside their purview and probably just too much for their manpower. I look on the webcams down by the beaches. No one is wearing masks. No one is social distancing. I look outside my street. No one is wearing masks or social distancing. Causing me personally to lose faith in your ability to enforce the health codes. We're starting to see a rise in the infection rate of COVID-19. And I urge you to divert that money to something a little more effective, like maybe a community patrol that could go out to the beaches and issue citations because the police right now, well, they seem to do the high profile busts of this or that motorcycle group that rolls into town. But aside from that, and aside from penalizing food not bombs, which is trying to actually do something right for more, you know, in this community for the unhoused, it doesn't seem to be working. So once again, I ask you, deep on the police, thank you very much. Seeing no other callers, I'm gonna bring it back to council for action and deliberation and just kind of based on some of the comments that were that were expressed on the line. I will also add that I've been meeting the members of the Black Media and Santa Cruz and other community members in the city. And I just want to respect it.  I've been hearing even from members of our Black media that they don't necessarily want to see us deep fun. And I've been hearing also about this, you know, community refund campaign, which really focuses on reinvesting in community programs. And you know, last week, we voted to set up a mayor's working group that's really gonna try to work with the community to understand their needs, especially working with the Black community because although I've heard a lot about deep funding to put money towards homelessness and affordable housing, the whole reason why this whole movement has come about is because of systemic racism. And what I really want to focus on as we're continuing these conversations is how we can end systemic racism because even if we take money away from police and give it to other programs, what does that do to change the lives of the experience of Black people and Brown people and people of color in our community? And what does that do to help end systemic racism? So I will say that I'm listening to the folks out here who are saying be fun, but they'll be spending a lot of time with council members and members of the community to really understand what is the holistic need of everyone in our community because we do have a lot of opinions and I think we do have an opportunity for change. And if we want to do it, we're gonna have to work together. And so as one of the callers said, we can't take funding away from the police until something else is in place and I'm very much encouraged and eager to work with partners in our community with our other state and elected officials to understand what we might be able to do moving forward. But this time I also want to point out to the community that the status quo budget is to kind of meet a mandate that we have to have a budget passed by the first regular current meeting in July, which given that the city council doesn't meet in July, we need to have something passed tonight, but we're gonna be going back because as we continue to see the impact of COVID-19, we're gonna continue to adjust our budget and see what cuts will be made so we can maintain our essential services. So I just wanted to be clear that this is the last conversation we're having about this. It's in order for us to move forward and to start digging into what kind of cuts we're gonna need to make in order to have a budget that's gonna allow us to afford our essential services here in the city of San Francisco. So with that, I'll move, I'll open up to the council for action and deliberation and I see the council member Brown has her hand raised. Thank you. I have a couple of comments and a question and I am prepared to make a motion when the time comes for that, when the time is right. So just a couple of comments I wanna make based on what I'm hearing, what we've heard in the staff report, what we've discussed in our budget committee and what we are hearing from members of the public. So I wanna start with the kind of concern that I heard about our move along approach to how we deal with our unhoused community members. I've pretty consistently said that I think that they're, it's costly, not just financially, but in so many ways encounter productive to continue to use a move along only approach. And so I really, really hear what people are saying about the kind of sense in the community that that's what's going on. And so I just think that that's something that we absolutely need to be acknowledging and attempting to do something about, we are leaders here, we are representatives of the city, a city residents of our community. And I do think that it's really important that we kind of acknowledge it and own it and deal with it. So I also wanna say that I've been concerned for a while now and I continue to be concerned about public access to our meetings. So I'm just gonna say it here because it came up multiple times today. And I do think when we're making decisions of like huge import that's gonna, that will affect our community in the ongoing way that we need to find a better way to allow for public input if we will continue to have virtual meetings. I just think, you know, other communities are looking at other ways to do it, the county does it differently. And so I'm just gonna say it here because I've been saying it and so I'd like to publicly express that this is a concern of mine. And I think we're gonna have a sustained call for reevaluating how we approach funding and programming for law enforcement. And so I think it would really behoove us to take that seriously and, you know, and consider that these are genuine, people who are genuinely concerned about these issues, they are authentic voices, they need to be heard, they need to be considered. And, you know, I feel some concern that those, the concerns expressed may be dismissed. So I'd really like to just say, I just want to say those things up front. And then I also want to echo the mayor's comments about what we're doing here