s please press star nine on your phone and you'll be given two minutes. Seeing no one I'll bring it back to council for action and deliberation. Is there any council member who would like to move the recommendations that are before us or add additional recommendations on this item? Councilmember Mathews. Yes. I'm looking back to the agenda item would like to appreciate the report given to us. Specifically move the recommendations from economic development regarding number one is done. So two, three, four and five moving forward in the immediate term with two and four regarding the get virtual.org support for local businesses and as soon as possible when we have the budget discussions getting a sense on the microloan program. So it would be moving items well two through five from economic development and continuing the request to track state and federal legislation related to support something particularly for residents, for businesses to come back as well and to come back to us regularly with programs that we can take advantage of and promote and also to continue their work with our community partners particularly regarding the needs of our very low income and immigrant communities. The motion is to move items number two to five from economic development, continue tracking state and federal legislation to come back regularly with reports on progress and then to continue working with community partners who are closely with low income and immigrant communities. Yeah, that's close enough and that items two and four would move quickly on the get virtual. You have that pretty well captured. I think I got it online. I need to read it. No, I got it. Thank you. Maker of the motion would be willing to include an additional direction to staff to as part of the ongoing communication with low income immigrant communities to work to also let's see how to do this to connect with the Community Action Board and Housing Authority and return to Council with recommendation on the viability of providing additional rental assistance. That's I think that's a really important point that we've been hearing and we heard it at our last meeting when the cab representatives told us that this was what was keeping people housed and they're going to run out of money really pretty quickly. So I'd like to keep that on the table for discussion. So that's a hopefully acceptable goal. Most likely so and I want to check with Bonnie, it's my impression that we are continuing to work with cab and our housing partners for additional funding, whether various sources that we can allocate to them to increase the resources, community resources. Is that correct? That's correct. I mean, I'm not sure if I have someone from our housing team on the panel. I think I think I see Jessica Dewitt, but we're in regular communication with those cab and the Housing Authority and just to see where they are with the funding that we've allocated and yeah, we will continue to do that and recommend additional funding. We have it and I think definitely, you know, the need is there and we are monitoring that and checking in. We did offer them some additional funding and asked them and they still had funding the last time we checked in with them, but we recognize that this is going to be an ongoing need. So I'll just say I hope this gets to what you're saying because I think it's entirely consistent with what we're doing, but continue our active partnership with community organizations to identify additional funding sources that can expand housing resources for those that are most affected. Yeah, I mean, I guess I'm specifically and it sounds like this is happening, but I'm specifically speaking about, you know, rental assistance. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so housing resources, I prefer rental assistance. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. I'll second them. The tenant based rent assistance. Yeah, that's what I meant. Yeah. How many did you catch for that? I did, but I would need clarification on whether or not that that is a friendly amendment that's accepted or if you're changing your motion language. I'm just adding to my motion as a suggestion of Council Member Brown. And the amendment goes away. Okay. I got it. Yeah. Is that okay with you? Yeah. Vice Mayor Myers, you had your hand up so I just wanted to acknowledge it. Yeah, thank you. And thank you to everyone who spoke this afternoon to us and to Peter also who is our liaison and obviously very helpful in understanding the needs of the community. I had a question about or I'm curious about I want to make sure we're not losing track also of the need to provide outreach to the community Bonnie that is not not computer based or internet based. And I don't know Peter if there's a way that we can do either some workshops specifically in some of the communities that, you know, where small businesses that maybe don't know of the resources that we're offering. I just, I'm not sure if that's needed, but Council Member Matthews, I just trying to not lose track of the business part of this as well. If people do need that outreach, but I'm happy to hear from staff on that or just get a sense of how we could potentially make sure that that also can be addressed in the motion if needed. Thank you. Yeah, I'll just add we're very open to that. We're very happy to meet with COPA or other representatives. We're in regular, you know, communication with our partners that we fund. But, you know, we want to get the word out of our resources as widely as we can. So we're happy to meet. And I'm happy to add to my motion. Invite suggestions for expanded outreach to for both commercial and residential programs from both community and council members. And I'm wondering if maybe I'll do that. Council Member Brown mentioned early on that she'd be willing to promote to her networks. I think we've all got our networks. We can all promote to them.  And it's the sort of thing we can all copy and paste to our various networks and say, please propagate. Please spread this. And I think that's easy. It's easy for staff because you don't have to do it. Just send us, you know, send us a short description of links and we can help you out there. I just sent it out to the chamber. So I'm going to just pour that to you all. Yeah. Good. So then that's a short addition to invite suggestions for expanded outreach for both the residential and commercial programs. And I guess if I maybe answer Donna's comment, I'll see about the workshop. It seems like B-flat and Lower Oceans is a lot closer to us. We've been, I've had some presence. And I think I will try to, my strategy will be to try to reach to these people through this COPPA and Jorge Savala, who seems to already have a group of people highly involved and heavily needs. And I'll see how I can mediate between economic development and the rest of the city and move on from there. Okay. And thank you very much, Peter, for your help on it. And I just want to thank you. I would include the schools.  So include them in the outreach. Yeah. I appreciate that. And thank you, Vice Mayor Myers for raising the issue about technology access and how it is that we do outreach to the community so that everybody can know about the programs that we have and, you know, other ways to get assistance. I would say, and thank you, Peter, for stepping up to follow up on that. I would be willing, you know, I'm happy to help. Or with that, or if the folks who came and spoke today want to have some kind of meeting with members of the city council, you are welcome to connect with me. And maybe I'll just also connect with you after the meeting, but I wanted to say that this is really big priority for me. And so I do want to be, you know, be involved in it as much as I can.  And so people who are kind of connected to these networks even can be challenged. And, you know, we don't, how do you even know the number to call if you don't have cable or, you know, a computer. So we talk about see the number on your screen and not everybody can do that. So I do think this is an area that we could definitely work on and, you know, kind of improve our processes and are, you know, so I'm happy to help in any way with that. Thanks. And I was just having meetings with those members from Colicross and from COPA. And so if I have any other meetings I'll let folks know or we can maybe figure out a way to connect all of us. I'm wondering if you might be able to read back the motion that we have before us.  For immediate action numbers, I don't know what they were. They're now one and two. Approve additional grant application and then consider the $30,000 in the new budget, which is immediate. And then as soon as possible, the other two items. Continue request track, continue to track state and federal legislation. Come back regularly with programs to take advantage of and promote and continue work with community partners, specifically very low income and immigrant community. Invite suggestions for outreach from both community and council members for residential and commercial programs. And the rental assistance piece I think was the one thing specifically the council member Brown. Yeah. In the tracking the state and federal programs it was for both residential and commercial recovery assistance. I'll turn it back over to you. So we can do the roll call vote. Council Member Byers. Yes. Matthews. Aye. Brown. Boulder. Watkins. Vice Mayor Myers. And Mayor Cummings. That's unanimously. And I also want members of the public to know that we did approve the extension of the eviction war time. So if you weren't on the line during that portion of our call, I just wanted to make sure people knew that that was approved for within the city limits. Thank you Bonnie and Rebecca for the great presentation and look forward to getting an update on how the progress made. Thank you. Thank you very much. With that, I think let's take a like to continue with our next item. Three thirty. Can we have five? Members of the back, if you can turn your video on, we can go ahead and get started. Council Members, if you turn your video on, once you get back, see your seats.  So the next item on our agenda is item number 37, general business with the display of the Pan-African and Black Lives Matter flag at City Hall. An approval of a Black Lives Matter mural.  After the murder of George Floyd on May 25th, 2020, there was a lot of action that obviously has taken place throughout the country in the forms of different types of protests and actions, condemning the use of the excessive use of force by police officers in Minneapolis and really recognizing that communities still need to continue in the fight for equal justice, especially for Black people within the country, across the entire country. Here in Santa Cruz, there have been numerous demonstrations and actions asking for a review of our police policies and people really wanting to find ways that they can support the Black community here in Santa Cruz. We've seen many members of our community go out and support the Black Lives Matter movement. And today one of the things to afford you is a motion to approve the display of the Pan-African and Black Lives Matter flags. I just want to read a little portion from the discussion, which is that the display of flags at City Hall symbolizes solidarity with our community and movements around the world. The Pan-African flag, the tri-coloured flag, consisting of three equal horizontal bands of black and green, which was designed to represent people of the African diaspora and symbolize Black freedom. The phrase Black Lives Matter highlights the flag that Black people are not afforded the same treatment within our society and under the law and represents the ongoing struggle for equal rights and justice under the law. By displaying the Pan-African and Black Lives Matter flags during the month of July in front of City Hall, the city would send the message that the city embraces our Black community members and guests and that the city is committed to ending systemic racism and discrimination of all forms in our community. I've also offered the use of funds from my discretionary account to cover the cost of the flags. It's similar to what we've done in June in remembrance of Pride Month and to honour the LGBTQ community. This will be a way that we can also honour the ongoing struggle for equal rights for members of our Black community in Santa Cruz and in our condition as well. The second item that's going to be brought to our attention is a number of community members have brought forward an ask of the council to approve the installation of a Black Lives Matter mural on Santa Street between Church and Locusts at City Hall and direct public works to issue a regular encroachment permit upon submission of the required documentation. At least two of the community members are with us today and wanted to show a short presentation on the proposition of the mural. And so with that, I'll unmute and turn on the video for Abby Mustafa and Sean McGowan. And I'm not sure if Taylor, I don't see Taylor Line hold on here, but if he signs in then I can also add him to the meeting. Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you. Sean, are you on? Yes, I am. Okay, I can't do a video, but anyway, I'll turn it over to you all for your presentation. If you could allow me to share my screen on how to go to the slide presentation, please. Yeah, we see it. Thank you. Okay, my name is Abby Mustafa and I'm a local artist. And, you know, it came to our attention that this could be a really cool thing to do in Santa Cruz. The idea of this mural isn't just a mural on the ground, necessarily it's not just what's beautiful, it's a call to action to everybody in our community. So the idea and intention behind it is that every year to keep up maintenance with the mural, another organization will have the opportunity to repaint the mural and also say what they've done for the community as far as dismantling systemic racism in their business or in their practice. And so it's really a call to action and that's the whole purpose of this mural. We also have a couple of suggested dates. I don't know if the council can vote on that today, but we suggested Monday the 6th and 7th or the week after that. So the second and third week in July for the permit and we're asking for permanent encouragement permit from the city. Next, we have the location of the mural. We suggest that it would be put on Center Street between Church Street and Locust Street in front of the, sorry, in front of City Hall. And then we have funding. So we originally decided to go with private funding for this because we wanted to be able to completely do it ourselves, not have to ask for anything from the city. But as we've been going on, we've actually found so many people have been on board with this that it's not actually going to take that much to come up with all of the funding for this. And the first year has already been sponsored by the Yoga for All movement. It's a local nonprofit organization and she's decided, or the organization's decided to get us started with several thousand dollars and then they will match our funding as well. And we've had several other organizations offer to match our funding. The, I guess the other point on this that Sean will be able to talk about with safety and liability and Taylor is actually, he is on a project right now in Florida, so he wasn't able to join us right away, but Taylor Reinholt is part of this as well and he's had a lot of experience in these areas. So, go ahead Jen. Hi, my name is Sean McGowan. I'm currently the vice chair of the Arts Commission and part of the Uncensored Proposal Subcommittee. Just want to talk about safety and liability. Our goal is to have a community-driven, socially engaged, collaborative mural painted while still maintaining social distance procedure. We'll