and collaboration in tackling the most serious issue our cities faced in pursuit of affordable housing and fair practices in the provision of rental housing? Starting fresh would be a great approach, taking that deep breath, seeing that big picture, involving interested parties from all sides of the issue who are experts in providing housing, as well as those who seek it. Fresh means fresh, not using an already overwhelmingly defeated measure to guide us. Voters said no once, so why revisit what was already defeated? Consensus and collaboration, are we capable of it? Absolutely, I believe we are. Will we do this correctly for all parties involved and not just the most vocal anti-establishment ones who shout and click and declaim? This council has an opportunity to earn back the trust of the very citizens whom you represent. You have experts ready, willing and able who are knowledgeable about providing housing. Use these resources, ask us to help, facilitate a civil discussion, and an agreeable outcome will follow. The starting fresh is key. Consensus and collaboration can bring about healing to this divisiveness. Please hear us and work to develop consensus. Thank you. Thank you. Before you begin, is there any other member of the audience interested in addressing the council at this time about this item? Okay, you'll be our last speaker if that's okay. Okay, go ahead. My name is Neil Langholds. The rental housing task force appears to be on the wrong track before it even begins. Do the majority of voters know that the task force appears to be setting out to prove that the rejected measure M is the right solution? Why are we ignoring 62% of the voters that don't want measure M? Trying to pretend that only a few small details need to be changed is disingenuous. Changing a few details will not make it so that just cause evictions don't restrict homeowners freedom to do what they like to do with their homes. Least end dates need to be enforceable. Anything less will continue to destabilize the rental housing supply. With the failure of Proposition 10, it should be very, very clear that rent control will not work for a majority of the renters in Santa Cruz. It also won't work for future renters or any renters that move since rents are unlimited on all rental housing when people move. This picture is very clear now that Proposition 10 failed. The council should be careful in setting renter expectations. The council and staff need to need a reset. The task force should look at a menu of options to solve the affordable housing shortage, not force overwhelmingly rejected measure M on the city. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. I think to say that somebody that is a landlord doesn't care about housing for people is for the most part disingenuous. A lot of the rental property in this county is owned by people who have been small business people who have not had retirement money coming from government or from a corporation. And owning rental property has been the basis of their retirement. When we start making things difficult in terms of flexibility, you are creating another subclass of people that are victims and victimizing somebody else doesn't necessarily solve the problem. What I think that needs to focus on is how we can create systems where people that can afford to own do. Maybe it's a restructuring of how things are financed. Maybe it's creating some version of a co-op, some version of the legal structure of a mobile home park is set up, the ones that are owned. But we need to broaden out to solve the problems. It's not just about protecting a few people. I have a friend who is a section eight person who's just gotten a notice that she has to move. I'm hearing from the federal government that funding for section eight is going to change and there's going to be less of it. So we've got more coming in the pike. The changes in the septic system laws are going to make a lot of the properties in the San Lorenzo Valley less able to be rented or even to be sold. So we've got more stuff coming in addition to that. So I want the task force. Thank you. Okay, next speaker. I want to speak in favor of the proposal for a tenant protection task force. And let's be clear that anyone who can afford to rent out another property besides the one they reside in is almost a millionaire in Santa Cruz County. If they own two properties, they're definitely a millionaire. And the people who are tenants have no protection by and large month to month. Most of the people I know are not on any kind of extended lease. If that happens at all, it's for the first year. So I just want you to be mindful when this task force goes forward that the tenants in Santa Cruz currently have no protection due to the decision not to pass a temporary just cause measure. The exorbitant rent increase ordinance does not protect tenants because landlords can simply evict the tenant arbitrarily and then raise the rent beyond the limit. So it really does not provide any rent stabilization. So any proposal that the task force considers, there has to be some form of control regulation of the reasons for eviction, just cause eviction. And I want to make it clear also that Prop 10 did pass in the city. So voters in the city did not reject rent control over and over at the door. I heard I'm for rent control, just not this measure. And there's one or two things that I would change and then I'd be for rent control. So if that was true, I hope those people will come out again and speak for the type of rent control they favor. But I think that people need to be realistic that the loophole where a landlord can simply arbitrarily evict a tenant for no reason and then raise the rent to whatever level they desire, that's not rent control. Thank you. Okay. Hello, my name is Sherry Sherry Peterson and I've spoken to several of you before. Well, she just touched on a subject that rang a bell to me, I wasn't thinking of it, but I became homeless four and a half years ago when my landlord smashed into the side of my car that manager of Redwood Commons and she was drunk on chemotherapy and doing meth. So the police came and it was a hit and run but I got evicted and I lost my voucher, I lost my $1,000 deposit that's never gonna be returned to me and I'm the one in the street. I'm legally blind, I'm in my 70s, I shouldn't be in the street. It's really scary to hear. I'm delighted to hear you're finally addressing housing, praise the Lord, but I'm scared that this guy's gonna gather data for a year and a half and where am I gonna be? Waiting in the corner or, you know what, I mean, what about providing shelter now? What about housing now? What about housing? The university dumped 10,000 people on us, what about housing now? We're behind in building housing and that housing at the end of the Pacific over there being my friends were watching it going up, going, oh, we might live there. And now they paid whatever small fee it was to not have to have old people like me or homeless people in there and so they all rent to rich people and you keep renting to rich people, like the sixth story place that's gonna go up is all for rich people and it's really depressing. You know, am I ever gonna live inside and this guy's gonna decide in the database where does that leave me besides the gutter? I'm glad my son provided me a van to live in. I'm glad I have someone who loves me that lets me stay there. You know, I'm grateful for that because I've been waiting for the city to move on something. Thank you. Hello. Thank you for your time. Thank you. All right, thank you to the community for coming out and speaking to us and addressing us on this topic. It's now time for us to return to the council for action and deliberation. Is there an interest in a motion to be made? Council Member Brown? Just a couple of comments and then I'm ready to make a motion. First of all, I wanna thank the public for sticking to the topic at hand and not doing another postmortem on measure M for us today. I really appreciate that. I wanna thank staff for your considerable efforts to bring us this task force proposal, to move us forward on a set of issues that we all know have generated significant and contentious debate within our community and to do that in a timely and responsive way with a whole lot of demands from this council. And I am really pleased that staff has identified CCP as a third party academic institution that can guide us through this process. I truly hope this approach will engender a high level of trust among all stakeholders and the public in general. I understand the concerns expressed about using measure M as a point of departure and I agree with that wholeheartedly. I don't see the CCP proposal to engage with stakeholders in establishing this task force as an overt effort to bring back measure M and nor do I see consideration of tenant protections including but not limited to just cause eviction as an intention to circumvent the will of the voters. So with that, I would like to move the staff recommendation and I believe I could just leave it at that but I am happy to reiterate it if you would all, I can reiterate it if you'd like. I'll second it, too. Okay, so. Okay, so we have a second it. Okay, so I can reiterate it but it's right there on the screen and we have it in our public documents though. Okay, so we have a motion by council member Brown to move the recommendation provided by staff, second by council member Myers and then council member Matthews did you, I saw you raise your hand earlier, did you have? You know, I'm just going to add, I appreciate that the recommendation is broad. I think that's good. The principals, the community has heard the range of opinions and walk on water please. Okay, is there any further comment at this time or are we ready to move to item? Council member Governe? Thank you. I, so thank you to the community members that came to speak. Thank you to staff for putting together and thank you to our representative from CCP for coming into Santa Cruz. I do support the staff recommendation so I'm really happy to see that the motion was made and seconded. I was curious, I just want to put it on the record for some potential data to, that I would be interested in seeing incorporated into the analysis of what's going on. You can take it or leave it. One is the costs for landlords over the last five years or increase in costs with regards to taxes, mortgage payments, all those kinds of things that would be used as a reason for increasing rent. Rent raises for landlords or rent increases put together by landlords as far as the rent increases that were associated with those properties. Then also looking at the length of tenancy before the tenants are moved out and also the rise or drop in wages over the city in the last two to five years, which would be really interesting to see in there. And then also just to respond to some of the things I want to appreciate, especially Barbara and Curtis for their wonderful statements of positivity and love and compassion and coming together in empathy. I did also want to point out and respond to a couple of things that were mentioned that caught my ear. One of them was the talk about democracy and trying to circumvent democracy by having a process with a third party contractor to come in and have the discussion and incorporating the concepts or thinking about Measure M. I don't believe it's in there specifically Measure M but looking at different aspects of stuff. However, it's constantly brought up that it was defeated by a vast majority. I think it's important to show that according to the numbers that were reported by the people today, that would leave 48% of people in the community that did support Measure M or some form of renters protections and rent control. So it's important that we have equity in the representation of what's going on. And then also just on that topic of democracy, I would really bring up the issue of money that played in this last selection and really start to ask ourselves on a policy level within the city, if it's possible to limit the amount of money that comes in from outside the area because the vast amount of money that was spent on the opposition to Measure M was funded from outside funding sources and did contain a lot of, in my opinion, half truths that led people to some strange notions, including of which was mentioned by, just as an example of something that's kind of concerning to me, is that the claim that was made twice so far that Prop 10 failed in Santa Cruz, one of that by Ms. Renshaw made that claim. And it's really disconcerting to have that claim be made on the record when it is completely false if you look at the data. So I just want to emphasize that and put that forward. I do appreciate this and I'll be supporting the recommendation. Okay, we'll go ahead and maybe call the vote unless there's any further discussion or deliberation at this time. Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. Okay. Yes. So we have our first of three study sessions on local government finance and trends. I just want to acknowledge that we are over the estimated timeline. So likely that will have to be shortened just a touch in order to get a short break and return as best as possible at seven p.m. So, yeah. Honor and bounce. Honor and bounce, yeah. So we'll go ahead and ask Marcus. Yeah, thank you. Is Marcus here? Okay. I'm gonna give my heads up to your approach. Wait, I don't think he answers. Oh, okay. There he is. He gives the time to give us standing ovation. Please. That's fine. Just, I just can't do it. You can go back to what you think. Let's be saddled with the responsibility. It's something we can all agree on. All right. It's awesome. Thank you. Here's a half a million right there. Got a lot of money. Okay. So we'll go ahead and ask that. We're gonna move on to the next agenda item. So if you can move your conversations to the outside and we're gonna go ahead and move on. So if you could keep your conversations down or move them outside, please, that would be much appreciated. Thank you. Okay. So Marcus, I apologize. We had a longer consent agenda session than anticipated and we will likely have to cut your presentation short and hopefully elements that aren't touched upon today could be incorporated in part two. Perfect. Okay, thank you very much. You anticipate going to maybe 6.15? I anticipate 6.15 or 6.30 at the latest. How about I focus on painting broad strokes and there's some detail that we can come back. This is the first of three study sessions so we can hold off on the detail and just focus on broad strokes. Take a note of any questions you might have and follow up in the next two study sessions. Thank you very much. Marcus Pimentel, your finance director. I'm here today with Tracy Cole, our principal management analyst, new to us in the role of a budget person. Congratulations. Thanks. We had planned a tag team. I might just plow through it just to go for a speech. Thank you very much. Marcus. So why we're here tonight is the first of three study sessions. A, we certainly have some new council members who are very familiar with our community so a lot of this shouldn't shock you. And B, we have a budget process that's starting off. Staff have already been working on their budget proposals and reduction scenarios and what if ideas. Beginning in May we'll have a one day budget hearing and the end of May we'll be presenting the proposed budget for adoption and the budget will be released in April. And over the next couple of months we have a lot more community engagement and public hearings to get through. So tonight's just setting the stage very high level about what's to come. You've probably all heard or seen we're not in the greatest financial forecast position and it's not just us. This is a statewide issue. There's nothing unique that we're doing