today, being, you know, and staff, you know, explain that as well. But just to really make it clear that we are not adopting a budget that we, that will actually be the final budget numbers and line items for the various departments and, you know, programs, we have a tremendous amount of work and challenge before us to try to figure out how we are gonna make it through this crisis and, you know, how the budget is, you know, how we were, that's reflected in our budget. It is a statement of our values, our budget. And I think that we, you know, we certainly want, or I certainly want to be very serious about that and deliberate about that as we move through these conversations, they will be very difficult. It's just not gonna get any easier for a while. So I just wanted to say those things and ask again, if maybe if staff could just clarify, so people really hear what the next steps are for the council in making decisions about the budget. I know we've said we're coming back in, you know, in September, we have a kind of a modeling tool that we're gonna be using to try to help us understand what's to come. But if it just could say a little bit more about how that's gonna go, because I don't want people to think that by adopting a budget here tonight that we are closing the conversation about, what we spend our money on and what we spend the taxpayers' money on. So it just, if we could kind of maybe, Martín, if you could just kind of walk us through that. So it's really clear because I just don't want people to think that we're like not listening and walking away from the conversation and not gonna have a space for that to happen. And I think what they can also add if I miss something or to clarify. So as you pointed out, what is before you is really a temporary or working budget. And that is the case simply because a couple of things, one, is that there was a lot of uncertainty then known to really create a realistic proposed budget. And then two, the price has diverted our attention to other things. And so we weren't actually able to even prepare a budget process, an internal review budget process that we would normally do. So normally you'd get a budget that was much more vetted and reviewed and better structured. So those are the primary reasons. And now that we know that a little bit more about what might be happening and that we recognize that we need to really essentially be budgeting on an ongoing basis. The council approved a budget subcommittee, council members that have already met several times to look at developing, well, look at the budget picture and get a good sense of that. And we've hired a consultant to develop this COVID specific budget forecast. And that will be a tool that we'll use to develop a variety of budget scenarios. And then based on that develop various alternatives to be able to come back with proposals to council that will amend the budget in such a way to balance the budget, because we have to balance the budget. The outlook is pretty dire in that if we don't make a significant reductions over the next several years, we will complete completely our resources and we'll have to be in position to declare bankruptcy and that sort of thing, which we don't absolutely want to do. The budget committee will, in terms of timing, will be working with staff over the next month to put the model together. And also really to look at what are the strategic items that we need to look at with respect to the budget? Do we want to ensure that we put together a budget, for example, that avoid playoffs? What are the priority items that we want to make sure that we include and that are maintained, that sort of thing? The budget committee will then be able to bring forward, in August, what we hope to do is bring a study session to council, where we present the discussions, the model, and some of those strategic policy questions and issues that the council can consider. And then after that, we'll be in a better position to, in September, to make, to take action, because we can't wait too long, otherwise the deficit will grow, grows by the day in the month. So September is what we think is the time, time enough to be able to make, have time to put forward some recommendations and adjustments and then we'll continue to track how we're doing and if things get worse or better, we will come back in December and make further adjustments and then again continue to track and then it may be making further adjustments in February. Now, with respect to, so that's the budget process and that's one element. With respect to the question of policing policies and recommendations around that, the council did also approve a, another council committee that will be working with the police department to look at policing policies and practices and they'll be making recommendations and if there's any of those that impact the budget, they'll have to correlate those and connect those to the budget process as well. As there are other council initiatives and discussions of policy questions that will come forward that will impact the budget as well. So there's some overlap in the interrelation between the various committees in terms of the work that they're doing. So Lupita, I don't know if you wanna add anything to that. No, I think that summarized it pretty well. Yeah, we'll do several check-in points because as I discussed earlier, depending on what the virus is doing, it might really shift the initial assumptions that we make and I think that the modeling tool is very complex and comprehensive where we have the ability to make adjustments to various impacts that would translate into possible. I would just add actually, also we're also hopeful that maybe there'll be some positive news. We hope that the feds in the state will provide some stimulus assistance. I know we've been working in lobbying the state legislature and federal legislators as well to do that and I think it's gonna become a bigger and bigger issue with municipalities and states across the country. So again, that's one item, for example, that we might have to come back and amend and hopefully that'll happen and it'll be a positive development. But thus far, it's all been at news, unfortunately. I'll go around with it. I guess