feel like this is these are associations that are going to not only provide help during the short the hopefully um the the pandemic that will end at some point in time but also extend into the long-term mutually beneficial associations that can last decades um i i do want to say a few things though about the challenges associated that we were faced with in establishing a kovat 19 clinical diagnostic lab you know uc santa cruise doesn't have a medical center um we have a small um student health clinic but that's the extent of what we have from kind of a medical infrastructure perspective and what we were really having to face with the situation of was converting from a bunch of scientists jeremy sandford michael stone olenovoske are all truly amazing scientists that were now needing to switch and go from doing their research laboratory to developing a clinical laboratory and i'm not going to go through all the steps on here but it's a very different world and a very different process uh that to go from a research lab to a clinical lab and we are quite fortunate in this particular process that olenovoske um in her her everyday world of running a research lab does uh um pediatric tumor genomics and in the process of working with these incredibly um important pediatric tumor cases she developed the skills of being um a clinical lab scientist in order to do the sorts of studies that are required to run a clinical laboratory so we're really able to take advantage of her expertise in pediatric genomics and be able to turn that into a situation of doing testing for COVID-19 so over over the course of the last nine months we have had an absolutely incredible team of young scientists and other leaders on the UC Santa Cruz campus that have made this entire process possible i'm not going to be able to read all the names on this slide or the next slide but i think that there's some really important names that i do want to mention dr elizabeth miller is the medical director of our student health center and she has been absolutely critical not only for the establishment of the molecular diagnostics lab but for the safety of all the UC Santa Cruz students as well as the safety of many members of our community and she's really been a hero on our campus throughout this entire process i want to read the names of all of the young scientists that really have motivated and kept the really kept everybody moving forward when this process could have fallen apart in so many different ways in the very early days so the lab technical team of namreta dylan joeen draper taren chang animal newbie savannah randy barkina peterson maize knave a new fan denbaut avon basket scott lawn natalie gallagher molly mccabe taren sanchez chris calziano elin caphart and tail agelhofer all were absolutely critical to the success of this process and we wouldn't have done what we could do without their absolute dedication innovation and really willingness to make every do everything possible to make a difference in our community this is just another small list of names that haven't haven't had a critical impact on making sure this entire lab functions properly these are the people behind the scenes that don't get any credit for what we've been able to do and they've they've really allowed this process to move forward uh i do need to make sure i mentioned chancellor cindy larive and our cpvc lori clutzer by chancellor scott branch by chancellor sarlaitham and abc gene reed scott who have been critical to making sure this whole process works and both uh chancellor larive and cdvc clutzer were behind this from day one when they knew it was going to be incredibly expensive they did know how we would do it but they got behind us from day one and really gave us all of the strength that we could they could to make sure this was going to happen i just want to um go through a few more slides and really this entire slide um can be accredited to jeremy sanford back in march in april when he wrote down what it would take to scale up a covet 19 testing lab in santa cruz and what it would take to help the community and these are all a series of different steps that we were going to have to undertake to make this entire process happen and they did um every step along the way different people got involved to make sure that we could do each one of these different steps to get the process done to get to the point that we're now doing a thousand tests a day there's one really interesting story and this is where joe ben beaver comes in and that's on process number five about a hands-free processing to make this a very automated process i'm going to show this slide not to go into the details of what tests we do and how we do it but there's one instrument this is the process that we follow in order to automate the entire system to do a thousand tests a day there's this robot right here called a bravo it's sold by a company called agilent it's a big company in the field of scientific equipment but it turns out joe ben beaver um so most of you know is um founder of joe v aviation in a previous iteration of a company joe ben actually designed and was the engineer to build this bravo instrument and in the in the situation of a small world joe ben and jeremy sandford lived near each other they became friendly and as they started talking about what we were trying to accomplish on the santa cruse campus joe ben on his willingly just decided to come in and volunteer his time to dial in this bravo instrument and make sure that it works and he did it better than any agilent technician could do and really helped establish the pipeline that allowed us to do this testing on the sort of scale that we are really set out to accomplish in the very beginning so joe ben has been a really important contributor to this entire process and what they learned from this have they taken on to actually start a company called summer bio where they're now doing hundreds of thousands of tests for a lot of different communities so um we're really grateful to joe ben for the help that he was able to provide to make this all work with that i'm going to turn the floor to mom to patrick who is an epidemiologist that really has helped us understand how to make this whole process work and understand the data to be making the right smart decisions for the entire community thanks a bunch guys wanted to say one or two quick comments about really the impact that the testing lab has had through their efforts so as both justin and john already said there's been this giant need both back in February and March but unfortunately through the current day for adequate testing capacity and most importantly adequate testing capacity where we get results back in a timely manner and the reasons for that are twofold one is what's already been said about enabling us to identify patients that actually have COVID-19 to get the best care from their doctors but the second part that's really critical is that if we can actually test people and find