Well good afternoon and welcome to our 12 30 p.m. public portion of closed session of the September 10th 2019 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council and this part of the meeting the council will receive public testimony Thereafter council members will move to the courtyard conference room for our closed session I would like to ask our clerk to please call the roll. Thank you mayor council member Cron your lover here Myers is absent today Brown your Matthews your vice mayor Cummings and mayor Watkins here Are there any members of the public who would like to speak to items on closed session? I see At least maybe one if not more. Okay, so you'll have up to two minutes And we're also hoping that Alicia will come from the union of the homeless But we're plaintiffs in the case that you'll be discussing And the Susie O'Hara and other city officials testified Under oath and federal court that there was plenty of shelter for the people at Ross camp to When there was a vote here to evict the people from Ross camp and I think everybody here would Agree that those people did not have adequate shelter and are fact found living in the doorways and the bushes and now and On the main beach in Santa Cruz so We are here to continue to offer the settlements that we've been attempting to settle with the city and We've provided and you have this Points here that we've given to the city attorney. These are similar to the same arguments. We attempted to make twice at in settlement hearings at federal court and And we hope that you will enact on on these provisions here and One of them is a city would provide a comprehensive list of all vacant city owned and city controlled and tax delinquent properties and This would be useful for finding ways to house people that That the city will designate a transitional homeless encampment and safe RV and Vehicle lot to be open no later than the start of the new year and you can go through and read the rest of them and and And Alicia wanted me to make sure that you know when Justin voted to shut down Ross camp he's wanted to see if the city staff was actually being honest about all the potential Shelter spaces and as we know there were 60 spaces ultimately at 1220 River Street, which are desperately in need of showers and fresh water And so that was the only Ultimately the only space that was provided was for 60 of the several hundred residents of Ross camp. Thank you very much All right other speakers House members. Yeah, you have a copy of this which I encourage you to look at closely We've not been able to get the city attorney and tell what yesterday to even agreed any kind of meeting What I present to you is on behalf of a Huff homeless United for friendship and freedom We can no longer reach some of our members after the destruction of the Ross camp And I joined with food now bombs on these 13 points. They're fundamentally much needed reforms Long stalled here instead of damage claims for individual plaintiffs. I mean if that's really what we want We seek the obvious fair treatment until shelter is available shelter storage potable water laundry access Your city attorney first went to court with false claims about available shelter This drove Ross camp residents out into the neighborhoods the green belt the downtown and as you just heard and have you seen the main beach Away from the sanitary facilities away from community support away from public visibility This settlement is intended to forestall this problem in the future and the future is upon us main beach encampments are now proposed for the Whack-a-mole homeless removal plan tonight Ross camp refugees being back on the beach and they are back on the beach This is where some of them were last year at this time with nowhere to go Lead plaintiff Desiree Quintero was there on the beach last week Are you looking for a future lawsuit as this wretched process repeats itself?  Are there any other members of the committee who want to address the council? Just a question which one on our closed session agenda are they speaking to I Think it's the Quintero case. That's right. It's Quintero and then litigation. Okay. Thank you Okay, so we'll see no additional public comment. We'll go ahead and adjourn the meeting to our courtyard conference room Okay Well, we'll go ahead and get started Good afternoon everybody Welcome to our 2 30 p.m. Session of the September 10th 2019 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council I'd like to ask our clerk to please call the roll. Thank you mayor council members crone your lover Present my ears will be absent Brown here Matthews your vice mayor Cummings and mayor Watkins here If I could have our clerk, please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance so we before we begin our Meeting today I'm going to ask that I Call on our colleagues and those in attendance here with us to join me in observing a moment of silence to honor the victims of The conception boat fire that occurred in Santa Barbara on September 2nd As well as the innocent victims of the seat senseless attacks on September 11th in 2001 As I'm sure all of you know the conception boat fire hits close to our home in Santa Cruz and in our community as We know there were multiple residents from Santa Cruz on board And so we will fly the flags at half staff today tomorrow and Thursday To symbolize our community's care for the victims and this moment of silence will be time for us to come together and Thought prayer or reflection in an effort to keep the victims and their families and our thoughts and in our hearts Thank you. All right Yeah It's been a difficult a couple of weeks for our community in this way So I appreciate those joining the moment of silence At this time, we'll go ahead and move on to our agenda And we'll start with the introduction of new employees and we have our director of libraries here with us I believe Susan Nimitz to introduce her new employee. Hi, I'm Susan Nimitz the director of the Santa Cruz public libraries And I have the pleasure of introducing Eric Howard Eric is our new deputy director He comes to us as an assistant director from Palo Alto and Salinas public libraries So he has lots and lots of experience He's moving to Scotts Valley We hope soon because it's he's commuting from Pacific Grove and With his lovely wife and two four-year-old daughters So we're so happy to have him on board. Hey, I'd like to invite up now our director of public works Mark Dettel to introduce his new employees Afternoon, come on. Um, it's my pleasure to introduce three new employees To my left is Eurek Hines he's a new parking attendant and Actually was a part-time Temporary employee that's that has now an existing position Born and raised in Newark, New Jersey and spent most of his late teens in New York City Till they joined the military. He currently lives in Scotts Valley for the last five years He's married and has a seven-year-old son and almost 11-year-old tuxedo cat His past work experience includes he's he's been with the city a bit over three years and before that He was in finance, but banking marketing and advertising He's attended Carrillo College has an AA and he also has a bachelor's in business from the University of Texas San Antonio and Let's see when he's not working He does mainly kid related activities by riding treasure hunting on the beach with his son With a metal detector playing Minecraft and also kids gym class Lifting weights and that type of thing any fun facts Story possible many of you may have heard him on the radio or TV as He's done some voiceover work for the NBA and one of our local radio stations So please join me and welcome and Eurek Next to Eurek is Daniel Gomez Daniel is also a parking attendant and He also was a temporary and parking tenant as now a regular employee Born and raised in Santa Cruz currently lives in Santa Cruz. He Single with no kids What what his past work experience? He used to be a co-owner or the Tampico kitchen. So So you may have recognized Daniel I went to Soquel high when he's not working. He enjoys golf and playing darts and So yeah, the fun fact is grandparents actually started the Tampico kitchen in the 50s by the boardwalk Before they moved actually on Pacific Avenue. So it was handed down through generations and he and his sister were co-owners before It's you know before he sold they sold the business. So please join me and welcome Daniel Daniel is Ryan munget munginetti Okay he's actually he's a new Let's see wastewater operator three and he comes to us He was born in Monterey grew up in Hollister and he currently lives in prune Dale His girlfriend and he are expecting a baby girl in November. So he's gonna be a father and they also have a house cat From from oh 9 to 14 He worked in a small family owned wastewater treatment plant and then from 2014 to 2019 he worked for the city of Soledad at their water reclamation treatment facility Which is great because we're getting ready to do tertiary water and recycled water at our wastewater plant He attended San Benito High School in Hollister and when he's not working He enjoys eating out at restaurants and enjoying winter camping and a fun fact is he enjoys reading Zen Buddhism books. So please meet please join me in welcoming Ryan Welcome everybody, you're it. I feel like we need to hear something from you if we're gonna recognize your voice I don't know. Say hello, maybe Welcome welcome Okay, but last but certainly not least we have I think okay We have Miguel Valencia to introduce his new employee from The water distribution superintendent of water distribution welcome. Yes. Good afternoon. Miguel Valencia water distribution superintendent Here to introduce David Tanachi He was hired as a water distribution operator in the water department David was raised in Watsonville. He studies uology at UCSB and then community Ecology at SFSU After his years of schooling and working. He's happy to call Santa Cruz home He has always looked for a way to contribute to his local community and has worked In two connected yet different fields biology and construction His work experience has been in biology education and construction David utilizes his time in the splendor of natural surroundings Forest ocean and the beach He spends his free time with his family his friends outdoors in the garden or in the sand he likes teaching his nieces and nephews and enjoying time with his wife who is a nurse at Dominican Hospital Well, welcome to all the new employees So we're gonna go ahead and switch now to our presentations and our first presentation is going to be on the Sanctuary Exploration Center and we'll invite up our presenters to share with us Great hi everybody good afternoon, my name is Chelsea Prindle. I'm the manager of the sanctuary exploration center Here we go Great So you I know you're all aware and at least I know I've personally introduced most of you to the Sanctuary Exploration Center in the past We're right across the street from the wharf We kind of like to explain that we are a kind of like a visitor center If you were go to go to a national park or a national forest Except our park is out underwater. It's the whole Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Which is a federally protected area of ocean that encompasses our entire Monterey Bay We are the visitor center for that place because of that. We are Funded through the federal government through NOAA. We are free admission open Wednesday through Sunday And I just wanted to kind of give you guys a heads up about what we've been up to our review of what we've been up to in the Last seven years and what we're looking at doing coming this this coming year So just a reminder that the city of Santa Cruz did donate the land and still owns the building We rent it for a dollar a year. It's a great deal And they originally for the conception and design of the project co-managed our grants and our projects to get it done There was a capital campaign with the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation to fundraise three million dollars to get all of the interior in the exhibits built and Currently I mentioned it's funded through NOAA partially basically for facility funds To kind of pay for our utilities if you will as well as to full-time equivalent staff members Everything else we do we fundraise ourselves through our gift shop our donations grants facility rentals In partnership with the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation to do all the programming that I'm about to get to So I mentioned we are one full-time and five part-time staff. So we're a very small staff But that's very productive And we really get everything done because we have 65 Volunteer docents so I anytime I speak in front of anybody I have to mention that our volunteers really carry the center From everything from working the front desk working the gift shop assisting with our field trips and Interpreting our exhibits to the roughly 78,000 visitors that we have a year and we are almost this year We're going to pass a million visitors, which is pretty exciting you can Guess that most of our visitorship is in the months of July and August and mostly is from people out of the area Almost this isn't a scientific study But it seems like eight times out of ten when I'm talking to people in the community who are locals They say oh, I haven't been there yet And we know that actually from our demographic surveys that it is about 80% of the people that come in the summer Have never been there before and are from out of the area. It's slightly less in the off season because we have more locals So what do we do? We have a variety of public programs to help engage those local communities and get them down to the center Across all age levels and varying interests. So we have a weekly preschool story time. That's very successful We do first fridays. We do art science info nights and celebrations to try to Again, just get the local community involved in the center We are just starting this year in partnership with the city actually a Family science Saturday, so we're in the parks and rec guide this fall for the first time Doing two of our field trip programs, which I'll talk about in a moment for families or or Just general public who wants to sign up on Saturdays. So I'm they're already At not capacity, but they're going to run. They already have a Minimum enrollment and so I'm hoping that they're really successful and we can continue it year-round and add programs to it We also do deep-sea discovery days. So whenever our researchers are out In the sanctuary doing research and are able to have live interaction technology We like to invite the community in and have them actually Have an interaction with our researchers because we are a research organization as well as an education and resource protection agency Um, so actually this fall we're doing that Quite a bit in october and november. So if you get our newsletters You'll get some information about ways that you can come and actually live chat with the scientist Doing research in the canyon or doing research at david And then finally really quickly we do seasonal beach interpretive pop-up So basically where we bring our exhibits out onto the wharf onto the beach or this summer We did it weekly at the dream in which was really fun to engage people When they're actually out enjoying the sanctuary All right, finally our education programs We've been building on this for the last couple years and this last school year the 2018 2019 school year was um It wasn't our launch, but it was definitely our most successful full Uh array of programming that we've run so far. Um, you can see on the slides that we have Various uh different thematic field trip programs that are grade specific and aligned to california state standards Last year we um reached approximately 50 classes or just under 1500 