session of the May 24, 2022 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council and I would like to ask the clerk to please call roll. Council Member Kellentary Johnson. Is it? Roller is currently absent. Coming. Yes. Vice Mayor Watkins. Here. And Mayor Brunner. Present. Thank you. We will now begin our agenda with presentations item number six, Beach Safety Week. And I'd like to welcome Fire Chief Rob Odie and Director of Parks and Recreation, Tony Elliott. Hello, Council. Thank you Mayor Brunner and Council. I'd like to start off this week's presentation with a brief moment of silence to remember, Hi Fam. He was a 50 year old male who died just over a year ago May 16th on our main beach while with his two children was caught in a rip current. And so I just want to observe a moment of silence for him. I think it's only appropriate to remember Mr. Fam and many of the others that tragically lose their lives on in our coastal waters each year. As many of you may know, this week is National Beach Safety Week. Each year to kick off the summer season, the United States Life Saving Association sponsors National Beach Safety Week in an effort to remind all beachgoers to use the mantra know before you go. This means that everybody should use extreme caution in the beach and ocean environment and always, always check in with lifeguards before entering the water to become familiar with any hazards they may encounter. This year, the fire department in a coordinated effort with a number of other coastal agencies developed a PSA public safety announcement that will be rolling out this summer. This is in light of in addition to Mr. Fam's tragedy in May of last year, in the fall last year, we lost three lives in five days on the north coast due to people being unfamiliar with the cliff environment as well as the ocean pocket codes on the north coast. And so that sort of drummed up a lot of concern on my behalf, as well as other county chiefs in the agency and led us to develop this public safety announcement to sort of make a connection with those local community as well as tourists that come and visit our beautiful area. So this PSA emphasizes the message of know before you go and reminds all beachgoers of many of the beach and oceans inherent hazards. And again, they're not limited to rip currents, large swells, ever-changing tides, cold water exposure, and of course, unstable coastal cliff areas. And we were able to, even though we finished wrapping production, video production a week and a half ago, I was able to get a teaser or a trailer developed and delivered to me early this morning. And so I'd like to share that with the council if we can. Bonnie, do you have that ready? Bonnie, I don't know if you have audio. I don't know if anybody else can hear that. I can't hear it. Yeah, we're not hearing anything. Well, if we can't if we can't get it queued up now, I can definitely share with everybody. National Marine Surfing Reserve. And as such, it's a destination. So people from all levels want to come and enjoy and experience surfing in Santa Cruz. They see the waves and maybe there's a small set and they think they can handle it. And when they actually paddle out there, a larger set will come and they'll wind up in trouble. But with the buddy, you know, if you're out in the water with a person, you guys can keep an eye on each other. You know, anything can happen, even if you are a really competent swimmer, even if you do feel like you could be really safe, it's better to have that extra layer of security. If you're going to go swimming around arcing kids and mostly kids, it's going to stay in the swim zone and stay close to the shore. Yeah, you would not want to just jump it out water and go swimming unless you're really prepared and you're used to cold water and the effects that it has on your body. So if you're going to come to the beach here in Santa Cruz, I would definitely encourage you to bring your sunscreen and bring your water and make sure to bring your common sense with you. It's the preventable situations, those situations that where we can intervene by way of outreach and education. So we're here because we love the water, we love the beach, we love the ocean, but a big part of my job and everyone down here is talking to the public. That's what we're here for, we love to provide such education to the public as we can. Our job is to help people in the water, but if we can help them on land before they get in the water and then, you know, limit people from getting in trouble, then that's like a really good day for us. Awesome, thank you, Bunny. So again, this that's just a little preview of what we have to come. We'll have a couple of different spots, 15 to 30 second spots that will be, we'll be doing a heavy push with the business community as well as the visitor's bureau to have those in hotels and other areas that we can make connections with. Again, the local community as well as visitors to our area. So again, this is National Beach Safety Week, which begins, began yesterday and extends through Memorial Days. Again, as a reminder of everybody to be safe when visiting the beach area. And so now I'd like to turn it over to DC from Parks and Rec to complete our presentation. Hello, I'm DC Lawson Thomas, recreation supervisor of our beach programs, notably the junior grant program. And I just want to go over some numbers from last year that was provided from the fire department. We had approximately 650,000 visitors on Santa Cruz beaches. This was an increase of 150,000 since the middle of the pandemic last year. With this increase in mind, we're gearing up for another busy summer this year. Because we are staffing Capitol Beach, we had 206,000 visitors at Capitol Beach last year. So it gave a department total of 860,000 people, which is a ton. So increased lifeguards had 96 aquatic rescues on Maine and 141 on Capitola for a total of 237 rescues. Across both beaches, we had 30 boat rescues and 142 preventative actions. Like what Rob said, a lot of what they do is preventative. And these numbers are why the Parks and Rec Department and fire departments are collaborating to spread this word of beach safety. On social media, we will be presenting all of USLA's top 10 beach tips. And we hope that we encourage everyone to share these tips. And these tips can also be found in the city manager's weekly update from last week.  I want you guys to spread some of these beach safety tips. If you have friends and relatives visiting Santa Cruz and you visit the beach, point out a rep current, show them where the lifeguard towers are, introduce your friends and family to the lifeguard on duty. So for our programs, Jim Booth has returned to Harvey West Park and is offering swim lessons through November. And the junior guards is back in full programming. We're doing four week sessions, two sessions. Our competitions are coming back. We'll be over at Capitola Beach for Capitola competition. Our own NorCal competition is coming back. And regionals is down in Huntington, state beach near the end of July. Unrelated to the junior guard programs, I'm also happy to announce that nationals will actually be in California in August. But that'll be after the program ends. And yeah. Thank you DC. And again, thank you Mayor Brunner and council for this opportunity just to spread the word of beach safety. And I really want to point out that when you guys have the opportunity, please bring your family and friends down to lifeguard headquarters or to a lifeguard tower and allow us to introduce ourselves and provide them those preventive that information that's necessary to stay safe in our local community. And with that, that concludes our presentation. Thank you so much Chief Odie and Daniel Lawson Thomas. Thank you for joining us today and sharing that incredibly vital information. Stay safe out there. Okay, our next presentation is on the agenda is a mayoral proclamation declaring June 2022 as LGBTQ plus pride month. And this proclamation I have moved to present in person at the pride festival, though there will be on Sunday, June 5th in Santa Cruz at Abbott Square. There will be a program and I have been asked to present it in person 12 to four. I believe noon it will start. There is an 11 a.m. parade, but there is all the information about pride weekend next weekend as well as the festival on Sunday, June 5th. And that's at Santa Cruz pride.org and myself and I know we are very happy to support the festivities and the effort. So please join me if you can on Sunday, June 5th for the mayoral proclamation declaring the month of June 2022 as LGBTQ plus pride month in the city of Santa Cruz. And as a reminder from 2020 I believe the pride flag will be hung for the month of June at City Hall. All right, so now I will move on into the agenda. I have a few announcements and we'll then continue with the regular meeting. Today's meeting is being broadcast live on community television channel 25, as well as streaming on the city's website, cityofsantacruz.com. If you wish to comment on an item today, call in at the beginning of the item and using the instructions on your screen. You can mute your television or streaming device when you call in and listen through the phone. Please note that there is a delay in streaming. So if you continue to listen on your television or streaming device, you may miss your opportunity to speak. When it's your turn for public comment, please raise your hand either by dialing star nine on your phone or selecting the raise hand feature in your webinar controls on your computer. Please note public comment is only heard on items that council is taking action on and not on the regular updates and reports. The items that will be open for public comment during today's meeting are items number 10 through 23 on our agenda. I'd like to ask the council members if there are any statements of disqualification today. Any council members? I have a statement of disqualification for items number 13 and 14 and that is the annual work plans that are related to my employment. So I will not be participating in the vote of consent items number 13 and 14. And we'll ask the city clerk to announce any additions and deletions. There are none. Okay. At this point, I'd like to call on the city attorney Tony Condati to provide a report on our closed session this morning. Good afternoon, Mayor Brunner, members of the city council. This morning at 10 30, the council met in closed session via zoom to discuss the items that are listed on your posted agenda, including item one, the council referred the real property at 136 river street to closed session for council consideration of real property negotiations. Item two was a conference with labor negotiators council met from and received a report from its labor negotiator with respect to all bargaining groups, including SCIU temporary employees, SCIU service employees, mid managers, only three supervisors only three fire management, fire IAFF police management, police officers association and executives. Item three was an item of significant exposure to litigation. With regard to that item, the council by a six zero vote with council member Watkins absent approved the settlement of a claim by former city employee Susan O'Hara in the sum of $250,000. A copy of the settlement agreement can be obtained upon request by members of the public once it has been fully executed and finalized. Item four, there were two items of real property negotiations, one the real property at 115 C coral street owned by the city, the city met with its negotiator Bonnie Lipscomb on that item as well as item two, the real property at 136 river street, the former site of the outdoor world on river street there. Council met and received a report from its negotiator. There was no reportable action on that item. Item five was a conference with legal counsel involving existing litigation. That was the item city of Santa Cruz at all versus specific gas and electric company currently pending in the Santa Cruz County Superior Court. There was no reportable action on that item and that concludes my report. I'll now call on the city clerk to provide any updates to our calendar. There are no updates. Thank you. Now is the time for council members to report out on actions at external boards committees and joint powers authority meetings or future meetings. Please come prepared to provide an update on any meetings or actions that occurred since the last council meeting updates so that the council and the public can be informed. All right. I will go out to our council members and I will begin with council member Cummings. Thank you mayor. To report out, I'll start with Lafko. So Lafko on our agenda we had a sphere review item of the city of capitol and incorporated in the sphere that incorporates that area and one of the things that actually came out of that was that the within the sphere there's a lot of properties that aren't that have not been annexed into the city of capitol and there was some interest in determining what capitol is future plans are around annexation since the space is a lot of space within the sphere and the reason why there's that space within the sphere is that over time the city will expand and annex into that space. So there'll be some follow-up with Lafko staff and capitol city staff to determine what kind of plans will be put in place for future growth and that was also the last meeting where the city of Santa Cruz will have a representative on that board probably of the next two years I believe and so that actually concludes my term for your term on Lafko and we can actually now remove that from our external community organization since we will no longer have a representative on that board. Next I'm going to talk just briefly about downtown management corp but I think the mayor since she is on the downtown association could probably speak to that in a little bit more detail than I can but we um oh you're not a representative oh gotcha okay no I report to that board got it okay I don't sit on that board okay got it so then a large part of that meeting we have an update on um from the downtown association related to um the types of calls who we're seeing as calls for service related to mental behavioral health we also got an update on um tourism and people who are visiting the downtown uh the downtown management corp also took a position on the our downtown our future ballot measure that's going to be coming forward um the the downtown management court endorsed a no vote on that item and and also vice mayor Myers is on that board too so she can also help fill in if there's anything missing um criminal justice council we received an update on efforts that are underway to explore the amount of calls received by law enforcement related to um mental and behavioral health um that work is still underway but one of the things we did receive that's a piece of good news and came out of a lot of work that our community did around public safety in 2020 was that um last year as you all may know the criminal justice council had conducted a review of policies related to use of force transparency accountability and technology across all the agencies within the county and that report was um concluded in November of last year uh chairman Zach Friend submitted that report to the national association of counties and um at our meeting I believe it was either last Tuesday or the Tuesday before the last Tuesday he informed us that the sancros county criminal justice council uh received a 2022 achievement award from the national association of counties in recognition of their regional effort to examine cross jurisdiction police practices throughout the county and so that's a really good piece of news that reflects a lot of the work that was started when I was mayor and that was um led by our