out who's infected with this virus and then actually uh basically contact these people get them to be able to safely isolate and then find the people that they might have infected through contact tracing that actually enables us to have this really effective public health response to COVID-19 that cuts off chains of transmission and releases transmission in our community and saves lives so um the data on this graph here just illustrates some of the testing the amazing amount of testing that the lab has done over the past I don't even know how many months it's been now it seems like it's been years but it's probably just been six or eight months or something but the really key part that I wanted to focus on is the fact that over this time the lab has been able to provide about 7,000 tests for the community as well as a huge number of tests I think about 25,000 or so as well on campus and really importantly the testing especially for the greater community and particularly for the Palma Valley community and some of the less absolute members of the Santa Cruz area have identified actually about 1200 infected people and by identifying these 1200 infected people we've been able to get them to be able to safely isolate and most importantly find their contact through they might have infected um and basically have them quarantine and get tested and basically break these chains of transmission and by doing so I'm basically identifying more than a thousand cases of COVID-19 in a timely manner and getting results back in just 24 hours or less most of the time that enables really the public health apparatus to really get stepped in and break the chains of transmission to stop people from getting infected and sick that the testing lab has played um and finally just to wrap up to say that unfortunately the need for rapid testing is ongoing and now actually more important than ever thankfully the testing lab led by Jeremy Sanford, Michael Stern, Alina Vasky, Isabel Bjork and John McMillan are honored to be able to contribute to this global public health challenge. Thank you. Leaving for leaving speeches by those who see local government as a necessary environment too is not enough that students require a path, we require sensitivity and foresight to permit development of our city but not at the expense of the quality of the life of the people who live here or of the sense of place that our neighborhoods provide. As I leave office let me brief thanks to those members of the public who took the time to engage, construct opinions with me or have done a commission. Your involvement enlightened me and challenged me to do my very best. I'm grateful to my universe of friends, old and new, for your encouragement and your assistance. Your help is invaluable to me and a force of my life. I'm grateful to our city staff and employees. You render valuable service to the council, appreciate it as public. You remain indispensable to keeping the city running and running at will. Your job has become more challenging, more complex and more difficult in the pandemic. Every one of you, and I mean every single one of you, the employees of the city are definitely my heroes. Thank you all. And finally, I want to wish my colleagues on the council well. Thank you for having the courage and the stamina to serve the public. Thank you Mayor Cummings and thank you council member and welcome to the new council members. I'll say it again. The same election business has changed. It has been such a council member for the city. To fall into this, I had been pretty active in the community for a couple of decades. We're getting recovery from the 89 earthquakes that motivated me to run for council. And specifically the experience of serving on vision Santa Cruz. But they were both a common goal, one another and think creatively and come together with the recovery. Now the earthquake is not exactly parallel to a COVID epidemic, but the parallel can't be missed really in bringing all our resources together. What that vision Santa Cruz taught me was the absolute importance of partnership. That in order to get important things done, we have to combine our public sector, our private sector and our nonprofit sectors, all the passions and skills and resources to really make progress. And certainly over the period of almost 30 years that I've served on the council, the issues we face and the community priorities change. It may be at one point in time environmental protection and then maybe there's an economic job and then a community tragedy mobilizes us in a different direction. So there's definitely change over time in what the community feels is important. But I do throughout all that safely as a community recruitment in that I think that are very broadly held values. Certainly appreciation for our environment, a beautiful environment and environmental protection, our commitment to social justice, our belief in our practice of community engagement. People get involved here. We are collaborated by nature. We are supportive of the arts and creative community and we believe in our local businesses. Whatever the issues are, I think those are pretty common threads that help us. One of the challenges that you have to spend time often to ideas that are not glamorous words on really long-term projects. What will our water supply be? Transportation could come up that you never thought would happen. A third place in COVID epidemic, for example, all of a sudden pivot shift here to order. And then it's really important that things, and particularly as a council member, to support just the pattern of community life, being there for the community celebrations and celebrating the non-profits that do things at school. What are the things that make people feel that their local government is paying attention and cares about what they do? And that's, I think, what builds community. So that's, without mentioning specific projects, it's too vast. So just some general observations over a pretty long trajectory. I do want to thank all the city workers. I have really loved working with our community staff who are so dedicated and to public service, to their work, and we absolutely depend on them. I want to thank the community that can be engaged in pretty much infinite ways. But we are lucky for that. I certainly want to thank my fellow council members for this council and previous councils that, over time, were pretty congenially together and respected. And I especially want to thank my family and friends, my long-suffering family and friends who've been celebrating many meetings and so forth. So with that, I have real confidence that the new council will bring a new set of strengths, new energy, that they are committed to working well together and they will help us into a much better new year. So I really want to thank you all for this thing. Organizing, Cynthia, for all you've done, both of the self-tax measures and finally Measure S, thank you. And congratulations. And while she figures that out, I have to say, help me get into my study while I was having dinner. And she and her friends put all these things together. I didn't know how modest it was, actually, but I wanted to volunteer. And after this rambling building with Rowling for Cynthia was, and we did not know each other, and I told her my idea. And like so many of my ideas through the years, Cynthia trimmed it up a bit to be on the Planned Parenthood Board, where I had no idea what I was going to do.  