to cause this. There are major influences that we'll be talking about. And I'll repeat them again. Local government, the economy's been in a boom cycle or certainly a recovery cycle for well over a good decade. We haven't seen that same level recovery cycle and there's a couple of predominant themes. Mandated costs are going up that we've talked a lot about like a pension, pension costs. And revenue isn't behaving like it should be. Investment returns have been stagnant at one or 2% rates for over a decade where investment returns used to be at 4%. Sales tax isn't acting like it used to in recovery periods. We're seeing three, four, or 5% growth but not six, seven, eight, nine, 10% growth. Property tax is doing okay. That's a stable predictable source. But some of our bases are shrinking. Utility users tax, some of the base is starting to be chewed on on the ends with streaming videos. So there's things happening and that require state wide reforms. We've been active with statewide legislative committees talking about those reforms, but they're still years away. So until those reforms are in place, we keep seeing revenue acting differently because of a disruptive new economy where people are spending their money differently. We also believe that there's credibility that our 10-year recovery cycle will eventually end. All things do come to an end. We're soon gonna be the longest recovery period ever. As noted by this next slide, we're in the number two position since 1845, we're 1854. We've not seen a recovery period last longer than 10 years beginning to end and we're getting close to that longevity point. That alone doesn't mean that, hey, at 10 years it stops but it does mean we're in uncharted territory. Most recovery periods are about five, six years. So we are in uncharted territory, we're close to. And there are a lot of things while national economists are saying, hey, jobs are great, unemployment's low. So this thing could keep chugging along regionally and certainly in our state there's bigger issues with cost of housing, debt costs, interest rates going up with the changes that the Fed is doing. And the fact that 70% of our economy is based on consumer spending, once consumers start being constricted, they act really quickly. Unlike businesses that might invest and plan for long-term, consumers will stop spending quickly. So we're concerned about a lot of factors that we believe it to be credible that California, if not this area, might see a slow down coming in the next year or so. Pension, so I mentioned some of the, one of the biggest changes we've seen where we're in a 10-year recovery period doesn't, I can repeat that over and over again, yet we're seeing increased in pension costs. We've not seen this before in a recovery period. In recovery periods, pension costs stay stable or even go down. We've not seen one where we're poised to double again our pension payments. From 2012 to what we're making today, we're paying five million more a year in the general fund. It's five million more a year for the same benefit. We have an enhanced benefit, in fact, we've reduced them. That's five million more a year just gone. In five more years, it'll be another five. So we'll have doubled twice our pension payments during an economic recovery period, largely because CalPERS has not been hitting their investment targets over the last 10 years. What this chart shows you is, there's a pie chart there with a big red box and a smaller black box. The big red box shows that they are underfunded by 29%. They have 71% of the funding they believe they need to date. If they had just followed the market or what they've done in the past with investment returns, they'd be fully funded and we wouldn't be seeing any increases in these last five years and going forward for the next five years. So the underlying issue is CalPERS hasn't hit their investment targets. When they don't hit their investment targets, where the backfill? Because they went old for conservative for reasons that they made on their own hand, they put more pressure on member agencies to make up the difference. So members throughout the whole state are feeling the same level of pain. Again, we haven't seen this ever before or in a recovery period investments aren't hitting their marks and they're passing those shortfalls on to us. That's new to us and it's very big, very significant. We talked a little bit about the disruptive economy and at all levels you see it.  We're spending money on services, not buying trinkets. You can buy your, my latest one, you can buy your tax software at Costco, but if you downloaded this non-taxable, there's so many different things consumers are choosing to do that are taking it out of a taxable space. We're buying services that are non-taxable instead of goods. The demographics are changing. We're becoming an older country where we're spending more money on healthcare and not taxable goods. So just a lot of things are happening where the base of taxable goods is shrinking, the market of taxable goods is shrinking and the state tax system has not come up to those reforms. There have been a lot of discussions over the last three years, a lot of discussions, but there hasn't been really a clear message that something's gonna come. You can take that and apply that to gas tax and utility users tax. Gas tax might be a great story, right? Fuel consumption going down, but bottom line is governments have funded their roads based on fuel taxes. So as fuel taxes have gone down, we haven't seen that. Now last year the state took some action on that and we appreciate that, but still there's an overall concern that ultimately the longevity of fuel taxes are gonna fade and we're gonna go into a different economy and how fast will we be ready for that? Utility users tax, Netflix, non-taxable, Comcast, taxable. Same service you're delivering and watching a video, but one's taxable under our UUT, Comcast and the other isn't under our Netflix. So there's just a lot of things happening in the economy that are eroding our revenue base and that's why we're not seeing the same robust increases as consumers are spending more money, but it's not going into taxable products. And then our own story, that's a story replicated throughout all of agencies. Capital investments, the general fund has not had sufficient capital investments over the last 10 years. It's been a long time since we've made significant investments on capital programs, probably 2004 or 56. We should be making $5 to $10 million a year in general fund contributions to maintain our facilities and infrastructure and over the last several years we've had essentially zero except for what we thankfully got out of Measure S last year which funded some critical core projects, but one and a half, $1.6 million is not near the five to eight million we might need annually to invest and maintain our facilities. And we've seen every year, I talk about it internally, we've seen every year, the surprise project, whether it was way back with, anyways, we've had road issues, we've had community golf course, I've got that on my brain, sorry. Soccer field, where we had soccer field issues when I first came here, every year there's been something that's caught us off guard, West Cliff erosion caught us off guard. There's a lot of investment that we must do and we're not able to do that. So that's our story and we're not alone. We saw this last year, we updated our data, Tracy did a wonderful job looking, diving deep into budgets of some of our fiscally comparable agencies and they have much bigger deficit issues than we have. So we're in a good position, but we're not alone. Everybody's facing certain levels of shortfalls. It's just inherent in the system. When you see cost doubling twice, major cost components and your revenue is not catching up. We're fortunate others have not been as fortunate. So that's our quick recap. I'll dance quickly through some quick details that we could come back to the next meeting. This was just meant for context information. Last year we spent a lot of time and this council activated, ultimately there's three different subcommittees of this council that worked on different topics and one of them was the budget ad hoc committee who came up with some brilliant and wonderful outreach strategy ideas and some budget principle ideas. There's a lot of great work done on our outreach side and we want to keep replicating that going this year. So we're really excited about things like our focus group, things like our budget one-on-one study sessions and more outreach. We wanted to remind council members in this year, our public that everybody thinks of our property tax and sales tax and all that money flows to us. We get slivers of it, 16, 17%. We get a portion of every dollar in property tax. We get about 16 cents on the dollar and the same with sales tax. We get a little bit more but about a buck 75 for every hundred dollars spent. So we get slivers of these revenue bases, largely the state and county jurisdictions get the bulk of those funding components. So it's not the property tax and sales tax, we get components of that, not all of it. And revenues for us act differently. So we've got some iconic images, the top slide is in us, but the other slides are. We have different revenues that are more responsive to economic concerns. We're concerned because sales tax and transit occupancy tax are big revenue bases for us. And those are the first when consumers stop spending, we see that in months. We see those trends come in place versus property tax that might take a year and a half before the slowdown hits us on a cash flow basis. So sales tax, TOT, once a consumer decides not to travel to Santa Cruz or spend the same level of money in Santa Cruz, we see that within months hitting our economy. So they're very risky to us. And two of our top three revenues, property tax, sales tax and TOT, sales tax and TOT are in that high risk category where if the consumers choose to stop spending, it's risk to us. There's just information about our different risks following the vulnerabilities in our revenue bases. I'm on the stretch for home run we've done some great things. We can come back to it. A lot of you saw an award we got earlier today. There's been, this council's for years, for decades has led forward with the idea, I joke about this, no money, no mission. But how do we think forward, think long-term about sustaining our services? And this council's been doing that for decades and I applaud them for that. We've got on board, we can talk a lot more detail about our fiscal 2023 sustainability strategy. It's really identifying that in fiscal year 2023, if we can build that fiscal bridge, we've talked about that to get us there. By that point in time, most of our cost increases will have leveled out and we can start catching up. And then by 2030, 2031, we'll be in good times. 2030, 2031, that's projections. But there's a lot of things we've done on pensions. Left side is things we've done. Right side are things we can do more of. You've got a fresh slide deck. I forgot to mention that. And this slide deck will be online in the next couple of days. So the left slider, we've done a lot of things already. We've led essentially a lot, been the leader in a lot of ways on what to do with pension costs. When this League of California cities produced a report in 2018 of January, last January, we looked at the report and said, well, I guess we're done. Because everything they recommended, we already checked off years before. So this, that's what I mean, this council, this administrative team has been very proactive with, what can we do? Let's try to do it now. There's more things we can still do with the right side are things we wanna talk about more. And we hope to maybe spend a little bit more time at the next council meeting on that. Finally, maybe some detail that we wanted to cap on. What are the things you must, as a council body, be tracking on? What are your major responsibilities? Certainly adopting a budget and setting those limits of us are some of the key components that we have. Just the highlights of, right now we adopt a one-year budget. We fund the first year of a capital investment program. It's a three-year program moving to a five-year program, but we're only funding the first year of that. So those are your primary responsibilities, adopting a budget that then sets the maximum authority for that next year. And then we've added some nuance there that might be just helpful for you about the different levels of what council approves and what must come back to council for approval. So new funds, transfers between funds, that's what you saw today. There was a transfer from general fund money to a capital improvement program that required council approval. We've also listed some other ways that you guys have already set the limits and set authority levels that we want to make sure you're aware of that is your responsibility. Living wage will be coming to you at the next council meeting. We talk a little bit more in depth about that, but the city council sets the living wage by way of example. Recap, this is different. These are different times. We've talked a lot about that over the last couple of years and it continues to be different. The league of California cities, California legislature, they've identified that things need to be reformed, but the agreement on what to reform and what that is, isn't there just yet. And if I had to guess, it's still two or three years away from happening. And typically it's when things break, when we're over the cliff is when the reforms will happen. When the highway 99 corridor and there's a lot of cities start going, having real challenges. I think that's when unfortunately you'll see action. We're not really great at doing things proactively a lot of times. I'll list, is there what we have next? Again, this is part one of a three part budget study session. Next meeting we'll be spending, recapping some of this in a little bit more detail, but also getting a deeper dive into the numbers, what's going on within revenue streams, what's going on within our expenditure accounts. And then March 12th, we'll preview our capital investment needs where we should be investing and our resources haven't been and where our gaps are at. I was gonna leave with things just to ponder like what types of things should we be thinking about? And I know the council budget committee that's already formed for this year is already thinking about things like, let's look at a committee to focus on the needs assessment for capital improvement projects and how we fund that. But these are things that we might wanna spend time on a pitch and study session. We've talked about that over the last couple of years, but we haven't just found the bandwidth. And I'm happy to talk about it at length over lunch or boba, boba, budget, boba, some of my staff are joking. We had budget in brews and that didn't seem to work, but boba and the budget maybe. We're always happy to do a deeper dive one-on-one about pensions, but at some point in time it might help to deeper dive into that because it's not about the benefit, it's about the shortfall in the investment side. And I think the benefits get hit far too often on that. So that concludes my power run. That was quick. Thank you. Thank you for being flexible and for your presentation today. I will just simply add that I sent out a email to the council and some of the city manager staff just in regards to how to sprinkle some of the information throughout the upcoming months in preparation for our budget hearings and anticipation that we want to have deep dives and general overviews of our various functions prior to moving forward with the budget hearings. So that is something to keep in mind. Perfect. We're moving forward and we