Good morning. Welcome to the 11 a.m. public portion of the closed session of the June 9 2020 meeting of the city council If you would like to comment on a closed session item now is the time to call in using instructions on your screen In this part of the meeting that council will receive public testimony thereafter the public line will be closed and Inexplicable Please mute your television or streaming device once you call in and listen through the phone Please note there is a delay in the streaming So if you continue to listen on your television or streaming device, you may miss your opportunity To speak all council members besides myself are participating in this meeting remotely. I Want to thank the public for staying home to view today's city council's meeting But it is your time to speak will hear the That you have been unmuted the timer will then be set to two minutes You may hang up once you have commented on your item of interest. I Would like to ask the clerk to please call the roll Thank You vice mayor Councilmember Byers Here Matthews Here from Here older hearing vice mayor Myers Here and mayor Cummings is absent. I'd like to ask the clerk if we have Public members that would like to speak at this time we do we have one so unmute them now Hi, my name is Zeke Bean. I'm the OE three supervisory unit president We made it clear since before HR approached us that we recognize the position that the city is in and that we're willing to Do our share of a 10% furlough to help the city realize the savings that they are requesting We were not getting we were we are not getting them at the HR in terms of our in terms of some basic protective language We're asking for and so far have been denied Language that state that supervisor not be made to make up for savings not realized from other units who refused to do the furlough if There's savings that are needed above and beyond the requested 16 million dollars in savings We are more than happy to discuss that but if within that 16 million other units did not do their fair share We don't want you taking it out on that It's been denied language that protects us on that We were questioned to have a seat at the table on hiring decisions Because there's a hiring freeze and we're taking a 10% furlough to do our part and there's lots of positions that are still being filled We want to see that the table to be able to make recommendations That would help the city realize savings without having to fill those positions and the decision We've made clear would still be left up to the city and to Martin We've been denied that other than we have been told we can weigh in on supervisor positions only We want accountability in the form of me to language that says once all our agreements are signed regardless of whether or not They're all the same if SCRU gets less if mid managers get less We're okay with that, but if you then come back and open up someone else's contract We want our contract open to if things get better. We have been denied that We're requesting that we allow a process to allow our members If we have any that are in severe economic hardship that they be allowed to apply for an exclusion And that the city will look into ways to have us we the supervisors cover that employees exclusion by way of vacation donations or other things and that has been denied as well and Sounds like I'm running out of time We have a couple other requests that are in the form of Paid time off not hard money and those have been denied and in lieu of those requests We will be asking HR to consider a work share program, which will be no cost to the city It's paid out of unemployment funds So I encourage you to look into that and to encourage HR to seriously consider that and look into that option We'll ask them at our meeting tomorrow We were giving a layup plan by the city Even though we told them that we would be coming back to them with an answer and we thought we've been bargaining in good faith So yesterday they presented a detailed generalized layup We're giving more details on that. So thank you for your time Thank you very much. Mr. Bean Any other hands Any adjourns to closed session face me or mayors we did have a hand go up Okay, I'm sorry. Well, my name is Ken Bear. I'm an employee and resident of the city of Santa Cruz And I see IU chapter president. I'm here. I call out about Item B on the closed session agenda we would we would ask you to direct a job to bargain with us without threats of layoff notices going out this week or To delay environment that you've asked the last meeting If we don't if we are unable to reach an agreement this week Along with that we ask for your help in protecting the city employees that make less than $20 an hour I realize that that would make us slightly under 10 percent However, it's important that we protect the lowest paid employees and also The final thing would be to identify an end to the furlough that both sides can say clearly and Decisively that that things have returned to normal and that we can leave the furlough early current currently that's not been negotiated out and in fact in It is actually the one thing that most people remember from the last furlough is that it continue on Much longer than was required to bring the city out of It's dire straight we have Oregon in good faith and we expect that we will reach a furlough agreement with the city We just need these few things to go forward. Thank you and have a good day Thank you very much, Mr. Bear There are no more There are no more speakers. I will so the council will now adjourn to the closed session And we will be back for our open session beginning at 2 p.m. Today Thank you to our 220 Meeting of the city council I have a few announcements and then on to our regular meeting today's meeting is being broadcast live on community television channel 25 Streaming on the city's website city of Santa Cruz dot com all council members including myself are participating in this meeting remotely So I want to thank the public bank home to view today's city council meeting You wish to comment on an agenda item today call in at the beginning of the item You're wanting to comment on using the instructions on your screen Please meet your television or streaming device once you call in and listen through the phone Please note. There's the delay in streaming. So if you continue to listen on your television or streaming device You may miss your opportunity to speak When it's time for public comment press star night on your phone to raise your hand When it is your time to speak during public comment, you'll hear an announcement that you've been unmuted The time will then be set to two minutes You may hang up once you've commented on your item of interest. I would like to ask clerk, please call the roll Thank You mayor council members buyers Here Matthews Here Brown Brown is going to be a little late nice mayor Myers and Mayor comings Knowledge that the land upon which we gather is the unfeated territory of the a was was speaking to be tried The ominous and tribal band comprised of the descendants of indigenous people Taking permission Santa Cruz and San Juan Bautista during Spanish colonization of the Central Coast is today working hard to restore Traditional stewardship practices on these lands and feel from the source trauma Before we begin today, I just wanted to say a couple words regarding some of the events that have been occurring over the past two weeks Our nation and community have been devastated by tragic acts of violence that have been felt across the world On May 25th, 2020 George Floyd was murdered in broad daylight by officer Derek Chauvin Active violence sparked outrage across our nation a demand for justice Acknowledgements that black people are not treated the same under the law and a demand for police reform On May 29th, the police chief and I call for a town hall meeting to discuss policing in our community Which took place on Wednesday, June 3rd