I don't know what contribution I'm going to be able to make here, but Cynthia saw some possibilities. And at that time, we had a governor of California, Governor Duke Magin, who was not only hostile to family planning, and he tried to eliminate the funding for all the family planning clinics. And Cynthia thought that I might be bold enough to go stand on street corners and gather petitions, and then, which I did, and I proved to be pretty effective on street corners. So I kind of got, I did find a role for myself. I went on with Cynthia's support to do 13 years over a dozen years of adult concerts in a women's comedy night at the Colombo. The offer that Planned Parenthood does it. And so kick that, Richard Stockton, had women's comedy night many years ago. And so eventually, you know, I did do other things besides concerts. We had parades together, and I did a lot of tabling. And together, most of the extensive leadership, we organized the Reproductive Rights Network, which has had a Roe v. Wade annual brunch going through last year for over 30 years. And the 20th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we had Sarah Weddington, who argued the case before the Supreme Court. Here to the ground, she knew Sarah Weddington was going to be on the West Coast for other affiliates, and Cynthia lined her up. So we had a very nice event. So when Cynthia decided to run for counsel, we had a very strong working relationship. In fact, Cynthia usually characterized it as our dog and pony show, and there was nobody on anybody's mind, certainly not hers or mine, who the dancing dog was and who the hardworking pony is, because anybody who's had any contact with Cynthia knows that she, there's nobody who works like she does. She just seems to thrive on it. I don't do my chapter dinner. Netflix is good enough for me. But anyway, she's industrious to the limit. So I then proceeded to be her, her campaign coordinator for all six of her campaigns. All of the, but I'm sure you're going to hear more about all the city revenue measures that Cynthia basically shared or was the emphasis for and the hardworking pony for all of those things as well. And I served on all those committees, so I have a lot of political experience with Cynthia also. I admire her more than anybody I've personally ever known, and I'm really, really pleased to have had a chance to be around her and see and work. She's just so observant, so careful, so done. She has a vision and she's just saying she sees how things fit together. She sees how different elements in the community fit together. It's, it's a, it's a wonderful thing to see somebody like that. And I'm really, most of all, really happy to call Cynthia a very close friend and I'm happy for her. And maybe we'll be able to have lunch every now and then we'll talk about it whenever actually happens. If too many meetings. Next, I would like to invite up for Reid. It's a, it's as long as he would expect a John Laird proclamation to be, so I will not read the entire thing, but I will read part of it, but I will say, Carol, I will absolutely pay big money though that you are either doing or putting on. Whereas is here, whereas this is, there's almost no local issue or organization in the greater Santa Cruz area that escaped Cynthia Matthews attention during her 50 year careers of public official and community activists, including the founding and service of the board member and later an employee of Planned Parenthood in Santa Cruz County, serving on the board of the Santa Cruz Historical Society and having founded and been an active member of the downtown neighbors helping create the friends of Wilder Ranch State Park and also serving on the boards of the Museum of Art and History in the Santa Cruz Barber Day Committee, among other things. Let me also say that this is about as true as it can be, whereas no local activists or public official has escaped a phone call from Cynthia Matthews asking for support for all local successful revenue measures in the city for singular efforts allowing the city and our local schools to continue to provide and even expand services to fight despite reductions in outside support. As Tony had mentioned also for our libraries as well and where Cynthia Matthews has consistently taken the revolutionary step of actually reading every city council agenda item, including all the consent agenda items and going out and talking to all the stakeholders on every significant issue. On top of that she's further met individually with many applicants for every city board committee and commission which we know to be true. This is an important part. Her husband Bill, daughter Amy and son Jeremy also deserve similar praise. I also say that it includes the fact that Cynthia ever more than the Brown Act would legally allow an opportunity to decompress over a glass of wine in her living room after lively public meetings or apparently Carol Thor goes there regularly to drink a glass of wine too. Whereas Cynthia Matthews has demonstrated a half century the highest commitment to community and all of its residents and is retiring from the council which means that she's just going to continue her 60-hour work week doing something else. So now therefore this is on behalf of John Laird, California State Senator. Again, this is his very first proclamation as State Senator. Do hereby proclaim December 8th, 2020 as Cynthia Matthews Day in the 17th Senate District and encourage all community members and Santa join him in recognizing the expression for long public service. That is well deserved Cynthia and just on a personal note I know that Supervisor Kennedy is on as well and we did a proper over 20 years there it is. I've known Council Member Matthews and basically all good thing leadership within work. She does so much for those that don't have a voice be it for funding for programs that don't receive funding be it for the construction of the library and other facilities. She's a very consistent strong advocate. What I consider to be all things good. I've admired your work ethic. I've admired your ethics in general and I just admired how success in the 20 years that I've worked with you and Cynthia I'm sorry to see you go from the City Council but thank you for all that you've done. A lot of the things that you've laid the foundation for are going to continue to grow within the city and the community and the county is a better place for me to raise my six year old kid actually as a result of your work. So thank you so much. Thank you Mayor. Congratulations on our many years of service. Congratulations Justin on an excellent year as Mayor and certainly welcome the new council members and returning council members. I look forward to working with you to get us through this crisis and then emerge stronger and better going forward. One of the reasons why we all do that is because of Cynthia Matthews' leadership. Quite simply and I'm sure the Mayor can appreciate this as a son of Chicago. You're the Michael Jordan of Santa Cruz council members. You're the greatest of all time. In ways big and small you've served our city.  