be directing volunteers to help keep participants in safe distance from one another and require mass struggle. I've spoken with Ed DeRosa from STOPCO who's been working with the city for decades on road closures. He's agreed to supply air cave, signage, and a traffic control plan for the city. Taylor Reinholt, a local muralist and one of the organizers for this mural has agreed to enter into a contract with the city for a 10-year maintenance program. He has several, several similar agreements in the city including the Oceanscape on Meryl Emission, Emission and Bay, excuse me. I, Sean McGowan, have submitted a certificate of insurance noting Santa Cruz City as an additional certificate holder. I've also spoken with Public Works Department to clarify these requirements. I have also spoken with Rich Smith, the city street supervisor and obtained cal spec item numbers for paints required to comply with street safety, community responsibility, and follow-up initiatives. As Abby said, this mural and its maintenance are a statement of intent and accountability to our community. We intend to submit future proposals to the Arts Commission asking the equity, inclusivity, and environmental justice subcommittee to be involved in ongoing maintenance of this project. We'll be asking them to be responsible for organization, partial funding, and as an identification of partner organizations for a yearly community-driven action to repaint the mural. They will also be recommended that this committee examine the City Arts Commission's commitment to its own equity and inclusivity guidelines and draft an annual report of their findings. Further, we'll suggest that City Council create an annual report to coincide with this event regarding their commitment to the Health and All Policy, which is the city's policy for equity, inclusivity, and sustainability. This is a list of the supporters and community representation that we've found. Most notably, we've gotten endorsements from the Museum of Art and History, the Santa Cruz Chapter of the NAACP, the Bahara Valley Community Trust, and special thanks to Shadar Gill and the Yoga for All Movement for financial supporting her first year. And we have so many contributors that it had to go on two slides. Abby, would you like to say something before we finish? Yeah, no, I would just like to thank you for even hearing our proposal. It really means a lot to me because it is, like I said, I don't want it to just be a type of performative allyship. The entire project and it continuing on for several years means actual community engagement and really taking action on what's going on with civil rights right now. So I appreciate you hearing us. And special thanks again to Shadar Gill for being our first year fiscal sponsor in office. Any questions? And Sean, I will bring it back to council to see if there's any questions for me regarding the flags or for the muralists and artists who want to bring forth the mural. By the way. Thank you for both of these proposals. Regarding the mural, I like the idea of ongoing community engagement year after year in its maintenance. My impression is that the expectation would be each year a different group to raise the money and recruit the volunteers and as you said, report on what they're doing. Have I understood that correctly? Yeah. Okay. And it sounds like after year one, the responsibility for coordinating that goes to the arts, the city arts program. Is that right? Yeah. You know, that's probably manageable because it's pretty straightforward, but it will be a regular ongoing commitment for, I think, organization more than anything else, but it's really it's a great concept. So just knowing that after year one this will become a responsibility of our arts program. I agree that I like how it's going to be continued year after year and I just have one question since it's going to be painted on the surface of the asphalt, correct? Correct. So when they're doing, is there talk about when they're planning, I think we just talked about it hours back, when they're doing street paving, like when is that in the schedule? Would it be possible to get that part of the street paved, I don't know how long pavement lasts, but paved in advance so that it doesn't have to be paved over in a few years? You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I don't know the logistics like that. I know that the portion of street that we chose is currently in like decent maintenance, but we didn't plan for that. I think of that we are using a certain type of paint, so the paint that's going on the road is for pavement. So even the logistics of potential maintenance in the future, we should have paint left over that can be used and it really should keep pretty long. So to do it in the future, you know, it'll be a little bit more like symbolic than it will be necessary for the maintenance to be painted for the first couple of years. I just think it'd be great if we could coordinate with the public works department if they're planning on paving that section in the next year to just do it now ahead of the mural. This is Chris and I are public works department. We don't see any need to repave the street at least in the next five years. That's all I was hoping to hear. Thank you. Council Member Watkins. Thank you for the proposal and for the presentation. Such an important time and powerful message. Shout out to Shawnee from Yoga for All Movement. What a great organization. We're willing to step up. They do a lot around equity. I don't know if it's more of a comment as opposed to a question, but I definitely want to show appreciation for the alignment to the health and all policies work, particularly as it relates to equity and health equity and want to make sure that I don't know if it's in the recommendation, but as we move forward, I'm happy to continue the conversations with staff around how to integrate this into the reporting and to the work that's happening around health and all policies. I'm not sure if anybody's on here, but I just wanted to make that statement because it's definitely in alignment and synergistic with that work. Those are my comments. Council Member Mathews and then Vice Mayor Myers. Just to say, I believe the arts policy and Shawnee are on the arts commission already has a very strong commitment to equity and so that I believe is an expressed policy already of the commission. And whether we need a separate report on this project particularly maybe not, but fold the idea of our health and all policies framework being reflected in this as well as many other things we do and also acknowledging the commitment of the arts commission. As for the date, I think that can probably be left best to the project coordinators and public works. I don't think we need to set the date right now. But obviously in the near future is what you've got in mind. And I'll just say that by not setting that date, it provides flexibility. That's what we're trying to do whenever you all are ready to do it, let the community know and allow you to get your permits and move forward. I think that's wonderful. Vice Mayor Myers. Yeah, I just wanted to thank community members and the mayor for bringing these two items forward. I support them completely. For the initial painting I wanted to just have the dates that you're thinking about maybe repeated because I did not get a chance to write them down and I just thought and I know I heard a couple of dates thrown out as possibilities maybe we just repeat those. Yeah. We were hoping for either July 6th and 7th or the 15th and 14th. So it would give us a week to two weeks to prepare. Okay, great. Thank you for that. And yeah, I think I'm very supportive of the effort and really pleased to see this, especially going out in front of City Hall and then, you know, the part of the city where we just get a lot of movement between the library and various facilities that are in that area, the Civic Auditorium, City Hall, all of it. So thank you for bringing it forward and thank you for yeah, just thanks for doing this for our community. Okay. Just a quick question to public works. Do you have any comments on dates or dates? No, but if we get all the information that's needed for the encroachment permit which sounds like that's imminent, any date will work. I think we just leave that to you guys to work out. Yeah. Are you going to comment from the public now? Okay. And I would just ask that, you know, when this happens because it sounds like there's a lot of support for it that you send an invitation to council members so we can... What do you think? Absolutely. Absolutely. With that, I'll turn it over to members of the public if you would like to comment on the item before us. Please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand and I will click on, I'll and once you're ready you'll have two minutes to speak to this item. I think the idea of a BLM street mural in front of city hall quoted the black Marxist Malcolm X. I also have Malcolm X quotes for you. Quote, respect everyone, but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery or show me a capitalist, I'll show you a bloodsucker. Malcolm X was a Marxist black power activist in the 60s and was no Martin Luther King. He believed in violence if necessary. He was coming from the wrong place in 2020 and we do and do we need to follow a failed city like Seattle? Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrice Cooler is admitted during a Friday night interview with CNN that our goal is to get Trump out. She said in 2015, she and Alicia Garges are trained Marxists. The UK BLM founder Natalie Jeffers wants followers to fight capitalism and quote, dedicate ourselves to revolutionary power politics. None of those things are about police abuse. A black person is two-and-a-half times as likely to be killed by police. It is also true black murderers and violent offenders have an even higher demographic percent per population than other races.  This overlooked conversation statistic does not support a charge of systemic racism. It sadly makes sense although I'm with you on a discussion of police review to ensure the civil rights of all Americans are protected. The BLM movement didn't come out early including vandalism, rioting in response to George Floyd's death and there sure are a ton of people still doing extreme violence in the name of the BLM. They should not be rewarded and I want to hear your condemnation of protest violence. Don't insult us to say this black power BLM billboard is art and that brand name now has tainted politic. The Ferguson killing, the riots, the looting in 2014 and the foundation of the BLM movement was based on a lie. It was found no evidence existed all testimony of such recanted that Michael Brown ever had his hands up and said don't shoot. An officer Wilson was acquitted because Brown tried to assault then steal the officer's guns and later continuously charge the officer full speed. Yet the BLM chants this still. Does no justice no peace sound nonviolent to you? Thank you. Next, you're on the line. I thought I noticed on one of the earlier slides a $2,000 or $3,000 expenditure for film crew. Can you explain what that is all about? Thank you. Yes. What we normally do is go through the comments and so any other member of the public would like to speak to us on the item before us. Now is your time. Please press star and I on your phone to raise your hand and you'll be able to comment on this item. They know the members of the public would like to speak to us on this item. I'll just state that and please chime in Abby or Sean, but my understanding is that this is going to be privately funded as you mentioned before and the costs are being covered. So there's no cost to the city and but if you want, if you'd like to speak to a little bit more to the comment that was raised please go ahead. That's not a necessary expenditure either way. We have people who are willing to do the filming of it and we thought that it would be nice to document. They are willing to do it for less or for free. That would be the minimum of what they would charge outside of doing it for us as a favor and so we included that and we will include that in our extra fundraising but like we said none of this is going to be funded by the city. This is all privately funded so it's coming from us and that's something that we would like to have and to do to offer for other people to be able to see how it happened. Just to document the whole thing. Thank you. Are there any other comments from council members on this item? There's not then I would like to, I think we can move the item council member Matthews. Yeah, I'm prepared to go ahead and do that. I would like to thank those involved in bringing this to our attention and move approval of the recommendation to display the flags in front of City Hall in the month of July and also to approve the proposal for the installation of a Black Lives Matter mural with private funds on Centre Street as described with the expectation that this would involve community the community for I'm going maintenance under the supervision of the art commission. Okay. We have a motion by council member Matthews. Council member Brown, I see your hands raised. Yeah, I wanted to make a comment but I think I see council member Watkins had her hand up and that might have been just second. I'll give it to you if that's what you wanted to do and then I'll just make a comment after that. I was going to second the motion. Motion by council member Matthews seconded by council member Watkins, council member Brown. I just really quickly wanted to say thank you for bringing this to us since we saw the one in DC emerge and then kind of across the country this happening. I've talked with people about how great would it be let's make it happen here and I'm just really thrilled to see such a capable team bringing it to fruition so thank you for this and I'll leave it there and I totally support. I just had a question but I forgot it I guess I'm going to move on. I just wanted to check with the motion as it was stated that I was wondering if in that motion or if the intention also was in the recommendation this every year through the month of July and I just wanted to see it. Yeah, this as stated. All right. Well, those are the comments I guess I'll turn it over to city clerk to call the roll call the question. I wanted to ask the I'll ask my question afterwards Bonnie I'll turn it over to you for the vote. Council Member Byers Matthews Hi Boulder Vice Mayor Meyers and Mayor Cummings receiving our invitation to this event and helping the parties debate. I would like to say that with the research for all of this I believe that we are the second city in the U.S. to vote on this. The manager if we're intending to send the press release out I'm just going to just want to ask the press release out. Sweet, we could do that. Thanks. All right, thanks Abby and Sean. Thank you. Thank you so much. Can't wait to work on it with everybody. Thank you. Council Member Matthews This will probably be picked up quickly anyway but I think the press release it sounds like the date is imminent and that might I mean if it's a matter of waiting a day or two and get the date in there. Yeah. Let us know when you guys have a date figured out. Thank you so much. Our agenda item number 38 which is the surveillance ordinance and recognition technology and predictive policing. I'll turn that over to Chief Mills and he'll be weighing in on that item as well. Actually I don't know if Chief Mills was on currently 2019 I was asked to be on the panel regarding facial recognition technology and its use for policing and also been approached by other members of the community who had some concerns around the use of predictive policing. I began having conversations with the police chief on whether we should consider banning predictive