african-american community which then um went to the criminal justice council and um really showed uh you know how many policies we have in common throughout the county and the consistency in these policies around use of force transparency um and and uh accountability and uh this report also came to the public safety committee and I think the recommendation that came out of the CJC was that they come to the full council so that if there's any policies we want to adopt we can consider it and so given the significance of this award I hope that we can see um that report come to the full council for consideration um and I believe that is oh and the one other update is that the um the beach flats parking subcommittee did meet with staff and um piece of good news is that it seems like we're going to be able to get um 10 additional parking spaces in the beach flats area parking is a major concern for beach flats residents and so um we're glad to see that we'll be able to have some more opportunities for permanent holders within that area and there's um in addition to that the um lottery program for parking permits at Nueva Vista is underway um and that effort was led by the mayor as as part of this group as well um and there's further exploration around parking feet parking permit fees to determine whether or not we'll be able to make parking permits within that area more affordable for residents in particular those that are at Nueva Vista thank you and thank you for serving on LACCO as our Santa Cruz representative okay um I will now go to um uh council member Myers thank you mayor uh my report has been given I uh only attended the downtown management corporation um meeting and so my report was covered by a council member coming thank you thank you council member brown thank you mayor um so I'll start with the area agency on aging I have a couple of items of that maybe of interest to the general public as well as my council colleagues the first is that the California senior legislature um and our our region has an opening for an assembly member of the California senior legislature it's a program that has been in operation for um decades now and involves senior uh members of various of different communities and in the various assembly and senate districts uh serving and and actually bringing and introducing pieces of legislation concerning seniors and then working with specific legislators to try to get those moving through the state legislative process and uh we have an opening now for an assembly representative so a senior citizen who is interested in serving in the California senior legislature um we are accepting applications now you can go to the area agency on aging Santa Cruz and San Benito county's website to get the information or contact me and I'll uh connect to you um so this is and so we've had a really great representative for a long long time Chuck Molnar he is retiring from his position as a retiree and uh you know as a representative really well and he um we are hoping he is hoping and we are all hoping that we can get somebody to fill those um capable shoes the senate seat has been filled by Mickey Luna who is a San Benito county resident and longtime advocate around senior issues she was served on the AAA and has just been really involved so we're we're well represented there um but we wanted to try to get another person on board the uh the agency itself which has a mix of elected officials and community representatives on the board is looking for we have two openings right now for people with disabilities who would like to represent the senior and disabled community on the AAA and so those are also positions you can find out more about at the AAA website or by contacting me um another report that we received at our last meeting on the 18th was not such great news we the Live Oak School District has now and we this has been an ongoing conversation and I've I've mentioned it in the past but they have now officially served an eviction notice to the senior programs that operate at through at the Live Oak Senior Center which is owned by the Live Oak School District so um and that those programs include Meals on Wheels which um utilizes a commercial kitchen there and so the it's kind of a desperate situation now to try to identify an alternative location in particular for that function um and uh so I'm just putting it out there if anybody out there is listening has thoughts on this a lot of uh opportunities have been explored um but nothing has been identified as uh and you know suitable location that is uh accessible right at this moment so we are um beginning to have uh more in-depth conversations in the city of Santa Cruz the staff will be involved in those conversations as well but I wanted to just um let people know this is a pretty significant challenge this is where all of the meals that are distributed to um in home and to the congregant congregate meal sites um are prepared so um a lot of work need for an appropriate space and please um contact us if you have any ideas uh the regional transportation commission met and um we uh had a had a long meeting but hopefully this will be a short report um we uh we've been working to try to get uh uh projects started to rehabilitate the Pajaro River Bridge um along the Santa Cruz branch rail line and um had to unfortunately reject a construction bid um for it just coming in at a unreasonable cost but we are working the commission was clear that we wanted the staff to continue to work uh with uh various stakeholders to try to identify ways to do some of that work so that we can keep that bridge um in uh um safe uh and and you know operational um status we also adopted um an agreement with the San Lorenzo Valley Schools Complex uh to do a study around circulation and access at that site it's um been identified as a significant hazard for um people coming in and on and off the um SLV Schools Complex site so um the RTC and um you know really with the leadership of Supervisor McPherson has been working to try to identify ways to make that um site more safer and and more accessible um so that's happening um we also adopted an unmet paratransit and transit needs list um which unfortunately showed that we while we have made significant progress in large parts to the funding made available through Measure D and um other sources um we have been able to meet some of the the additional needs that have had not been met in our community for quite some time but we still have a long way to go um so um that is uh you know a lot of work to do there um but it's an interesting list and worth looking at for folks who are interested in transit um and alternative transit um options and you know just to get a sense of what we are funding and and what uh what needs to be done in the future uh we also uh adopted a program for highway corridors and active transportation we um a five-year program for projects um which will allow us to move forward with um applying for competitive funding for um for rail trail segments and also for the highway um work that needs to be done and the Air Board the Monterey Bay or Resources District Board meeting um was pretty pro forma um budget considerations and other matters but one item I wanted to highlight um is that the so m-barred has uh various programs that local agencies local jurisdictions can apply to for assistance for um emission reductions technologies and equipment um one of which we'll be hearing about on our agenda for a little bit later um but uh there's an additional pot of funding this year that is being dedicated to lawn equipment um so landscaping equipment replacement for reduced emissions and zero emission technologies uh so also interesting for for folks to look out for that um and I think and I filled in for uh councilmember Cummings on Ambag but I don't think there was anything significant to note there so I'll leave it there thanks everybody thank you councilmember brown uh councilmember Callentary Johnson thank you mayor um I have some a number of updates I I serve on the youth action network as a elected official representative and we've been working on um taking the children and youth fellow rights to throughout our county and in fact today the Santa Cruz county board of supervisors um considered adopting the children and youth bill rights which was formed after what we did here at the city um I assume that that went through but I'm not sure I haven't gotten an update um also working with youth action network to implement our youth liaison uh piece that we passed with the children youth bill rights so hopefully by fall we will have a dedicated youth liaison that will work with youth action network and and work directly with um myself or other council members who are interested so that's the an um the metro board met last week I was not able to attend but I did attend the finance committee and uh the finance committee approved a draft budget for FY 23 and FY 24 that was presented to the board last week and a final budget will be presented to the board at the end of June on June 24th and and that's about a 70 million dollar budget for the metro um let's see I also serve on the community action board and this last month the month of May was community action month we heard from uh cab employee Helen Ewen's story at our last meeting but I just want to reiterate and highlight some of the important work that our local cab has done they are part of a national network uh this last year in 2021 our cab served 10,643 people 85 percent of whom are Latinx and 80 percent um who live below the 250 percent federal poverty line and just really in brief some of the work that they've done includes rental assistance um food assistance job readiness and job placement working with individuals who are from the working with indigenous language speakers and providing them with COVID information serving immigrants and helping them on a pathway to residency and um legal and advocacy services so that's just some of the work that they've done and I wanted to highlight that because we of course the city does support and provide some survey um some funding uh to our local cab so um I'm glad that we can contribute to their amazing work and just want to thank all of the members of um cab employees and cab partners for the work that they do so that's cab and then just really briefly the safe parking program subcommittee did meet with members of association of faith community we're continuing to work with them to build out the safe parking program and I think I'll leave the health and all policies subcommittee to um vice mayor Watkins to report out on that's it thank you council member Calentari Johnson I let's see is council member Golder here absent uh vice mayor Watkins thank you and thank you to my colleagues for all the work you're doing on behalf of the council I think what I could add is the health and all policies um subcommittee that met just yesterday actually excuse me just really incredible and proud to see the work that's been happening within the city and just the progress we've made with the implementation plan a lot of work around translation policy so that we can ensure equity and we're able to communicate and have plans and practices in place to understand when translation is needed appropriate and best suited to meet the needs of our community and just learned about an online resource that sounds wonderful um to help with some of the translation services so more will be coming to the full council on that um a lot of discussion also around equity within the department and training that had occurred um within the city I think just last week and more trainings will be happening for city employees around equity and then um additional conversation had about commissions and how we can be aware of the demographics of our commissioners but also be mindful about wanting to really pursue more diversity within our commission appointments and identifying policy and just one sort of interesting note was that when a number of folks who are working with the city and with this committee and a number of interns did some research they found a lot of statements of interest around commission diversity but not a lot of policy and so as we move forward with designing what would work for the city of sanikers in this way I think we will really lead other cities and wanting to pursue something hopefully very similar um grants are always a key thing that we're thinking about and um and ways to financially resource the work so that was also discussed but more to come on that um I was a little bit late to the two by two meeting but that did um occur also we had an opportunity to um kind of just discuss with the county a lot of our strategies um the coordinated care some of the different programming the funding um how can we get creative with funding uh for example the homework bound program was was referenced in creativity in terms of funding but also just the transitioning of funding associated with some of the um some of the facilities that we have up and running for our unhoused population and I think that covers my committees for this report out thank you mayor thank you vice mayor Watkins um well that leaves me and uh let's see one of the boards that I sit on with vice mayor Watkins is visit sanikers county and that meeting will be tomorrow which we unfortunately will be missing due to our budget hearings so nothing to report on that um the health and all policies uh committee meeting uh vice mayors Watkins spoke to um really the summary of two items on working on interpretation and translation and how the city is addressing those needs across uh many aspects in the city and for our community um whether it be council meetings commissions complex documents council members being able to access information um so all of that's being explored and um the second item of commissions and uh committees advisory bodies and um how we're recruiting and applications and outreaching for diversity um in those bodies as well and then I think you covered everything on the two by two as well there was um great discussion um on really working together for the 14 million uh state funding um really having county and city work together um to really work on mutual agreements transparency collective direction and really keeping trying to keep flexibility in the funds knowing that so many of the programs and investments in the in the shelter opportunities um some short term some long term some with different needs so having um the funding remain flexible was key um and then we also had a um city selection committee meeting and we touched on um we had a public health briefing from our county health department who spoke about um kind of the numbers and the data and the most recent data um and uh really mentioning under reporting due to home testing the large amount of home testing that's now occurring versus um maybe last year there was more um site testing where those results were more known um so going with the data that is now current um also we had a discussion regarding 80 years and um whether they would be considered in affordable housing towards our regional housing needs assessment goals and countywide we spoke of our upcoming uh regional housing needs assessment goals um for all of the cities uh the city selection committee I should say is uh representative of mayors from city of capitol scott's valley Santa Cruz and Watsonville so we spoke of the uh new numbers for the the required housing uh goals in the next cycle and also touched on outdoor uh dining and uh parklet areas across the county and had a really good discussion around uh shared policies um noting that some members in the community are finding it confusing with different policies in place in the different cities and some of those uh some of the the input has come from maybe business owners