students, which was really fantastic those students Get an overall overview of the sanctuary they tour the exploration center and then they do On field experience using real scientific tools either on the beach or on the wharf Um, and so we've had great feedback from our teachers this last year. I've worked with um The santa cruz county office of education to make that partnership with the teachers more formalized and make sure it's meeting their grade specific standards And this next year we hope that um We're able to expand that even more and get those classes and numbers Um, this is our one program Well, not our one program, but it's our main program that really is reliant on Outside grants and funding to help support the program coordination and this last year one of the reasons We were so successful is because we were able to get a $30,000 grant through the national marine sanctuary foundation, which um Janae is going to talk about in a second and we hope to be able to continue partnerships expand partnerships And expand funding so that we can reach more local and regional students That's it. Do I have a minute for questions before I pass it off to janea or do you have any questions? Uh, maybe we'll sit here from uh janea and then we'll say see if there's any questions. Thank you Hi, thank you for the opportunity to be in front of you. Let me get my slide show up and my name's janea Jenae cali. I'm the director of the new monterey bay national marine sanctuary foundation So we are a new chapter um, yeah And we are the non-profit partner of the monterey bay national marine sanctuary And right my job is to raise funds for the programs of the sanctuary and to create awareness and support for those protections that the sanctuary provides You know Essentially i'm we're dedicated to preserving the long-term health of the national marine sanctuary and what Makes me excited about, you know, this local sanctuary is that we are on par with The grand canyon with yosemite with yellowstone. We have the monterey bay national marine sanctuary It's as spectacular to this community and to the country as any of those other parks It's just less visible right because most of it's underwater But I think it's yet another thing that our community gets to hold dear and be very proud of The reason we were able to get this sanctuary designated status is because it is such a special Entity and a lot of for example a lot of people don't know how large it is, right? So the sanctuary actually Spans from marine county all the way down to camberia So it spans five counties two million residences or residents It has san luso bispo county monterey county santa cruz san mateo marine county So it spans 276 miles of coastline Uh, it averages out about 30 miles from the coast and at its deepest it goes down two miles So that's part of what makes This area so unique and why we got the sanctuary designation is we have one of the largest underwater canyons on the planet certainly in the in the nation Right here in monterey and in in between santa cruz and monterey county And because of that it's created all of this biodiversity. We call us the serengeti of the sea There are 36 species of marine mammals that call this place home 525 species of fish we have extensive kelp forests Ruggy rocket shores sandy beaches estuaries It's a spectacular place and the reason we are Uh, the the the protections the sanctuary affords us is resource protections research education and public Use which includes commercial fishing and recreation And the journey i'm sure many of you know the journey to sanctuary protection started back in the 1970s And this is a picture of our former us congressman sam far There was a threat of oil drilling off of our shores and in the 70s Sam far dan hay flea a group of very committed community members fought that tooth and nail and were able to Prevent oil derricks from or oil drilling from happening off of our shores And while they were very successful in the short term it didn't it didn't guarantee long-term protection Right and so in 1992 Uh under the tutelage or the leadership of secretary lamb penetta sam far Fred keely dan hay flea they were able to Ensure and get the sanctuary designation for this area Which means in perpetuity there can be no oil drilling no ocean dumping no seabed mining in this area So it's a fantastic Accomplishment and what's really exciting to me as the foundation is that all four of those gentlemen I just mentioned are on our board of directors now along with ted ball astrary who owns cannery row And hillary bryant our former sanitary city mayor and nova covington So we just have an all-star, you know board of directors who are very committed to the long-term health and welfare of our sanctuary Oh and one one thing that one story i like to oops to Um mention is this is an oil derrick off the coast of santa barbara And I went to undergrad at uc santa barbara as i'm sure there are many people here And before we were allowed to go into the dorms There was a bottle of paint thinner and some rags in a bucket And we were instructed to use those to clear the tar off of our feet before we went into the dorm So we wouldn't stick that tar into the carpet So it was just expected that when we walked up and down the beaches those little blobs of oil and Tar that got in your hair and your clothes on your feet was just a natural occurrence And so but for the sanctuary protection, we might be looking at that same sort of an environment Ted has the great quote about we all love and it look out at our shoreline And we all love the beauty and the splendor of it. And as he says it's not that way by accident Right, it's that way because it's a sanctuary protected Area So some of the ways that the sanctuary Lites to protect educate and engage the public is through many of the programs that Chelsea just mentioned we have education programs through the sanctuary exploration center We have two docent programs that right now we're kind of focused on raising funds for team ocean bay net They put docents out to greet the public talk about the sanctuary and make sure they don't interfere with wildlife We also are raising funds very specifically for whale rescue Which is disentangling whales who get caught in the crab pot fishing lines and all the other fishing gear that's left in the waters So we're doing a lot to train the rescuers, but also look at preventative measures many many programs that The sanctuary puts on that we're raising funds for and We talked about fundraising So there are many ways that the sanctuary that the community can support the foundation to support the sanctuary Um, you know one of the ways is to volunteer you can volunteer for to be a docent for one of the programs or volunteer for the Foundation and help us put on events and it's a fun way to volunteer Another way way is to serve on our board of directors or on a committee Um to donate we always like donations. That's great and go to our website. There's easy ways to do that You can host an event for us make us a beneficiary and then speaking of events you can attend events So I think you all have an invitation on your desk. We are starting with our first our inaugural sea stars brunch We're going to be desi or the secretary and miss hillary bryant will be providing awards for people and businesses and five different categories who have given back substantially to our our sanctuary in the last year It is on september 22nd at 10 in the morning in marina at the sanctuary beach resort You'll have invitations there. We would love to have your participation and attendance and please spread the word And there's another event that you might be interested in it came about very quickly, but on our um Board sam far has a piece of property in big sir called point 16 which meant maybe some of you have been to It is one of the most beautiful places on the planet overlooking the sanctuary and we have a concert this sunday With alex digrassi who is a Grammy and nominated acoustic guitar, so if you're interested Go to the website reach out and I can get you more details, but we'd love your attendance participation and spread the word and you know We're so grateful to be a part of this community and to have this sanctuary So thank you for your time. Do you have any questions for either one of us? Well, I'll just say thank you so much for your presentation, but more importantly Thank you for all your work in protecting our incredible Resource here in our in our Monterey Bay Wonderful opportunities ahead. We don't have a whole bunch of time for questions But if there are any pressing questions from the council I'll go ahead and see if we can have a few of those But definitely encourage my colleagues and others to look into following up offline as well councilmember crown Just wondering. I'm glad you're reaching out to the dream in is there any Reaching out to the boardwalk as well because there's such a presence down there Have you been able to work with them on anything? Yeah, we have a bit we Opportunistically we will sometimes host their education programs. Sometimes their schools have an education requirement for schools in the spring who come to do Basically a boardwalk trip and they have an education component So occasionally we'll do that they have a pretty strong partnership with the marine mammal center who's currently doing that for them but we have been working to To either have kids come visit the exploration center when they're at the boardwalk or have us come educate them a bit not as much as we'd like Lots of opportunities All right, well, thank you again. Thank you. Yes So our next presentation is an outstanding recycling program award and I'll go ahead and invite up less less leo malli who's going to be Presenting and she's our interim wastewater reduction program manager Hi, thank you for having us really quick presentation But I just had to show off this beautiful Award that we just received from the california resource recovery association or c r r a I'm here on behalf of our team from waste recovery and outreach and education As you recall, we've been upgrading and updating our outreach material over the last three years Even ahead of the national sword crisis And so part of the recognition is that new outreach material, but also our recent master recycler volunteer training program And I had a few members here raise your hands if you're here So we have quite an active group of volunteers that are stepping up and Leveraging our team's ability to be out in the field and conduct outreach We've been tabling on the weekends at the west side farmers market in downtown So it's really helping our small staff to leverage and get that message out there and we are seeing a difference in Waste reduction and a lessening of the contamination in our recycling stream So we we appreciate and we encourage your ongoing support We'll be recruiting soon for the next cycle of the master recycler volunteer training program to start february of 2020 But I think we've moved beyond pilot and we're showing that it's a successful program. So Beautiful. All right. So thank you. Congratulations. Thank you And thank you to all the volunteers. I just want to personally Commend the department and all the volunteers.  Absolutely. Thank you Great Okay, we have our last presentation Which is our health and all policies evaluation quarterly report and dr. Tiffany wise west is here To lead us in this presentation Thank you, mayor. Good afternoon council members tiffani wise west sustainability and climate action manager And the point staff person on the health and all policies initiative. Um, I think We're bringing it up here in just a moment I'm here today to give you the quarterly report that we called out in our work plan Just to refresh your memory on this Health and all policies is an initiative that touches upon the three pillars of equity public health and sustainability And really recognizes that No one agency can do it alone that local government decisions do indeed impact community well-being And this is this is a slide that you've seen previously There are five key elements to health and all policies and i'm not going to read these all but they really It supports collaboration across sectors. It benefits multiple partners And engages different stakeholders and helps us to break out of the silos that we often work in In terms of the work plan goal for the committee It's to develop a collaborative and coordinated process both internally and externally For using these three pillars as lenses In decision making as well as in design of projects programs and policies That will ultimately result in improved community well-being. So really here We're looking at what are the opportunities to institutionalize these concepts within city's date the city's day-to-day business So just to refresh you on the timeline You did give direction to the committee and staff In october of last year to return with recommendations In april of this year you approved the committee's work plan Over the summer we began executing that work plan which consisted of Conducting the mayor's listening session, which i'll tell you a bit more about Conducting research and having discussions with other jurisdictions beginning to Make some of those partnerships and build relationships Of course today i'm giving you the quarterly update that was called out in the work plan And what's ahead we are working on the policy and implementation recommendations With the committee that will be in a report format that we will bring back to city council in november That will also include Recommendations for staff training as well as metrics for us to monitor going forward So in terms of the mayor's listening tour the mayor has been busy this summer out and about talking to folks. We've had two community meetings And we have two more in september one of those meetings was in the beach flats community We'll be meeting with teens and seniors later this month. We've also had four other community I'm sorry stakeholder meetings. We do have three more in september We have a community survey that is active through September 18th both in english and in spanish and have worked very closely with beach flats Leaders in pumping that out to that community to ensure that we have a good diversity in responses And all in all In a city staff survey in which about 18 percent of those that That were asked to respond responded all in all Aside from the surveys through the meetings that we've had we've reached close to a hundred folks so far And we are really checking back in with those folks by summarizing what we're hearing And making sure that we heard them correctly and if we missed anything We're giving them an opportunity to correct that And if you're interested in what that looks like we actually have summaries of all these meetings at the health and all Policies website which is under the city manager's office department Okay When we're in these meetings we're really the mayor is talking about what is health and all policies Really opening that up giving examples of how other jurisdictions have operationalized this And she asked several questions about what is and what isn't working with respect to the three pillars And also what's possible so What things that are working we're hearing back. So this is the majority of the groups have have Discussed or have highlighted these as things that are working As positive contributions to community well-being and those include citywide jump bikes as well as other active transportation particularly bike Infrastructure the green lanes and so forth access to organic fresh produce As well as the health consciousness of the community is something that's working And also a sense of innovation and open-mindedness not only throughout the community But with our community's leadership That leads to a better understanding