Right. Welcome everyone to the Capitol City Council meeting. Um, we are back to our regular meeting here at 7 0 6 p.m. Let's go ahead and begin with Chloe before we jump into the agenda. Chloe, did you have a few remarks? Thank you, Mayor Brooks. Yes. Thank you. Welcome to the Capitol City Council meeting in accordance with California governor's executive order and 29 20. The meeting is not physically open to the public. Council and staff are meeting via zoom and there are several ways for the public to watch and participate information on how to join the meeting using zoom or a landline or mobile phone along with how to submit public comment during the meeting tonight is available on our website city of capitol.org and on the published meeting agenda. The public can also live stream the meeting from our website. As always, the meeting is also cable cast live on charter communications cable TV channel eight and is being recorded to be rebroadcast on the following Wednesday at 8 a.m. and on Saturday following the first rebroadcast at 1 p.m. on charter Channel 71 and Comcast Channel 25. Our technician tonight is Noel and he's already saved us once this evening. So thank you, Noel. Thank you, Chloe. Thank you, Noel for saving the night. We are live and thank you everyone for being here this evening. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you so much. We're now going to move on to item two. This is our presentation and we're going to move on to item eight introduction of our new Museum Curator Deborah Osterberg. Welcome, Deborah. And who am I going to turn this over to Larry. Thank you, Mayor Brooks. Well, I'm very, very happy to introduce to Mayor Brooks and the council members our new Historical Museum Curator Deborah Osterberg. Deborah grew up in Capitola, which is awesome. She comes from a background Museum work with the National Park Service and the National Archives. Deborah attended California State at Chico where she studied history and geography and went on to the University of California Santa Barbara to study cultural resource management. In addition, she has recently become the author of a book called Historic Tales of Henry Cal Redwood State Park, The Big Tree Grows, which came from her work as a volunteer docent at the park. I know through the last few weeks, a month, Deborah is very excited about kind of creating new exhibits at the museum and getting involved in the new exhibit at the Capitola library. So I really would like to introduce everybody and thank Deborah for starting with her feet running on this. So, thank you. Thank you. Deborah, would you like to say a few words? Oh, gosh. Well, I'm really excited about having the exhibition, especially in my hometown. That's really special. A couple of things I hope to concentrate on are kind of working on the backlog of cataloging, which we have some of. Also for doing, once we get past the COVID, some walking tours in costume, because that's what I do. And I'd love to do that. I'm excited about that part to develop. Excited about the exhibits at the Capitola library because they'll be rotating probably about every month and a half or so. And about the, you know, the annual big exhibit. Excited about that. I also hope to kind of formalize a lot of the policies with the museum and creating a collections management report that will have everything really documented about the procedures and policies of the museum. Oh, you are very busy already. Fantastic. Deborah, can you tell me if there's any vacancies on the commission or the board for the museum at this time? No, they were just on reappointments on May. Okay. I think everyone's good for the next few years. Okay. Well, too bad. I had people lined up. All right, but I believe there's an opportunity. I see our city manager saying, but. I wouldn't know that we are always looking for more help at the museum. So anyone who is interested in being a museum volunteer, it's great entry into supporting the city and supporting the museum. So if you have folks, please send them our way. Wonderful. Deborah, and we do have a little bit of a shortage right now in volunteers. So some of our longtime volunteers haven't returned yet. And we do have some new people being trained, but we're a little bit on the, on the shortage right now. Wonderful. I see a hand up from Council Member Bertrand. Council Member, you are muted. Larry keeps muting me. So anyway, so I'm very happier here, especially since it's your hometown. And you mentioned you give walking tours. So I just want to relate a little bit. My daughter was a capital elementary, which is no longer here. She remembered the walking tour. And it was in a different version. I am sure I assume, but it gave her and probably all her classmates a really good sense of the history. It started them thinking about this town in terms of what is around here, what the buildings mean. You know, what's that wall behind the parking lot where the old theater was, you know, you probably will find that out if you don't know. Since you grow up here, you probably do know all these old things, which made her very excited about living here. Thank you, Council Member. Well, Deborah, welcome to the museum and we are so happy to have you. Well, thank you very much. I'm looking forward to it. Everyone's been really great, really nice so far and very helpful. The board has been wonderful and I'm looking forward to it. Thanks again. Okay, so we're now going to move on to item to be this is a presentation of certificates. I wish we were in person so I could be having the honor of doing this for our. Two amazing, amazing folks who you, who were on the architectural site review committee Frank Stanton and Carolyn Swift and Carolyn. I've heard so many great things and Frank, I've heard so many great things, but I am going to let Katie take this one over. And who will share a few more words about this. And Kate, oh, you got it. There you go. Thank you, Mayor Brooks and Council. It's a great honor tonight to be recognizing both Frank Stanton and Carolyn Swift. When I tell you the year they started on Arkansas Frank started in 2003 Carolyn in 2008, they've been dedicated to the Arkansas board for a very long time as well as other aspects of the city. In Frank's role as the architect reviewing projects that came in and he was very instrumental in helping residents of Capitola make adjustments to their homes that resulted in a better outcome for them personally in their in their home as well as I would say in every meeting Frank with with every design that came in he not only looked at the design through the eyes of the homeowner but also the neighbor and making sure that the design was compatible for the neighbor and really thought about privacy issues and how the landscaping works and how the home speaks to the street. And I learned a lot from Frank during the years that I've had in Arkansas with him. He's also was a teacher at our local Cabrillo College and a local architect that brought through many great projects so and most of all in regards to Frank he brought he always brought a smile he always made us laugh and I just really it made it a lot of fun so thank you Frank and I look forward to handing off a certificate to you soon in person or be a male. Thank you very much. And next, Carolyn Swift. It was great to just hear from Deborah because Carolyn was in Deborah's role for over 20 years at our museum and knows the history of Capitola probably more thoroughly than anyone else in town. In 2008 Carolyn was appointed to our architectural insight review board. Before there was a historic project that came in front of the Arkansite committee. Carolyn would do so much homework and find out great facts about the project that was in front of us. I do recall shortly after Carolyn retired I think she took a trip to Europe and we had a project that was on the Arkansite committee and just over her emailing me at odd times of night in Europe just her love for Capitola and her dedication came through and just it was amazing to me to know that she was off on this vacation but also doing her research and sending in information for us so that good decisions could be made in that board. So Carolyn thank you for years of dedication with Capitola and especially on this Arkansite committee. I'll be looking forward to sending this to you as well so thank you both. Thank you Katie Frank would you like to say a few words. I appreciate everything that Katie said and I enjoyed being kind of nosy helped a lot having this job and also being scary looking at people off of me when I'm over there peeking over the backyards and everything people just kind of left me alone. So it was a good pretty good fit for a job for me to be able to see what everybody's doing you know. I appreciate helping the city. Thank you so much Frank. Carolyn. I just want to say thanks. It's nice to be appreciated and but it was really a joy for me to be involved in these years with the historic preservation part of it and was a joy to work with Frank and Katie and the staff. I came you know I just so agree with everything the city is doing for historic preservation and I'm really proud of the city for that. It's a hard I mean I realize it's it's difficult to take the issues of historic preservation and balance them against the issues of growth and change and I think the city's done a wonderful job. So that made it a pleasure for me to serve and I thank you. Well, I think the two of you so very much and thank you for your years of and commitment to our beautiful city and for keeping it. Just as perfect and quaint as as it is or as it was as it is today. So I have a seven year old myself and she is very lucky to be able to grow up in such a beautiful community and that's because of the work you've done here. So thank you so very much. And again, I look forward to getting you those certificates. Okay everyone we're going to now move on to item three. And that's a report out on closed session. And I'm going to turn this over to as everyone shuffles around Samantha. Hi, sorry to unmute. Good evening mayor and council members. We had a closed session on the two items on the agenda and no action was taken this evening. Thank you. And now item four additional materials any additional materials this evening. Yes, Mayor Brooks, there were a few on for item eight G the employee agreement item there were two materials. And for item nine a the COVID update item there were also two public comment emails that we received. That's all thank you. Okay, and do we have any additions and deletions to the agenda this evening. No changes agenda tonight. Right, so then we'll move on to public comments. This is item six on your agenda this evening. And this is your opportunity for an opportunity for the members of the public to address the city on any consent items on tonight's agenda or any other topic with the jurisdiction of the city that is not on general government this evening. You can go ahead and email us now, or you can click on reaction below to raise your hand, or if you've called in you can dial star nine to unmute yourself. I don't have the script tonight so it could I could say all sorts of things if I could remember that email address right now but it's public comments. Any public comments Larry. Mayor Brooks, I do not see any attendees wishing to speak on this item and I do not see the emails to public comment.ca.us that's CA that US. I messed it up I apologize. I know I was going to do it okay it's public comment at capitol.ca.ci.ca.us there it is and we could put it in the chat too. Okay see and then we're going to now then move on to item seven and this is city council and staff comments. Let's start with staff. Any staff comments this evening. Okay first I actually don't think we ever got that email address right so we will put it in the chat. So anyone who's tuned in. Thanks Jamie. Look at it. Larry can you do that for us while we're doing this. And then secondarily we do have one stop announcement from our community development director Katie Hurley. Good evening mayor and council tonight I have very exciting news for you we have been awarded our CBBG grant for round two for economic development so one year later the money is coming through will be issuing between 30 to 35 grants to local businesses for up to $7,500. And we're going to open the grant application process on September 1. Next week you'll see we'll be getting the social media updates out there and our website will go live. There's a great collaboration going on right now between the small business development center over at Carrillo college and our CBB specialist Paul Ashby. So we've got the number one team on it and we're in fast forward now ready to announce the grant to the public.  