Of the city council, if you would like to comment on a closed session item now is the time to call in using instructions on your screen. In this part of the meeting, the council will receive public testimony thereafter. The public line will be closed and inaccessible. Please mute your television or streaming device once you call in and listen through the phone. Please note there is a delay in streaming. So, if you continue to listen on your television or streaming device, you may miss your opportunity to speak. All council members are participating in this meeting remotely. I want to thank the public for staying home to view today's city council meeting. I would like to ask the clerk to please call the roll. Vice mayor is logging in now. Council member Watkins, here, voluntary Johnson, currently absent. Vice mayor Bruder, present, and mayor Myers. Present. Thank you. Are there any members of the public who would like to speak to any items listed on the closed session agenda? Let me just look to see if we have any folks in the audience. I'm not seeing any attendees, and I have not received any notice that anyone was planning to speak today or requested. If you're not seeing any, then we will go ahead and this meeting is now adjourned and council will go into its closed session. We'll go ahead and get started if council members could turn on their cameras if they're available. That would be great. Some people are still coming in. Good afternoon. Welcome to our 1pm session of the August 24, 2021 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council. I have a few announcements, and then we will move on to our meeting. Today's meeting is being broadcast live on community television channel 25 and streaming on the city's website, city of Santa Cruz. All council members are participating in this meeting remotely. I want to thank the public for staying home today to view today's city council meeting. If you wish to comment on an agenda item today, please call in at the beginning of the item you're wanting to comment on using the instructions on your screen. Please mute your television or streaming device once you call in and listen through the phone. Please note there is a delay in streaming. So if you continue to listen, vision or streaming device, you may miss your opportunity to speak. When it is time for public comment, press star nine on your phone to raise your hand. When it is your time to speak during public comment, you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted. The timer will then be set to two minutes. You may hang up once you have commented on your item of interest. I would like to ask you to please call the roll. Thank you, Mayor. Councilmember Watkins. Present. Calentari Johnson. Present. Brown. Here. Vice Mayor Brunner. Good afternoon, President. And Mayor Meyers. I am present. Thank you. Okay, we'll start off this afternoon with a few presentations. And then we will, we have three presentations and then we'll, we have two mayoral population. So I'll go ahead and invite up the executive director of the 418 project. And she is here to discuss their new facility downtown. Laura, you should be able to come on in. And has she checked in with you? Yeah, let me help see her in the audience. She is. Is she here? She is. I promoted her. Hi, everybody. We can hear you great. Yes. Hi. Thank you so much. It's nice to see your faces. I have a lot of people too that I can't see. So let me just say Mayor, Madam Vice Mayor and everyone who serves the city of Santa Cruz. Hi. I'm Laura Bishop. I have the unique privilege to be the executive director of the 418 project and I want to share some updates. And I, in case you're wondering, no, this is not a green screen. This is the projection room in our new home, which is the old riverfront theater and it's the audio booth. It's my favorite room here. And so what's important about that is that the 418 project, which has been serving Santa Cruz for 28 years, we just invested $2 million in downtown. And so we just were able to purchase and this is actually owned by the nonprofits. This is actually community owned. Portable accessible 22,000 square foot facility that is located one block from the mall between the tannery and the warriors right at the dragon's gate. And so I'm just excited to share some things about this that I want you guys to know about. Yeah, I, even though I'm not with you in the room, I'm, I'm nervous and it's just nice to be seeing you. So yeah, you were at our diversity event last Saturday and that was super cool. And Mayor Meyer met with Congressman Jimmy Panetta last week to talk about green infrastructure support. And so what I want you guys to know is that we are so excited to be part of the re-emergence of our fair city. Not only from COVID, but also I want to tell you a little bit about what we're up to and under the framework of health and all policies, because we really feel excited to be able to be supporting city of Santa Cruz and equity and public health. So I'm just going to kind of give you guys the high, the high spots on that. But what I want to tell you is we're here. We're going to be here for generations or community owned. And if you haven't come down and said hi, please come down and say hi. Yeah, we're just here. So essentially the, the high spots are that this is the old riverfront theater and we are not tearing it down. You know, we're repurposing this building. And so we're taking it from an outdated and equated, you know, passive kind of movie theater into all adaptive community space. And what that means is that we're going to have a variety of spaces that will be really a place for arts businesses to grow. For artists in Santa Cruz, this is whether you're just starting out or whether you're established or not, will be affordable places for people to come and grow their businesses with us. Also, that just to give you guys a little bit of a perspective prior to the pandemic and our founding location. And, you know, you guys might notice because you know us, we've been around for a long, long time. We're bringing 1000 people a week to downtown and serving about 450 artists a year. And so realistically in the new facility, we're talking about being able to serve 2000 artists and impact. Most likely over 50,000 people and that means 150,000 visits to downtown. So not only coming to shop and dine and just partake in downtown Santa Cruz, but also now people that are coming for regional events. So that's the impact in terms of the user base. But there's something else that we, but there's more, but there's more. So, what I would also say about last week's meeting with Congress and Panetta is that we were joined, not only by Mayor Myers, but also by Greg Pepping of the Coastal Watershed Council. And so what we're doing is we we finally got it we're committing so not only are we committing to a quite a substantial open air roof gathering space on our roof overlooking the river that will serve up to 100 people at a time. Because, you know, if we had an open air gathering space, we could be open right now. And who knows how long we're going to be riding the whole COVID thing. Maybe the rest of our lives. I don't know. So we're, we're committing to providing a really substantial place for people to gather safely. But we are also already talking about photo, but we've also just committed to going for a living roof. So if you can imagine 10,000 square feet of wildflowers on the roof, along with garden beds for people to learn for children to learn about gardens and for a place of people to gather to just overlook the river. And the benefit of that is that this roof will help make us more than carbon neutral. It actually make us a carbon positive contributor, helping reduce pollution and cool the neighborhood off and helping really even bring the health of the river back. Like this is something that's yeah, we hope I mean we hope that this will not only be something that's good for us but also is a model for Santa Cruz. So let me get into let me get a little bit more organized. I have, I have my notes in terms of sustainability, equity and public health. So essentially in terms of sustainability. We're hoping that this project will really contribute to the city's climate action plan of 400 photovoltaic panels. We're really learning about the scope of the of the project, but we're really. Yeah, we're really, really committing to using the latest in tech. Oh, I'm going to be using green construction standards and techniques. So of course, and this is a source of green jobs as well as arts jobs. So this remodel will be immediately helping the economy. And in terms of equity, I mean, so something else that we really got, I mean, 418 has historically had a really widespread intergenerational community base. But we really get that our purpose and our people and our place and our processes and our power dynamics. They're really, it's not enough just to provide a space anymore. So we're really our strategic plan already had in place that there was a gap in our service significantly with our Latinx neighbors, you know, beach flats and live oak. And so we're really doing more to create more equitable outcomes. We are really happy to let you know that we were just honored by a grant from the Arts Council for racial equity work. And we were just also honored by a major grant from the California Arts Council as well as general support. It's also in service of not only our community programming, but are also our equity work in that. And then finally on public health. Really that so many ways to talk about it. I mean, obviously we're moving art center. So our principles are community, art, embodiment and mindfulness. And so we're a source of well being, whether people come to do aerial arts or she got or come to dance church or do an affordable performance. And that's what we are. That's our stock and trade. That's what we do. But also we're adjacent to the river. So in terms of supporting Santa Cruz and to walk to see us or ride their bikes or take public transport, like that's what we've always done. We've always been on the river. We've always been kind of a scrappy community art space that we really get what it's like and we really get what it takes to to be downtown. And so I'm just kind of geekily excited that we're here to stay. So I don't know. I mean, I feel like now's the one I would ask you, what do you guys want to know? But I know I only have a few minutes with you. So yeah, and typically Laura, we don't do a back and forth during presentation time. But I think maybe the main invitation is I would assume for council members who want to come see your facility. I'm assuming you're an open door. So really, really pleased to hear about all the things that you guys are doing and really glad you could update. Thank you so much. Thank you guys. We're here for you. We're here with you. And please, you know, this is a town where relationships are central. And I just want to invite you to be creative and let me know if you can think of relationships that might be of support to us right now. Of course, city funding, but also we're going to be launching our capital campaign. So I invite you and request if you get to give any productive relationships. Please, please don't hesitate to let me know. I would be really grateful for that. Thank you so much, Laura. And thanks for making the time.  Welcome to downtown. Well, welcome. Welcome back to downtown. You never left, but no, we didn't. Yeah. Thank you, Laura. Next, we have Kailin Foster Renda, co-executive director of Monarch Services. Welcome Kailin. Thank you for having me today. My name is Kailin Foster Renda. I'm the co-executive director of Monarch Services. For those of you, I know most of you and I know most of you know, but in case someone doesn't, we are a service provider of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking, both intervention and prevention services. And we provided those services with Santa Cruz County for the past 44 years. The reason I am here today is because we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of domestic violence cases as well as the severity of the violence that we're seeing. Over the past year, we've seen a 250% increase in the number of support and crisis lane calls. We've seen a 75% increase in the number of services Monarch is providing. We've seen a 150% increase in the number of. And we sadly having to add another individual to the femicides in this community totaling five today. That is more than the cumulative 11 years I have worked at Monarch. Why is this currently happening? Thank you, Bonnie. I'll go ahead and move on from the slides. No problem at all. So the impact of COVID we know has been extremely traumatic for many members of our community. For those that have experienced significant trauma in their lives such as the collective trauma of racism or poverty. The traumatic impacts of COVID such as getting ill or the fear of getting ill, losing loved ones having to be an essential worker, the lack of childcare and or school resources, lots of jobs and salary. Has created a cumulative trauma for many of our community members. Historically, when there is community of trauma or trauma after trauma, violence increases. Our clients are reporting that financial stressors, the lack of access to resources such as childcare and mental health services, isolation, family and co workers and being at home and crowded housing situations with a little to no personal space. Have all dramatically exacerbated the violence within the relationships and homes. So what can we do as a community in the short term by standard intervention works. If you see or hear something intervene, call on for Paul Monarch. If it's safe to do so physically or verbally intervene in that situation. Listen more and reach out to friends, family and co workers. If you notice something is different about somebody that you care for. Don't be afraid to ask. Don't be afraid to provide resources. If you're an employer, you can offer resources and disclose locations such as restrooms. So that people can access services and use your social media platforms to be able to provide information around local resources such as Monarch services while the avenue women center. But what do we do in the long term? It's imperative that we improve the safety net services for people with historical trauma. It has got to be a long term community investment. Investing in such things as safe housing and financial assistance such as a universal basic income, job training, education, etc. At Monarch, our housing program, which offers financial assistance and case management to support survivors in securing safe and stable long term housing. Support services necessary to keep those families housed such as financial assistance for education, childcare, transportation, physical and mental health services. We have seen over the past three years of this program that 96% of the clients that participate in that program do not go back to violent relationships. Mental entities work and prevent violence. We also need to increase the availability and access of mental health services. These services are severely lacking and there has never been a more critical time when these services are needed. In closing, we're dealing with a pandemic with been a pandemic and is an imperative that our community offers and provides the resources necessary to those putting so much at this time. I really thank you for your time and your leadership and I look forward to more conversation around this and what we can do as a community to end this violence. Thank you, Kay Lynn. Thank you very much for that presentation. I'm really glad that you were able to come and speak with us and please reach out anytime there's program development or needs to utilize the City Council presentation period