I've seen you move major policies that impact the schools, the city, built infrastructure, built community spaces, built the kinds of services that make Santa Cruz a wonderful place to have grown up and now to raise my kids and hopefully their kids and your kids and grandkids in this city. We've been incredibly I feel incredibly fortunate to have served with you, to have worked with you. I will say if you need evidence I think anytime my sister or wife have an issue with downtown often even when I was on the city council or even when I was mayor they called Cynthia first to solve it. She's just that effective and I'm just so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with you and you've earned more than earned. A little downtime, a little time off but I am still cognizant. I will be receiving many phone calls well into the future about what the county can do or what I can do to make life better in the city of Santa Cruz because your commitment runs that deep. Congratulations Cynthia. Thank you. Finally we have one last outside council member who wanted to say a few words and so I'd like to invite former mayor Mike Lottiken to join us. So the chance to start Justin Cummings mayor, Justin Cummings for allowing me to make some remarks. First of all I want to congratulate Catherine on her service during this recent period and recognize that she was willing to step up. It's not always easy after being off the council for a while. We get back into it again. I do appreciate our service to the community. I want to congratulate all of the winners in the last election the two incumbent Sandy Brown and Martine Watkins and certainly the two new council members that have been elected Shabir Kalantari-Johnson and Sonia Greener. You've got some work cut out for you and I'm going to take my moment here not to list all the wonderful things that Cynthia Matthews accomplished. There's not enough time to do that quite literally. I mean you couldn't even do the highlights really in the time that we have. What I want to do is talk about how Cynthia from my perception how Cynthia Matthews was able to accomplish the things that she did and so this is kind of advice to new council members and I'm not implying that all other council members didn't do several or many of these different kinds of things but I think Cynthia is the only one myself included who did all of these kinds of things that I'm going to mention pretty quickly here. So she understands the systems that make the city work. She meets regularly with department heads and other city employees to ask questions about council agenda items and other issues. She has a realistic acceptance of the limits imposed by personnel, time and budget constraints. She does her council preparation including reading staff reports and letters from the public before the meeting is not during the meeting. Cynthia understands how the city interfaces with county, state and federal governments, the school district, nonprofits, other public agencies. She looks outside the city where priorities are the lap of other entities, nonprofits, private interests. She develops partnerships and that's been a real key I think to her success in moving particular projects. Like a good chess player she looks ahead and she's usually looking five or ten steps ahead. I think most of us are checkers while she's playing chess and I think that's why she's been as effective as she has because she's not just sort of wandering into things but actually planning where she'd like things to go. She follows up on things. A lot of times you sort of get the work done and then you kind of well let it go. It's going to take care of itself and she never does that. She follows up making sure that the things she's worked on are going to actually get accomplished. And finally Cynthia Matthews has a tremendous work ethic. She's detail-oriented. I'm going to give you one really concrete example here. The council, when people apply to be on commissions and boards, the council here is usually three minutes from each of them and we get a brief maybe a piece long application telling them why they want to be on a commission. Cynthia not only goes out and interviews the applicants for these positions she goes out and interviews the people they work with to find out whether they're ready for public service and how they're going to interact with other people on a board. I mean that's so extraordinary and so you know a lot of times you want to appoint people you know or you like what they wrote about themselves in a page but when Cynthia Matthews made suggestions to me about who might be the best person to serve on a board or commission I understood I really need to pay attention to what she's suggesting because she had done that homework and follow-up on it and stuff so we really knew what we were getting when that kind of stuff happened. She often encouraged people to apply to boards and commissions and I'm sure we had people who are the best qualified people serving our city because we have a very active and engaged citizen to make that happen. So I want to suggest that new council members can do worse than to kind of follow the example of Cynthia Matthews. Most members of the public I think believe that it's all the council meetings it's what you say to other people in the meeting it's the speeches you give and so forth of course that's important part of the work the votes that you give but it's really the work behind the scenes to get prepared for a meeting to understand the sort of unintended consequences of your actions to have met with all the stakeholders to meet with the people that you disagree with and ask you know what are their concerns about an issue and then maybe you can shape what you're doing in a way that makes it maybe they still don't agree with you but they maybe feel that you've made some attempt to work their concerns into your final outcome. So that's a bit of advice to new council members and I can't do better than to suggest you follow that model that Cynthia Matthews that I learned so much from in the years that I worked with her on the on the council and I'm going to hope that she runs again in two years if she wants the absolute record she has to do that because I served them an additional eight months on my first term because they moved the election from the spring to the fall and I got a five-year term on my second term because