discuss that in our ad hoc committee as well. So this is a study session. It's an opportunity for us to listen and learn. Is there any member of the public who would like to address the council on item number 17, which is the mid-year review, part one study session on local government and finance trends? Okay. Seeing none, at this time, it's an opportunity for council to make any comments. And Councilman Nutt. I just had one question. I was surprised. Dispeltably low reserve levels because I thought we were doing okay on that. It's too big. We just drawn them down. It's more to our exposure. So we do not have a catastrophic emergency reserve. Our reserve levels were set at a lower level several years ago with anticipation of trying to get up. We, if I recall correctly, we set reserves at a two month level. The recommendation was three months, but we, at that point in time, the pain point to get to that funding level would have been too great. So we wanted to aspire to get to three months over the long period of time. It's a deeper dive question that we can get more into it, but there's different complexities. Our reserves are not sufficient, necessarily with all the different risk factors that we have, whether it's economic or environmental or what have you. Zaster. Exactly. Any other council member comments? Thank you. Thank you very much. So I think we have one more item before we break for our 7 p.m. Session which begins with oral communications and that is the review of the meeting calendar and I will ask the city clerk to provide any updates to the calendar at this time. I have none. Is there any other? No, no. Okay. Okay. Do we need to take any type of action at this time on that? No. Okay. Okay. So at this point then I will adjourn the meeting until 7 p.m. for oral communications and 7.30 to begin our item for. Okay. Okay. Alrighty. If I could call to order our 7 p.m. session and ask the chamber to please grab up their conversations. Good evening everybody. Good evening. Welcome to our 7 p.m. session of our February 12th, 2019 meeting of the city council. And I'd like to now ask our clerk to please call the roll. Thank you mayor. Council members Cron. Here. Glover. Here. Meyers. Brown. Here. Matthews. Here. Vice mayor Cummings. Here. The mayor Watkins. Here. Okay, so we have moved our oral communications time to now be at 7 p.m. So from 7 to 7.30 is now when we will have oral communications and oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not listed on today's agenda. And are there any members of the public who wish to address the council by show of hands please indicate so now. And this is for oral communications. This is for items that are not on the agenda. It's not for the 7.30 item. Okay. Okay. So if you can please line up to my left and you will each be given, so let me start. By show of hands can you please let me know. Okay, you'll each be given two minutes and if you feel comfortable please do feel free to sign in so we get the correct spelling of your name that's not necessarily mandatory. And we'll go ahead and start with the folks who indicated that they were in line first which are here in the front. Good evening. Good evening Madam Mayor and members of the city council. My name is David Thorpe chapter president of SCIU 521 and an employee at Santa Cruz public libraries. My bargaining team and I have met most of you and I'm pleased to have this chance to talk to all of you together. More so I want to introduce you to a few of my colleagues and friends and the friends and family they support. Anyone here that is a service employee for the city or here in support of one would you please stand up. These are your people. They cherish and love Santa Cruz and are dedicated to working hard behind the scenes to make your city the best it can be. For everyone you see standing here there are many more who would like to be here but cannot. They're working their second and third jobs to make ends meet. In fact, this weekend I lost a valuable member of my bargaining team as he finalized his plans to move to Oklahoma City. This coworker is leaving the city he grew up in for a home that is one fifth the price. We've lost a very talented coworker. You're facing many challenges this year and you'll hear about them here tonight. We will be part of the solution and all we need is support in addressing the high turnover and fair compensation. As time permits I hope my colleagues can talk to you about the work they do. Thank you for attending to us. Thank you. Good evening mayor and council members. My name is Juan Molina. I have been an employee for the streets and traffic department for over a year. Behind me are my coworkers and I will be speaking on their behalf. As you notice two of my coworkers have been in the department over 10 years. While the rest of us have worked two years or less we continuously have vacancies. We are a department of six workers. Go ahead and pause your time. No, no, no, no, no problem. We'll go ahead and start your time over. Sorry, thank you. No problem. Okay, thank you. So at this time we'll go ahead and start your time over and if we could just allow for our individual speaker to have his time and maintain as respectful as possible. Please go ahead. In my department we see a high turnover of workers on a constant basis. Since I've been in the department, six workers have left. This department provides an opportunity to obtain a class A driver's license training and other certifications as it is a part of the requirements for the job. Once my coworkers obtain their license and certifications they leave for similar job at a higher pay within the city or at other agencies. I understand why they leave. The starting pay in this department is less than the living wage ordinance. The high vacancy rate affects our workload. It increases causing potential injuries. Our job consists of patching potholes with hot asphalt constructing and repairing sidewalks, gutters, manholes, et cetera. We are exposed to hypodermic needles and human body fluids on a daily basis. We are asking the city council to address worker retention for my department and throughout other city departments. Thank you for your time. You know, my name is Sherry Sherry and I'd like to talk about, well, a couple of things. One, I hope you don't put the library under parking as I would never go to the library. I'd have to go to the live oak library or library less toxic. And another thing, I was listening to Gary Patton talk on KZSE because I get around and I listen to the cool radio stations. I love that one. But he was talking how that pristine meadow over there that they're keeping, that they're gonna put 50% of the land, they're gonna give 250 students and then the other 2,000 students are gonna cram into the other 50% of the land.  But it's the region, they have no clue how to run the university and that's why they're overloading already overloaded housing situation here. So I'm just asking you to ask the chancellor to get a clue on what they're doing with the planning commission. I think we all need more planning commissions planning for the planning commission. It's really depressing. What's going on? There's no housing for me and all the students, I shouldn't get mad at them because they have to pay $1,200 per semester and live with four people. And we're all having a hard time. I'm just asking you to use your conscious, use your heart and build more houses for all of us, please. Thank you. Good evening, mayor, council members. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and speak on behalf of our service employee unit. My name is Neil Christon. I've been a city employee for about six years now and I've worked in various capacities and I've worked long enough to build to understand the many negative effects of the rate of turnover that we've experienced, the increase in rate of turnover last many years. We're here as a group asking for change. We're asking for your support to aggressively counteract this trend of being a training ground for many departments throughout the city. We can no longer sustain this. We know this, we look at our membership, we look at the negative effects. I personally represent a stubborn group of employees that are not only from Santa Cruz and they have to work a second job to provide for ourselves and our families but we wanna be here. I've made meaningful contacts and relationships with community members and employees throughout the department and being faced with the opportunity to say, well, you can make more money somewhere else based off your training, education, and experience. That's not something I wanna do. I love my community, I wanna continue to be part of my community and provide services to my community but we know across the board that we need change and so we're looking to you for your leadership and providing that change and providing whether it's creative budget issues or whether it's finding that funding somewhere else with that budget, it's time to make that happen. And so please, if we could be a resource to you and trying to contribute to that effort, we're here and we're willing to work but we just, at this point, we need that leadership. So thank you for your time. Thank you. Next speaker for oral communications. And just a reminder, this is to have oral communications. This is the time to address the council for any item that is not on our agenda tonight. Good evening council. My name is Lee Broca. I read newspapers, I work on the other side. I want to give you some idea of what the rest of the other Bay Area is saying. From recent Bay Area newspapers, December, 2018, East Palo Alto largest landlord announced his plan to tear down 160 controlled apartments and replace them with 605. The current residents will be relocated to similar apartments and allowed to return at their same monthly rate. What would Sherry Conable do? January 18th, 2019, regional Bay Area agencies, Metro Transportation Association, Association of Bay Area Governments are in the process of creating a new agency, CASA, a committee to save the Bay Area, which will bring rent control to nine Bay Area counties. What would Sherry do? January 30th, after 41 years of renting a Section 8 apartment, Joseph Halakey rent was increased from 1467 to 2467. What would Sherry Conable do? January 31st, Menlo Park ordinance limiting rent hikes is pulled, what would Sherry do? February 4th, new affordable housing in San Jose designated for formerly homeless foster youth and developmentally disabled is proposed in Roosevelt Park. The city council is considered a $9 million loan to support the project. What would Sherry Conable do? February 11th, Menlo Park council gets plans for rent caps. What would Sherry do? Let this be the mantra for the city council of the calendar year of 2019. Let's move the ball on housing, the homeless and those who work here. Let's be guided by one question. What would Sherry do? Hello again. My name's Satya O'Ryan. Thank you, Lee, for mentioning Sherry. I was missing her a lot tonight. This is the first meeting I'd been to when she wasn't here. What I would like to ask tonight is that we bring back the three minute sharing that gets on the agenda. I know it used to be this way. I know there's times when that can't happen, when there's way too many people, that it might need to be shortened, but in general, when it's possible. I know many other towns do this, and so I request that get on the agenda sometime soon. Thank you. Because I'm speaking on behalf of Conscience and Action, you gave me four minutes. I'm gonna go ahead and pause the thing. We will be addressing the 730 item, which I believe is the item you wish to speak to us on, but this is now oral communication, so that would be later. And yes, you are already identified. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, next speaker. Hello, my name is Elliot. I know I don't have a lot of time. That's one of the things I'd like to point out is that you're not giving us a lot of time at a lot of these meetings. Mainly, I'm here to request that the city council look into things related to harm reduction, which I know is a philosophy not all of you are unfamiliar with, and I don't need to explain the whole thing. I'd just like to point out that if you care about the city, you should be reducing harm in it. And there's a whole philosophy of tactics around how to do that that you could be looking into. Also, the people outside were saying something about a loudspeaker. I'm not sure if they can hear what's going on in here, and I think that maybe you should look into that. Thank you. Next speaker. Hello, council. My name is Ben, and I also would like to speak to you all about harm reduction. Essentially, what I want to talk about is the fact that harm reduction is largely shown to, well, I mean, it does what it says on the tin, reduce harm, providing services like free HIV testing, providing safe sex contraceptives, free niocin, opiate overdose, reversal kits, free hep C testing, first aid and supplies and access to clean needles and responsible disposal. In general, these all are ways to protect the public at large.  Like it's to protect the public. Thank you. I'll just also make a brief announcement prior to going, excuse me, that for our 730 item, we will have a capacity at the Tony Hill room. I'm not sure if that announcement's being made, I'm assuming so. That will be available for folks that aren't able to be accommodated by the space that we have here if you're interested in going to the Tony Hill room, okay? Go ahead. Thank you, thank you everybody. How many of you were working in 1972? Can I see some hands? Anyone on council? 1972, nobody? Okay. I'm gonna go ahead and pause the comment. This is the time for you to address the question. All right, all right. I'm just doing a little opener. 1972, the real wage is adjusted for inflation, cost of living and among other things, guess what it would be at, 34 bucks an hour. Guess what we're getting paid, not even 15. 10 years ago I was working for $12 an hour in retail in New York City. I'm here and I can't even make more than that in this town. Something is terribly wrong. If you want us to thrive in this next generation, it's time to pass the torch and realize that your city's revenue depends on low-income spenders. Your revenue depends on a lot of sales and that requires a lot of people. You don't get a lot of billionaires buying 35 pairs of jeans. You get a lot of single individuals buying a gene here and a gene there. We need $20 a minimum wage right now, $25 by 22, maybe even more. But what we need to talk about here is city revenue would increase with more low-income spending across the board. We're getting paid below what we're worth. If you value us and you value the city, I think you will see that $20 minimum wage is not a whole lot to ask for, especially living in one of the most expensive places in the world to live. We can do better. We can do better for each other. And guess who's the low, who tends to be getting paid the least? It's not white guys like me. I'll tell you that much, okay? It's our Mexican brothers and sisters, our Latinx brothers and sisters, our people of color brothers and sisters, and non-gender identity people. We love you all, but $20 minimum wage folks, let's fight for that. Thank you. Good evening, council. I'd like to raise a concern and also propose a change to the relocation payment ordinance. How do I get that up? Go ahead and pause the time, or I'll start the time over for you. Just a minute. One second, are we okay? Okay, perfect. It shouldn't take long. I'd like to raise a concern and also propose a change through the relocation payment ordinance to rent landlords from evading the ordinance by terminating the tenancy and raising rent on subsequent tenants beyond the rent crap thresholds. You can simply make it unlawful, to terminate a tenancy for the purposes of evading the ordinance. I've included language from both the Los Gatos Municipal Code and the California Penal Code that does something very similar. Staff considered including the Los Gatos language when the ordinance was up for consideration, but ultimately opted not to do so. I'm not sure why, I think they might have had concerns that it would be vulnerable to a challenge, Costal Hawkins challenge because it included Costal Hawkins exempt properties. I don't think that it actually does. However, I do think the ordinance as it's written is vulnerable to a legal challenge because the rent cap thresholds are so low they really don't pass the SNF test as a large rent increase. And there are two areas of California law that implicitly define a large rent increase as a 10% annual increase. So, and that's also been a discussion among legal circles. There's no case law on it, but it is an active discussion. So, just those two things, I think you could strengthen the ordinance, both making it less vulnerable to a legal challenge as it currently is and also stronger so landlords can't evade it. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Kate. I'm here to talk to you about harm reduction and kind of maybe jump on a couple erroneous facts before they're even put out there. Harm reduction is an evidence-based practice that has been repeatedly backed up by peer-reviewed research, claims that harm reduction encourages or enables drug use are erroneous and not based on academic research and created by anti-drug lobbyists. There have been multitudes of peer-reviewed studies that confirm that harm reduction does not increase drug usage and that it does maximize intervention options, reduce the rates of overdose by providing Narcan and other overdose reduction supplies. Reduce the risk of HIV and Hep C transmission and improve the quality and length of life for drug users. 69% of overdoses in Santa Cruz County occur in the city of Santa Cruz. All harm reduction efforts should be supported in Santa Cruz City. Thank you. Thank you. How much time do I have? You have two minutes. Two minutes. Okay. My name's Marilyn Garrett. I'm a retired teacher. I'm part of wireless radiation alert network because this wireless radiation is very damaging. This is a detector of radiation. This is just an indication of what we're getting in here. These are not natural frequencies in nature and it's a big factor in killing the bees. I went and we can't live without the bees. They've been on the earth for about 40 million years and predicted to become extinct in one decade. This brochure is titled Mobile Communications, The Cause for the Global Disappearance of the Bees and explains how our electrical signaling and that of the creatures is put askew. We have functional impairment. Their major illnesses we're seeing now that are linked to these exposures like diabetes, heart problems, mental health issues. Every time there's a cell tower put up, there are about 300,000 across the United States. These are emitting microwave radiation and the documented health impacts. There's a list of people experienced insomnia, heart problems, fatigue, memory loss, et cetera. And we need to stop this and stop the new rollout of the 5G technology which is military wave technology and they need to put these antennas on every light poles and electric utility poles right in front of your homes. I refer you to whatis5g.org. I'll leave you with these three. Okay. Oh, well, if you could just, if wait, we- Are you directing me again? We haven't started your time. We're just waiting for a quick second. Oh, I'm sorry. Is there any additional members of the public who would like to adjust the council for oral communications? That is for items, oh, for oral communications? Items not on our agenda for this evening. I can need to extend time. It does. No, no, we have until 7.30. We have a half hour allocated for oral communication. Council members, decide, that's what you have until. There's two more out there. What we could do is potentially, if interested, they could potentially come speak to us after our 7.30 item and or if they're not, they could put their name down and we could acknowledge them at the first of our oral communications at our next meeting. One minute. Council member wants your attention. Council member Glover. Thank you. I just wanted to ask the city attorney, is it feasible for a council member to make a motion to extend public comment past 7.30? Wonderful. Oral communication, excuse me. Wonderful. Then I'd like to make the motion to extend oral communications by 15 minutes to allow for people to participate in their democratic right for First Amendment speech. Second. Could those people come in, please? Okay, there's a motion by council member Glover, second by council member Crone to extend oral communications to 7.45. Is there council member Matthews? We have a very long meeting ahead of us. You brought babies. I just want to, if I can just maybe. I'd like to suggest that the mayor get an accurate count of how many people want to speak and give them a minute each and that should. About 30 seconds. Okay, well there's a motion on the floor to extend the call to question. Council member Brown, would you like to call a question? Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay, those opposed? No. No, okay. So that passes with council member Crone, Glover, Cummings and Brown in support of extending oral communications to 7.45 and postponing the evening item after that. So we will hear oral communications until 7.45. This is for items that are not on the agenda and then we will convene to have our evening item. You'll have two minutes. Members of the community, I'm glad to see that four council members are standing up for your right to speak in this line. It's a very brief right, but it's a very important one. And this looks like a revolutionary change. I hope it continues. Mayor, one minute, Martine Watkins, and I call you that because, I call the mayor that because of what she did at the last meeting has doubled down on her insult to the community moving from muscling speakers, shrinking speaking time and excluding those waiting hours to speak to gagging city council members. And I'm referring to the fact that the agenda tonight does not contain items that three council members tried to put on. I'll be talking about this further during that actual agenda item. But this is also a matter of procedure at this city council. If the mayor can unilaterally with the collusion of the city manager and the city attorney, stop items from going on the agenda that three council members want on the agenda, we don't have any kind of even pseudo democracy here. She's refused to agendize the Glover-Crone proposals and substituted instead the city manager's dog and pony show. And sadly, the four progressives, who I've called out and will continue to call out on this and I'm glad when they respond with the power to block this today, allow this freeze while we dawdle, move along to nowhere deportation policy to spin forward. And that has to do with the Ross camp which I will talk about later. Last meeting we saw rent, control and just eviction whose advocates were elected to office, silent sideline and dumped, tabled. More endless task force games as landlords evict tenant activists and drive us deeper into gentrification, producing more homelessness. The civic auditorium was supposed to be available for these meetings. Why aren't our council members demanding this be done? Thank you. Council members, I got up to speak and a gentleman took my seat. I'm hoping to get it back. I found that hugely disrespectful so I just wanted to say that because I came early to get that seat. Okay, I am going to be talking about creeping fascism in our country and in this city. A lot of people may want to believe that Santa Cruz is oh so preciously exempt from the creeping fascism that's everywhere in our country right now. But it's not. Madeleine Albright was here warning us about it which I find a little dubious but hey, I'll take it. And I want to refer as I'm speaking to the Sunday night meeting that was held in the civic auditorium. The Lakota People's Law Project called attention to the abusive treatment, the absolutely racist and horrible treatment of Nathan Phillips, a Native American elder. Chase Iron Eyes was there and a very esteemed attorney that I believe is one of our most just activists. Daniel Sheehan, he is based at the Romero Institute, warned us again of the fascism that's taking place. So what happened on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial is now sort of history for those that heard about it. But at that civic auditorium event just the other night, Sunday, February 10th, many representatives from the Native American or First Nation representatives from around the country were there, such as Chase Iron Eyes. Daniel Sheehan warned us about such public relations firms as the behind the scenes public relations firms, like talk about a name that calls you're on BS out. Hey, these are the people that represented the about face change of spin that that young Catholic little boy made when he took back his admission of his treatment. What I'm saying here is don't think it's not happening here, it is. Our city council is engaged in deep and profound attempts to wed business, incorporate interests with the government. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker. I am Nate Alex.Kennedy at gmail.com. And some of the first things I gotta say is bathrooms are a huge issue in the city right now. You're often 15, 20 minutes away from one when you feel that you gotta go. And when it takes 15 minutes to get to the toilet or the porta potty, your body gives you about 10.  And I'm one of those people guilty of shitting on the sidewalk because I had to. Go ahead and pause the time. I just, if you could please keep your language. Understood. I only felt that the words were appropriate in the manner they were said. Okay. But we have a public setting. Yes. So anyway, I will admit it. I am wearing a diaper right now, an adult diaper because I do not want to have to poop somewhere I'm not allowed to. And so what we really need is to have a city wide ordinance requiring that all places that have a bathroom, bathrooms that say no public restrooms, that if it's available to customers, I should be able to make a $2 deposit on purchase to be able to use that bathroom before, because if I'm ready to explode, the last thing I need is to be choosing what kind of coffee I'm about to drink. And thank God for Starbucks leaving the restrooms open to everybody. I've had the Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company kick me out for asking to use a bathroom, swearing at me using all those words you don't want me to use as I'm being forced out. And then I cross the street directly, go into Starbucks and at that time they did not have any locks at all on the bathroom. So I was able to use that. So anybody looking to use a bathroom, thank God for Starbucks. Go use theirs if you have to. Thank you. Hello, my name is Sarah Smith and I'm here today to talk about a wonderful program in our city and it's called Casa de Aprendizaje. It's a bilingual family daycare home that's run by some friends of mine, Adriana and Pedro Castillo. And I'm just wanting to highlight the importance of this program. I've known Adriana and Pedro since Annie was two years old. She's their oldest daughter. And it's been an incredible journey to see the work that they've done to build their program. Adriana graduated with honors from Cabrillo in the early childhood education program. Her site is considered a mentor site by the ECE department and they use it for training ECE teachers. And it's also just an incredibly vibrant community of parents. And so part of what I wanted to let you know is that the parents who are attending her program have been concerned about safety in their around the center. And they weren't able to come tonight and they said we can't come at seven o'clock because we're putting our children to sleep. And they said it would be much better if we could come in the afternoon or if there was some way that they could make their voices heard at a time when they weren't in the middle of doing night care, getting their children ready for bed. So it's a wonderful program and they have an incredible staff and the parents are committed to thinking about the entire community. They know that we have lots of issues to deal with in our community. And they are working together as a community in the family daycare home to try and think about what they can do to also help improve the safety in our community. So I just wanted to bring them to your attention. Thank you. And I'll just remind you that this is an opportunity for oral communications to address the council for items that are not on tonight's agenda. And if you could please lower, you could either hand it around or please lower it because what happens if you hold the sign up then folks can't see behind you. Okay, you'll have two minutes to just. My name is Melissa Freebear and I'm a registered nurse. This is my expertise, harm reduction. If the city and county want to run a meaningful harm reduction program, then you need to run it properly using best practices. Having three kiosks to dispose of your needles is inappropriate obviously as our children and our locals are stepping on needles in our beaches and our parks. And it's unacceptable and we're not going to take it anymore. If you want to allow people to come to this town and shoot up dope and provide all the necessary supplies to do that, including Narcan so that they don't have to access medical treatment and actually get services and get help for their addiction.  We're not going to allow our children to step on these needles, these cookers. Okay, it's unacceptable. I am a registered nurse. This is what I do for a living. You have 80 homeless people this last month that were given over 200 plus needles, not safety needles, needles that as soon as they toss them anywhere, where do those end up? They end up in our watershed. They end up on our beaches. They don't end up in the city of Capitola. They don't end up on the West side for a reason. They end up on the beach flats and we're paying attention and we're sick and tired of it. It's our money. If you're going to give our money away for this program, then run it properly. The county has already been informed. They've been given solutions and if you do not take action, they said the city was unwilling to put sharps containers because of the symbolism behind it. We're way past that, okay? When you're handing out needles, boxes of needles at Camp Ross, okay? We're way past that. Then you need to provide sharps containers because I, for one, I will hand deliver these needles every day to you until you do something. You'll be given two minutes? Yes. Okay, so my name is Jennifer Landford-Brown and I'm also going to touch on harm reduction. Harm reduction, I remove personally over 6,000 dirty needles a week off the streets. I go out and supply sharps containers, tons of them to the people at the camp. They can buy them. Here's a list from the SCAP program. They can buy them themselves. They do buy them themselves. They don't have sharps containers to put them in. The county is not providing any needles that they're not taking out of the community. The city is not providing any needles that are not being taken out of the community. Providing Narcan is not continuing opiate addiction. I live on Falker Street. I have received my 90-day notice because my lease is after five years. I work with the homeless. I'm a harm reductionist. This is critical. I worked at the River Street Camp, the 1220 Project. I was at the heart and forefront of pulling the people out of San Lorenzo, giving them trauma-informed care and harm reduction is important to implement that together. We have to. The same people that I helped into housing, navigating to housing, are in the camp. Do you realize there's over 200 people suffering? And they don't use Narcan to continue their opiate addiction or to avoid medical services. They're waiting to get into Janus. They, I have never met anybody who wants to be a drug addict, not one person. And they're desperate. They would love to get off the streets.  