that own businesses in two different cities with different policies around outdoor dining and um outdoor parklets so we had some good discussion around um around that and that includes my report thank you everybody I will now go back to my um agenda agenda we first up now have the consent agenda these items are 10 through 17 on our agenda for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if you wish to comment on any of the items 10 through 17 on our consent agenda now is the time to call in instructions should be on your screen please remember to mute your streaming device and raise your hand either by dialing star nine on your phone or selecting raise hand in the webinar controls on your computer all items will be acted upon in one motion unless an item is pulled by a council member for further discussion and I do want to reiterate I will not be voting on items agenda items 13 and 14 are there any council members who wish to comment on or pull any items okay council member calentary johnson likes a comment on 12 okay comment on 12 council member brown have a quick comment on 16 comment on 16 council member comings i'm gonna pull 13 um i have a question on 15 and a comment on 16 comings pull 13 comment on comment on 16 and question on 15 question on 15 okay okay so i will begin with comment and i will start with my agenda item number 12 and that is calent council member calentary johnson thank you i just um want to bring this to attention for everyone this is the um request for our mayor to send a letter to the governor around roe versus weights i want to thank you mayor bruner and vice mayor watkins for putting this on the consent agenda i just i think this is um an important time for us to speak up about reproductive rights and women's rights and lgbtq rights and i'm tracking this closely and see that that republican dominated states are um really forging ahead so it's an important time for us to speak up and support our governor and making us a sanctuary state and making this safe for everyone who wishes to choose um to have their reproductive rights maintained so thank you to my colleagues thank you council member calentary johnson um and now we have comments on agenda item number 16 council member brown thank you mayor i just wanted to highlight this item and thank our staff the item for members of the public um is uh essentially it's a series of actions to uh fully fund and purchase three heavy and medium duty electric vehicles um so i just this is something that i've been uh advocating for and and really you know wanting us to uh move forward on for um during my time on the council and so i just wanted to thank our public works uh staff and tiffany wise west in particular for uh doing the work to receive this uh competitive grant funding some of it coming through uh the community power board um central coast energy and some of it through the monterey bay resources district a different pot of funding than the one i mentioned earlier but there is funding available um out there and and we are uh going for it and so i just i i'm really thrilled to see this happening and um just wanted to thank everyone for their work to make it um to move it forward thank you council member brown council member comings who had a comment on agenda item 16 as well you know i just want to thank the staff for all their work on this um this was when i first got on council in 2019 this was something that many community members expressed interest in um because you know in our effort to reduce our carbon emissions um being able to convert our fleet over to electric vehicles is something that people express a lot of interest in and it's you know just one more step in the direction of doing our part to reduce our carbon emissions and um do our part to mitigate the impacts of climate change and so i just wanted to express my appreciation to the staff that they're actively pursuing you know all efforts to make our fleet um a hundred percent electric so just want to thank you all for in public works for all your hard work on this thank you council member coming um vice mayor Watkins you i see your hand up yeah my hand was up mayor i'm wondering if for the ease of sort of how this could flow for your purposes of disqualification is if it would be most appropriate for me to poll 14 and we could have 13 and 14 heard separately um and then hear the rest the consent agenda while you're able to participate so i'll go ahead and poll 14 for those okay great thank you so we um have items 13 and 14 hold okay so moving on with a question uh on item number 15 council member Cummings you had a question on item number 15 yeah so for um members of the public this is police department roof restoration award contract um and one of the things kind of similar to um item number 16 the city has been trying to make a lot of efforts towards going green and reducing carbon emissions and given that we're going to do um you know some substantial repairs on the roof of the police department one of the questions that came to me from the city from community is is there any effort to move forward with putting solar on the roof of the police station and they ask this because given the fact that there's going to be work done on the roof it would seem like you know putting solar panels in at the same time might be you know win-win and is there someone from staff that could respond to that question uh i see director mark deddle with public works go ahead yeah that that's a really good question um council member Cummings um at this point i we do have solar panels over the parking lot and we really focused on energy management we had a grant to actually reduce the energy used at the police department and that's a more cost effective way at this point but now that we do have a new roof on it that could be another next step that we could look at as we continue to move forward but obviously you want to do the roof before you do the solar panels so you don't have to take them off and redo the roof so that's a really good question and we can look at that in the future right that's that was my only question on that item thank you okay thank you let me go back to um my agenda here so we have a time now for public comment on agenda items 10 through 17 with the exception of 13 and 14 those have been pulled we'll come back to those so for now if you are a member of the public that would like to speak to any item on our consent agenda now is the time to do so please raise your hand by dialing star nine on your phone or selecting raise hand in the webinar controls on your computer when it's your turn to speak you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted and the timer will then be set to three minutes and i go to the attendees list and i see the first hand raised ends phone number ending in 199 go ahead and unmute welcome yes hello my name is james ewing whitman um can i be heard clearly yes hello excellent so i would first like to thank the clerk that that answered the question that you can make comments about the consent agenda i would like to make comments first on number 16 and then number 10 number 16 is an allocation of about 2.1 million dollars for five fully electric vehicles i'd like to remind the public and the council that diesel electric locomotives are extremely efficient and can be extremely clean um that design was 1896 and there's really nothing better that's that's more efficient than that um so going to number 10 the resolution authorizing the city council to only have teleconference meetings my understanding and i could be wrong but you guys had two different opportunities for the public to speak in person i think i spoke two weeks ago five times um okay um if uh let's see he said his name was james if james calls back i can let him finish his second half um so i will go to the next hand raise i am watching you is the name go ahead and unmute yourself uh yes uh one of those bullet points on item 12 says uh advises to develop mechanisms to make sure any woman fleeing other states and coming to california for an abortion uh should get the treatment they need without regard to their ability to pay and the state working you know blah blah i should ensure the necessary funds are available to cover these services this seems fiscally irresponsible and it's going to make california if that happened uh you know californians paying for the abortions all over the country i think that's well i think that's dumb okay um as far as the rest of it goes uh my letter really that i sent pretty much says you know they do well you don't really acknowledge that there's a wide variety of opinion about how late the late term abortion is and it's going to vary between states and between individuals that 80 percent of the public doesn't believe in third term abortions and you don't uh you don't chime in on that at all uh i'd assume from reading your letter that you know limit and so i think that's uh not where the public's coming from and uh uh they're uh you know those supreme court has overturned previous opinions and many many times and it's always been to the good and i i mentioned in my letter consider where we'd be if this effort but equal doctrine wasn't overturned you know they they overturned uh after further consideration that some of the decisions haven't been right and if you read the opinion which i doubt you did it's 98 pages it's very convincing that the federal government does not have the authority to establish any such federal right to an abortion and it specifically states that it doesn't apply to lgbtq rights or any other rights private say thanks thank you for your public comment um i see phone number ending in 1999 has returned so go ahead and unmute yourself hi welcome back you know what i appreciate i don't know what happened to the thing so going back to agenda item number 16 a couple years ago germany had a hydrogen powered vehicle that was 750 horsepower a range of 600 miles and used 30 gallons of regular seawater i don't know what's more sustainable than that so going back to item number 16 um uh you know i'm just going to remind whoever's listening and the council that drew glover in 2019 brought up that uh under the first amendment people can say whatever language they want i'm going to try to keep it clean but you know i'm just going to do my best so i'm uh i find it really sad and disconcerting that the public can't show up and speak i don't know what kind of government is actually being practiced um my understanding is that there's government was created for these two primary reasons and that is to love thy neighbor and do no harm so thank you very much it looks like that concludes our attendees for public comment on consent agenda and i just did want to respond to item agenda item number 10 is um the reoccurring off 30-day authorization for the uh i don't have the exact wording in front of me but it allows us to hold virtual meetings um and that continues even as we do hybrid meetings we did have the several last meetings were in person and online so that's considered a hybrid model and as long as we do that whether completely virtual or virtual and in person we do need that authorization um unfortunately we were unable to hold in person today and tomorrow um due to the uptick in covid cases and um so we hope to return to in person um as soon as possible and um continue with the in person and online hybrid model so stay tuned thank you for being with us virtually today let's see i am now bringing it back to council and um i'm looking for a remote by motion on the items with the exception of items 13 and 14 council member vice mayor Watkins sure mayor i'm happy to move the consent agenda with the exceptions of 13 and 14 i'll second it mires and a second council member mires council member brown was was that why your hand was up okay thank you uh okay so may we is there any other further discussion may we have a roll call vote council member calentary johnson aye boulder aye coming vice mayor Watkins and mayor brunner aye those items passed unanimously okay um at this point i will hand it over to vice mayor Watkins for the remaining consent agenda items 13 and 14 great thank you mayor um so items 13 and 14 i pulled 14 um uh just for the purposes of having the mayor not participate in that item so we'll hear the two and i know um council member Cummings you pulled item 13 so we'll go ahead and have you speak to that yeah i thank you vice mayor i pulled item number 13 this is downtown association parking and business improvement area assessment fiscal year 2023 um i don't even know i pulled this is because it looks like there's two options within the motion it's approve or to modify and approve and so if that was to if we were to take a vote on that language in particular um it would be a little bit confusing i think and so i just you know was wanting to pull this to make sure that we clarified um whether or not there's a desire for us to provide input to modify the plan or if you're asking for just clear approval rebecca i see you on here i'm happy to hand it over to you yeah absolutely thank you so much good afternoon uh vice mayor and council members i'm rebecca unit at home development manager for the city of sankers um and so um i can just give a brief overview of this item and make the clarification in the recommendation for you um but as you're aware this is our annual renewal process for the business improvement assessment um and so this assessment is collected on behalf of the downtown association for the business owner in the downtown district and the city is just the fiscal agent passing through that assessment to the businesses so in our recommendation we do have approve or to modify and approve the plan um this is the work plan that the downtown association board brings together and approves typically the city council doesn't weigh in on that um it is typically just an approval process um so we would welcome that in uh the motion um and then the second piece of this recommendation is to adopt the resolution of intention to lovely the assessment so um it will come back at the june 14th meeting as a public hearing item um and any protests on the assessment can be heard at that time and we'll give notice to the um the downtown association gives them notice to their membership for the renewal um i can provide more detail but just want to give that initial clarification thanks so if i could follow up um so i guess you know the action we could take is just then to approve the plan prepared by the downtown association okay great thank you great thank you council member mires i would be uh i would be happy to make that motion if there's no other questions or comments and after a public comment is taken on the site okay okay move to approve move to approve okay great yep wonderful thank you are there any comments um from council members okay seeing none we'll go ahead and um move to the attendees and now we're hearing items 13 and 14 on our consent agenda and uh we have our first attendee in nita and i will stick to the mayor's three minutes and go ahead and um allow any to speak i had intended to speak to number 18 actually so can i hold for that yes you can thank you okay thank you there any other members of the community who would like to address the council on our consent agenda items 13 or 14 if you are interested in doing that please raise your hand now okay seeing none we'll go ahead and return back to the council for action i believe council member mires was interested in moving 13 and 14 with the modified language to reflect approved um in item 13 if that's correct we'll go ahead and hear uh council member mires motion i'll second okay all right any further discussion all right seeing none we'll go ahead and take a roll call vote thank you for both items 13 and 14 council members calentary johnson