they moved it from odd day even the citizens moved it from odd to even number November so she's and she we share the number of terms and the number of times being made but she really wants to hide it all to herself she's got to come back in two years and run again I'll leave it at that thank you so much for your service Cynthia and I really want to again appreciate all the new council members and I really look forward to being able to support the new council and I hope that you're gonna I believe you will provide our city with the leadership we need to get out of the mess that we're in right now which was mostly out of our own making thank you so much thank you mayor Catherine even though it's been a short period that we've been on council together I just have huge respect for you I learned a lot from you just in the way that you ask questions of the staff that you really have a commitment to really understanding people's concerns what the impacts on our community will be about the various proposals so I just you know respect your comments that I was able to hear over the last eight months and I wish you well and I will see you out running on west coast I'm sure as soon as we can all get back to our normal lives so thank you for for you know sharing sharing this experience with you not not something expected but I'm very much appreciated and and enjoyed your your company and your time sharing as a council member so thanks thank you Catherine Cynthia I'm going to use my few minutes to actually read a in your honor a congressional record that has been put into the congressional record today from Congressman Jimmy Panetta so this was recorded today December 8 2020 into the congressional record of the United States of America the proceedings and debates of the 116th Congress and the second session the office is entitled House of Representatives honoring council members Cynthia Matthews December 8 2020 Madam Speaker I rise today to honor Cynthia Matthews the retiring city council member and former mayor of the city of Santa Cruz California for her commitment to serving the people of the Central Coast of California it is my honor to recognize her as she finishes her final term serving the city of Santa Cruz as the longest serving member of the city council which apparently Mike did beat you on that her services 24 years has benefited countless residents of the city of Santa Cruz and is an achievement that few elected officials experience council member Matthews Mark can be seen in the city of Santa Cruz's protection of its historic buildings and architectural importance the recovery of the downtown after the Loma Prieta earthquake and protection of the Monterey Bay National Rain Sanctuary she has been a leader of the she's been a leader on the Santa Cruz Democratic Central Committee and led efforts to pass revenue measures supporting Santa Cruz City Schools the Santa Cruz public library system and city of Santa Cruz Parks and Recreation programs the community of Santa Cruz has been well served by her dedication to neighborhoods economic development housing social equity and social services and public safety public service is a demanding commitment and she has served with grace intelligence and determination her service will certainly inspire future leaders on the Central Coast as she begins her retirement I have no doubt that Cynthia will continue to serve her community we on the Central Coast are grateful for her contributions to our community and celebrate her successful career and this again is on behalf of congressman the honorable congressman Jimmy Panetta so and I will just add it's been a pleasure again you've been I've learned a lot from you and I won't spend a lot of time you know kind of running through the list but all of us benefit from learning from each other and and I think that that's something for the incoming council members to remember is that we all do better by helping each other do this job it's an incredibly difficult job I know you've had your your your fun times and you're not so fun times so appreciate your dedication to our community and hope you enjoy timing your garden and the bill thanks well here we are this is a you know it's a I think it's Cynthia in your email to the city I recognize that for somebody who with your you know tremendous work ethic and commitment to our city and our community all of the time that you served I can imagine that it's a goodbye I was listening and thinking oh this is the last you know motion to approve the consent agenda in the left you know I was thinking you know what you really will be missed here on the council and you know hope that you station I know it's probably hard with the work ethic that you have in your you know it's been mentioned that'll be hard to slow down but I hope you get to a little bit and have some fun with your family and with your friends and Catherine I am so grateful to have gotten a chance to actually serve with you for these this short time you know I've worked with you as a member of the community during your past terms and so impressed with your commitment to sustainability you know the environment and you know social justice in our community and you know I just and really your commitment to you know open government and transparency and really make you know get including the public in decision-making to providing information to our community about what's happening in the city it can sometimes be pretty opaque and you really try to make it legible for people and I that's just a model that you know I I try to took your mentorship and I'll miss you too but hopefully we'll we'll get to sit on your porch and talk about politics and I'm glad you're going to get back to well you know I know you've been running anyway you've maintained your your regular schedule today running but hopefully I'll give you more time to be relaxed about it and and keep going and grandkids and everyone's going to benefit from and so we really appreciate both of the work that both of you have put into the community over the years and my meeting of the United States the tuition of the state of California that I take this obligation freely and then count member Brown I state your name Sandy Brown you solemnly swear you solemnly solemnly swear that I will support I will support and defend the the constitution of the United States the constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of California and the constitution of the state of California against all enemies against all enemies foreign and domestic foreign and domestic that I will bear true faith and allegiance that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the constitution of the United States to the constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of California California and the Constitution of the State of California, that I take this obligation freely, that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation, without any mental reservation, of