to keep people up to date. I mean, these are very, very serious numbers and unfortunately I think we're not going to get out of COVID for a while. So making sure that we as policy makers really understand what's happening in our community is very, very helpful. So thank you so much. Thank you so much. Take care. Take care. You too. Okay, next we have the beach cleanup presentation and I'll invite up Tony Elliott, our director parts and Rachel Coughman, our recreation superintendent. Welcome you guys. Thank you. Good afternoon, mayor and city council members. And today it's the moment that you've all been waiting for the results of the city council member beach cleanup challenge. And so joining me on the zoom meeting are the recreation and park staff with the state in the beach cleanup efforts along with work supervisor Britt Hobird, who had the monumental task of organizing the cleanup of Maine and Cal beaches all summer long. So I'm just at this time, I'm going to share my screen for our presentation. Great. Hopefully you can see that beach cleanup challenge 2021. This is the Olympic edition recap this summer our parks and recreation work staff were challenged as people flocked to our beaches and the boardwalk. And after having an awesome time at the beach, sadly left large amounts of trash on our beaches. Mayor Myers participated in the beach cleanup with parks and recreation director Tony Elliott on May 24. And after that event, she encouraged city council members to organize cleanups at the beach this summer. Our creative parks and recreation staff jumped on that idea and created the city council member beach cleanup challenge as part of the July parks and recreation month activities. So the council member who brought out the most volunteers to help clean Maine and Cal beaches would be awarded the beach cleanup cup. So inspired by the summer Olympics, the gold medal winner we're calling it will win the amazing first ever beach cleanup cup that was designed by work supervisor Britt Hobird and the work team. And so the beach cleanup cut it's hard to see the amazingness in this photo but you will soon see it in person but it's made up of a piece of beach driftwood. The main beach carefully stained by work supervisor Britt Hobird with the golden trash can build with symbolic trash emphasizing the enormous effort put forth by the winning team. And the plaque reads city council beach cleanup challenge champion 2021. So as I mentioned, city members were up for our challenge and scheduled a cleanup date along with the parks and recreation staff person for July and into August. And the volunteer beach cleanups really provided enormous help to our work crew. We had a total of 153 volunteers come out this summer to help clean Maine and Cal Beach. And I also want to recognize the parks and recreation staff who helped organize the cleanups on the weekends. And then of course, I want I also want to acknowledge the heroic work staff who kept the beaches clean all summer long each and every day. Patrick Mason, Simon Chan, Ryan Kane and Lupe Silva. And so this time I wanted to invite up Britt Hobird just to say a few words to just about the help that this provided. So Britt, if you're there. Yeah, I'm here. I just want to say thank you from staff and myself. It was, it was a very challenging year for us. I just want to thank you for all your hard work and my staff amazed of your support. And it means a lot to them. Thank you. Thanks Britt very much.  And here is the Beach Cleanup Cup. This the winner of the coveted inaugural Beach Cleanup Cup and I'll say little shout out only council member with decorated trash buckets is council member Justin Cummings with 37 volunteers. But congratulations council member Cummings. Your award will be delivered to your office at City Hall that you can proudly display. And so just really in all seriousness a huge thank you to each and every one of you for helping support. And just also a huge thank you to the volunteers that came out this summer to help all of you. And really thank you and appreciate your effort so. To those to all of you. Thank you. Thanks Tony and and and all your whole staff Rachel everybody. It was great to have your staff was a huge support showing up on weekends and after work and everything else so it was really. I know you guys spent a lot of time to get this happen make this happen and so yeah I really appreciate. You guys putting this together super fun and I think there's a lot of new beach cleanup fans that could be recruited so. You know I don't know how we make it happen I know save our shores does theirs but certainly a lot of people are really interested in continuing to do the work so. Thanks to all everyone that helped on your department because we couldn't couldn't have had this fun event without you so thanks again and thanks all the council members for bringing people down and getting a speech cleaned up. For sure. Well done. Thank you guys. Okay next up we have a mayor proclamation, a mayoral proclamation proclamation and this is for declaring October 1 2021 as Chris Schneider day. And Chris I'm excited to read this for you. Chris Schneider assistant director in city. The city of Santa Cruz Public Works Department has announced his retirement. And whereas Chris Schneider began his career with the city on March 23 1987, thereby contributing over 34 years of uninterrupted service to the people of Santa Cruz. And whereas Chris Schneider's light sense of humor realistic approach and decades of experience have made him a respected leader. To various staff in the city. And whereas Chris Schneider have been awarded an incalculable amount of awards throughout his career. And they will continue to adorn the administration and engineering office as a reminder of his legacy. And whereas Chris Schneider's project focused approach may have been viewed as inflexible. But it was a great asset in his delivery of bridge trails around about an intersection improvements which improve the quality of life for everyone in Santa Cruz. And whereas Chris Schneider has been a project wizard always able to find a way to do more with less to deliver projects more amazing than in vision. And whereas Chris Schneider has led and contributed to so many critical projects in that one cannot pass a public works project that he has not touched. And whereas Chris Schneider has attended more ribbon cuttings than you can count represented the city at countless public at countless public meetings and responded to thousands of community requests always well almost always with a smile. And whereas Chris Schneider has a love for chocolate which helped him maintain even jumping between field studies project meetings budget meetings interagency meeting and council meetings. And whereas Chris Schneider's dedicated work will continue to be utilized and appreciated as people walk bike or drive over the 2000 plus engineering projects completed during his career. Such as red seven eight nine beach area around about San Lorenzo River Trestle Bridge branch and 40 Creek Bridge multi use trail. Murray St. Bridge highway one and nine expansion a run a gold multi use path. West Cliff repairs and countless paving landfill and sewer storm drain project. And whereas Chris Schneider's last day of service to the city will be Friday October 1 2021. Now. Mayor of the city of Santa Cruz do hereby proclaim October 1 2021 as Chris Schneider day in the city of Santa Cruz and urge all his colleagues and fellow community members to join me in thanking him for his years of service. Recognizing his exceptional leadership and substantial contributions to the public works department and to the smooth operation and safety of 30 and wishing him well on his retirement. Chris just so thankful for everything you've done for our community and would love to you know if you have a few words and mark I don't know if you have but just want to open it up and again just recognize everything you've done Chris it's been amazing. Yeah, thank you very much for recognizing me today. It really has been a wonderful career for me, able to work with and meet so many great people over the years and have gotten so much support in getting all these projects done. That's a long list. There are still a few on that list that are not done but hopefully they're moving along well enough that they'll get done in the next few years. I, you know, had a choice between going to Santa Barbara going to Santa Cruz back in 97 and so happy I picked Santa Cruz. It's been a great place to live. And I'm just happy to have contributed this to these projects of the community where where I do live and play all the time. I'm looking forward to less stress because it's not always easy getting these things done. But also, it's been exciting. I mean there's just been a lot of wonderful people that work with the council, the commissions, and in particularly the staff that I've worked with over years have just all been a bunch of wonderful people and there is a great team of engineers and technical staff at public works that are going to, you know, do a lot of great things in the in the future here. You know, and also just thankful for my parents for bringing us to the United States when I was a baby and encourage me to become an engineer and go to college and all those things. I wish that they had had an opportunity to, you know, see me graduate become an engineer and become the person that they had hoped for. Again, it's just, you know, it's just been great and I really appreciate your guys support. Thank you, Chris. Happy to work. Please, please go ahead. You know, Chris is an amazing employee. I've had the opportunity to work with him 21 years and he just finds a way to get it done. And it's great. We've all benefited from that and he has developed a strong team. He's really focused on building that team. He's had to do it several times as he's seen people grow and get promoted and sometimes move on and then he'll rebuild them. We have a very solid team and I'm really just thankful for the opportunity I had to work with Chris this past time and watch his orchestry of pulling the funding together and getting projects permitted through multiple different agencies and very complicated projects sometimes took years, but he had the persistence and the wherewithal to get it done. And so I just want to congratulate him on his upcoming retirement and wish him all the best. He's done, he's really delivered from for public works. And like you said, anytime that you walk or ride a bike or drive a vehicle, you're either going to drive over a bridge that he's had his hands on or an intersection or road repair and that type of thing. So he's just trying to keep everybody safe and it's just been great. So Chris, I wish, please join me. I wish you Chris all the best in his upcoming retirement. I just hope all the best for you. Thank you. And Martin Bernal has his hand up. Yes, thank you. Yes, I also wanted to just really thank you so much for all of your hard work and dedication all of these years. You know, Chris is very tenacious and, you know, the list of accomplishment is pretty tremendous. And I think if Mark mentioned, a lot of what gets the public attention are those controversial projects or those sort of big issues. But so much of what the city does, the vast majority of what the city does are the day to day things that we all take for granted. It's like when you wake up in the morning and you can flush the toilet or open up and go out on the street. And that's what a lot of what Public Works does. And a lot of what Chris really also focused on, which is making sure that we have the quality of life and the level of services that we are really, really high in our community. And so that and also the other part of Chris, what he's done is really work to create staff out in the in his to really take that on and to continue that high level of service. So again, thank you, Chris. You'll be missed for sure. Thank you. Thank you. Help the members. Any, any, any comments or anything? Lots of thumbs up. Nothing. Go ahead. And Markine. Next. Yeah, because I'll just say, you know, thank you so much for all your years of service. There's a lot of really great projects that have come through. And I know that, for example, the Trestle Bridge, when that got finished, so many people were just expressing how much better it was and how much they love the improvements. And additionally, with the rail trail, I know so many people are enjoying that space, along with all the other places that people probably don't think of, you know, when it when it comes to getting around the city. And since so many years of working on those projects and making sure they came to the community. Just wanted to say thanks and congratulations on your retirement. Hope to see you around more routine. I just wanted to say congratulations to Chris and how much I've appreciated working with you and the legacy to leave behind in terms of the impact that you've had in such a positive way to our community. I've always just really appreciated your professionalism, just your ability to stay the course and to offer information to us as best as we can to make these decisions that are good for our community. And I just I enjoyed your story about your parents how incredible and of course they're I'm sure looking down the crowd. I wish you the absolute best in your in your retirement and it's nice to know that you've had the ability to to mentor other folks so that the legacy was thrown in that way too. So congratulations. Thank you. Council Member Brown. I'll just add my appreciation here. You know, Chris your, your knowledge and experience, your tenacity and your commitment to, you know, public transit and getting transportation projects done get moving them through under very challenging circumstances often is really unparalleled. And, you know, I just appreciate the support that you've given me as a council member and also as a commissioner for the RTC.  So really, really well deserved. And yes, what a wonderful legacy as a council member. But what can said, I hope you get to enjoy some of the fruits of your labor by getting out there on the rail trip and out around the town will will be thinking of you and looking forward to hearing what happens next for you and just wish you all the best. Thank you. Council Member Connery Johnson. Thank you, Chris. I haven't had the opportunity to work with you for very long, but from what I hear and I see you are clearly very committed for all your years of service and everything that you've brought to our community. And I was really touched by your story really resonated. So thank you for all your work and congratulations and hope to cross paths on the rail trail. Thanks, Chris. Yeah, Chris and I ran into each other a couple weeks ago out on the porch of a local restaurant that was kind of a fun little night just to just to chat and I could see that you are ready to be ready to be done and have more time to do the things like like writing and other stuff. So go out and enjoy and yeah, thanks for everything you've done. So enjoy. We'll see you around town. Yeah, for sure. Thanks.  