i my older i want the member mires mayor wadkin so that passes unanimously with uh mayor bruner recusing herself okay i'll bring it back to the mayor but we have the second item council member wadkin oh i apologize is that item 14 no uh yes so um cooperative we did confirm really really quick we did a vote on both item yes we did there was only one reason the item 13 was pulled um it was for clarification that council member comings had i pulled 14 for um ease of the kind of facilitating the process so that was voted upon in the last um vote if unless council member symany further questions okay seeing then great thank you thank you rebecca great okay well that concludes our consent agenda and i will hand it back to the mayor now that she is able to come back thank you vice mayor wadkins okay next up on our agenda is item number 18 this is a public hearing for second reading and adoption of ordinance number 2022-06 an ordinance transitioning to district-based elections and selecting a seven district map option and a six district map option along with related election sequencing for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an item you wish to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen the order will be questions from council followed by public comment and then we will then return to council for comments deliberation and action in addition to the public comment we will be hearing on this item three emails were sent to city council at city of san jose dot com regarding this item okay so now i will um see if there are any questions from council on this item and i see council member comings thank you mayor i had a i was contacted by a member of the public um um earlier today and they shared an article and in that article um was a quote related to the fair maps act and potential violation of the fair maps act and so just wanted to get some clarification on this so the quoted in the article was that in 2020 the california legislature amended the fair maps act to adjust the deadline when the final district map must be adopted agencies with elections held between january 1st and july 1st 2022 must complete the redistricting process and adopt the final map no later than 174 days before the election for agencies with june 7 2022 elections consolidated with the statewide primary election the final deadline was december 15 2021 agencies with the november 8 2022 election consolidated with the statewide general election must adopt their maps no later than 205 days before the election or april 17 2022 the act permits charter cities to establish different deadlines however they may face practical deadlines to finalize maps and submit them to their county in time for a particular election and so given that information um i forwarded this over when i received it to the city attorney and was wondering if you could comment or if there's any concern related to violation of the fair maps act which would then put us in a legal situation should we move forward today yes thank you councilmember comings um and and thank you for giving us a heads up uh about this article which which does quote the fair maps act and um you know after my uh art stopped palpitating we were able to take a look at this statute and the fair maps act is in the in the language that you quoted from is from elections code section 21662 i believe and and that applies for redistricting that occurs during that window of time that the legislature enacted this special statute but it expressly does not apply to a charter city that has adopted a different redistricting deadline by ordinance and more importantly it's expressly does not apply when a city transitions from at large to district based elections so so the fair maps act is really looking at redistricting and not um establishment of district elections in the first instance so we're comfortable that the deadlines that we've uh checked with the research stand checked with the county elections official are still applicable as as we've previously advised thank you councilmember comings and city attorney is there any other council questions before i bring it out to public comment okay going out to public comment if you're interested in commenting on second reading and adoption of ordinance number 2022 dash 0606 raise your hand either by dialing star nine on your phone or selecting raise hand in the webinar controls on your computer and when it's your turn to speak you'll hear an announcement that you've been unmuted the timer will then be set to three minutes the first hand raise has a phone number ending in 1705 go ahead and unmute hello hello can you hear me yes hello welcome great uh yes thank you for taking my my comments today um like councilmember comings i have some reservations that uh this which the district elections will result in any sort of fair representation i like the at large system however i totally understand why council is doing this and i think it's appropriate so i differ with comings councilmember comings on that but more importantly this idea that somehow the council's actions are illegal or just the opinion of the city attorney or unconstitutional that's just totally wrong a government code section 34886 expressly is council the ability the power to go to district elections without a public vote and even though we are charter city this section was put into place by the legislature specifically for charter cities let me redo the relevant passage the legislate this is government code section 34886 the legislative body of a city may adopt an ordinance that requires the members of the legislative body be elected by district or by district with an elective mayor without being required to submit the ordinance the voters for approval now uh councilmember comings and other people members of the public have said that council's actions are unconstitutional by inference the only thing that could mean is that he believes that this government code statute is unconstitutional however a statute is not unconstitutional because a councilmember says it is or because a stand for law school graduate says it is it's only unconstitutional when a court little bit is and usually in most cases that court would have to be an appellate court it would have to be a published decision of an appellate court so i don't know if councilmember comings is misguided or if he doesn't understand that but it's really there's a difference between some of the opinions about what the city should do and whether or not it's illegal and like i said at the beginning i think we'd be better served by sticking with that large election this is my opinion doesn't mean what the council has done is illegal and i think councilmember comings and others could do better by saying it's my opinion that a court might rule this unconstitutional because clearly it's not unconstitutional now and city attorney kandadi's generous characterization that that's a lay opinion is just that it's generous it's not a lay opinion it's a fact that it's not unconstitutional because it's only unconstitutional if a court rules it has it is and there have been no court rulings on this whatsoever thank you very much thank you for your comment our next public comment is phone number ending in nine six four two hi there welcome we go ahead and press star six to unmute yourself so um thank you um i would like to register my disappointment on the majority vote uh to select nap six i think she's trying to mute her the streaming which is the delay that she's hearing is the accidentally muted her phone too here we go hi i think i it's great thank you thank you um i would like to register my disappointment hello can you hear me yes continue to hello okay thank you so much thank you for your patience um i i would like to register my disappointment on the majority vote uh to select nap six oh two um yes i can hear you hello i can hear you recommend that they that they turn off their stream lower the volume what is happening is um yes okay can you hear me now hear you but there's uh an echo from your um whatever is playing the meeting there's a delay so you'll have to mute that oh i can't because on my screen i'm only showing the directions of how to comment so there's uh so i would have to go back i guess to live okay i can't mute it because on my screen i only see the directions to um address the city council on my um with a phone okay i'm not having a live just talk without the and ignore the mayor yes i think you can also just hit pause on the streaming no don't mute okay let me try that okay let me let me try that okay there i think this will um help that because i press stop okay can you hear me now without the echoing yes hi welcome okay thank you thank you for your patience of course um i would like to register my disappointment on the majority vote to select nap six oh two at the april 19th special city council meeting and my objections are based on the california voting rights project report entitled the bridgement of latino voting rights and racially polarized voting in the city of santa cruz out this was published february 2020 and this report was cited in a santa cruz local article as a contribution by jessica york santa cruz a sentinel reporter um my first concern was that the report was not available on the city map i only found it by accident but it gave detailed data and charts showing why they came to the conclusion that a bridge voting characterized candidate elections and other electoral choices in the city of santa cruz it further stated and concluded that there is also significant evidence of the extent to which latinos in the city of santa cruz bear the effects of past discrimination in such areas as education employment and health um so i'd like to make some points on um the choice of the map based on this report and the data made available for the district map um the choice of map 602 over 604 b deludes in district 4 the percent of latino registered voters by 6 percent now it's uh the district maps may not be drawn with race as the predominant factor in violation of the principles established by the u.s supreme court but predominant does not mean to exclude it that race cannot be a factor uh the cvrt report states that it would be possible to create approximately three city council districts with proportions of members of protected classes significantly greater than the city as a whole now race is a protected class of the state and federal level so this could have been done uh the other point i'd like to make is that the choice of map 602 over 604 b reduces in district 4 the percent of renters by 15 percent the choice of map 602 over 604 b increases in in district 4 by 10 percent the number of households with incomes over 75 percent the choice of map 602 over 604 joins uh lower ocean with sea bright and lower ocean is the neighborhood that has more in common beach routes than it does with million dollar homes on top of the hill this also includes lower ocean business car which has more in common with the beach flat okay thank you for hearing me out um there were some other points but i i'm thankful that you were able to hear these thank you thank you for your comment i'm glad we worked through that uh troubleshooting as well um i see qc himard you popped on are you available for any questions or any i am here and our demographer doug johnson is also here um who can uh who's more of a subject matter expert on on some of the mapping uh details and cvr as well as kassie bronstons here too wonderful um it looks like that concludes our public comment um i don't see other attendees so i will bring it back to council for comments deliberation and action and um for this second reading on this item and um oh i see one more public comment i will go back and just make sure i grab that phone number ending into 174 are you commenting on this agenda item 18 yes thank you thank you mayor brunner i'm sorry i just got in and uh just quickly dialed to come to make a comment um i'd like to speak on behalf of so many people who are just beginning to realize your choice the choice that the council majority made on the maps and are puzzled confused a concerned and outraged so i'd like to express all of that and specifically uh i think uh other callers although i missed the public comment have spoken about how you have divided the latino community i'd like to add to that concern because time will go quickly here um the way that the west side has been split is just unconscionable um that you have divided the low west side vertically and the upper west side vertically it makes no sense except maybe someone's thinking of running for council and could get votes that way it makes the the voting rights act that um the the act of which you've been following requires you to divide districts of mutual interest and not sleep from well you've you've divided the map so that highway one goes through the middle by dividing it vertically the upper west side and the lower west side have quite different interests that is obvious to anyone who's lived here for any time the the impacts of beach traffic uh and children crossing Delaware to get to school on their bicycles impacts the lower west side above highway one or above mission the upper west side has its own issues to divide those and one of the maps goes straight straight through the circles neighborhood uh it it makes no sense it doesn't appear to comply with the the criteria on which you were supposed to create districts and i think it's going to prove uh to be a problem going into the future as people who represent who are elected to represent districts now will not be representing districts with common interests but will be split in half providing lower ocean from beach flats and uh maybe you cannot take race as the only criterion but you certainly can use and ethnicity and common interests of lower income residents in your deliberations to choose a map and you have violated that premise so on every level the choice of maps you have made is a disservice to the community and uh i would question its conformance with the law and uh i thank you thank you for your comment we have another hand raised the name i am watching you go ahead unmute yes hello um i've i've spoken to this before any problems i i might have had with measuring mostly disappointment that it wasn't uh well that it says somewhere lopsided and unfair but as far as the districts they're not treated equally but i i don't have any problem with the maps i think that's fine um you know dividing the lower west side is uh if anything that's like twice as much representation you know it's almost better um but uh my real concern is that well in case their measure e you know fails and i really don't know how i'm going to vote i probably think that measure e is better than what we do now as far as electing city council but uh you know the alternative which is this default seven district you know that just there's nothing going for that for me and so it's not much of a choice but it seems like you could make the seven district option better by somehow allowing the public to vote for whoever's on the council uh for mayor and i don't see why you can't do that and uh even if it's just an i know you've got to change the charter uh to make it stick but uh you could still do an advisory vote even without the charter you could always change far or later uh and i i i i think uh if you could uh explain why you know you wouldn't want to do that uh or that you would intend to do that if it passed uh or if you failed i mean then you know that would give people a better choice and that it could actually be a very competitive option to measure e um i i also think a two-year mayor is better just because i believe in uh public oversight and the more the better and uh and it solves a lot of these district unfairness type problems and uh you know i could