We follow that meeting up with members of the black community on June 4th And we'll be holding meetings with the community to address police violence moving forward Our community has come together and it's demonstrated through numerous peaceful protests that we stand together That we stand against racism and that we stand against the use of excessive force by police I would like to thank the community for standing in solidarity for the lives of black people and people expressed experiencing oppression in our world As a black man and citizen of the United States of America I would like to thank chief mills for his leadership condemning the actions of the Minneapolis police officers and for taking proactive steps to meet with the community and to ban the use of chokeholds and Other forms of restraint and continue to lead the way in making changes to policing I would also like to thank our police officers for standing in solidarity with our community and for providing our community With safety as they march and gathered in our streets While other communities had officers meet protesters with riot gear to your gas and violence Our police officers block streets and exercise restraint even when protesters vandalize the police station and other businesses in our community Thank you for supporting the community and for allowing their voices to be heard In addition to the murder of George Floyd our community experienced an additional tragic act of violence this past weekend On Saturday June 6th in response to a call regarding a suspicious man that may have contained guns and bomb-making materials Santa Cruz County Sheriff Deputy Damon Butts will it was shot and later pronounced dead at the hand of Stephen Corvillo As we continue to learn more about the motive Stephen Corvillo It is clear that he was committed to committing acts of violence at a large scale And it's because of our law enforcement officers and the community members of Ben Lohman We're able to restrain Corvillo that we were able to avoid a catastrophic loss of life I would like to thank all the officers involved for ensuring the safety of our community Sergeant Damon Gutts-Willer were fathers men who cared about their community. They were both victims of hate and unwarranted violence As a community and country we must set an example of how we can do better We need to come together solve our differences hold each other accountable Find ways to effectively communicate Listen and acknowledge our struggles and find a way forward through love and peace Our community will continue to work together to eliminate all forms of racism and discrimination Improve the culture of policing and ensure the safety and security of all our citizens I want to also condemn all the violence that was faced to our downtown businesses And thank our police officers for doing the best they can to protect our community from these violent acts And at this moment I would also like to ask that we observe a moment of silence for both George Floyd And sergeant Damon Gutts-Willer our hearts go out to the families and the communities and may their lives never be forgot Turn the um, we'll start with presentations. We have a presentation from get virtual.org and so I'll turn it over Thank you, mayor. This is Bonnie. Let's come director of economic development and During this time this pandemic and this is just very challenging environment There has been and a real opportunity of Our community to come together and virtual Is an example of just that it is a collaboration and work of the university and ucfc students partnering with businesses in need in our community during this pandemic And without going into details they've prepared a great presentation And i'm going to turn it over either to gideon or smith to take it away Thank you so much, bhani. Hello everyone. I hope you guys are doing good today Uh, i'm smith metha one of the student co-founders of get virtual Our mission is to create small businesses online and improve their financial health Small businesses employ 77 million americans and have accounted for 65 percent of all new jobs over the past 17 years They are not just the economic backbone of the community, but its heart and soul Through get virtuals program. We are creating a revolution where experience entrepreneurial students like us head small businesses Integrate impactful new technology into their operations This not only drives your revenue today, but prepares small businesses to thrive in an increasingly digital economics Our team is led by toby kori and nada milkovich Toby is a successful entrepreneur and a stanford university lecturer Nara teaches entrepreneurship ethics and media at the university of california sand cruise And stanford university in the international honors program They both are proud santa grills residents And we're the student co-founders and project managers of get virtual and we are here particularly because we care I speak for everyone on my team when I say that we're having an incredible experience working directly with entrepreneurs owners And he employs at these companies We're learning how they think about their business operating models while helping us gain networking skills and develop and execute a present I've found this internship at get virtual to be an opportunity to help my community while gaining key skills One of these main skills has been teamwork We have a diverse set of individuals to bring in different solutions to each and every problem This helps us in understanding new perspectives and looking at things from out of the box It also helps each one of us build our morale as everyone on the team is supportive of one another Engaging in the community with us has two main purposes It gives us the volunteers a sense of purpose and it has a long lasting impact on the community as a whole As the nation and the world start reemerging from this pandemic This and many other countless initiatives will play a catalyzing role to stabilize the economy and the viability of businesses We also have valuable individual and organizational partners who have been a fantastic resource Some of these partners include bonnie liscombe Robert singleton and brad barbells We're grateful for their support during this development phase and going forward We are in the midst of an economic revolution New technology is disrupting business models that have been entrenched in the economy for decades And pre-covid-19 the adoption of these new technologies was increasing kind of constantly and linearly as you can see on the graph But today the city march of technological progress Now feels more like a roller coaster. I'm presenting to you using software from a company. I didn't know existed until two months ago Like many others in santa cruz. I'm getting groceries delivered via instacart This is all to say that the way people want to do business is changing faster than ever Small businesses must adapt to avoid being left behind How do we help small businesses avoid ending up like blockbuster barns of noble or other c-corps beginning with Our answer is that we integrate new technology that can not only make a huge impact But it's easier to use than ever before But if it's so easy, why haven't small business owners? Who as we've seen firsthand are incredibly competent and adaptable not taken advantage already Virtually work with businesses and industries from retail and hospitality to health and wellness So far we have delivered about $30,000 worth of services to our clients and begun positioning them to thrive for years to come I'm nikila chair kudota The needs of get virtual are rooted in the times of social distancing guidelines and branch out into long-term health To address erin's previous question One of the needs is that local business owners don't feel capable using virtual tools You want to empower these business owners and familiarize them with virtual tools So that they are comfortable taking the diversity towards their