I'll potentially be working on more local projects issues, etc. as I continue to live here not going anywhere. So I do hope I see you all as time moves on. Thank you. Thanks, Chris. Congrats. Okay, we have one more mayoral proclamation, which is a big one. This is declaring August 26 2021 as Martin Bernal day. And it is my pleasure, Martin to read this proclamation to you. I mean, just as a note, Martin was my boss when I did get to the city, whatever how many years ago that was so it's a kind of a crazy situation that I'm reading this proclamation right now for you. Whereas Martin Bernal retires after more than 30 years of dedicated public service to the cities of San Jose, Mount View and the best of all Santa Cruz with a service community sacrifice and caring. Whereas Martin Bernal has logged in countable hours and city council meetings, most in the past two years, along a Debbie of mayors 11, as well as 22 unique and distinctively fun council members with patients to diplomacy and compromise. And whereas Martin Bernal has survived the above as well as teaching his blind uncle how to drive a tractor. Incrementing his not so super secret monkey password in numeric increments the origin of his monkey collection means murky and crashing his bike at least four times that we know of. Once while teaching his son how to ride properly and once that resulted in enough metal being put in his wrist that he triggers TSA alarm bells at every airport. And whereas Martin Bernal has brought to our city now and into our California, the Santa Cruz Warriors Kaiser arena, blurry seal galore roundabouts, rail trail improvements, five successful revenue measures, new and renovated. The latter of which we may have done to try to reduce his bike accidents and therefore his medical bills. And whereas Martin Bernal wrapped up his amazing career here at the city by leading our way through an intense local wildfire as well as a global pandemic. And whereas all of Martin Bernal's colleagues at the city of Santa Cruz. And throughout our region, former and present wish him the very best retirement and every success in his future efforts, including during the during doing the Bernal family laundry up to exacting standards. Making delicious drinks and cakes for tea parties with his granddaughter and her stuffed animals. Not driving his mountain bike off of the make minutes or into mountains and things without breaking gas or water mains, of course, all that all with the requisite permit. And generally relaxing and spending quality time with his family. Now, therefore, I, Donna Myers, mayor of the city of Santa Cruz, do hereby proclaim August 26, 2021 as Martin Bernal day in the city of Santa Cruz and call upon all of his colleagues, fellow community members to join me in thanking him for his quiet leadership and exemplary service to the city of Santa Cruz and wishing him the happiest and safest. Please be careful on your bike Martin of retirement and certainly well deserved. Martin, thank you for everything you've done. I'd like to ask the police turn on their cameras.  Department heads, let's do that virtual ovation right now. We wish we could be in person with you, Martin, but I know you have a lot of colleagues who are, you know, really, really have mixed minds today, I'm sure. So a mixed emotions. Oh, and Andy's holding up things upside down and so we're a little bit ahead of schedule. So I'm happy if there's any department heads that would like to say a few things. Please feel free. We're, we're actually running right on time. So hand it all. I'll call on you and as well as, as well as my council colleagues. Chris. I'm not a department head, but I have to, you know, pay back to Martin for his kind comments. It's been a pleasure working with Martin over the years as assistant city manager and city manager. You know, that's part of the success. My success has been, you know, his involvement in helping move things along as well. Our, our boys were in elementary school together. And so as a result of that, we ended up becoming friends and writing together over the years. Not so much since he's been a city manager. I think at times it's just been too much taken too much of his time away from fun stuff. So I'm looking forward to us writing, being able to write together again. So thanks, Martin. Thank you, Chris. Any others? Rosemary. Oh, I've probably not been here as long as some of the other people who are on this call or watching today, but I do want to say that, you know, I've had the luxury of working in four different places for four different bosses and four different kinds of bosses. I really appreciated the kind of hands off and very supportive engagement that Martin has with his department head to think it's been a really the privilege to work for somebody who has as much trust within you and who engages with you as a sort of a colleague and an equal advises and supports and really helps you to do the best that you can be. So I remember when I came to this department or to this job in this interview, they asked me what the heck I was trying to do with my life and I said I'm looking for interesting challenging work and you definitely have it here. I said and I'm looking for an organization that wants me to do what I'm capable of doing and Martin and Tina and Laura and all of the staff here have really provided it and it's been a privilege. So thank you so much. And I appreciate everything that you've done for me and for my organization and for the city. I just want to echo those comments. I actually first work with Martin back at the city of San Jose when he was out of the city manager's office and I was in public works and he came around to in some sort of interview or asking questions. I really didn't think much of what he was working on and didn't think where he was going to and you never know. And 10 years later I'm working for the city of Santa Cruz as he is and he's the assistant city manager and becomes a city manager. But he's a great individual to work for, cares so much about the organization and the city in the good times and in the hard times when we had to tighten our belts. He was very straight with everything we needed to do and we carried that through and just a very strong leadership but allowed the department heads to manage their departments which is critical because nobody can manage everything. And I think being able to do that and trust in those individuals he got excellent results. And I just appreciate that opportunity work for you Martin. It's been a great and I wish you all the best. Thanks Mark. I have Council Member Watkins and then Council Member Cummings. I appreciate hearing what the department has have to say I think that's really telling of your leadership Martin and what an incredible organization and legacy you have as well here. I too want to just congratulate you and thank you service. It is not an easy job by any means having now seen for the four years that I've four and a half years that I've been on Council. Your role and your availability and your willingness to stay calm amongst a lot of high energy and to really understand the importance of maintaining our city function and what we're doing and how to best serve our community.  But we really wishing you all the well and and I just you know how much I've had a chance to learn from you as well. Even though there were things that we may be not always agreed on. It was always really professional and you always helped me understand your perspective and respect of that and getting used to being Martin to the only other Martin I've had to work with. So anyways congratulations and wishing you the absolute best. I just wanted to say congratulations on all these years of service and work to communities not just in Santa Cruz but throughout this region. But most importantly Santa Cruz because it's really you know being a city manager here after seeing you know our role is it's not an easy job and definitely not an easy job in Santa Cruz because we are a very vocal and passionate community and it takes a special person to be trying to meet the needs of everything that's coming forward. And you know you've been able to be there during really tough times and help us recover from the first recession and have been really working with us to try to keep us out of going into a deeper session after the pandemic. And having you know spent time working with you last year which is probably one of the most challenging years in the history of the city. It was you know really great to be able to have somebody and to know that we had a city manager who was really putting workers first in the community first. And so just want to thank you for everything that you've been able to do to help the community. And I know we'll probably be calling you even in retirement so look forward to seeing you around and working with you more in the future. Now over to Konteri Johnson. Thank you Martin for certainly everything that you've contributed to the city your leadership over the last decade. And I want to thank you personally for for the support you've given me as a new council member a newly elected official just available and super responsive and answering my questions that maybe are some of them are probably just so obvious to you, but just, you know, always breaking things down for me and being available for me. So I really, really appreciated the support I got from you over the last almost year we're coming up on a year. And I wish you all the best and it is a small community. So we'll be, we'll be moving out of the way as you ride your bike and waving hi. Thank you. Vice Mayor Bruner. Thank you. Martine, I also share Council Member Calentari-Johnson's sentiments to being a newly elected Council Member. I just want to thank your leadership, your support, very supportive, professional, common patient and always available via text, via call and to explain even the details in the big picture and historical context valuable in so many situations and so many questions that I had. So I don't know if you remember we first met when you were Assistant City Manager and I think I sat on a task force, downtown task force or whatnot and I remember that's when I met Mark Gettle and you and you always had some good insights. So I appreciate that and thank you for what you've brought in this challenging months that we've had and always directing me in the right way. So thank you. I hope to keep running into you and your adorable granddaughter and I wish you all the best. Congratulations. Council Member Golder. I don't really have a lot new things to add but I too want to thank you for all of your years of service to the City and I think before I was on Council I didn't realize quite how much you did and your calm presence City Hall is always appreciated. I know sometimes people come in hot and you know everyone's very passionate that's on Council and in the community and I feel like your just your humble calm presence really simmers everything down and gets the work done that needs to be done and I'll definitely miss seeing you in that office but I'm sure I'll keep seeing you out on the trails and in the community and I'm just happy you're able to enjoy your retirement after all these years of hard work and service so thank you. Council Member Brown. I'll just add my congratulations and appreciation for all of your time that you've spent dedicated to the City and you know to really working in the public interest and to say our loss is Penelope's gain and your other family members too and you know well deserve that you get to spend time with them and do what you love and we'll be here so we'll I'm sure see you out and about in town and like others have said we'll call on you for that the universal lifeline help when we are looking for answers so take good care. Well I know we'll celebrate you again I'm here in St. Martin at City Hall but there goes my dog but I just wanted to again say thank you for everything you've done for the City over the years and we look forward to doing some more celebrating with you on Thursday and you know just wish you all the best you know enjoy Santa Cruz you get to be around town and not worry about all the list of things that you probably see when you go out and about so somebody else's job at least for a while so yeah enjoy your time and your family congrats. Thank you thank you I just want to say a few brief things thank you very much that was very very very nice I very much appreciate it and just really briefly it really had been an honor and work for the City of Santa Cruz truly and I've had a very rewarding public service career and most of it is noted here in Santa Cruz and for a good reason you know I've just been really fortunate to work with so many great people you know that are talented caring and really dedicated to their work and to making Santa Cruz a better place everything from elected officials from our city other cities from the region a community member so many community members department heads managers supervisors employees at the city colleagues in the profession it's really been incredible and I really owe a lot of thanks to them because ultimately you know it was teamwork it was everybody working together everybody's passion that make things happen and you know Santa Cruz is a small community as was noted you if you talk to anyone eventually there'll be some connection that that arises it's it's very common and it wasn't unusual for me a lot of people like city council many more than you would expect for some reason so it's not in common for me to go around the city for people to to comment a lot of the comments I got were you know people feeling somewhat sorry for me or saying you have the hardest job in the world and that might be true however I have to say it is probably one of the most rewarding jobs you can have it really truly is and I'm certainly very very proud of the tremendous accomplishments that have been made and the accomplishments that happen in local government really happened over many many years they won't happen overnight and the other part that's really really critical is is responding to crisis and in Santa Cruz we have them whether they're natural crisis or latest with the pandemics or fires or whatever economic whatever it might be and being able to respond to those things and take care of the community is really super central and critical and I think I feel really really really not proud of what we've done in that arena as well we're very lucky to be able to live in this community and to raise I've raised my family here and I do look forward to continuing to see all of you around town and uh I've been get two years since I haven't broken the bones I hope to keep keep that up so I'll enjoy the community and I'll try to stay safe so thank you very much thanks martin we will see you uh in the courtyard in a couple days okay we'll move on to our next set of agenda items I have a few announcements and then we will move on to our regular meeting this meeting is being broadcast on community television channel 25 and streaming on the city's website cityofsanscrews.com if you wish to comment on agenda item today instructions are provided on your screen we will provide these instructions throughout the meeting whenever we move into an agenda item that will be opened up for public comment please note public comment is heard only on items council is taking action and not regular updates and reports the items that will be open for public comment during today's meeting are numbers 13 through 31 excuse me with the exception of item 27 on our agenda I'd like to ask the council members if there are any statements of disqualification today being none I'd like to ask I have one oh I'm sorry Sonia go ahead by the mayor uh item number 29 our specific component to downtown businesses so out of an abundance of caution I will not be participating in item 29 thank you vice mayor I'll make a note of that during that item I'd like to ask the city clerk to announce any additions and deletions there are none great we'll move on to um uh oral communications uh oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not on the agenda oral communications will occur immediately after agenda item number 31 today if you wish to make a comment during oral communications please call in during excuse me please call in towards the end of item 31 put on to our city attorney providing a report on our closed session yes good afternoon mayor mires members of city council this morning the council met in closed session