policing even the negative impacts it can have on people who are from communities of color and the police chief informed me that the technology he had stopped using the technology in the city of Santa Cruz and then during the conversation on facial recognition technology it became apparent that the technology has not been fully developed to a point at which bias has been removed. This item was initially brought to council in January by myself council members Cron and Glover it went to the public safety committee it was supposed to come back to council but because of COVID-19 we had to stop on many of the items that were already in motion during that time and given the given what's happened around George Floyd and the concerns around excessive use of force and the use of technologies that may impact people of color within communities throughout the United States we thought that it was appropriate to bring back this item because it's very it relates to everything that's going on right now is do what we can to protect members of communities of color with policy and so this has been the recommendation that we brought forward and it looks like Chief Mills just joined they can provide more background and information about what's happening with policing currently in the city of Santa Cruz and the changes we're trying to make to protect our residents and if you're ready I'll turn it over to you well I apologize for being tardy we're having a meeting here in the office to discuss these very topics and if somebody can help me with sharing the screen for the PowerPoint slides I can get it real quickly hang on I apologize if you're not able to figure it out we'll have it and are prepared to run it if you will the second part of this motion today is actually asking for the establishment of a committee establishment of and I can provide some language for recommendation though that to ask but the demonstrations and the police chief and I's commitment to really trying to work with the black community work with the community to address some of their concerns we've been we hosted the initial webinar of the full community and we've met the past two weeks with members of the black community on multiple occasions to really try to understand what are some of the needs and concerns coming out of that community in particular and what I will say is I will also as a council member was enjoying those conversations and saw what was going on and realized that we really need to try to have some kind of a formal or structured way of moving forward with these different conversations so we can pull together information from all our community members and bring forward items that we can take action on and then also recommendations for the longer term and so when we come back I'll have an ask from the council regarding that but at this point I believe he's prepared a presentation with what Santa Cruz Police Department has been doing and some of the conversations that we've had so chief I'll just try to overview you. Well thank you Mr. Mayor for stalling for me I appreciate it and if you can go to the next slide please Bonnie. So this presentation has a couple of objectives first is to introduce the ordinance that would prohibit the acquisition technology and predictive policing technology and police technologies have been proven to safeguard the civil rights and liberties of all people and not perpetuate bias. The National Institute of Science did some research and found out that Asian women and black men were up to 100 times more likely to be misidentified through face recognition technology and predictive policing has been shown over time to put officers in conflict with the communities rather than working with the communities so we feel and we support the mayor who brought this forward to me some time ago to ban these technologies until such time that can be peer reviewed and scientifically proven that it wouldn't hurt that. In addition you've already discussed developing an ad hoc committee by council to make recommendations for institutional reform so that it can be institutionalized here in Santa Cruz and councilmember Watkins is very instrumental in helping us with this language not only the African American community but also the Latinx and LGBTQ plus communities. And then also I want to give you an update on police reforms in regard to social justice so you can go to the next slide please. Update on police reform changes we've already been working on them for several months we've had mandatory de-escalation training and then a reward for officers who take the risk personal risk to de-escalate to the right you can see a picture of a pin that we issue to our officers once they've successfully de-escalated a potentially violent confrontation and we've given out many of these awards up to this point. We also purchased an upgraded equipment so make sure they have less lethal technologies in all of the vehicles to prevent the use of lethal force and in order to help de-escalate that. We've also changed our use of force policy to include the terminology reasonable and necessary as well as rather than eminent use of threat it must be an immediate threat before an officer is able to use lethal force. This may not seem like a significant change but it actually is in terms of it's not that what we anticipate it's what's taking place currently in front of us. We also after talking about for six or seven months completely banned the choke hold or what is also known as the carotidary restraint and then a few days later the governor's office put a hold on it for the rest of the state not because of what we did but because the heat felt it was the correct time to do this. And then we've also formed the community group with the mayor of members of the black community certainly not all are able to help guide us have these discussions and so that we can help the allies and advocate together for lasting change not just temporary change and I think that is the key element is that we begin to build this relationship of trust that we collaborate together and find a way forward that celebrates all of our communities but more importantly institutionalize this change here in our inner city and we're also examining additional changes you go ahead and do the board please so banned the carotidary restraint this is just a reflection of that we did that on June 5th and the policy all these policies are online and people are welcome to go and view these policies for themselves and we're happy that that has taken place and we're moving forward ahead require de-escalation rather than using force whenever possible we use what we call time talk in tactics we do training annually as well as regular scenario based training here at the station as well as monthly videos and analysis of incidents that are taking place elsewhere to be able to dissect them to be able to break them down and determine what we might learn from those in order to do better and these are really interesting conversations initially officers really didn't want to criticize cops in other locations and now they're able to actually dissect these things and talk about how they might be able to de-escalate better I think that's a very positive step to be able to look at these events please forward we have a duty to intervene we have a little mantra here if you see it you own it you can no longer just stand idly by and say well that wasn't me so we have a duty to intervene in our policy and it says that they shall intervene in the use of force there's reasonable belief to be excessive officers shall immediately also report that excessive force to supervisor in failure to do so may result in punishment up to and including termination and depending on the situation that was in advance please also require a warning before shooting when it's possible that's not always possible as you might understand but when it's possible we want officers to let them know that they are the police that they're in uniform and that any reasonable when it's reasonable to issue that warning again that's part of our policy these are all by the way as part of the eight can't wait campaign and so people can reference that by searching online also exhaust all other means before shooting we call that tactical de-escalation which you see there is a picture of a shield so that we can deploy those to give us extra cover to buy the time the distance for the sake of the concealment in order to be able to de-escalate some of these events one it's one thing to talk to people and to talk them down that's not always possible it's an environment in which we wind up operating sometimes you have to do it in different ways and this was recently used by a man threatening suicide with a broken bottle and rather than hurting the guy we were able to wrestle that away from him go ahead we also ban shooting at moving vehicles to and from moving vehicles officers are prohibited from shooting at or from a moving vehicle it's part of our policy and we direct officers that they shall move the vehicle whenever that's possible the only exception is that the driver is using the vehicle is reasonably believed that it's a weapon of mass casualty in other words they're trying to drive into a crowd and one of the things we saw for instance in the recent protests and civil unrest in the nation is that there are 18 according to media different incidents of people driving into the crowds and unintentionally and so we want to make sure that our officers have the ability to protect the vehicle in a in a crowd situation go ahead please we have we required very comprehensive reporting what you see on the right is our use of force worksheet so every time a use force is used on anybody the officers have to fill out worksheet so we can do several things one account for and then two measure the effectiveness of the types of force we're using that's one of the reasons we felt very comfortable in banning train the effectiveness and the frequency is not there so why not get rid of a very risky maneuver such as that we also capture this in our internal affairs IA pro captures use of force is our earlier warning system immediate supervisor does always does an investigation anytime there's a use of force a deputy chief has to sign off on this form that you're seeing we review the body worn cameras to make sure that the force was was appropriate and reviewed by a supervisor and we also have to report to the state all uses of force that require hospitalization and then we also report this out to public safety subcommittee on a regular basis as well so there's a comprehensive reporting system on two different levels obviously also right police reports the detail very very clearly why they need to use force and that's required by the supervisor to make sure that it's appropriate please advance require use of force systems the level of force used shall be escalated only when it's reasonable and necessary to effectuate arrest or no crime resistance this is the matrix or the the continuum that many have talked about and if you go to the next slide please this is what it looks like in order to in order to use force it must be appropriate to the level of resistance involved so in the left column you'll see the threat level the level of resistance in the right column you'll see the level of force that is officers can use now please don't think of this as vertical this is more of a circular type of policy because if you get out of your car and somebody shooting at you you don't have time the opportunity to go through all of those those stages which need to do is be able to respond appropriately but what the officers realize and what the officers are instructed to do is take a look at the level of of the threat and respond proportionately on the right side so some is just being passively resistant or non-compliant we don't want them spraying them with pepper spray we want them to use control holes and the other things they can do to get them into custody and to use handcuffs this is very important because it makes it the use of force proportional and to go to the next slide please additional reforms that we're taking look at and we are going to implement it's just a matter of getting it written into our policy calling it the brand of Taylor Rule which means that we're prohibiting no-knock search warrants which is the entry of police officers unannounced into an occupied building only the chief of police can approve that and we do need to have it available for instance in a hostage rescue that's about the only time we would have to use it and now it doesn't happen very often but we still need to have that tool available and then the other rule is we're having a uniform police officer present invisible during the execution of every search warrant so that there is no question as to who's hitting this house with the search warrant that we want to make sure that everybody is well aware of this police and if you go to the next slide please that's it we've done a lot in a very short period of time but I really want to make this clear this is just a triage this is just to stop the bleeding this is not the endgame the endgame is to find systemic changes to institutionalize racism not only in policing but in other sectors of society as well and so this is just the beginning part of the conversation there's been 400 years where we're going to have to overcome trust is going to have to be rebuilt with our communities and that can only come through time and working shoulder to shoulder with them but I want our community to know that we are 100% committed to work with the community also I miss the community but particularly right now the black community has the greatest needs and certainly if you have any questions we'd be happy to answer them thanks chief for that update and presentation and I want to let folks know I'm not sure if I've received it yet today but we're also going to be holding of the meetings that we've been holding with the community we're going to have an update Thursday evening at 6pm similar to the first webinar we had it'll probably be about an hour long and we'll be able to report out on the conversations that we've been having in the black community and we'll have an update a similar update from the chief on these different policies so that more people in the community can be aware of the actions that we're taking and that we're really taking this situation seriously and that we are trying to be proactive and are continuing this momentum towards actual systemic change Erin thank you chief I just wanted to thank you for involving me in the effort as well and being connected to this group and trying to make some of these major changes I want to acknowledge you chief for really having the willingness to be bold in terms of some of these immediate changes you seek now I was actually just reading something earlier today about how if you want to see less violence then hire more women too so I think there's there's a lot more to explore as well but I think you said it really right that there's a sort of unresolved history that we have when it addresses a nation that is it's percolating at this moment it has throughout the years and until some of those bigger shifts occur we have some of the things that we can do here locally right now I do also just want to say that it's been really wonderful to have a unique opportunity to hear the black voices and to hear their thoughts specifically as it relates to policing and really wanting to embrace that moving forward knowing that the city has a really strong foundation particularly as it relates to the health and all policies framework in place as well as the recent acknowledgement of racism being a public health issue I feel that for some of those big institutional shifts that we seek that the voices of the black community seeks and I think that the