digital world This leads to our second need which is local businesses need to operate remotely during social distancing orders This is as simple as making sure local businesses are up and running As well as the households that financially depend on these businesses And last but not least local businesses lack the training and support needed As we transition out of these guidelines and enter the long term Part of what we do is we engage heavily with our clients and provide them with educational resources Such as live tutorials to help them retain control over their websites as we transition out of covet 19 guidelines A pattern that we've seen thus far is that our clients have been meaning to change But simply have not known where to start or have had the time And while they are under prepared now We have seen their dedication and value for their customers and believe strongly in their ability to compete for years to come My name is giddy and fox In the short term our goal is to help clients stabilize financially in response to the current coronavirus shock Long term we provide the virtual tools necessary to help our clients not only survive but thrive within an increasingly digitized economic environment Once we set up a website for a client we teach them how to become masters of their digital destiny They learn how to upload content these manage online appointments and generally maximize the benefit their website provides Student entrepreneurs also gain valuable experience helping their adopted community persevere through these challenging times By partnering students with small businesses get virtual strengthens their bond within the community Hi everyone. I'm Ananya Mishra Get virtual offers a variety of solutions for each of the customers that we work with We conduct website audits to evaluate aesthetics user experiences and fb osc We integrate features to optimize websites such as calendars and schedulers for online booking Ordering systems for restaurants that seamlessly integrate with to s systems and mobile friendly versions of all of the websites that we design We develop strategies for both social media and marketing. We also contribute to businesses by providing content and materials Our educational tutorials support business owners as they continue to expand virtually in the future So as the women's boutique store located in downtown canopens and capitola This was how the website looked like when we began our project In Ramazzoi and Anandi's words The schema gave virtual shows sincere interest and commitment to helping our business survive Their work to understand our business and who we are so that we could propose an exit work that was relevant to us and consistent with our brand Together we had to figure out a way to virtualize the shopping experience without taking away Anandi and Ramazzoi's values of keeping the customer experience high quality and personable That's we came up with the idea of virtual shopping appointments Now customers are able to sign up for a zoom based on phone call or google hangout appointments Fill out a questionnaire and attend a personalized shopping experience Ramazzoi and Anandi personally review the questionnaires and intake each piece of clothing for the customers keeping in touch with their high customer quality thousands These are a couple screenshots of how the website looks like now the most important one being the virtual appointment schedule in the bottom right corner As of june 1st 80 local small businesses have applied for the get virtual program To keep the get virtual team afloat over the summer during this employment crisis We hope to use a significant portion of our fundraising proceeds to sponsor the livelihood of get virtual co-founders and project managers like myself We have also budgeted eight thousand dollars for get virtual's marketing software Which includes uh search engine optimization and analytics tools as well as three thousand dollars in scholarships for our international students to take the ucse get virtual summer class And any access that we raise will actually go directly into the community in the form of small grants to help newly digital businesses pay the premium fees for their website creation platforms like wix and Shopify Looking forwards we future fundraising will be allocated towards the expansion of get virtual We aim to enlist new mentors hold nationwide student competitions and of course to support many more businesses We calculated that in order to maximize get virtual's impact on small business We aim to raise a total of one hundred thousand dollars in the coming months Our budget for this summer get virtual is still short by forty thousand dollars with this project managers can focus full time On launching the digital campaigns We have been preparing with local businesses as well as to begin processing our 41 waitlisted clients Your donation will help empower small business owners to take charge of their digital presence We are just getting started but after we spread the movement to colleges across the country People will look back and admire the resilience and forward thinking of the business community from which it originated Which is of course right here in sanikers So thank you for your time and please let us please let us know if you have any questions Wonderful presentation and I'm so excited about this program When I first heard about I started telling a bunch of my friends like dude you can go and get help from this group to get an online presence and And it's just been something that's been really excited about learning more about so thank you all for You know all your hard work on this And I do have one question for you If is there a link or Any website we can direct people to if they want to make donations to the program Yeah, we are at get virtual dot org And we have We have a donation link there and also if you have any small business friends Or I'm sure you know many small business owners. If you'd like to direct them there. There's also a sign-up link Great, I'll make sure to send people your way We got a few other council members of questions. So council member mathies and then buyers On your mutants.  Yes. Okay. It's just serious And uh, you mentioned we have 41 businesses on the wait list. Are you What's the profit I have I have a friend long established local business And this is exactly what this person So I'd like to be able to virtual dot org Yeah, so essentially they sign up on get virtual dot org and then They give us, you know, who they are their business and then we kind of have like an intake interview to get a sense of Their business get a sense of you know, the owner themselves and kind of their expectations for the project And then we kind of make a decision on You know whether if we have the resources to get virtual that is to help their business and We also Make sure that what the business is looking for is kind of in line with Get virtual kind of mission that they're like a Santa Cruz business that they're You know that they're just located in the community and That they're not, you know just trying to that they're not A new business also we we try to work with established businesses That have been a part of the community for a while And we're looking to get them back on their feet I'd like to add that we're currently on nursing volunteers as we speak so we'll be ramping up our process Thanks, the beauty of the program many thanks to not enough of a who's an instructor at ucfc teacher entrepreneurship Through her hard work actually created a course where students get credit And they can give back to the community. She's also created a summer course So helping funding will keep these students on board with us Help trains new classes students both this summer and this fall And as the students have said there's a backlog of 41 We want to chew through those and we're getting new requests every single day. So we're moving to needle here The thumbs up to all of