at 10 a.m. by zoom to discuss following items the first item was public employment involving the city manager recruitment item two was a conference with labor negotiators the council met with and gave instructions to their negotiator concerning the seiu temporary employees and three was an item of a significant exposure to litigation the council received a report from the city attorney on that item item four involves three items of pending litigation the first is the matter of city of santa cruz versus richard l santy at all the second is the matter of don stevens at all versus the regions of the university of california the third item is the matter entitled habitat and watershed caretakers at all versus the regions of the university of california cases are currently pending in the santa cruz chinese superior court the last item was real property negotiations council received a report from its negotiator and gave instructions concerning the property at 125 coral street there was no reportable action thank you mr kandadi i'll move on to the city manager report now item number 11 the city manager will report and provide updates city's business covet 19 response and events thank you thank you mayor and city council um a number of items today very briefly um i'll start with uh first uh just some i just got some recent uh the information regarding the covet um from the county um some good news uh the they're letting us know that the reproduction rate virus the rg number is now under zero and it's projected to continue to to decline and that means that the number of uh individuals that are being infected uh they're being transmitted the infections being transmitted to is is uh that declining and so the infection rate has slowed uh and its rate has increased uh and the 14 day projection is now for a very steep decline in the rate so that's good that means that the we're looking at the infections out there and steep decline is good um and then uh the other wanted to note that there is a um on august 25th uh and uh mayor you might want to add more about this is the on august 25th at five p.m will be the second mayor's green economy roundtable and green jobs in the bill um so just want to make sure that everyone's aware of that and then uh i'd like to ask uh our police chief to kind of do an update on the you all recall we had the act writeout event this past weekend we had all those writers many of which you know wreaked havoc on our community and so i'd like to ask our police and sorry yes a police chief to kind of comment on on some of the follow-up expected that are the impacts event thank you uh uh martin i appreciate the uh opportunity to communicate with uh mayor meyers the west city council on what took place over the weekend if i could back up just a little bit on april 21st of last uh this year i met via phone with the organizer and discussed the event from the previous year and told him that he needed a permit to have another event here in our town because of the behaviors of what took place the previous year he said he understood that and would try evidently that was not done and then i was alerted to this particular event uh the evening before from a council member who text messaged me a screenshot of a particular ride not necessarily uh uh alerting us to the scope of the ride but that there was going to be a ride and uh we regularly don't monitor people's private social media accounts or public media accounts unless there's a criminal predicate that would allow us to take a look recognizing that crime is taking place if that is the case then we can um uh social media accounts that was not the case here uh and certainly we don't want to be in a position where we're spying on everybody in our community uh without a criminal predicate so the morning of the event it became apparent this was a repeat of the one last year so uh myself and my day watch sergeant met with the organizer at about 11 o'clock in the morning including wearing body wearing cameras uh to videotape and to have a discussion with him about the event and asked for him to give clear direction to those that were there it only became apparent that he could not cancel this event to stay on the right side street obey traffic laws that obviously was not done recognizing scope in the size of the event he told us this would be about 5 000 people and certainly appeared that way from going over to harvey west park where there was a large setup on city property that we put out information via social media uh to as many people as we could as quickly as possible that there would be traffic problems within our city uh we also immediately began calling in extra officers to try to manage the problem you have to remember that we have about five to ten officers working any day in that morning we had five officers working on a saturday morning uh it takes a while to get people committed as you can imagine they're getting off of work at one or two or three in the morning and so to call them to wake them up to get them back into work that can be a pretty uh pretty big task we also met with the california highway patrol capitol police in the santa cruz sheriff's office and we all discussed this event as we didn't at that point know the route was we did expect it to go into other jurisdictions and we agreed on the tactics the enforcement profile of how to manage this large of a group and uh we also made sure that there were assets in place in case of a critical incident uh taking place in in and amongst the ride we agreed on that we worked together kept in constant communication with the pd of the lead since it was mostly in our jurisdiction and uh we were able to uh manage it fairly well given the fact that there was enormous uh traffic problems as a result it was certainly ten amounts what we would normally see on a very sunny hot beach day where it takes a lot of time to move through town i said the uh murray and sea bright and timed it and it took about 20 to 25 minutes for all the riders to get through the intersection that's unacceptable in our community especially when it's preventable and we you know we all recognize that we also experienced a three fold increase in calls for service uh during the day and that can be as you can imagine pretty difficult uh trying to manage all those calls for service as well as additional 5 000 people riding down our streets and some on the sidewalks overall most of the riders were other than traffic violations compliant and uh and were there to enjoy themselves with their families however there were several of the riders who decided that they would take it into their own hands and that they would create problems and so we spotting those incidents trying to manage those and protect citizens as much as possible with uh about five officers working the entire city and still handling calls for service and and so forth uh most of the calls for service were traffic related or disturbances arguments between riders and motorists there were however there was however one assault that we documented and there very well could have been more one gentleman was assaulted downtown trying to block riders from riding out to sidewalk and that is completely unacceptable we are working that case we are trying to identify the videotape and body order cameras we had volunteers close by who tried to intervene uh to uh prosecute that person and we are able to identify and we absolutely will prosecute them to the false extend the law we also at the end of the event which took about four hours to get through the entire city uh going from Harvey West Park downtown out to the west side and then back over to the east side out to 7th street in the sheriff's area and then back down so cal we got a hold of the organizer i brought him over the police department we cited him for having a large major event without a permit i also called the sheriff's office and they cited him also we are continuing to work with the city attorney to explore other options for civil recourse on suing him or leveraging things or compensating us for the overtime that we had to pay to bring people in from home as well as the staff time of people coming in including managers on the weekend to come in handle this the situation in the future he took according to his own words i take full responsibility and this is my last year i hope that is the case but rather than just hoping we need to be part of that and make sure that does not happen again without adequate adequate permitting as well as a traffic safety plan in place to make sure that it is managed correctly if it were to take place but at this point i am certainly not interested in uh approving a plan like that uh without the enormous amount of resources and the appropriate permits being pulled and approved by the city i'd be happy to entertain any questions you might have questions from council members member boulder i want to say thank you andy for that very thorough update i know i'm sure just like the rest of the council received a lot of correspondence from neighbors business owners community members and family members with some reports of behaviors that were just unacceptable and it's just disappointing because i think all of us really enjoy fighting and would really like to see you know a positive bike friendly family friendly event unfortunately there was just um this did not appear to be that um and you know i crossed paths with them at several points during the day and i i would you know agree with the community on that so um thank you any other comments or questions for andy yeah i mean i guess i'll just echo the same thing um uh chief mills um yeah i just got a lot of saw a lot of people and people were you know it did not feel like a safe situation it didn't feel um like a friendly group of people um it was really really upsetting to a lot of people so i appreciate your work and um certainly um really question whether this this organizer is really someone that we would want to you know really invite back to Santa Cruz at all i mean if you know it's it's just yeah it just was not a good event and uh it was disturbing to see some of the um the one individual that was um beat up and then i've also heard of other folks you know having their corridors kicked in and i don't just really not appropriate behavior so i appreciate but um i also acknowledge that um trying to address something that large with the few stuff that we had would have been very very uh uh difficult and dangerous for for our police force so i appreciate sort of your and the limitations that um you were left with that day so thank you for and please thank your officers for their work that day it must have been pretty uh pretty tough to deal with uh councilmember Cummings thank you and uh i share the same sentiments i think that many of my but may or my goal of express and i think many people in the community as well and you know i don't know if there's follow-up conversations with the individual who organizes but um my understanding is that the individual who was assaulted downtown into having to go to the hospital and was homeless and you know for a homeless individual who's really trying to look out for the community to um you know then be assaulted and you know understanding that our medical industry offensive you know that organizer that community is willing to put up some money to help pay for his bills i think that would be a good you know a gesture of good faith and i don't know if there's anything that any way that that can be included with um follow-up through the city attorney's office but um you know i think that this organizer didn't do their part in trying to create a safe event and as a result members are about to be anywhere hurt and i think that they should be held accountable for the pain that was inflicted on people who are just trying to enjoy their day thank you councilmember any other comments or questions martin is that all on your report oh can i ask uh lee butler to just do a very brief update on homelessness oh great thank you welcome lee thank you mayor miers and councilmember so we are planning to give a larger update um at the next um regular council meeting but just briefly we are exploring the approach for uh safe sleeping as was identified as part of the camping services and standards ordinance we are also communicating with housing matters regarding um their operations there and um the uh continuation of existing um services um and the um incorporation of new services through the 120 units of permanent supportive housing that they have at the rear of that site and um we're also um looking at um coordinating with the state as well as you well know the um 14.5 million dollars that was identified for the city of santa cruz to use towards homelessness services we've been considering potential options for the use of that money and we're looking to um coordinate with both john laird and mark stone's offices so that we can understand um what that money um what the timelines are um and how that um can potentially be utilized um we also recently commented on um the state project home key um upcoming grant uh considerations they um as you know are releasing round two and they asked cities for um and counties for comments and some of the things that we commented on were the potential for a um a specific um pot of money for our region rather than one that would be competitive um throughout the state as well as a desire to allow for a broader spectrum of uses um as you all know um the initial round focused on um conversion of residential properties or motel properties into permanent supportive housing and we were um desiring some additional flexibility um and how those funds could potentially be used so we're um looking for that uh notice of funding availability to be released in the next month or so um pending um any delays that that may happen in kind of the timeline that we would anticipate and i'm available for any questions that you may have is there any questions from council members on this i'm not seeing great well thank you lee and we look forward to a broader update next in two weeks thanks very much is that it marky but that's a thank you have been answering questions well any questions for anything uh for city management martin i have to say it's your last city manager report so thanks again little little thing throughout the day our next item is um i just like to call on the city clerk to provide any updates to the calendar at this time to the city council calendar i have that great and i just like you i wanted to if i could comment on the account um i have had a number of members of the public who've still been reaching out to me regarding the sp35 study session and given that this is kind of like the only forum where we can all kind of discuss these things together i'd put together a motion based on council or based on community input and i sent it over to bonnie so on but really what it is it's just trying to ensure that some information that and concerns that's being brought up by the community are addressed so i wanted to move that um that to direct staff to provide the following information in addition to any other information being provided at the seven study session one the procedure for designating the city council as the city's approval body for any sp35 applications requests for density bonuses to the city council's role in acting to approve or deny any proposed density bonus requests for concessions and waivers and three the requirement as a part of any sp35 application requesting a density bonus for the council like to receive financial documentation provided by the applicant supporting the proposed density bonus request and so this is just to ensure that this information um in addition to any other information is included in the in the presentation on september 7th member brown yeah