ogers and councilmember Bagby to those positions. Second. I have a motion from councilmember Fleming and a second from councilmember O'Crepkey. Madam City Clerk may you please call the vote. Councilmember O'Crepkey. I councilmember Stapp. I councilmember Rogers. I councilmember Fleming. I councilmember Alvarez. I vice mayor McDonald. I mayor Rogers. I that motion passes with seven eyes. Moving on to our city selection committee we have the local agency formation commission. Two seats available in an alternate seat and we have four letters of interest. Sandra Lowe of Sonoma County. I'm of Sonoma. Susan Harvey of Katari. Jeff O'Crepkey of Santa Rosa and Steven Zulman of Sebastopol. Would anyone like to make a motion? I'll make a motion if you don't mind Madam Mayor. I think with a number of qualified candidates it's going to take multiple votes at the meeting. So my motion would be for you to support first and foremost Jeff O'Crepkey and then give you the latitude for your second vote to do what's ever in the best interest of Santa Rosa. I second. Madam Mayor I'd like to put a second motion on the table please of supporting Jeff O'Crepkey and Sandra Lowe. Then if it goes to complications giving you the latitude to do what's in the best interest of the city. I second that. We'll vote on the second motion first. All right so we have a motion from councilmember Fleming in a second from Vice Mayor McDonald. Madam City Clerk may we please take a vote. I ask a point of clarification. Do we need to name an alternate or are we giving the mayor the latitude to name the alternate based on how the voting goes at the meeting? With my motion I'm fine to give the mayor a full latitude to make on the alternate vote. Thank you. Councilmember O'Crepkey. Abstain. Councilmember Stapp. Aye. Councilmember Rodgers. No. Councilmember Fleming. Aye. Councilmember Alvarez. Nay. Vice Mayor McDonald. Aye. Mayor Rodgers. Aye. That motion passes with four ayes. Councilmembers Roger and Alvarez voting no and Councilmember O'Crepkey abstaining. Moving to our Sonoma County oversight board committee we have no letters and we have a vacancy for an alternate. Madam Mayor I'll make a motion actually for this one and the ran board if we can since there are no letters if a motion is made from the floor at the meeting that you have latitude to make a decision in the best interest of Santa Rosa. Second. I have a motion from Councilmember Rogers and a second from Vice Mayor McDonald. Can we please call the vote? Councilmember O'Crepkey. Aye. Councilmember Stapp. Aye. Councilmember Rodgers. Aye. Councilmember Fleming. Aye. Councilmember Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor McDonald. Aye. Mayor Rodgers. Aye. That motion passes with seven ayes. Lastly we have our Bay Area Quality Management District Board. We have one seat with one letter of interest. Would anyone like to make a motion? I'll have support for Brian Barnacle. Second. We have a motion from Councilmember Rogers and a second from Councilmember Fleming. Madam City Clerk may you please call the vote. Councilmember O'Crepkey. Aye. Councilmember Stapp. Aye. Councilmember Rogers. Aye. Councilmember Fleming. Aye. Councilmember Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor McDonald. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. That motion passes with seven ayes. It is also recommended that if late nominations are received or if the City Selection Committee or mayors and Councilmember's Board recommends alternates that the City Council authorize the mayor or the designated representative the authority to vote on these late nominations or recommendations at the City Selection Committee meeting or Mayor and Councilmember's Association Board and I know we did it for the two items but I just moved. Thank you. We have a motion from Councilmember Rogers and a second from Councilmember Fleming. May we please call the vote. Councilmember O'Crepkey. Aye. Councilmember Stapp. Aye. Councilmember Rogers. Aye. Councilmember Fleming. Aye. Councilmember Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor McDonald. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. That motion passes with seven ayes. We have no minutes to approve tonight so we'll go on to our consent items. Madam City Clerk can you please read the consent calendar. Thank you Mayor. Item 12.1 is a resolution pro housing designation program. Item 12.2 is a resolution fifth amendment to professional services agreement number F001275 with NWC Partners Inc. for grants management support. Item 12.3 is a resolution sixth amendment to memorandum of understanding number F001324 with the county of Sonoma. Item 12.4 is a resolution modification to the appropriation of the state of California Department of Housing and Community Development's infill infrastructure grant program funds for the downtown Santa Rosa qualified infill area for the capital improvement project portion of the grant. 12.5 is a resolution split bid award request for quotes 22-50 and issuance of federalized purchase orders for fixer cable and supplies to BNH international LLC and Anakster Inc. Item 12.6 is a resolution design build contract award and budget amendments for the fire station five resiliency and relocation project. Item 12.7 is a resolution approval fourth amendment to general services agreement F001690 Arbe cultural specialties Inc. Item 12.8 is a resolution approval of amendment to purchase order 166742 with day management corporation doing business as day wireless systems for maintenance repair and inspection services for existing communications equipment. Item 12.9 is a resolution approval of parking agreement with 10 E Street LLC for residential parking in connection with mixed use development. Item 12.10 is a resolution approval to extend the term and increase compensation of purchase order 166287 with northern coast officials association. Item 12.11 resolution fourth amendment to general services agreement F001904 to extend the term of the contract and increase compensation with Sonoma Dyne design apparel and promotions Inc. for temporary staff uniforms and camp sports apparel. Item 12.12 resolution approval of amendment to blanket purchase order 167656 to increase compensation with creams dismantling Inc. Item 12.13 resolution first amendment to agreement with work care Inc. for wellness services for the police department. Item 12.14 resolution authorizing submittal of a grant application to the California State Parks and Recreation Department's division of boating and waterways boating facilities grant program for the Lake Ralphine non-motorized boat launch facility improvement project. Item 12.15 resolution extension of proclamation of local homeless emergency. Item 12.16 resolution extension of proclamation of existence of a local emergency relating to the threat of community health posed by COVID-19 and item 1217 resolution making required monthly findings and authorizing the continued use of teleconferencing for public meetings of the city council and all the city's boards, commissions and com and committees pursuant to assembly bill 361. Thank you Madam City Clerk bringing it back to council. Are there any questions? Vice Mayor McDonald. I have a question on item 12.2 and then I'd like to pull item 12.7 under 12.2. My question is just simply do they actually write grants on our behalf or are they managing the grant to make sure that we are completing the application process properly as well as meeting all of our deadlines on reporting periods. I'm just curious what this particular contracts for. I'm happy to just jump in briefly on this one. I think it is a mix of kind of grant support and then some general written assistance as well more broadly but I know staff will I can promote more detailed explanation as we can promote Yuri Kozlin please. Yes can you please repeat the question? Yes my question was simply is this part of a grant writing process that we contract for or is it somebody who's managing our grants making sure that we're meeting the deadlines specifically on reporting and staying in compliance within the language of the grant. What does this group do for us is what I'm curious. NWC has a wide variety of background and knowledge around grants management and federal requirements. They do not manage our grants specifically. We have a grants manager who does that in the office but there are times where we need to augment our existing staff. This contract was one that's been a multi-year contract that we use less than you know 10 to 15,000 per year and and and so it's they're just simply meant to augment our the work that our team does. Just so I'm clear on what we're approving we're approving a $200,000 contract for somebody that we use when we need but we only pay for that contract when needed. We're not giving the $200,000 upfront. Okay thank you for that clarification. I see Jason nodding yes. Yeah and and just for a little bit more detail there the 96,000 of that has already been expanded so we're looking to extend the contract by another hundred thousand just as a means to prevent ourselves from having to over the part of the reason they there was additional amendments is that we had to we were doing small incremental amendments to the contract and this one's meant to save staff time and do and go ahead and do a hundred thousand dollar incremental or a hundred thousand dollar amendment to to enable us to not have to do some of the smaller amendments like we did in the past. Thank you. Are there any other questions from Council on the calendar? All right Vice Mayor. I'd like to move approval of items 12.1 through 12.6 and then 12.8 through 12.17. Second. We have a motion from Vice Mayor McDonald and a second from Councilmember Rogers but we are not going to call the vote yet because we're going to go to public comment so Madam City Clerk may you please facilitate public comment. Yes our first speaker will be Dwayne DeWitt. My name is Dwayne DeWitt. I'm from Roseland. I want to start at the end of this long list 17 items. I believe that it's important to try to keep the teleconferencing the hybrid meetings alive in the future as the governor is going to lift the lockout and allow meetings to be all in person. It's proven to be quite helpful to have these hybrid meetings and involve people from home. Back to the beginning 12.1 support this effort. I'm hoping that it will be something to make sure we get the housing downtown that you've talked about for decades. Support 12.4 also because that states that there's a chance to get infrastructure improvements downtown and I'm making sure that that includes Sebastopol Road out to Dutton Avenue which is now included in the downtown specific plan. On the 12.6 this I can't support this. This is so expensive. This is a hyper inflated construction project that doesn't need to be this big big boondoggle. This should be cut in half in terms of how much is being spent for this. You can get fire stations down here on Steel Lane like you proved at the old car wash in for just a couple of a million dollars. So this thing is really milk in the public trough. The 12.7 I want to speak on that when it comes up. Then as we go deeper into this idea of these long consent item situations of saying you've got all these items to speak on. In the past it was pointed out with the Brown Act and the Keen Act that it's important to have as much public input as you can get on these different items and yet you're loading the agenda so much with items that people can't speak on each of these because they know you only get three minutes and that just cheats the public out of the opportunity to really participate in these decision-making processes. The extension of the proclamation of local homeless emergency is very important. You've got people out on the Georgia Trail who are getting moved out today under force and that's something that needs to be spoken about more often as to what's going to go on to try to help to end that type of problem. The COVID-19 situation if you read in any of the scientific journals is become endemic. The scientists are basically saying they expect it to be here in the future and every year now we're going to be treating it like flu. It's with us for the long haul as a health care worker I think it's good that you folks keep these emergencies in place but you might want to say hey we're going to treat this now like the flu and we're going to do good things for COVID. Last but not least I want to thank the new mayor for doing her best to make sure and get Santa Rosa representatives on the various bodies. Thank you. I'm not seeing anyone else make their way to the podium and the chamber we do have one hand raised via Zoom. Joshua Shipper let me the host would please unmute him so he can speak. Okay can you hear me okay? Yes we can. Great thank you. Good evening Mayor Rogers council members and staff my name is Josh Shipper I'm the director of special initiatives with Generation Housing where we lead the movement for more diverse and more affordable housing. I just wanted to very quickly take a minute to strongly support Santa Rosa seeking the designation as a pro housing jurisdiction which was item 12.1. We are really excited that this status will open Santa Rosa to new funding opportunities for housing transit and infrastructure from