Thank you. Thank you Katie that's great news. Do we have any council comments at this time. Vice mayor story. Thank you Mayor Brooks and yeah my congratulations to the staff and Katie, you know, in particular for that CBBG award. And it is very much appreciated and will be very useful. You know the comments that I wanted to make is in reference to a darker event that happened in our community.  So I just want to take a moment to extend, you know, my condolences to all the families that are involved in this very terrible what appears to be a domestic violence incident. It's always terrible when something like this happens in our hometown. In view of that, you know, the director of Monarch services contacted me and and maybe she contacted some of the other council members that asked it. One, she pointed out this particular incident and talked about how domestic violence is on the increase with everybody, you know, going through isolation and and the pandemic.  On the issue bringing more awareness to the issue of domestic violence. And providing some resources to our community on how we can maybe prevent it. So I would just like to ask if they could be agendized for one of the meetings in September, either the 9th of the 24th would be suitable. And maybe Laura Marcus is the director. And maybe reach out to her and let her know when they may be able to come. So thank you for that consideration. Thank you, Vice Mayor Story. Council Member Peterson. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge that today is Women's Equality Day, which celebrates the day that the 19th amendment was ratified. And while we typically think of that as the day that women became able to vote or were granted the right to vote rather. I think we should also take a moment to acknowledge that at that time it wasn't all women that were given that opportunity to vote. And it wasn't until I want to say it was 1952 that that Asian American women were able to vote. It wasn't until 1947 that indigenous women were able to vote and it wasn't until 1965 when African American women were able to vote. So even today, though we've made a lot of progress, there's lots of communities that are still facing barriers to voter access. And so I would just encourage us all as we move forward in trying to face these ongoing barriers to access to voting to remember to exercise your right by returning your ballot in the state September 14th election. So that was my kind of important item of note.  And so please forgive me if I turn off my camera here and there because my dog is celebrating with a one dog rager throughout my apartment. And so I will occasionally have to ensure that he doesn't destroy everything I own. And that's all for me today. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Peterson. Any other council comments before we move on to our consent calendar? Okay, seeing none, we'll move on now to item eight. We'll take this as one action for item eight A through G, or excuse me, through H. Can I have a motion, please? I'll move the consent calendar. Okay. I have a first from Council Member Bertrand and a second from Council Member Peterson may have a roll call, please. Yes. Council Member Bertrand. I approve. Council Member Kaiser. Aye. Council Member Peterson. Aye. Vice Mayor Story. Aye. Mayor Brooks. Aye. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Now we're going to move on to our general government and public hearing items. This is item nine A. All right. This evening we're going to be doing a quick update on the COVID situation and then talk a little about the outdoor dining program post extension. And before you move on, Council Member Kaiser. Thank you. Sorry, I do have to recuse myself from both nine. I'm going to move on to item eight A1 and A2 just because of my employment at Paradise Beach Grow, which is tied into the outdoor dining project that we have in the village. So I have a financial conflict with that item. So I will see you guys on the other side. Thank you. Thank you Council Member Kaiser. Okay. Now back to you, Jamie. Apologies for jumping in earlier. Let me see if I can share the screen and pull up. Okay. So to start off, I just wanted to recap where we were on July 22nd, which was the last time we did this at that point, we had about 140 active known cases, which was up from the low at that point of around. I think the low was around 40 cases or so that we saw earlier in June. At that point, we had 207 deaths and 520 hospitalizations. And we were talking a little bit about the very beginnings of the Delta search. That search has come to pass. We now have 893 known active cases. We've lost another 30 people who have acquired hospitalization and tragically we've lost another three individuals to COVID-19. One interesting thing is that we talked about months ago was the case numbers maybe weren't always the best metric with more and more of our population vaccinated. Our hospitalization rates have not been as high as they were previously when we saw these higher case counts in the winter and last summer fall. So there is a little bit of a silver lining, but obviously you can see that we are in the midst of a case surge right now. Whether or not we are at the peak is very difficult to tell with the data. You only know when you're at the peak. So it's a bit of a challenge. This is the statewide numbers. And again, it's almost a similar picture in that it does appear that we may be at a statewide level to be near the peak. We will know more obviously in a week or two. But again, you can see over here on the right, this is sort of the example of the Delta surge. And these are the cases that we saw this winter. So far our hospitalizations have not matched either the previous two surges that was last summer here or the winter surge, but they are continuing to rise. And so far we have not seen an increase in deaths statewide level significant increase in deaths. Thankfully, those numbers do tend to follow trail the case numbers by about three weeks. This is the national picture. And it's somewhat similar, obviously the size I think you may notice that size of the Delta surge is higher in proportions to the prior surges. This is being driven largely by the huge case numbers we've seen in the south and at the south. Primarily, with a very low vaccination rates, very high hospitalization rates. In some cases, some of the southern states at this point are seeing higher hospitalization rates than they've seen at any other time during the pandemic. The one side of light that I do see in this is that it does seem that the rate of increase this last three or four days nationwide has decreased, which again could be signaling that we're nearing a peak. But again, it's difficult to tell until you're off the peak. I also just wanted to briefly share this graphic. I know we haven't looked at this before, but it's interesting. One of the things we really see nationwide and in California is the correlation between vaccination rates in the community and the current case rates. So this is the current case rates in the county, by county throughout the state. And what this is showing is around the Bay Area, you'll see these lighter colors, which are lower case rates than compared to the Central Valley counties, particularly as we look up to the northern parts of the state. And again, the vaccination rates as you move down into Southern California generally seem to follow the coastal communities tend to have a higher vaccination rate than the inland communities. When we pivot over here, we can see the vaccination rates by counties. And again, it's much higher vaccination rates in these Bay Area counties and the coastal communities. So there's an incredible correlation at this point between the overall case counts that we're seeing county to county in the state of California and that county's vaccination rate. In addition, that same trend plays out very clearly at a nationwide level, where when you look at the top 20 places where the highest case counts are occurring, primarily in the south, those are almost all exclusively very low vaccination rate states in comparison to nationwide averages. And when you look at the places with lower case counts, they are the higher vaccination places, a few states out west, and then the northeast in particular. So what this points to to me is really the importance of vaccinations, not just for the individuals to protect themselves from potentially serious illness or even death, but also protecting your community. Higher vaccination rate communities overall have higher protection rates for everybody involved. And one of the other details that I will share with you is San Francisco, which has probably the highest vaccination rate of any large city in the country, has seen a very small COVID delta variant peak. And in fact, it's already been on the decrease for probably two weeks, which they have, like I said, the highest vaccination rate of any big city in the country. I think as everyone is aware, we recently just got a public health order from our public health officer, requiring the use of face coverings masks once again by everyone independent of vaccination status and all indoor public places. And the one action for us to take tonight is you'll recall four weeks ago when we last met, we talked about the expiration of the temporary outdoor dining program. This is not the permanent program, the temporary program, which we've been making available to the restaurants in the village for free in our parking spaces. And again, as we indicated four weeks ago, as we track the delta variant and what's happened rise in case numbers, we think it would make sense at this point to continue the outdoor dining program through the end of the calendar year. This was scheduled to end in early September, but we think that at that point it probably makes sense to still encourage people to be eating