of the three pillars We also ask what's missing and what's possible and really we found that the themes that emerged from the Outreach so far really overlap in the answer to these questions Folks said that obviously affordable housing As well as child care along with the lack of a living wage hinders our vision of community well-being The folks from downtown also perceive that there Is a lack of support of of the businesses with respect to understanding what to do in the case of disasters As well as active shooter situations, which is the first time that we had heard this They also are confused about enforcement of illicit activity in the downtown area We also are missing and what's possible is mental illness support systems and community support for immigration populations And then we also heard that there is a perceived lack of awareness of the severity of climate change And how the actions of the community are exacerbating and can help our situation with climate change So again these overlap in terms of what's missing and what's possible The most popular response in terms of what's possible is affordable housing Followed by mental health outreach increasing diversity awareness and providing facilities for child care It's also been mentioned that there are so many opportunities with uc santa crews and other institution education institutions in terms of increasing our community well-being so One one question that we ask also is in one word What does successful community well-being look like and some of the themes that have already come out in the other questions You see here fed thriving resilient And resilient was given in the context of both climate change, but but other Contacts as well Safe safety is a big theme that we're hearing participating equitable Healthy happy was something that was cited across all of the stakeholder groups and housed Let's look at what the staff survey said. I'm just really giving you a snapshot here We have collected so much data, but these were some things that stood out. We asked staff that responded How does how much does the city focus on addressing equity public health and sustainability? The blue bar is are the folks that responded the right amount or too much The light green bar is not enough or no focus and the dark green bar is no focus So you can see It's it's fairly close between the right amount and not enough of focus So that tells us that there's really some opportunity here as well as with respect to training It was interested interesting that only 76 folks of 125 employees who participated in the survey So about 60 actually answered this question So those that answered the question you see about 39 percent have been trained in equity About 41 percent in public health and about 23 percent in sustainability So again lots of opportunities that we're seeing with our employees There are also a number of free responses that that were shared with us where we see that there's a lack of actually understanding about the framework and the three pillars and in fact employees Who have responded to the free response questions are also confusing the concept of fairness treating people Fairly and equally with equity. So we do see that also as an opportunity for training. Those are obviously not the same thing We are also preparing a gap analysis of policies projects and programs aligned with three the three pillars We have drawn from a number of policy documents the employee survey Work plans and so forth and we're beginning to categorize those by city functions Those efforts that align with the three pillars and that's really going to show us throughout our Day-to-day business. Where are we? Where do we have gaps in our use of these lenses? And Something that you will be very interested in when we bring this back as we're starting To evaluate Implementation options policy process and training opportunities. So along the left hand side This is of course in progress. You'll see a number of things that have been mentioned In previous times that we've been in front of you city council As well as other best practices that we're seeing in other communities in terms of how we can operationalize Health and all policies here at the city and you see some criteria across the top And so we're beginning to work with the committee on how do we evaluate these opportunities? And then rank them so that we can come to you with some recommendations that are based on data With that, uh, this is the last slide We also have spoken to a number of folks in the communities who are really excited to partner us with us on this endeavor For example, that county health services agency director has indicated her support and commitment to facilitate and convene around health and all policies issues, which is A movement forward for the county and indeed the city of watsonville is watching what we're doing and are about They are about ready to pursue development of high up at their city as well And they're looking at this process that we're in right now to try to replicate it The last thing i'll say is that in the state of california, uh, just this fiscal year Governor Newsom in a historic decision The california state budget in the california state budget has established three health and all policies positions at the cabinet level And has provided funding to the california strategic growth council to promote healthy communities Racial equity and environmental sustainability across state government and within the programs that The strategic growth council funds And with that We are finishing listening tour this month Completing the evaluation report Again, we're going to come to you with policy and process recommendations in november And then we'll start training and implementation in the new year. I'm happy to take any questions that you might have on this presentation. Thank you Well, thank you This makes me really happy and I just want to applaud and recognize Just the incredible work that's coming out of your division under your leadership tiffani. Thank you so much This is exceptional. I think it's a bit of a teaser for what's to come in november But just anecdotally i'll add without kind of going too far That it's been really well received by the community by the partners There's a lot of interest in intuitively feeling how they can work with the city But also look at incorporating these pillars into their work And moving us in a direction that I think really leads us towards a path of community well-being So i'm very optimistic and hopeful and I look forward to having a more complete conversation in november And thank you again for all your work and for this update Unless there's any questions from the council No, thank you again, and we'll see you soon. You're welcome. Thank you Okay So that will then conclude our presentations For today's meeting I have just a few announcements And then we'll move on to our regular meeting So today's meeting is being broadcast live on community television channel 25 And is streaming on the city's website at cityofsanacruz.com All city council members can be emailed at city council at cityofsanacruz.com If you would like to communicate with us about an agenda item We'd like to receive your email by monday at 5 p.m. Before our council meeting This provides us with an opportunity to review your email and include it in the rest of the agenda packet Please do bear in mind that all items of correspondence with the city and the city council constitute public records and are generally subject to disclosure of palm requests by any member of the public Accordingly if you have any sensitive or private information that you do not wish to have made public You should not include that information in your correspondence Our rules of decorum are on the window ledge to my left And it's my job to keep the meeting running without Disruption and we ask that you respect your fellow citizens when you are inside and outside of our council chambers At this time, I'll go ahead and ask if any of our council members have any statements of disqualification today Seeing none Um city clerk, do we have any additions or deletions? We have none Seeing none I have a quick announcement about oral communications Oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to address us and speak to us on items that are not on today's agenda Oral communications will occur at or around 7 p.m. This evening I'll look to our city attorney to report out on closed session Yes, thank you mayor. What what can members of the city council? This afternoon the council convened at 12 30 p.m. In the courtyard conference room to discuss The following closed session items First was a conference with legal counsel concerning liability claims The claims of sharon lee garner and the claim of sentinel insurance company Representing wun property management llc The garner item is also listed as item 11 on your consent agenda this afternoon Council also received a report from and gave direction to its negotiator real property negotiator, uh, bonnie ellipscomb Concerning the property at 125 coral street owned by james p. Gillespie and gene gillespie trustees And harley f and sandra. I gillespie co-trustees Council item c Considered an item of anticipated litigation involving significant exposure to litigation There was one item discussed under that category There were two pending litigation matters that the council received a report from legal counsel and gave direction Those were hatch pomerance versus the city of santa cruz case pending in the santa cruz county superior court And desiré quintero et al versus the city of santa cruz Case pending in the united states district court for the northern district of california Finally the council met with its labor negotiator to discuss Negotiations with the fire Ia ff local 1716 There was no reportable action on any of those items Discussed in closed session today Thank you, mr. Condadi and then we'll go ahead and Move on to our city manager report and I think we have a report today from city manager Yes, brief, uh, just a presentation on an exciting new program that We've launched recently really with the leadership of our parks and recreation department And our director tony elliott who who had this idea of initiating this citizens Academy and got it organized and started. So just wanted to give you a brief overview of that There we go, so the santa cruz city government academy. So this is a Essentially a program that's being offered That is really a behind the scenes exploration of local government And it's really about introducing to residents to all the various services that are provided in the city in the various departments It's a eight-week course With participants in the end, you know having a just a greater understanding of how the city works City government works and what we do for the residents of the city, which is a lot We're a full service city. So we do a lot more than most people. I think even realize and so It started last week on thursday september 5th And it's due to end in october the 24th, and it's it's in the evenings from 6 to 8 p.m Yeah, it's as I mentioned the parks and recreation Staff is really who's taking the leadership here They serve as a liaison for each week and they really helped to organize in plan the whole the whole course again under director elliott's leadership and There's a experience a presentation that's prepared every week and the department team was really Enthusiastic about moving forward with this and really got into the spirit of creating some really great programs and presentations for For each of each week and cancels if you're interested in attending and coming you're more than welcome to do that And we there's tours as well as other sort of hands-on experiences like for example the one that happened recently with respect to our office And we introduced them to the city council as well as far as what you do We had the the actual participants set up here and pretend to be the council and mayor and it was very interesting experience for them And it's a free to attend participants have to register the parks and recreation department like they would any other parks program And at the end of the program, we hope to have them here before you to recognize them for their participation. We've have about The minimum is 10 the maximum is 30, but I think we have about a little over 20 participants signed up thus far So this is a schedule as I mentioned the city manager one was On september 5th. We also did an overview of the budget A lot of people just again don't understand the basics of our city budget the difference between the general fund and enterprise funds And so on and so forth The whole budget process tracy from the finance department did a very nice presentation on that And then there'll be another seven sessions starting This week with public works followed by police fire And as you can see here you can out development and planning will be together water library and then parks and recreation at the end of of october And that's it. If you have any questions be happy to answer them also. Tony's here if Any questions he can answer as well. Thank you well, thank you for the presentation And thank you, Tony and to your team for putting this on it's a really fantastic New program that the city's offering and Very similar to what I think is exceptional with leadership santa cruz inside education to other jurisdictions showing light into what the work is Of the city is it's great. So I look forward to meeting the first cohort in october and appreciate the The drive to make this happen Questions vice mayor coming one question And uh, I want to thank you for the work that you all did on this. I think it's pretty cool and um, But just wondering how frequent this is going to be offered to the public moving forward Tony can answer this, but I think this if it's successful, which it looks like it is we'll we'll continue to offer it on an ongoing basis but Yeah, we plan to offer the next semester if you will next fall In a year, but depending on the feedback that we get this fall. We may do another one as soon as this coming spring wonderful Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Great. Thank you All right We'll go ahead and now move on to our city council memberships in city groups and outside agencies So this is a time for our council members to report out on actions at external boards committees and joint powers authority meetings Um, and just if you want to share a brief update on anything that you think is important for the council and community To know in terms of your work, uh, please do so at this time I generally start to my left, but I'll entertain the opportunity to maybe start to my right today and we'll start with you council member crown Thank you. Yes. I um attended the uh integrated waste management task force, uh this past week and um The crisis of plastics continues, um really Sort of unabated. I think there's some things we're kind of working at the edges of You know with plastic bags and plastic straws and the elimination of those um, but I think really where the um The real heft in that whole struggle would be Are a couple of bills that are wanting wending their ways through um through sacramento And really putting some pressure on The the the folks who produce the plastic and that they be responsible Uh for what they produce And I think that we'll see some real changes Coming down in california and I think california, of course Leading the way in a lot of areas. Hopefully we'll take this on. I i'm i'm really hoping the governor will see this as as one of those um california leadership, uh Tasks that he um takes on The other uh group that i'm a part of is the um The community uh advisory group which um is made up about 22 different uh community members elected officials Folks who are a part of different groups. Um We met with