see a seven district with a two-year term mayor being voted on by the public at least an advisory capacity if it's not a charter change thanks a comment is the name Anita okay thank you um first of all thanks again to council member Blontari Johnson for answering my questions on this item this morning um there was missing postings uh that were an integral part of the ordinance that was not with this agenda item specifically exhibit a and exhibit b that has now been posted uh but exhibit a is for 604 b but the ordinance refers to uh map 602 and exhibit b refers to map 101 but posted is 101 d so i really have no idea what is actually being adopted here can you clarify what's happening here my public comment is not a dialogue period it's a time for you to give your public comment in in the the time allotted okay uh well i've stated there's conflicts of what the ordinance says is being adopted versus what's posted on your agenda does that conclude your public comment uh yeah that i object to this proceeding without proper um maps being posted on what is actually being adopted thank you thank you for your comment okay looks like that concludes our public comment period i don't see any other attendees with their hands raised i will now bring it back to uh council for comments uh and deliberation and action on this second reading and adoption of ordinance number 2022-06 um i would like to start maybe by answering a couple of the questions in um that were brought up during public comment and um one of the the callers questioned um their comment question the legal aspect of the maps and i'm wondering if someone can speak to that the demographer uh or kasey marred i'll defer to Doug on the legality of the maps that we that were selected by the council sir uh may our members council just briefly um both the maps that the council has adopted and the other maps that were proposed at last meeting meet all the legal requirements um there obviously are differences of opinion about which maps best meet them but they all meet the legal requirements thank you um there was another question regarding um seven districts allowing for an elect mayor um okay go ahead tony uh i think the question was can we have seven districts and allow the public to select among willing council members to serve as mayor and the reason why that's problematic if measure e does not pass and the city council adopts district elections hold on someone's not muted um uh i think uh anita is still yeah okay thank you um so so the reason why that's problematic is um measure e would amend the charter to specify having a directly elected at-large mayor and if measure e does not pass and the city council moves forward with seven council districts by ordinance then the existing provision of the charter section 604 i believe uh would require that the mayor be selected by the city council so so that's why with the seven district maps um the council would continue to select the mayor because it's specified by the charter okay and the last question brought up was regarding the supporting documents in conflict with what stated in the ordinance yeah i uh mayor brunner this is casey um i i actually have wrapped up my time at the city about two weeks ago so i have not actually been involved with loading these uh since my temporary project management role i thought was going to expire on may 10th i i i've left so i've not been involved i was not there to make sure that the exhibits were attached um so i'm guessing that there's probably an an error um in an inadvertent error and somebody trying to be really helpful in loading uh the maps uh as attachments when this was brought to the city's attention um any other comments this is i i would just add that just as a reminder i don't know whether he kills the agenda packet but all the maps throughout this whole process are all still available on the um project website on the season and and i will add the city's transition to district elections website clearly marks which maps the council selected on the date it's it's uh very clearly noted and has been since the day after the council first chose those maps thank you um and then city clerk bonny bush yeah thank you i was just going to say we um inadvertently added the wrong maps but i was going to say what casey indicated that on the website it does um specify that on april 19th which maps were adopted or approved right thank you um okay sorry for that confusion i'm glad we were able to clarify that so um the ordinance in the agenda with um the maps shown not the exhibits the exhibits are incorrect and the agenda is correct is that a case it sounds like that's yeah that sounds correct mayor brunner yeah and city attorney do you have any comment on this um it's an unfortunate oversight but it does not affect the legality of the proceedings that are before you today okay thank you council member coming uh sorry council member brown the squares moved go ahead i saw your hand up and then vice mayor watkins uh yeah i so uh well i was going to ask a follow-up question about the um any potential concerns about the legality given the um confusion around the postings um given that this i mean this is a very confusing issue and in the conversations i've been having with people in the community some of whom were very excited about supporting measure e because they like the idea of an out-large mayor who then heard about what was happening with the maps have changed their perspective and more people are um beginning to try to understand this and the fact that we have not made this legible to the general public in a way that's really accessible is very concerning to me um i um so so i think that you know we've got some serious work to do here and i think that we are opening ourselves up to uh the potential for uh complaints about you know related to the potentially to the brown act because this information was you know you have to really pull it apart and know what's going on to be able to access all of the documents and there was um a misrepresentation about those exhibits for this um this meeting um you know i just think that given this kind of change um you know and i recognize that staff has been you know trying to roll with the punches here of what you know some council members brought very last minute to uh this public body and um you know it just seems to me that we ought to be taking that more seriously so you know i'm i guess the question's been asked and answered but i'm not satisfied with the answer and i believe we need to um you know re-notice this and i also um you know inclined to suggest that given the um the significant concerns with the sixth district map that was selected by this the council majority um or a majority of council members um that we should really be reconsidering that map um before uh and that should be done after you know perhaps after the election so um you know i'm not going to support moving forward with this ordinance second reading today i think we need to be um looking at this after the election and give people time to decide do they want six districts and a mayor um without all of this confusion about the map and what it means um or um you know be prepared for a lethal challenge i think that's that's what's in the cards here if if uh the council majority moves forward in this way thank you council member brown um k c humard yes i also i wanted to also just let you all know um the last thing i did before i left the city on may 11th was um i physically posted um in the spots where we post council noticings outside of council chambers and over on church street um a notice that also explicitly states that the count city on april 19th the city council selected district maps 101 and 602 and introduced the ordinance um i also uh posted this particular notice on the transition of district elections website and um marked the different marked it in several different places that this that these were the two maps selected on april 19th just for your information thank you vice mayor watkins thank you mayor yeah i do want to appreciate the comments and also the folks who are here to help sort of refine our responses to this item and specifically call out kc um for coming back even after not necessarily being with the city anymore we appreciate you um i also really want to thank our demographer for really clear clarifying that these are all legally viable options i know that's been um stated as um not true but um what it is is true and i think it's important for us to be very clear about that because probably what the biggest threat to democracy is is really the um lack of clarity of information and um being really clear about what's legally viable is essential i also want to um make sure that the community knows the maps have been publicly available on our website and clearly articulated on our website for weeks and um this has now been delayed as an item because we wanted to ensure that we were really clear specifically with the title and action for this community so i do believe that we've done our due diligence in that way um therefore i'm prepared to move the ordinance and the second reading of the ordinance um item number 18 and i don't think i need to read that i don't think i need to reread it but i'm happy to make that motion okay we have a motion by vice mayor watkins is there a second and then we can continue discussion council member boulder all second okay we have a motion on the floor by vice mayor watkins to move the second reading and a second by council member boulder um thank you and um council member brown i saw your hand went back up um did you have a just really quick um i received a message as i often do when we are on zoom from a member of the public who was trying to call in and did not get called on um wasn't able to the raise hand function didn't work um and so i'm hoping that that and it looks like um i see a hand up now in the attendees so i'm i'm hoping that um people who given that this is probably the last opportunity people have to weigh in that you'd give that individual an opportunity to speak okay so we have um a member of the public who was trying to call in for public comment it sounds like let me go to the attendees list is it okay um i'm going to go out and then come back to council get this member an opportunity to speak okay um i see a hand raised with the name and go ahead and press star six to unmute yourself yes thank you mayor brunner i just wanted to quickly add that uh i as a member of this community for 46 years almost 47 now that these maps do not represent neighborhoods that deserve to have representation what they do is they seem to be reflective of council members wanting to be reelected more than it has to do with keeping lower ocean with with uh beach flats with keeping uh communities together this is uh it's outrageous to think that lower ocean is connected with highland avenue if you couldn't take two more disparate groups of people and think that that is a community and you should all be ashamed of yourself for voting for that and i i'm just fed up it's very just it's very discouraging what's going on with this community thank you okay thank you for your comment i'm bringing back to council and um i see council member boulder you have your hand raised and then council member comings could i could i interject a comment um i'd just like to clarify something for the record there was a comment about the wrong map being posted on the in the agenda packet and i just want to clarify that um first of all the ordinance that was included in the agenda packet did refer to district map 101 and district map 602 but those maps were initially omitted from the packet so there weren't maps in the packet the correct maps were referred to um but the maps were not attached and that was corrected yesterday but any any person who reviewed the ordinance would have received the information about the correct maps it just that they weren't included as part of the packet okay thank you council member golder so i just want to say that um to to respond to the the members of the public that think that we drew the maps or you know gerrymandered the maps in some way that those of us on council could get reelected i i just want to dispel that notion and say that couldn't be further from the truth i think all seven of us you know have um no desire to do anything like that and have nothing but the long-term you know vision for the best Santa Cruz in our hearts all seven of us and so um the other thing is i will i agree with what council member walken said and that the maps have been very clear and posted throughout the process we didn't draw the maps the demographers did we've chose the map that we felt was best given the information we were provided and i think the people that are saying they're confused are not actually confused they're just not happy with the ones that we chose and so it's just disappointing to see um people act you know acting like this and accusing people of things that are accurate too that's all okay thank you council member Cummings i just want to you know express it i've heard a lot of concern around transparency which we're seeing unfold before us today um and also about around the uncertainty of the outcome of measure e i think it would be much more transparent of a process if we wait until after the election to select these maps many people have said they've had difficulty finding the maps and i believe once we know what direction the community will be going in we can then have a special meeting so that the community can weigh in on which map will be best at ensuring representation in our local government so i'm going to make a substitute motion to continue this item until after the election to provide more transparency second okay we have a substitute motion by council member Cummings to continue until after June the election okay after the election with a second by council member Brown curious on the the timeline of that is that um what that affects uh city attorney i'm not quite sure i mean one of the things that we need to be able to do is submit the maps to the elections official before July 6th we have an ordinance that adopts the maps and the ordinance doesn't take effect for 30 days after its final adoption so it may be possible to uh return with a resolution adopting the maps but i um i would have to research that oh my Cassie's just pointing out that because it relates to an election the ordinance goes into effect immediately so i stand correct on that i see city clerk Bonnie Bush also has um her hand raised i do thank you just um a follow-up the council the county clerk would have 30 days after the election to certify the election so i don't know if your intention is to wait until the results are in in which case it would be too late it would be too late it would be too late to come back and adopt the ordinance because you'd have to have another meeting to adopt this ordinance but then the county would meet the maps by July 6th if that makes sense so 30 days from the election would be July 7th so timing-wise there wouldn't be enough time to have another meeting to adopt this ordinance based on the results of the election okay um this is good discussion uh vice mayor Watkins uh well given this information that it's not viable in addition to the fact that this has been vetted as part of our community and outreach process i'm wondering if the maker of the motion wants to withdraw the motion or if we want to go ahead and take the vote on it which in which case given what we know i'm going to vote no because it makes no sense because the maker of the motion want to withdraw the motion yeah okay is there any other discussion on the substitute okay um so we have a substitute motion council member Cummings and a second by a council member Brown um and we'll have a roll call vote