outdoors. In addition to the extension staff is also proposing some more stringent rules around maintenance and upkeep of the outdoor dining spaces. The new people that wanted to continue the extension through January 3rd, we have to agree that they were going to be picking up and disposing of all their trash, keeping the vegetation alive, keeping the chairs equipment, everything clean and operational. And also that they would be understood that they would get one single seven day notice to rectify any issues and if they haven't fixed the issues, the public works department would be authorized to disassemble and remove any that were not compliant. So, with that, I'm available for questions. Hey, Council members, any questions? Vice Mayor Story. Yeah, thank you, Mayor Brooks. Jimmy, just one question. Extending the temporary park let the January 3rd. I was wondering what why January 3rd. Did there be any maybe interim date where we could revisit it? But is there a certain level of assurance that we're trying to provide the systems. So, I don't think that at this stage that the level of assurance is really necessary I don't expect we're going to see a significant new investment in these spaces between now and then. I think that the council certainly would have the discretion to pick an earlier date or evaluate it again. It becomes a little bit of a challenge as you know, once we get after I think it's around December 10 or 11 somewhere in there, we don't meet again until January, but we certainly could set an earlier date. Thank you. Council member you're muted. So, thank you, Jamie for that presentation and drawing attention to the correlation between those who are vaccinated not vaccinated in the incidence of the new Delta virus. So my question deals with them. I think I got a letter. I think we all did. I was concerned about the extension of this program, the parklets. Have we received any complaints to the police department or any other issues that have been brought up that we should know them. So, I think I'm going to tip it over to my staff. And I know the development director Hurley has also been communicating with an individual. Yeah, I've just heard positive things. So now I just sort of been made aware of maybe there's some other issues. So that's why I brought it up. She explained it. Thank you, Jamie. Good evening, Mayor Brooks and Council. Council Member Bertrand. With regard to your question, we have had you, I think three today, complaints about noise complaints related to entertainment in the village. It's difficult to draw a nexus for us to outdoor dining. And I say that because those complaints are very similar to complaints we've received and we continue to receive throughout the year even prior to the parklets. So they're easily mitigated, at least for now in contact with the permit entertainment permit holder and asking them to close their doors as is one of their conditions to mitigate that point. Oh, thank you, Chief. You're welcome. Okay, any other questions from. Or actually, Katie, did you want to add anything? No, Chief McMahon has covered it. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions from Council? I see your both of your hands are up. Vice Mayor Storing, Council Member Bertrand, did you want to circle? Okay. Seeing no questions, we're now going to move on to public comment for this item. If you'd like to make a comment, send an email now to public comment at ci.capitola.ca.us. Or to speak, please raise your hand now by clicking on reactions and clicking raise hand in your Zoom application, or by dialing star nine on your landline phone. And our moderator will unmute you and you'll have three minutes. Mayor Brooks, we have some people wishing to talk on this item. The first person is identified with the letter A. Okay, if you'd like to introduce yourself once you're unmuted. Is that me? It is you. Okay, I'm on my name is Mary, and I live in the 11 private 11 unit privately owned condominium at the corner of Esplanade and Monterey. I have been a full-time resident here for 10 years and I observe things on the village day in and day out. And I'm objecting to the continuation of the outdoor dining program, primarily for two reasons. First being that the residents of the city really are taking up half of the residential space. It's a mixed-use commercial. But I don't see his representation of the quiet residents of the neighborhood, so these tables have been temporary. And yet the restaurants are using them to broadcast music and continue to do that and can doors and windows continue to be left open. And we're tolerating that because they're very, very temporary. And we understand that need of the public to be outside. I've been starting to take logs this month of actual use from the morning, noon and night of the tables and have noticed that they're not being used. There's a total of four to ten people per week at the San Jose Avenue parklets. We're sitting three restaurants that do not have much table seating. And the table seating indoors is usually full first. I've also noticed that 99% of the people that park go to the outdoor seating already in existence at Zelda's Paradise Sandbar in Margaritaville. So people want to sit next to the ocean. There seems to be plenty of seating. Again, that's why these tables are not being used. But primarily the impact on our building is the nighttime noise from San Jose Avenue and the America Britannia. Workers there to close the doors are open. People are sitting outside and listening to the music. And the nighttime noise is going to take probably post-inclusive measures at every single outdoor table that are not being used. Even when the music's on, people are not sitting in the outdoor tables that are taking a parking. They're sitting on the ocean side of the restaurants. Mary, you just have a few more seconds. The rest of 98 residential addresses within 200 feet of the outdoor tables, all of which are being impacted negatively by the music that's being played to the empty tables. So I'm just simply objecting to any extension at all at this time since restaurants are now allowed to be open. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mary. Okay, Larry, any other public comment at this time? Yes, Mayor Brooks, we have Bob Anderson. Hi, my name is Bob. I hope you can hear me. So I visit a lot and I would like to parking first of all. But I heard one of the council members say something about sound complaints are about the same as they always are and they can be addressed or something like that. So I gather there's no speakers out on the seats piping music to the people that aren't sitting. I would suggest that you make sure that you make more efforts to turn down the music, say 8 p.m., turn down the music when the residents would enjoy some peace and quiet in their home. It seems to me and I at the time that I visit Capitola, I haven't seen many people out at those tables. So I didn't really hear you guys give any statistics as to when they're used and how they're used. But I would suggest that you not fight music to those tables when there aren't people sitting at them and really work a little bit harder to balance the needs of the residents and the restaurants. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Larry. Yes, Mayor Brooks. We have someone on a phone call with the last three numbers of 795. Okay, you'd like to introduce yourself once you're unmuted. Feel free. I believe you hit the button once. Try it one more time. I think it's star nine. Is that correct, Larry? I think so. I can't remember if it's star nine or star six, but I think it's star nine. Star nine, I can confirm. This is the last number of 795, a 3-1 area code. Okay, we'll give them a second. Larry, do you want to read? If you are able to get on in the next few seconds, feel free to just interrupt and say you're available now. Larry, do we have any email? I do not see any emails. I'm refreshing. I do not see emails on this item. Hello, yes. Yeah, your information also says star nine. The telephone actually is saying star six, making it real difficult to get through to you. My name is Eric Fossett. I have been a 40-year resident of Capitola, and I enjoy the Esplanade very much. I know when this ordinance was first put out, it was put out as a temporary outdoor seating ordinance, and I'm seeing that situation has changed. We now do have permission to go inside. Many of the restaurants do have outdoor seating on the backside of their buildings overlooking the Soquel Creek. I'm calling to try to encourage you all to leave this as a temporary ordinance. End it at the first week of September, as you first suggested that it would be done. We're reaching into the wintertime now, and those outdoor seating that are taking up parking places are not being utilized. They will be even less utilized as our weather changes and goes into wintertime. I don't think that extending it through till January is going to provide any measurable benefit to anyone. The restaurant owners, the residents, the people visiting town, those seats just aren't being used, and they will be used even less as we get into the wintertime. Again, I will say I want to encourage you to keep this as a temporary ordinance and end it as you had originally stated in September. Thank you very much for listening. Thank you, Mr. Fawcett. Okay, Larry, any additional public comments at this time? I do not see any other comments on the side. Okay. All right, so we'll bring this back to council for further comment and deliberation. This is a reminder that this is just item, it's just for the, there's two staff recommendations on the table to make the determination that all hazards related to the worldwide spread of coronavirus still exist. And then to item two, extend the COVID temporary use permits allowing for outdoor dining to January 2022 and implement rules for permit holders as outlined in our staff reports this evening. Okay, council member Peterson. Thank you. I'm inclined to move recommendation or excuse me move. Yeah, the recommended action, but I'm also curious to hear from other council members if they are interested in kind of a very informal poll of the businesses that still have outdoor dining. But last time we brought this up and we talked to some of the businesses, they said, like, we don't, we don't want this anymore. We don't need it. And so they took it down. And so I don't want to get rid of these, these options for those that still want it. But if we're going into the winter and some of the businesses say, yeah, we're probably not going to use this anymore, then maybe we could say, okay, then it's time to take it down and it may kind of trickle out on its own. But that being said, with the Delta variant surging, I think it's really important that we continue to provide opportunities for social distancing and outdoor dining for those businesses that want it. And so I'm interested in hearing if the other council members think that that's a good way to go or not. And otherwise I'm in support of the staff recommendation. Okay, Council Member Bertrand. Also for the staff recommendation and to the extent that Kristen's wondering about what the merchants feel I, I agree. I think we should be in contact with them to find out how they feel about this program and whether they really do want to keep on going. But as Bob said, from the public, the idea that we have a lot of tables and chairs just not being used, that concerns me too. Not only is it taking a parking, but it indicates that perhaps there's not that much of a need for them. And you wonder if we should continue for those particular businesses. They're not actively using it. It's not their fault. It's coming to their business. But I think it's, it's a burden on us, especially in terms of it just looks on site. We just have this vacant spot out in front of the business and we're not paying the parking revenue, which we need. Thank you. Mayor Story. Yeah, thank you, Mayor Brooks. I want to start by thanking the residents who came forth and express their thoughts and opinions and the impact on them. I think it's good for us to be reminded that, you know, the village is mixed youth. We have both commercial and restaurants and as well as residents there, and we need to try to balance all those interests. But that said, in response to Councilwoman Peterson's question about thoughts of whether we should do a poll or survey the businesses, you know, my thinking is that we should determine whether or not they are actually being used and anticipated to be necessary, especially going into the winter month, maybe also noticing the businesses about, you know, the music and that we want them to be good neighbors and I'm sure they do too. So with that said, I mean, I would support, because I think we do need to continue the park list, but maybe we revisit this and sometime in November.  