you and if this is one of the programs one of many that really solidify a town-gone relationship You know, we're always working on that Town understand the university and the university kids, you know understand the needs of the downtown in our city So thank you so much. I just wanted to add my appreciation and uh, you know, I am impressed Definitely with all the work you've been doing. This is so awesome to see and I'm looking forward to Watching you grow the program I'm on the visit Santa Cruz board and council member Matthews and I heard from Anandi Just recently about the virtual Shopping program that you were helping work on so it was great to see it here today as well And she was very excited and you know others were as well. So Looks like you'll get a lot of interest in Activity. Thank you. Say, thank you for the presentation. It was really great. Um, I really liked that each of you had a part in it and Just an amazing product that you're offered to our small businesses And I think one thing that Santa Cruz is really proud about is the amount of small businesses that we have in our Count and we work really hard to make sure that those can stay alive through good and bad times. So You're helping all of those businesses in a huge way and I have the feeling that Your number 41 is going to start growing quite significantly. So thanks for all your work. We really appreciate it Great. Thank you so much for the presentation and the great work I just see Bonnie's face on my zoom screen just glowing with pride and I just it's so it's so powerful for our community And and these moments in this time I just have a quick question. How young of students are you willing to work with high school students? Are they eligible to particularly work with you? And okay, I'll follow up with you at offline about that Great. Thank you Council members keep up the good work. This is such an amazing program and thank you all for making this happen in our community Thanks for your time Thanks so much for having us It's been an honor Thank you. Thank you. The your proclamation the clinic june's mental health month We're going to follow up with that with the more extended resolution that will become part of the next council meeting And so with that we'll move on to our next presentation Which is from the community action board that's focused on housing assistance during covet 19 I'm Helen you in story the assistant director with the community action in Santa Cruz county And I'm here along with my colleagues Hi, good afternoon mayor city council. My name is pasadilla. I'm the homeless man And prevention and instrumentation director for community action board of Santa Cruz county Yes, and I know that uh tiffany lake from your housing community development department Is also on the meeting in case there's any questions that come up later on in the presentation But we really truly want to thank you for inviting us to give you a short presentation And an update on our housing assistance and other programming during covet 19 in particular So I am going to get us going With the presentation here. Let's see if I can share screen here. Oh, here we go. Hold on just a minute We'll see the presentation. Hopefully Okay, wonderful. Okay outline of the presentation today So we should we're going to highlight house purpose and program Give a brief overview of rental assistance programming and covet 19 needs and trends Cab and the city's covet 19 partnership and resources A brief overview of other cab efforts and then have some time for questions and answers at the end Familiar with our organization The community action board's mission is to partner with the community to eliminate poverty and create Create social change through advocacy and essential services We do so holding a vision of a thriving equitable and diverse community free from poverty and injustice And we hold the values of equity dignity and diversity service community action and inclusion in doing our work We serve between seven and ten thousand individuals per year through four Main service areas including our homelessness prevention and intervention services that causes the director of Where we have a rental assistance program emergency payment programs and our youth homeless response team, which is one of our newer programs We also have immigration legal assistance and immigrant advocacy and support Through our center cruise county immigration project and our newest addition to the immigration services are thriving immigrants collaborative We have youth and adult employment and reentry services through Kansai and day worker center programs As well as community building and youth development at our davinport resource service center up on the north coast That also serves some folks on the edge of santa cruz as well Our community action for santa cruz county. We were created in 1965 as part of the war on poverty And we're the designated community action agency for this county Community action is across the county or across the nation. Excuse me. There are community action agencies in every county in this country So it's a national and then there's a statewide network of community action agencies And some of the things that make us different as an agency is that we have a tripartite board and this is by design federally That we are mandated to have a third low income representatives A third public sector representatives and one of our public sector representatives is sandy brown councilwoman from city of santa cruz As well as a third private sector representatives. For example, we have A farm worker seat And we have the ceo from the santa cruz community credit union, for example So we have a very representative board By design And then in addition what makes a community action board unique is that we're mandated again To every two years to have a conversation or a dialogue or hearing Discussing poverty in this community and reaching out to our community Speaking with those that are experiencing poverty to hear what their needs And what information what's new what are trends and what are their assets? This is the new thing that we've added really is both asking the community what their needs are around poverty And then what are strengths and what are resiliency that helps them through this? And we do that every two years So in our last needs and assets identification through our community action plan process in 2019 You can see that assets that were identified include community and family support and pride availability of social services Internal spiritual and relational wealth based based Resources as well as access to legal rights assistance those were the main Areas of assets and resiliency for our community And then what has you know unfortunately been a trend For several of our community action plans the last couple of years Access to jobs higher wages consistent employment barriers to accessing resources health needs I think when we We revamped our community action process about four years ago And went even deeper into the community and talked with different groups One of the things that rose for the very first time in our community action plan process as a need And a challenge with discrimination prejudice and stereotypes as impactors of poverty And so that's been an area that we have focused on in much of our work And of course one of the main trends For many years running has been housing insecurity and high rent burden And that is part of the programming that we'll be discussing in the next couple of slides for the presentation I'm going to go ahead and guide you over our overview of rental assistance programming Have had had rental assistance programming along with case management And financial literacy support to avoid addiction and homelessness for over 30 years I'm in all depending on our funding sources between two to four funding source funding We have panic who's sitting core curling pending at the one office is in Santa Cruz near ocean