the chancellor the new chancellor for the first time this past week and It was a it was the beginning of a meeting we are we put together We put forward some principles that we want the university to agree with before we enter into this New l r d p long range development plan process Uh, and I think they're still mulling those principles over because what it's trying to do is put us a little more on an equal footing And that we have some real teeth in in in what this group decides um And that the university be bound by some principles that we all can agree on and that's Led to difficulties in the past without having principles. Um where the community and the university agree upon um And I think the the big thing that that I noticed came out of this is that They're shooting for 2021 with a draft l r d p before it was 2020 so Essentially we've been given another one-year reprieve which means they will not go over 19 500 students Which is the current um long range development plan? Limit cap on on the university. So that was for me a really good news And hopefully will continue um in that vein and make Santa Cruz You know, I think that's what we're looking for we're looking for a sort of The Santa Cruz exception because we are exceptional here and that we do care about education and that's the reason we don't want the university to grow without Sacramento providing resources which they they have not for the number of students that are up on campus now The the last one i'll say is the public safety committee meeting is next It's on the 23rd 5 30. So that's that's our next meeting. Thank you, mayor Thank you councilmember ground councilmember clever Thanks. Well, I thought I was going to safely some for me But uh, what I was going to let people know about is the public safety committee meeting Which is scheduled for next monday the 23rd at 5 p.m. I will be discussing issues of gun safety as well as a variety of other issues that impact public safety here in The city of Santa Cruz so encourage everyone to come other than that and nothing to report. Thank you I'll just briefly report. Um, we had update on the health and all policies work that's happening within the city There's a city select committee meeting coming up in a couple of weeks. Um, we haven't met since the last time I reported out on that The one thing I do want to share that I think is interest to the council and the community is the criminal justice council Is having a gang violence prevention symposium Focused on the role of women and girls in gangs and that will take place on september 27th From 8 a.m. To 12 p.m. At the twin lakes church And I encourage you all if you're available to look at the flyer and if interested attend that And to share that with any networks that you have that might be interested as well And I just forwarded that flyer and information onto at this time um And I guess briefly I will just uh also share out that the two by two met um briefly in august to Have a presentation on fire season updates from our Please our fire chief chief hideu as well as um discuss some shelter program updates from the county And then some systems improvement work that they uh apprised us up as well Um, and I think that briefly summarizes the work that we have Yeah, vice mayor comings Um In august was able to attend the lafco meeting. Uh, it was really brief Edward banks was selected to be the new special districts alternate on lafco. We also adopted to Voted to adopt the service and sphere of influence review for the santa cruz port district And jim anderson will be the voting delegate for the cal lafco annual conference, which is coming up in october And um aside from that just briefly because I know it's of interest of folks in the community the uh library subcommittee has been Meeting fairly regularly. We've been having um presentations by transportation Economic development. We've selected jason architects To look at what our current funding would be able to get us in terms of renovations at the current library And we'll be doing um a more formal update in the near future Great. Thank you Many of the programs have already been covered By previous reports. Um, I will say Metro has concluded labor negotiations on most of its units has one outstanding still and um is Continuing to work on the pacific station Groundwork with with the city which is encouraging Um The mid county ground water agency. We had a presentation from rosemary on that recently so they will be having their um public hearing on the sustainability plan Uh on uh thursday Um, this I think it's the 16th. I don't know a calendar right in front of me But that will be a public comment period on the um two years worth of work That's been undertaken by the agency and that will ultimately result in The adoption of a sustainability plan for that mid county ground water aquifer By 2020 And then other than that the downtown management corporation has been involved with the Consulting which is one of the assessment districts in our downtown area has been involved with the Consulting by puma the progressive urban management association that's been brought in Collaboration between the downtown association and the city um and just to review the overall management opportunities and future for downtown Exciting process Oh, I got one more and then visit excuse me Visit Santa Cruz. We're on together Um, I they they continue to to do good work on marketing one of the things they do is um collaborate with visit california Which is a statewide tourism agency which operates nationwide and internationally and visit california um is uh This month uh celebrating california surfing day one of their big promotions. So I'll give you one. I'll pass these on and so um Visit california is promoting california surfing day and uh, I just am passing out some of the work that Visit Santa Cruz county is doing Building on collaborating with the work of visit california. So if it's an active Marketing and motion district right here in our local agency that leverages what the state and national groups are doing Yeah, thank you councilmember brown right Let's see. I will start with the regional transportation commission We um had our monthly meeting on this past thursday and um at that time one highlight actually two highlights one was uh decision to approve a process for the regional distribution of surface transportation funding which is kind of um the state and federal Funding that comes to each of the jurisdictions within the county and um in the past that has all been competitive We have finally with the help of staff from the respective jurisdictions and rtc staff Uh decided upon a distribution a formula distribution that allowed will According to our public works department allow for the programming out of projects in uh more Clear a clearer uh more coherent way. So that was good news. We also in that process did leave some funding aside for metro and Some of our community partners nonprofits who work on sustainable transportation and active transportation projects So that was good. We also had a really cool presentation by Uh company out of southern california that has is going to be bringing a hydrogen train It's a possible um higher capacity but not super high capacity Rail transit Program that we could kind of look to in the future and um, I won't give a lot of details But um, you can find out more about it at the rtc website and stay tuned for The actual demonstration, which will be occurring Probably on one of the segments of the rail corridor that in the city of santa cruz And we're not exactly sure when but it'll probably be sometime in Either the fall or the spring depending on the weather. So stay tuned and um, it'll be really fun get on the get on the train um In terms so um vice mayor comings reported on the library subcommittee, I would just add that um for those who are interested in More information about what that subcommittee is, you know that work program We do have a dedicated site uh page on our city website Which you can go to and there you can also find a link to sign up for office hours if For folks who want to communicate with us in addition to our publicly noticed Meetings with programmed meetings. We have set aside time to meet with Groups and members of the public. So um, you can check the website and sign up if you'd like to talk with us Um directly in that setting um, I think I gave my President I think I've already talked about age friendly cities and the Area agency on aging So I'll Skip that one the last item that I would mention is In addition to the CAG, which is the university sponsored community advisory group that we have representation on I am on Along with council member matthews city county task force committee to respond to you see growth and to kind of Guide our advocacy efforts around the advisory measure Measure you That was adopted passed by city voters. So we Have and at our city budget at budget time we did allocate funding for an advocate position There's an rfp out now And we are currently looking for Someone to Fill that role and so you can find the rfp at the city's website at our on the planning Departments page. Is that where it's located? Business and bidding. Thank you. It's at the business and bidding site page on our website We are also as part of that process establishing a community advisory group for that committee So that we can further engage stakeholders in that process And so we'll be reporting back on that once they convene and start meeting All right, thanks Well, thank you and see manager martin. Yeah, just a couple of items. First with respect to the library joint powers authority, we had a special meeting last week to Approve their response to there was a grandeur report on the use of patron data and data analytics And so the staff working with the board prepare responses to that so that was approved last week It's long and detailed. I won't go over it. But so if you're interested, you can find the report and the analysis on the library's webpage And then secondly with respect to the 9-1-1, which is the emergency communication center I serve on that board as well The big news there is that we are moving forward with the acquisition of a new records management system Which is something we've been really looking forward to particularly the police department In order to get better data and do more analysis And so that will be actually before this council at your next meeting to approve the agreement And then we'll move forward with starting the implementation of that early next year So I just wanted to give you an update on that that that is moving forward All right, well, thank you And thanks to all of you for your work in our community and behalf of our city council We'll go ahead and move along then now to our council meeting calendar And I'll see if there's been any revisions or updates from our city clerk So that takes us to our consent agenda portion of today's meeting and Those are items 6 through 15 on our agenda All items will be acted upon in one motion unless an item is pulled by a council member for further discussion I will ask my colleagues if they are interested in pulling any items today I had a question on number 12, but I don't need to pull it. Okay question for number 12 Okay, I said one comment on 10. Okay comment for 10 any items pulled Council member matthews I'm looking for my agenda, but I want to briefly comment on the earthquake. I don't remember. Okay What's that number eight? I don't write a comment. Okay You have no agenda items pulled from our consent agenda. Okay, so we'll go ahead and move then through Um, we'll just maybe go ahead and start as opposed to going chronologically I'll go to my right council member crone for your question or comment. Yeah, this is for um, uh, I guess for laura schmitt Just wanted to I talked with a groups two groups of people this week and who are sort of like active and local you know, they follow san juz city council and The site that we go to it's really it's really important site, right? I mean because that's where we get all our information People might go to it several times during the week or in a meeting even Um, and I know we're thinking about changing over and I'm just my question would be Uh, I'm concerned about the process of that change over and how it might affect Not only the council, but the general public who use The the the site often so the impetus for the change over is Highland is a company that acquired sire and sire is our current software that handles The agendas and the production of the agendas and all of the document management. So we have about 2.3 million files in sire related to meetings and their attachments and then it also does the um Video overlay and the marrying of the documents With the video that get gets recorded through magic in that back room and also gets broadcast through ctv So that's the entirety of this scope highland purchased Sire and highland already had an existing set of systems for all of the solution And it's called on base and that happened several years ago So when a company acquires this in the software market They tend to eventually go with one set of flagship products And this case highland is going with on base. So our product sire is at end of life. So we need to replace it So it is um Not necessarily a voluntary process It is a thing that is driven through the acquisition and the merger and acquisition However, the team um and the team we went through a process last fiscal year of mapping The current sire processes and into on base and would they go well? And the team's conclusion was a very complimentary and on bases Consultant and they actually have teams that are focused Of moving agencies seamlessly from sire to on base So if you will they have these conversion teams that have been going around with their existing Customer base helping them do this move And we had a consultant onsite last fiscal year who worked with a team here to do that mapping and the team's conclusion was very Positive and that not only could we make the move relatively seamlessly But that we would also get key back office functionality that we're missing today And and some of that is kind of not apparent to our end user community But if you look at some of our agenda reports The four meaning of them aren't isn't very sophisticated So something like a word editor which you're used to using at your computer When we use sire right now. It's very a text editor. It's not very robust So the readability and consumability of our agenda reports will improve as far as the end user goes and then our staff will have More capability to be able to produce reports that are I think more engaging and able to be understood easily by the public In the interest of time just my simple question is when the public interfaces with our system Will there be much of a change will they be like, oh my god, what's going on here or would be pretty um You know, I think it'll be pretty seamless the the technology that on base has has a Capability and when I Looked at it. It's cleaner. It's more modern I think the font itself that you're able to choose from It's it's it's more open. There's more white space. I think the readability is improved And but the basic navigation doesn't change. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you Thank you Vice mayor Cummings Uh not on this item and okay Is there anybody else you'd like to just or have any questions on this topic? Thank you. Thank you, Laura sorry Vice mayor Cummings, so um with item number 10 one of the objectives is to Commit to a thousand new job placements in 2020 and I just wanted to make the comment and emphasize that these job placements are really focused on Placing people who are currently residing in Santa Cruz county in these jobs So that we're really providing jobs for people who are within our current unemployment market And so that's that's all I have to say on that item I'll just say here here to that and I think there's a lot of potential and hopefully we'll um be successful in our Efforts to try to receive this um potential funding source to really support the next um kind of generation and pathway for these uh Kind of high wage type jobs that we need here in our community. So good luck and um, thank you for pointing that out Question common, uh councilor matthews Just want to briefly um remark and bring to the attention of the public October 17th is the 30th anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake And there are a number of observances happening in the community the city has reached out to connect with Other entities that are planning things and we're involved in several of them Our emergency services departments are doing some emergency preparation workshops one on the 13 sunday the 13th at the civic in collaboration with other Preparedness organizations the library is collecting oral histories of people who are here During the earthquake and what their experiences were and at the museum of natural history. There's a lecture on the science of earthquakes and There will be a moment of silence At 504 on the anniversary date and things are things are just coming forward now So these will be on our I think on our website for people to Access and for those who are here it was embedded in your memory and for Those who were not and particularly younger people. They're thinking. What is the big deal? But in fact it did affect the community profoundly in many ways Yeah, thank you and we'll maybe continue to provide any updates on any of this We'll do the updates. This is what we knew when we went to press Thank you very much and I think we all remember where we were on that day if we were here, so I appreciate that Was there any other questions or comments on any of the consent agenda items from the council at this time? Seeing none We'll go ahead and see if there's any members of the community who would like to address this on our consent agenda That's items number six through 15 in our agenda packet Okay, seeing them. We'll go ahead and return back for a council action. Oh, forgive me. Please come right up Okay, we're going to go ahead and have you reserve your comments until we hear that item We're on six through 15 at this time 19. I believe That will be on item number 19 and I will announce that item when it's time Okay, so, um, I'll go ahead and see if there's a motion on the floor. I'll make a motion Okay, second. Okay I'll go ahead and second that a motion by vice mayor coming seconded by myself to move the consent agenda all those in favor Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed. Okay. That passes unanimously With council member meyers absent with council member meyers absent. Thank you. I'll remember to do that From here on out Okay Next on our agenda is our consent public hearing And this is item number 16 on our agenda. Is there any council member who would like to poll common or Discuss item number 16 on our agenda Okay, seeing none. So any member of the community who would like to address us on item number 16 Okay, seeing them. We'll go ahead and see if there's a motion I'll move item number 16. Okay Motion by vice mayor coming seconded by Council member Glover. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed. That passes unanimously with council member meyers absent All right So we'll move right along to our general business portion of our Meeting and next is the opportunity for us to have a sister cities committee appointment and with the term expiration of january 1st 2001 In the order there will be a brief Sort of discussion if if applicable for this item But in general for our General business items will have a presentation questions public comment, and then we'll return back for council action My understanding is we'll go ahead and take nominations and our clerks lead us through this council. We do have someone here Someone's here public applicant. Okay before we go ahead and move that them We'll go ahead and maybe and have public comment before We hear any Decisions on this please come forward and you'll have up to two minutes My name is Douglas Hall, and I'm here to essentially ask for your vote to be appointed To the vacancy and to present my qualifications One is I already have some experience With local government both in the city where I live for 14 years As a chair for task force or as commissioner for parks and rec But also here in Santa Cruz where I put in some time with the measure k committee where essentially nothing happened for two years And then one year on the arts commission But more importantly, I'm already active With the sister committee as a member of the exploratory committee that's driving the initiative to Establish a former relationship with the beaheats, which is a really really significant and potentially important relationship for both cities and particularly center crews with economic and intellectual benefits And that's it If you have any questions I have 48 seconds left We're okay, but thank you for being here and thank you for your interest in serving in this capacity Okay, so we'll go ahead and see if we want to have our city clerk Maybe run us through this process. And my understanding is we'll take nominations and then given who's nominated Decided if then we'll take the vote after the nominations. Okay. You nominate one person. Okay, so I'll start to my left councilmember Brown. Do you have a nomination? Oh, I'll nominate Dennis Adler Councilmember Matthews Yes, I'd like to nominate Doug this whole because he is already involved with the commission activities has some experience with him Are there any other names for nominations? Seeing none We'll go ahead and have the vote on the two potential nominees um Did we start to my right this time councilmember chrome? Are you able to vote for both nominees? Sadly, no. We only have one opening. We only have one opening Uh, I vote for uh, douglas hall Oh Douglas hall Douglas hall Oh Okay, with uh douglas hall with all uh councilmember's present support and councilmember meyers absent Okay, congratulations, mr. Hall. Thank you for your service and we look forward to what's possible with the new exploration of uh partnership with france Okay Thank you. Okay, so we'll go ahead and move on um to our next agenda item Which is our daily vega golf course operations plan and um, I believe tony elliott is going to present Not quite here yet. Why don't we we're a little bit ahead of schedule We'll take a five minute break and let tony, uh come back and we'll go ahead and start when he gets here on this on this item All right, are we ready? Okay So we'll go ahead and call this session back into order And so for those at home and those in the in the public here We're on item number 18 of our general business agenda items This is our daylaw vega golf course operations plan And as a reminder, we'll have a presentation from our staff We'll have an opportunity for council to ask any clarifying questions Open it up to the community for public comment and then return back for council action and deliberation Um, I'll go ahead and turn it over to our park director tony elliott All right. Thanks very much Good afternoon mayor and city council. Uh, we'll jump right in here to the golf Presentation this is a follow-up from our budget hearings Back in this spring. So a little bit of context on where we've been and and the reason that we're here today Back during the budget hearings the golf course was A hot topic because we looked at this. I'll call it an enterprise and air quotes It's not a true enterprise, but one of the the kind of one of the operations within the parks and recreation department The city council back during the budget hearings directed staff to explore a variety of strategies and develop a plan for the golf course to break even The goal really was financial sustainability in a in a break even staff has explored and presented options to reduce costs as well as increase revenues, which we'll look at Here this afternoon The council also directed staff to explore options to open harvey west pool year round And look at different options or models there and we'll discuss that as a Actually, this the next agenda item after this one I mentioned that here because they both connect in a way because obviously they're both Financial impacts to the parks and recreation department in both general fund Funded operations within the city and within parks and recs. So they do tie together just from a budget standpoint So a little bit of the background here. So again, this is a follow-up from our fiscal year 2020 budget hearings A little bit of context again from the the budget standpoint. So the parks and recreation approved budget For fiscal year 20 is approximately 17.3 million We reduced our supplies and services budget going into fiscal year 20 By about 650 thousand dollars 650 thousand dollar reduction 115 thousand of that included the golf course. So we've already made through the Process leading up until our discussion tonight. We've reduced our budget at the golf course by over a hundred thousand dollars annually parks and recreation brings in approximately five million dollars in revenue Um, so the net annual expenditure from the general fund is around 12 million dollars So another way to look at that is the Santa Cruz taxpayer Really, uh, the net um is paying uh into a budget of about 12 million dollars For the parks and recreation department to operate. So that's all parks open spaces beaches golf course recreation programs summer camps on and on So a lot of our parks and recreation services have low or no cost or no fee to the public the department for example spends Approximately six million dollars a year on parks and open space maintenance Um, and our parks are free. They're free and open. We're not charging a gate fee To get into our parks And so I share this a little bit in terms of how we fund things and where we collect revenue or where we don't collect revenue Within parks and recreation. So six million dollars a year we spend to provide neighborhood parks Regional parks and open spaces to our community and we don't collect revenue off of that. We're not there's no again no fee for example Special events such as woody's on the wharf family fund day that we had at harvey west a few weeks ago And many other events are free to the public So again, not charging fees for those And then operations such as our civic auditorium the municipal wharf Between those two Those cost approximately three and a half million dollars per year combined Between the civic and the wharf and bring in a combined two and a half million back to the city So even the civic auditorium and the wharf are not self-sustaining. So we spend three and a half We bring in two and a half. So again some of the context on how general fund dollars parks and rec budget dollars And tax payer dollars go to fund the amenities and services within parks and recreation So back to the golf course. So the golf course in in this context in the budget context Over the past several years. We spend approximately two million dollars per year at the golf course And it brings in approximately 1.5 million per year And we'll get into specific Numbers here in just a moment I mentioned the pool and we'll bring this up again In just a little bit, but the harvey west pool specifically Budgets about 175 thousand dollars per year So it costs us about 175 thousand per year to run the pool And we bring in revenue of approximately 75 thousand So a net Support or subsidy if you will From the general fund of about a hundred thousand dollars per year I just wanted to mention that again the general fund It doesn't just fund parks and recreation But funds the police department the fire department as you all know And so as we're having these discussions and similar to the budget conversation Where we Kind of play the shell game within the parks and recreation to fund different areas to save money in different areas Increase revenues and areas reduce expenditures All of this is within the broader context, of course within the general fund budget So I just wanted to put that in context that The golf course isn't an assilo parks and rec is an assilo, but there are a lot of impacts there as well So talk a little bit about the park itself to la viega park As you all know, it's a multi-use park. We have the golf course and on the golf course itself We have multiple uses. We have the paved cart paths on the golf course That are often used for dog walking things like that. We host a number of events and weddings of the golf course the golf course also Intersects with a disc golf course a paid disc golf course Where a fee can be paid to play disc golf on the actual ball golf course But also in the park. We have santa crux shakespeare. We have in the lower park Another disc golf course that's ranked in the top five or ten in the world We have a kind of a secret hidden archery course, which is amazing Playgrounds ball diamonds and so forth. So to la viega really is a multi-use park A really incredible property with a variety of uses And again, most of those uses do not bring in any revenue the golf course does And we have an opportunity I think long term to look at revenue generation through some of these operations But wanted to share a little bit of that context on the multi-use nature of the park So we'll get into some of the numbers here of the golf course. So this is our operational analysis So I've got two slides here to dig into this. So Really the bottom line here Is the most probably important to look at the number of rounds that we're offering And booking to for the community per year So you'll see in fiscal year 19 We hosted just shy of 44 000 rounds of golf at the golf course Four contexts about 50 almost 5700 of those were free. So we gave those to nonprofit organizations We gave those to school groups Those are free rounds That we gave back to the community 2018 about 45 000 rounds with about 6500 of those Given away Non-revenue rounds to community members. So I share this and we'll talk about this a little bit more But to la viega is a of course a public course And really is sort of the the the people's course if you will in santa Cruz We have a another golf course near to us at posa tiempo But it's a private course and it's a very Expensive course frankly about 250 dollars a round Compared to our approximately 50 dollars a round So this is a course really multi-use and really the idea is that it can serve the community not just for golf But in a number of ways and so here are the some of the numbers that reflect The type of use that we have at the golf course In terms of expenses and revenues here is a snapshot so As you can see on the bottom line the trend We do run a deficit every year at the golf course And again, this is not uncommon compared with other Functions within the parks and recreation department. So we're running deficits at the auditorium and the wharf and and virtually everywhere else So But as you can see from the the golf business if you will Here is the amount the negative amount in the bottom line Is the annual Net impact to the general fund through the parks and recreation budget One thing that i'll note a couple of the big fees a couple of big dollar amounts that you will see here One is water and water. You can see over time where the new water rates went into effect So in the past two years, we pay approximately $570,000 a year and water At the golf course For some context we budget Three quarters of a million we budget 750,000 in water So there is a water savings if you go up to the golf course right now the course is pretty well browned out A lot of dry areas. We're not watering the the course everywhere And we make it a point For water