It's noisy, but they're not being used. And so I think we should try to determine which one of those situations it is and deal with those issues. So those are my thoughts. And so I mean, I would just modify that recommendation and maybe have it come back to us. As I said, maybe the first of November. I see our city managers can raise Jamie. And there's a couple, couple things that have come up that I thought I could share that might help. Number one is, is there have been noises using this Chief McManus, I think alluded to the issue comes down to the fact that the restaurants have been trying to keep their doors and windows open. And then they're doing things loud inside that's filling out a lot more noise into the community. So we are going to be working more closely with the bars and restaurants to make sure that they're aware that they still need to comply with their government and the noise requirements so that if the doors and windows are open, they can't be doing things loud indoors. Second thing, I just wanted to let you know that we did communicate with the BIA. And this, this wasn't asked from the BIA. We did not go door to door to all the restaurants asking them about the extension. We heard from a few, but this was a request from the BIA. And lastly, and you know, I'm sort of low to do this, but I'm going to do it anyway, and they regret it. So internally, we spent a lot of time debating this in very point about where these really being used and where they really valuable. And we almost suggested that the extension would only be available for those who are willing to spend a couple hundred bucks to rent the space through the remainder of the year. I know that that may not be a popular choice, but we thought that that would at least get the folks who are willing to self select and actually pony up some money to do this, not so much as a revenue thing for the city, but really to make sure that the people who are committed to using this were committing to use it. So I know I'm complicating my own recommendation, but I did just thought I'd toss those things out there. Thank you, Jamie. I hear consensus council member Peterson. Sure. Thank you. So I, I'm afraid I'm not in agreement with the idea of asking any of the businesses to pay a couple hundred dollars to keep their park was open because then I feel like once we make this a permanent program, the assuming we make this a permanent program, my apologies, at some point, then the businesses that are going to have to potentially pay thousands of dollars are going to wonder why some of the business is only had to pay a hundred and some of them are, I feel like it's not quite. We didn't really have a policy in place for that. And so I'm not ready to move forward with that. I am ready to move the recommended staff, the staff recommended action with the addition of as Vice Mayor story also suggested that we kind of breach out to the businesses that are still using it. Ask if they expect to use it through the winter month, and then have it come back to us in our first meeting in November, just to determine if any of those businesses are saying, you know what, you're right, we're not going to be doing this in December. And then we can can reconsider. So yes, I do want it to be extended through January, but then let's let's talk about it again in November. Does that make sense. Yeah, would you like to frame that in a motion. That was the motion. Okay, moving moving the staff recommended action with the addition of a discussion with the businesses and a status update in November. Great, we have a motion from Council Member Peterson. I'll second that motion. And a second from Vice Mayor story. Any other comments. Okay, may I have a roll call please. Yes. Council Member Bertrand. I agree. Council Member Peterson. Aye. Vice Mayor Story. Aye. Mayor Brooks. Aye. Thank you. Okay, that item passes with one recusal from Council Member Kaiser. Let's go ahead and welcome Council Member Kaiser back for item 9b. We might have to call her. There she is. Back. Welcome back. Okay, we're going to now move on to item 9b for the award of a contract for 41st Avenue traffic signal adaptive signal project. Mr. Jasper, this is your item. Thank you, Mayor Brooks City Council. I'm going to share my screen. I hope you can now see that. The item before you tonight is the award of a contract for installation of an adaptive traffic signal project on 41st Avenue. I want to kind of give you a background everybody. The title is a bit nebulous adaptive control system. So I wanted to kind of spend two slides kind of explaining what that is. Currently we have four traffic signals. The city capital operates four traffic signals on 41st Avenue. Each one of them operates independently from one another. So they measure their traffic at that intersection. There's cars queued up. The sensors detect that car tell the signal controller that it's there and they eventually will get a green light. But they don't connect at all with the signal upstream or downstream from them. So one signal to be turning green on the 41st Avenue while the other one's turning red. So there's really no communication between the two. They're very independent of each other. An adaptive control system that receives real-time input from all the connected intersections at one time and coordinates the green lights along the border. So the goal of it is to have a series of green lights going down 41st Avenue and when you have cross traffic all the cross traffic on each street is at the same time. Now of course there's different demands, different levels of traffic on cross traffic on different streets. They don't always show up at the same time. So it's certainly not going to be perfect. But that's the idea of an adaptive control systems. They're all connected to one controller that then coordinates it. The results are reduced waiting time at the intersections and reduced vehicle admissions. So the system we'll be installing is in sync. I'm not trying to do a plug here for in sync but I thought this was a good picture. So here we have, we put in video sensors that will also detect bicycles now. We currently do not have that ability out there. And it measures the amount of cars queuing at all the intersections and all the queues. It goes to the theater here, to the TPO that then controls and tells them when to turn green. It sends the signal back to the controller at each individual intersection who then turn the lights green or red and yellow. So it's more of a, it's a powerful tool as you can read the literature here. It's real time data by the artificial logarithms to optimize traffic functions. So as I said, we are coordinating with other agencies on this project. There's four intersections in capital, 41st and Clairs, 41st and Mall entrance, 41st, Capital Road and 41st and Jade Brommer. County of Santa Cruz is also installing the same system, the in sync system at six centers sections, mainly along SoCal Drive, but two are along the 41st Avenue corridor, one by the entrance to the Home Depot, shopping center and the next one up at SoCal Drive and 41st. Caltrans has really three intersections but two signal controllers at the Highway 1 off ramps and they also control the intersection of the signals at Gross Road. And we are trying to get permissions from Caltrans to connect their systems into it. We've been trying for a little bit over a year now. And they're very good at stonewalling. Mayor Brooks helped us recently and signed a letter that we sent to the director of Caltrans, District 5. I reached out to him today. He should have gotten a letter earlier in the week. I did not get ahold of him. I left him a message. I hope to hear back from him soon. If we do get their permission to add their signals into the project, we should be able to issue a change order and add it in. So here's a quick map just to show you the green or the county intersection. So this is 41st Avenue going up and down the page here. The green or the county, the town of SoCal and going up to SoCal High School. You can see the three red Caltrans intersections at the middle. These bottom two actually serve as one intersection, 41st and Gross Road and the southbound off ramps. And then you have the four in the city, as I mentioned before. So if we can get Caltrans to buy in, we would have all these signals coordinated, which should be a big help. Just to give you Caltrans perspective on this, so it doesn't seem like we're just trying to beat up on them. Caltrans goal in their operations manual is to keep the traffic on the freeway going. And they utilize off ramps and local signals that they control, trying to meter that flow so it doesn't add to the congestion on the highway. So that's their goal, and that's why they're a little lurid. While they worry about the traffic going north and south on 41st, their primary objective is to pass on the freeway. So contract award and timing. So we have six bids that were received. They were all very close. I think they went from the low bid, which we got from Bair Electric for $460,000 up to the high bid, which is I want to say is about $550,000. So for six bids, we usually have a bigger spread from that. So we're feeling confident that these are the costs. For information, Bair already is our traffic signal maintenance contractor. So they are very familiar with our signals. They are also doing the local, the low bidder on the County Santa Cruz project. So they're very knowledgeable, the local systems here, and we're really excited to move forward with them. Bair is prepared to start work on finalizing contracts. They, we need to put in some additional conduits that the County doesn't need to. So they are prepared probably within a couple of weeks here of starting work with