street and downtown Watsonville Funding and depending on funding sources participation on agreement Efforts and initiatives right now in particular during this COVID-19 time Provide weekly food and PPE distribution at our day worker center Which is located on 7th avenue and serves many city of Santa Cruz residents And we are doing job matching by sound only at this time We've also pivoted from weekly to daily food distributions and supports for youth Youngers families and farm workers at the Davenport resource center Our youth homeless outreach team has redoubled his efforts Regarding outreach and partnered with public health partners and others to provide support at pop-ups throughout the community Community to go right to the youth And are also providing support and case management at the transitional age youth or case shelter that's been at the Symptoms center and is getting ready to transition to transitional housing in the unincorporated area soon Our immigration services include DACA and grieving car renewals citizenship and other consultations via phone only at this time And then advocacy through our thriving immigrants collaborative including some community Conversations and dialogues that are all done virtually right now We continue to provide both un- and subsidized job placement assistance for youth and adults impacted by poverty and criminal justice involvement including those on cow works At risk of or re-entering the community for criminal justice involvement And we're very engaged and again most of that is done virtually or by phone And one of our very newest programs is the disaster relief assistance for immigrants or drape program For those undocumented immigrants impacted by COVID-19 and the next slide we'll talk a little bit more about that program But for all of these efforts including our rental assistance and housing programs. There's more information Including contact information on our website, which is www.cabin.org Or our facebook page and both of those are listed below So our next slide is talks a little bit about the disaster relief assistance for immigrants or drape program And we've had a lot of interest in this program. And so we wanted to just highlight that quickly for you all The drape program project is a one-time state-funded disaster relief assistance for undocumented adult immigrants impacted by COVID-19 An undocumented adult who qualifies can receive $500 and direct assistance With a maximum of $1,000 in assistance per household And of course some of these households will be using this assistance for rental assistance and other household needs So in terms of eligibility, how do I know if someone's eligible to receive drape? To apply you must be able to provide information that you're an undocumented adult person over the age of 18 Not eligible for federal COVID-19 related assistance like the cares act stimulus payments or pandemic unemployment benefits And have experienced a hardship as a result of code 19 So what documents do folks need to apply for drape? You must provide information and documents to verify your identity home or mailing address And show that you've been impacted by COVID-19 So in terms of applying for the assistance It's were only allowed by the state to have application via phone And so the community action board we actually have been contracted to serve four counties Santa Cruz Monterey, San Benito and San Luis Obispo counties So there's one phone number for residents who think they may qualify for all of those counties and that's 1-877-282-7174 And those phone lines are open Monday through Saturday 9 a.m. To 7 p.m So we'd really like to make sure that folks are aware that this is a temporary program That's only available through the end of the month or until assistance funds run out We're at about half of the a half of the available funding has been committed at this point So we do encourage folks to make a call if they believe they're eligible And so then that brings us now to thanking you for your partnership and your leadership We've appreciate a very long-standing partnership with the city of Santa Cruz And we're excited to be able to provide some additional support For rental assistance as well as other services, but in particular rental assistance right now when people are Are hurting so deeply with the COVID-19 crisis. And so we just ask that there's any question Okay, thank you very much for all that wonderful information and for this presentation And for taking the time to inform the council in the community about all the work that you're doing and the funding assistance that's available Um, I'll open up looks like we have a couple council members of questions and we'll turn over to the council member Watkins Um, I'll just echo the statements of the mayor really thanking you for your presentation But more importantly really thanking you for your work that you're doing as safety net services providers for our community at this time I just have a quick question in terms of the undocumented Folks seeking assistance are is your information linked up to the 211? Um, a directory or how are we able to help support getting the word out? Yes, it is. Yes, it definitely is it's on our website. It's on all of our social media We've worked with various partners It can certainly be linked to the city website again, you know the program is Scheduled to last through june 30th or until funds are committed. So we would just have to stay in touch You know close touch is if you link it to the website, but that's an option Thank you I thank you so much. It was really great to hear from you and get this kind of presentation. I you know, I'm just uh always amazed by What cab does I was I just have to say My first full-time job my first real job in Santa Cruz was The community action board many years ago and I have followed The work and the expansion of services and just I'm always amazed. There's I have so many stories running through my mind right now of all the wonderful things that We've been that you've been able to accomplish I'm going to say a week because I'm on the board now and I feel very, you know connected to the organization To thank and especially during these times. Thank you so much for everything you do I have two well actually two questions. One is a question about the Undocumented assistance line, you know, a lot of people are contacting me saying they can't get through I know that and we've talked about this But if you just could say a couple of things about that so people who are listening who are frustrated Understand what's going on and how you know how they can try to just continue to you know, just be persistent That's one and then the other is do you in terms of the increased demand and the additional resources you're getting for rental assistance to prevent evictions How do you are you feeling about the level of funding? These are be the need. I know there's always more need but just what does that kind of look like I guess At the moment Yeah, thank you for that sandy and thanks for your leadership. We love having you on the board So thank you. Um, you know, yes, it has been it's been frustrating. I know we've had so much interest in the drape program Unfortunately, the state of california set the parameters for this program and so phone line and No messages No email or online applications Were allowed and so You know, we had a narrow Sort of format for applications So I really want to appreciate That it has been difficult to get through. I think that We're definitely serving folks those folks are being patient and you know calling in and so I really just Tells the folks to continue to call Maybe call at different times if you've reached You've been very busy Please do keep calling and I know it's not necessarily the ideal situation But it's certainly the parameters that the state gave to us and so Thank you for the patience that the community is showing with that and like I said, I'm really happy to report