conservation as much as we can And so you can see even though we budget 750. We're spending about 200 000 less than that almost Another big expense for us is personnel And we'll talk about this a little bit more in just a moment We have nine fte's At the golf course. It's a skeleton crew in 2010 After the kaiser marston report that's included as part of your packet One of the recommendations was to reduce the number of staff following that 2010 report So the so we did reduce staff at that point down to a skeleton crew, which we're really Operating with To this day, so it's a minimal number of staff to run the golf course Nevertheless, our personnel budget is almost a million dollars a year and it was over a million dollars a year a few years ago Um, but I mentioned this because a lot of municipal courses And i'll go to this next slide here a lot of municipal courses in the bay area in the past two years in particular Have started to privatize their maintenance. So our maintenance is done in house. It's done by city employees. It's done by parks and recreation staff A lot of other muni courses in the same situation that we're in in the same spirit to save money And break even have privatized other maintenance We recognize that in a sort of a business mindset that that is Potential option, but we believe that it's not within the values of our city and our parks department To to lay off our people And into privatized labor. So that's just kind of our viewpoint on it We don't see that as an option So we did not put that forth in the operations plan, but certainly if the city council wants to review Or consider Privatization of the maintenance side there could be cost savings there But it would mean potential layoffs to To the staff at the golf course So I just wanted to put that out there in some context. We have not put that forth as part of our recommendations So the near-term strategy, so we have put forth in the operations plan A three-part sustainability strategy So this starts with our annual expenditures. So we aim to minimize our annual expenditures As much as we possibly can while maintaining the quality of the course So we are putting forth In the proposal to reduce our annual water budget by 20 percent down to 600 thousand dollars per year We it's a hedge if we need that extra water We wouldn't necessarily have it available unless we came back to the city council for additional appropriation But that is 150 thousand dollar savings in the budget that we could implement In this next budget cycle by reducing that down to 600 thousand per year Other expenditures, I think that we could potentially minimize again. It's very difficult With staff with personnel With skeleton crew, but there are other ways that we could reduce and so we'll talk about that a little bit more But one that's coming soon as a well. So an installation of a well That well has a one-year payback on it until we start to See the benefits of of installing that that well So we'll bring that to the city council in the coming a couple months as a proposal So minimizing expenditures but maintaining that course quality The second one Is increasing our revenues. We have to increase our revenues. And so we have approached this In two different ways through the proposal number one is a proposal to Increase the rates at the golf course. We have not increased rates In about a decade and so we've proposed increasing rates, which we'll get into in just a moment Those range from a six percent increase To the walk-up rate to a 20 percent increase To the annual membership Which are a lot of local users kind of the most dedicated users and heaviest users at the golf course The other way that we can increase revenues is by getting more people to the golf course to play golf to go to the restaurant To to have events up there And so this is an area that we can work with our operator and plan to work with our operator And this is in the operations plan But we need a we need a marketing plan. We've got to go out to the community We've got to get more people to the golf course And we'll discuss that again here in just a second And I allude to that here in the third point again It's getting more getting more people to the golf course and that again gets to the marketing side of things So I'll go ahead and move on So right now our users at the golf course. It's about two-thirds community member or two-thirds residents of santa cruz county and one third non residents of santa cruz county This ratio used to be flipped. So when we had Higher rounds in the 90s, for example This ratio was flipped two-thirds of our users were from out of town One third were local and so we know From this number that there's something that we're doing now that we that we didn't used to do And so that has kind of changed changed our numbers Bay Area golf in general virtually all of the municipal courses in the bay area Have more annual rounds at their golf course per year than what we have in some cases It's 50 percent more rounds We uh de la viega used to have probably 60 to 70 thousand rounds per year And as we saw here, we have about 44 thousand rounds per year. So there's a huge opportunity we believe Seeing that most of our users are local and we don't have a large out-of-town user base And also in comparison to other muni courses. We know that we're not capturing the visitor santa cruz county is a one billion dollar tourism industry just in our county And so if we can capture just a couple people out of that and start to start to turn this around I think there's a lot of opportunity and upside For increasing revenues at the golf course. So I think a lot of a lot of potential there And that'll get done in marketing. I think in terms of outreach Here's some national statistics. I wanted to put in here In terms of so this is across the country Total rounds of golf across the country just kind of big picture And this has gone back and forth over the past five years Almost two percent decrease to an almost two percent increase Down to almost a five percent decrease in 2018 This is across the country On the right hand side the pie chart you see here the number of rounds played The 434 million rounds of golf played in 2018 about 80 percent of those are at public courses So just for a little bit of context. I think on the importance of our public course Now this is a little we're a little bit different in california on the west coast As you can see across the country the decline in golf and the decline in golf across the country is in the aggregate But if you look at the west coast, we are increasing. So we've got about a three percent growth in golf Within this timeline. This is from the national golf foundation. So on the west coast and and kind of the mountain region if you will There continues to be an increase despite the downward trend across the country So getting back to our rates. So these are the rates that we have proposed as part of the operations plan And these for some context Have been recommended by our operators. So our operator Has a long history in the business of golf And these recommendations really come from them as the subject matter expert They believe that if we increase rates too dramatically, we're gonna People are going to stop playing golf It'll price people out and they'll stop playing golf. So in terms of the general public, we've proposed a pretty modest increase Which is six percent But as we go down you can see the discount card holders the annual member programs a pretty significant increase To those again, those are the people who are golfing almost every day And would like very likely be willing to pay a higher fee Just based on that based on that use and this is based on some Um, I I want to say non scientific surveying but from our operator discussions. They've had with their the regular golfers This is the feedback that we've gotten that the that our market Could bear these increases Um, but not a lot more without affecting the the number of rounds played So here are a couple other key steps that we have in place Reduction of water consumption We're seeking options for for a well at least one well that we discuss Or other types of detention or retention if possible We are in ongoing discussions with the water department to look at tertiary treated water to get recycled water to the golf course rather than using potable water Utilization of variable rate pricing. So this is a new thing actually that we've put in place since our budget hearing back in the spring But we have variable rate pricing based on demand at the golf course. So for example When the u.s. Open was at pebble beach This summer a lot of people were in the area for the golf tournament And so our rate to play golf was about 98 dollars around. So we knew there was increased demand So that price point went up based on that variable rate pricing But right now in the winter when it's cold and in rainy We could uh through the variable rate pricing lower those fees So at a time of year where we're very slow, we don't have a whole lot of golf play We could lower those rates significantly To incentivize people to get out to the golf course and better balance our schedule throughout the year To bring in revenue Uh delaviga grill the restaurant at the golf course is still under construction and we hope to open that Yet this fall um as of today. I think they are this is our operator that's doing this work at this point They're looking at november december to open up the grill And then I mentioned a little bit marketing For special events uh into the travel industry Again, I think we're a very uniquely situated golf course. We're in a tourist hub here in santa Cruz A lot of really marketable assets that that we have at this golf course, but we have to get out to The expos we have to get out to these different opportunities That organizations like visit santa Cruz provider that they engage in we've got to get out to To a broader community and market to encourage people to play golf when they come to visit our city So sustainability in the plan we talk about I'll just touch on this briefly, but there's a lot of detail in the operations plan When we talk about sustainability, we look at it from a triple bottom line approach So financial sustainability environmental and social and so we've talked a little bit about the environmental the wells the tertiary treated water Things along those lines. It would be a goal of ours if we could to be the most environmentally efficient golf course in the state That would take some significant investment To get to that point upgraded irrigation Alternative energy sources potentially and a much more comprehensive approach toward water conservation And storm water capture potentially on the social side social sustainability to us means proactively Going out to our community to make sure that all members of our community Know about the golf course and have access to play golf And so we can do that by connecting with the schools, but with elementary schools We can work through programs Like the first tee program And we at the golf course have done this historically, but at some point we sort of got away from doing some of these things So there's a lot of opportunity to get underserved individuals or communities up to the golf course to learn the game of golf or the business of golf Or disc golf or shakespeare for that matter So there are a lot of different tactics and those are articulated in the operations plan On different strategies for a social sustainability approach To get more people to the golf course And give that opportunity at ideally no cost to Especially underserved communities to to provide access So the staff recommendation for the city council today is that The council support the draft operations plan that we have before you Which includes the the near term and long term strategies that we've talked about For some context as well. We at the parks and recreation commission Last night the commission voted six to one to uphold To uphold this recommendation on the draft operations plan The one addition that they had to their motion was a request To get the financials from our operator. So just kind of a detail there So this would be staff recommendation to adopt the draft operations plan I'd be happy to open it up to any questions that the council has Councilor Mathews I do have a question on the and you don't have to go back to the slide, but This year the revenues were down And I think you've alluded in your report that that was significantly due to the closure of the the shop or the Cafe restaurant restaurant grill And You also refer to the fact that when that is up and running it will be much more attractive you Expect more than a bounce back a real improvement Do you have any Reflection on how that might help you accelerate the um closing the gap I would say we don't at this point. I would love our operator to chime in on that. They are not here today, unfortunately The going back to your first question the decrease in revenue and play For this past year was in large part due to the rain. We had a really rainy season And so you saw To some degree our water consumption was lower this year. Our water bill was a bit lower But our play was a bit lower. And so when the rains come we save in one area, but we we lose revenue in another Okay Well, I I was just really impressed and you know when the time comes I'd be happy to make a motion Thank you. Any other questions from the council at this time for the staff? Thank you the question I'm really disappointed that the the vendor isn't here. Um I don't know. It's kind of like a an oral, you know that you take for a dissertation or or something You know that your thing is coming up and he's he's he or she's not here to represent the uh The group that's uh, I don't know what to say Uh, because there's a lot of questions that we might have um for for the vendor. I was wondering from you Maybe do you know other cities? I didn't see any um I saw some comps on what other cities charge for green fees, but have you seen any? um General fund expenditures from those cities and how does that compare with ours what what we're because so far this It's the last since 2013 from the information you gave us There's a little over 3.5 million dollar deficit. We're running at the golf course And it looks like we're on track to have a 750 thousand dollar one Although you said that maybe a hundred thousand we could back off on for the for the water But do we have any information like that from other other cities? We we did some research on that As part of this effort to put the operations plan together to look at other golf courses what their fees and rates are In comparison some of that data is in the pro forma report from 2017 as well I don't think we have specific data in terms of what other cities are Funding that sort of net general fund Impact from other cities, but we we did compare the rates only we could certainly get that information though What was the member discounts program This is our membership card and i'll lean on these guys if they want to describe it a little bit more, but it's basically um basically a card that you purchase it's uh 100 or 150 dollars To buy the card and with that card you get a discount on the daily rate of playing golf So it's kind of like getting a Safe way card or something and why not raise that card? What was the idea behind that not not raising that fee? A mile six on the golf course superintendent That fee was just something that was established at the time that the program was started and and much like our rates Not changed and probably should Probably should There too, but it's not recommended on our thing. It's that's the one that didn't change. I don't think Was it was recommended So there are two different ones here There's the annual pass and that's the one where we recommended increasing it