I'll move on to other council members who wanna make comments. Yeah, I was just gonna say, thank you. That was helpful to kind of just lay it out that way. Thank you. Vice Mayor Myers. Martin, could you answer to how we're looking at forecasting, managing the budget, going through at least the initial for six months? I think it's important for the community to understand a little bit about what our reserve policies are and how our reserves come into play at this point in time. Thank you. Sure, absolutely. The, what we're seeing is really unprecedented in terms of how quickly we have lost revenues and how quickly we've had to adapt. So we do have a reserve policy where we maintain reserves. We have a stabilization reserve and we have some other reserves around personal liability. We carry health liability. And we also have some other discretionary funds that and reserves. Well, they really, we don't really call them reserves. They're really trust funds, funds that the council has decided that they need to be reserved instead of site for particular purposes, like the public trust fund, for example, and economic development trust fund. So we do have, but those are, you know, ultimately discretionary in the part of the council. So we have cash on hand to be able to get through difficult times or to address issues or to meet certain goals of the city council. And in particular case the situation is so bad and so quickly that we already with respect to the even the fiscal year that we're ending now, we're gonna have to draw down those fund balances because we lost so much revenue in just a few months at the end of the fiscal year essentially. So we're gonna be drawing those down. $10 million is the estimate. It could be a little higher, a little bit lower than that, but that's what we're anticipating at this point, which is pretty significant. And then with respect to then looking ahead, the actual deficits are actually, like I said, it's hard to predict exact numbers, but they're so large that there's no way we can make those big of cuts without again continuing to use the reserves to cushion the impact. So what we would recommend is that we look at the next, because the deficits are gonna be ongoing over multiple years, we'll have to look at how we use those reserves so that we can spread the cuts and use a combination of reduction and reserves to cushion the blow because over multiple years we'll be able to recover. The other thing there'll be a challenge moving forward too is that those reserves are there for a purpose and we'll have to try to replenish those. And so if we move forward, we'll have to account in the budget a way to do that. So that makes it that's another sort of challenge in the budgeting process moving forward on top of just trying to get through these difficult times. But the first priority will be to again use those reserves to provide a way to get through these next several years in a way to preserve essential services and that meets the goals of the city council to the extent possible. And so that's the potentially approach. And we'll, when we come back to you, you'll see the reserves, their levels and how they can be used and there is some flexibility in how they're used obviously the longer you retain them the more flexibility you have. And also if we're able to finish the year better, for example, that gives us more flexibility. Also if we get some, even if we get one time cash assistance that will help. We did get a little bit from the feds cares act. We have to submit getting about $800,000. So that's the cost. It's one time in each year. We have to spend the end of the year, but that'll help. So those are the factors that we'll use and how the reserves work to try to get us through this difficult period. Thank you, Markine. Yeah, I mean, I think as a member of the budget committee and council member Brown it's extraordinary situation we're in. And for many of the people who are listening tonight in the community, because of this situation, it's not a natural disaster. It's not some of the things that we've seen ever happened before, frankly. The role of our federal government is crucial right now. And frankly, they're failing our communities. It's important for people who really want to help those folks who are left fortunate in our community to really understand that this is a completely unprecedented situation for a local government to try to make its way through. We certainly will put in the time and the effort and really try to think through the budget and look at some of these issues that our community members have brought to us tonight. But ultimately, please focus your attention on advocating for these, advocating for support for local governments from our federal government. If we don't get relief packages directly pointed towards local cities, local government, things will get a lot worse. So I really appreciate all the comments we received tonight. And as much as I appreciate the focus on our local budget, we're in unprecedented times, and we need your support in lobbying our federal government to really step up and help local government throughout the United States right now. So, Martin, thank you for that clarification on reserves. I think it is important for our community to understand that we have had very good fiscal management up until this point in time. And reserves become part of that calculus as well. So thank you, thank you, Mayor. Council Member Watkins and then Council Member Mathews. Thank you, Mayor. I think, I guess I'll start with building my comments off what Vice Mayor Myers was saying in terms of advocacy at the federal level. And when I remember learning about our priorities as a nation and how much we spend nationally on our discretionary dollars on our military budget, I was shocked. And so I just want to make that correlation because I think as a nation we've had our priorities aligned in different ways that don't necessarily go to supporting or making the investments in the ways that we want to see support the good development of people. And I also recognize this movement and what's happening in terms of really questioning our investment and recognizing the complexity of that. And I say that because I was