that you know, we have Committed just about half of the assistance that we received and so we feel good about our progress In serving the communities that that were contracted to serve in terms of the rental assistance Enemies I think you know, as we said in the presentation, we've seen an over 50 percent increase in calls In need for rental assistance. The eviction moratoriums have been critical and important when we thank you Council members for your leadership around that and leadership and extension Of course, we know that the eviction moratoriums is not a rental forgiveness And so we are really definitely hearing from folks who are trying to stay Current and not face an eviction cliff once moratoriums are are over So, you know, we're I would definitely say there's more need than there is rental assistance right now We're particularly concerned about the next couple weeks right now We are just about out of most of our funding sources for the city of santa cruz. And so that is a concern We're in discussion with The county and other funders to see about possibility for any additional funding We are certainly working very closely in partnership with Tiffany and others at the the housing department at the city We're excited to have the cdb gcb and and home funding coming soon We believe that will be in july and so we're hopeful that we'll have some additional funds To meet what we know will continue to be an increased need As uh folks are um go through You know this transition process with coven in particular it sounds like um community action boards rental assistance funding generally is for Families and if Like say an individual who's single Or people who don't have children Where is there any type of funding that's available for them or? Where have you all been directing kind of those folks who may be falling short under the rent? Yeah, yeah, it's definitely a gap area mayor and and I think that um one thing I will say though is in some of the private fund losing that we've been doing Working with funders such as the community foundation and others That has been one of the lower barrier Um sources that we have thought It's true. Most of our funding is for families as well as those with disabilities and seniors And so the low barrier Private funding for folks who either don't have a lease or rental agreement or fall within the 18 to to 59 category Is where we are able to assist those folks and I think we'll continue to Seek out additional funding that will will help bridge. Um, I think for the city of Santa Cruz. There's other, you know, faith-based Funding sources like capitarities and others That we would do referrals to your presentation for all the wonderful information that you've been able to share with us today And all the work that you're doing for so many people within our community. We very much appreciate it Thank you. Thank you council members Appreciate it a regular meeting today's meeting is being broadcast live on community television channel 25 And streaming on the city's website city of Santa Cruz comm If you wish to comment on an agenda item today instructions are provided on your screen We will provide these instructions throughout the meeting whenever we move into an agenda item that will be open for public comment Please note the public comment is heard only on items The council is taking action and not on regular updates or reports The items that will be open for public comment during today's meeting are the items number 5 through 20 on our agenda Council members if there's any statements of disqualification today I need to disqualify myself from number 13 That's the sewer replacement on walnut avenue as happy as I am to see it Was in front of my house. So I'm just going to check at that point. Should I just use Because if it's just a replacement that won't Result in a change in the level of service or anything of that nature then Even though it's within the proximity of your residents I do not believe that there's a conflict Disqualifying Okay, thank you. No, there are none announcement of oral communications All communications is an opportunity for members of the public to speak to us on item They're not on our agenda and oral communications will occur on or around 60 on receiving the city attorney to provide a report on closed session Yes, thank you. Mayor Cummings members of city council afternoon the council convenes in closed session at 11 a.m To consider the following matters item a was a conference with legal counsel concerning liability claims the claimant is Of the name any h bradfield that is also item nine on your consent agenda this afternoon item b was a conference with labor negotiators involving the poa firefighter iafs local 1716 fire management police management oh e3 mid manager and supervisor employees sdiu local 521 and unrepresented employees City received a report from its negotiators Uh, and there was no reportable action on that Item c was real property negotiations and two parcels were discussed in closed sessions this morning and this afternoon first is property That contains the river street homeless shelter at 115 c coral street city received a report from its negotiator bonnie lipscomb same with item c2 which is real property at 125 coral street owners james p. Gillespie and gene gillespie trustees and harley f and rye gillespie co-trustee City also received a report from its negotiator bonnie lipscomb. No reportable action Item d was a conference with legal counsel concerning anticipated litigation And in that item the counsel by a unanimous vote authorized the city to Join a coalition of public agencies seeking to challenge PG&E's practice of calculating utility user's tax payments met of greenhouse gas credits that are applied to pg&e customers utility bills semi-annually Which results in an underpayment of utility users tax to the city and other public agencies that have utility use tax More detail in the particulars of that action will be available upon request by members of the public Once the action is filed, which I anticipate will occur later this month Lastly was a conference with legal counsel concerning existing litigation. Now is the Case entitled city of san santa cruz versus Santy richard and others Council received a report and gave direction to the city attorney's office with respect to that matter But there's no report left Thank you very much for that report. I'd like to call on the city manager to report and provide updates on city business Co-19 response and other events Thank you mayor and city council Yes, it's going to do a brief update as well as have by rebecca's from nika knocker development doing update on the Shelter in place orders The health order and some of the changes there as the council knows much of the focus right now is on re-openings and The changes to the the order that allows for more activities and businesses to open you'll recall that in my last conversation. We were in the midst of trying to get to the The expanded ladder stages of stage two And the county was going to be getting at the station since then they actually did it They actually did it sooner than I had actually presented and that's been informed And that is already in place and approved by the state. So that essentially provided for Certain sectors to reopen Particularly destination retail in dining restaurants are the those are the bigger categories And since then we've been spiritually working to develop protocols and guidance for our outdoor expansion program which rebecca will Go over in a few minutes However, even since then there have been additional modifications and changes to the shelter in place order and Expect to have additional re-openings and of note. These will begin June 12. I'll just point out the ones that are most significant of note and that includes campgrounds rb parks and outdoor recreation card rooms family entertainment centers like bowling alleys arcades gyms and fitness centers hotels