community at large seeks as well could really fit into some of those bigger shifts so as this moves forward I really look forward to having really intentional policy come out of this and the council being apprised and supportive moving forward as well so thank you for making this happen today Thank you I just want to follow up as well because I do want to mention that part of the reason why we're going to be asking to form or to give direction from the mayor to form a working group is because we have been receiving a lot of feedback on what the city should be doing but often times in a lot of the recommendations we've been receiving what folks are saying that we should do defunding the police and where that funding goes often times it doesn't mention how it's going to support the black community and it usually isn't coming from the black community so I think what the chief and I are really intending is to really hear from black community members and community members who are impacted and understand what their needs are and what kind of needs they would like to see the city council suggest moving forward and so while I know that there's a lot of conversation around this idea of defunding the police I think what we're really intentionally trying to do is hear from the communities that are the most impacted and understand how we can support those communities moving forward and so that's been a big focus of our conversation just so that the public and the community can see what can we do that's going to have the greatest impact on providing safety to the black community and the other communities that are generally affected by police violence. Council Member Browner. Thank you Chief Mills for the overview and thank you Mayor Cummings for bringing this forward and taking some leadership here in engagement with the community around this issue I think clearly this goes beyond the defund the police demands that are being made into kind of thinking about how we do how it is that we fight institutional racism in our community at large and so I just wanted to ask Chief Mills and maybe Mayor Cummings if you've thought about this so I'm trying to figure out how to say this because my experience I have heard from people of color in this community who are really who are engaged in the defund debate and so I don't think that it's simply a small subset of white people who are doing this and I think that this call is going to continue and I struggle with the language around this and what I'm hearing is that there is a pretty widespread obviously attention to the police budget and legitimate demands to evaluate the city to reevaluate how we spend our money in the law enforcement arena and so I guess I'm just and I know you've written a message about this so and it was very thoughtful and kind of responsive to the current climate but I'm just wondering if you've thought about in moving forward with the working group and an ongoing discussion with the community how you will approach that question and people who are coming to the table who do want to talk about that if you've thought about that a little bit it would be helpful to hear because even though the kind of discussion has been happening it hasn't really with people getting together and having a discussion right it's been kind of making statements and we get emails and all of that but I'd like to know how that will kind of how you think that will feel or how you'll approach that in conversation well just before we came on I was having that very discussion with members of the black community that's why we're actually here having that discussion I think that's the wrong question I defunding not defunding I think the issue is effectiveness what are we going to do effectively to manage how we deinstitutionalize racism in our society in all that that means and listen policing has hundreds of year history with being on the wrong side of racism so it's not like we're not without fault but to me the issue is how do we effectively engage with the communities of color the black community and specific and create the environment for them to thrive and prosper and be free of violence and so to me that is the bigger issue and the issue comes up of well what about mental health and homelessness and drug addiction there's not a cop in this building that doesn't agree that we are not the resource for that and we shouldn't be the resource for that but we're the only ones have been saddled with it and so this is a very difficult discussion and so when the county and we need to get the county engaged so when the county engages with us and we're able to maybe back off on those types of things then we can certainly assess you know the budget and the staffing levels and all those things but I've been doing this 42 years and I've yet to see adequate services to handle that not saying it can't take place but that's a big discussion and a complete systemic change in thinking not only by us but by the county by the state by the federal government and if we can get everybody in the same page and right now is the time as one of the ladies here today said we've got the momentum it's the big mode so now is the time to make that happen just to kind of give you a sense of what we've been hearing so we've had at least I've been involved in at least four meetings now at a minimum one was with the UC in double ACP the chief and I held one meeting shortly after I think it was the third day after George Floyd's murder and then the following week we had a meeting we've had three meetings now one was another one was a broader meeting and then lastly we held the zoom meeting and what I've been hearing coming out of those meetings just a brief summary people in the black community have been expressing is wanting equal treatment on the law they one of the things we've done is ask people how they're being treated by the police and Santa Cruz and the conversations that I've been having and the emails I've been receiving from people who identify as African-Americans is that they actually feel safer in Santa Cruz than they have in many other places in the city that the way that the police have been treating them in the city of Santa Cruz is just like any other person for the most part overall I have heard instances of when people had bad encounters but overwhelmingly people, especially people like myself who I grew up in Chicago which has a history of violence against communities of color I've spoken with other people who grew up in a land with just Santa Cruz and we all felt that we don't feel threatened by the police here in Santa Cruz so that's some of what we've been hearing from members of the black community many people are concerned with how people are treated and they want to see police officers treat people of color the same as they would treat anybody else when they approach them there's a lot of conversation around accountability and transparency and I think that's something that we can further explore in terms of how we can make policing more transparent and more accountability and the other thing that's come up is that the police shouldn't be a catch-all the chief just pointed to that everybody is saying that a great example is with homelessness I think we can all agree it would be great if there's an agency that is maybe based out of the public health department who would be able to answer these calls for mental health but it doesn't exist and I think that one of the things I'm encouraging people to do as they look at the police budget is to also look at the budget of the county and see how are they spending their funds are the programs that they're implementing effective if not what should they maybe consider doing and as I was mentioning with police shouldn't be a catch-all we've seen with COVID-19 now that the county health orders and the state health orders are coming down and that we're giving these orders over the enforcement of these orders over to the police department so the governor has said not wearing a mask is a misdemeanor so do we expect all of our police to be running around trying to ticket anyone who doesn't have a mask or trying to ticket every single person who's on the beach I think that it's proven to be overwhelming and the police correct me if I'm wrong but I think that we're just constantly loading more and more on our police department and to the extent to which we can work with the community to clearly identify and really hone in on do we need to change the role of the police department and have them have specific roles and those other roles can be taken by other agencies I think that's a big part of this conversation but really at the core of it many people in the black community don't want to see this opportunity to change systemic racism to be hijacked to address all these other issues that are going on in our community as it relates to homelessness and drug addiction and mental health so I think that's why it's really important that we're focusing on our police department in the city of Santa Cruz and we're really working towards these changes to end structural racism and policing I'll turn over to one of the buyers by the way Catherine I hate that just thinking I've only got about four months left on the city council it's really a short term and I can't think of any issue that this agenda item is today it's sad it's a difficult time but for me I'm here with this agenda item is extremely exciting it is real change between the leadership chief meals you've given and our mayor it's just overwhelming in this very very short time and in fact to me I know it's just the beginning because you're setting up a working group by no means are we just having one meeting and take a boat that's over with so I'm just pleased and thrilled and I sort of smile when you're talking about the meeting you just had and how you are having to deal with the mental health and the homeless we just had a board meeting on the housing matters and all we just talk about we need other agencies to take over the mental health problems that we're dealing with and not the police they're always having to call the police and we have anything not to have the police appear for whatever reason unless it's really something violent so it's there and I don't even know where to begin I've got to be a lot of discussions with the county definitely having a social worker on the what's the county I think I think the county and city split the cost that is a tiny little help but it's a help but programs like that have got to be instituted but anyway thank you very much and keep up the good work it's very wonderful thank you are there any other council members who would like to speak to us on this item I do also want to make council members aware and Tony might ask you I know that there were some changes that came in we've received some feedback from the ACLU to include additional information which the chief and I were able to review I don't know if that was sent out to council members or we should show it on the screen the city clerk was able to post it on the drop-off in the agenda packet as well yes I updated the updated item in there yeah it's in there any members of the public would like to speak to this item now is the time to press star 9 on your phone you'll be given two minutes to speak on this item and I'll turn over to members of the public you're allowed to speak Hi my name is Reggie Meisler I'm a six-year resident of Santa Cruz and I just find it interesting how much time is spent talking about use of force when the FPCD seems to spend less than 15% of their time responding to actual violent crime and 85% responding to nonviolent crime a 2018 department analysis found that only 15% of calls for service were categorized as crime while 43% were just checks and suspicious activity that same analysis self-reported 30% of all calls for service were regarding the homeless that they could do nothing with and the disproportionate percentage of the homeless is black and brown it seems like that police spend more time looking for trouble than responding to it the fact that police spend so little time responding to violent crime but still managed to enact a lot of violence on people is a signal that this is a systemic problem with how our society works and how it uses police I believe that we don't need better trained police, we need less police and I do agree that we do need to replace a large majority of the work police do with social workers and first responders but also services the police budget is very large 30 million dollars a year we spend almost nothing on safe parking transitional encampments and communities of color beach flats seemed incapable of receiving of pittance of funding they had to ask for an impact fund and that barely raised anything if we could use 50% of the police budget 15 million a year to fund real services for the homeless in these divested communities of color we could really do something that's transformational for them and that's what I wanted to say, thank you thank you Hi, my name is Matt Cagle and I represent the ACLU of Northern California we're speaking today in full support of the proposed bans on the acquisition and use of predictive policing and facial recognition by city departments including the police the recent police killings of black people such as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor have sparked a nationwide reckoning on how we approach policing and by extension how we approach surveillance Santa Cruz needs to listen to the calls of this movement as a first step Santa Cruz has an opportunity to pass a law introduced by mayor Cummings to ban predictive policing for recognition, tech use and acquisition by city departments these technologies are both known to be racially biased today's legislation is just one step towards wider police and surveillance reform face recognition is a racially biased technology that poses a threat to our safety and constitutional rights it ushers in a world where we can be tracked for attending a protest, a house of worship or the doctor's office it fuels and exacerbates racist policies predictive policing software reproduces racism and historical bias in our criminal justice system decisions about public safety should be made by this city council working with the public and the community not by algorithms of profit-seeking companies so there's no place in Santa Cruz for racially discriminatory policing as folks were discussing or policing technologies that fuel racism nearly 350 local residents agree with us and have signed a petition that is before the council right now so the city's council we encourage you to pass this full ban on predictive policing and facial recognition because anything less does it to service to this moment and to the people of Santa Cruz thank you so much thank you next speaker you're on the line thank you we're way more articulate than I could be but I do want to say that details matter facts matter and the heinous crime in Minneapolis that's what it was Minneapolis is not Santa Cruz Santa Cruz PD is not Minneapolis PD and because a terrible crime happened there and because there's systemic things happening there that doesn't mean it's the same in Santa Cruz and that's not the design you know issues here but keep funding the police in Santa Cruz at the present time without all these other systems in place that both Mayor Cunning's and Chief Mills spoke about it's just insane and we don't have the systems in place and I do believe that people are just taking these slogans and running with them without any thought so I want to thank you for your efforts that's all thank you next speaker yes hi good afternoon this is Tracy Rosenberg from Oakland Privacy and I'm speaking on behalf of a coalition of 45 human and civil rights groups that have sent you a letter in favor of today's ban on facial recognition and predictive policing