So I did want to remind those that are interested in speaking tonight that we're still in oral communications. And this is the time for you to address the council on items that are not on today's agenda. Mayor, council, this is public service announcement about Warming Center. We're open tomorrow night. We open when the temperature gets really, really. I'll go ahead and buy. You are actually on the agenda in terms of a specific addition to the finances. Is that correct? I'm announcing an activation and a challenge to council. I think it's different. Okay, just making sure. My challenge to new council, I'm not making any assumptions about your relationship to the conundrum of homelessness, but my challenge is we're open tomorrow night. We're open for an extreme rain event. To this moment, we have not received one penny of funding. It's all community-supported, all volunteer-oriented. So we give blankets, but my challenge to council is, before this winter is over, I encourage each one of you to volunteer because it's just a volunteer program. We make sure that nobody has to sleep outside on the coldest nights. We've reduced the reality of hypothermia on the street. That is done. We never have to worry about real hypothermia, at least at 38 degrees or less. So I encourage you, sign up via warming center program at Gmail. Thank you. Hi, my name's Sarah Bravo. I'm a UCSC student. I'm here speaking on behalf of the UCSC snail movement. We're a group of students who are a group of houseless students who are living in our vehicles who have been affected by the housing crisis. We are struggling because we don't have safe places to park and sleep. When we've been sleeping on campus and we are woken up by the university police every night, they come to our vans at 2 a.m. and shake our vans and bang on them and try and search laces in them. And they threaten to cite us and tell us if we don't come out. And then they tell us to go out into the city and park and sleep in the city. That's not okay. It doesn't have to be that way. And we need help. We need support. We are pressuring the university to provide a safe parking program and designated lots on campus, but we've repeatedly been denied. So we need your help. I mean, we shouldn't have to go out and sleep in the city. The university has the space for us. It's quiet. It's safe. It's monitored. There's just no reason for this. So that's it. Oh, and also, yeah. Please look out for our petition soon. And my email address, we're also looking for donated legal assistance to help us interface with the university better because what we are doing is not working. So if anyone could please help us. My email address is s as in Sarah W Bravo. Like Bravo, you did a good job spelling my name at UCSC.edu. Thank you. I wanna remind the community that we will be hearing an item on homelessness and update in direction at which time we will also allow for public comment. So this is a time to address the council on an agenda item that is not on today's agenda. Yeah, I'm not sure if the university's harassment of students is specifically in your agenda, but that's happening. It's happening every night and it's escalating. The more we speak out and voice our experiences about it. So it's not like we don't like the infrastructure to support the homelessness. We lack the moral capacity to support the homelessness. The university has talked with us and said that there's no way to pursue any action regarding homeless students. Why? Because of profit. The university profits from the students. The housing market, the student housing market is one of the biggest profits that the university is getting. So why don't they wanna approach the homeless students with respect, with compassion, because it doesn't give them any profit. So please, please help us expand your compassion to homelessness, to homeless people, and to homelessness in general. That's all I have to say. Good evening, council members, Mayor Martín. This is not on your later agenda. I believe this is a sweeping comment that won't help that kind of a conversation, but needs to be said. I've been reading in the paper and hearing, which is even more fun, because you can't prove it one way or the other, about the city's desire to get in on the nine to $10 million is supposed to help alleviate homelessness here. And I think the city needs to get rid of why your criminalizing laws or at least begin that process before you start asking for money to serve people that you've proven you don't like. I really need to see something more than Pamela Kahn's stuck and Cynthia Chase floating a wonderful idea in your staff. I'm not criticizing city staff, but policy is lacking, creativity is lacking, and I need to see a willingness. I really do, are you guys gonna watch me booping in the street, I guess, but that you can make something small and still chase this nonsensical developer money. You don't have to choose between status quo and what does this person right here need? That you can make decisions that are informed by what you see, if you don't trust what everyone has to see, trip over, try to pick up, try to get sitting or dry, but just from what you know for sure, add the human element and you'll get a better outcome. You know that, you know I believe in adversity and I bet every one of you knows why it's dynamic at times. So I've been watching, maybe more than 40 years, how we treat people we wanna ostracize or just not see. And I've been talking about Mitch Snyder all over town for nothing, it seems like. And I would like to see the city embrace an opportunity that everybody's trying to embrace but that I can show you about 50 nonprofits that are ready to handle, do something creative. Thank you, thank you, your time is up, thank you. So at this point, we have. I appreciate your challenge. We've concluded oral communications, we extended the time in additional 15 minutes. So we will hear oral communications at the end of the item if there's time or have you be the first to speak. So we're no longer having oral communications. Okay, we have an evening item before us and I'd like to start by first acknowledging that this is a very complex and intense item and I wanna thank you all for being here. I want you to understand my role as the presider of this meeting to ensure that everyone has a role and opportunity to be heard, that when they have the opportunity to speak that they can feel comfortable to speak to us and be given their time without disruption. That's the job of the mayor and the job of the facilitator of the meeting. And one of the things that council has gone through is a process where we established norms. I'm gonna go ahead and read those norms and then I have a brief statement. So the council interactions with each other include to be respectful, to engage in open and honest communication, to be honest and truthful, to address difficult issues, to find areas of common ground, to be open to different perspectives, to give the benefit of the doubt, to role model good leadership and to be considerate of each other's time. I also have a brief statement that I'd like to read before we go ahead and kick off tonight's agenda. I will read my statement and then I will turn it over to our staff for their presentation. We will open it up for public comment where we'll have an opportunity to hear from you all and then we'll return to council action and deliberation. So I'd like to kick off our discussion of homelessness before our staff begins the presentation by reflecting on my hopes for tonight's proceedings and the apparent challenges we face not only in developing policy that will make a difference in people's lives but in a way that we as a council treat each other and work toward effective governance. Tonight's discussion will no doubt be challenging. We are trying to alleviate pain and suffering. We are trying to make a difference. As we deliberate tonight, let's try to recognize these common values and build from there. Even through our disagreements, even through our frustrations with each other, let's work towards consensus and do that by listening to each other and the public. This is our time to learn and listen. And to that end, as I mentioned earlier today, I will be striving to ensure our dialogue is respectful and productive and that each of you has an opportunity to speak without interruption. And I ask that you allow me to do my job as effectively as I can and have the patience as I navigate this process with you, staff and the community. And for the benefit of the community who have come out to take part of tonight's proceedings and for those who are at home watching, there is an issue I want to address before we get started. And I'd like to speak to the perceptions that are floating around in the community to say what I understood to be true and to recognize what many may be thinking. And I bring these up tonight to say them out loud, to address them and to hopefully set them aside so that we as council members, as staff and the public, can hold the most productive dialogue for our community that we can. For perceptions that are unnamed, that are often not addressed, if allowed to fester, can sometimes further divide us. And my hope is to bring us together. And so I want to understand that there are perceptions that my colleague, Council Member Glover, has intentionally attempted to smear my character by suggesting I arbitrarily disallowed for this agenda item, excuse me, this is the opportunity for me to address you all and we'll have an opportunity to hear from you as well. I arbitrarily disallowed for his agenda item to be added to tonight's discussion. As to my own actions, I don't believe that either this perception to be true. Council Member Glover worked toward an agreeable path to providing an opportunity tonight with myself and staff that will allow him to bring his ideas forward. And I'm open to hearing about those ideas. We have created space to hear them with our existing item, and we have a process to ensure that our meetings are well planned and structured. I received an item request to agendize that on the morning of our agenda review process, and that did not allow me the adequate amount of time to add them to the agenda. And that's the reality of governance when we have so many complex issues to address and seven Council Members who have varying issues and items they'd like to bring forward. There's no lack of understanding the urgency of human suffering, and there's no lack of understanding the importance of the public process. We are all here because of those values and we all share them in an attempt to make a difference. I also understand that there are perceptions that my colleagues, both Council Member Glover and Council Member Crone, are intentionally bullying me because I am a woman. That if not for my gender, if I were a man, there would not be this question of my integrity. There would not be this question of my character. And I say this perception out loud not to validate its truth, but rather to stand alongside my fellow Council Members, staff and community Members who may feel pushed around or bullied. I say this perception out loud to name it, to set it aside and continue to speak my mind. Continue to do my job and to work on these tough issues. Continue to do the job of Mayor, which I am honored to be in, and to take it very seriously. I hope that we as colleagues can do the same and work together with each other as we begin our conversation tonight. And with all this in mind, I would now like to turn it over to our staff for our presentation. Go ahead. Point of order, Mayor. I would like to go ahead and say. We're not done with oral communications yet. Oral communications generally matters presented as oral communications. You were not recognized. And I appreciate your respect to address me. And I'm addressing you, I have a point of order. Do you want to look up to City Attorney what point of order actually means? I'll show you right here. I don't believe you have to be recognized in point of order. And while he's looking, I am profoundly saddened and I apologize if there was ever anything that I did that because I don't know, David was the mayor before and I did lots of points of order and many. We'll go ahead and pause your comments if we could for a moment and allow our City Attorney to respond to the question before you. I'd also love a chance to respond. Any council member with the exception of the presiding officer may call for a point of order to bring to the attention of the Council a violation of the rules, an omission, a mistake, an error in procedure and to secure a ruling from the presiding officer on the question raised. Point of order should be raised immediately after the violation, omission, mistake, or error in procedure has been committed. Council member who wishes to call for point of order may interrupt the Council member who has the floor at the time but shall not explain the basis for his or her point of order until subsequently recognized by the chair or by the presiding officer. The presiding officer in his or her discretion may allow the Council member who was interrupted to conclude his or her remarks before ruling on the point of order. Point of order is not debatable. However, the presiding officer may consult the City Attorney or City Manager for ruling on the point of order. So confirming with you, City Attorney, you mentioned the point of order violation has to occur and the calling has to be immediate, is that correct? That's right. So is the point of order violation something that immediately took place or is that something that has passed? I was actually trying not to interrupt, waiting for you to finish. Generally matters presented at oral communication will require, this is on page 21 of our Council handbook, will require further investigation or information, shall be referred to staff. And if the Council determines that action is required, the item may be placed on a future agenda. I have two issues that folks brought up during oral communication. I would appreciate the staff looking into. One is by David and the SEIU team, SEIU bargaining team, there's two workers. They said that their wages are lower than the city living wage. I'm just wondering if the City Manager or Lisa Murphy, our HR person can get back to the Council if that's in fact true. The other question I had is the city really unwilling to place sharps containers around Santa Cruz. That's another one if you can get back to us. So I know that you can't respond, nobody can respond, but I would like it, it'd be nice to have a report back. Okay. Okay, we'll go ahead and move on to our staff presentation. At this time we'll hear a presentation from staff. Then we will open it up to the Council for questions. Then we'll open it up to the public for public comment. And then we'll return to the Council for action and deliberation. Thank you, Mayor Watkins. Good evening, Council members. I'm Tina Scholl, the Assistant City Manager. And with me presenting this evening is Susie O'Hara, the Assistant to the City Manager. You've seen us many times previously talking about the issue of homelessness and that's what we're bringing for you again this evening. The last time the Council addressed this issue was in December 11th and that was a compendium, a large recap of all the activities in 