including travel and tourism museums galleries and aquariums So those are rest and then of course restaurant bars wineries and brew pubs So those are all expected to reopen as of June 12 The one thing that still continues to be the same is the beach hours that which will continue to be closed during the 11 to 5 time frame But those are the latest development. They happen very quickly And uh, I'll turn it over to rebecca to kind of give you an update on what we're doing to try to facilitate expedite the particularly the dining experience here Thank you so much martin and good afternoon council and mayor I'm very excited to be able to share with you our new Temporary outdoor expansion area program that we launched officially on friday I'm going to share my screen here for you so I can navigate to our website As you all are familiar all of our business resources Regarding our covet 19 response is found on to sanacris.com slash corona virus so We have been updating the stage to provide information as it's become available and with the latest actions that We took last week to allow for expanded outdoor dining areas and retail We've created a new page on our website that provides information about this program And so with the With the new program we're allowing for expanded retail and restaurant activity on sidewalks where there's eight feet of clearance on private parking lots and step back step back areas as well as on On street parking areas. So what you might see as parklets doing a little bit lower scale expansion into those on-street parking spaces As well as some alleyways in the downtown and we're also doing street closures In the downtown starting with the section of pacific avenue between linkedin and cathardt street So as part of this program, we've developed a series of guidelines that businesses can view on our website here That just talked about the different requirements that we are needing Based on the type of expansion area that you're proposing We have information for businesses related to the insurance requirements That we'll need to have as part of that application and all of the application materials are available here For businesses to view we are economic development department is leading the permitting of these expansion areas and we're doing this through a temporary youth permit And so businesses are able to apply it online very easily. We have a pretty quick application form And they'll have to provide a synopsis of what they're doing And then we've asked that they upload their insurance Proof of insurance as well as their site plan And if they're serving alcohol, it'll be approval from cvc, which is extended Temporary catering authorization And then we'll be reviewing we've already received Four applications so far. So it's very exciting to see the community embracing this And we'll be processing them as quickly as possible to help businesses Expand to this and then we've also been doing a lot of communication to the new business categories that are able to reopen Under the governor's much recent order Happy to answer any questions about this program or the process do those outdoor if they need an outdoor permit That's right, and we've actually created a friendly url for this that's to Santa Cruz comm slash outdoor expansion So they can just go straight there and I'll take them to the program information And also please direct anyone to me as well. I'm happy to answer questions and and be a point of contact to them I have one more question as well. I know that um There's been some discussion With the downtown association reaching out to businesses about shutting up street closures and people keep asking us to shut down Pacific have is there any kind of updates on maybe those kinds of conversations? Yeah, so in the executive order, we did authorize the closure for The 1100 block of pacific avenue. So that is the stretch of pacific between Lincoln street and cathart street So that's the initial closure that we had just looking at the businesses that are there That'll be able to take advantage of that space and also recognizing the emergency access needs Through pacific avenue And I know we are exploring a few other locations where businesses have expressed interest and Working internally to get those plans in place and I'll let Bonnie Add to that as well. She has been Yeah, we have been working with public works and other departments and I'll just take a second to say The entire city team cross departments have been pretty phenomenal and really quickly Approving guidelines and coming together so that we can safely reopen and expand into the public right away It really has been an all hands on deck So I just wanted to acknowledge the work of the other departments and they'll continue to work because we're trying to turn these applications around Really quickly and everyone's committed. So I just wanted to acknowledge that So yes, 1100 blocks towards the that that rebecca just mentioned towards the end of this week And then a good portion of cathart between pacific and cedar At some point next week. So we're working through those initially as a pilot And so main main pacific street downtown and a side street and then we'll assess Based on feedback and interest from other businesses downtown. Um, whether or not we expand that further Closure are those closures like time and is there a specific date when Are they is that there's we're trying to coordinate it for the That entire block and so we're coordinating with the downtown association and and for those businesses. So we're we're Ready to go here at the city And public works can set up the barricades and everything that we need in about a half a day But we don't want to close it too soon before we have all the businesses ready So we're just trying to coordinate with them But we anticipate that the closure of the 1100 block will be thursday or friday of this week And we'll and we'll post everything and we'll have signage up. You know, bonnie You're you're just getting started on this. Um, and I want to just thank Your whole staff and planning staff and martin's office for all the work to get this done so quickly I've gotten a lot of great response to that. Um, the city's just been so proactive on this. So thank you Um, this is probably an impossible thing to answer but um on average I mean, is this going to be a process that takes like an hour or just curious about sort of what the kind of The time frame is that a business owner might expect to be kind of be engaged in this in this permit. Thanks Yeah, I'll start and then rebecca you can kind of add on but um, we worked on the guidelines so that They would be really clear so the business is coming in if they meet the guidelines and use the recommended Vericase whether it's on a sidewalk or street with different specifications That those applications can be turned around and approved and a permit granted within 24 hours If they are going outside the guidelines, they want to do something a little different or it's on a tricky corner Where there's some traffic concerns Um, those may take a little longer where if it's outside the regular guidelines We're hoping we can turn those around in two to three days Um, but we may be able to turn them around sooner just depending on the flow and number of Applications that come in we have one right now that's outside the guidelines But I still think we're going to be able to turn it around in a day And I just had one other question. I'm sorry, um, rebecca you might have covered this Is there a fee is are we just charging a nominal fee or just no fee at all great No fee Yeah, just the cost of businesses to apply for the abc permit the abc expansion Authorization is a hundred dollars. Um, and that's a really quick process businesses have turned around quickly. But yeah, I know fee from the city Thank you. Thank you guys for all your hard work on this I think uh having a more pedestrian friendly specific garden mall is something