for accepting that motion council member Callentary Johnson no Boulder no Mayor Watkins no and Mayor Bruder no so the substitute motion does not pass five uh against two in favor brings us back to our motion is there any further discussion on that motion council member Cummings thank you mayor um given that we're moving in this direction and based on what we've heard from the community our decision here is to really be addressing racially polarized voting of all the maps maps 604 b for six districts and one on one d for seven districts with best increased representation of Latinos Asians low-income residents and students to be on our uh city council we have an opportunity before us to promote diversity equity and inclusion of people from a protected class in our elections and i believe the best way to promote racial representation student representation and representation by working class and low-income residents is to go with the staff recommendation so i'm going to make a substitute motion that we adopt maps 604 b and one on one d um for district elections second okay we have a substitute motion by council member Cummings to adopt 604 b map and one on one d map with a second by council member Brown council member Calentari Johnson yeah i'd like some clarification from staff this isn't the agenda item we're voting on the charter amendment correct and i know you've voted on the charter amendment uh at a at a prior meeting this is the ordinance by which the district maps are selected and also that specifies the process for a seven district election uh should measure e uh fail at the June 7th primary election so the mo the motion that's put forward isn't what's on the agenda correct what's on the agenda is the ordinance that incorporates maps 602 and 101 i understood the substitute motion would be to to remove those references and substitute the uh the maps that council member Cummings was referring to but we're voting on the ordinance not on the maps so that's why this motion that doesn't make much sense to me it's both the ordinance and the maps that are incorporated by reference into the ordinance the ordinance includes the maps so yes we are voting on the ordinance or the ordinance is before us but the ordinance includes two maps and we're already voted on say that again that we're already voted on based on staff recommendation at the at the first reading correct thank you uh vice mayor Watkins yeah i think i guess i was just saying that this sort of to the point that council member calentari johnson was bringing was this is the second reading so i will be voting no on the substitute motion and also just want to again point out that what we had was a series of maps that had been um vetted by our demographer who has um really taken into consideration the demographic demographics of our community so they're all very different options that we do the best we can to choose from so no map is the perfect map but we want is hopefully a map that we think will provide the best representation and split of representation throughout the entire community so in regards to i think again some of the misinformation that i'm hearing which is that it's not rooted in um or it's not viable or has um sort of racially polarizing components that it's not democratic which is factually incorrect and frankly to me is the biggest threat to our democracy if we're having fake news brought before us or fake facts brought forward that's not true so for me i feel comfortable moving forward with the second ordinance and i'll be voting now on the substitute motion again council member brown well i just had raised my hand to correct a statement that council member calentari johnson made about um this ordinance being an ordinance with maps that were recommended by staff which was not the case um the council member calentari johnson chose to move and five members of the council supported other maps that were not recommended by staff they were included in the menu of options that were given and um while the assertion has been made that they um are not that they are legal and they they are legal because there is no legal precedent suggesting that they they are not legal at this moment it's really an empirical question as one of our callers um suggested um it's an empirical question that will not be answered until there is a judgment in and it's put into case law and um that is a concern that i have moving forward and um so i'm i absolutely support uh returning to the original staff recommendation i recall during the meeting when we were discussing the maps that were presented to us by the demographer um at the time the demographer did say in particular specifically with respect to the question of uh lower ocean and beach flats a clear community of interest being divided when it does not need to be um that um the demographers used the river as a natural dividing line um and i say this with no disrespect for the demographer but that is clearly um an indication of not being particularly familiar with our community and it's a different thing to look at census tracts and uh demographics in census tracts and to actually understand our community when that input was provided the demographer said well we can certainly do that and that's what happened the council majority chose to ignore that possibility and um i guess again i'm not going to debate whether or not it's legal we'll find out down the road i suppose um but i if i really just and you know and and then i just have to say that the idea that calling these maps questionable is fake news is just so disheartening to hear um to you know to refer to uh you know something that you know an elected leader that i don't think any of us want to emulate um you know something that he used is is just it's really um i just don't understand it um so while i had the floor i just felt the need to add that as well and i'm sorry that this has become so incredibly um you know emotional for uh the community i suppose there's some emotion there as people are finding out about it for council members to um to not see that the decisions that are being made here do have an impact on those in our community who have been voiceless or close to voiceless and who are we're the subject of this original um legal claim under the california voting rights act so i'll be voting yes uh to consider the substitute motion and um i imagine we'll find out more as the community moves forward with the response um vice mayor Watkins and then council member Cummings sorry there's just construction starting here me i can you hear me okay hopefully it's okay um yeah no i just i mean i guess i'll clarify my comments since i have the floor i guess my concern is that when you have comments made that this is an undemocratic process or that we are gerrymandering maps that's not true and and frankly what we see happen is politicians specifically using their own set of data or information to further their political agenda and that is concerning to me and frankly is exactly what's at concern for our democracy so i think that there may be a difference around the individual maps that are chosen in terms of weighing all of them but in terms of the representation that went into it in terms of how our demographer figured those out um those were vetted by an expert which we heard so for me i'm comfortable moving forward with the original um maps i think we could go round and round and given that um this is the second reading i'm happy to just call the question in terms of the substitute motion so we can just take a vote on that okay okay the question has been called so let's take a roll call vote means to be voted on you have a second on that a question okay so the question has been called second by council member brown no i'm sorry i wasn't um we we can call the question and do the whole vote i don't know are there any other comments by vice mayor Watkins and the second second we just keep going mires okay and um so question by vice mayor Watkins question has been called second by mires roll call vote council member is calentary donson boulder hi vice mayor watkins hi and mayor brunner hi okay so the question has been called and now we go to the substitute motion to the main motion oh okay you vote on the substitute motion now substitute motion and then we'll go from there substitute motion council member comings seconded by brown on uh replacing them the two maps with 604 b and 101 d roll call vote council member is calentary donson no boulder no mayor brunner no the main motion there was a first by uh vice mayor Watkins and a second by council member boulder we'll take a roll call vote council member is calentary johnson mayor brunner sorry i council member brown yeah if if um we'll need another uh calling the question to cut off conversing discussion about this particular motion so if somebody wants to do that next feel free to go ahead and do that but i'm going to make my comments now that they were related to you know the general issue so i think they're just as applicable now um so you know i just wanted again to you know it's been suggested that um some council members may have a political agenda here and in response to that i want to say yes i absolutely do have a political agenda here my political agenda is to ensure that underrepresented voices are heard and are better represented in the decisions we make that is my political agenda and i'm very proud of that um and so the idea that having a political agenda is um inappropriate to me is also very dismaying and um i think we just need to be transparent about what our particular personal or not necessarily personal each individual but what are what our political agendas are i would like transparency among all of my colleagues on that i'm making mine transparent and i'd be happy to talk more about that with people offline i want to take up more time here um because clearly the decision has been made but um i do want to state that for the record thank you council member brown council member Cummings thank you mayor um i'll make my final comment as well and just want to point out that the reason why we're in this entire process is to address racially polarized voting and to increase representation in our local government at the last city council meeting the item that was on our agenda stated the staff recommendation for these maps were the following the ndc has revised the initial draft maps in response to feedback received at the public hearing on march 29th staff recommends the council slept map 604b as it's the most effectively and it most effectively incorporates the majority of the feedback received from the community at the public hearing and then that was for the the sixth district map for the seven district map it said that quote at the public hearing on march 29th and in the city's whole co-survey the community and the city council indicated that map 101 was the preferred model with a few modifications the staff recommends that the council slept map 101d as it most effectively incorporates the majority of the feedback received our job is to work on behalf of the community our job is to ensure that diverse voices are heard it's something that we've been committed to and the recommendations that were brought forward by staff not only incorporated the feedback from the council from the community and were the best maps to address racially polarized voting those maps are not being voted on today and um and those are the maps that we should be going with because it's coming from an impartial group um so similar to council member brown my political agenda is to make sure that there's representation for low-income working class people of color all people on this board because it's been it hasn't been that way for so long and again the reason why we're here and we're making these decisions and moving to district elections is to address racially polarized voting that's what we should be going with and that's what we should be doing but that's not what the outcome of this vote will be today you council member Cummings um you know the maps I will just say um the the maps that were brought forward from initial community input and some of the initial engagement that we had and with 604B and 101D as options that were added after some of that initial input there was continued input uh once those options were um posted and and shared on the site so um all of these maps do take into account various demographics from age to income uh ethnicity um and I uh encourage everyone to look on the website or come to city hall to see all of those percentages and statistics to understand this discussion as we really move forward to um really incorporate some of the um uh input that we've received and the the the best uh map options as we move forward and so um you know it's it's been a it's been a really hard uh navigation through all of the information and the different various options um they're all slightly different and um hopefully we can uh have the best the best results um from this process uh council member kelling tarry johnson I just want to acknowledge uh city staff and the demographers for all of their incredible work um it is disheartening to see some of the grandstanding given that there's been so much work put into this so I just want to acknowledge and thank um the whole team for the work that's been put into this over the last year thank you council member kelling tarry johnson um it it looks like there's no other council comments or input and we do have a motion on the table and I like to ask for a roll call vote please council member is kelling tarry johnson I older I coming so uh vice mayor watkins I and mayor brunner and that motion passes with five in favor to know can I just pull up uh city staff again and just a quick clarification for next steps on this item for the public to understand I can't speak to the city's efforts on educating people on what's going to happen with measure e the material on our website has to stay there for and I think it's 10 years um Doug may be able to speak to that and um all the resources from this process will remain there for a long long time I see demographer Doug johnson and city manager map huffaker as well as city attorney yeah just want to go for one the 10-year requirement cassie mentions is in the fair maps act but like the dates you talked about it only applies to redistricting so the city the city will keep these records as it does all city records but there's no special record keeping for this just to clarify thank you Doug thank you um okay city manager or city attorney I will just add that this is the last action that the city council has to take in order to move forward with the district elections process and it really is at this point in the hands of the voters as to whether or not we will have an election with six districts in an at-large mayor if measure e passes or seven districts if it does not okay thank you all right question vice mayor since we have Doug back on I wonder if Doug you want to just clarify in regards to sort of the racial polarizing kind of you know the balance of that within the various maps that none of them specifically do you want to do you want to speak to that I want to order I mean I'm happy if but if we're going to go back and forth on questions with the demographer I mean the item was just voted on so if council member Joachim's going to ask questions then I think it also opens us up for more questions for all the council members so I don't know how that plays out in terms of process but and I'm happy if we want to reopen this item and start asking more questions but we just took a vote and that was it's fine because you already said it Doug that's fine you already said it was fine they were legally viable I already heard that don't don't worry about it I would draw my question that's not sure mayor