the state and we believe there's a lot the city should be taking credit for. We also think that while the city's housing element process is still open the city can still add policies that meet that pro housing criteria before final approval so we really think this is the time to get those policies incorporated and because the designation is awarded based on a point scale the higher the points the more competitive your grant your subsequent grant applications are so we urge the city to seek maximum points where possible. The total number of cities that is that have been awarded the designation is adding up I think it's about seven as of January and there's more in the pipeline and the more awardees there are the more of a liability that lower score can be and that higher score will entitle you to to more funding in several of the grants so taking that time to develop a strong application will go a long way towards helping win Santa Rosa more funding from the state and there's just a couple of things we would encourage you as you begin this process we just ask that the council support the planning department staff as much as possible by committing to specificity and timelines on each of the proposed policies because maintaining that designation over the course of two years depends on enacting them and we also lastly just encourage you to reach out and begin a dialogue with the department of housing and community development their their input is great and they're really welcome to starting that dialogue so again we strongly encourage it and we thank you for your guidance host do we have any more hands raised via zoom there are no more zoom hands raised and we have no pre-recorded comments thank you we have a a motion on the table from vice mayor mcdonald pulling item 12.7 in a second from council member rogers if there is no further discussion madam city clerk may you please call the vote council member okrepke aye council member stat aye council member rogers aye council member flaming aye council member alvarez aye vice mayor mcdonald aye mayor rogers aye the motion passes with seven ayes vice mayor mcdonald would you like to put a motion on the table so that we can sort of see what discussion so we could discuss it yes thank you item i'll move item 12.7 second we have a motion on the table from vice mayor mcdonald in the second came from council member okrepke is there any discussion from council vice mayor mcdonald thank you mayor um so this particular contract reminds me of a contract that came to us last month about um contracting out for services that used to be potentially in house so my question to you is um this contract as i read it looks like it's for emergency surgery uh emergency surgeries emergency services and does it include any type of preventative maintenance meaning do they come in and and maintain our trees or do we have any type of preventive maintenance as part of this one million dollar contract can you guys see me okay i can yes we can thank you hi good evening council and members of the council i'm brandylin trammel i am your purchasing agent for the city of san rosa that's an excellent question vice mayor mcdonald and no it does not um in 2018 this was a contract that was let through a lowest responsive bid opportunity and the scope of work really runs around emergency services only and it's utilized by all city departments when they need to call upon it um we've just seen an escalated amount of service required of late as we all have endured the flooding and wind events of recent so there was an additional need here in the last several weeks so hence the reason to add an additional 300 000 for the funding looking back through the years it um the vendor has not increased their pricing and we were running about 150 or so thousand dollars a year in these services so the departments and their supervisors in those departments are the people who call upon this contract only when they need it thank you for that answer um i guess my question goes back to the same line of questioning i had last month where have we done a fiscal analysis to bring some of these services in home and if we look at that and we're looking at more of a preventative as opposed to reactive um to these types of emergencies because we don't have people going around consistently working on trees so um i could see us paying an inflated amount because it is an emergency at that point if we're calling people in versus do we have people on staff that are working on this consistently so have we done that type of fiscal analysis to bring these types of contracts back to the city of the savannah rosa and increase workforce that's also an excellent question um it wouldn't be in the purview of purchasing to actually do a study like that i am not sure if um assistant city manager nut is in the room or not the heaviest users of this contract are water capital improvements on occasion and wrecked park which has recently moved back into a different piece of the assistant city manager's portfolio so there is a year left on this contract and i'm not sure if that kind of fiscal analysis is underway within that division i thank you vice mayor jason nut assistant city manager so uh the the concept of evaluating internal versus contract is something that we're in the process of working with the finance department on in this particular case the type of work that that the contractor is doing is typically work that would be larger in nature than what our internal staff would do even if we were to bring it in house it's really difficult for some of the large trees that we have to either utilize work around remove um it it's it does require a certain specialty and a certain type of equipment that having internally is just going to be outside of our general purview like with other construction activities and so there is value in having a contract service so that they can provide those a higher level expert but we are in the process of evaluating whether or not there's some methodology to consider shifting some of our day-to-day services in house but we're not at that point right now and this particular contract provides the services that our staff need in order to make sure our community is safe can you give me a timeline of when we will have that analysis of when we'll be able to start having conversations about adding staff back in and reducing or getting rid of these outside contracts thank you for the question vice mayor at this time we're not assessing the tree contract we are going through some of our green space and weed abatement so we're taking those one by one but at this time this is not on the on the schedule so as we move forward i guess it goes back to this is my same concern that we are outside contracting on some of these services that i think we need to start looking at bringing back to the city of santa rosa and increasing our workforce so i will not be supporting this motion tonight because i think we need to stop adding amendments continuously to these contracts until we do that other work thank you any additional discussion from council before we go to a vote i know that we have a late public comment and i would like to give you the opportunity to speak sir if you thank you my name is no no no no no no we already did public comment on consent we have a late public comment pulled 12.7 off we did public comment on all of it he he is making public comment on 12 7 mayor since this it was pulled for separate okay um doing can we yes thank you right 12.1 hello yes sir um i want to address uh regarding the pro housing policies you have i want to address the downtown specific plan as related to the housing element plan you create the roberts district was created as part of the downtown stationary specific plan and it was given a density of six point of floor area ratio the moale property which is the same distance from railroad square as a roberts district and it has a two point of floor area ratio the roberts district is designated as part of railroad square however it is separated by railroad square by an elevated four lane freeway and it's separated from rosalind by a two lane street uh six point oh floor area ratio by definition comes out at 258 units per acre in the city will accept 50 percent of that which is 129 units per acre that cannot that is not realistic uh in construction costs the city of santa rosa and snoma county does not support the rental rates that would take to develop uh structured parking podium buildings at a two point of floor area ratio a one point would be acceptable and that would allow for a four four four to five story ground up apartment buildings with surface parking i'm proposing that blocks two and three which is the ones on both sides of roberts avenue in a roberts district or both sides of railroad tracks in roberts district be amended to a two point of floor area ratio and on those six acres we could get 250 apartments both affordable and market rate i've had developers walk away from the properties three times in last year because they cannot achieve the six point oh uh floor area ratio and especially it not being part of the downtown core or even in railroad square it's on the other side of two freeways from downtown um it's uh it doesn't make sense and if we built 250 units on this blocks two and three that would help incentivize a developer to come in with what will be required to develop block one which is a block in the corner of dunton and spass four road we could get incentivize a major grocery store like somebody like safeway to come in there and do the development which would contain structured parking and then we can stack five stories of apartments on top of that but as it sits now as i've been told by major developers here in san aroza we won't see development in the next 25 years at that zoning uh if we want housing built i'm proposing i can get 25 250 units built in the next two years if we could correct the zoning i know the zoning was done to satisfy the state elements uh uh right in the numbers but i need you to wrap up your three minutes and i know the clock up there okay thank you that was my spiel at this point in time thank you thank you we will now have public comment for item 12.7 mr duit vice mayor i think it's very important that we bring back our own arbitral team we used to have a lot of good people working to do tree care here in san aroza and due to budget constraints in the past we basically cut that department totally out and that's not a good thing obviously there's always going to be a concern about costs my concern today though is that this money goes out of the area these people from berkeley may be good at what they do but we also have good arborists and agricultural people here in san aroza specifically they should be the ones that are taking care of our trees and especially on the parks the parks team it's got a good young team they're doing their best to try to keep up with what's going on we should make sure and get as many young interns this summer people coming in through the teens especially the north coast conservation corps and the americore people get them working with us get a lot of this done for a lot less expense and you've got that for under a minute thank you thank you any more public comment in the chamber seeing none and seeing none on zoom madam city clerk may you please call the vote yes thank you mayor council member hi council member staff hi council member rogers hi council member fleming hi council member alvarez vice mayor mcdonald no mayor rogers hi that motion passes with six eyes and count and vice mayor mcdonald voting no thank you we will have our first public comment on non-agenda matters and then we'll move on to uh item 15 our public hearings so madam city clerk may you please facilitate our public comment on non-agenda items instead if you wish to make a public comment on non-agenda items agenda item 13 please make your way to the podium hello my name is de wayne de wid I'm from roseland the recent rain showed that stormwater retention is needed rosland creek is an excellent spot in which you could be trying to get grants and funding at both state and federal levels to do stormwater retention in that creek basin sonoma water actually owns a property at mcminne avenue on the bridge over rosland creek this is a spot where you could start to get county involvement to bring county funds forward to help with water retention and the cleanup of the stormwater remember this stormwater goes out to the laguna de santa rosa often it's polluted by uh pollutants that come from cars that's difficult to clear your unless you have some sort of slowdown of the water what's really important is that the toxic remediation that goes on with these types of situations has been a hold-up in the past to getting things done here in roseland we have a project up on sabbastopol road after the 2007 sabbastopol road urban vision plan that project came forward known as rosland village redevelopment toxic remediation has been the hold-up they have not been able to clear their situation with the regional water quality control board to get total clearance on the properties there think of how it would be in other properties if they don't get cleared up it's been almost 30 years since a group was put together by city and