i'll second that i um appreciate the most i think that it um it does provide some additional detail for clarity that i think um some of us at least are looking i've been looking for in my conversations with uh folks around the e31 water project in particular because that is the first uh streamlining application we've received and this is really new new terrain and i know vice mayor brunner suggested doing a study session like this so thank you for that um i do think that it would be helpful to make sure that um that these areas you know we get some clarity and and are able to have some discussion on the seventh so um um yeah i i absolutely support this thank you councilmember comings yeah i was going to make an announcement actually um that we have studies we have uh we have scheduled a study session um just as part of this item just so that the public is aware the study session um has been announced um and the staff is is focused on the exact things in the motion so that has already been directed to staff in terms of you know ways as um at least in my ability to call a meeting so we've done a special meeting with these exact items was uh that was called last week uh we have notified many of the neighborhood groups that have been watching this um process and uh our concern about the development in their community there so um we certainly have already put this in motion and so um yeah we'll go ahead and do a vote um the other thing i just want to do announce um on on this because these are both special study session well one's a public hearing and one is a special meeting uh we'll also be holding a public um hearing on the district election process that is scheduled for next week next Tuesday August 31st at 4 30 p.m and that will include a presentation by staff as well as our demograph demographer uh and provide information and ability for people to um participate in on our district election process which we are just initiating and then secondly um yeah September 7th at 7 30 p.m we will be holding a special session on the SB 35 law which obviously is now being utilized for one of a development in our community so there will be a briefing on that from our staff and Lee I don't know if you have any updates on that at all if you want to share anything on the agenda but certainly that will be starting at 7 30 p.m on on September 7th which is a Tuesday. Lee do you have anything to add at all and I don't want to get out of over my skis here Tony I just want to make sure that people know what's going to be on that on that special study session you know I think it's been adequately captured we're going to cover um SB 35 as well as um there have been um some legislative changes to SB 35 that government code section has changed so the subsequent changes to that government code section as well as density bonus information thank you and thank you Lee to your staff for making this happen I know that we uh sort of sprung this on you pretty quickly so appreciate your ability to get your staff together and provide that that that study session for folks to participate in and we will be taking public comment during that during that study session uh councilmember Watkins I know I I want to thank you also mayor and um Lee for yep the staff ability to bring this together I think the community has definitely been asking for a study session on this and I wonder if if we you're the best person to kind of meeting forward their questions in advance that we've gotten from constituents about SB 35 and and that all although it has been directed in this ocean that we can include some of those so that you have um kind of a purview into what some of the community is concerned or kind of some of their questions are about of course that'd be fine okay right okay so we have a motion on floor uh we'll go ahead and call for a roll call vote thank you councilmember Watkins hi Calentari Johnson hi hi Cummings Boulder vice mayor Brunner and mayor Myers hi that uh motion passes unanimously we'll now move on to our consent agenda first up these items are 13 through 24 on our agenda today for members of the public who are streaming this meeting now is the time to call in if you want to comment on items 13 through 24 instructions are on your screen please remember to mute your streaming device press star nine to raise your hand and listen for the queues saying you have been unmuted acted upon in one motion unless an item is pulled by a council member for further discussion are there any council members who wish to comment on or pull any items councilmember Cummings and councilmember Calentari Johnson um thank you i'd like to comment on item number 15 and pull item number 23 councilmember Calentari Johnson i comment what's for 15 as well and vice mayor Brunner the same comment on 15 and uh item 23 want to pull that also yeah okay that'll be pulled and councilmember Brown i have uh questions on item 20 and 28 i i don't need to pull them okay great okay so we'll go ahead and um we have item number 23 will be pulled so we're going to move uh go ahead and um take comments and questions from council uh why don't we start with comments uh three council members um have comments on item 15 which is the city of Santa Cruz climate action plan 2020 closeout report and i'll start with councilmember Cummings and then councilmember Calentari Johnson and then vice mayor yeah i just wanted to express my appreciation to Tiffany and to everyone in the community for all of their hard work on the 2020 climate action plan um just reading through that agenda report and people haven't had a chance to look at i encourage everyone in our community to really take a look at that because we you know through that report we've been demonstrating that we're making some real progress towards reducing our carbon print um in the state of california and you know on our climate as a whole and so i just really want to um express my gratitude to Tiffany for all the work that she's done because this isn't easy and um i know people want to see us you know reduce all carbon emissions immediately but you know it takes a lot of work to figure out what kind of projects we can implement um at the city level and make our city our city uh an example and i know we've won numerous awards over the past few years and um really has attributed to all the hard work that Tiffany has put into this and um our other city staff in our community so again thank you and i'm looking forward to our 2030 climate action plan and us really trying to keep on this track of reducing our carbon emissions i'll remember calling tarry johnson thank you yeah i'd like to echo um those sentiments as well thank you tiffani and um your team and everyone in the community who has done so much work um i was just really blown away by the indicators that that highlighted we we almost um across the board have met or close to met or exceeded so many haters um and then the focus on equity that really stood out to me as well that that we we're looking at equity outcomes as well as our process and ensuring equity in our process so just thank you for the thoughtfulness and um clearly it has had an impact already in our community um towards getting us to where we need to be so thank you thank you councilmember and i have vice mayor brooner as well thank you uh i just i know this is a closeout report but i felt after reading this agenda item that i wanted to comment and um just uh say thank you to the commitment to equitable climate action through the various plans and resolutions that worked out went into this and um it's pretty amazing so thank you thank you to tiffani and thank you to the team thank you vice mayor uh councilmember brown will go on to your questions i think you said 20 and 28 but i think we're at the end of the year just make sure here 28 is on our general business did you mean um another item on concern sorry um one sec um let me just i i thought it was 28 i'm so sorry i am talking about um 20 oh yeah no got it um sorry so so item uh 20 then i'll just do questions about that i thought 28 was on the consent agenda okay item 20 yeah okay uh so this is about for those who are out there uh who don't have the agenda right in front of you this is related to the riverwalk lighting project that um we are hoping to get moving and the and i wanted to say thank you to the public work staff for really taking seriously the um the idea recommendations here and and really taking steps to make sure that um we are doing everything we can to comply with um you know dark skies guidelines around um you know wildlife um and and really in human uh impacts of lighting on the river and so i just i do have a couple of questions that are a little bit detailed sorry to get them to you in advance but i just wanted to kind of see if i could get a sense of um where um the timelines are at and and monitoring to kind of see how to see if the the measures that you have proposed will achieve the goals um and so um just in i guess a summary question and then i can if the the appropriate person would be um i guess mark i'll send you um to send you my specific questions just to kind of get have a little more conversation but um just um if you could give a give us an overview of the environmentally friendly modifications that you um you know you you did include here as a result of that review just you know just kind of the basics so we know what it is that you're looking at specifically that um that we should be paying attention to okay well this is uh christ nider assistant director of public works i've been working uh with my staff and with a lighting consultant an expert on you know modeling the lighting that we originally proposed for the levy and we started with the existing lights on the levy between so cal and water versus this project is between water and highway one on both sides of levy and um as part of that process in working at the international dark sky the local chapter you know we made some modifications and we made further modifications after we took it to the commission and after we had that discussion so we've included a different light um that is um one that actually has been used on mission street for decorative lighting had um some very positive reviews from um international dark sky and it's a recess light it has a deep skirt uh focuses the light more linearly along the path versus the older one that we were going to use um it has uh we call a bug rating that is consistent with shuns it's a 101 which let me just think exactly what that was i had my note here to remind me oh so one is backlight there's very little backlight a zero is for the up light so there's no up light it's essentially all focused down and then a one for glare so the glare is also very limited when the modeling was done it showed that the little spill over into the river if any down to the creek park there's a little bit down the side of the levy slope but really is the best light that we could find now the the heat temperature of the light originally they had recommended 2700 we've gone down from 4000 to 3000 so we're very close uh going below 3000 we're concerned that the light or the color rendition uh isn't very good as you go further down in the heat lamp here uh a heat temperature and and that's important for uh security for people to recognize what's in front of them as well as for police in case or emergency services in the in case they need to identify that might be in trouble etc that they get the colors correct and so that's why we're going with the 3000 versus the 2700 or lower so we've made all these changes to the project they've been incorporated in the plans and the specifications and uh our intention is to go out to bid as soon as um the council approves the project uh the project's 100 grant funded through the active transportation program and um time we get uh advertised and awarded or looking at probably construction starting approximately November and depending on the supply chain issues with getting street lights you know that could happen pretty quickly or it could be delayed depending on where we are with uh with the contractor ordering the lights but November through December potentially maybe a little bit later thank you so much for that overview and all of your work this is really you know I think this is just a great example of you know how um you know consulting with uh community folks and and people who really spend a lot of time thinking about these matters um can really improve uh a project and I just really appreciate um all your work to bring this forward and with that I would go ahead and and move that um we approve the plans and specifications for the San Lorenzo riverwalk lighting project as recommended by staff um and we have the language in our agenda package thank you thank you I'll go ahead and mayor this this this hasn't been pulled anyway it's still part of consent so yeah exactly yeah this was it oh my gosh I'm so sorry this is the question yeah second time on the consent agenda I'm so sorry I'm absolutely going to support it and thank you for for everything you've done yeah I've caught that okay we have one item pulled we'll come back to that but now I'm going to take our consent items so this will be items 13 through 24 on our agenda with the exception of item number 23 and I'll go ahead and take this out to public comment okay for those who would like to comment on our consent agenda items 13 through 24 with the exception of 23 okay now it's the time for you to call in instructions will be on your screen please remember to mute your streaming device press star nine to raise your hand and listen for the cue saying that you have been unmuted all items excuse me so we'll go ahead uh I see phone number ending in 0030 press star nine you'll star nine you'll be unmuted there you go okay good afternoon this is my office on himself thank you counsel for your leadership I'm speaking this afternoon regarding a consent agenda item number 18 this has to do with exploring the impacted parking situation in the beach flat neighborhood and while I think it's important to to explore solutions to this problem I'm concerned that the language in this consent agenda item is prescriptive in that it focuses on reducing costs specifically for for the new wave of VISTA residents who are living in a 48 unit affordable housing complex that has 48 off-street parking spots beach flats overall has somewhere around 400 homes and the majority of those homes do not have any off-street parking and additionally over 75 percent of the neighborhood is rent burdened with the average average household paying upwards of 70 percent of their income on rent it's concerning if the approach to looking at the parking situation could be inequitably giving additional street parking to those who already have access to off-street parking to the detriment of the other residents in the neighborhood who don't have access to off-street parking so I just encourage you all to review this item and to change the the framework to trying to resolve the the parking the impacted parking impact and not prescribing reducing costs because costs may be lowering costs may actually be counterproductive in in resolving those situations thank you next I have caller with the phone number ending in 0581 press star 9 to unmute thank you hello sorry oh press star six to unmute sorry about that 0581 there you go you're unmuted go ahead please okay uh I wanted to um address the issue about the writeout was that item number 23 no that item is not on our agenda today so if you wanted to talk about that you would have to come back at oral communications later on this afternoon after item number 27 on our agenda it about what time might that be do you know mine did you have a comment the likely occur sometime around let me just look here sometime around six let's see here