and Catherine I'll just say that if there are follow-up questions you know we're not going anywhere we're happy to answer anything you want to send us after this meeting thank you so much Doug Johnson appreciate your work thanks for being with us today um okay I will pull back to my agenda here um so next up on our agenda is item number 19 historic preservation commission appointment and for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an item you wish to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen the order will be questions from council followed by public comment and then return to council for nominations and action we have um our presenter of this item is our city clerk Bonnie Bush thank you mayor you said everything okay thank you and um are there any questions from council at this time no questions okay let's go out to our members of the public for any member input any public comment on agenda item number 19 historic preservation commitment uh commission I'm not seeing any attendees with their hands raised seeing none I will pull it back to council for nominations and we did have applications will you be calling nominations city clerk we'll call or shall I just go around I can do it um just in if I there is one opening so you just nominate one person um council member Calentary Johnson do you have a nominee Frank Swartz Swartz I don't know if I'm pronouncing the last name council member Golder you're muted William Schultz council member Cummings nothing new council member Meyer my my person's been put forward thanks vice mayor Watkins and mayor Bruder same and so now we'll do a roll call though between William Schultz and Frank Swartz council member Calentary Johnson Frank Swartz Golder William Schultz no I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm going to go with Swartz Frank I'm going to go with Frank actually Frank Swartz and council member Cummings you're muted Frank Swartz council member Brown Frank Swartz Frank Swartz vice mayor Watkins same Frank Swartz and mayor Bruder Frank Swartz we have Frank Swartz with a term ending in January 31st 2024 thank you okay uh Swartz is now appointed to historic preservation commission thank you so much we will move on to our next agenda item now 20 sister cities committee appointment oh wait I'm sorry but we did not have any public comment okay I just want to make sure double checking my note next up is item 20 sister cities committee appointment for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an item you wish to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen the order will be questions from council followed by public comment we will then return to council for their nominations and action and uh we'll hand it to city clerk Bonnie Bush is there anything else to add thank you mayor just one thing to add there are two openings with two different term limits so when we do the vote the person with the most number of votes will get the longer term okay all right um are there any questions from council members being none I will take it out to public comment on our sister cities committee appointment if this is an item you'd like to comment on raise your hand by dialing star nine on your phone or selecting the raise hand feature webinar controls on your computer I'm not seeing any attendees with their hands raised I'm happy to bring it back to council for nominations the city clerk can you call the nominations I'll switch it up a little bit um council member Brown I'd like to nominate Linda Snook and Amy West vice mayor Watkins I will add um Michael Teseo council member Golder I don't have any data council member Cummings no new additions vice mayor Brunner no new additions and council member Calentari Johnson nothing to add council member Meyer no new additions so we have three um nominees Linda Snook Michael Teseo and Amy West and two openings um again the person with the most number of votes will get the longer term ending in 2026 count uh council member Calentari Johnson I give my two votes is that that how it works that's right okay um Amy West and Michael Teseo council member Golder well I served on sister cities with Linda I think it's time to give other people a chance so Amy and Michael my two council member Cummings Amy West and Linda Snook council member Brown Amy West and Linda Snook council member Meyer Amy West and Michael Teseo vice mayor Watkins Michael Teseo and Linda Snook and Mayor Brunner Linda Snook and Michael Teseo so we have um Amy West and one Amy West and Michael Teseo are tied at five votes each um so we do need to do a vote just on those two to determine who gets the longer term am I good to go okay council member Cohen sorry Johnson has her hand right all right I just had a clarifying question so were Amy West and Michael Teseo the top two then is that okay yeah yeah I have I have Linda Snook is having four four votes I see okay and the other two at five okay so so I just vote on one of those then I see okay you vote on um Michael Teseo or Amy West Amy West thank you council member Golder Amy West would you hear me council member Cummings Amy West council member Brown Amy West council member Myers Amy West vice mayor Watkins Amy West and mayor Brunner Amy West okay so Amy West got the most votes and her term is ending January 31st 2026 and Michael Teseo his term will end January 31st 2023 thank you let me go back to my agenda okay thank you so much uh to Amy West and Michael Teseo for serving on our sister cities committee at this time we will take a brief break and we will return at 315 we will continue then with item number 21 on our agenda thank you with our agenda today is the city clerk ready and thank you thank you okay we will now continue on with our next agenda item and this is agenda item number 21 impact report for the empty home tax initiative petition for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an item you wish to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen the order will be a presentation from staff followed by questions from council we will then take public comment and then return to council for deliberation and action in addition to the public comment we will be hearing on this item four emails were sent in to city council at city council at city of Santa Cruz dot com I will now hand it over and welcome Bobby McGee our interim director of finance hello Bobby well thank you uh mayor bruner and members of the council the next item before you is related to the empty home tax initiative petition which is a citizen based initiative there's a process for getting these types of items out in in front of the voters which is outlined in the in the staff report and at this time you can see that this has been moving forward and so in reading the full text of this proposed ordinance change staff notice that there were a number of administrative requirements that would be placed on it on on us which would be needless to say a little bit challenging to administer under under current resources and so what we are recommending today is that under California elections code the city council may refer this item to staff for a future report on a number of different items which are also outlined in the staff report at a minimum we are suggesting that the council direct staff to return with this report on June 28th at a minimum with the with the fiscal impact report as well as any other items that are listed in the staff report that may be of interest to the council and so with that I'd be happy to turn it back to you and and I'm here to answer any questions thank you so much for bringing that forward and bringing some of those questions forward and the recommendation and do any council members have questions at this point on this item the impact report for this item I do see that there are attendees here and so this is now the time I will go to public comment if you are interested in commenting on the recommendation for an impact report for the empty home tax initiative petition you can raise your hand either by dialing star nine on your phone or choosing the raise hand feature in the webinar controls of your computer when it's your turn to speak you will be unmuted and the timer will be set for three minutes so our first member of the public is the name Amanda hi Amanda go ahead and unmute yourself our star six Amanda is gone hi everybody my name is Amanda thank you thank you thank you um my name is Amanda I'm a community member and an organizer I would like to point out the larger picture here of why I'm in total support of the empty home tax initiative and why it's desperately needed to help our community community stay a community this larger picture speaks to the issue around creating fair district maps we have a pack in Santa Cruz that has the ability to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to help fund some of the very council members in this meeting right now at a recent meeting they discussed how they wanted to support the election of an at-large mayor and they have also openly discussed and started to organize against the empty home tax spewing false claims about the initiative I ask you to all think about our service industry workers our healthcare workers teachers etc that are fighting to just barely make ends meet how are these groups of people supposed to fight against a group made up of Santa Cruz seaside company local developers and realtors that have the ability to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in just a few months to fight any efforts made to create any relief the empty home tax can help support desperately needed affordable housing projects we do not want falsely inflated administrative costs to keep this measure from passing there are other current ordinances that have similar administrative structures like the short-term rental program and I urge you all to find a way to make this work thank you thank you okay our next member of the public has a phone number ending in one seven zero five thank you mayor can you hear me yes welcome great thank you this is Eric Rodberg and I strongly support this ordinance I do think uh impact analysis is very important and the issue of housing affordability for both renters and buyers is uh difficult it's in all of coastal california and Santa Cruz no exception the causes are multiple but one of the causes in Santa Cruz is not empty homes anyone who actually lives here and is being honest will know that we have an extremely low vacancy rate if there were significant vacancy rate I would definitely think as something like an empty home tax would be worth considering but we don't so what's going to happen if it passes is very likely that the cost of administering the program will outweigh the revenues especially when the ordinance itself limits the administrative expenses to 15 percent of the revenues not the administrative expenses I'm sorry they are not limited but the 15 percent of the revenues are limited to pay for the expenses so the expenses are most likely going to outstrip the revenues that can be used from the tax to pay for the expenses which means the revenues will have to come out of our already short general fund the proponents have been touting the census numbers as showing a large vacancy first of all the census is not a relevant measure because the census is a point in time count the EHT is a year on vacancy those are two totally separate numbers and you can't use a metric for one to measure a metric for something else it just doesn't work like that on top of that this census 2020 census was taken during the height of the lockdown when UCSC closed in-person instruction and close to 20,000 students left town and there were great vacancies during the beginning of 2020 so you need to you can't rely on the census it's not relevant and even if it were the 2020 census is not accurate now I will point out a couple things one is that there's an ordinance on the books uh Santa Cruz Municipal Code ordinance that prohibits kind of minimum conversions when the vacancy rate is below five percent that has been in place for decades because we've always had a very low vacancy rate so I really encourage you to look at you know look at this very closely because I think what this measure is doing is it's scapegoating a very tiny number of people who have vacation homes they're not because of our housing problems in fact I would say that the proponents of this measure are more of a cause than the very small number of wealthy out-of-towners who have vacation homes on Westcliffe because the proponents of the measure are the same people who oppose every single housing proposal even the 100 percent affordable housing proposals such as specific stations when they come up so it's just going to divert our attention from real solutions thank you for your comment okay our next member of the public is the name Reggie Meiser hey can you hear me yes hi um yeah I am obviously a big supporter of the empty home tax I helped canvas um to get this on the ballot and you know I well I think impact analyses are important for something like this I just want to voice a bit of concern given the history of city staff engagement with community measures specifically back in 2019 I worked with council member Cummings to find uh to try and develop an ordinance to get us a better understanding of evictions by tracking notices to quit and rent increases after the failure of measure M to try to figure out how to get some movement forward and to inform policy now what happened was staff took what we were trying to develop and made the data collection voluntary and so what does that do it ruins the data by introducing a ton of selection bias and this is not the only time staff has taken something that was specifically for working people that was coming from the community and sort of tainted it because of backroom conversations with California apartment association Santa Cruz together um basically people who are owners landlords uh realtors people with money and power in our community and so I just want to like urge folks to understand that given the history I'm concerned that this impact report is meant to take public dollars and produce propaganda against empty home tax before it is put on the ballot and it really disturbs me to have to say that because I feel like city staff should not be a biased organization they're an executive branch right um so the other thing that I want to just quickly mention is where was the impact report for the tow yard that like police and city staff just sort of developed on their own no council approval I still don't think we know how much that cost and what was it for it was exhausting city workers it was just hurting people to just increase our capacity to tow vehicles away and take people shelter from them so where was the impact report where was the sort of feeling that this needs to happen it was not there and I think that just demonstrates the sort of discrepancy about where when we care about impact reports in the city and when we don't care so I'll leave it there thank you for your comment um our next member of the public Cindy Dawson hello can you hear me okay hi uh good afternoon council members my name is Cindy Dawson and I'm the volunteer campaign manager for this community driven people powered empty home tax initiative as you know we're in a housing affordability crisis and this seeks to create an annual funding stream which is something the council talks about and struggles with often about not having funding to do the things we want to do um and this would do that for the lowest income levels and in the Santa Cruz we know that the lowest income level includes teachers it includes health care workers child care workers and the service workers that drive our tourist economy so if we want to keep those people in our community we need to find a way to build