county local government officials also the state at the regional water board called the citizens cleanup coalition they came forward at that time to help work on these issues because of the junk yards in our area acme auto records west god's auto records and others that stormwater pollution was bringing automotive toxics out into our water and contaminated the underground aquifer contaminated wells created numerous problems which led to a red zone designation for a large group of roseland residents and their properties essentially redlined them and kept them in a serious dilemma so now we're here at this point where you folks could take the lead and say you know what we're going to reach out to the county some of water and say give us some money to look at that small little spot that you already own the water agency owns it in a sense it's their easement to work with you to try to limit that stormwater pollution and also go forward with stormwater retention approaches clear out cement from creeks do positive things to slow down the water flow out to the Laguna de Santa Rosa thank you very much I don't see anyone else making their way to the podium in the chamber zoom host do we have any hands raised in zoom there are no zoom hand raised and we have no prerecorded comments for this item thank you madam city manager may we please proceed to item 15.1 thank you item 15.1 is a public hearing the boat bowden annexation prezoning properties at 46 46 badger road and 999 middle rincon road uh senior planner monay and we'll lead the discussion okay thank you good evening mayor rogers and members of the council the item before you today is a prezoning for two monay can you put the microphone a little closer to your mouth thank you is it better now yes thank you so the project before you today is a prezone for two properties into r16 zone industry these two properties are located at 46 46 badger road and 999 middle rincon road both parcels are currently both properties are currently developed with a single family dwelling units and accessory structures there are no new developments proposed at this time and the approval of this prezoning would allow these two properties to annex into the city so these properties are located in north eastern corner of the city within a county island here is a closer look at these two parcels with existing single families and accessory structures and here is the prezoning annexation boundary map that shows two properties that are proposed for prezoning about the project history so in 2019 the property located at 46 46 badger road had a septic tank failure that needed to be replaced in order to make the residents habitable however sonoma canyon would not issue a septic tank permit due to the location of the septic tank being too close to the creek as a result the property owner had to apply for a utility certificate to be able to connect to the city sewer system in um november 2020 the utility certificate application was approved and sonoma canyon local agency formation commission also known as lafko approved an outside service area agreement with the condition that the owner needs to apply to the annexation the prezoning application was submitted to the was submitted by the applicant in 2021 and the property owner at 999 rincon creek also joined this annexation and last year in october 2022 the project was presented to the planning commission which recommended approval to city council as for above the general plan and zoning the general plan land use for both parcel is low density residential which allows a density range between two to eight units per acre and it's mainly intended for single family residential uses and this prezoning to r16 is consistent and would implement the general plan land use designation so the project has been reviewed in compliance with the california environmental quality act and qualifies for four exemptions staff did not receive any comments or questions about the proposed project and with that it is recommended by the planning commission and the planning and economic development department that the council introduce an ordinance to prezone the properties located at 46 46 badger road and 999 middle rincon road to the r16 zoning district and that was my presentation i'm available to answer questions if there are any thank you for the presentation council do we have any questions seeing none we will now open the public hearing adam city clerk may you please facilitate public comment if you wish to make a public comment on item 15.1 please make your way to the podium i'm not seeing anyone make their way to the podium do we have any hands raised in zoom on this item there are no hands raised in zoom and we have no prerecorded comment we will now close public comment seeing no members of the public that wish to speak i will bring it back to council to see if there are any comments seeing none council member flimming if you would please put a motion on the table indeed i'll move an ordinance to the council of the city of san aroza pre-zoning the properties located at 46 46 badger road and 999 middle rincon road also identified as assessors parcel numbers 182-120-034 and 182-120-035 respectively to the r-1-6 single family residential zoning district file number an x21-001 and waive further reading of the text second i have a motion from council member flaming in a second from vice mayor mcdonald madam city clerk may you please call the vote council member stab i council member rogers i council member flaming i council member alvarez vice mayor mcdonald i mayor rogers i that motion passes with six eyes with council member okrepki abstaining thank you for the presentation we'll be moving on to item 15.2 madam city manager item 15.2 winkler winkler annexation pre-zoning of property located at 1600 manzanita avenue um city planner christian we'll deliver the report thank you good evening mayor rogers vice mayor mcdonald and council members i'm here to present the winkler annexation pre-zoning annexation project file number an x21-002 at 1600 manzanita avenue this is to pre-zone one property for annexation into san aroza at 1600 manzanita avenue into the rr-40sr rural residential scenic road combining district and the action is by ordinance recommended by approval at the planning commission for the project history on october 14 2021 the application for utility certificate was submitted due to a failed septic tank and seepage pit and they were unable to locate another proper location on the property for a new one they then submitted a pre-zoning application in december of 2021 and it was then approved with a condition from lafko to annex the parcel to san aroza on october 13 2022 the planning commission adopted the resolution uh and is recommending approval to the city council to adopt an ordinance to pre-zone the property here is the project location in the northeastern quadrant of the city and here is a close-up aerial of the project site here is the current general plan and zoning for the site uh the county it's currently county rr b620 and is proposed to be our r40sr rural residential scenic road combining district um this is also general plan land use designation very low density residential this is the annexation boundary map and it shows the property proposed to be pre-zoned this is the street view of the project site the proposed project has been reviewed in compliance with the environmental quality act and qualifies for categorical exemptions under sequel guideline sections 15 301 existing facilities section 15 304 f minor alterations to land continuing on the next slide also reviewed under guideline section 15 319 a annexations of existing facilities and section 15 183 for general plan consistency at this time there were no issues identified and no public comments have been received uh it is recommended by the planning commission and the planning and economic development department that the council introduced an ordinance to prezone a property located at 1600 manzanita avenue as our r40sr which is rural residential scenic road combining district if you have any questions my information here is listed thank you thank you for the presentation do we have any questions of staff on this item seeing none we will now open our public hearing madame city clerk if you wish to make a public comment on item 15.2 please make your way to the podium i'm not seeing anyone make their way to the podium and it looks like we have one hand raised pablo wrote us the interpreter i think we may have someone coming on host can you please um enable pablo's um ability to speak yes hello council good evening my apologies for the interruption um in today's meeting however i was booted from my internet and i just needed to be promoted back into the interpreter room apologies for the inter inter interruption okay thank you pablo i thought we had somebody on the spanish channel wishing to speak so we do not have any other hands raised um to make comment on this item nor do we have any recorded voicemail public comment with no additional or no members of the public wishing to speak we will now close the public hearing and i'll bring it back to council to see if there are any comments seeing none council member alvarez if you would please put a motion on the table thank you mayor orders of the council the city of san rosa pre-zoning the property located at 1600 manzanita avenue also identified as excessors parcel number 181-030-005 to the our residential 40 sr real residential scenic road combining district zoning district file number a and x 21-002 and wave further reading of the text second we have a motion made by council member alvarez and a second by vice mayor mcdonald madam city clerk may you please call the vote thank you mayor council member stab hi council member rogers hi council member fleming hi council member alvarez hi vice mayor mcdonald hi mayor rogers hi that motion passes with six eyes with council member okrepki abstaining we will now recess for council to take a short dinner break and we will resume at 6 15 thank you it is now 6 15 and we will be returning from our recess and madams sing a quorum madam city clerk may you please call roll council member okrepki here council member stab here council member rogers here council member fleming here council member alvarez present vice mayor mcdonald here mayor rogers present now we will move on to item 14.1 madam city manager item 14.1 city council city council legislative advocacy policy lawn peterson chief communications and intergovernmental relations director will lead the discussion good evening the mayor vice mayor and city council it's a great to be here i'm excited to be presenting this particular item we've been working on this for some time and we're going to kick this off so i wanted to provide some background on this the city council has not updated this policy since 2013 in that time the city has formed the communications and intergovernment relations office in addition to that we hired a intergovernment relations and legislative affair officer in 2020 2021 we kicked off our first federal platform and then in 2022 we did both the state and federal platforms and we're back tonight to go over the policy in relation to this to to legislation the purpose this provides the mayor and city council with principles and directions to guide the position for the city of san rosa staff as well as the council on behalf of the city and it enables us to be nimble quick and sustain engagement in all areas of legislation in both platforms next slide so this this policy update provides us the ability to streamline our approval process process when taking official positions on policy also gives the mayor authority to policy positions and i want to just clarify if that proposed action is in line with the council's platforms and it also clarifies that the council will have legislative platforms in both the state federal on a consistent basis so with that the communications and intergovernment relations office recommends that the city council approve resolution updating the council's legislative advocacy policy 000.040 and that concludes my presentation thank you for that presentation i'm looking to council to see if there are any questions yes council member rogers thank you mayor a couple of quick questions a lot if you don't mind sure in the resolution i flagged two things one is to your point we've now created new positions in a new department at the city and we've built that into the resolution do we need to have any language in there that says or a comparable position just in case we ever go through a restructuring or if there's somebody else like the position hasn't been filled and maybe that's a question for the attorney instead madam city assistant city attorney thank you council member rogers um i to the extent that staff is comfortable with that kind of change in the rest of council agrees it's always fine to incorporate you know or or designate you know or as designated by the city manager by the mayor etc so yeah it can be a good idea because position names do change okay i'll probably uh offer that as a suggestion for what council should should change the second question was on uh one of the elements of it was we have to adopt the policy by december 31st or the platform exceeds me by december 