evasion, or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully, discharge the duties upon which I'm about to enter. Congratulations. Councilmember elect Brunner, raise your hand please. You may. I feel like a stand-up moment. Okay, here I go. It usually is in normal time. State your name. I, Sonia Brunner. Do solemnly affirm. Do solemnly affirm. That I will support and defend. That I will support and defend. The Constitution of the United States. The Constitution of the United States. And the Constitution of the State of California. And the Constitution of the State of California. Against all enemies. Against all enemies. Born and domestic. Born and domestic. That I will bear true faith and allegiance. That I will bear true faith and allegiance. To the Constitution of the United States. To the Constitution of the United States. And the Constitution of the State of California. And the Constitution of the State of California. That I take this obligation freely. That I take this obligation freely. Without any mental reservation. Without any mental reservation. or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I'm about to enter. Congratulations. Thank you. Hurry, Johnson. I'm here, but I can't record my video. State your name. I, Shabba Calentary Johnson, do solemnly swear, do solemnly swear, that I will support and defend, that I will support and descend, the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of California, and the Constitution of the State of California, against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance, to the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of California, and the Constitution of the State of California, that I take this obligation freely, that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I'm about to enter. Congratulations. Thank you so much, Bonnie. Welcome. Council members, could all turn their cameras back on now? Did a huge, long-standing council members. You know, I'm looking forward to the coming year, over the next four years, but, you know, I just want to be real quick and say, you know, thank my campaign team, thank our community. You know, I just am constantly amazed at the generosity and collaborative spirit that I see, and I'm really pleased to be able to serve again, and I want to thank the voters as well for their office, and I've served, as I hope we all do, with a commitment to favor and community organizer and activist as a teacher and as a city council member over these past four years. I also recognize that some publics are privileged, all too often privileged, over others, and so I've worked really hard, and I will continue to work to bring those underrepresented voices to the city, to City Hall, in our decision-making processes, to be on issues of concern to them, to all of us, and originally came from, you know, the measure of a society and our community is the most vulnerable. I want people to feel like their government is listening to them, and I want people to feel heard, and I remain committed to that. I welcome hearing from folks about your issues, and I look forward to working with my colleagues, old and new. Congratulations to you all, and here's to everybody. My name is Sonia Brunner, to be here right now, working downtown and with the Downtown Association of Santa Cruz. My time served on the Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, all with numerous other boards and committees, have prepared me to define, collaborate with teams, prepare data to communicate with a diverse group of people that have led me to this very moment here, right now. Recently, I was talking to a group about being involved in their communities, and that through simply being engaged as a community member.  Now I get the privilege of representing the same people, and I have the honor of doing my part to make sure that Santa Cruz remains the amazing place that it is for years to come. I was elected because I had many of you working with me along the way. With your help going forward, this is our city, and most importantly our home, and so much can be accomplished when we work together. Thank you for giving me the privilege to serve as your council member, I'm really honored to have this opportunity and honored to serve. It's a great honor coming for your year of service, what an incredible year to see very important people, a big thank you manager every step of the way, and to the committees Simone, Meredith, and Danielle, we did this together. Thank you to all the mentors and current and past council members that were there for me with all my answers and questions created neighborhoods with me to hang door hangers and believed in my mission to my son Miguel for being my rock through this process. You are my love and the reason why. Thank you to the community for electing me to represent you and Santa Cruz with love and respect. Good evening everyone. It is with great honor and gratitude that I accept this role as the first Iranian American city council woman for the city of Santa Cruz. I would like to thank my husband Brian Johnson, my son Daryush and Cheyenne Johnson, my parents and my sister, all my family all over the world were spread out everywhere. My campaign team, my friends, my colleagues, all of you for your guidance and for your support. And to the voters of Santa Cruz, thank you for your support and for entrusting me with this role. I'd also like to thank each of the current city council members, including outlawing council women buyers and Matthews for all your work and dedication to our city over the many, many, many years that you've served. Congratulations to council women Martina Watkins, Sandy Brown and Sonia Brunner. I'm looking forward to working with each of you and with you mayor Cummings and vice mayor Myers. And to the city staff, thank you for the incredible work that you do every day and that you put into maintaining the functions of our city, especially during these last difficult nine months. These challenging months have forced us to pause and reflect and acknowledge what's working and what's missing, both locally and at the larger state and national levels. I am personally invigorated by how much I've learned over the last year, gaining deeper insight about the nuances of our community's culture and the varying perspectives that lend it texture, gaining a more in-depth understanding of our strengths and challenges, meeting incredibly smart committed people who cared deeply about the well-being of our community and witnessing that we can and will can send polarization and unite as a community as we have these last months in response to COVID, the fires and uprising against racial injustice. These experiences, along with my commitment to equity, dignity and compassion for all will guide me as I embark on this new path to serve our community. As we go into this new year and the next several years, we will use our experiences and our ability to pivot, the word of 2020, to move forward with the projects that are in the pipeline, seize new