the new conduits. And then they, I think they'll be installing both systems in the County and in our, in our signals at the same time. If Caltans comes to the party, there's maybe a lagging a little bit farther behind depending on how long it takes to get equipment. It takes about 30 to 45 working days. Looking at the budget, we had $420,000 of the estimated cost of construction and bid was $460,000. We do have some airport grants. They're paying a good portion of this work. And to ensure that we save enough money to include the Caltrans item at this time, we're requesting that additional funding within the cap home improvement fund be made available to this project. To cover the $40,000 between the bid and the estimated budget and also any change orders that are necessary to go through. As we move forward, we will be maximizing our grant and we anticipate getting most of the general fund money back, but at this time we want to make sure we can proceed as quickly as we can and getting as much of the project done as we can. So our recommendation tonight is to award a contract with their electrical solutions for the construction of the 41st Avenue adaptive type of signal system, the amount of $460,526 and to offer as a city manager to reallocate up to $100,000 in capital improvements project funds. So they have new capital from the big day Avenue capital of roundabout project to this project. And I'll just give you a quick update on the roundabout project. It's tied to a undergrounding project trying to underground the utilities at that intersection to accommodate roundabout. Another fun project with PG&E we're having difficult kinds of this came in quite high. With PG&E we're having trouble trying to figure out how to best proceed, but we're continuing to work on that project. So that is my report and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thanks Steve. Council Member Bertrand questions. Yeah, I have two questions Steve. You hit on one dealing with the authorization to move $100,000 to this project. And you also sort of mentioned that we'd be able to get that money back. If you could explain that, just as I guess to help the project continue. My other question is, some of the other roads like Brommer, Capital Roads, stuff like that. Is the sensor system going to be looking at the backup on those?  So those are my two questions. So far as $100,000, we do anticipate something we'll get it back because we won't have to spend it. We can have the grants cover all the work. If we are successful in getting a child transfer grant, we don't know the cost of that yet. It may be necessary to cover, like I said, the difference in our budget and what the cost of the contract is. As far as what the sensors measure, they measure all approaches to the intersection. So yes, they measure the backup on Brommer, they measure Capital Road. They measure all cross streets and in addition to the 41st. So that's what I'm saying there. They'll know when to hopefully activate all the cross streets at one time and then all the greens on 41st at the same time. That's really the goal. It won't be quite that pretty, but it should help significantly. Council Member, you are muted. Nope, still muted. There we go. RCC has pretty good contacts with the Caltrans. It's probably the local division, but is that an option for you to get a better response? Yeah, as I mentioned, we have sent a letter to the director of District 5 and he does meet regular with the RTC. So I was talking with Matt Machado, Director of Public Works at the county, and he recommended that also. So we will be making that contact as we proceed here. Okay. Thank you very much. Any other questions from Council? Okay. Now we'll move on to public comment for this item. If you would like to make a comment, send an email now to public comment at ci.capitola.ca.us. Or to speak, please raise your hand now by clicking on reactions and clicking raise hand in your zoom application or by dialing star nine or star six, depending on your landline phone or moderator will unmute you and you will have up to three minutes to speak. Mayor Brooks, I do not see any attendees. We should speak on this item and I do not have any emails on the site. Okay. Great. Then we will bring this back to Council for further comment and deliberation. Any comments from Council? If warranted, I'll be glad to move the recommended actions. Okay. We have a first from Council Member Bertrand. Vice Mayor Story. Yeah, I'll second that motion. Approved. Okay. We have items one and two. Excellent. Thank you very much. We have a first and a second. Thank you, Steve, for your presentation and thanks for mentioning the letter. I do hope they do reach out how trans reaches out. And if I could support in any way, an additional letter with with the RTC or something else I can do, please do let me know. Chloe roll call please. Council Member Bertrand. I support. Council Member Kaiser. Hi. Council Member Peterson. Hi. Vice Mayor Story. Hi. Mayor Brooks. Hi. Okay. This item passes unanimously. We're going to now move to item 90. This is a community grant subcommittee vice mayor story. Thank you, Mayor. Before you begin this agenda item. I want to disclose that. That's the community action board is one of the applicant for the community grant. My wife is an employee of community action board. I have a financial interest and therefore I must recuse myself on this item. I'm going to do that. And while I have the floor, I also want to mention the, the next item 90. I also want to disclose that I have a professional relationship with the beach festival organization. And therefore due to that, I must recuse myself. And so I will be done early tonight. Thank you. Okay, vice mayor story. Thank you so much. Lucky guy. Okay. Let's go ahead and move back to item 90 for the community grant subcommittee. This item is this. I'll be giving this presentation. Let me share my screen. So I hope you can see it. Okay. So this is the community grant subcommittee nomination or appointments. Just to remind everyone, the city of capital like media grant program funding was approved during the fiscal year 21 22 budget hearings. $125,000 was approved from the general fund. And at this point, estimated $49,000 will be available from the dedicated youth and early childhood program funding, which is dedicated piece of the hotel or transitory occupancy tax. The city collects for short term rentals. The application period closed. I believe we have around 15 applicants agencies that applied. But during the review of the applicants, it looks like mayor Brooks council member story and council member Peterson are affiliated with at least two of the community organizations that have applied for grants. So they must recuse themselves from the decision making process for this, which includes subcommittee. So at this point, our revised recommended action, which is a little different than what was in the packet is to appoint council members for tron council members Kaiser to the subcommittee to review the applications from the community grant grantees and to make funding recommendations for the entire council. So that is that is my presentation at this point. I'm available for questions. Larry make it really easy for us this evening. Any questions from councils before we move to public comment. Okay, seeing none will open public comment. If you'd like to make a comment, send an email now to public comment at ci.capitola.ca.us or to speak. Please raise your hand now by clicking on reactions. Then clicking raise hand in your zoom application. And if you called in you can dial star nine or moderator will unmute you and you will have up to three minutes to speak. And you were muted, Mr. Larry. Oh, I unmuted and muted. Sorry about that. I do not see anybody wishing to speak on this item and I do not have any emails on the site. Okay. Well, then we'll bring this back to council for further deliberation and a vote. And anyone like to all make a motion. I think I think I heard councilwoman Kaiser say I'll make a motion before I said anything else. So I'll second it. Thank you. All right, we have a first from council member Kaiser to appoint. Councilmember Bertrand and councilmember Kaiser to the community grant subcommittee and a second from councilmember Peterson. Any other further comments? Then let's have a roll call please. Councilmember Bertrand. I approve. Councilmember Kaiser. Aye. Councilmember Peterson. Aye. And Mayor Brooks. Aye. Okay, that item passes for with one recusal from vice mayor's story. And we will now move on to item 90 and this is a considerate request for sponsorship of the capital S each festival. Yes. Mayor Brooks, this is Chloe and I will be presenting very quick slide. Can you see the slide here? Okay, great. So thank you so much mayor Brooks and council. This will be very quick to conclude the meeting. So as you know, the capital beach festival has kind of taken over from the beloved begonia festival that has concluded three years ago. And in the past council did sponsor the begonia festival for many years and has the past two years sponsored the capital beach festival in the sum of $5,000 upon request. The first was in 2018 and then in 2019. As you all know, there was a pandemic. There still is a pandemic. So the festival did not happen in 2020. Now the event has been approved and will take place this year. I'm sure everyone's very excited at the end of September on the 24th and 25th. And the organizers have once again requested sponsorship for the event in the amount of $5,000. The request was received mid July after the budget was adopted. And this hadn't been included in the budget because it hadn't happened yet. So if council is interested in providing the sponsorship staff and our finance director did look into where the money could come from. And there is funding in the city council contract service fund that could be used. That's really all I have to say if anyone has questions, I'm happy to try to help.  Thank you. Thank you, Chloe. Any questions from council? Nope. Okay. We'll now move to public comment for this item. If you'd like to make a comment, you can email now at public comment at ci.capitola.ca.us. Or you can raise your hand by clicking on reactions down below and our moderator will unmute you. Erin Brooks, I do not see any public comments on this item and I do not see any emails on this item. Okay. Thank you. We'll now bring this back to council for further comments and a vote. Councilmember Peterson. I'll move approval of the recommended action. I'll second that. Okay. The first from councilmember Peterson and a second from councilmember Kaiser. Any other comments before we go to a roll call? Okay. Let's go ahead and have a roll call vote please. Councilmember Bertrand. I agree. Councilmember Kaiser. Aye. Councilmember Peterson. Aye. Mayor Brooks. Aye. Okay. That item passes unanimously. Thank you very much councilmembers. We're going to move to our very last item, item 10, which is adjournment. Thank you everyone for attending our meeting today for listening in for our councilmembers for being here today and our staff please remember to find the good in yourselves and others, especially as we navigate through the pandemic and into interesting times. So thanks again everyone and we'll see you soon. Good night.