31st and as much as i'm an advocate for that getting out ahead of it to be able to offer our perspective to members as they're coming in oftentimes we don't actually know what legislation has been introduced until the end of january or middle of february depending on like for instance the state's legislative calendar and so the question that i have and also every two years new members take their seat at the beginning of december can we or should we build in some flexibility there so that they're so that the mayor if asked to take positions on new legislation that's been introduced that we don't handcuff them by saying that we had to have approved our policy or our platform by december 31st does that make sense it does and my understanding it's a of that the physical year so it would be the entire year so i see so does it so if december 31st does it roll over to the next year then is that your reading of it yeah so it'd be like from now so like for tonight if we approved the policies i'm excuse me the platforms we would basically have the entire year to work on that and approve them so that gives us the entire year the flexibility last year we did the platform on the 25th so today we're coming in early a whole day early on the 24th we're crushing it with the platforms so but the intent is to to allow the entire year to to for that flexibility but i mean to your point we're really coming in at the early january to align with both the state and federal legislation so but we could amend it to maybe the first quarter or as you know adjust that language as needed to make it more clear yeah i think i'd be more comfortable if we set the date a little bit further out that doesn't preclude you from taking a position or the mayor from taking a position on bills but it would then remove the requirement that the council acts by a certain date in order to be able to operate the the platform okay do you just are you recommending then just to remove the date completely and just have it i'll say i'll say by goal setting would kind of be what i would say for council okay it will be added in the we can add it in the motion so you know what changes that we're making all right and this is his motion so he will add it uh council convenient convenient council member Fleming yeah so since we're talking about tweaks and adjustments here in this portion um so that perhaps we can prevent a series of friendly amendments and second motions i was just curious to know if there was any practical reason why the council couldn't be notified of might my notes are up here be notified of this of these letters as soon as they go out rather than in the council agenda packet if that would create any brown act issues more specifically i'm thinking like an item 14.1 legislative policy section c2h uh request something like at the end of the sentence and all members of the city center as a city council for informational purposes it just seems like odd that we would have to wait to see a legislative position until the next city council meeting agenda packet is issued so if i understand you correctly so you want to see the letters before they are submitted to uh either the state or federal uh or or as they are all right i'm just curious to know that would create a tremendous burden for staff council member Fleming can you clarify your ask yeah the the letters um when they're issued that the the the council would be copied on the letters at the time of issuance got it is there a problem with that occurring no not at all we can add cc's to all or all the letters yeah yeah that's what i thank you that's what we're just talking about too okay yeah that makes sense i'm in then in section c3 out of section under the any action letter position taken sorry i keep losing my notes thank you for your patience um any action letter or position taken by the mayor under this section should be reported out to the full council in a timely manner the purpose of this is just so the council knows what's happening when it's happening yeah okay thank you that's it yeah absolutely you're welcome vice mayor mcdonnell yeah i guess i'm reading um december 31st thinking that you have it as a proposal brought to us usually in january and that we'd have until the 30 no later than the 31st of the year that fiscal or that year calendar year i should say not fiscal year so if we're going on a fiscal year be different is there anything around like at the change of term for the mayor because it doesn't say how often this is brought forward is not what i'm seeing in this it just says prior to the december 31st of each year so we would be at the very beginning of the year if you're doing it in january i'm just curious when it's been done in the past and is that why i mean that it doesn't make sense to not keep december 31st to me because it's a that's a whole year to do it and that's fine and i actually i really appreciate your question because you looked at it completely different than i did that's shocking what i what i read when i read it was the legislative year begins the first monday of december and that we would have until december 31st to adopt the the thing so i can understand i can understand i read it as a calendar year yes and so that we would have time after the legislative session starts to be able to hear introduction of bills and act on those pieces of legislation but no later than the end of that calendar year you would be bringing it to us correct that's how it's supposed to be yes and it's it's i think it's meant to be annual and that it's timely without having to put a exact day that it has to be something our intent is to come at the beginning of the calendar year when the legislative session starts and be active so we did it last year on the 25th it's this year on the 24th and so we'll be looking annually to come back before council at the beginning of the year after we do our outreach to the department and to council with the platform and the updates yeah i'm i'm fine with not adding the amendment then my concern was really looking at it from a legislative calendar year standpoint to make sure that we had more than 30 days for for you all to analyze bills and bring us recommendations some bills don't even come out until february or march if they are trying to be just spot bills at the beginning of the legislative session and it's the concern what we like to um go to public comment so we can have put a motion one more question and then we can have discussion right now we're just doing questions thank you on the on the letters that are going out would those not be public comment already they're already um they're already to the public by then if you're sending them over to the legislature so there would be no violation of brown act correct correct they're already public record yes okay thank you it's getting pushed out exactly you're welcome all right are there any additional questions from council seeing then madam city clerk may you please facilitate public comment i'm seeing no one um in the chamber for public comment we have no hands raised on zoom and no prerecorded messages great um councilmember rogers may you please put a motion on the table and if we need to have discussion after we get a second we will do so yeah absolutely and thank you both lawn and scott for your work on this i will move the resolution with the two changes the first being uh that we add in or designate or the designate wherever we've referenced the zero position the second is a clarification that when the letters go out that council members perceive that information as well and i'll wait for the reading of the text second we have a motion from councilmember rogers and a second from vice mayor mcdonnell um is there any additional discussion all right madam city clerk may you please call the vote councilmember okrepke aye councilmember staff aye councilmember rogers aye councilmember fleming aye councilmember alvarez aye vice mayor mcdonald aye mayor rogers hi that motion passes with seven eyes thank you very much we'll be moving to item 14.2 madam city manager item 14.2 2023 federal legislative platform director peterson will also be leading this discussion and if you could uh introduce your team members please absolutely uh yes so uh joining me tonight is scott alonzo he is the legislative affairs officer for the city of santa rosa um we're going to be going over scott's going to take over this presentation uh in coordination with um our legislative partners scott oh yeah so let me do that real quick on the the platform um so the purpose of the legislative platform is to communicate the city's federal policy um and projects and priorities to the public our conditional delegation at congress and our federal agencies thanks scott um it also provides guidance and direction to city staff um and our federal representatives regarding the city's federal funding and priorities and so this really sets the direction as we've been meeting with you and getting feedback and putting this all together it allows the city staff to work on that i'm going to turn it over to scott um to take over the presentation and introduce um our legislative partners good evening mayor rogers and uh council members we have uh representatives from mmo partners joining us this evening from washington dc by zoom we have john o'donnell and karyakas pagonas who have uh worked with us for many years now and i will turn over them to go over this slide and introduce themselves uh thank you scott good evening uh mayor rogers vice mayor mcdonnell members of the council and city manager smith we're glad to be with you tonight um we've met most of you i think uh earlier this year or last year in july when we were there visiting but there are some members of the council that are new and we've not met so i want to take just a moment excuse me to um introduce ourselves uh our firm uh mmo partners which is stands for murray montgomery o'donnell partners has been in the business of representing local governments in washington dc since uh 1980 and at the start of our firm we represented four municipalities who we continue to represent since 1980 that's the city of albuquerque city of phoenix city of oxnard california and the city of oklahoma city uh we're proud of the fact that we've represented over that length of time and we have considerable experience uh in representing local governments and dealing with federal agencies and congress over that period of time uh we have a strong approach with both sides of the aisle here in washington which we have found to be very beneficial in terms of the work that we do with congress and with the administration whichever party is in charge of the white house and over that period of time i think we've built up a very strong record of a return on investment for the investment our clients make in our services so uh with that said i would ask our vice president karyakas begonis to take over the presentation uh thanks thanks john i think scott you were gonna go into the highlights is that correct yeah i was just going to touch on a few of these and karyakas if you want to jump into that'd be great as well just wanted to highlight a few of the overall funding that we received at the federal level through formula and competitive funding so formula funding is out funding that we get allocated directly to the city which is just over 64 million and just over half that was competitive you'll see there's some still some covet relief that we got last year and just wanted to highlight the sandman hotel reimbursement a 4.3 million that we worked with alan alton and his team on to get um mmo partners was instrumental in helping us move the needle with fema to actually get that money through the door and so that was a good success in early 2022 and then there was some federal legislation that we waited on you'll know there in the italics senate bill 3011 which allowed for arpa money covet relief money to be used for infrastructure projects so it brought in the definition which allowed that money to to be used for more things and we were weighing in on that we were active in those negotiations and then you'll see some information down at the bottom on wildfire resiliency we have that eoc earmark of one million dollars in there because we actually didn't receive the money until uh or congress didn't approve it until last march so even though we applied for two years ago congress didn't actually approve it until last march so there was a delay there just wanted to highlight some of the the emergency roadway recovery money that we received nearly five million dollars and then the fire act was passed and signed into law in december of 2022 that the city was very active participant in with senator pedia and his team to see that through the finish line and karyakis will touch on that as well during our presentation karyakis or john anything to add on this first slide okay great and then just some other uh these are all kind of formula funding allocations uh we did want to highlight the 4.3 million dollars that santa rosa city bus got for the uh electric vehicle replacement we got a 4.3 million dollar through the federal transit administration which some of you saw back in december when we did the ribbon cutting and city bus staff did an amazing job of securing that competitive grant