just talking to my family members up in Oakland and my brother lives up there with, he's raising three young African-Americans boys and hearing how the Oakland Unified School District had their own police department and they voted recently as a school board to defund that and eliminating that school to prison pipeline. And that makes sense. And so I think in terms of where I want to sort of weigh in briefly on the content that we've heard from our callers and just in general of this movement, that absolutely we need to look at some of these funding streams and how we're making investments. And we need to figure out what that looks like here for Santa Cruz. And I appreciate the direction we're moving in in terms of hearing from the community and establishing what that could be for us. I also just want to say an acknowledgement of what I think Vice Mayor Meyers points really highlighted which were an unprecedented fiscal challenging times right now. And so we as a local municipality had a lot of work to do and of course this will be coming and we'll have to remain adaptive and look at how we're engaging the community and also doing the best we can with depleting resources. So I guess those are just sort of my brief comments on that. And then in general, we received some information about just in terms of our overall budget and how we compare especially around our spending in terms of our general funds to others in our region. And I found it interesting that, in terms of how Santa Cruz PD's budget, which is 20, and Martin, I invite you to clarify if I'm mischaracterizing this, but we spend 28% of our general fund on our police. And then regionally in terms of how we compare, my understanding from some of the data we received was that between a capital of Scott Valley in Watsonville, a significant amount of those jurisdictions were more towards the sort of 45, 50% of their general fund. So I thought that was an interesting point to understand where we reside as a city. So I know those complex conversations are underway. And then my last, I guess, point would be or sort of hope would be as we as a budget committee moves forward and as we work with our community on sort of different solutions here, that we be creative and think about how to be innovative. And I hope that we as an organization recognize that with schools likely to have really challenging times ahead in terms of reopening that that then weighs on our workforce and how we can be supportive of parents who are working from home, our city workers who have parents who are working from home and having adaptable schedules for them and supporting them. I know the city was first to create a pop-up childcare and I just want to kind of acknowledge that that's going to be an ongoing challenge because schools will not open the way that they have in providing the childcare that parents and workers need. And I just know this conversation is going to be continuing. So I appreciate the overview, I appreciate the work and I'm also ready to get to work to see how we can continue to be adaptable and do our best to serve our residents. Thank you, Council Member Matthews. Thank you. Do I understand the Budget Committee has met a couple of times already, working with the model, is that correct? And I'm not on the Budget Committee and obviously there's some seriously tough work ahead in the month, the next six weeks. And we know we can discuss this offline but I would really appreciate, I think probably other members who aren't on the Budget Committee would appreciate having good communication probably with the consultant just to avoid brown-acting. But they kept well in the loop going forward. The model, I know nothing about the model. Know what the key takeaway points are. We are going to be facing between using but protecting our reserves and whatever rate reality faces. Some seriously unattractive choices, let's face it. And we can be creative and innovative but as everyone has said, this is a crisis unlike anything we've seen before. So, and the other thing that occurs, whether it's a webinar or some smaller meetings, whatever, the community also, I think, benefits, there's so much need for information and everyone's so overloaded but giving the community access to the information as we move through the budget process rather than just the meeting that the budget is presented to them. I think there has to be a little bit more access to information along the way and also to our commissions. We just turned from public works commission, our previous item. Our commissions have their own priorities, their own lenses, their own wants, needs. And I think it could be helpful for them to understand the city's broad picture as well. So I'm just throwing those out as thoughts. And I personally would like to have a better sense of the model and the process going forward. So when we do come to those recommendations, we have a good grounding for asking. Sure, having to do that, we just got the first draft yesterday morning for the first time I thought. Yeah, but just an introduction to the model, that's it. Yeah. So looks like the comments from council members is dying down. I don't see hands raised. So I'm going to go ahead and try to make a motion here. I did send the text of it to the city clerk. I don't know, Bonnie, if you had, great. Thank you. So this is pretty much intended to move in the direction that the staff has recommended kind of in this interim period while we're working with, and it's going to be an iterative process, I think ongoing for a long time now. That recommendation along with a couple of additions and I'll just kind of go through them here. So the first part is unchange the language is the recommendation that was in our agenda report. And then I've highlighted one addition in our budget committee meeting. I will, with a caveat that Vice Mayor Myers was not present. We discussed including $30,000 allocation for tenant sanctuary. And this was based on request from them to provide continuing services to renters for consideration during future budget discussion. So I will highlight again here that this is just asking that it be put into the mix of the bigger budget picture for consideration. And we know that we are