right there membership member discount programs no change Yeah, that one I don't recall exactly from our operator. There's another great question for the operator. I believe that I don't know. I think they felt there wasn't a whole lot of flexibility there I think the price of that card is relatively low 100 or 150 per year And so we talked about bumping that up to we bump it up 100 bucks or so But I think that one in particular they felt They felt that that there's not that elasticity there if you will and raising that fee so they recommended no change You talked about the the Drilling for water and you and I have talked offline about kind of like not using potable water to water the golf course Have we checked in with the water department and what the the water situation the water table there at the golf course how that might affect You know, just overall water capacity or Availability in Santa Cruz Yeah, we have with the water department and Quite a great amount of detail. I can't probably speak to this in the best detail My understanding is there's sort of an isolated layer of groundwater Where we would propose digging this well and so it would not affect Would not affect the water department generally again, I sort of out of out of my Realm of expertise here in terms of speaking to that but when we bring the well item to the city council the water department has done a lot of research into that In terms of the in terms of what the environmental impact would be and they would present that as part of the proposal for council Um, you did quite a bit of Talking on how all these different programs cost the city I'm sorry about that because I don't see the golf course necessarily on a par with programs at loudon nelson Or or the basketball programs that the city has or softball leagues To you know, take our water department. I think that's a better You know apples to apples kind of comparison they are Raising fees and have been raising fees because that's what it takes to Have a product that that's that's clean and good and gets it distributed to the people in sanikers And so I think that would be a better way of like the golf course It it doesn't make it still doesn't make sense to me so much and I know you and I have talked about it And you know, I think there's some room here too Of raising, you know green fees I think the vendor Probably cautions against that because it could affect a lot of things, but it seems to me he might have some leeway to like okay merchandise restaurant alcohol all those other things that he We get a certain percentage of but There is you know, if he doesn't want the green fees to go up Too dramatically. It seems like we need to negotiate a better agreement with him I'm understanding that we we negotiate a 10-year agreement just recently with with um, I guess the lousalot family That's correct. Yeah, I'm looking at the numbers here just to provide the best information So we have two two leases with the lousalot family One is for the restaurant And that is that's the one that was updated most recently. That's a 10-year term for the restaurant And then they the other lease that we have with the lousalot family is for the what we just called the pro shop And that's really for the business or the operations of the golf course. So Happy to go into those numbers in terms of what that looks like But Let's see generally on the pro shop side of things So let me see here the lease on the pro shop or the operation goes through 2026. So we still have seven years On that lease And to some of the details here the concessionaire paid six percent of all greens fees and green fee discount cards Golf cards seven percent and I might have travis beck our park superintendent come explain this a little bit better Seven percent of gross revenue on golf courts seven percent of sales of the pro shop These are the items that come back to the city. So seven percent. They get 93 percent driving range 15 percent up to 325,000 And 14 percent over 325,000 golf lessons five percent of gross revenue disc golf concession seven percent Of gross sales on the restaurant Six percent of food eight percent of alcohol 10 percent of merchandise at the restaurant So just a there's a lot of numbers really quickly, but just a snapshot on on that lease On an environmental question I had was does the um, does the go does the dale vega park Does it currently have a management plan in place and when was that adopted? On the park as a whole we have a master plan that was adopted in 1960 And has not been updated since then. We don't have a management plan of the golf course But that's really what this operations plan is intended to do is serve as a management plan for the golf course specifically I mean that what's in front of us correct for the management plan for the golf course. Yeah Just for the golf course. Yeah, and to your question about about revenues overall I think it's a really good question. And so we talked about kind of the multi-use nature Of dale vega and we could look at this across the entire parks and recreation department But a best practice for a parks and recreation department is to have a revenue policy in place So what type of operations what that would really guide us on is what type of operations do we seek full cost recovery? Where are we willing to subsidize? And everywhere in between we do not have a revenue policy in place As a department and so that's something that long term And really separate from the golf course We could look at all aspects of our operation within parks and rec to say Where do we similar to the water department example? Where do we want to capture? That user fee and and what are we willing to subsidize? Thank you, mayor I have a motion also um, and I but I'd like to hear from other council members and what what kind of issues or questions they might have I advice mayor Cummings councilor brown and then councilman Matthews and then council member clever But typically do most city run golf courses, you know, do they generally run in a deficit because the idea being that they're gonna Offer And supplement some of the funding that it costs to run the golf course so that people Have morbidity of access and as a result they end up running in a deficit But that's also similar to for example Um based on some of what you said many of our parks the maintenance of those open spaces So that they're free for people to go to comes at a cost of you know Not generating revenue off that so just maybe wondering if you could speak to that with regards to the golf courses in general Yeah, I think you hit perfectly on kind of the the core of the whole discussion among Excuse me municipal golf courses and uh, that is you know in the 80s and 90s All these golf courses were making money and giving money back to their general funds And supporting other functions and parks and rec and so I think the general decrease in in golf play But I think more importantly in the in the 90s and in the early 2000s The number of golf courses especially in the bay area exploded I think if I recall it was it was about a 44 increase in the number of golf courses In the bay area over over 10 years or so. I think that was in the in the in the 90s And so all of a sudden, um, you know golf was booming everybody built golf courses And then it kind of started to trend downward but with a huge supply of golf courses So muni courses municipal courses Uh, really we're all in the same situation where Uh, really we're all kind of facing the same thing. We have declining number of rounds And so that values judgment is very similar to the discussion We're having of what do you do with a golf course? Can you make a multi-use? Do you privatize? Aspects of it. Do you close it? What's what's the right thing to do? And I think in the case of our golf course We see a lot of upside a lot of opportunity just based on past trends and kind of how our trends are now Which is why this operations plan and recommendation is structured as such Councilmember brown and then councilmember matthews and then councilmember Thank you for the presentation Thank you for thinking about how to proceed and make the golf course operations more sustainable financially and Also kind of I think we talked about uh at our meeting thinking about the the value of having a one a public golf course, but also one that is green it's um, it is greener than a lot of golf courses and um, so I think that's something that I'd also like to see um us pursue in terms of our outreach and marketing or the The operator to the extent they're doing any of that outreach and marketing question is so in the so 10 years ago nine years ago and a half we Received the city received this report about the um golf course operations and the feasibility of Doing a range of things to try to make it self-supporting and one of the items that is listed in the gap This is page nine Section eight potential options for reducing the gap and golf the golf course enterprise fund number two was related to debt service And so I'm wondering and there was an expectation that The those that debt service would decline and which it has But we still have a similarly sized gap so That didn't happen. I'm just wondering if If you have any thoughts on that if there's you know, if there's something more that i'm missing here about why that Did not come to fruition as a way to close our gap and um if There's anything that can be done. Um, you know, I guess i'm just kind of overall kind of It's a little frustrating to see 10 years later similar gap and You know feeds have not gone up another question that I have just it's kind of a Just a kind of your sense of kind of question Um, we were um Where we're at with in in compared to other muni courses um I mean we're kind of We're pretty competitive, right? So it I'm just wondering about that how that fits into the thinking about raising rates and and the how that might be off putting for consumers or golfers Well if I could offer your Your point about the debt service being retired. That's true. We still carry some debt service on a 30-year bond that we took out in 04 and 05 which is a three million dollar renovation project So we still hold that debt service But in conjunction with retiring some of the other debt service and also refinancing our current debt service The unfortunate uh coincidence was that the water rates skyrocketed and also pensions went up for employees So everything that we stood to gain from retiring those debt services was lost to these increases And yes, we are competitive and that's with our pricing Which is also what gives us reservation and nervousness about raising our rates too much to cover that gap because Unlike our colleagues in the water department people have choices when it comes to golf courses And they can go somewhere else to play for cheaper or better quality So it's a quick follow-up question in that regard In terms of our what is our competition because when I it's hard for me to understand The the nature of that competition Because we are in a community that doesn't have very proximate Golf courses of the same caliber at the same cost So it's not like being in San Jose and deciding I'm going to go to Campbell instead of Sunnyvale You know because the course there is cheaper So if you could talk about that a little bit from your perspective that would be helpful for me I would just say as tony mentioned earlier in his presentation that Currently two-thirds of our players are local and one-third is out of town, which was you know, conversely In our heyday And because we've lost that that group of of bay area folks coming over They have so many choices that unless they have a reason to come over to us They don't have to go that far to find golf So one of our challenges is is enticing them to come over through good quality and good pricing And that's part of the challenges that we're facing As we go forward and especially with developing a marketing plan Yeah, I think kind of building on that During the budget hearings, I mistakenly compared our golf course in terms of competition to pasta tiempo And it's really not a great comparison So but I think the to miles point I think a great competitive advantage that we have is that we are the affordable course here in Santa Cruz And again with all these people coming over the hill visiting here There's an opportunity to capture that segment of the market That we're not doing at the moment so locally The locals are are playing golf the locals Obviously we're seeing you know two-thirds of our users are our locals But it's that out of town the people visiting here who were not not capturing Councilmember Matthews and then councilmember Glover Um, I I did want to also ask about the increase in rates over time. You talked about Doing it stepped over a period of time. I think did you say five years? Was that your and rather than in one fell swoop and a shock to the system let people adjust to it Yeah, that's a great point. We propose if I recall three years so phasing these increases over the next three years Oh, and I like I said one of the um, you did mention also development of a revenue policy for the department overall Which I think is Probably overdue What's sort of a timeframe work program? Do you see I mean obviously that's not immediate, but it's something you'd want to You know get on the list Yeah, that's a great question. We have strategic planning meetings. Um this fall We've got a new team a new management team in parks and recreation So actually beginning at the end of this month will be the first phase of multiple phases of strategic planning And in that we'll talk about a revenue policy. So I'm hopeful I don't want to over promise.  