through fta and ray tell us came out here our regional administrator to take a look at those buses back in december so that was a huge win for the city and city bus staff and then you'll note down at the bottom are water and energy resiliency through the water resources development act we received authorization for 19.4 million for water and wastewater infrastructure that still needs to be appropriated so that's a two-step process working with the army corps in congress but uh mmo and santa rosa water uh put together this application and and we were successful with congressman thompson uh who who spearheaded our request and then lastly our another earmark we were successful in 2021 in applying for but again we didn't get approval until last year was the federal earmark for in response so i just wanted to keep those highlights uh karyakis or john anything to to add on those the old Scott thank you the only thing i would add um not not not small is that you know the the highlights here uh really do represent i think a a team approach uh city manager when she came in in january was pretty clear with us about you know making sure that uh the city's positions were advocated for and without the the council's approval on on the platform and your advocacy and the great work of city staff and and last but not least obviously the work that the congressional delegation uh has done on behalf of the city over the past year is really why this is successful so scott thanks for for highlighting that okay and then i'm going to turn it over to to karyakis to go through our proposed federal priorities tonight and we can uh dig into that thanks scott mayor rogers vice mayor mcdonald members of the city council and city manager smith as lawn pointed out earlier this is the third time we were coming before you with a federal platform i'm very excited about that that's something that you know we worked with the city over the past couple years to really get this up and running for the first two years that we were working with the city was really on on recovery response and really being responsive to things coming at us this is really a step in a more proactive approach where the city has time to to really think about and be strategic about how it pursues federal policy changes and and advocate advocates for for federal projects so really excited to be here presenting this third iteration of of the city's proposed federal priorities the first of the seven sort of categories that you'll see is wildfire prevention hazard mitigation resiliency and recovery this continues to really advocate for legislation and funding that really focuses on mitigating and really being proactive on preventing impacts from disasters and also advocating for programs like the cdbg block grant disaster recovery program which right now is is really authorized or appropriated as as needed so there is legislation that was introduced last congress that will would codify the program as you might recall this this program was able to provide about in total over 72 million dollars for the city post the 2017 disasters 38.4 million of which was for multifamily housing and then 34 million was for disaster mitigation and recovery some of which I think are being used for things like your fire station five rebuild and other other projects in the city so it's a really critical program again there's been efforts to try to codify it and and we continue to to push for that advocating for funding for improvement in iPause integrated public alert warning system it's something that we've been working with the city to make sure that this system is is up and running and certainly you know responsive to changes in technology and then also last but not least as Scott mentioned earlier the fire act really did start was supported by Senator Padilla but really did start in Santa Rosa about a year ago when the senator met with the mayor with Mayor Chris Rogers at the time and Chief Westrop and city staff to to talk about and make improvements to to the Stafford Act and and really improve ways that which FEMA can help cities recover post wildfires and as we know certainly not the easiest process but have made some significant progress in making those changes which will start this year when when FEMA begins to implement the program so you know on the relocation assistance that's something that the city will have to continue to weigh in with FEMA as they again implement the fire act but again that's why this is on on the list for this year next slide please surface transportation is the next category and supporting of funding for the infrastructure investment and jobs act which you all probably know is the infrastructure bill or bill that you know was signed into law last year certainly provides a huge investment in transportation some of which the city is receiving the formula programs coming through the state and then through your regional partners other funding is coming through competitive programs like Scott mentioned through the through FTA the city did secure 4.3 million and currently additional funding for things like Herne Avenue and like pet over crossing so we're going to be continuing to to monitor those programs and as they come up we're currently working with the city to identify potential opportunities to leverage federal investments in infrastructure and transportation infrastructure in particular to build projects in Santa Rosa next slide please can i interrupt for just a moment and ask john to please mute himself if he's not speaking sorry we're getting feedback thank you thanks mayor under water and energy resiliency again i won't read this verbatim but calling for support and monitoring of regulatory efforts around water sewer storm water programs including the drinking water and clean water revolving loan funds both of which receive the a very big increase in funding through the infrastructure investment jobs act that funding comes through through the state and through formula but but also available for local governments to apply to the state to receive grants and or loans depending on the state's criteria continue to advocate for low income household water assistance program funding that funding was made first available through the cares act and then through ARPA which really helped low income households offset some of their water and wastewater bills during covid it's something that we've been working on with some of the national associations like NACWA national association of clean water agencies which i know the city is actively engaged with and it's something that will be continue to work with them and others to promote should the council support this this policy support for funding and resources for drought relief response support and community outreach and education included including grants and funding for the bureau and and EPA again those are two federal agencies we've been working with i know the city and city council member at the time mcdonald and mayor rogers met with EPA recently in november to talk about city programs and we also did meet with the bureau back in november and have plans to do so in the first quarter of this year to talk about the good work that santa rosa is doing to conserve water especially during drought i know you all have had some rain recently so that's good but we'll continue to reach out and advocate for for funding for programs that the city is doing in those in those two areas next slide please a climate change and sustainability again the city has long advocated for programs that reduce impacts of greenhouse gas emissions the white house certainly led on efforts in the congress passed the inflation reduction act which invests significant amount of funding in programs to help communities reduce their impacts on on air pollution etc something that i know the city has been certainly a leader on and we're certainly tracking those announcements as they come up right now agencies are are standing up programs as we heard from EPA back in november continue to support for funding for the energy efficiency and block grant program that's a program that was first stood up during the obama administration and funded again in the infrastructure investment jobs act department of energy just released allocations this is a formula program the city's allocation is about 210,570 for for this program and the the application process is is just beginning and i know the city is on top of that and will be applying to to receive that funding continue to advocate for funding to convert the city's municipal vehicle fleet to zero emissions including charging infrastructure and implementing the conversion i think the city is certainly looking at planning funding and and other funding to to help evaluate what's necessary to to do that conversion and we're certainly going to be focused on on that during the year next slide please housing homelessness and economic development again this is an area i know the city has and the city council has made a top priority this is continuing to advocate for formula programs like cdbg and home emergency food and shelter voucher programs and also a continuum of care which provides funding for homeless assistance to the cocs around the country i know the city's active in the coc locally and again this is an area where congress has invested and does continuously or has over the past two years increased funding for homeless assistance and the last piece of this is extending housing credits so low-income housing tax credit is a major program that you know helps communities build affordable housing that program did get an increase over the past couple years congress was trying congress tried to extend the increase for li-tech in the last congress but did not get around to it but will certainly be on the agenda for this year reauthorization of economic development administration programs specifically their public works program is is a competitive program that congress funds on an annual basis at various at various funding levels so we'll continue to advocate for for funding for eda and its public works programs which really do invest in things like expansion of water lines anything really that you can think of that would help small businesses in santa rosa either stay there or or expand and that's an area that we've worked with this with the city on trying to advocate and identify projects that might qualify and help small businesses in santa rosa there's a there is legislation that was not introduced last session but i think will be on the on the agenda for this year to reauthorize eda and also trying to include language that is responsive to communities that have been impacted by multiple disasters taking a lesson from the city next slide please public safety again this continues advocacy for federal funding to support safety and emergency response operations firefighter equipment and training community engagement and education police hiring and training and possibly fire station construction funding advocate for funding for community violence and gun violence prevention programs and seeking funding for public infrastructure including a regional training facility regional communications infrastructure like radio towers prime lab and other technologies to improve community safety in santa rosa next slide public health this is new this year i think because of the where we are with covid this was sort of more from our covid section last year into a public health section but really aimed at keeping funding in place that was appropriated by congress to local governments to deal with covid there there has been some discussion on the hill about looking at some of those funds and perhaps recapturing funding that has not been allocated so that's something we're watching closely in fact treasury department today reallocated some rental assistance funding that wasn't being utilized to areas that needed it and and we're using it so there there is a constant look at covid assistance and we're certainly keeping our eyes on that as well so with with that that concludes this portion of the presentation scott i will kick it back to you thank you karyakas i appreciate that very nicely done with that the communications and intergovernment relations office recommends that the council by resolution adopt the city's 2023 federal legislative platform and my self scott and mmo partners are available for questions thank you very much for that presentation looking to council to see if there are any questions seeing no questions we will now go to public comment there's currently no one in the chamber if you are on zoom and you would like to make a public comment please raise your hand seeing no hands raised madam city clerk are there any voicemails for item 14.2 there are no voicemails for this item thank you very much councilmember rogers can you please put a motion on the table uh yeah madam mayor uh i will move approval of the legislative platform i do have uh at least one suggestion i know other council members probably have some suggestions as well on amendments my suggestion will kick one council member out of the meeting so perhaps it's best that i bring it up after they get a chance to respond to the rest of the platform can councilmember rogers get a second a second that all right we have a motion from