going to be making additional cuts. And so it's hard to know what in the priority is where this will come out, but I just wanted it to be included. And the mayor agreed in our committee meeting yesterday. So I'm just adding that. And then number two is the, from the agenda report on the water commission's recommendations regarding the water department's operating and CIP, pro, the community, sorry, the capital investment program CIP. And I appreciate all the work that the water commission did to review all of this and make those comments for us, give those comments to us in anticipation of this budget adoption. And then the last few are, this is to kind of try to begin to open up the space to have a conversation in response to what we are hearing from the community. I think it's great that the mayor's working group on policing has been established. And so in that spirit of moving ahead with the conversation, I would like to add to the initial recommendation of this number three, four, and five, that's to direct the mayor's working group on policing to consider an evaluation of SCPD programs and budget to determine possible opportunities for reallocating funds to support programs that help end systemic racism in policing for direct, because this is not, so that's a great, that's a location, a site for community engagement and conversation and kind of brainstorming and working through this issue. Another space that I think is important to kind of have this conversation is the homeless two by two committee. And so I've just included here, direct the city representatives to the homeless two by two committee to discuss with the county possible opportunities for non-police responses to 911 calls for service, avenues for expanding, mobile crisis intervention alternatives, which we hear constantly are very critical and we're hearing that kind of in spades right now and then related funding opportunities. I have included number five, I wasn't quite sure how to characterize this, but I think it's important to have some kind of report back timeline, because we often provide directions and then we don't necessarily track them. And so I think it would be nice to just hear a report back. And I've included the mayor and city staff here, given that the mayor's on both of those committees plays a central critical role here in that conversation. And to return to council with a progress report and recommendations, I guess to the extent that's feasible in September of 2020, with respect to efforts described in parts three and four. So there it is, I hope that we can move forward and I'd like to hear what others think. If we, I get a second. So motion by council member Brown, looks like I muted it. Sorry, I was trying to second. Okay, so the motion made by council member Brown, seconded by council member Golder. I saw the city manager had his hand raised and so I'll just see what he may want to comment on. Yes, just a couple of clarifications. One of them was the fact is also recommending adding in your final motion, the June 23rd changes. So those are the ones that Lupita added in the presentation. And then also I thought I'd just give a quick overview of the budget committee meeting that was held more recently, just a little more clarification on that. And that was, there were a couple of items that were discussed there. Council member Myers was not able to make the meeting. So it was council members Brown and Mayor Cummings who were at that meeting. So the committee discussed a couple of items. One was the Senate. Thank you very much. That was Jim. He'd be on. Senate, Senate sanctuary item that the council member Brown noted. And the other that it was they, the council considered whether to make an adjustment in the council budget to reflect also a reduction as similar to the employees. And so what the council, the committee recommended was to cut an amount that was equivalent to similar to what employees did with respect to the temperature furlough, which would be to cut the travel budget of the city council. So I believe that was in the $8,000 range, as I recall. So that was the other recommendation that came out of the budget committee. So it's wanted to clarify those two items. Yeah, just a couple of comments. On number one, the addition support the budget committee's recommendation to include a 30,000 allocation for tenant sanctuary. That sounds like they mean for that to be included no matter what. I think it would be better to say support budget committee's inclusion of 30,000 allocated consideration of 30,000 for tenant sanctuary. I think there's gonna be nothing sacred in our budget going forward. So I think if the language was just to say support budget committee's recommendation to consider 30,000 allocation for tenant sanctuary. I just to be really clear. Then on number three, the working group. Many people in the community are saying defund the police and take that money and do something else with it. I don't think that's what's intended here, but it's the direction for the mayor's working group to consider evaluation PD programs and budgets determine possible opportunities for reallocating funds to support programs. I think if that intended to be internal, I don't know why it says to say reallocating. It just be possible opportunities for allocating funds. It's not like you're kicking in from PD and putting them somewhere else. So they're minor, but I think it's a clarification. Yeah. And I made my comments about kind of keeping council members and community and commissions in the loop that's kind of covered by number five. I would say that that sounds, I mean, to me, that sounds to be fine. Yeah, clear. I don't know if the second item to make up the motion helps on the ground. Yeah. Thank you. I have my hand up. So yeah, I'm, and I don't know Bonnie if it would be possible to put those wording changes into the document that you have. So that would include, so for opportunities for allocating funds rather than reallocating in number, in the following addition under number one consideration of an allocation. And then in the first, the first item to add, including the revisions approved on June 23rd, 2020. What number is that for? The, for June 23rd, adding June 23rd. Under