Um, but I'm hopeful by Next spring or summer we can have a revenue policy in place Great Let's have a break over Thank you Thank you director alien and for the rest of the parks group for being here to talk about the The golf course I know this is important to a lot of people and even before it was on this agenda When we're talking about before I had a chance to meet with some different people in the community that Really believe golf is a really important Sport to be able to have access to especially for people from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds Uh, so I want to acknowledge that as we enter into this conversation Um, I notice that there we're talking doing a lot of talk about the cost of the city and all that kind of stuff And I it's important Uh, I'd really love to understand the operator and that's why I'm really disappointed that I'm not here today because there are some specific things That I would be curious about but maybe you can answer it is how long have we been working with this operator? The the current golf professionals father was the was the original pro and conception of the course So since 1969 1970. Oh, wow. Okay. So 30 40 years somewhere in there. Thank you. Um, and then, uh When you were listing off those numbers as far as the profit sharing that was going, you know 5% 4% 7% 10% is there a reason why those are so low? Yeah, I can't speak to that exactly we could get that information. Um, I don't know off and uh, the economic development department may have likely been involved in that We for reference what we could follow up with as well is kind of a comparison of some of Our lease rates at are at the wharf for example some of the wharf tenants But we did a lot of that research going into it. I'm I'm not sure why these numbers are the way they are though and do you Do you know the general report of the profit for the operator every year that they're making off of the municipal golf course? No, I do not. Oh, so it's a lot unknowns. Okay. Um Because that's a that's just a little Disconcerting to me, you know a group that's been running a golf course for 40 years with unknown amounts of profit and we're subsidizing that for The community but if we're having a private entity generating a profit off of the municipal golf course And we're talking about increasing fees Uh, that would make it less accessible for low-income people to be able to participate in a sport that should be open to everyone um, I'm kind of concerned about Potentially perceived regressive price modifications that would make it so become less accessible I know that in other You know Areas of whether it be sports or access to things for admission there are tiered uh Teared rates for people based off of their income, uh, or stuff like that So i'm not sure if that's anything that y'all have had a chance to potentially dive into where if someone can prove that they Have an income of below a certain level then they would be given one of either the member discount cards or uh, potentially a pass for Low-income golf or however you want to frame it accessible golf a little bit less stigmatizing um But yeah, so stuff like that and then having a tiered set of uh potential things because You know if I was if I was able to talk with the operator here and ask them questions and get that kind of perspective But right now I would be much more inclined to figuring out how we can Rebalance the revenue sharing between the operator and the city so that we can start seeing some of that Coming back to us, especially, you know, we just spent a million Dollars or so on renovating the restaurant, but we're seeing five percent come back to us on food I think was the number you gave me five seven and ten so That's what there's a lot of red flags there for me with that and I hope that we can continue this conversation as we move forward Council for current and then councilor matthews. Thank you. Um, I just want to put forward this Motion I have a copy for you. So maybe go ahead and pause for a second on the motion. Um, until we take public comment Okay, any additional questions from the council at this time Councilor matthews, it's not a question, but uh, I want to give just a little perspective on the operator the Previous operator was interested in retiring and you are going to know a whole lot more about this than I can recall but It did come to the city at the time of Renewal of the agreement and the younger generation was interested in coming in and making very significant Very significant private investment of their own in the facilities Which is why the decision was made. I'm thinking of the The grill for not just a one year Or a short term but a longer term because they were prepared to put in both the financial commitment and the vision to Make a significant improvement and market and expansion of activities and so forth. So It was not just an arbitrary same old same old. It was it was a um, a very thoughtful decision which involved both parks and rec and economic development and As I think has been mentioned The rates return to the city as on the war if it's different percentages for different amounts, but they're they're hardly arbitrary So I would just like to say again, I'm very impressed with the How the staff and the commission heard the concern of the council About dealing which it has been a dynamic Situation in the golf industry What's out there with the prices play and so forth and I think there's been an interest over time in keeping our course accessible making improvements in the Environmental water and so forth the expenses But I believe the staff has truly heard what the council directed And has given a lot of good careful thought to not just a quick fix, but a plan that can be implemented Over a relatively near term three to five years that will make significant improvements in all of these areas and give us A course that we can be proud of and is an asset to our community. So for that reason, I favor Adopting the staff report before us. We'll go ahead. I will go ahead. I just want to I recognize that we're we're going to be I'll just sort of reorient this We're still at a time for questions. We'll have an opportunity for comments after we hear public comment Um, did you have an additional question? It was just I'll wait till the next The next question was to respond to something that was said, but yeah, absolutely I think you know, my questions were primarily answered already I did have a question about the local discount, but I kind of understand the dynamic in regards trying to increase Out of town or so that was sort of by default responded to Um, okay, so at this point we'll go ahead. Do you have additional questions? I do have one more. I'm during that transition from The older generation to the younger generation was there an open request for proposals for a new operator for the golf course? Or was it just a Family handoff I believe the term is just a typical municipal lease where this the Son and uh, to go over for the retiring father and the and the lease perpetuated through time. Great. Thank you Option to renew it Yes, but the I just want to add that when the lease expired that question came before the city council as far as what Approach the council wanted to take whether you want to do an open rfp or do you want to negotiate with existing? Um operator so that question was brought before the council and the council decided to pursue negotiations with the current operator Do you know what year that was Several years ago. I'm trying to recall when the when the uh, I'm not mistaken It's happened more than once over the last 15 years for this been brought in front of this council and it was about Four or five years ago, maybe maybe a little longer. I think 2010 and then again around roughly 2015 if i'm not mistaken Okay, yeah, i'm thinking of the 2015 probably Thank you Okay, so now's the time for us to hear any members of the community who want to address us on this item This is item number 18 of our general business Agenda, please step forward and you'll have up to two minutes Good afternoon. I'm scott ram. Um As the so-called water district puts the pipeline in for the uh reclaimed water We should put a t somewhere Which would be the optimal point to send some reclaimed water up to the golf course to water to the golf course with reclaimed water or Lay a secondary pipe coming from that point to their secondary uh Treatment plant so that we can use some of what they call pure water to water the golf course Um instead of using, you know potable water I mean, it's quite a bit of water that they're using up there And eventually, you know, the city's gonna have to like limit the number of hookups for new water supply So if we can take that potable water and then save it for Uh new hookups that would be really great as far as um Maintaining the golf course I'd like to know whether or not other municipal courses are maintained by the cities and their Parks departments or are they maintained by the vendor that they've leased the course to? Because that that could be quite a bit of savings too if the vendor was responsible for You know mowing the lawns and cleaning bathrooms and doing stuff like that instead of the city and then having uh Them take take that over um And as far as fees go, I think that you know, you could raise them Probably six to twelve dollars on a sliding scale And most people would continue to play. I don't think you know, I mean our nearest competition really is boulder creek country club Because pass at tiampo. It's just way too costly And then there's another uh, you know lower Anyway, thank you You'll have up to two minutes to just thank you. Good afternoon council I actually came to speak about the the next item the pool We'll go ahead and pause your guys, but as I'm but I'm gonna speak on this but I have some for this item I understand that but there's something relevant because There are two recreation programs and I've been swimming at simpkins. I'm not a because I'm on A city resident I have to pay a higher fee than if I didn't live in the city of Santa Cruz So it strikes me that I mean that In the rate structure the city would be justified in charging Um out of city residents, even if they were local higher fees They don't have to be 50 percent higher But I mean unless the county wants to give us a break At simpkins and other programs. I mean Why don't we do the same? That's it. Thank you Is there any other members of the community who would like to address us on this item? Okay, seeing them. We'll go ahead and return back for council Deliberation and action. I'll just make a few comments before we get started I just want to thank the staff for this really thoughtful and comprehensive plan and I think Clearly there's been areas where We've been able to kind of I mean we absent being able to sort of fix the past I think there's things that we can learn from the past to move forward and I appreciate the aspiration of having You know the most eco-friendly golf course in the nation. I think that's really in line with our values I like the elements around the social access piece sort of similar to council member clever around sort of an equity fee scale rate I think really is about The principles that you alluded to around this being the people's golf course, right? And so I think golf is often thought of as for the elite and it's nice to know that our community is still Committed to providing this as an opportunity for those who couldn't afford that Um, I think that there are aspects that I think there are areas where we would like to learn more But absent kind of knowing that this is fluid I think there's a lot of opportunity for us to take what you've proposed here and move forward With potential solutions in next steps. So that being said, I'll go ahead and return back to my colleagues I know we had council member clever who I stopped originally It's okay. I'll pass for now. Okay, you'll go ahead and pass Vice mayor Cummings and then council member brown and then I think we have two potential motions We'll go ahead and hear comments and then we'll go ahead and see I have two potential motions that were brought to my attention To start by saying thank you for bringing this forward because I think that it's incorporated a lot of Some of the concerns that folks up here have had over the past year and probably longer Um, I think that one thing that's been reiterated and I'll just say for myself I think it would be really good to understand, you know, what are the Cost expenditures and revenue that's being generated by on the operators end because it's really transparent for us on the city's end But kind of better understanding that on the operator side would be useful for us And really happy and excited that you all are going to be working on a marketing plan It would be good to I think one thing that would be Interesting if it's not if you all don't have it already but learning more about the demographics of who is coming To the golf course that way, you know through through that marketing plan Kind of identifying where there might be gaps and then shifting Sometimes advertisement or marketing to draw in more people who might not be typically using the golf course and And also I think it would be good to understand the investments that have been made by the operators So we can understand how much is the city investing into this how much is the operator investing in and kind of where Where all the the money is kind of penciling out But thank you Yeah, I also want to thank you To thank you, mr. Elliott and also the folks who have kept the daylight vega golf course well maintained for so long it's It's it's just really nice to be up there and and I appreciate the other kind of benefits of of having that space in addition to being able to Golf on it So the park aspect I also want to mention because I was not aware until recently All right. I guess I hadn't really Had it presented to me in that manner that yes, the city has made a large contribution to improvements for the The clubhouse the lodge the grill That facility and but the the operator has as well and and so I want to recognize that and Not suggest that any of my comments or Interests here or want to suggest that We don't aren't aware of that don't appreciate that and are not i'm not suggesting that we kind of renege on you know Negotiations that we've made and and the contract is established, but I do think it's important to Have some additional information about that So I don't really feel comfortable and I also wanted to say I appreciate the The Planning that's going in I you know, I want to support the staff recommendation in terms of the near-term strategy and long-term planning I don't feel comfortable making a decision about you know three years out on rate the rate structure without Having a better understanding and you know some kind of business plan presented To us. I'd like the parks and rec commission. I apparently they were interested in this and I'd like for them to be able to look at that as well And I also want to say that I am very happy to hear our parks director Suggest that the the department is not interested in contracting out the maintenance because while I it could certainly save A significant amount. I think there's there's big loss there I don't generally don't support contracting out public services as a public course It is if it's going to be the people's golf course And we should be the people of Santa Cruz should be able to Have maintain those You know better paid Benefitted positions union jobs So I wouldn't support contracting that out to say as a way to save money I know it's not on the table right now, but I just wanted to say that since you brought it up Thank you for that and I think I'll leave it there For now, but that's aside from the rate structure I appreciate where you're going you know making a definitive decision today about that. I'm not comfortable with but the rest of it Thank you Thank you I'm wondering if we can get the recommendations put back up at this point I think we have two potential folks interested in the motion and I'm wondering I think if I Could see you have one written out. Is that correct? Maybe councilmember chrome We can have us all look at that and you can see if there's alignment potentially with your Direction and if not we can mine mine was going to be very straightforward frankly Well, but why don't we pass it out? Why don't you you I'm gonna make a motion And I'm just gonna pass it out If folks would I don't want to I don't want to make a substitute motion if you want I'll make a substitute motion if councilmember matthews wants to go forward or we'll just talk about this one first and Maybe see what see what happens Well, I just um councilmember matthews I'm sort of stuck here because councilmember matthews brought to my attention an interest in making a motion Prior to to councilmember crown. So why don't we go ahead and honor that Once you make your motion if it's required that we do a substitute motion We'll do that But just want to acknowledge the fact that that was brought to my attention go right ahead Could I take just a minute to look at this? Well, you yeah, that would be that would be ideal I think maybe Given what I think I'm seeing here. Why don't we go ahead and have councilmember crown make the motion We can divide the question if necessary to areas where there might be alignment. Does that make sense? I'm disappointed Because I was very honest that I wanted to make My motion and I feel like I've been preempted. Okay. What I will honor that I agree Okay, go right ahead make your motion. My motion was simply going to be and to Accept and adopt the proposed draft operations plan for the la la vega golf course And I would be happy to add Other elements to that some of which are reflected here I think many of the items reflected in councilmember crown's motion Were implicit in the presentation that was given to us and in the operations plan So they don't need to be called out specifically, but my the mot