councilmember rogers in a second from vice mayor mcdonald any discussion before we begin discussion i just wanted to thank our team in washington for your excellent work and before we get into the the nitty gritty of it all and just let you guys know how much we appreciate all that you've done to bring dollars home it has been tremendously helpful to have your support and your partnership thank you thank you save my comments and questions until after chris works out what is sounds like you wanted um probably mr o'crapki to make his comments councilmember o'crapki um yeah i am i'm good with this presented the only thing out the one thing i wouldn't mention is um uh last year we had some help from congressman tomson in regards to ghost guns and and some crime fighting was stuff like that um under the public safety portion it will i know it's a lot more difficult at the federal level but is that something that we get to incorporate into there uh yeah we councilmember we actually just met with congressman tomson and atf last friday with chief gregan and had a great hour-long conversation and the congressman is laser focused on this and uh chief has pledged to work with him in the council to make some recommendations on funding opportunities that we may have available for technology needs uh as one area on ghost guns and atf also reviewed some regulatory items that they're working on at the federal level and in the congressman's pledge to follow that and hear our feedback so we had a very productive meeting and we'll continue those conversations with his team locally and in dc thank you are there any additional questions comments or discussion all right so we'll go into the discussion now if that works for you madam mayor and i did want to be respectful i know that we have a colleague who is a fire survivor who can't be involved in some of the discussions we have and so i appreciated giving an opportunity to have him weigh in on other things we do as a community we are still rebuilding and there is legislation that periodically comes up that is geared at helping people recover from multiple disasters uh and we had one uh recently it was hr7305 that was reintroduced uh i don't want to call out the specific bill when we talk about things on the platform in case it does change but the thrust of it was to follow the state of california's lead and not uh collect taxes on the fire victims trust and the dollars for recovery that are intended to go towards people recovering and so i think that it's our responsibility as a community to continue to support folks as they're going through and as opportunities like this pop up so how would we reflect that level of support within our legislative platform before you continue as this has been brought up since i am a claimant in the fire victims of pgd in the fire victims trust i should probably recuse myself yeah you can leave now okay thanks um yeah so we can amend the the platform to have some breath that would allow this type of behavior from the city to advocate in those aspects so i mean we can do an amendment or if we want to change the language or have something specific yeah i think calling out continuing to support people as they recover in some fashion because the other example that i'd give is that we have a lot of small businesses and nonprofits that took out additional loans during covid and if an opportunity popped up for us to advocate for uh those uh loans either not accumulating interest or being waived as has been suggested i want us to be nimble enough to be able to have the mayor weigh in on those conversations agreed yeah and i guess we could leave it a little broader to accommodate that and and not follow the specific bill but just follow the state's lead in these type of efforts that accommodate both residential and business yeah and i don't even think it needs to be uh state lead i'm i'm perfectly happy with i mean i trust the mayor that if she's supporting legislation that there's especially in consultation with staff that there's a positive impact on our community i'm very fine with that oftentimes i find we're ahead of the state okay um we could so i don't know how we write that that in there um but i'd be interested in that yeah i think we can work work on some language with mmo partners on the wildfire section and just add a new bullet uh there i think would be the cleanest way to to look at that perfect yeah and then curious this is uh really a question for you one of the things that sort of expected and we've talked about it a little bit is preemption legislation now that you've had a changeover in at least the house in terms of party leadership do we have anything in the platform that really speaks towards the preemption legislation and for the public uh what we do see sometimes is when states like california get ahead on issues whether it's climate change whether it's other uh things that are priorities seeing congress come in and remove our ability to do things differently and and one of the key examples that currently is being discussed is um uh of all ridiculous things gas stoves uh because places like san aroza have made the decision to build new housing uh all electric and zero carbon uh and so now we do see the potential for prison uh prison hey excuse me preemption legislation coming in to say no actually states and local jurisdictions can't make their own decisions about these sorts of things councilmember rogers yeah i i think there's some room here where we can you know perhaps add some legis language that would you know oppose efforts to preempt uh that would preempt local uh policies and uh authority to to do um you know policies like you just mentioned so i think there is some flexibility where we can add some language in here for sure perfect i really appreciate that and i did want to say thank you to to john to kiri akis you guys have been wonderful to work with uh especially over the last couple of years we've called on you a lot and you've always been there for the city so i wanted to say thank you wanted to say thank you to our federal partners uh as was pointed out to me earlier it's actually congressman thompson's birthday so it seems appropriate to thank him as well as senator pedia congressman huffman and everybody else who works on behalf of san rosa's residents so thank you guys thank you for your your efforts councilmember flue me yes thank you my thing is small um and probably not small to deal with but it's small in the grand scheme of things and i mentioned it when we spoke last it's about hud rules when i speak to landlords who would like to rent a section eight voucher holders one of the reasons they cite that they don't do this is because it leaves them fully on the hook for utilities and i'm hopeful that we can advocate with hud and staffers as well as our federal delegation to have some movement to change the the funding structure around that so that landlords might be more willing to accept section eight voucher holders and not be fully on the hook for utilities thank you are there any additional questions or comments from council vice mayor mcdonnell thank you mayor so i have a little bit more specific bullets throughout this document and starting on page two under wildfire prevention and hazard hazard mitigation resiliency um and recovery i have a bullet and you can word it any way you want but the gist of his gist of it is to advocate for funding that um we ask for additional funding to be appropriated for emergency areas such as parks to have proper bathrooms ADA compliance and to be properly equipped during emergencies so i know there's funding at the state level i'm not sure if there's any funding available at the federal level i'm going to ask that that be inserted in there when we've talked to partners at the state level there are municipalities that have gone after grants that help to prepare our emergency evacuation sites to be prepped and ready for that and i think because of all of the issues we've had in sonoma county specific we might be primed to be able to get those some of those grants but i'd like to have that inserted in this document and i'll ask for it to be done on the state one as well under surface transportation i'd like to add a bullet to work with the u.s. department of transportation and local schools on potential funding for safe routes to school programs and grant opportunities to increase safety for children to walk and ride their bikes to school to promote climate resiliency as well under housing and economic development i'd like us to add to support the child tax credit reauthorization and full implementation that was done under the american rescue plan that particular item has been suspended but it reduced child poverty by 40 percent because of the support that it did for families so i'd like us to advocate for that to be part of our platform because of how it supports families in our community and then under economic and uh development i have also um well that's the same one sorry about that increase awareness and promote increased funding to child and adult care food programs ca cfp summer food service programs and community food systems to promote use of local foods in the national lunch program for children to support our local agriculture and businesses and those would be my additions that i'd like to see us incorporate in this document as we move forward on our advocacy work thank you are there any additional questions or comments seeing none madame city clerk can you please call the vote yes assistant city attorney could i just make a quick clarification in terms of the motion that is on the table and what changes are being incorporated into the policy if you don't mind i was just is does the motion incorporate all of the changes i want to make sure that we're capturing the the full scope here yeah so i'll make sure so what i heard was uh for me the general support for fire victims and small businesses and nonprofits who are recovering uh preemption legislation i heard from councilmember fleming hud regulations i heard from council excuse me vice mayor mcdonald uh the emergency services funding in parks and other areas uh the child and adult food programs the safe routes to schools and then the child care tax credit renewal and and i know that uh vice mayor had some specific language and so i don't know if you want to capture that or if it's captured on the video and we can put it in later whatever you want to work with so it's a motion to kind of modify the um the policy in those key areas and delegate authority to staff to incorporate the um verbatim request and then also in the areas where we don't have a verbatim request to be able to kind of add the bulletin as as staff sees appropriate to accomplish council's objectives yeah i'm just quickly going to look to staff and to our lobby team to make sure that doesn't create any unintended consequences for us to include these i don't see any i mean this you know this platform allows us to support oppose or watch um it doesn't mean we have to take action so we can look at all these particular things and if it's something that we see and allows us to look at those and we see that it's to everything that council has asked for we can bring that forward and look at it evaluate it and take action as needed and and mayor gives you enough flexibility okay yes cool yep sounds good for the motion then madam city clerk may we please call the vote one moment council member staff i council member rogers i council member phleming i council member alvarez i vice mayor mcdonald hi mayor rogers hi the motion passes with seven eyes six eyes with uh council member okrepki abstaining okay we will be moving to item 14.3 and if i can ask staff to uh let council member okrepki know that we are moving on to the next item madam city manager may you please introduce the item thank you item 14.3 2023 state legislative platform director peterson peterson is uh i'm going to deliver the report thank you thank you city manager uh i'll wait for krepki see that as a way thank you we'll just wait one second we can proceed thank you you're welcome thank you all right so we'll be going over the uh state legislative platform now the purpose of this platform just like the federal one is to communicate to the state's policy and projects and priorities to the public state legislative delegation and our state agencies it also provides guidance and direction to see staff and to our state representatives regarding city state funding and policy priorities that being said i'm going to turn it over to scott to introduce our state legislative advocates and partners good evening mayor rogers and council we have sharon with us from reny public policy group in sacramento she is here by zoom and uh wanted to introduce sharon and she can go over this slide and then we'll jump into some of the highlights in the platform hi good evening madam mayor members of the council sharon consolvis i'm the director of government affairs with the reny public policy group um we came on board with the city in the fall of 2021 and really we hit the ground running in terms of developing and updating the state's legislation the city's um state legislative platform meeting with your department heads and really took um were very active in um this past year um we're