I want to emphasize what Police Chief Mills said to you that we are looking for permanent transformational change not temporary shifts we're at a point in history where we really need to take stock and look for systematic real change these technologies in addition to being racially biased as we really are are really authoritarian tools to crush dissent and to racially profile and track people who for whatever reason are on the wrong side of society's divides so the reality here is that we have to make some decisions about the future world that we want to live in are we going to continue with 400 years of systematic racism or are we going to start to turn a corner it's encouraging to hear the City Council today saying we want to turn that corner and I want to encourage you to be brave and to be bold technologies, facial recognition and predictive policing they are not new development now for a decade or more so I want to encourage you when you are saying that you are banning the use of this software in the city of Santa Cruz not to be afraid to actually ban it there is no chance that these pieces of software are suddenly going to become unbiased and non discriminatory they are not so thank you for bringing this forward Mayor Cummings and Police Chief Mills and I encourage you to move ahead and to move ahead as I said bravely and fully you don't need to have a a backstop in this legislation it's a ban, it's an appropriate ban it's a first step it's more work to do and Santa Cruz will be fine you don't need these technologies in your town as Chief Mills said there are many, many ways to keep people free and flawed racially by a software is not one of those ways thank you yes speaker my name is Avery Beck, I'm a member of some rising groups in Santa Cruz I'm calling in mostly support of the surveillance ordinance I support the ban on facial recognition technology, predictive policing I'm happy that SCPD several years ago stopped the use of predictive policing I would also agree with the last caller and that it's not necessary to have this backstop in this legislation which requires the approval of the city council in order to use facial recognition in specific circumstance urge the council to just remove that portion and just institute an outright ban on these technologies but also encourage the council to look at other military technology that SCPD may be using especially for many surplus under DoD program 1033 and this is not like conspiracy like the UCSC police use federal surveillance technology on graduate students who are fighting for cost of living adjustment probably spending more money than it would have cost to simply give them the adjustment but in general I'm very happy that the council is attacking this issue and I encourage you all to keep fighting for that, thank you thank you speaker and online Peter Gelblum and I want to just make two points one is one that reflected by the last two speakers I'm hearing a bad echo, are you guys hearing an echo? No if you're listening on multiple devices you may want to turn off whatever you're using to watch this. There you go, that's better how's that? Okay is that the as Tracy Rosenberg said as the last caller referred to this technology may get better at identifying people of color but it is never cannot by its very nature protect the civil rights and civil liberties of all people because of its invasive authoritarian dystopian nature that is just not ever going to be possible regardless of how much more accurate it ever becomes you're always going to have that problem so you're going to have it being invasive and authoritarian for everybody instead of just for some group so that test in my mind is never going to be met and the second point I wanted to make is that as Mayor Cummings referred to this was a broader ordinance originally when it was brought to the council in January and when I went to the public safety committee and they approved it and I really urge you after your summer break to get back to the broader ordinance which doesn't ban anything at all all it does and it really is hard for me to imagine any legitimate opposition to it to require a public process and transparency with any city agency wants to adopt acquire or use any kind of surveillance technology if they come up and they say this is what we're going to use it for this is how we're going to use it and the city council approves it then it can be used all it requires is the process and we know that that is required because we just found out that the SCPD without public notice recently installed ALPRs like the SCPD in beach flats is very heavily Latino community and we know that without the city council's approval thank you thank you for that my name is Madison I'm a long-term resident of Santa Cruz and I'm calling to express my concern about the predictive policing ordinance as it is currently defined there's a very big loophole in the ordinance which stipulates that the police to continue to use predictive policing technology if this technology needs scientifically validated and peer-reviewed research to protect and safeguard the civil liberties and rights of all people and will not protect race bias as determined by the city council or in other words if the city council thinks it's fine but as any Andy Mills just affirmed in his presentation the point of banning predictive policing is that it is an inherently racist technology that encourages bias policing practices and insurgencies on our civil liberties if this loophole still allows for dispersions in use so I encourage city council to strike this loophole from the language of the ordinance to adopt a true ban on the use and purchase of predictive policing technology I'm speaking on the line hi there my name is Stacey Falls I am on the local ACLU board and I wanted to echo some of the comments made by the previous two speakers I am opposed to both predictive policing and facial recognition technology and I'm opposed to them for a couple reasons first of all they're obviously racially bias and I think chief Mills gave us some pretty compelling statistics that the faces of people of color are disproportionately misidentified 10 to 100 times more often than white faces but I'm also concerned just generally about the encroachment on our privacy so that even if all of the problems with racial bias were worked out and it was a 100% accurate technology I live in a democracy I don't want the government or the police department to have be able to scrape my facebook profiles and run photos of protests through databases and figure out who is there again even if it ended up being perfect technology that just scary big brother stuff so I'd like to see a full on ban I don't think that I agree that this idea that if city council decides eventually it's fine technology then we can use it it should just be banned we live in a democracy and I appreciate that chief Mills is willing to stand in front of city council and say he supports this but the whole point of living in a democracy is that we don't have to ask the police to not invade our privacy and I just want to make sure that even if chief Mills retires or we get a new chief police that we'll have the same kind of protections afforded to us by our constitution Thank you Is that me? Can you hear me? Hi my name is Rachel Kippen I'm a city of Santa Cruz resident and I first wanted to say thank you so much and this ordinance and I agree with a lot of the comments that have already been stated that it's a really important first step but an actual full ban seems like the direction that we need to be moving towards especially as we had a council and police chief in the past that believed that predpull was an appropriate technology to bring to town and then secondly in relationship to the ad hoc committee that's being created and further use of technology through social media I'd like to voice my concern over the Santa Cruz police department and chief Andy Mills personal individual social media accounts and the posting of photos of individuals who are apprehended this to me seems like a very unethical practice I'm not entirely sure why it's needed but it also seems to be contributing to racial bias in our community so I'd love it if you folks could look into that as well thank you so much again thank you hello can everybody hear me yes good evening hi hello my name is Oscar and I am a resident of Beach Flats neighborhood I want to thank you all for meeting today and given the speakers of the Santa Cruz voice thank you chief Mills for opposing and standing in front of the city council today and fighting for our democracy I agree with the previous comments shared before as a person color here in Santa Cruz I still fear the police department here since arriving here by no fault at all I've had just talking about the situation right now is making my heart beat and that says enough in terms of why I'm against the surveillance ordinance and facial recognition technology and the predictive policing the fact that you're being watched for no problem for no fault it's just a scary thought and the fact that you're just being watched it's even more alarming to me it brings tears to my eyes knowing that this is the generation that we are going to be raising kids in as I see in public media today there are kids hiding from the police when they see them pass by growing up we always fear the police there was never a moment where I felt safe around a police person and I just don't want to grow in that anymore and I want to abolish that and I want you to be in the right side of history today with your decision I want you to look at the budget and really think about whether this is an investment and where is that really going why can't we invest in better things in affordable housing and growing the food that we need to feed the people who are suffering with not getting enough not giving children enough computers to just go to school right now why are we not paying our teachers enough why are we discussing these things here right now but at the same time I thank you all and I hope again you are in the right side of history and please continue to do the right work thank you so much does anyone would like to speak to us on this item who hasn't spoken already please press star 9 on your phone to raise your hand and once you've been unmuted you'll have two minutes I would like to see these things banned permanently and not just the technology and question but all technology like license plate readers that the police have used in beach flats and this thing called a stingray which is a fake cell tower that in understeps people's cell cell calls or you know there's other things coming down the pike that we don't even know about yet that are you know probably the CIA are using already and that they will offer them to police stations around the country so I think we need to have a ban on all technology into the future not just until the technology has worked out better there's a lot of problems with this and importance with our constitution we need to ensure that people have the right to privacy and that goes beyond just the privacy when they're inside their house but I realize you know if somebody's outside walking on a public street that they're right the privacy is limited but it doesn't mean that they get to have some technology you know bring up a file on them because all of a sudden it recognizes who they are and that's something that doesn't need to be happening right now and whatever happened to good old fashioned police work you know where the rubber meets the road and stuff and as far as policing goes in this town we really need to address how the city police force harassing homeless people endlessly is not a good use of police time with that I'll bring it back to council for action deliberations on this item with regards to the second item I'm just going to share my screen so that council members can see regarding the second item since I can't make a motion I'm just hoping that I can at least provide some direction and so what I would like to ask is that the council right in number two the council authorized the mayor to establish a Santa Cruz police review working group which can contain up to two other council members and establish a mayor's community advisory committee to review Santa Cruz police policy and in conjunction with the community bring back recommendation that strengthens our police department's commitment to eliminate racism, discrimination and excessive use of force and policing in the city of Santa Cruz between city of Santa Cruz police officers and the broader community to see anyone so I'm going to stop sharing briefly, council member Golder if you're looking for someone to make the motion I'm prepared to make a motion okay, this is for the second item for the general pardon for the entire items and then I guess the second item and the recommendation the mayor provided that's for clarification I understood the motion was for the introduction of the ordinance and for the authorization of the mayor to establish a committee as described in the wording I was going to second it or did you second it? I didn't so I'm happy to second it and just to clarify I think I understood on the second item was that you would have both a working group which was exclusively three council members working with staff and then also a community group correct? Correct and there would be some expectation that there would be a time limited function for that yes and what I can do is I can work with those council members and then bring back our meeting in August or possibly the second meeting in August kind of an outlier plan for how we're going to do engagement or I can provide that sooner if the council members would like to meet and then that way and I can provide it as a memo and that way we can continue moving forward and if council has questions we can bring it to a meeting but the intention would be to work with other council members in the community bring forward a committee and then a timeline for bringing back recommendations well I think what you're seeing here is agreement for this course of action so just a memo would keep us in the loop get it going and just update that you feel appropriate would be good. Thank you I appreciate all the work that's gone into this and I want to appreciate Chief Mills for stepping up and having the conversation with the mayor and now and with the community and now with us I definitely I'll support the motion I do wonder though about this question in the ordinance related to the language about it's in 9.85 .030 B sorry A about need for city council approval based upon the city council findings that the technology scientifically validated peer reviewed research and protects the efforts so I agree with some of the speakers I don't think we're ever going to be there with respect to this kind of technology and but I also agree that the there should be a public process for the public to know and the city council to be involved in the decisions about introducing future technology so I'm just wondering if I guess maybe that's something that you all can talk about in the room but I do feel like I don't know why we need that I guess if we just want to say that the city council has to approve it and that there should be public input then couldn't we just say that but for now I'll give them the support and my support I'll I'll just leave it there with respect to the working group and community advisory group did you want to include or could you answer the question about how you intend to select members of the community to participate in this arena sure yeah the plan was to create an application process that we could then get out to the community and select members of the community based on right of criteria do they identify people of color how long would they live in the community and what their background