opportunities and confront the issues that lie ahead of us. In particular, I want to focus on several pressing issues. Like many of you have said, the first urgent issue is public health and safety. It is and will be essential as we navigate this evolving pandemic. We'll need to continue to work together and work with our county partners to address health disparities and reach community well-being. The second is building economic vitality and addressing our city budget deficit. Our small businesses are the heart of our city and without them, our workers are displaced. I commit to listening to the needs of local businesses, displaced workers and our nonprofits. Together we can look for innovative solutions and seek outside resources to lessen the impacts on our community. And housing will be a crucial focus for our community as well. Our teachers, our social workers, seniors and young adults, my friends, your friends, colleagues and neighbors, they're leaving the city and many are left unhoused. I'm confident that we can focus on housing solutions that are thoughtful and integrate conscious growth and environmental stewardship. These are just some of the issues that I work on during my time on council. And to navigate the difficult decisions that lie ahead, I will use the lens of equity, health and sustainability, the three pillars of the health and all policies that our city adopted last year. As your councilwoman, I commit to leading with the same values that led my parents to leave post-revolution Iran in the 1980s and embark on a new, challenging, invigorating life in the state, that of resilience and a belief in an equitable society. I commit to leading with a pragmatic mind and a compassionate heart. And I know that no one person, entity or city can do it alone. Now Iranians really love poetry, so I'd like to close by quoting a 14th century Persian poet whose name is Hafez. He says, what we speak becomes the house we live in. Now if that's true, then I will speak this. It will take all of us. And I invite each of you, those who voted for me and those who didn't, to join me in listening to one another and working together to find solutions that bring about the positive change that we all see for our community. Thank you so much for this opportunity to serve our wonderful city for 2021. In the Constitution of the United States, to the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of Health, this obligation freely that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation, without any mental reservation, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties. Discharge the duties. I'm about to enter. Thanks, Bonnie. I've lost my, I'm so used to having Jeff and Q everything up. I have a few remarks and then I'm also up to talk to our community. I want to say thanks to my colleagues on the city council for your vote tonight, for me to serve as mayor through 2021. I appreciate your trust in me to continue to guide and support our recovery and more importantly to begin the steps to re-imagine a more equitable future for Santa Cruz. I feel honored to be working with such a great team, the fellow council members, all of whom have stepped up and chosen to serve during one of the most turbulent times in our country. And during a time when COVID continues to threaten more lives, disrupt and destabilize families, threaten economic security for thousands, and have lasting effects that are as yet unknown. Additionally, this summer's wildfires have devastated the lives of thousands, threaten vital city infrastructure, and it is the largest natural disaster in our county's history, but threats likely to continue through many winners. I want to specifically thank all of our city heads of our team Bernal and city department leaders for getting us through this year, as well as mayor coming just and coming for his work and keeping our community informed, calm and stable during this difficult time. I have great respect for his work on police reform and social equity this past year as well as for his focus on local business support and renter protections. I want to thank Dr. Dale Newell and Santa Cruz County leaders for their guidance and support during this talk difficult time. Profit leaders serving on the countywide economic recovery council for their help in assisting local businesses, identifying those most in need and delivering food and essential services and needs to families in our community. I want to thank Santa Cruz City School Superintendent Chris Monroe, the district's teachers and staff and the City Schools Board of Trustees for their leadership during the pandemic, and wildfire meeting critical school meal availability for families and for trying to do the impossible with online learning in one of the toughest situations to face modern education efforts. I also want to thank lastly Chancellor Cynthia Larise and UCSC leaders for their remarkable contributions to COVID testing and research as well as for initiating a virtual campus this year to keep our community and UCSC students safe. Your partnership is what I value for helping our community recover from all that has happened this year. Finally I want to thank my family, my wife, Bertie and my friends and colleagues for all your support over the past two years. No one can do this work, just in daunting for our community as well as for the state of California and as we move forward. But I know that I have a remarkable team in this City Council to help lead this community. Their knowledge and perspectives on how local government can and should be effective during this time will be instrumental over the next year. This council is made up of educators, public health and social service experts, advocates for children and youth, housing advocates, climate change experts, and small business and economic development leaders. Who wouldn't want that team right now going into the year ahead?  I would also be remiss to not also mention that your city council continues to be a diverse group of community members. The historic all women's field of council candidates this past election was truly inspiring. You have also just elected your first openly lesbian mayor in Santa Cruz history. In fact, we have in place on our city council with many communities around the country seek to achieve. We have racial and ethnic representation, LGBTQ representation, gender and age diversification. Not to mention dog lovers, moms, surfers, sailors, artists, scientists, teachers, farmers and gardeners here because we love Santa Cruz and I know that we will be all working together to do the best that we can for this community. We're all here to work together to serve for the greater good of all Santa Cruzans as we face the unprecedented economic, environmental and public health challenges that way ahead. Actions and decisions we make this year will decide the foreseeable future for existing businesses, how we will stabilize families, how we will keep residents in their homes and how we