a relatively new firm but all of us come from local government my colleague dan hutchings was the labor and employment lobbyist for cal cities i worked as a capital staffer for 10 years before um lobbying on behalf of primarily local governments and um our newest colleague elissa still hi she came to us from the special districts association as well as having just served a term on the city of lincoln city council and really with um between our team we really have a strong hold on all issues that are important to local government such as housing and land use which has been huge the last couple of years um public safety revenue and taxation as well as governmental operations and um also we've got um senior advisors most notably dan carrot has spent 30 years with cal cities and provides a lot of technical expertise in um negotiating um funding opportunities through bond efforts great thank you sharon for that and uh we're just going to go over some quick highlights and then jump into uh the proposed 2023 platform you'll see that on the state side we're very active on policy matters we waited on 22 pieces of legislation in 2022 our ppg and our staff tracked 675 bills so just a wide variety of legislation from solid waste to affordable housing to public safety to wildfire mitigation so just a tremendous amount of areas we're tracking um in the good news for the cities that we achieved the desired outcome on 18 of those 22 uh measures so some of that was supporting legislation some of that was seeking amendments some of that was uh opposing um the other one to highlight here uh is our state earmarks um we were very successful working with our state legislative delegation senator mcguire assembly member wood and then assembly member levine uh securing 12.5 million dollars in direct state earmark requests certainly that'll change this year with the proposed budget deficit that we're seeing in sacramento um but last year we had a much different situation so uh we were able to seek funding for uh the new fire station eight uh the rosalind library and then a water um with for santa rosa water a program to expand their uh high efficiency appliance install project uh which is great so that was from assembly member wood uh for 1.5 million and we're working with the state agencies to now secure the funding so uh that's taking some time through the department of finance uh because they just presented the governor's proposed budget just a few weeks ago so that's what they've been focused on uh but we've been tracking that down to ensure that we get that money in the door this year uh sharon anything else you wanted to highlight on this slide not on this slide okay great well i will turn it over to sharon these uh slides like our federal slides are not the entire platform these are just some of the highlights from each issue area but you have a copy of the the complete platform as well before you so i will turn it over to sharon to run through uh some of these key areas great thank you well um you know just to kind of rehash what's already been said um the legislative platform really serves as a living document that we review every year we want to make sure that it's a reflection of the current council and the city's priorities and it's a very collaborative process so we've been working on um potential updates since the end of session in september of 2022 meeting with members of the council as well as every department to really um ensure that all the statements that are in the platform are still relevant um things that have been achieved we try to update and um just edit it to a point where it actually um impacts the city and reflects the work that you guys are wanting to do and again we try to keep the statement somewhat broad so that it allows the city to be nimble in taking positions when things are moving really quickly so in terms of wildfire prevention and recovery hazard mitigation resiliency we looked at all um all aspects where hazard mitigation and recovery is necessary including um earthquake hazard mapping policies and funding um that would help further the city's community wildlife protection plan looking at ways to minimize the frequency of the electric power electric utility power shutoffs it's been raining for like a month straight but we do live in california and understand that we do have um year-long fire season and then looking at supporting legislative and regulatory efforts to um minimize those psps shutoffs um and then i did make a note of um vice mayor mcdonald's comments regarding emergency evacuation so i don't have the full platform in front of me but i will make sure that we've got something along those lines included in there and then the next slide regarding administration human resources and risk management we always see um a number of bills in this area so um one of our priorities to support legislation to advance workplace diversity equity inclusion belonging we had this in our platform before but we added the term belonging in order to make sure that it's um as inclusive as possible and then um always looking at supporting legislation and advocating for the fiscal health of the city and its um pension obligations going into budget deficits you have to really look at what kind of responsibilities the state is going to be throwing at low at the local government on the local level and then um lastly the last priority is to really just you know make sure that we're looking at regional efforts to increase efficiencies and decrease costs and that includes fire services so um under governmental transparency and public access this has been a huge topic um really i think covid brought to light the um how we could do remote meetings and how it can increase public access definitely expect to see some efforts again this year we're already um hearing rumblings about various proposals of how that might be addressed so we want to make sure that we um the city has the flexibility to have public meetings and be able to provide access to community members in the ways that allow them to fully participate also looking at opposing any kind of legislation that incentivize increased litigation a lot of times you'll see bills introduced that have um you know a right to um a right to litigate as a means to kind of negotiate things down but it still ends up being very problematic so we keep a close eye on those as well as um legislation pertaining to the public reference act but on the next slide um under economic development looking to support funding mechanisms with economic development tools not just to entice businesses to come in but really anything that can further um the other thing the other types of incentives that bring businesses and including housing child care and things that are important to employees looking to support policies that encourage working with other cities and counties and government agencies and really developing economic clusters as well as looking at incentives that would preserve and enhance a favorable business climate climate under environmental climate change and sustainability there is um it's been a huge priority for the administration as well as the state um every kind of every policy really has climate change as an umbrella over it so we're looking at um you know climate adaptation plans looking at combined benefits of air quality water quality housing infrastructure and public public health and how they all combine together um also looking for supporting funding opportunities for transportation housing and economic development and um electric infrastructure upgrades the purchase of clean fleet vehicles this one has been a huge priority but also because of the deficit it's one of the areas that are being subject to some of the largest cuts so this is something that I anticipate us working on quite a bit this upcoming year and then lastly maintain the enhanced local authority and economic flexibility where solid waste and recyclables are concerned with the implementation of SB 1383 there's been some delays with it I think everybody's looking to comply the best way possible and that means maybe not a one-size-fits-all necessarily if you could go to the next slide please under water quality and water supply your water department works really closely with aqua and as a result we have a large um we do a lot of work on the water end looking to increase the availability and funding for water conservation water reuse technologies recycled water water storage ground water storage um I think what's our priorities really encompass is the fact that it's not just one solution that identifies water supply that it's really a mix of a lot of different methods and then approving streamlined approval and permitting processes advocating for funding to support the continued operation of the Potter Valley project and provide protect that water supply and the resiliency of fisheries and then like I mentioned working with the coalition of water agencies um for various um appropriations to different funding programs housing and land use planning this has been a huge issue we've seen well over 60 bills and I think in the last two years being signed um in this regard um some of the city's priorities the city is a good actor on housing they are looking for multiple ways to develop really kind of in that transit oriented downtown manner that the state really is trying to push so under our priorities we have strengthen local agencies legal and fiscal capability to prepare adopt and implement plans for orderly growth um all these laws don't mean anything if things just kind of get hung up and then new housing is being built support legislation and housing measures to preserve and rehabilitate existing affordable housing create efficiencies within CEQA to help support local discretion and planning efforts to limit delays there's actually already been a bill introduced in this regard that we're going to be taking a closer look at and then also supporting legislation that lowers the state's cannabis excise tax under homeless Smith um looking to increase funding for ongoing operations of permanent supportive housing although we have a deficit the governor's proposed budget does still have this as one of its primary focuses with a lot of um with funding still going towards some of the key homeless programs additionally under priorities it's to increase state funding to prevent and reduce homelessness specifically in santa rosa and sonoma county looking at mental health and substance abuse needs of a person experiencing homelessness that helps with the ongoing cycle and then allowing local flexibility for those state funding programs under recreations in parks looking to advocate for non-competitive per capita funding where um cities and local agencies are granted um funding in order to deal with deferred maintenance of their existing parks also looking to support housing related parks program which is a great program under hcd that used to require that neighborhoods had parks and then oppose policies that um would have road funding for community service programs that would negatively impact outdoor spaces natural resources any kind of thing that really promotes physical activity and people getting outside and then under public safety um really the city's done a lot of great work in this realm so i want to continue to advocate and strengthen community-oriented public safety policies looking for looking at addition being able to hire additional police officers whether it's violence prevention programs gun violence prevention um funding and initiatives i expect to see a lot of that this year as well as the issue that we discussed in the previous item regarding um 3d printing and the selling of ghost guns um also looking at seeing if there can be um advocate for increased funding for um something specifically for in response that would benefit the city um there are some programs through the department of justice that we are going to advocate for and then also continuing to support policies that increase the accountability and transparency of law enforcement agencies and personnel under fire and emergency services um this has also been a pretty hot topic for a number of years we've talked about it a little bit already but continuing to support efforts to improve the coordination of the psps events so that um residents and businesses they all aren't just left literally in the dark um looking to encourage regional collaborations where firefighting efforts are concerned that includes hiring firefighters as well as emergency operations personnel and paramedics and then an issue that always seems to come up every year but to continue to advocate for local control of emergency medical and ambulance services under transportation and public works really to increase funding for all transportation projects this means not just your standard um streets and roads resurfacing projects but also transit oriented um capital projects zero mission buses charging infrastructures by glane sidewalks um all areas that have are being proposed to be cut right now and are already very competitive as far as grant funding goes and then advocate for policies for equitable access for transportation system users and make sure that there's funding for those disadvantaged communities as well as support policies and