is in this topic and be able to we can get a diversity of people really trying to lean on communities of color to ensure that their voices are the ones that are being reflected in this conversation but really trying to find people who will commit the time, energy and time and energy to working collaboratively with myself and the police chief and other members of the council on this item we can put the motion up on the board there's a words missing thing I'd like to address which it's police review is sort of a title of committees that review the behavior of the police and I just think we could and it was what was called our police review so I think it may be to establish practices of police because people take a police review as you know when they get into trouble and there are complaints again and there's a body that reviews so I think we can just drop something to establish a working group to review the practices somebody else if I could comment here as the seconder I think the saying police practices working group I agree there's history that goes with that term what you're talking about I am practices that's exactly what it is is that okay with the maker of the motion yes of course that's great give me one second sharing and then Vice Mayor Myers yeah I just wanted to in the interest of time I just wanted to express my support for both of these actions I think when the community is asking to understand more about what their city government is doing that's a call to action for the elected leaders to take the appropriate action and I do believe this is the appropriate starting point there could be additional actions that come from gaining more information and doing a much more intensive set of conversations with our community but I do believe this is a very good first step and I do think that what has been proposed today is appropriate for where we are right now and so I thank you for putting the materials together and proposing the process and certainly we'll be supporting both of both of the activities both of the proposals in the motion today so thank you yeah Council Member Watkins Similar thoughts as as expressed by the Vice Mayor I just had one question for clarity in regards to the Mayor's community advisory and the ad hoc were you how do you envision the interplay of the two would that be an advisory established by you that you would oversee and then inform the ad hoc or do you see them working together just for clarity in terms of the ask yeah and you know it could be that rather than it be Mayor's community advisory committee it could be the working group community advisory committee so that that group is the collection of that group is informed by the committee and myself and then we and that committee would work with us so that as we're receiving information from the broader community that we can kind of distill things down into one of our priorities for the city however the council I just for clarity in terms of just the relationship for the information in terms of how you know that information goes to the working group and so on so if you may prefer to have it as a Mayor advisory or if the ad hoc wants to be that partner with you it's totally up to you in terms of the motion maker I'm supported by I would just recommend for the sake of simplicity that you consider authorizing the Mayor to establish an ad hoc working group with input from the advisory committee I think that's probably the cleanest way to do it and I don't think that would require modification of the motion language that was placed on the screen as well helpful more methods that issue is kind of what I was thinking of also my thought was that we would be expecting that you would appoint this would be your committee you've taken a lot of initiative on this and given the intent that you've expressed I think that's great and you've said you want a committee that will be diverse in its viewpoints but united around the goal I think it's good to have a job description of what you expect of these people you know what the goal is you expect collaboration and solution oriented blah blah blah and to the extent you have an application form or something that's great I do not see this as something where we will vote and select the members for this it's your deal so just to clarify that I think being having an application form seeking a diverse and productive committee and being clear about your expectations it'll take work and commitment for the time they're doing it right and that's the intention of this I just want to make sure that the public understands that we are continuing those conversations around our surveillance policy in previous council meetings we voted to have those and we voted on a number of different items to have them recommencing on those again but just so the community is aware given that we're still in a pandemic we're trying to make sure that we are addressing that those issues are almost critical at this point in time as well councilmember Mathews I do want to make one more comment because most of my comments have been kind of technical but I do want to say they were very informed and effective in their presentation we had a huge amount of public input on this all of it I think focused on the same objective so I just want to acknowledge that I really appreciated the quality of input that we got and I absolutely appreciate the I would say the courage and leadership of our police chief and department to confront this I know there has been effort over the years at being more sensitive and improving our practices and this is just a major step so thank you mayor and police chief and all involved for that leadership thank you one thing I was wondering and this is just I'll try to make this quick but kind of trying to address some of the community's issues or some of the feedback we've heard from the community I'm wondering if in item A if I don't know this chapter it shall be unlawful for any city department to obtain or obtain access or use predictive policing technology and or based recognition technology prior to obtaining council approval by resolution based on the council's finding that the technology meets scientifically validated and peer-reviewed research protects and safeguards of civil rights and liberties and does not perpetuate bias I was also wondering if maybe there could be a just a word enter that finding that the technology and data meets scientifically validated I was just thinking that one of the biggest concerns is the data that informs these these this particular policing technology the biggest issue is that if policing itself is biased therefore then the data that's informing those models will be biased and so I was just wondering if we might be able to include some information on data that's collected that it needs to be determined that the data informing the technology is not collected in a way that's biased that's the language that you're looking for is the technology and the data that informs the technology that would just be inserted after the word technology in the second to the last line of that paragraph so would that be okay with the maker of the motion great and the seconder of the motion is that an excessive amendment and again I think that by including that data that information around that the data is not biased I think that really puts us on the track to trying to remove bias and discrimination from policing so I think it's an added benefit that is acceptable at this time Council Member Byers I Matthews aye Boulder Watkins aye Vice Mayor Myers aye and Mayor Cummings Thank you all Council Member Matthews did you have your hands up? Already Thank you Chief for joining us on this item we're going to adjourn until 6 o'clock so 45 minute break we'll come back when we come back we'll start with world communication Donna and Catherine if you are here you can turn these videos on and Martina I'm trying to it says you cannot start your video because the host has disabled this I know same with mine same with mine videos yeah I guess when I was waiting for Martina I was like we have pretty long session of the June 23rd 2020 meeting of the Sanctuary City Council I'd like to ask the clerk to please call the roll Thank you Mayor, Council Member Byers here Matthews here Brown Boulder here Watkins, Vice Mayor Myers here if you want to comment during world communications now is the time to call in instructions are on your screen world communications is an opportunity for members of the public to speak to us on items that will not be on our agenda you're interested in addressing the city council please after you call in please press star 9 on your phone to raise your hand you'll have 2 minutes to speak it's your time to speak with an announcement that you've been alluded we request that you clearly and slowly state your name before making your comments so we can accurately capture the meeting however that is not required please remember that this is the time for the council to hear from the public we are not able to engage in a dialogue with each member of the public but when we are able we will address the questions that are raised after world communications has completed you would like to comment on all communications and I'd just like to let the public know that we will not able to get your communications at that time so you know the city council to share your comments and with that I'll open it up to the first quality you're on the line good evening my name is Alex Miller and I live at 224 Villa Mar Vista in Santa Cruz I've lived there for 20 years I love Santa Cruz and one of the things I love about Santa Cruz is that we encourage recycling bin and I have a trash bin and for some reason the city of Santa Cruz keeps on taking my recycling bin and they don't return it they take it and I don't get it back and I'd like my recycling bin back I've asked the city manager who ignores me I've asked city staff who has ignored me but I like my bin back and so now I'm going to continue going to every single council meeting that you guys have until I can get my bin because it's crazy I don't have enough room so I'd like you to please follow up on this my phone number is<PHONE_NUMBER> I'd like to hear from the city manager about why you're taking my bin thank you four digits are 4241 hello can you hear me yes good evening hi my name is Madeline I wanted to point out that the 18 Santa Cruz police department operations analysis reported that 80% of total calls to the police were related to issues of house movement and 43% of calls were categorized as either check or suspicious incidents it's clear that what we need is not more policing but instead a much more robust social services and that we need a reallocation of city funds last year the police department budget settled over 30 million most of which was taken from the general fund and the numbers from the operations analysis show that this money would be much better spent handling the houselessness crisis that our city faces our goal should be to provide safe and comfortable housing for all of our houses people and to provide ample social services for our communities so yeah basically define the police thank you my name is Myles Stanford and I live in Soquel actually sent you an email Mr. Cummings recently concerning this issue I believe that we need to reallocate a lot of our funding towards preventative measures for concerns about crime and I think that it starts at a different place than just trying to put a band-aid on it after something bad has happened so I was doing some research I think the people in Eugene, Oregon have a good platform with their cahoots program and I know that city council members in San Francisco are aiming to follow that and are starting to and I think we should follow in their footsteps and maybe adapt their program to fit our specific needs as suited I think that's all I gotta say so thank you thank you hello my name is James Ewing Whitman can you hear me good evening hey good evening so unfortunately I spent about four hours in my time working on a agenda item number 38 but I had appointments and I missed my opportunity to comment I do want to say that I really thank City Clerk for getting back to me within an hour and that was a little bit after seven this morning I didn't like answer but I did appreciate that she gave me an answer so what to talk about let's see I've been a contractor in this county for 26 years and been working with the county of Santa Cruz for more than 20 years and I've had at least 500 inspections where I was the responsible party yesterday I had an inspection with the county and I don't think I've ever laughed so hard with an inspector in my life and then that inspector asked me something that was also very funny and I just said yes and I'm gonna hold confidentiality about that I have been engaging with a lot of law enforcement the last year and I am just amazed at the patience of all these men and women people are talking about defunding the police and they're saying there should be more social services there should have been better social services 300 years ago in the United States so I want to thank the police and particularly the sheriffs and the rangers who I've mostly been dealing with we're doing an outstanding job and when you come back and talk to them when you've just observed them and you compliment them and they compliment we all need to work together we are all in this together so I would love to go on about a bunch of different subjects but I'm just looking at expecting more of myself and I'm glad that I have the community involvement and I would like to know actually how many people listen to these city council and county supervisor stuff I'd like to hear those statistics so thank you very much thank you guys are doing the best job you can I'm done good evening my name is Amy Leibachuk I've been a resident in Santa Cruz for nine years and I work as a social worker with the county I wanted to speak about chief mill's op-ed in the Santa Cruz Sentinel recently on June 17th he recently spoke with a sergeant about defunding the police and they said if someone could take the homeless issues entirely away from us and stop us from responding to mental health calls please take the money chief mill's went on to say the sad reality is that no one else has stepped up as the first responder to these issues and he put the responsibility on the county while I certainly encourage city and county collaboration given that the 2019 homeless point in time count found that 55% of people experiencing homelessness in the county reside in the city of Santa Cruz I would argue it's very much our problem to solve as a community we rely on police to respond to all non-medical targeted crises we expect police officers to be part conflict resolution specialist part social worker, part mental health professional and part public safety officer these are unfair and unrealistic expectations what if we had a 24-7 mobile crisis intervention team as an alternative to police intervention this team could respond and assist to an individual having a domestic disturbance, sorry a family having a domestic disturbance, an individual having a mental health crisis disorder or a person who needs a safe place to sleep as another community member mentioned earlier Eugene Springfield metro area in Oregon implemented the CAHOOTS program also known as the crisis assistance helping out in the streets program and in the city of Eugene they found that they were able to divert approximately 20% of all 911 calls to the CAHOOTS program and saved an estimated $15 million per year to the Santa Cruz police department and reallocate these funds to expand mental health substance abuse and harm reduction services including establishing a 24-7 mobile crisis team thank you Hi, can you hear me? I'm a resident Santa Cruz I've been living here for six years now and I'm