The record boys will seek to make history in the Conqueror of Nations League as they battle the USA in semi-final 1 on Thursday and your home of champions will be there to carry this line right out of the sports back zone at 6 p.m. Jamaica time 7 ECT then right after Panama and Mexico will score off in the other semi-final at 9 15 p.m. Jamaica time 10 15 p.m. ECT that's the Conqueror of Nations League semi-final on Sportsmax


Hello everybody, welcome to June and you. The full reading with Tamara is over on my rumble page, so please just follow the link below. But before following the link below, I did pull a spread on the month of June, just asking Spirit, asking Magdalene what she or Spirit wanted to tell us about the month of June as a collective. And the overall feeling, which is the Page of Swords at the top there. This is the Lightseeker's Deck, which is one of my favorite, favorite, favorite decks. I feel like this is the deck that I channel the best with. I have ordered a deck that's not holographic, so that going forward in the future, it'll be easier to see on camera. But the Page of Swords at the top here, this can be a communication card, but it's also kind of like this bursting of new ideas, creativity. It's a very positive card. And so if you look at the Page of Swords, it looks like the month of June is going to be a very, very positive month, even though if you listen to Emmy's reading, as well as Tamara's reading, there is going to be a lot of action in June, but it looks like it's going to be kind of invigorating for us. Now the second line here, we've got the Ten of Wands. The Ten of Wands is a card that kind of, it symbolizes like hard work and stress. And in the Lightseeker's Deck, you see her, she looks like she's been traveling for a long time. She has, her animal here has luggage strapped to him. She's carrying luggage, kind of the weary traveler. In the traditional Rider Waite Deck, the Ten of Wands is the guy actually pushing a bustle of wands. And so it signifies all this hard work that I feel like we've gone through. Of course the line, the top line here does signify kind of the past, like what's already happened. But this coming into the Six of Wands, the Six of Wands is absolutely a victory card. And so those two cards together tell me that in the past, a lot of our hard work started to pay off. Now the Three of Swords here does can signify heartbreak, deception, lies. And this makes sense to me. I know maybe it doesn't make sense in the spread to a lot of people, but to me this makes sense, especially if I can reflect it into my own life, which I think always the micro is magnifying the macro and vice versa. So for years we've been working for this victory and just now towards the end of this battle, we are learning that there were infiltrators amongst us. People that I've trusted, I now know are dark witches. And 90% of the Twitter community, from what I understand is infiltrated. Some worse than others. Some are actually involved in rituals and some are just paid off by the cabal. So I think that's kind of what we're seeing here is that that kind of that shocked us, right? There was a shock here after our hard work and we found these victories that all of a sudden we learned there were infiltrators among us. So the bottom line down here is kind of what's happening now presently. So we have the devil in reverse. Now sometimes in like a basic reading, the devil card can't just mean like obsessive thoughts. It also is the Capricorn, zodiac sign. Not to say that Capricorns are devils. They're not my sister and my brother-in-law are both Capricorns and I love them so much. And Tamara is a Capricorn. But if you think about Capricorns to the most part, they're very business oriented. Like my sister is super grounded and she's very logical. Like she's super, super, super logical. She's not as ethereal as I am. She's very logical. She's very business minded. She's very much ABCD, it all lines up, right? That's why she's a really good mom in my opinion. That's what makes her a really, really good mother. But when I'm looking at a spread like this for world events, especially knowing what we know now, I do read the devil as the literal devil. I do read this as the club, the controllers. And because he's in reverse in this, and this spread is pretty good news for us. Now next time is the Queen of Pentacles. The Queen of Pentacles can't be a very grounded woman, but she can also be a woman that does what she has to do. She knows what she's gotta do to get the job done. And we know that this whole, part of this whole great awakening is the rise of the divine feminine. So it's almost like after this heartbreak, the devil then came in reverse because the divine feminine, the true divine feminine, not the divine feminine of the infiltrators that claim to be divinators, chart readers, all that kind of stuff, they're not, they're abusing. Those people are abusing divination in order to manipulate. But the true divine feminates, we've done what we've had to do. We've put our feet on the fire. We've joined the front lines of this fight in order to defeat or help to defeat the controllers. And we know a lot of that, as you guys know, Magdalene is always around me. And I think she is literally leading that charge to return the balance to the divine feminine. And the last card here is the fool, which the fool card is a really beautiful card, in my opinion, it just means change is coming. It means that there's change that's coming.  And I have been told myself personally that I actually have an abrupt change that's coming into my life very, very soon. Of course, these last couple of years for all of us has been a lot of change and we're learning to flow with that change. So I think that's all good guys. But again, the overall feeling is the page of swords, which is fun, new and big-rating fresh ideas. So let's go with that guys and let's just, let's keep our eyes on the prize here.  There's a lot of stuff going on out there about spiritualism. We know this is a spiritual war. And the best thing that you can do for yourself is to educate yourself. Knowledge is power, knowledge protects and knowledge is infinite. Let me say that again, that's the mantra. Knowledge is power, knowledge protects and knowledge is infinite. I'm gonna tell you guys right now, as a professional, this is my job outside of YouTube. Once again, I'm the only female in the state of Georgia who is authorized by my Shalan India to teach this. I have done massive research in my own studies. Meditation is not about visualization. Meditation is not about visualization. If you are meditating to visualize something, you are not meditating, okay? Now, visualizing something can be positive or negatively aspected. You have to remember that we live in a world of free will and consent. What I see people are doing is they're trying to do visualizations where you send healing to people on the planet. You cannot do that unless you have their consent. And remember, there's a good light, there's a true light and then there's the light of the darkness, the lucifering light. It's that bling bling light that Shaunty from Aquarius Rising Africa calls it, right? So that fake light is what the dark players use. All right, so just be very, very careful from what it sounded like, from what I saw, it did appear to me that they are manipulating people into creating their own covens and then doing these particular quote unquote, meditations for visualizations which screams to me spellcasting, screams to me the harness of energy. We need to be very, very, very careful. You should not be meditating more than 15 minutes.  I can say, I can give people articles on this. And meditation itself is yoga chit-chit of written the rhoda-hub, yoga chit-chit of written the rhoda-hub. It's about getting that one pointed mental focus. It's about calming the mind down. It's about releasing the thought patterns, all right? So that you come to a state of complete connection to God, not about visualizing guys, that's not meditation, all right? So I really, really, really, really want each and every person to start doing your research before you get involved in something. Ignorance is not an excuse. Ignorance is not an excuse. You still have free will. So if you do something out of quote unquote, ignorance, you actually consented to doing it because you decided you made the decision not to research it and do it anyway. And so it's still gonna be something you're gonna have to work through. We're all in this together. We have the high probability of going into a positive timeline, but it's just a probability. They're banking on you not doing your research. We are the storm guys. This isn't about celebrities stepping in and saving the day. It's not about anybody outside of yourself stepping in and saving the day. You have to save yourself.  It's not about waiting for some miraculous hidden army to come out and rescue you. No one's going to rescue you. You have to do it yourself. And that is fantastic news. That is fantastic news. You have that power. That's the plot twist. That's the plot twist. You are the storm. So please be mindful guys of everything. Research everything I say too. Don't just take my word for it. Research everything I say too. Study the Upanishads. Study the Vedic texts. Study the Bhagavad Gita. Study the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Study these texts so that you have that knowledge. Again, knowledge is power, knowledge protects and knowledge is infinite. All right guys, go down to the description box below and you will find the link to Tamara's reading on June. She will be on the channel later this week for a full episode. Also, I believe I'll be doing a copy chat tomorrow with Catherine Edwards since we didn't get to do it last week and then I will be back on with the Paris Rising Africa at 10 o'clock Eastern time to tomorrow, Monday morning, tomorrow morning to discuss myth-rightism. If you miss the episode, it will be live but if you miss it, you can always watch the replay. All right guys, talk to you soon.