regulatory efforts to preserve net neutrality increase the funding for broadband including middle and last mile expenditures and then under public health we wanted to broaden it a bit it was very um last year when we were working on this we made a very covid specific because there was a lot of funding tied directly to covid as we come out of it we still have mention of covid but um wanted to include or a state public health emergency so should there be any other type of public emergency it does not hinder the city's efforts to receive direct or flexible funding and then also advocate for assistance to communities to help with emergency response operations related to a public health emergency um specifically vaccine distribution and testing great thank you so much Sharon really appreciate I know that's a lot there's a lot of activity going on in this space and we're very active as Scott mentioned the amount of bills being tracked this year and we can we're looking to do the same um for this year um with that the communications and intergovernmental relations office recommends that the council by resolution adopt the city's 2023 state legislative platform if there's any questions myself Scott or our um legislative partner are happy to answer any of those or take amendments thank you very much for that presentation and I'm looking to council members to see if there are any questions councilmember rogers thank you so much Sharon good to see you uh you touched on it a little bit with open government and I'm just wondering is there any appetite in the legislature to really deal with um accessibility with the brown acts and I know folks have brought forward different uh proposals on how we might be able to maintain some variation of I am trying um I will say so one third of the legislature is brand new so we have a lot of members um as freshman members that don't want to tackle this um subject matter largely because the assembly local government committee the chair and the lead head consultant it's a non-starter for them they weren't even happy with ab 2449 from last year um because they don't want to touch the brown act at all that being said we've passed legislation where they want more diversity on boards and committees and commissions and usually it's those positions that feed into council positions but it's really hard to get folks to do that if they can't be remote um so one of the efforts that is being discussed is to make it on a non-decision making level um I do think that if we don't have any kind of efforts this year it's really a lost opportunity because we've shown that you can increase public participation you can conduct remote meetings and um you get more folks involved in the government yeah I appreciate that and there's a an interesting juxtaposition like our our council not too long ago had somebody who was on maternity leave and had to post the agenda to be able to participate including their address at the same time the legislature's introducing bills aimed at uh understanding threats and violence towards elected officials so there seems to be a disconnect there but thank you for answering are there any additional questions from council councilwoman plumi yeah I did have a question um there was a line in there that says um you know basically anything that reduces local control over employee relations issues or mandates newer enhanced local government employee benefits um and then another line that said drives up the costs of municipal elections I mean this is all kind of in the weeds but I'm wondering can we get some examples of what it is that we're we're fighting against here sorry just to clarify you're talking about on page three under opposed legislation for the administration section yeah yeah I'll I'll start in the chair and if you want to jump in you know there were some bills uh last year related to emergency services there was a senate bill that was going to try to mandate uh when employees either had to report to work during a disaster and so that was a bill we were watching and concerned about so some of that language would address our ability to watch that type of legislation and potentially weigh in that was a senator dorazo bill and so I think that was that was one avenue we were we were worried about there um and you know I think it as when we follow local government the assembly local government committee they're oftentimes proposals through that committee that may impact a local government's ability to offer benefits or impact current benefits so that was just language there to cover that potential scenario okay that was actually the example I was going to use as well Scott yeah unfortunately on that on that dorazo senator dorazo bill the bill did change so it was amended pretty significantly and the sit we were okay with those changes and so was cal cities I mean there was numerous local government coalitions watching that bill as an example and unfortunately those amendments were agreed to and it was improved okay and then on the drives up the costs of municipal elections what what was the example on that one sorry to put you on the spot but I know um make sure that we're that was yeah that was language we actually had in last year we kept it in I don't know if the city clerk has any comments on that but my understanding was it was just in relation to the California Voting Rights Act and any sort of state mandates through that in terms of how we would administer any local election without state reimbursement okay so the state wants us to perhaps better adhere to the California Voting Rights Act and for financial reasons we're thinking about opposing that it's a possibility it's just something that we would we've we've seen in the past so it was just safety language for us to evaluate that if we were to come up again yeah and while I really appreciate our opposition to unfunded mandates that's one that I'm you know based on principle I think that we ought to consider removing the the language around municipal elections there and just ask that where where there is regulation about it that the state strongly consider adding funding to support the legislation or regulation rather than opposing it flat out okay okay yeah we can we can remove that okay thank you I don't know Sharon do you have any other comments on that no I was gonna um say the cleanest thing would probably be to remove it rather than get too much in the weeds and if an issue did come up it's something that we can bring to council sounds good thank you thank you are there any additional questions or there's no questions all right we will now go to public comment we have no members of the public in the chambers at this time if you are on zoom and you would like to make a comment please raise your hand seeing no hands uh madam city clerk do we have any voicemails for item 14.3 we have no recorded comment for this item thank you so much bringing it back to council council member rogers can you please put a motion on table sure I'm happy to move approval of the legislative platform for the state with one change I'd like to add in a bullet point on the public safety section to reflect our efforts around sideshows and supporting the folks who are trying to corral that we've we've seen that as a significant issue and I think we should definitely make sure that we fully call that out that's my motion and then I have a couple of comments when appropriate second council member rogers did you also want to incorporate or the subtraction of the language that council member Fleming proposed or yes I saw that as a given but thank you for asking thank you all right so council members who has comments vice mayor mcdonnell thank you mayor just like the last document if you just start on page two under wildfire prevention and recovery hazard mitigation and real resiliency I'd like us to add a bullet to address the state insurance commissioner riccardo lora about the cancellation of fire insurance and rates for those that are living in the wooey and ensuring that we focus on a fair market cost to fire insurance for those living in the city of santa rosa it's been a problem since the cow fire maps have gone out specifically in my district so I'd like us to make sure that we're advocating for that and then also just like in the last document I have advocate for funding for additional funding to be appropriated for emergency areas such as parks to have proper bathrooms and to be properly equipped for emergency use in the event of an evacuation so same language as before just under that same bullet under um let's see under um administration human resources and risk management I hadn't and I don't know if this is the appropriate place for it but I have to advocate for full funding on mandated programs required by state or any government agencies I'm not sure that we get um fully funded for the mandates that the state is requiring for us so I'd like us to start advocating for that they require it they should pay for it and I'm not sure if that's how it works but we should still ask under economic development I have several of them around early childhood education one is to support and advocate for increased funding for childcare early child care programs and increase funding for those in early childhood education industry to advocate and support legislation that incentivizes those going into the child care and early childhood education industry by supporting their education and expanding opportunities for those seeking a career in that industry to support and advocate for full funding for all educational programs impacting families and children to support and advocate for all children and adult nutritional programs to support early childhood literacy and advocate for funding for local libraries and funding for family engagement programs that support literacy and biliteracy programs on page six under water quality and water supply I'd like to advocate for funding for infrastructure improvements at all city water sites under land use planning and housing advocate for a redesign of legislation of redevelopment money under public safety and police to increase funding for restorative justice programs that impact children and youth under fire and emergency services to advocate for funding for infrastructure and building a new fire stations under transportation work with local schools and advocate for safe routes to school grant programs to support children and families walking and riding bikes to school and that's it through the mayor can I ask a clarifying question to the vice mayor for thank you for for the land use section on the redevelopment agency can you just clarify in terms of like restarting that or a new new redevelopment yeah I'd like them to go back since it's not something that they currently do they've gotten rid of it it's not working they're requiring us to do things but I think what we need to do is redesign how it's done and distributed so we need to advocate that we bring that back for something that could work now we need to start talking about it so unless we start advocating for it it's not going to happen okay thank you thank you are there any additional comments from council members I just have a quick clarifying council member oh crepe key yeah I just have a quick clarifying question for the vice mayor in regards to Ricardo Lara the insurance commissioner to the dy what was your request so some of our community members are getting their fire insurance cancelled and their fire insurance is coming back more than doubled than it was last year so I'd like us to advocate with the state insurance commissioner that we address this issue there were things that were done specifically during the emergencies but that has expired and so I think we need to work with him on perhaps a state stepping in to put a cap on how much their fire insurance could go up or address that when the state is making the maps updated that the people in those communities aren't suffering because they're of an unintended consequence are there any additional comments or questions from council saying none I just have one and I believe it's on page for economic development I would like us to advocate for and or take a look at transitional child care programs the income level seemed to be very low so it definitely puts some of our families in our community in a bind when they're not able to afford child care so transitional programs seeing no additional questions or comments we have a motion and we have a second madam city clerk may you please call the vote and for the record I accepted the suggestions from my colleagues thank you council member staff I council member rogers I council member alvarez council member fleming I vice mayor mcdonald I mayor rogers I the motion passes with seven eyes thank you thank you very much yeah moving to item 14.4 this item has been moved to our February 14th meeting so we will not be addressing that item we have completed our public hearings for the night we have no written communications and we will now go to our last public comment on non-agenda matters item 17 there are no members of the public in the chamber if you are on zoom and you would like to make a comment please raise your hand seeing none and there's no voice mills so it looks like this meeting is adjourned thank you so much