2018. This item today is specifically related to the County and City of Santa Cruz Joint Action Plan for emergency shelter provision and encampment management. This is an issue. We know the Council is eager to take up and we are eager to bring forward to you as well. So the agenda for our presentation follows along four main points. Setting some context, talking about current challenges, describing the funding and collaborative opportunities. That is why we find ourselves in a different time and place right now in talking about this issue. Three, talking about the actual joint action plan for shelter provision and encampment management itself. So going through the details of how that works. And then fourth, reporting out on the Board of Supervisors who took up this item earlier today in their meeting, reporting on their action taken. Ms. O'Hara was there to watch and participate in that and then also go over the recommended council action we have for you today. So first, talking briefly about current challenges and really nothing on this slide is gonna be anything new for this Council or the community members here tonight are watching is that we are legitimately in a state of an unsheltered homeless crisis. The council last January 2018 declared a shelter crisis and made the findings that we have such acute circumstances that we're not able to shelter our homeless population. The latest census point in time count showed about 1,204 individuals homeless in Santa Cruz and the countywide average sheltered is 80% of that total population. So about 960 people were estimated to be unsheltered in the city of Santa Cruz. Now to the point in time count, there was just the recount happen on January 31st. I participated as did other staff members and other people. So we look forward to those results coming out and that will be likely June or so because there's a series of steps and follow up that has to happen in analysis. But we do look forward to reporting that. Based upon the anecdotal evidence in our community, those numbers going up is an anticipated outcome but we will see. So we are definitely in a crisis state. We also have a critical need to provide additional emergency shelter beds. This is a unified position of the city council and all of your policy actions for at least the past two to three years and we've been working toward that end. We talk to you frequently on this issue. And then the most immediate challenge facing us is of course the encampment that's happening along Highway 1 and River Street by the Gateway Center. That has been the most acute homeless crisis that we have, the most tangible example of a lack of shelter and the human suffering and the need we have in our community as well as impacts on other community members, residents and businesses nearby, as well as impacts on the environment. And we heard about needles and the watershed. It's a very complex issue that was referenced earlier but so this really has is the top of our priority to discuss and we'll be, we have an action plan around that to discuss with you. So what makes now different in terms of opportunities? We've had a lot of energy, staff time, council support to work on homelessness and yet we do feel that we are poised at a very different point in time and it's very exciting for tangible real things to happen and we have opportunity in two forms. The first is funding and we've spoken to this council many times about this, is that we have about $10.6 million coming in from the state, these are one time monies, but to have this revenue flowing in and to be able to put it to work pretty quickly is such a change, such a change for us and really presents so many opportunities for program and partnership and making real service delivery on the ground. So for an update on that, the proposals, so an RFP was issued, request for proposals and around a certain set of different categories and priorities and those proposals are due February 22nd and we expect the funds for that to be dispersed as early as April and May and I will note that $9.7 million of this money has to be spent within two years so there's a very rapid spending horizon for the majority of these funds. But a new piece of information that I don't believe has been reported is that when working on this RFP process, there was a sense that even though April or May sounds quick, it's really not quick enough to deal with the acute suffering out there today and so we worked hard with the county and the city of Watsonville, which are all entities that have declared a shelter crisis to say can we do an emergency allocation from this heat money to get dollars at work more quickly and that was able to move forward so we have about a million dollars that were set aside and had a more rapid proposal process to try to get those dollars going so we hope that these monies could be released as early as next week and they would do things for like hygiene services, immediate, some of the sheltering programs you'll hear about, et cetera, so that is good. We do, there's this urgency, we do have this money hitting the ground very, very quickly. And so here's just, this is a slide that just shows the cash in the heap, those are the two grant programs. You've seen a majority of this content before but just pointing out the lowest row on here, the emergency sheltering LOI which is a letter of interest process which is a simpler procurement process for hygiene and also community engagement but we won't talk too much about that tonight. All right, so the other aspect of opportunities why today feels different, why we feel like we're poised for a change is the collaboration is currently at a place with our other cities in the county that it really hasn't been at before. Having a single-minded focus, having everyone at the table really working and talking in a way, we haven't seen it. And I think what we're gonna present today really exemplifies that and I will point back to the two-by-two committee. The two-by-two committee, this was one of the recommendations out of the council's homelessness plan from 2017 which set forth 20 different recommendations and one of them recognizing that, excuse me, we'll have an opportunity to have you as our community weigh in. At this time, if you could please remain quiet and how if I acknowledge that there is a person who does speak out, I will let you know that you have a warning and then if it happens again, then I will ask for you to leave at this time. So at this point, we'll go ahead and return to our staff presentation and we will have an opportunity to hear from you. Go ahead. Thank you. And so the two-by-two, this was one of the recommendations from that 2017 plan that said that the city and the county have a unique responsibility and partnership role to play. So let's create this designated committee of two city council members and two Board of Supervisors members, so the two-by-two that will come together specifically to talk about homelessness coordination. And so already this year in 2019, the two-by-two committee has met twice represented by Mayor Watkins and Vice Mayor Cummings and on the county side by Chair Coonerty and Supervisor McPherson. So already these four individuals prioritized meeting, set aside time in their calendars and met very quickly and with urgency and said that we really need to see solutions and came up with their own guiding principles. So they're here on this, I know the font's a little small so I hope everyone can see it, but there were some four guiding principles that came out of the two-by-two and as part of this action plan. And this also can be found as an attachment to the report, the first part of the action plan. And these guiding principles all go through them very quickly and then in case Mayor Watkins and Vice Mayor Cummings which just make some comments from your participation in the two-by-two that can happen. So the guiding principles were the provision of services and alternatives to people living in the encampment must be balanced with the health and safety benefit of clearing the camp by offering outreach and alternative shelter options. Basically saying that the camp to be moved, there have to be other things supporting these individuals to move on to a better place. And also beginning immediately, though until the camp can be managed and there's other alternatives, the health and sanitation and safety were of importance and there's a number of actions that were taken to ensure that. The third talks about preventing future encampments. In order to do that, there's this goal, this aspiration by July 1st, 2019 to have an increased year-round shelter capacity to prevent this and then also the fourth one is that there should be future discussions about common policies and procedures and coordination. So in sanctioned encampments can be addressed in a way that is more responsive and quickly we don't have this growth of a large population like we're seeing today. So with that, I just want to over that quickly. I'll turn it to Vice Mayor Cummings to start. Sure. I just want to start by saying that this process thus far that we've been doing, combining myself, Mayor Watkins and two county supervisors has been a really productive conversation. All the people who have been involved and I'll add the city staff and county staff have also been very supportive in who we've been working with. Have really been trying to find the most compassionate way that we can deal with the situation that we have right now to try to minimize harm, to try to find people's shelter within our community. I mean, we have a range of comments that we receive on a regular basis. There are some people in the community who would really prefer that we maybe just shut the camp town tomorrow and push everybody out. But we have made it clear that we're trying to do the best that we can to find alternative viable options for trying to get people into housing as quickly as possible. We wish we could do it more quickly, but we're trying to work at a pace that is gonna get people into housing and also try to reduce the size of the camp and get people into the best forms of shelter or the best programs possible. And so we've been taking a lot of input from people in our community, some of whom work in these programs to try to see what they're working on, how we can work with them, encouraging them to apply for the funding that's available. And so I just want folks to know that this isn't something that we're ignoring. We are trying to do the best that we can to move forward with trying to reduce the size of the camp and get people the services and the help that they need while also addressing the concerns of people who live in the surrounding communities. Thank you. I don't have much more to add other than that's already been shared today. So I, and for the interest of time, I won't say a whole bunch more other than that. You know, it's really encouraging to know that we have our colleagues on from the county and on the board of supervisors really interested and committed to having an ongoing dialogue with us so that we can most proactively and as best possible address all of the different elements that associate with this challenge that we experience. So it's encouraging. We're committed. They're committed and we're ready to get to work in alignment. And so I'm very hopeful in that regard. And just one more thing is that I just want to thank everyone who's reached out to us to provide comments to let us know how things are affecting them, how we can do better. And I also want to thank everyone in our community for their patience as we try to deal with this issue that we have in the most humane way possible. Okay, we'll go back to our staff. Thank you. All right, thank you so much, Vice Mayor Cummings and Mayor Watkins. Vice Mayor Cummings laid a really nice foundation for my comments and I wanted to specifically give a little context as to staff's role in helping to develop this action plan. So as you may probably know, Assistant City Manager Schull and I have been working with the CAO's office for what feels like several months and I think it actually is. In really trying to shepherd the programming around additional shelter beds in this community. As this council knows in the previous council as we've tackled homelessness over the last couple of years, the issue of siting, the issue of community acceptance and compatibility of homelessness programs has been a significant challenge for the city council as we've tried to move forward with programs. So staff's role is really just trying to continue to beat that drum, having the CAO's office at the table with us has been incredibly helpful and that also goes to the Health Services Agency as well as the Human Services Department as well and across the board with our city staff as well. This has been a significant investment of time and energy into coming up with solutions. I did wanna give that context and also let you know that we did activate the Emergency Operations Center several weeks ago and facilitated by our fire chief, Haiduk. We are meeting on a weekly basis. We know that conditions change out there day by day, hour by hour. For instance, we're expecting a heavy rain event tomorrow and thanks to Brent Adams for opening the warming center. There are things that we have to be responsive to and this is a giant effort on behalf of the city and the county so I wanted to give you that context as well. So to speak to the action plan, there really are two tenants to the action plan. One is to immediately increase our shelter bed capacity and as I mentioned, finding new suitable sites that the community has acceptance around has been challenging for the last several months and perhaps a couple years. So this immediate plan which will be funded through the LOI that we are reviewing tomorrow and hopefully we'll be making some decisions very soon as early as early next week will be focused on our current sites. So where we have or where we have in the past had shelter. This morning the Board of Supervisors did approve a contract amendment for the Salvation Army to open the Laurel Street Salvation Army Building for women, families with children and adults with mobility impairments. The Salvation Army Building on Laurel is the only building that has an ADA compatible, accessible bathroom and shower as well as an elevator to the second floor. So really it's critically important for us to get the folks that are at the VFW to be moved over to the Laurel Street site. So that will be hopefully happening later this week as soon as tomorrow and which will free up some spaces at the VFW site as well. As mentioned in the staff report, we're also exploring the concept of moving back to the 1220 River Street site and the LOI and during our bidders conference we did describe the kind of operating scenario we would expect to see there. So I wanted to talk a little bit about that. So we've had a successful program out there that had specific neighborhood compatibility structure that was included in the operational plan. We given the environmental considerations that the site is adjacent to our intake that serves 100,000 people. There are additional environmental conditions and concerns associated with that site that we might not see in a parking lot or in another more hard surface site that's not adjacent to our river. So given that we really are looking at feasibility at this time, we do think it's possible to find an operator to run a program there but last time we weren't able to find one so we're gonna have to work really hard with our community partners to see if we can see who has capacity and who can work with the city and the county support to stand up a program there. That site is also limited in time by a construction project to replace our 20 inch pipeline that goes from the intake up to Graham Hill Water