one. That's in number one. Yeah. Yeah. I guess I do have one more question as well. I could ask it now. I did mention in the very beginning of this discussion if there are positions that are considered urgent in whatever department that that's a judgment call. And in some cases, there may be action to fill those without waiting until September, whenever. So that's just a question for city manager, yeah. Yes. So what you approved today is the budget with everything in it. And of course, there is discretion to like, just like we have with respect to the hiring previous fiscal year budget to the other process of reviewing every single position and then making a decision whether to move forward with it or not as well. Yeah. But yes. And I have a question too. We need to include in this motion, the reallocation of council member funds. So it would be to reduce the council budget by eliminating the travel budget. I think it would suffice. So that could be a number six. Yeah. Can you restate that? It would be to reduce the city council budget by eliminating the travel budget. And I just don't have the number off the top of my head the exact number, but I believe it was the entire amount reflected that 10%. Also recognizing that the- Martin. Oh, here's Laura. This is Laura. It should be reducing the travel and meetings budget. They don't need to eliminate the entire dollar amount that's in there. Reduce the city council budget by eliminating- Reduce the- Laura, can you read that again? By reducing the travel and meetings budget. Do you recall what that amount was, Laura? I think that's the main thing. It's around 9,000 and change. We can put probably 9,500 dollars. So reduce the city council budget by reducing the travel and meeting budget to meet the 10%. Yeah. Yeah. That would be a good qualifier. It would be to meet the 10%. Is there anything else that's missing, Martin, from that meeting? No, I think those are the main items. And I think you've included the June 23rd actions. I think you can scroll up. I don't think we can see number one very well. And I think, Lupita, I think you had recommended including it as part of number, or you did, it's up here, it's part of number one. Mayor, it's up there. If I could, I think that what shows up as number six is actually one of those recommendations from that first budget committee. With the following addition, did I understand, it's a technicality. Reducing the city council travel and meeting budget by 10%, didn't that come out as a recommendation from that first budget committee meeting? That is out of one we just had the other day, but I was just wanting to make sure. Yeah. Yeah. That just defines this works. Just talking about. Yeah, I did want to thank you for working through those additions and changes. I did want to revisit the question regarding, or the wording regarding allocating versus reallocating, because I do feel like it's important to kind of acknowledge that we are not going to be looking at any new funding anytime soon. We're not going to be looking at expanded funding. So it would potentially require a reallocation of resources within our budget if we decide that we're going to fund something. So I feel like it would be clearer and not controlling in any way to say reallocating funds. So that would be my preference to leave that alone. You know, it's probably moved in the reality that we're in because departments are pretty much operating with a zero sum, and if they're going to add some programs, they're going to come out of somewhere. So it's explicit really. I'm not going to fall in my sword about that. It's assumed that this is internal. You know, the one thing I would add after funds is and explore other funding opportunities because I don't know if there was any that exists, but if there are. Yeah. So if I could then maybe just put and or explore other. Council member Wattens. I was just going to say, I think my understanding is that this is exactly what this group is working on. And my understanding is that these were the kind of considerations they were exploring already. Is that feel accurate to you there? Okay. I think it's just a formal direct action that that be a part of this process. So then just so folks know, I mean, we basically we formed the group last Tuesday and then now we're back in the council meeting this Thursday and we're going to be, you know, moving forward with trying to formalize this and pre-instruct so that we can bring back and feedback that we can bring back from council and community. Yeah. If I may just to clarify with respect to the first item regarding the tenant century. So as I read that, that would that consideration would happen to the budget committee. Is that correct? I'll come around once again. I would imagine so or that yeah, come around. Yeah. The idea was just to include that so that it's part of the broader budget deliberation. So those will go through the budget committee. Yeah. Before they come to council. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Vice Mayor Myers. Once as well. The committee would be looking at both things. Thank you. Any further questions from council hearing none. I think we're going to be in a very different world moving forward with this budget and just given all the conversations we've had and the public and so I was hoping as we move forward we can keep an open mind to how we're going to be dealing with everything moving forward and it's going to be a very stressful and difficult process. And I think as my colleagues said earlier, I just encourage the public to please continue pressuring at the federal level because without resources here in the city it really makes a challenging for us to make all these wonderful programs you want to see reality it makes it really difficult for us to run a city and meet the needs of our community. So there's no further comments. I'd like to ask the clerk to please call the roll call. Thank you Mayor, Council Member Byers. Oh, you're muted. Matthews? Hi. Brown? Hi. Boulder? Vice Mayor Meyers? Hi. Mayor coming. Call for a final meeting. The council will be resettling until the second Tuesday in August and so we look forward to your meeting with you all at that time. To be working. Goodbye.