sometime around five five thirty today okay great I absolutely it'll be after item 31 on our agenda I'm sorry it's 31 and it is very likely it'll be around five or five fifteen thank you next up is caller one ending in 1810 star six to unmute please yeah this is good so as regards the meeting minutes I believe you misstated the point of my oral communication speech where I did not speak in opposition to black lives matter I spoke in opposition to this city's government that's you and its lack of judgment sanctioning of a block long BLM billboard symbol in front of city hall as well as promoting the lgbt moral agenda near with a permanent rainbow flag displayed on the pride I mean civic auditorium because it signals approval for all those movements stand for in the people's name you don't get to pick and choose whatever organizational symbols mean you endorse their whole enchilada agenda of beliefs and behaviors when approving their display on public property as was pointed out you should not promote extreme Malcolm X inspired marxist anarchist mob mob violence with the goal of the destruction of the entire institution of criminal justice or promoting the lgbt moral agenda because again the succeeds government purpose and scope you see there is a legality definition like prostitution as illegal that is within your authority but outside those deaf their moralities such as what might what some might judge as perhaps unrepentant hoarse promiscuity are for the court of public opinion and an individual's internal moral compass to decide not you not you in government to promote personal extreme controversial political agendas or morals it will using public property as propaganda for clarity as to what I said last meeting you should have stuck to look and so what happened to George Floyd and and started all that violence you did that with some police from a reform but then you went straight back to authority abuse with the unconstitutional discriminatory report ordinance and the BLM billboard one important lesson of George Floyd was he was not a victim of systemic racism because that never came up in the job and trial because it didn't exist so it is that George Floyd's death had nothing to do with his race the bigger lesson is that even a kind of low life drug addict like George Floyd and we got plenty of those here has a life as precious as anyone's and the government had best respect the lives of all its citizens not abusing authority then is the big lesson that is the government's to learn thanks you know I'm not seeing any other hands raised in concerning the consent agenda so I'm now looking for a motion on items number 13 through 24 exception of item 23 councilmember Brown I'll uh now that the time has come I will move the consent agenda with the exception of item 23 thank you and councilmember Watkins I'll second that great so we have councilmember Brown seconded by councilmember Watkins to approve the consent agenda items number 13 through 24 with the exception of 23 I'd like to ask the clerk to please call roll vote councilmember Watkins calentary johnson hi brown hi she stepped out vice mayor brunner and mayor mires hi that motion passes unanimously we'll now go back to item number 23 which for the public is the item cost of construction fee revision this is what from our public works department and I'll have christ nider this was pulled by councilmember Cummings and vice mayor brunner it's coming from members of the public so one of the first question is they were wondering how the city can allocate more um funding to the active transportation as part of the fee and I think it sounds like by ordinance uh 15 percent um this fee actually goes towards active transportation and so um they were just wanting to get some clarity on that and I got these uh like this morning so um sorry I wasn't able to ask these questions and bring this forward to see if we can find some answers for these members of the public I'm sure christ nider assistant director of public works so the traffic impact fee program when it was established um 10 years or more ago um included um a percentage on top of impact fee for alternative transportation that was 15 percent and then um but also every project that's in the traffic impact fee program also includes pedestrian bicycle improvements so at an intersection or green lanes etc those are often included in the project so the reality is the program contributes to each project or contributes about 40 percent it's active transportation the the traffic impact fee program is based on measuring impacts and the impacts are related to motor vehicles not to bikes and pedestrians and so therefore that fee that we've the 15 percent we've added on to the program is an add-on so if you want to add an additional percentage or increase you'd have to add that on top of what's being proposed already and um you know in the past we've had some discussion about you know how that would be acceptable to the development community as they pay these fees that they're you know paying above and beyond what the impacts are to their development uh at the time the 15 percent was deemed um you know acceptable as part of the community prop was done years ago to prove the traffic impact fee program i'm not sure what how that would um go now um but um it's more of a policy uh decision than what's before you now what we're talking about right now is really more administrative changes an increase in the traffic impact fee due to the cost of construction having increased 15 for the last 10 years and more even more recently we haven't raised the rate since 2012 and incorporating the downtown amendments that were approved in 2017 into the program so it's more equitable how those fees or traffic impacts are paid for overall development and then also changing our transportation study guidelines to requirements and that's related to making them more consistent across all development so again that's you know that adding on is more really a policy decision than the decision of whether it's going to you know need to go back for further discussion or not great thanks for that clarification and then the other question um in the resolution one of the warehouses mentions that um sequel guidelines that were revised on june 2020 to comply with senate bill 743 to use vehicle miles traveled as a measure of significance and analyzing uh transportation impacts has that been the model that we've been using or we started transitioning that model in terms of calculating um traffic impacts and if we are moving in that direction I guess you know have we gotten there yet or are we still kind of trying to work through that those calculations so um that legislation made vehicle miles traveled the sequel analysis for whether there are traffic impacts or not the city of hana cruise is a built out community and we're because we have green builds that control that we're doing really internal development versus external very few projects will show up with a vmt impact if any and so far we've been applying the vmt standard and we haven't seen any impacts uh or the that modeling for the vmt doesn't reflect any impacts in discussion using vmt the vmt impacts for traffic for developing fee impact you know the fees based on impacts essentially would decimate the traffic impact fee program um that legislation still allows using level of service just for fees for transportation impact fees and that's why we still have that program and that's why most communities still have it that way in discussing uh a vmt-based fee with consultants there's some communities that are making an effort to go there but it's it's unclear how successful they are and uh whether it really is solving the problems they've set out to do so I think in the future there'll be more information on that but right now it's not really something that we can use um in the program right thanks miss that's me a bird did you have questions on this item uh my question was related since this item uh we received correspondence from a member of the public and regarding this item going to the transportation commission for recommendation and I just wanted to ask about that process and um since it's seeking a fee a change to the fees sure and this again is uh more of just administrative changes to the program consistent with uh what we've done before for if there is a policy change then we take it back to the commission for review before we come to the council but at this point it's just looking at the fee and increasing the fee as a result of these two things adding the downtown amendment projects and um the cost of construction increase okay great thank you thank you Chris um I would look for a motion then for item number 23 not consent agenda which is the cost of construction mayor you need public comment oh that's right thank you I will take out item number 23 from our consent agenda for public comment is there anyone in the uh in attendees today that would like to comment on item 23 of our consent agenda please press star now star nine to raise your hand and then listen for the queue saying you've been un-muted I do see caller uh ending in number last four digit 0030 so this will be just for item 23 which is the cost of construction fee revision item go ahead please good afternoon this is ronald sondland so again uh thanks so much for uh pulling this item um I just wanted to uh uh emphasize that that uh you know it is concerning that our our fee is is based on level of service and uh and you know while you know 40% of of the funding for that could be going towards uh act transportation that's not a a requirement and um I would hope that this council if you're going to approve uh uh the fee increase that uh you really in the future um or maybe even in emotion today look at at uh at um tying that to uh investments in um alternative modes of transportation besides driving as we all know uh you know as we make improvements to uh streets like adding lanes we induce demand for vehicles and we basically eventually really never get anywhere so we are potentially spending money on on uh making fixes to uh improve our transportation that are very short term that that are not going to actually result in an improved level of service over the long term thank you is there any other members of the public that would like to speak to item number uh 23 on the consent agenda I see Kyle Kelly go ahead please hey thank you so much council um for presenting on this item um I I do want to see us take take a glance at what's going to be the right way to handle this for our climate action plan if we continue to do level of service we are continuing with car-based infrastructure and pricing car-based infrastructure and at some point on how to switch it and it is in the general plan right now for why it's level of service not vmt um it will probably send strengths to some of you since I come and speak in front in favor of doing housing but I would actually like to see the fee raised um so that we could put more money into active transportation because work work caps I see it on the commission um you know for for how much we have allocated for action um I want to get us out of out of cars as soon as possible maybe there's nothing to do today but I at least I'm glad that we've opened this conversation up thank you thank you okay I will bring it back to council uh for uh a motion council member walk happy to move item number three okay and council member brown that but I wanted to excuse me ask a question about the um the possibility of just ascending this to the transportation of public works commission um you know I support the increase I think it makes sense to try to better reflect the actual costs there um and I don't want to delay that but I also uh agree that the transportation of public works commission does um play a major role or they're they're established should play a role in um these kinds of conversations and um so I'm just wondering if the make motion would be willing to include um that with that approval that we would send uh the the issue of traffic impact fees for review and any additional recommendations to the transportation and public works commission uh for discussion and possible recommendation to the to the council in the future I'm um before I'm interested in having those go is wondering in terms of the action before us today um in regards to having that go back to that commission then and then back what Chris sir do you want to speak to that or in terms of process um sure um you know we have had uh discussions with individual uh members of the commission on the traffic impact fee program we do know that they're interested in increasing um the percentage for alternative transportation um you know it would have to be in context with all the other increases in alternative transportation I mean if you look at our capital improvement program and all the transportation grants we've been receiving they're all for active transportation uh you know we just received almost a 10 and for segment seven phase two of the rail trail um the active transportation you know is paying for the lighting on the levy and there's a number of other projects like that and we continue to also use other funding measure D is been applied to a number of projects uh SB one which is a gas tax increase that's been paying for some of the enhanced bike striping and uh access rent for um the uh paving projects etc so you know if we can bring the whole thing back the whole funding scope of how things how active transportation is paid for I think they'll see that there's a lot more out there than has been in past years and um taking uh risking this program in order to try to get more may not be advantageous for the city and maybe isn't as critical as people think right now so anyway I think it's important to prove the action now the commission will have another opportunity to put this on their agenda in the future okay I'm more comfortable with as the motion and then I don't know if council around the sort of the second part of your um friendly amendment if you will to have these you know forthcoming as discussions for the commission if that feels okay for you that that was actually what I was sorry if that wasn't clear um I'm having an issue with clarity today for some reason um that the that we would approve this today and then um refer the the overall issue that it appears that at least some members of the Transportation and Public Works Commission are interested in having a conversation at the commission level so the the addition is really to suggest that in addition to adopting the resolution you know as stated here in the staff recommendation to um refer to ask an and Public Works Commission to review uh traffic impact fees and other um in the context of alternative transportation funding and make recommendations as they see fit so this is this is in addition to what the staff recommendation today the reason that I'm I'm suggesting this is because um you know I think I heard you say Chris that there will be other opportunities for the Transportation and Public Works Commission to to look at this and I just want to make sure that happens and I know that they don't necessarily have ability to set their agenda in the same way that um the council does so um I'm just wanting to make sure that there's space for that or that the council would or to see if the if council members would support the Transportation and Public Works Commission having an agenda item like that and possibly making additional recommendation to us for the future so that was my intention I'm just gonna ask Tony um Tony I is this is this a little out of the realm of the item as its agenda I I feel like first of all I feel like the second part of the motion needs to be clarified because it was kind of a conversation than a motion um I saw what was on