Treatment Plant. It is our most critical raw water pipeline and it is expected to be replaced starting in July of this year. So we do find ourselves in a situation where this site is really only available for a short period of time and we had questions from Vice Mayor Cummings about what would be our expectation in terms of transitioning folks. We'll talk a little bit more about that as we go through the presentation but it continues to be very complicated but we do have more people at the table and we have more money to spend so there is opportunity there. We are also recommending the continuation of shelter services at the VFW. So there is currently capacity for 60 beds at the VFW in Live Oak. That is currently funded through April 15th. We would expect to extend that through the fiscal year so through June 30th. We are working with the Association of Faith Communities to expand their satellite shelter program, hopefully double that number as well as initiate a small scale safe parking program. They're poised and ready to go with that and so I expect through this LOI process that we'll be able to move forward with that. We are exploring any other sites where their sheltering operations have we've had previously existed. So if this, you know, if A through D don't come to fruition we're gonna keep looking and we're gonna keep hammering away at it. And then also the provision of additional warming center capacity. So as you'll note in the motion we are recommending a small contribution to the warming center for the purposes of provisions of blankets and other materials that Mr. Adams has requested. We also are working with him to open up the Harvey West clubhouse and that will be a site for the warming center through I believe the end of April. So have been working diligently with Mr. Adams on that as well. So that, this will be somewhat, you know, 12 months ago we were having a similar conversation. So we're hoping in the next couple months with the heap and cache RFP process to determine the feasibility of opening either an interim or a permanent year round shelter. So as you'll see in the notes here we'll work with our nonprofit community partners and that will be through the heap and cache RFP process to provide year round 24 seven shelter sufficient for at least a hundred people to be operational by July 1st. And we wanna report back to you on how that process is going. So we're all very clear as to the feasibility of that. So within 60 days the city and the county team will determine whether there is a suitable site and operator that can meet that deadline. And then we plan on returning to those prospective governing bodies by April 30th to talk about the plans for implementation. Sorry about the font here and I will paraphrase because there's a lot of information. So the second tenant of this action plan is to really ensure to the best of our ability with our combined resources and this immediate disbursement of heap funds to alleviate human suffering. We really wanna focus on management of the encampment and those to kind of mitigate the immediate public safety and health risks. We're gonna focus on three things, health and hygiene. City parks has been responsive to county public health in their request to ensure that we have sufficient hygiene facilities out there. So we have increased capacity. I think we might be up to eight port-a-potties with two ADA port-a-potties and hand washing stations. We will continue to monitor those numbers and make sure that that is sufficient. Yesterday, the county health services agency installed a syringe disposal kiosk. So that has been done. The county will coordinate and the dispatch of teens from HPHP and the human services department. So that's the homeless persons health project to continuously conduct outreach to ensure that we've done smart path assessments, provide the clinical support, health support for folks that are out there including infection control and wound care and then also talking about public health prevention and education. And then we will continue, this is the city's parks department to manage the waste that is created there through a contract that we have with an outside contractor. There's obviously a significant amount of waste that we are managing on a day-by-day basis. So that contract is kind of a week-by-week operation. We will be balancing that health and hygiene approach with increased public safety presence. So as you'll see in the first bullet there, Santa Cruz police department will side a mobile command van and conduct enforcement operations on those committing crimes at Gate White Plaza, the Tannery and Felker Street, request the assistance of our other local law enforcement agencies. This is critically important as SEPD is highly taxed on getting as much patrol and enforcement as we possibly can out there. So really trying to lean on the sheriff's office, you see SEP police as well as other agencies that might be available. Then also work with probation in the Santa Cruz sheriff's office on the focused intervention team which was actually discussed at the county board this morning. They are currently in a pilot phase with that started three weeks ago. So we're able to make referrals to that focus intervention team as well. So that's good news and refer those eligible encampment residents to the team. The city and the county will also develop a volunteer coordination effort. We have, it's wonderful. We have a lot of volunteers out there ensuring that folks have access, ensuring that we have some management of volunteers out there is something that we think is important for the coming weeks. And then ultimately the abatement plan. So we will together with the county develop a noticing and abatement plan to transition interested encampment residents to alternative shelter as they become available and fully abate the encampment by March 15th. And that is obviously per the council direction that we'll receive tonight. So I'll talk a little bit about the county board action from this morning and then recommended city council action. So this morning the county board of supervisors unanimously approve the joint county city action plan with the following additions that I wanted to bring to your attention. They also, in addition to what you see in your packet with the first attachment, want to provide 24 hours security to minimize neighborhood impact as the encampment is transitioned and abated and also move the encampment fence. So it's currently directly along the levy pathway, directly adjacent to the pathway, maybe six or eight feet back to establish a bit of a set back from the levy pathway. So they did add those two additions to the action plan. In terms of funding the security, that's something that we'll have to have a conversation with the county about how best to do that. I'm not entirely certain security is something that he will pay for, but that's something that you can consider as well. And we will come up with a strategy with the incoming dollars. So this recommendation for your motion is in the council packet as well, but I'll read it for the benefit of the public as well who might not be able to see it. So one is to approve the principles of and direct staff to implement the county and city of Santa Cruz joint action plan for emergency shelter provision and encampment management, including. And we wanted to have a lot of clarity around the dates so there wasn't any confusion moving forward as to what the council direction was. In collaboration with the county, provide gateway, applause, encampment residents with alternative shelter options through concentrated outreach and navigation to begin tomorrow, February 13th, 2019. In collaboration with the county of Santa Cruz, fully evaluate the site and operational feasibility of and implement when feasible the temporary shelter options as noted in the action plan, including but not limited to the new Laurel Street Salvation Army program, which again, the board did approve that contract amendment this morning, a new program at 1220 River Street, which was the former site of the River Street camp, expansion of the Association of Faith Community Shelter program, initiation of a small scale safe parking program, expansion of warming center capacity and continuation of the Veterans of Foreign Wars program in Live Oak. And then the C here is in collaboration with the county of Santa Cruz, provide 30 day closure and shelter transition notice to the residents of the gateway encampment on February 13th, 2019 with a plan full abatement by March 15th of 2019. And last but not least, motion to fund the warming center in the amount of $5,000, we did receive a proposal from Mr. Adams for the provision of bedding and supplies. So we'll take your questions and I'll return to the motion. So at this time it's an opportunity for council members to ask any questions of staff. Are there any questions on this side? You have a question? I'm a member of the question. Okay. All the council member, Glover, go first then. This is time for questions, for clarifying questions. That's what you said, absolutely, yeah. Thank you. So thank you for that wonderful report staff and for all of the work that you've done in addressing the issue of homelessness. I was curious, I noticed in the plans of action that it was to locate, and I think the language is a syringe disposal kiosk. Could you go back to that slide, please? Thank you. So it's a singular kiosk there, is that? So it's one of the large scale red, big bear box kiosks, yes. Okay, great. What do you need from us to install more of them around the community because I know that there are more high use sites. I met with supervisor Coonerty and he identified at least two or three other high use sites around the San Lorenzo Park area and also near the beaches. So what would you need from the council in order to move forward with more locations? Yeah, so about 18 months ago, the neighborhood safety team did start conversations with the health services agency on a pilot program to install syringe kiosks in three different locations. With the previous council, those conversations did stall out. So we are poised to regroup on that and work with our parks director as well as the SSP team and Dr. Leff to move forward with that if that's the will of the council. Wonderful, thank you. And then how many people are in the camp now currently? So by most estimates, it's anywhere from about 150 to 200, but not necessarily everybody sleeping. So there are people that, excuse me, there are people that utilize the area during the day and don't necessarily camp there. Okay, and thank you. And with the proposed relocation to the different shelters, are there enough shelter spaces for that 150 to 200 people? That is fully the intention is to provide an opportunity for everybody who is interested in shelter space to provide enough opportunity in shelter beds to transition everybody who's interested. So in terms of what we are shooting for, we are shooting for kind of a one-to-one match between what we assume to be the number there. And when you say shooting for, can you let me know what that means? Like, is it that you have that many number of locations secured through the proposal and then it's just a matter of getting people into those places or you're hoping that you'll have enough for the total amount of people in the camp? So as I mentioned in the slides in the staff report, the operational feasibility of all the sites still needs to be determined. The big question in terms of feasibility is the site at 1220 River Street. There is capacity there to serve 50, 60, 70 people depending on what type of structure we use if we do a campground again or if we try to do an indoor structure. It really does get to do we have operators that have capacity in our community that can operate this type of program. We'll know more when we're done evaluating the LOIs. Should there be a question about whether we have operational capacity, we'll have to return to the council and talk about how to make a program happen there. Okay, great, thank you. And then is there an estimated funding level that the city would be responsible for for a motion 1B, just an estimation on the city's contribution to the establishment of those additional shelter areas? So as mentioned in the staff report, it's expected that the action plan will be funded through the HEAP and CESH process and that state funding. At the, I think it was at this December 11th meeting, the previous council did allocate an additional $100,000. So between that and the state funding that's coming in, we fully expect that these 1B shelter programs will be fully funded. The reason why I ask with regards to that and I appreciate you specifying that it was the HEAP money which I was aware of because of the report. But I'm just concerned about the cost associated with the implementation of this model of shelter programs because as we saw previously, the River Street camp running initially at $90,000 a month and then ending a bit about $75,000 a month. And there are proposals which I've brought forth, which were some of the items that weren't agendized tonight that would offer the opportunity to establish encampments that could run as little as $150,000 a year. So do you think that having those kinds of options available to you may make it more possible for us to better utilize those HEAP funds instead of putting them all into things when they're kind of in my opinion overpriced? So given the fact that this funding is coming in and for this time we have a lot of money to be working with, I think it's more a matter of citing. I do think we have enough funding to fund 1B it's really about looking and maximizing as many different options as we possibly can and then deciding where those might be able to be placed. Thank you. Council Member, I mean Vice Mayor Cummings and then Council Member Crone. Any other questions? Thank you for this report. And one of the questions I had and I've brought this up a number of times is to my understanding this abatement process is gonna start hopefully tomorrow. And then if we're able to find shelter and space for all the people there, the hope is that by March 15th then we'll be able to fully relocate folks who are wanting assistance. But during that time period I'm just wondering if there's any measures the staff is taking to keeping the camp from continuing to grow. So as we find people beds, is there any measure in place so that we just don't continue to see more people come in and by March 15th we have 200 people there who we have to deal with at that point in time? Yeah, I mean I think you've brought up one of the most challenging operational considerations that we have. And so this week, tomorrow and Thursday we are gonna be meeting with county staff to talk about the board direction and the council direction and develop a guiding policy document for the operations moving forward. That guiding policy document will be, excuse me, will be handed to an operational team and we will be trying to address some of the stuff that you have asked questions about. Whenever there is a void, people will be potentially filling in that void and we are very aware of that. So it's a matter of putting some structure in place to ensure that we do have some operational standards in place to try to make that not happen. I think that is something that's gonna be very challenging and I bet that we're gonna work on it. Council Member Cronin and then Council Member Brown. Thank you, thank you Susie for every, you've been at this for a long time and really appreciate your coming back and just keep at it, thank you. Thank you to everybody also out here who's doing it too. And I see many faces who I've encountered working with homeless folks and who are homeless too. My one question really has to do with C and I'm just wondering how