calling again to like a rails to support the defund the police movement I believe that one of the things that needs to be made really clear is just about simply let's get rid of police but it's about reinvesting that money in social services and mental health in various investments in our community that could lead to an actual reduction in crime and in particular we need to focus on the fact that police are not people who are best suited to deal with the calls that they receive as the last person saying the majority of those calls are to deal with the homeless population in Santa Cruz which is as she said a large portion of our population and we would be better served by having people who are best suited to work with those and police officers are extremely expensive with all the equipment and so forth that money could be better used towards actually providing homeless for people, for providing job training for providing crisis intervention drug intervention and so forth and I would urge you to take massive and significant steps in this year's budget towards reallocating that money away from our police department and towards the services that will actually help our community to move forward thank you can everyone hear me hi my name is Keana Mose I was born in Santa Cruz I've been a member of this community since 1991 I am here to ask the city council to defund the police as the first step towards abolishing the police in our community I was born in this town and I've seen first hand the abuses of our residents at the hands of the Santa Cruz police department it is not just what we ask them to respond to it is the way in which they are part of an organization that exhibits extreme racism in the way that they police our communities they engage in political retribution and surveillance of some of our community members and the criminalization of homelessness has targeted our most vulnerable community members I've witnessed the targeting, beating and incarceration of family members as they engaged in activism that supported the health and wellness of our community that the community right now does not invest in through municipal funds I have lived through illegal surveillance and spying by plainclothes officers of the Santa Cruz police department in my own home in 2005 in my community we know not to call the police in any kind of emergency because of all of the times we've witnessed our family members and community members assaulted, harassed, dismissed and incarcerated by officers who are not committed to the health and wellness of our town and they are engaged in infrastructures that are predicated on great supremacy I would like to demand that in this pandemic that we are experiencing when we understand we are facing serious budget reductions not just within city council but all of our institutions including the University of California in Santa Cruz that we seriously consider removing the funds that we provide to police officers that support the racist behavior that incarcerates our most vulnerable populations and reallocate them I don't know if this is fair do I get to speak twice? I'd love to I apologize I'm off I apologize yes hello my name is Lori Palmer I live in Santa Cruz and I'm also calling to support defunding the SCPD and I want to emphasize that this means acknowledging that the police as an institution comes out of slave patrols and night watches it's a deeply structured white supremacist and racist history that we have to unravel before we can move forward together and so defunding the SCPD means transferring money as many people have already said from paying police to do jobs they aren't trained to do and in fact as several people said do not want to do to other services in particular to support unhoused people who don't have places to live, who don't have healthcare, who are suffering from disease and mental illness, who struggle with substance abuse and who don't have jobs or other tools to help them out of poverty defunding the SCPD also means collaborating in creative ways with community members on participatory budgeting measures which means opening up the process to other people in the community who will have really good ideas for how to use that transferred funds. So I would support not only switching the money but also inviting people to help come up with creative ways to reallocate that funds. Thank you. Here. I would like to thank you for taking comment. Thank you for being here and stopping us from responding to mental health calls. Please take the money. From the massive demand I've seen to defund the police I would say we hear you. Also, during a meeting with the city manager Martin Bernal and mayor Justin Cummings hosted by UCSE's NAACP Bernal repeatedly stated that police officers did not sign up to answer calls and the human services department. I know these are county level departments. I demand you work together to meet our city's needs, which could mean giving the money to county or creating a new department in the city. You've stated a problem. People are giving a solution. Please listen. What's the additional time for speakers and organization, the Democratic Socialists of America? I did not receive your communication in time, so I'm sorry, but hopefully next time we'll get that, but for now you can have two minutes. Okay, so the Democratic Socialists of America enthusiastically joins the call to defund the police that is resonating with such force around the country in the wake of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless others. Led by people of color, many of whom have been organizing around this issue for decades, the call for defunding is, at its heart, about reimagining our entire society and beginning the hard work of undoing centuries of white supremacy. It is about following the lead of radical black thinkers like Angela Davis and Ruth Wilson Gilmour and recognizing that throughout these centuries, police forces have been the central institution propping up a system that values white property over black lives. While Santa Cruz is patting itself on the back for having, quote unquote, good police officers and contemplating extremely mild reforms, other cities across the country are taking this movement much more seriously, realizing that addressing deep structural racism will in fact require deep structural changes, not just modified policies on when police officers are permitted to escalate to deadly force. Defunding is the first crucial step towards those structural changes. Defunding is about divesting from an approach based on and reinvesting in communities of color and in social equality. While abolition is our goal, defunding is a concrete action that can be taken now. Defunding is the first step towards the democratic reappraisal of all of our city's priorities. And it is a step that other cities are already taking. Defunding involves redistributing funds to more effective and less violent forms of public safety. Santa Cruz spends $30 million a year on policing, nearly a third of our general fund and the largest single expenditure. For this money, we get an armed force that is overwhelmingly asked to address nonviolent property crime, a force that spends over 80% of its time dealing with the house with population, meaning that we deliberately aim our cops squarely at the most racially diverse segments of our city. Thank you. You're out there, but I'm trying to be, trying to give everybody a little more time. All right, next speaker. Thank you. This is Intervention Team. Hello everyone, my name is Brian Macaron and I would like to speak as a city resident and longstanding manager of a downtown local business on Pacific Avenue. I often see individuals experiencing mental health emergencies in the downtown area. I've seen on a number of occasions, SEPD officers showing up in groups standing around and over individuals who are experiencing a crisis. My question is, do these officers have education and expertise to administer proper care? If so, what are these education requirements for our city law enforcement officers? Lastly, are guns necessary to carry out proper care for individuals having mental health emergency? Let's institute a 24 seven crisis intervention team as an alternative to police intervention. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, my name is Cappy Israel. I lived here 25 years. I've worked in a mental health facility and a psychotic break was a periodic event that would happen to somebody and not ever was anybody killed as a result of it. They had very particular ways of handling that situation. I feel that there are people around right in Santa Cruz who have developed very practical ways of dealing with the unhoused people dealing with storage, with cleaning, et cetera, taking a tent and a blanket away from someone who owns nothing but a tent and a blanket. Seems like a useless proposition and heartless and unethical. So I'm with the other people that the police don't want to deal with the homeless and why should they? They don't have the training. They don't have the education. They don't have a humanistic education that would let them know about the history of people. So I think that it would be better to put this very difficult problem in the hands of people who know a little bit more about it. And I'm acknowledging it's a very difficult problem. It begins at the national level but we have to pick it up at the local level. So it is difficult in that way. We didn't cause the problem but we have to solve it. I have one other request of the city council and that would be in Berkeley and in other places there is barbage pickup and I feel that that would be very useful. Thank you. Mayor Cummings, you're muted. Oh, next speaker, you're on the line. Hello, my name's Adam. I'm calling in today because last time, two weeks ago I called in and I asked you to agendize reviewing or reducing police funding and I noticed that you did not do that. So I'm calling to ask you again. I've brought a little visual aid. I don't know if anybody can see my icon but it's a chart from the New York Times that they published in an article on Friday about how police spend their time. They surveyed three different jurisdictions and they found broadly similar results for each. The police only spend about 4% of their time doing anything to do with violent crime and nowhere did they find the police spending more than 35% of their time dealing with any crime related activity whatsoever. So I suspect that things are very similar here in Santa Cruz, I don't have actual numbers for Santa Cruz, I don't know if the city tracks that but the vast majority of what the police do really could be done by other parts of the city bureaucracies that are not really trained in violence and empowered to fight and chill citizens. So I would ask that you consider doing that and I'd ask you to agendize forming a subcommittee or doing something, some kind of action on changing around our police and reducing their funding and hopefully eventually eliminating as much as possible of them and giving their responsibilities and personnel to other city departments. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Rachel Mendelson. I am calling because I would also like to add my voice to all the people asking that we do for the police and I especially would like to see that as the first step to abolishing and replacing the police system entirely. I especially want to address the idea that we can reform the police. I think that there is so much evidence that more training doesn't work. There are studies that show inclusive bias training does not reduce incidences of brutality against people of color. Minneapolis had implemented all kinds of police reforms before all of this started. After Ferguson, all of the police offices started wearing body cameras and time and time again, we just see accounts where they were supposedly dislodged or not turned on by accident or we just get graphic videos of police violence with no prevention and no accountability. There's so much evidence that vulnerable people don't trust police and they do not call police for help out of fear for their own safety and I don't think any amount of increased police training will fix this. I would also like to see a new system of crisis intervention that is actually trusted by the community and for that to happen, I think it needs to be entirely separate from the police force and needs to have unarmed people trained in mental health crisis addiction and other problems that don't require violence. Thank you. Grace Edwards and I recently moved to Santa Cruz from Los Angeles. Over the last few weeks, I've seen an attitude towards protests here in Santa Cruz that mischaracterizes the demands deep on the police is the work of white college kids in order to dismiss them outright. In the last week in LA, black leaders from Black Lives Matter LA sat in front of the city council to present a people's budget that would invest funding from the police and reinvest in communities. These are the demands that are being made across the nation from LA to Minneapolis and it can't be ignored here in Santa Cruz. If we fail to meet this moment and be fund, disarmed and eventually dismantled the Santa Cruz Police Department because of a false narrative that Santa Cruz is somehow different, we are creating an economic and social condition that continues to make Santa Cruz inhospitable to many black and indigenous people who are affected by racialized cycles of poverty. Racism and classism are based in institutions policing. Cannot say that a fair and equal system with 28% of our city funds are going toward the criminalization of poverty. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, I'm Lane Edwards. I live in Santa Cruz County and I'm calling because I'd like to echo the demands that have been made for decades by black activists nationally and locally. For example, during the forum on defunding the police held by the UCSC NAACP as well as at the rally on June 10th and calling the city council to defund the police department. Well, many would like to pretend that these demands are not relevant locally. They very much are. As a privileged and house-white person in Santa Cruz, I live in an unclear existence. I've never been approached by the police. They do not patrol my neighborhoods or ticket my existence. But there are a number of the Santa Cruz community that are policed daily. They're experienced criminalizing ticketed, subjecting to campsites and kept under constant surveillance. The unhoused population faces the front of this violence. The city of Santa Cruz is only 2% black and 0.4% Native American. Well, according to the homeless census Santa Cruz's homeless population is 8% black and 10% Native. Black and indigenous people living in poverty are criminalized daily in the city. According to policescorecard.org, 6% of the people arrested by the SCPD are black. There are many, here's some more facts about the SCPD from the policescorecard by vision zero. They have a higher misdemeanor, arrest rates in 98% of the PDs in California and solved fewer percentage of homicides than 78% of departments. Additionally, farmer homicides with Latinx victims were unsolved compared to those with white victims. Only 4% of arrests were from violent crimes. Why does the city of Santa Cruz devote a greater proportion of its budget to policing than 63% of departments in the state? These numbers are damning. Who does the Santa Cruz police department protect? I agree with all the calls of my community members to divest from the police and reinvest in the community. They want to specifically state that law and make seem like an appealing solution to them funding other systems of care without defunding the police would not be enough. Our bloated police department is an active agent apartment community and defunding, defunding, and eventually disbanding the department is the only solution. I'm calling on the city council to defund the SCPD by 50%. Stop all new hires to mount early retirement and develop an ongoing strategy to shift funding away from policing and to prevent children from such as affordable housing, economic development services and housing security at harm reduction mental health. Thank you. Okay, next speaker, and I will just let you know that you're going to be our last speaker of the evening. So those of you weren't able to get to for all communication this evening, please send in your comments and send in your requests to the city council so that we can address this at another point in time. And so the person who's on the line, you'll be our last speaker. Hey, thanks for hearing me. Yes, good evening. Thanks for getting my call today. My name's Devin. I'm a resident of Santa Cruz. And you're coming to need to disagree with something you suggested earlier, which is that the subject of defunding the police is somehow separate from the nationwide uprising against police violence towards people of color. It feels like you think that the residents of Santa Cruz asking for change or just opportunists trying to capitalize off of the national conversation. The national conversation is about police brutality. If you want to end racism, you need to address systemic racism. Police across the country have institutionalized racism. This is an anti-racist movement. I like this quote from Angela David, which is that there's an unbroken line of police violence in the US that takes us all the way back to the days of slavery. I'll say that I am a person of color and there are so many other people of color like me who have been protesting and calling into these city council meetings and sending you emails and asking, why don't we have better services for the homeless in our community? Why do we continue to criminalize social problems? What am I supposed to make out when I find that nearly 80% of calls to SCPD are homeless related, who are disproportionately people of color, and nearly 90% of crime in Santa Cruz is nonviolent property crime, yet police patrol alone takes up a sixth of the city's full budget. We're spending nearly a third of our budget on SCPD, their own internal focus groups say that they don't have the tools and resources to deal with our issues. You can look this all up in their operations analysis on the SCPD website, here are some direct quotes. Officers have no tools or resources to deal with homeless population. No services in county to service the homeless. Officers are doing useless work that doesn't go anywhere. Heavy workload results in mistakes and reports and evidence booking. There are no guidelines for responses to incidents. And there's more of them. We are wasting money. We need to stop criminalizing social issues and start solving them. We have an opportunity to invest in food, housing, healthcare, education, and so much more. If we want real sustainable transformational change, we have an actual opportunity right now. Please give funds to the police. Thank you. At this point in time, we're going to be moving on to our evening item. And I just want to let members of the public know that our budget discussions will be occurring next week. So they were supposed to occur tonight. However, we were looking at a 20 hour plus meeting. And so we had to create a special meeting for July 2nd. And that's when the city's budget will be discussed. So next item on our agenda. Item number one of general business is the mixed youth downtown library project. For members of the public or streaming this meeting, if this isn't an item that you would like to comment on, how is the time to call in to the number on your screen? The order of today's item will be a presentation by staff and council members brought that item forward, followed by questions from council. We will then take public comment and then return to council for action and deliberation. And so with that, we have myself, Amanda Rattala, Susan Nemitz, our library director, council members Brown and Vice-Matter Myers, who will lead the presentation this evening. Mayor. Yes. I would like to announce as I did this afternoon that I have a conflict of interest on this. And so I will be leaving this meeting completely. I will neither participate nor vote in this item. Thank you. Thank you. So I don't know if Amanda's on, if you may wanna, if Amanda's there. Hi, Mayor. I am here. Can you see my screen? Yeah. Great. All right, so I can, I'll kick us off this evening. A year ago or more there was a desire from the community to have more information and a broader discussion on what the city could get out of the measure as the library funds for renovation of our current library. City council formed a subcommittee to evaluate what we could get in terms of a remodeled library with the given funds that we currently have. After receiving reports from Jason Architect, there was a desire to see what we could also get with the same funds in a mixed use project. Those, both of those evaluations of projects were conducted the first by Jason Architect, the second by group four architect group. And the options before us were a renovation of the current existing library or a mixed use project consisting of a library with low income housing, parking, one commercial space for total, and one commercial space for total fitness. After a year of input from architects, the community, the subcommittee has unanimously recommended for option D for council approval. And tonight's presentation will provide the public with information on how we landed to this decision. With that, I'll turn it over to our city staff. Great, thank you so much, Mayor. This is Amanda Rotella, principal management analyst with the Economic Development Department. And my portion of the presentation is to walk us through, there we go, the process that our subcommittee members went through. So in May 2019, May of last year, the council voted to hold on the project and further explore and investigate the options for the downtown library project. And so over the course of the year, the subcommittee has been incredibly busy. And I have had the honor of staffing this process and working closely with the subcommittee members to really develop this process. And the goals for our subcommittee process has been to create opportunities for all voices on all sides of the issue to participate, to be as responsive as we can and to be transparent and additionally to get as much information out to the community about the project and the options and do some additional sort of studies and assessments. And this process really built off of really years and years of prep that has gone in, starting with the 2013 library facilities master plan project, all the efforts that went into passing measure F during the 2016 election, moving into 2017 when the council created the downtown library advisory committee, which is a group of volunteer community members who went in to look at both the programmatic needs that we need from the library as well as the various options given our budget. Then the 2018 campaign where we engaged with a lot of the downtown stakeholders and then now moving into this process. And so this is just sort of a little snapshot of what this process has looked like. We developed a project webpage, www.cityofsandcruise.com, downtown library and we've had over 2000 views of that page over the course of this year. The subcommittee members held office hours. There was a five hour stretch where they were sitting and meeting one-on-one with community stakeholder groups which I really credit them with doing. We had community meetings and presentations from architect groups and also put out a survey and had over 400 respondents just in the course of a week when that survey was open. So moving on, just a quick snapshot of the subcommittee website. This website sort of details all of the meetings. There are video and audio recaps and all of the reports and past council meetings have all been cataloged here. So really what the goal is making sure that information was easily accessible and easy to find. And so I created this webpage. And a big piece of this has been about stakeholder and community engagement. And as you can see, we, this list here, the subcommittee kind of met with over 30 stakeholder groups over the course of this process either in those one-on-one office hour time slots, people who attended meetings and were invited as participants on various topic areas as well as input at some of our presentation meetings that we've had from the architect team. And really, I feel like the quote that keeps coming up during this process was, we come to better solutions when people participate. And I think we were all very excited by the amount of diversity in the groups. You can see on this list, there's really just a huge number of people that are represented by these groups and just across a wide variety of interests. And so that was the really exciting part of the process. And then the final piece here is the cost assessments. So the subcommittee members did two partner cost assessments. The first one was done by Jason architecture. They did an assessment of the renovation project and that happened in the fall. And then the mixed-use cost assessments sort of the partner comparison piece was completed by Group for Architecture early this year. And both of these architecture firms were hired on to answer the question, what can we do with the library, with the budget, with the money that we have, the $27 million? And so both of them were, that was their scope was to answer for that question. Now, the renovation cost assessment also, they also looked at the current library facilities and did some assessments of the existing building and provided sort of their take on the current conditions and what would need to be renovated or replaced or built out. So that was an additional part of their scope. And then for the mixed-use cost assessment, Groups for Architecture also looked at the two other components, the housing and parking components. And while they didn't design for those, they were looking at how all the pieces could fit together. And both of these reports are available, again, at the Subcommittee's webpage, www.SantaCruise.com plus downtown library. So you can dive into those and see sort of the full breakdown of what the floor plans look like, some renderings, which are, again, just sort of preliminary sort of conversation starters and all of that information is on the website. And with that, I will hand it over to our library director, Susan Nimitz. Can you hear me now? I'm Susan Nimitz. I'm the Santa Cruz Public Library Director. And we're gonna get into the weeds a little bit. One of the things that the subcommittee really wanted to look at was what were the programmatic needs of the library? In 2017, the Downtown Library Advisory Commission consulted with almost 2,500 people about what we needed in our new library. Some main themes came through. We wanted to maintain the collection size. We wanted a larger, dedicated children's space. We wanted a team area where teams are comfortable in using the library. We wanted abundance, comfortable seating, program room, small study rooms and small group rooms, adult literacy spaces, spaces for local history and genealogy. All together, the committee identified the need for about 44,000 square feet to meet our programmatic goals. Now I'll have to say that both the architectural studies do not contemplate a 44,000 square foot building. We have a limit of $27 million through Measure S. Each of the options provide different space levels. If you'll go to the next slide, Amanda, in the end, the IIS Library Director in recommending the multi-use project. And I just wanted to talk a little bit about why. The big reason is that the multi-use option gives us 5,000 square feet more than the remodel. And the remodel is contemplating about 30,000 square feet down from the 42,000 square feet we currently have. The multi-use contemplates about 35,000 square feet. And with that space, we are able to achieve a lot of our programmatic goals. First and foremost, it would protect the size of our collection. The remodel actually would require us to reduce our collection size pretty dramatically. Would it be able to do a full line of adult services, including genealogy, local history, and adult literacy? We would be able to provide a space for teens in the libraries. What's interesting about option D is it really allows for space zoning, where we can have different audiences in different parts of the library and potentially have separate entrances. For example, to something like the children's room. It could reduce our maintenance costs. We would have no costs for parking, parking maintenance. It would reduce our utility costs. It would reduce our security costs. And it would reduce our landscaping costs. It provides infrastructure we desperately need, like appropriate bathrooms, because we provide bathroom services to a lot of people in our community. It gives us the capacity to be greener. For example, allowing us to do solar panels. But I think one of the greatest opportunities through the multi-use facility is it allows the library to be open for the two years that it will take to construct the library building itself. If you could go to the next slide. I just wanna say in the multi-use options, we looked at both option C and D. And I actually really liked option D. It provides incredible street frontage along Cedar Street. It also allows the ramp to be the, I'm sorry, it's a Minnesota thing. The parking garage would be actually a separate entity next to the library and the housing. And it would not be within, on top of the library and housing that you see an option C. With that, I would like to go to the next slide. And I think it's Donna that's gonna talk about community benefits. It starts at Sandy. It's Justin, Mayor Humming. Oh, I'm sorry, Justin. So in addition to, so in order to get to this decision, we also went through an evaluation process evaluating the various options that we had in front of us. And the committee landed not only on option D because of the services that it would provide and the goals that it would meet in terms of the library and the services, but also option D provided much more community benefits. So it increased affordable housing, increases affordable housing in the downtown. And affordable housing is one of the goals. Increasing affordable housing in the city of Santa Cruz is one of our goals and what many people have been saying to us today as it relates to defunding. I think one of the things that people are saying is we need more affordable housing. So this project would provide at a minimum 50 units of low income housing, increases shared parking in the parking district. So there are a number of lots that came to our attention. They'll be coming offline and some of that parking can be consolidated in this one spot. It supports visitors to the downtown, increased durability and lifespan as opposed to the renovation. It does that we did note that it does have impacts to the farmers market and the antique fair. However, there is a plan to move the farmers market to a permanent location in the city. And so that was also taken into consideration. It supports public art in the building itself. So there's an opportunity for it to display local artists within the building. It's close to the Civic Center, although it's not directly across from the Civic Center. We do understand that that was some concern that was raised, but it is. Within walking distance of our Civic Center and it's proximity to businesses. So being in the downtown, it would provide a lot of support to businesses in the downtown area. And I'm not sure who's up on the next slide. Are we on, I think there's a little bit more on the goals bef