guys. It's Sunday May 17th. It's what time is it? 2.48pm. Don't get excited. I know the date because tomorrow's my wedding anniversary. How long have we been married? A long time. A few decades. A long time. Yeah. Anyway, we are out driving around. I was able to finally go into our local craft shop. I think there's only like four locations. It's just an Oregon thing, Oregon Washington thing, I think, a craft warehouse. They're open for service. They're limiting how many people can come in the store and you have to have protection on and all of that jazz, but I'm happy that they're doing that and I'm happy that they're able to open and I'm happy to support them. Anyway, I probably spent too much money there, but I got some things I've wanted and or needed that I'm completely out of and I'm getting tired of ordering things online. They also had hand sanitizer and while we didn't get a whole bunch of it, we got one. You had a limit of six, but we got one and now we're just going to go drive around and get out of the house. I don't know exactly where we're going to go. We don't know where we're going to go, but that's all right. That's all right. So I was very pleased to see that craft warehouse was indeed open. They were limiting how many customers could go in.  I made a point to thank them on my way in for doing all of that and trying to keep us all safe. I know our retail and other essential workers are not hearing that often enough. I would prefer to give my business two businesses that are doing what they can and then two businesses that aren't and to make sure to thank them at some point while I'm there. So anyway, that's just me, but maybe you all should do the same thing. I decided to get some coffee on the way home at Gold Rush Coffee in McMinnville. McMinnville, right? McMinnville, yep. Yeah, anyway, white chocolate, lavender, mocha, ice. It's delicious. Lavender. It's a lavender too. Lamb belly. It's very good. I like it. I'll be back. Hey guys, so we are out for our evening stroll. We got almost halfway on our nightly walk before we ran into really a living soul, but we finally started running into people so the mask went on. Anyway, I did some work on this new slow stitch and I got all the yoyos on. I got some embroidery on. Not as much embroidery. I don't feel like as I've been doing, but I don't think it needs it. I'm going to wait to do anything else until I get the beadwork on and some edging and some words. We'll see where it takes us, but I'll put a picture here. You all tell me what you think. Anyway, we're going to go do finish our walk and husband doesn't want to make cookies. He's too full, so I might have to have ice cream.  All right, I'll be back. Good very early Monday morning people. It is a rainy Monday morning in Portland. Hello land of much water. I've said that before. There's a reason I call it that. It's like 7 30 in the morning. Something like that. I'm already showered and dressed obviously. I am headed out to take some things to the post office. I've got to turn my keys in at the old PO box, but I'm also, I don't have to do that this early in the morning, none of that. But what I do need to do is try to find some more yeast and some lice all spring. So not that I'm going to be successful this morning, but since I have to go out today anyway, I figured I'd go out early, try to hit safeway shortly after they open, which is where we're headed first. Got my mask, of course I found my mask. And try to see if they have lice all our yeast. I mean, I don't know, they might not, but I may decide to hit like target or something too. If they don't, I don't, I don't know. I'm kind of hoping they at least have lice all I could do without yeast for a little while longer. Alrighty, so I might not have found any yeast. So however, I found two cans of lice all types types spray disinfectant, which we are using on our shoes and things that come in the front door mail and things. And another thing of hand sanitizer. So yay me! I feel accomplished this morning. So now I don't know what time McCann's opens or the post office part of it. We're going to go see if we can take care of that this morning. Hey guys, it is Tuesday morning, May 19th. I think it's still morning. I don't think it's quite noon yet, but or it's around lunchtime. It's somewhere around lunchtime. Anyway, I have been editing video this morning. The vlog is saving right now and then I'm going to edit. I have two more little videos to edit and there is some excess clips I might put together something for Patreon. I was also helping a neighbor who I don't know via next door with some video issues that they had. So we got that taken care of. And what else? I'm going to go get the mail. I ate some lunch. I've done no art yet because I was editing so you know that's a thing. But I do have an idea for another slow stitch and it's going to be a challenging stitch but it might be a fun stitch. So I'll let you know how that goes. I'll be back. I think I've vlogged today. I forgot a mask. I need a mask. I think I've vlogged today but I don't know for sure. I can't even remember a mask right now. I don't know. One side of my house. Can you see that? Yeah, that color. The other side is bright and sunny.  Yeah, so we're going walking but I have my raincoat and my sunglasses. And I have a cough drop and now I have a mask so that I not only am protected but I don't cough in public because right now I've gotten a couple looks from people that they're like tempted to beat me up or something thinking I have COVID rather than just asthma. Husband said if we go walking I might get cookies and we get back. Cookies and hot tea? Yeah, so I'm going to go walking and I'm going to do some stitching of course and drawing later. I'll be back. Good morning. It is 9 50 a.m. Wednesday morning, May 20th I think. Been busy since I got up this morning. I got a late night message from a friend in California, another friend in California who needs needed masks so I made sure to get those off to him and they're already in our little drop box here by the house. But then I a little while later sold at sizable Etsy order that I want to mail out for her today so I am going to run this over to our little post box annex place while it's still open because they closed September 1st but I've already changed my PO box stuff but anyway they're still open so I'm able to drop mail off there so I'm going to go do that really quick it'll take like 10 minutes. And then I'm going to come back and work on some more slow stitching and chat with some friends. It's cloudy and rainy again you know I live in the Portland area land of much water so I don't know what to tell you. Hey guys oh there we go um so I promised you the slow stitch thing I was working on so I found this painting in my stash of stuff when I was cleaning up not long ago I don't remember if I showed it on camera or not anyway I'm going to be making a digital of this it'll be available for as a digital download in my Etsy shop I painted it about I think 2018 after we moved while I was in South Carolina I believe is when I did that anyway it was in a journal and I pulled it out of the journal because I thought this and this is a photocopy of the original by the way I can show you the original it's over here waiting to be scanned because at the time of filming this I haven't made the digital copy of it for a digital print yet but there you go there's the original um hang on I don't mean to make y'all dizzy lighting's a little better over here let's see there we go so that's the original so first I made um color copy of it I made three color copies and then I took and I isolated and cut apart big sections of the painting that were mostly like one color blacks from the reds I I literally just took the color copy isolated sections and cut them apart and then started pulling fabrics I thought would layer on top of each other really well to give me the color base that I wanted knowing that's when I stitched all the fabrics on to give me my color base it was going to have a suggestion of a shape but look like a hot mess it's really not going to be pulled together till I do the black embroidery and this is what I came up with which isn't bad it is on a wool base so as I was stitching it it was getting all wavy and wrinkly but because it's on a wool base we're standing at the ironing board I was able to steam iron it a couple times and press it and it flattened it back out again so it's completely flat now and I think I'm all ready for the black embroidery and maybe some white um there's the let's see there we go there is the picture and the embroidery side by side you can see you can see the shapes it's there so I'm really excited about it no matter how it turns out it might turn out like poop but it's it's a lot of fun and it's an experiment to see if I can do it or not um so we'll see and I'll probably probably sell the finished piece in the Etsy shop I'm not sure yet it depends on how much I fall in love with it because that's always a problem um anyway so if you know hopefully it gives you some ideas of what you guys can do with digital downloads from the Etsy shop either my shop or someone else's why can't you use them for inspiration if you're a stitcher to create a slow stitch from the painting you know inspired by the painting as long as you're not going to sell it I'm okay with that it's a lot of fun and even to just do with your own artwork um it's challenging certainly and I don't know that I would next time pick one that has this many uh painting suggestive marks on it because that makes it more challenging um you maybe want one with more defined color shapes but it's a painting so a painting is always going to be a challenge to translate to a slow stitch so anyway that's what I'm working on today I'm going to chat with some friends and stitch away the rest of the day all right that's it I'm talking to the camera again and it's not on so it's Thursday morning it's a few minutes before 10 a.m. May 21st I think I'm headed out obviously I'm in the car to the post office the little annex place while it's still open to mail a few things I don't have enough postage for everything so I'm going to go do that and I might I might pop into Safeway which is right across the street I'm not really a huge Safeway fan but every time I am out I like try to pop out to a local store and try to find a few things that weren't like maybe running low on something or um that I've been looking for I mean we're not doing big grocery shopping more than every about week and a half two weeks but we do run out of fresh stuff before well before then so anyway I got the slow stitch finished this is her I got some beadwork her she I love the way she turned out um I don't know if I'm going to put her up for sale or not I am um I don't mean to make y'all dizzy sorry I am sort of attached to some of the slow stitches so I have no idea why is the lighting so weird in here probably because I have that on um there we go I am sort of attached to some of the slow stitches so I don't know um I and I have the steam iron on in case you're wondering what that noise is um the other thing I've discovered is I had a couple of these left from the old embroidery days anybody remember these they are a piece of um like mat board but it's adhesive on one side and it's intended for mounting needlework too when you're finished with it you put attach it to this and then it's safe and stable and secure yeah and you can frame it or put it onto