the screen as uh you know as a motion and I I think that the council could direct that an item be uh sent to the Transportation and Public Works Commission for further analysis but I just think it needs to be clear what uh specific direction it is. What I heard from you Chris and what I think I'm hearing from you also um Councilor Brown is that um you can go ahead and move forward with the action before us today but in the future uh within a broader context of um other sort of alternatives to transportation um that we could have the Commission that um sort of the holistic approach and and kind of weigh in at that at that level um but I but I I don't want to direct something that doesn't feel clearer or or necessary or appropriate as as related to this item also. Yeah and there has been some discussion uh when we take the capital improvement program to the the commissions every year um not only for their recommendations prior to council adoption of the budget but also uh when we do updates uh to the commission so there's been some opportunity for that and at some time depending on staff resources I can't commit to it because I'm going to be gone pretty soon uh but uh somebody will be working on this program and uh they will can you know have there's always that potential to have it scheduled for the commission as a individual item it's definitely doable. Great um maybe just maybe given the um the kind of overall um the sentiment of the council and kind of seeing this move forward in some way as appropriate I don't know if it necessarily needs to be part of the motion but just in general kind of wanting to see that engagement I wonder if that works for the council at this time. And I'll say that staff has heard you. Okay great great that's great thanks. Okay um we will so the motion stands um to um uh approve agenda item 23 which is cost of construction fee revision there's a motion by council member Watkins seconded by council member Brown and I'd like to go ahead and ask for a roll call vote. So council member Watkins. Aye. Calentary Johnson. Aye. Brown. Aye. Golder is absent um coming. Aye. Vice Mayor Brunner. Aye. And Mayor Myers. Aye. That motion passes unanimously. Okay next up is next up is our consent public hearing these are items 25 and 26 on our agenda for the public who are streaming this meeting if you want to comment on items 25 or 26 now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen. All items will be acted upon in one motion unless an item is pulled by a council member for further discussion. This is item number 25 and 26 and for the public number 25 is the second reading and final adoption of ordinance number 21 20-21 2021-15 municipal code amendments relating to 80 new units responding to modifications requested by the coastal commission and item number 26 is the second reading and final adoption of ordinance number 20-16 amending chapter 13.04.011 of the Santa Cruz municipal code related to London Nelson Community Center. Are there any council members who wish to pull an item from the consent public hearing item or consent public hearing today? I am not seeing any. Go ahead and take us out to the public for comments. If there are any members of the public that would like to speak to any consent public hearing item now is the time to do so please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand when it is your time to speak you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted the timer will then be set to two minutes. Are there any members of the public who would like? I'm not seeing any hands so I will bring it back to the council for a motion. Council member Cummings? I'll move the consent public hearing items 25 and 26. And council member Watkins? I'll second that. We have a motion to approve our consent public hearing items number 25 and 26. Motion by council member Cummings seconded by council members Watkins. I'd like to ask for the clerk for a roll call vote please. Council member Watkins? I. Calentary Johnson? I. Cummings. Council member Boulder still gone Vice Mayor Brunner had to step away. Mayor Myers? I. That motion passes unanimously. Item number 27 on our agenda today has been continued to a special meeting scheduled for Tuesday, August 31, 2021 at 4.30pm. That item will not be discussed today. I'm going to adjourn for about 10 minutes and we will reconvene at 3.15 just to give council members a brief break to get up and stretch. So for those members in the public we will be coming back on item number 28 which is introduced for publication in ordinance amending chapter 13.40 of the municipal code related to parks and recreation departments at the Dofts of Park program. So we'll be back at 3.15 to go ahead and do that item. Thanks everybody. Go ahead and get started for the public. We are now on item number 28 on our agenda and that is to introduce for publication and ordinance amending chapter 13.40 of the municipal code related to the parks and recreation departments adopted park program. For members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an I want to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen. The order will be a presentation of the item by staff followed by questions from council. We will then take public comment and then return to the council for deliberation and action. So I'll go ahead and call up Joni Elliott our director of parks and recreation and this is for item number 20 introduced for publication and ordinance amending chapter 13.40 of the Santa Cruz municipal code related to park adoption. All right. Thank you mayor for the record. Tony Elliott parks and recreation director and I will share my screen for a short presentation here. Can you see my screen? Yes, we can. All right. Great. Thank you. Well, it's nice to talk about this today on a day that we were able to recognize council members for your volunteerism out at main beach. So just quickly thank you again for everybody's participation. On this topic of volunteerism, we have a proposal for the city council today which is a request to consider proposed amendments to the Santa Cruz municipal code chapter 13.40 regarding the parks direct department adopted park program. So the I'll move through this pretty quickly here but just a little bit of background to start. So the adopted park program was developed in 2017 to create a community groups, schools, organizations and individuals to partner with the parks and recreation department on the installation or maintenance of parks, park amenities, landscaping and facilities at city parks or areas of responsibility by the parks and recreation department. Currently, the department has eight park adoption agreements or eight park adopters and we have an additional three that are pending. These groups work on activities ranging from pulling weeds to laying down mulch to maintaining trails and planting native plants. So just to name a couple examples. And adoptive park activities take place throughout the city park system at a range of spaces. And just to name a few the San Lorenzo River Levy, the Riverwalk area, Grant Park, De La Viega trails, Pilkington Creek over on the east side and many many others. So I just want to cover quickly what the program does, what the adopted park program does and what it does not do. And so this won't be fully comprehensive but just a bit of a snapshot in terms of what the program does. So in the context of the adoptive park program all work done by years must be in line with work that the department would do and that work is in accordance with master plans with various plans and procedures, policies, not the least of which are different site-specific resource management plans, park-specific management plans, for example. So all work has to be really what department staff would do and no more. Adds capacity to the parks and recreation department and allows a meaningful way for residents to get involved in parks and rec. All of our adopted park agreements begin with a work plan. So before any group gets started we develop a work plan so that staff and volunteers can develop clear goals and ensure that volunteers have the capacity and the skills and the commitment needed to become a park adopter. Quickly I just want to cover what the program doesn't do and this was kind of a topic of discussion our parks and rec commission meeting on this topic. The program does not give any unique authority to volunteer groups and it does not provide any sort of autonomy to groups just to take action as they see fit. So I think that again that's important. The work that is done has to be based on an agreed upon work plan and is not anybody any specific benefits in terms of doing what work they want to do specifically. The program is structured so that all park adopters enter into an agreement with parks and rec based on the work plan that I mentioned and again in accordance with master plan different master plans and management plans. And finally the program does not grant exclusivity so multiple groups can volunteer along the river walk for example. So this would not give rights to one group just simply to take over or adopt the entire river for example you get on multiple groups. Those amendments before the city council today include removing language related to donations and or sponsorships as a qualifier for park adoptions. Both the department and the city have separate donations and sponsorship policies for these purposes. In the council's packet I shared some examples of really robust sponsorship programs that we are looking to develop something similar. So rather than have complete sponsorship or donation language in the adopt the park code we want to really separate that and that'll be something that we bring back in the future in terms of potential sponsorship policy. The other proposed amendment is related to the approval of our adoptive park agreement. So the current language is not necessarily clear but has been interpreted to give the commission the parks and recreation commission the review and approve park adoption agreements. So the proposal before council is to amend the language to clarify that approval authority reside with the department and the purpose of this is to ensure that the adoptive park program is effectively administered but also efficient in our process. So when volunteers are interested we want to engage them in an efficient way to keep them interested and get them engaged. We do see a lot of instances of what we often refer to as vigilante volunteerism throughout the park system and so in our effort to make the adoptive park program our effort really is to make the adopt park program very approachable and very streamlined for prospective volunteers and therefore hoping to avoid some of that sort of rogue tierism that we often see which a lot of times is not in line with master plans or management plans throughout the city. So staff will recommend that the ordinance language be amended so that adoptive park agreements may be approved administratively within the department. The parks and recreation commission voted four to three to support these changes. The primary concerns among the commission members who voted against the changes included fears about the autonomy of some of the groups and the lack of over potential lack of oversight. They worried about a lack of expertise among volunteers and the need for clear criteria upon which volunteers are evaluated in order to become and remain part. So in response to a lot of these concerns staff updated the associated administrative procedure order the APO which is included with your packet to include a few things that we included a lot more detailed criteria for park adoption agreements. We also amended the initial term of all adoptive park agreements to six months so that we could effectively evaluate the work product after six months rather than giving groups a full year to start. So if they're approved after that six months we could extend that from one year or more. Additionally staff created an appeals process in the ordinance language so that volunteers who are denied or who may be denied being a park adopter by the department they can appeal to the parks and recreation commission. So we wanted to hear these concerns from the commission again clarify that again this does not grant groups exclusivity or any unique authority or autonomy. So we wanted to clarify that and again we modified the associated APO that goes with this ordinance and those criteria both for approvals but criteria upon which we could use to potentially deny applications and the commission could use those same criteria to evaluate any denials that come before them in the form of an appeal. So finally as currently established by the APO staff will continue to provide an annual report to the parks and recreation commission on the adoptive park program and so today staff recommends that the city council hold first reading on the amended changes but we're happy to answer any questions that you may have in the meantime. Thank you. Thank you Tony for that report. I will go ahead and open this up for questions from city council at this time. I'm sorry I'm managing my barking dog here real quick here. Councilmember Brown. Thank you Tony for the report and for working on this process here and the procedures have been interesting to navigate and having been involved in one of these situations where there's a little bit of rogue activity happening and we're trying to actually make that more collaborative with the city and you know really really track with the specific goals for that that repairing area. I'm really glad to see this happening. I know that the commissioners did have some concerns and so I've heard from a couple of folks about this and I just wanted to ask the question so we can maybe hear from you about how you are anticipating recognizing that there's an appeals process for folks who want to adopt a park and may not get approved. How and that nobody has you know sole ownership over sites. How you see kind of navigating any potential differences community differences with you know there's obviously even within the parameters that we have some interpretation and you know so there's gray areas and there may be conflicts and I'm just wondering how you're thinking about approaching that would those also be directed to the commission or like if it gets trickier would it go to the commission or or what are you thinking about how that how that approach should it arise. Yeah that's a that's a great question. I think it really starts to the best of our ability in sort of an upstream way so when we enter into our work plans with volunteer groups we want to make sure it's really clear from the front end and so I think any sort of discrepancy you know whether it's in a certain area should we plant only natives should we plant you know variety of other plants how should we contain we do see those disagreements or different interpretations pretty frequently but what we can do again on the front end of any of these is make sure that in those work plans how we are guiding any adopters is consistent so that the expectation is really the same from the front end. Now if that work plan again if a group deviates from that work plan then we're going to have to have conversations with that group because we've got to stay in alignment with that and that would reflect different resource management plans and and so forth. But yeah certainly you know where we have parks or properties that are a little more open to interpretation on how they should be maintained again I think it would really start with the work plan internally and again evaluating a group's capacity but just setting those expectations up front and I think if we did have conflicts that arise for some reason I think we would first try to address that internally as part of our process but we