the decision making process went, how did we decide March 15th? Well, it was full plan to start abating it on February 13th and then full abating by March 15th, 2019. And is that even, well, go ahead and have a follow-up maybe. Yeah, absolutely, thank you Council Member Cronin. Yeah, the timing, the dates, that was the topic of a lot of conversations because there was a sense universally from everyone, City County staff, City County elected officials, this needs to be addressed as quickly as possible. For the people living in those circumstances for the community members around it, it needed to move quickly. So I think some people would wish it could be changed tomorrow. And magically if that could happen, I think that's an outcome everyone would wanna see. So we were balancing this need for speed and to move very, very quickly but also being pragmatic and being practical and thinking about, well, if we want to actually provide some alternatives to identify siting, identify shelter space that takes a little bit of time. So that was one thing that we confronted, I'd say rather quickly, to come up with this action plan ideas, to come up with 150 bed spaces. But then also providing 30-day notice for folks. So we wouldn't wanna just go in tomorrow and let everyone know you're leaving today. So we're providing people adequate notice, intensifying the outreach and opportunity for people to get enrolled in benefits to consider their options, to think about a housing plan. So that was part of it. It's balancing, moving as quickly as we possibly could with a feasible plan that provided people the maximum notice and opportunity. Oh, just wondering how the process went. Are we saying that the two by two, along with Happenheap, came to consensus on that date? Just, I was just seeing, could I didn't see any, and there could have been a memo. I just didn't maybe see it. Sure, so this really started with staff. So staff started working and staff between the city and the county led by the city manager who got ahold of the CAO and said we really need to be coordinating and talking very seriously about this issue. So thanks to the city manager for getting the county at the table with us and they were willing to do so, but he did initiate that. So we were talking back in December and saying, okay, what is happening? What's the plan? What are we gonna do? So we started working initially on the outline, the framework of this. The two by two committee very quickly in New Year said we want to meet. And so we met with them and heard very clearly the policy direction of we would like this to move as quickly as possible. Staff, can you please go back and work on this and bring back an action plan that balances all the things I talked about. So it was really a combination, but I would say I mean this entire plan from the initial germination to what you're seeing today happened in a matter of weeks. Last question, Mayor. Can the city make any commitments to the folks at the camp behind Ross Justice for Less that we will find them a place by that date March 13th? Is it? 15th. 15th, excuse me. It is our intention to get as much possible to do that. So can we absolutely guarantee? We're trying really hard and we have the most feasible plan. We already have the Laurel Street approved. That's 40 new beds. The others are coming online with certainty. So I would say that we have plans that are, I'd say 80% mature. So these aren't just exploration. We're well well past that phase. So we think that there is concreteness in reality to what we're presenting. Council Member Brown? Did you have a question? Yeah, so I am very sensitive to the urgency related to the Ross or the Gateway Plaza encampment. And I'm also sensitive to the potential for displacement. People who are really truly in need of a safe space to sleep. And so I'm just wondering if there's a plan and I understand this is a very quick turnaround time if there's a plan for the council to get some kind of report back at which point in this 30 day period we might be able to make a decision about a continuation if necessary, if shelter availability is not possible. So just if you've thought about that and then two, this is a separate question, you could take them both. The amount of high $5,000 for expansion for the provision of bedding and supplies for the Warming Center to essentially expand its services. What it seems to me, it's a big ask for a very small amount of money. And so I'm wondering how that amount was come to. And if it might be possible to consider a larger contribution to the Warming Center. All right, I'll talk about the second one first because it's an easier one. So Mr. Adams also has a purchase order with the county for the expansion and the amount of $20,000. And so that was really a collaborative effort between the city and the county to ensure that we had that moving forward. So that $20,000, $15,000 is supporting the expansion of the Warming Center. So that's increasing the number of sites that are available and then having the opportunity to double the capacity. $5,000 is to support the storage program on Fokker Street. And I believe that purchase order is complete. And yeah, the $5,000 was an additional request specifically to the city for the purposes of ensuring that there's enough provisions of bedding and supplies. So between those, that is the proposal that we got from Mr. Adams. As to the first question, I think a lot of our potential moving forward really does hinge on the potential of using 1220 River Street and finding an operator for that. I can speak from experience that as we went through this process a year ago, it's extremely challenging finding operators who can expand up for a short period of time and then have to expand down. But I do think that we will see with this LOI process that there are a few nonprofits who are willing to come to the table and have this conversation. So I'm really actually quite optimistic. I think we are at a different place than we were last year. But I do think we'll know soon if 1220 is a viable option. And if that is not a viable option, we probably would have to return to council and talk about what the plan would be like moving forward with regard to additional shelter beds if we'd need to look for a different site and how that might impact the encampment abatement timeline. If there are no further questions from the council at this time, we'll go ahead and open it up to public comment. So I've received four organizations who requested additional time. And I'd like to first invite up Mr. Robert Norris representing Huff and you'll be given four minutes to address the council. Members of the community and city council. I wonder who picked Susie O'Hara and Tina Schull to deport and disperse the Roth campground without consulting with the campers. That's the one group you may notice. Take it in one. The joint action plan as it's described is words on paper without substance.  That's the shelter this proposal would strip away from them in a month. I gain no confidence by hearing that, oh, you can go back in two weeks, maybe change it.  It was largely built and managed by the homeless themselves. You can see this community from highway one as you drive into town, rag it overcrowded and makeshift, but real. This is a community we're speaking of. It must be spoken to, listened to and appreciated. Not merely a place where mills, cops parade through with submachine guns. Yes, that's where they were two weeks ago as a training exercise or a show of force. Not just a target for abuse by take back Santa Cruz wannabes, taunting residents or a fundraising source for our staff here. The Ross camp for several hundred people is the only shelter these folks have. And no glowing promises of the city manager, eerily similar to the promises of last fall, last spring and the fall before from these same two individuals before the council, most of them the same, many of them the same. It's the same deal again. The city manager and the mayor have replaced the Cron Glover Resolutions, Glover Resolutions, sorry Drew. These were imported by three council members, introduced by three council members, prepared on time well ahead of time with accompanying staff reports that we could go. We heard a sort of apologia from the mayor but she didn't allow the council member to respond. Interesting. Or the public, thank you. The Glover Cron proposals include necessary homeless emergency declaration, not here in this proposal. Reopening closed bathrooms, not in this proposal. A review of discriminatory ordinances, not in this proposal.  A transitional campground permit process so that people like Brent and other people can actually work on setting something up without having to deal with this endlessly doddling, delaying, and babbling staff that we have to listen to for hours while each of us, except for me because I'm representing a group, gets two minutes. If three council members can't agendize the most basic and essential initial steps and instead we witness instead the proposed destruction of existing shelter, that's the campground. Are we really gonna swallow Susie O'Hara's pipe dream of a navigation center that navigates nowhere? A fantasy of housing first that doesn't exist? Or Tina Scholl's promise of a few extra tents crammed into the boneyard barbed wire river street campground that served only 60 out of the 1,000 to 1,500 homeless at a huge cost. Or a handful of beds at 7th Avenue and the Salvation Army that can in no way replace the tent city that the city manager proposes to destroy. Is this our vision? Is this what we expect those outside to accept? Sure, folks surviving in tents must prepare for the midnight wake up calls of Mills Police. The sorry, no public bathrooms here, policies of Tony Elliott, Carol Scourge and Iseth Ray. This council tonight can attempt to adopt an alternate agenda. And we're gonna be told it violates the Brown Act, but this council must try to do that and not succumb to this nonsense. Thank you. I'll go ahead and, before I invite up the next organization to come and speak, I want to remind those that are speaking before us that we have council policy that is driven behind how we can be respectful and to keep all comments to the issue at hand and at all times avoid personal attacks on either council or staff. So at this point, I'd like to now invite up Yasmina Porter, who will be representing the Tannery Leadership Group. Thank you, and Yasmina, we'll be given four minutes representing everyone. Thank you, everyone. I think I'm speaking mostly to the vice mayor because you're the only person I haven't really got and we haven't gotten a chance to work with. I want to just say that I'm here on behalf of the Tannery community that includes a lot of businesses and families, the arts council, John Stewart Company. And first I'd like to hand it over to my colleague, Linda. Hi, thank you. My name is Linda Kover. I live and work at the Tannery Arts Center. I'd like to stress the support that we have for your proposed initiative to manage the camps and disband the Ross camps. In addition, and we already have done this, is made it possible for the walkway to be used by pushing back the porta-potties and places where people are hanging out so people can walk by. That's a good thing. As the city did last year at the River Street Camp when it was active, we got a security for our Tannery campus. We are requesting that again, just like you did last year, that's why the River Street Camp was a worthwhile. The last, was that, is that what I got? Go ahead, go. You're good. I'm just gonna ask if everybody who's here to support what you're gonna vote on today, if you could please stand. So the proposal that you guys prepared that we read about. And if you could raise your hand as well. Some of you are already standing so we don't know.  So I'm almost on the verge of tears because I got a paper that called Tannery People, they called us names, some kind of name. Anyway, one of the things that really is missing that I noticed is actually talking to the people in the camp, which I did and we have been doing and some of them are here. I didn't see anybody else but me that has been going out and talking to people in the camp and bringing them here. So the one thing that I would like to say is if possible, I would like you to adapt the proposal as is but adding that they should be offered gift cards or Safeway cards to the people that are voluntarily moving. And I also wanna state misinformation that people have been putting out. The Supreme Court said that people have a right to sleep. You cannot make them move if you don't have a place for them to go. So don't not vote for it just in case they don't find a place. If they don't find a place, they can't make them go. That's the law. Thank you. Okay, was that our time? Okay, I just wanted to reiterate that we really, as a campus, we support what you're trying to do and get housing for people. And something decent that gets people in a place that works as part of their community too. Since we still have time, I wanna also share that when I was at the County Board of Supervisors today, they said that this, first of all, this is really, really, really important, everybody in this room because there's funding right now from the state. And if they don't vote for something, that money just gets taken away. That's what happens. So what I'm hoping is that you're gonna vote yes for what's on the table and then get back in there and put more in it than what Chris Cron and Drew Glover are talking about. That's what I'm hoping that you're not gonna just fight amongst each other and then do nothing for the homeless people. Because they are my friends and I have been homeless and she has been homeless. So I hope you'll take action. You have the money to take action. And what I heard from the County Board of Supervisors today is that we were the first community, the Tannery and Felker Street community, to say, put it in our neighborhood. We're not saying move it away. We're saying take good care of them and do it right. And now you have the money, so make it happen. Thank you. Well, if I still have time, I'm still gonna say this, that I support you for going forward. Just go forward. Please keep in mind you're gonna need a lot of housing. And I appreciate you're trying to do this finally. And we're not the nimbies. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so our next speaker is representing conscious in action and that's Steve Fleisch. You'll be given four minutes as well. Thank you, Mayor. As you can imagine, having just heard this report has kind of taken some of the hot air out of my presentation that I worked on all afternoon.  And I wanna do it, Martine, for this reason. I thought what you said was really important when you made your introductory comment about your relationships. Your relationships cannot be separated from us, the community. And I think that's one of my biggest bones of contention, Martin, with the way this has happened, is that we activists, and as Serene just pointed out, a lot of homeless people have not been a part of this decision making. And therefore we have felt alienated. We have felt alienated and not involved. And I think that's what causes some of the emotion, you know, of accusation that it's not healthy. I wanna say to you, I'm a rabbi, change the commandment. Instead of saying love your neighbor as yourself, say love your fellow council person as yourself, with respect and the caring that you want to have from each other. But in doing that, invite those of us who are activists and who have worked hard on this to be a part of the process. And I particularly want you to know how grateful I am to Chris and to Drew for all the work that they put into their proposals. But Chris and Drew, because of what I've just heard, I'm not sure, you know, I wanna t