will move forward to a better future for all. I see a future that is based in the green economy that has been built over the past decades by so many inspirational leaders and hardworking community members here in Santa Cruz. Even before the term green economy became popular. They were protecting land and forests that help preserve our water supply and prepare for climate change. They were protecting farmland and local food sheds. They were demanding affordability and housing and they were building bike trails and purchasing a 30 mile long rail line for future rail trail transportation. They restored our coastal habitats, streams and rivers which will help heal our mountains now. They created one of the largest rain reserves in the world, our Monterey Bay National Rain Sanctuary. Now one of the top three visited rain areas in the world. And they declared our coastline from pleasure point to natural bridges, a world surfing reserve recognizing the heritage and uniqueness of this place. This work and future work like resilient coast Santa Cruz will marshal hundreds of millions of dollars worth of green infrastructure investment to help us recover and reimagine Santa Cruz for the next decade and beyond. Our success relies on this green economy now and it will into the future. In the months and years ahead, we'll have to rehabilitate the thousands of forest acres that have burned, protect and rehabilitate our water supply systems and water supply watersheds, safeguard our coastal areas from sea level rise and lessen our carbon footprint by creating housing in areas where people can walk, ride public transit and their bikes to work in school. It is vital that we also build housing for those who need support in gaining back their lives and those who work here. We are well on our way to this goal. Just this past month, the city has approved over 200 units of housing for low and very low income residents and supportive housing for those in need. These investments are a win for our community, especially when combined with supporting essential services like medical and dental clinics, child care facilities, business incubator spaces, healthy food and grocery stores and access to parks and open spaces. Many of our neighbors in Watsonville, Capitol and Scott Valley and broader Santa Cruz County share this common vision. Together we can move all of our communities forward to re-imagine future defined by shared prosperity. These actions have and will continue to create good paying jobs, opportunities for new workforce training and additional investment in Santa Cruz and our local businesses. That investment will in turn support the services we all expect from our local government, public safety, parks, vibrant neighborhoods and thriving business districts. There's still much problem solving ahead and I look forward to tackling the issues that are most pressing need. No solutions will happen without trust and teamwork. I'm fortunate to have the opportunity to work with colleagues who are ready to go to work for a bright future for all of our residents. So in summary, my vision is a green economy that is equitable and makes room for everyone. A community that values diversity of opinion, age, ethnicity and income. A community that helps one another and treats one another with respect, kindness and patience. That protects our environment and prepares for the future while acting on the needs of today. We are a very strong community and I know we will continue to pull together now to help each other. I am hopeful we will respect one another even when we have different views. I know we can move forward together in a way that is inclusive of all residents and enhances everyone's sense of belonging and value. I'm hopeful we will hear from more and more people within our community about what their visions are for the present and future of Santa Cruz. There are 65,000 unique people living in our city. Let's pull together and see what we can accomplish together. I think the future is bright and the possibilities are enormous. In closing, I want to thank you for your trust in me to do this work as your mayor. I wish all residents of Santa Cruz a wonderful holiday and please help those in need this holiday season. Of course, please be safe and most importantly wear a mask and I wish you all a good night and thank you for coming for a great night and a great last meeting. Thanks very much. I really appreciate everything you've done this past year, Justin. Next, Bonnie, we'll go ahead and you will, so we don't need to, you don't need to swear. Councilmember Brunner in? Okay, Brunner, I'd like to invite you up next to share your comments with the community. Thank you, Mayor Myers. Re-evaluate priorities and make some important choices. As we start to work on this next phase of our economy and what our community will look like, I'm really excited to start the role of vice mayor and work on ways that prioritize and support investment in our city infrastructure and ways that support housing, economic rebuilds, public safety, and all social determinants of health. Starting today, action is needed on a community scale that includes public, private, and non-profit partnerships working together to provide resources and ways for COVID-19 recovery. We have proven we can all work together to make an impact and support our community. I know it will take courage and commitment. Today I'm making that commitment. A commitment to making decisions that support our community and help our city navigate towards policies and initiatives that produce effective and equitable outcomes. Policies that reflect a shared vision of Santa Cruz as a healthy, safe, welcoming, and inclusive place for all of us. This is not going to be easy. It takes discipline. It takes teamwork. It takes soccer. I'm ready for the challenge and this leadership and support role. Santa Cruz, thank you for giving me the responsibility to serve you. To my fellow council members who are working with you, let's do this. Okay, thank you, Vice Mayor Ruder. We're both getting used to these titles, aren't we? We have reached the end of our evening. Again, I want to thank Mayor Cummings.   I really want to thank all of the council members. We, I feel like, have really just leaned in and done the work that we needed to do. As we've all stated, we may not agree on everything every time, but that's what democracy is about, and that's what makes for an engaged community and hopefully good policy. So I wish you all the best of holidays. I wish you much time out in our beautiful environment and outdoors and hope all of your families have a wonderful holiday. And we will basically all see each other at the start of the new year. So congratulations, everybody, everybody, give each other a hand. We're going to be a great team. And yeah, be safe, take care of each other. See you soon. Bye, everybody. Good night, everybody. And I'm here. Good night. Congratulations, everybody. Any members? Everyone have a great holiday.