them housing the empty home tax does that um I'm happy to hear that you're interested in an impact report and I want to just ensure that it's um well researched and balanced the California Department of Finance just re-released numbers um showing that we have a nine percent vacancy rate I hear lots of people talk about that this isn't a good number that isn't a good number um the methodologies were changed by the census in 2020 for the American Community Survey they actually look at length of of of vacancy so it's not that the decadal census it's actually the American Community Survey and I hope that your staff does the research really looks into these numbers and also just take a spin around town we have lots of homes that are not used for 120 days a year and we want to provide an opportunity for those folks to either live in their house rent their house or if they choose to hold it vacant they can support the biggest need of the community that they were drawn to which is these lower income units and that's why affordable housing experts like housing Santa Cruz county have endorsed the empty home tax it's straightforward it makes sense and it helps it's not a silver bullet but it will help um also as for administering the tax there are models in place around the world Vancouver has a model very similar to what would be in this ordinance it's a self declaration at the david it's an online form it takes about five minutes for the average homeowner to fill that out every year costs can be managed if the city looks around for existing models we also spoke to staff in these cities and they they told us leave some flexibility for the city so that they make sure to keep costs down and integrate to existing systems we did that in the ordinance so that the city can choose to to integrate into existing symptoms um uh the you know the yearly affidavit again it can be done online or paper um and and how much this cost is really dependent on the city there's no minimum number of audits for instance it's just like any other tax it can be random audits it will be random audits and how many of those audits the city does a year is administration costs can be managed turn in over 6000 signatures it would be many more if we had chance to talk to people we saw broad support your time is up thank you like myself thanks for your comment our next caller has the name Darius Mohsen and go ahead and unmute hello hi good afternoon um it's ironic that the council meeting has been gone all remote because of the uptick in covid cases because we follow the science well i advise you to follow the science on the empty home tax and i did just that uh in front of you on your email you have basically a database of all of the housing units and Santa Cruz that have absentee ownership this is from the assessor by the way that are absentee owner owner owned not in the rental inspection date not in the rental inspection database and not in the short-term rental database therefore they are potential homes owned by absentee owners um either not either vacant or rented there's a total of 575 in your database i've even organized it by street so people can walk and check for vacancy or i could see i did just that with a couple of folks in on a rainy february we sampled 49 of these potential vacant homes again based on absentee ownership from this assessor we found three that were vacant two that were being remodeled one that was being prepared for sale so i challenge the fact i invite the eht folks and i'd love to send this to them and they can help help do the research and actually identify if these are empty now let's talk about the other homes there's 24 500 rental four rental units uh excuse me drawing units in Santa Cruz 11 375 are in the rental inspection database 308 are in the str short-term rental that leaves about 13 000 that are basically owner occupied these owner occupied homes have taken the majority have taken the homestead exemption which saves them 70 dollars a year under penal and property tax under penalty and perjury they've told the assessor yes this is my primary residence so why would we snow them annually with affidavits saying are you still there are you still there do you still live there do you still have primary residents when they've told the assessor i mean it's harassment of homeowners it's a huge waste of resources uh administrative time of which by the time you do the research on those 575 homes in front of you in a database i will in fact you have this in writing or on on record i will contribute 10 000 to the eht campaign to cover their cover their expenses if 50 more than 50 rental home 50 vacant homes are found thank you thank you for your comment uh our next member of the public has the name i am watching you yes hello i have no idea why member brown isn't refusing herself from this item since her name seems to appear as a signatory to the out of council initiative measure i have no desire to report on my personal property used to this communist bsa inspired measure it's another pick on someone else anybody else hijack the government to strongman somebody enforce people to rent property because somebody doesn't have what somebody else has what the city is is what the city is what it becomes is what it becomes but private property cannot be continually coming under attack as a result of these socialist communist ideas hey communist bs there's it's not your house you'll buy one and you can rent it out as much as you want is a two-home owner owner any different than somebody that owns a mansion or a large lot not really but this measure says it is it it doesn't make sense for me and it's just like it's like another reason to move out of here i mean really i mean if i didn't have certain people to care about i'd be gone a long time ago thanks thank you for your comment our next member of the public is katie spencer um yeah my name is katie spencer i'm a community member who has rented in santa cruz for the last five years now um i saw that the empty home tax was on the agenda today so i wanted to make time to call in and waste my strong support for this initiative um the empty home tax just makes sense in our city which has both a very high vacancy rate as cindy mentioned like so many coastal california cities but also uniquely tops the list as one of the most unaffordable places to live in the entire country um we so often are told that the funds don't exist to create low and very low income affordable housing and as a result we see a lot of units built that are marketed as affordable but are unattainable if you're making our city's average income and the empty home tax is not the only solution for this affordability crisis it doesn't pretend to be but it also feels important to note that it isn't that radical of an idea similar vacancy taxes have been implemented with success in other cities like vancouver british columbia and relevant to this discussion uh sanikers is empty home tax initiative follows vancouver's lead and caps admin costs at a certain level so there are protections baked into this initiative that limit admin costs i very much support this initiative i hope that this impact report is done fairly thank you for your time thank you the next name is jasmine mia go ahead and unmute welcome yes here i go sorry about that anyways um i'm jasmine mia and i'm calling in in support of the empty home tax because um i hear people's concerns about you know it's private property how can we dictate what they do with it but we have to remember that the empty home tax is a way to try to chip away at the problems of our housing crisis and i think it's fair to preclude vacant houses given our out of control housing crisis in sanikers so many people are not able to afford housing who work here who are part of our community we're trying to take away the rights of people to live in their vehicles and camp and so where are people supposed to go what are they supposed to do and i think you know it's given the crisis that this is so warranted and i would hope people would tap into their humanity and realize if they have a house sitting there that they're not using for more than you know 100 that they're not even in for 120 days i mean that should totally go to someone who needs housing also i agree with um the public comment of reggie misler um because i saw that go down you know i'm i'm his wife and i saw him fight for that data collection and how city staff just totally tainted the whole process because you know taking statistics all sorts of things like i know that if you make something voluntarily reporting there's a selection bias you're not going to get all the data of all the actual evictions and tracking so we wouldn't get the correct data anyways and um and so i do think and worry that city city staff is working with um potentially backroom deals with realtor associations and so i don't know if i would trust their impact report um at this point and so you know as people have stressed i would hope that's a fair impact report and um yeah but i support empty home tax and yeah i want this to be a fair process and for people to have like and you know real information so they can make an informed decision for the ballot as it should be thank you thank you for your comment um is there anyone who has not had a chance to speak for public comment at this time i will bring it back then to council for comments action and deliberation discussion um and just for those of the public tuning in um this item is a recommendation from um our finance staff for an impact report not whether or not we will decide on the empty home tax but an impact report if the empty home tax proceeds forward how will that impact the city and in what ways and in our agenda report there were eight i believe eight um bullet points that were listed and um if there are any others i know that one of the callers did bring up the homestead declaration as something to look at so i'd like to um see if any council members would like to ask any questions have any discussion council member brown thank you mayor uh so for the sake of full disclosure for those who may not be familiar since it was mentioned by a member of the public i am a signer on the initial petition the and to circulate the initiative and um we did uh garner the requisite number of signatures to put this on the ballot um i so just so everyone's clear i i did that as an alternative to um because i was not able to get that on our city council agenda for the council to place it on the ballot so um yes that is true and um with that full disclosure i'd like to ask the city attorney to respond to the question about my ability under the brown act and any other potential um rules about whether or not i should be uh weighing in or voting on this item uh yeah thank you council member brown i'm happy to respond to that question um we looked into that issue uh under the political reform act and um also under common law conflict of interest rules and concluded that there's no disqualifying conflict of interest thank you thank you council member brown and so if i just a follow-up question i am not seeing a lot of hands go up here so i want to try to move us along um i do think it's important to uh try to uh get additional information and i'm glad we're now in a position to be able to get some of that additional analysis from the city which we didn't have access to during the signature gathering phase and um so i'm just in terms of uh director mickey you said that you'd like to have us move a recommendation to bring back an impartial analysis um and i'm i'm prepared to go ahead and do that um right now so i would take that motion we have a motion by council member brown to move the recommended motion to order an impact report pursuant to california elections code section 9212 related to the empty home tax initiative petition with the report to come to council at the june 28th 2022 meeting is there a second i'll second that okay we have a second by council vice mayor wapkins your further discussion council member comings thank you mayor and um yeah i think that related to the comments we heard i just um you know hope that we can ensure that this is a transparent non-bias process that we're about to engage in um i think that there is some concern from the community on um the types of reports that have been created in the past and there's just concern um about you know the potential for bias and so to the extent that we can also report out on the methodology behind the process so the community is clear on how the process took place i think that will help the community better understand and see what sources of information we're using um you know how we came up with the plan and and really used and demonstrate the methods that we're using so we can make it clear that it's an unbiased approach thank you council member comings i will add um as one one member of the public commented to make sure that it's well balanced and researched um and um to really look at you know how we can integrate into the systems that exist and so having all of those options you know the eight bullet points outlined um as you know in our agenda packet i think it's really important to document and and show all of those various impacts thank you all right well we have a motion uh and looks like we can go to a roll call vote council member councillor johnson hi holder hi coming council member meyer by fair watkins and mayor brunner hi that motion passes six in favor one absent our next agenda item is number 22 and this is a impact report of effect for our downtown our future initiative petition for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an item you wish to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen the order will be a presentation of the item by staff or council members followed by questions from the council we will then take public comment and return to council for deliberation and action in addition to public comment we will be hearing on this item nine emails were sent to city council regarding this um item and so um i'd like to um present let's see council member calentary johnson and uh council member mires if you're present i think council member mires logged off um so i'm happy to speak to it and i'll keep it brief the agenda report um outlines the reason for this impact report there is extensive public process of course on the mix use of affordable housing project which this initiative will impact and um you know similar to the last um item that we just heard we want to make sure that we have an impartial review of the potential impacts of this proposal so um with that i'll pass it to matt or lee or bonnie if they want to add anything thank you council member calentary johnson uh city manager matt huffaker thank you mayor i think council member calentary johnson covered it well this is an opportunity for us to really review a range of potential impacts associated with the the on-off initiative that was brought forward we do anticipate that that will likely come to the council for certification in late june which would give us um approximately no more than 30 days complete that study which will be brought back to the to the council as part of the special meeting in late july so that's the rough time frame uh happy to answer any questions that the council may have otherwise okay thank you do council members have any questions on this impact report for this item okay i will look out to members of the public for public comment now is the time to raise your hand by dialing star nine on your phone or select raise hand on the webinar controls of your computer when it's your turn to speak you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted and the time room will be set to three minutes and our first member of the public has the name elissa kroger good afternoon can you all hear me yes w