a larger piece of mat board with a frame um you know whatever you want to do with it so I had a smaller piece of stitchery that I was able to mount we'll go look at that in a minute and then I created a label I'll show you the one that's not signed created a label for myself that goes in the back so every piece of stitchery will have that label on it somewhere and if it's mounted to a board it'll be on the back of the board I do have one piece that's really big and the label is actually on the back of the piece because I don't have a board big enough so hang on just one second the art library and um this is the piece I put on a board and it's got the label on the back and uh yeah cute huh actually there we go cute huh flower inspired so anyway I love this one and um yeah I'm loving the stitching so anyway all right I also got um two sorry we're gonna walk back um besides this piece which is supposed to go that way the labels crooked on it or sideways anyway it's supposed to go that way um I got um this piece of artwork scanned that that other stitch pieces based on and I also got this piece of artwork scanned which was one of two and I um sold one of them with the junk journaling box it did sell that I was talking about last week this other one I'm keeping at least for now and I have turned turned it into a piece of digital art both of these are on the sd shop for sale the digital file and you can download it and reprint it um over and over I do think that the girl's face won't be the last time I take one of my pieces of artwork and turn it into a stitch there's a big hint for you I might do that cactus one next we'll see um or a cactus inspired by that one um um so yeah um it is a fun alternative to another way to use your digital files um turn them into a piece of needlework or use them on needlework print them on a piece of fabric and use it on um a fabric journal cover or a piece of stitchery or something like that I will be showing how to do some of that on the youtube channel going forward anyway that's it for the moment I think it's just about time to turn things off for the day and go downstairs and start thinking about maybe doing the dishes which because I think the sink is full yeah that's a thing all right I'll be back morning everybody it's Friday May 22nd um 10 36 a.m according to the car clock which isn't exactly accurate it's you know a few minutes off I think anyway yeah I am obviously headed out again I've been out more this week than I have since this whole apocalypse thing started but um you gotta do what you gotta do and I do have my mask hand sanitizer chlorx wipes all that jazz you kind of wonder if this is going to be a permanent thing or not when I have to figure out how to put a cooling pack inside of these if it is my face gets really hot all right I'll be back happy Saturday I don't think it's morning oh that's 12 50 11 59 it's technically morning still for one more minute uh guys all right we are obviously upstairs in the art room I have these two little fabric books these are needle keepers this one is the one that generally lives in um my sewing table dust drawer and it is full of a lot of different kinds of needles some of which I used for sewing and there's actually a little small needle keeper in here also full of needles that I was given I know for a fact there's some needles in here that are for when I am knitting there's some blunt blunt tipped um not darning needles but you know if you knit or crochet you know what I mean to hide the threads in your work uh corona brain I'm having issues um but there's also um different kinds of embroidery needles like hidden in amongst all of these other crazy amount of sewing needles and everything I have this little one which lives with my slow stitching stuff there are some short tiny little embroidery needles in here that honestly I don't care for they're too small for me um and then I really just use these bigger ones in the back I think what I want to do is take these littler ones out and put them in the sewing book where I'm more likely to use them and take some of these larger ones out of here and put them over here I did order some more embroidery needles today because if you're a stitcher you never have enough needles and I do tend to be hard on my needles and on my beading needles especially which are thin as a hair I've shown this on camera before I'm not even sure you can see that how thin that is and yes it's bent and crooked I tend to bend the crap out of them and I don't have my reading glasses on at all so I can't really see it what am I doing sticking it back in the spool I tuck it under some of the threads so it doesn't kind of get lost so it's just like that I don't even know if you can see that because the needle is so small there we go right there um so anyway so I think I'm going to take some of these out of here and I take these little ones out of here because I'm not using them at all and we're going to switch them up and I'll be right back and forgot that there were some needle threaders in here and so I'm going to put them in my slow stitching box I do have other needle threaders in the sewing desk so I don't really need those two that were high holy cow that's my husband in the garage or opener okay anyway I don't really need the needle threaders that were in the needle book to be in here I could use them in the slow stitching box so I'm going to put them over there so that's it for the moment I think I'm going to start on my next slow stitching video and also catch up my positive affirmation doll so he's a couple days behind again but he's running out of space so you know all right that's it I'll be back so I almost forgot to close the vlog it's 10 o'clock 4 p.m. Saturday May 23rd oops yeah so we did a few errands that we could uh do and needed to do and then I spent the rest of the afternoon um if you see whoops that right there working on some cross stitch because when I was rearranging some things in the art room to make way for slow stitching I found a bunch of cross stitch kits I forgot I had I got two of them done I got a little see horse done and this funny little cat oops there we go maybe let's see wait the lighting is weird it's late at night these are by they're called tiddlers they're um little mini cross stitch kits and they're by yeah tiddlers it's a weird name they're by a company called mouse loft one word and um the labels look like this now these are old tiddlers I've had these I think I've had these since my daughter went to Lutheran school which was like third to second to third grade or first to third grade or yeah a long time ago she's 26 and getting married um but they still make them I actually looked the company up earlier and I will link it in the description below who knew anyway I'm making using up what I have um finishing up things that haven't been done yet and yeah but you know kind of lost track of time husband cooked dinner mostly I made meatballs made the meatballs but he did all the cooking he even brought me dessert wasn't that sweet I'm such a sweet guy you are a sweet guy yeah see Fred's a sweet guy anyway so it's been a relaxing Saturday we've had a good week we hope you have too that you're staying safe and you're staying healthy and stay creative that you're uh doing what you need to to keep the people around you and the community around you safe by following the guidelines for social distancing and wearing a mask and uh yeah all of that jazz right don't forget to like share and subscribe and if you have any questions comments or concerns do leave them down below I will be doing more with embroidery and stitching and slow stitching going forward it is where I started this whole mess with way back pre-fred uh and it looks like I'm revisiting it right now and I'm enjoying doing it so there'll be more of it coming up if there's something specific that you all would like to see do let me know um I'd appreciate you supporting the free content here on YouTube and over in the Facebook art groups as would your other favorite creatives we all have a way you can support the free content check out our video descriptions I have an Etsy store patreon a paypal tip jar amazon affiliate links I have so much stuff check out the description there's probably a link down there that says uh link tree you click on that you're going to find all my support sites all my social media stuff plus there's a few direct links down there just like check it out and go to your favorite creators and check out their video descriptions if you can't find a way to support them ask because I bet they have a way they might just not be talking about it all right I think that's it for right now I'm tired I need to post all my stuff for today on social media and if you think about getting some sleep how about you all right we'll see you next week don't forget to go out and do something nice for yourself because you deserve it and we'll see you later bye guys


We're here at the World Telecommunication Development Conference 2014 in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and I'm very pleased to be joined by the head of delegation for Rwanda, who is Major François Regis Kataraïcha, who is director of the Rwandan Utilities Regulatory Authority. Major Kataraïcha, I'd like to start off by asking you, what do you see as the major opportunities for Rwanda in terms of ICTs? Well, Rwanda we've been always strong believers that ICTs and broadband in particular can actually bring a lot of benefits in the digital era because the development now for knowledge-based economies depends very much on ICTs. So opportunities are huge in health, education, banking sectors, all these sectors rely on ICTs and broadband for sure. In terms of the challenges, what kind of challenges are you looking at? We are looking at more uptake and usage of broadband because the devices for the usage of broadband are still very costly. So we are working with partners to reduce that cost and make sure that broadband is actually delivered universally and affordably. And how is Rwanda and especially the regulatory authority embracing this? The regulatory authority in Rwanda has been very proactive in embracing the digital era because we've realized that the former, old or classic ways of regulating the telecommunications does not necessarily apply to the broadband digital era. So we've had to adjust our regulatory framework to make sure that it actually provides a conducive environment for broadband. We're here at the World Telecommunication Development Conference here. What's the value for you and your country in attending events such as this? Well, events such as this and especially this World Telecommunication Development Conference is a fantastic platform for us to exchange ideas with the people around the world to understand what are the challenges in developing countries. And this informs our decision-making in the process that we are in to adjust our regulatory framework and to make sure that broadband is delivered universally. And finally, what would you like to see as the outcome from this conference or some of the outcomes from this conference? Some of the outcomes actually that I would like to see is the harmonization of regulatory frameworks and also initiatives that can be joint ventures between regulators, governments and private sector to make sure that affordability is actually delivered for broadband. Thank you very much for taking with us today. Thank you indeed. And thank you for joining us.