absolutely would engage the commission in that process most likely through the context of our annual report to say we found a problem or we found some issue that's coming up and so maybe we need to we need to modify our APO or make adjustments from there so that's reporting back to them so they can have that oversight of how is this working what are the outcomes and you know what and what's our engagement are we are we involving more groups as well. Great thank you I just have one one quick follow-up to that I really appreciate it just and I don't want to volunteer her but you do have one commissioner who is particularly skilled and knowledgeable around you know native vegetation and Jane Mio who many of you know through her own work and and so and she was really helpful to me and you know to our group in you know doing a bit of a review of what we were looking at and what what existed so I don't want to volunteer her but I would say that she's an amazing resource and if there's a way to you know as keep kind of trying to make these proposals if it seems appropriate to you know get them access to that expertise if and so I'm just you know I don't know that that would be a formal thing but just just really wanting to to recognize her the role that she played a critical role that she's played and the really helpful role for you know at least in my experience and certainly on the on the river the San Lorenzo River so if there's a way to kind of use that resource too and your it might help you as well with your you know I know you're understaffed and and always overburdened so anyway just just a thought and I know that it's it's a work in progress and absolutely want to support as you move forward. Yeah just to briefly follow up on that yeah Jane who's our Parks and Recreation Commission chair and also a volunteer lead for many different groups I'm not sure how she does it all but she's an incredible resource and somebody that we look to a lot in fact if I just quickly may offer a shameless plug for Jane Jane is working down at the bench lands right now not today specifically but working with a group down there on stewardship along the the river in the bench lands so working with individuals living down on the bench lands right now and so that's kind of an extension of the downtown streets team stewardship program but we are absolutely you know squeezing everything out of Jane as we can because she's a great a great leader and we appreciate her skills and she's proven to be a great leader and she she has at least one outstanding park adoption proposal or agreement with us that she's eager to get moving forward so we're hopeful that with these amendments that we can get her on board and and doing some pretty great stuff. Thanks. Is there any other questions from council members at this point? Okay I'll go and take it out the public comment then if you're interested in commenting on item number 28 on today's agenda that's an ordinance amending the municipal code related to the parks and recreation department's adoptive park program please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand at this time when it is your time to speak we'll hear an announcement that you have been unmuted the timer will then be set to two minutes I'm looking at our attendees and I'm not seeing anyone here so I'll go ahead and bring this back to council for either further questions or would look to a motion at this time member called Tari Johnson and council member Watkins thank you Tony and team for bringing this I would like to make a motion to approve staff's recommendation so I need to read no we're good on that and council member Watkins I'll go ahead and second that motion okay we have by council member commentary Johnson seconded by council member Watkins to introduce your publication and ordinance amending chapter 13.40 of the municipal code related to the parks and recreation department's adoptive park program Bonnie can we do a roll call vote please council member Watkins calendar Johnson boulder vice mayor Brunner and mayor Meyers aye that motion was unanimously thank you Tony great program okay next up we have item number 29 on our agenda which is the permanent outdoor seating program update and direction for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an item you want to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen the order will be a presentation of the item by staff followed by questions from the council we will then take public comment and then return to the council for deliberation and action I'll go ahead and turn this over to Rebecca unit our economic development manager welcome Rebecca so good afternoon thank you for having us and uh we'll turn over to Bonnie to give a brief introduction of this item brish thanks Rebecca and good afternoon mayor and members with the council um I just wanted to introduce the item and acknowledge that we have received a fair number of uh communications from members of the public impacted businesses and um in reading through the recommendation we realized that particularly um for what he as it relates to private spaces we are recommending that we extend the temporary period for outdoor seating in private spaces as well for the same time period to the end of december 2022 um the nuance that we were trying to communicate and we'll clarify in the presentation is that additionally we want to provide some outreach to those spaces in private spaces to clarify and look closely at um any sort of code requirements for those spaces that are a little different in private spaces than when we're looking specifically at parking that are in the public spaces and so one of the challenges that we've had in looking at that door seating program um is that we have our managing of these permits on an emergency temporary basis and so in looking at a capacity standpoint of how to move forward we've been trying to categorize to the extent possible those that fit certain certain criteria and so by focusing on the public areas specifically the public spaces those upset criteria and so we're able to sort of look at those as a group when we look at the private spaces those have different set of criteria that's in the existing code and so what we want to be able to do in the coming month is one on one sit down with those businesses and be able to give them feedback on those spaces and help them through facilitate the process for them if they're interested during this extended year uh it basically ordinance period to provide some assistance for them to go through the administrative use process so i just wanted to clarify that because I think we unintentionally in the staff report did lack some clarity in that area and when Rebecca follows up with the presentation you'll see the change that we're proposing in the recommendation as it relates to that for private spaces and with that i'll turn it over to Rebecca. All right thank you very much so today we are presenting an update on our permanent outdoor dining program progress as well as a request for direction from the city council so our sort of agenda for this presentation is a snapshot of the current temporary outdoor dining program going over some of the outright outreach and feedback that we have received and then covering sort of the two paths to permanence specifically for parklets on public property and then also the upper dining that we have on private property and then our staff recommendation for your consideration. A brief overview of sort of the timeline of outdoor dining in the city of Santa Cruz. We in 1991 the city actually created the sidewalk dining that you see downtown on Pacific Avenue as part of the downtown recovery plan following the earthquake that was very successful and in as parklets became a thing with San Francisco sort of leading the charge in that and a lot of our downtown businesses wanted to be able to take advantage of those expansions into on-street parking. We created a pilot parklet program and we had two businesses that took advantage of that that's Hula's and loop below downtown. In 2017 the city did formalize that program as part of some of the downtown plan updates but we didn't really take a lot of the steps that we needed to do and making that really feasible for businesses to take advantage of so we still now in 2021 only have those two businesses operating permanent parklets and then we came to March 2020 with the pandemic and coronavirus shelter in place orders and we saw a significant interruption to business activity and in June 2020 the city council responded to the impacts of businesses and created our temporary outdoor expansion programs through the city manager's executive orders and that allowed for outdoor dining and retail displays on sidewalks, alley, street closures and private property. In December 2020 we extended this current executive order to October 2021 and that was it also was very beneficial when the state enacted the regional stay home order which shut down businesses again after we had had some reopening happening. In June 2021 just a few months ago the council again extended our emergency ordinance through the end of this year December 31st 2021 and now in August just a couple months later and things have changed again with the Delta variant increases and concerns to those impacts of businesses and with the mask mandate now in effect as well. So it's sort of a timeline of where we're at and how this program has evolved and some circumstances we've been dealing with and so I just want to dig a little bit deeper into some of those pre-pandemic outdoor dining programs just to set the context for sort of how we've been operating currently and where this comes into play in the future plans for permanent. So pre-pandemic we have been operating an outdoor extension area program is what it's called in the code and this is our permanent sidewalk dining. This is allowed citywide however a majority of these sidewalk dining licenses and permits are in our downtown. We have 21 of these licenses and those are all the sidewalk dining that you see on Pacific Avenue and then we also have some of these in the Beach Street area and then as I mentioned we have our outdoor curb extension areas which are more commonly referred to as parklets. This was created as a pilot program and there's some policy and sort of fee restructuring that we need to do to make this really an accessible program and then we've also had a private property after and this has done really through the planning and building and safety reviews and this is you know private property it's allowed citywide as long as businesses meet what's required in the code and findings for those permits and so now for our current pandemic outdoor dining program we have the temporary outdoor expansion. This allows free temporary permits this is a very very quick and dirty sort of permit process for businesses to give them that real emergency response needs that they experienced through the pandemic. As part of this we're allowing the you know use of public sidewalks alleyways, parklets, private property dining areas. We've also have the two street closures and then we have we've also allowed retail service and fitness uses on public and private property to address some of those business closures that impact that were impacted on the pandemic. And then as Bonnie mentioned we have 96 current permit holders as part of the temporary program sort of breaks down to 37 parklets 34 of these permits are on private property, 13 are on the sidewalk or alleyways and 12 of those are sort of fitness or retail related. We actually saw a lot of our gyms take advantage of this in response to some of those indoor closures which is really nice to see. And then just to give you a sort of geographic spread of where we're seeing these permits taking place a lot of the concentration has really been in the downtown and the significant parklet expansion in the downtown. But we've also seen a lot of private property uses on the east side and the west side of Santa Cruz and seeing a lot of our restaurants and wineries and breweries being able to expand into their property spaces. And then also just to note we have 96 permits and we have had five business closures. What in you know any business closure is extremely devastating but I think it also speaks to just the power and impact of this program being able to be a lifeline for businesses and helping them to you know keep moving forward through all the setbacks. And as I mentioned we have our cat car closure in front of Kula's and Lupalo and Spokesman and this has been a really well received space and given them a lot of greatly needed extra dining area. And then our full block closure on the 1100 block and this is just a new photo for you of some of the expanded platforms and parklets that a lot of the businesses have put together as they're really taking ownership of that space and doing some fun things. We've received as we've been planning for permanent outdoor dining we've been working a lot internally as well as with the business community as well as some of our partners in different jurisdictions around the Bay Area. We've attended a lot of the downtown associations recovery subcommittee meetings to get feedback from you guys and then had some one-on-one conversations with businesses. So first and foremost I think we feel that both internally and externally times of the essence and capacity is extremely limited so we know that our businesses are struggling to hire and retain their staff. We know just with everything the emergency response that we're doing internally at the city that you know capacity is limited there and also just being able to kind of business and then make these decisions that they need to make to be able to make investments or follow along with the city processes you want to be really respectful and mindful of everything that they have on their plate. And then the supply chain impacts we're really seeing this have an effect on all layers of permanent outdoor dining in our communication with some of our colleagues over the hill and other jurisdictions that are maybe a little bit further along in this process. We're seeing impacts on sourcing materials such as planters and lumber and all the different elements that you need to make the outdoor dining actually happen. And then we are also experiencing this in terms of the design professionals and contractors and you know all the construction pieces of bringing this together as well. All of those professionals are really busy and have long wait lists to do the work so that's challenging on both sides of developing the plans and also getting them built and completed. And then as we're experiencing now the COVID-19 continues to be really uncertain and just seeing the increase in the Delta variant in those impact businesses something that we're continuing to navigate. It's been over a year of this program and so it just changes every month what the different dynamics are at play. So with all that in mind and just what we've been doing internally and reviewing sort of the current temporary parklets that we have out there, we're working towards some goals for the permanent parklet program so this is those on-street dining areas and public parking spaces. And really our major goals are creating consistency of design, improving safety, and being in standards. So right now with the very temporary nature of our program, businesses have sort of adapted how best they can and with the limited funds that they have. So there's a lot of differences in the types of platforms being used or businesses might not even have any sort of wooden platform in the streets and then differences in terms of like the furniture and shade coverings and lighting and different things like that. So looking at all of those, trying to find consistency and some real s