that I've always wanted to see and so I'm excited to see this Even if it's temporary, um, how it how it works out and my question is Can reconnect and maybe after the question Yeah, I'll talk about this. I remember talking about it on budget day or something Early may so it's exciting. It's happening Have what about soquel avenue and um, have other faces approached us and want to do something And I think you have business community then there's probably a couple on mission street, too, but I I go right to thinking soquel which has really become that whole mid sound, you know commercial sweet little places Yeah, absolutely. So um, these are a lot of citywide within the guidelines I've been in active communication with the midtown businesses As well, and I know that we've gotten a lot of interest as well from the west side So where it fits within the guidelines and how their space is set up We're definitely happy to accommodate that. Um, and excited to see what they're up for to preach forward. Oh, that's great I didn't know about tanks. So we're all Nobody's on I had a quick question. Um while we wait for a counselor or a gollert to reconnect Does this also do sorry, let me rephrase that question Would this also be possible? So say for example, there's a business that has A parking lot and they can effectively Close the parking lot and allow for either outdoor dining And I know that some of the bars are going to be opening up on Friday, too They also qualify for this if they had that kind of space available Yeah, absolutely. Um, so we do have a number of businesses that are utilizing their private parking lots for that expanded use We're looking at using up a portion of the loss not to take away the whole parking area But being able to use some areas of it And being able to have that outdoor, um, dining expanded and then with the safe You know reopening of bars and wineries and tasting rooms I know that we've also received interest from those businesses. We'll be working with them, too Yeah, we'll just need to update our guidelines to include them because when we release them Bars weren't eligible to open. So we'll update those guidelines for them as well Okay, great. Thank you. Councilmember Watkins Thank you so much. This is exciting and I look forward to seeing our businesses out and open I just have a quick question today. For example, there's a business that is in a location that isn't really conducive to outdoor The outdoor experience Is there going to be an opportunity for them to go have like a pop-up potentially somewhere Where it is a more conducive location so that they're not excluded from this, um, opportunity Um, I'll I'll I'll start and then Rebecca can jump in we do have right now I'm not sure if we mentioned it, but three alleys in the downtown That as long as the business is located within 200 feet of the alley that they could Open up and and sort of do a pop-up in the alley. So frazier lewis lane Plaza lane and pearl alley And then elsewhere in the city we'll we'll look at it on a case-by-case basis Our our goal is to be able to accommodate if we can safely do so I'm so sorry guys. My connection is not fantastic. Um, so I don't know how much of my question you've heard or if I was frozen none of it None. Okay, so basically I said I'm super excited about this and I've always wanted more pedestrian friendly specific art mall And so I'm excited to see just even if it's temporary, but I was wondering if the businesses I'm envisioning mostly Restaurants, I don't think retail will be bringing their stuff in and out every day Maybe they will but I was thinking for the tables are going to be like permanent or semi-permanent Tables and stuff similar to hula's or the workers are going to be stuffing all their stuff in and out at the beginning and the end of the day So we are proposing That business to tell us how they want to secure their spaces if it'll sort of depend on how they're setting up The space if it's on the sidewalk Um, we'll likely ask that they bring the tables back inside. Um, it's sort of going to be like case by case basis there's also security concerns for the businesses, but You know, we're not intending it to be as permanent as the hula's Parklets and those types of things are really wanting this to be a really easy thing that businesses can implement And especially with their existing seating indoors that they're not able to utilize if they're able to bring that out to expand it Um, we'll be working with them to figure out what the best strategy is to secure their furniture and make it workable for them For questions. So thanks for your presentation for that update city manager Mayor and yeah, thank you to all the staff for all the hard work to put this together and again, there'll be a lot more work to Uh, assist the additional businesses that are reopening. So we'll get focused on for the fact I know the other area of interest that the council might have is with respect to The demonstrations and and police work there. So I would ask andy in case Available to maybe just do a brief update on how things are going with respect to The demonstrations and other public safety items. So thank you martin and Good afternoon, mr. Mayor and council members. It's been a long couple weeks for us, but I think we're coming out on the back side of this and uh, I wanted to update you on a few things We had dozens of protests all over the city for And varying in size and intensity and complexity And only one really had some difficulty with it from the standpoint of uh, Where there was a little bit of vandalism here at the police department, but by the next morning It was cleaned up and everything was ready to go There were a couple of others that were pretty intense and I really want to recognize and acknowledge the mayor and Uh and council member walkins as well as Several community members We were meeting here at the police department talking about what policies and laws can be changed in order to Improve policing and how we treat and interact with the black community and specifically people of color and in general And it was very powerful and important meeting As protesters arrived and then some of the people who were meeting went outside to address protesters and fascinating conversation And I think as a result of that is really you can see it helped tone down the the tenor of the crowd and uh, and so it was a I thought a very beautiful and powerful thing and which Which begs to the point That uh protests can happen change can happen Uh in a environment where the police are not marshaled up in riot gear and And uh and weapons to grief people who are protesting. We were uh, we purposely kept a very low profile Kept officers out of the way so that people could protest without fear and intimidation And uh, and there's much communication as possible. So Um, you know, I'd like to thank those who who helped out And just as a last note, we had a protest here at our building on Saturday right at the same time we had officers rushing up to ben loman with our rescue vehicle to Uh, just evacuate the officer who was down because they couldn't get to him And uh, so the office our officers our SWAT officers, uh went up there Got him into the rescue vehicles while some other people that were pinned down by gunfire and explosives And were able to get them out of there While people were protesting here at the department And when I told the protesters What took place? The reaction of the protesters was amazing They wanted us to hear them. They wanted us to make sure that That we understand that uh, that the way police nationwide have been interacting with the community Is not acceptable, but they also rose up to support us And understood clearly the pain that violence causes to including the police And so they prayed for our officers As well as uh sergeant, uh cuts filer. So, um, I just really want to thank and and And recognize the protesters in our community Because I think that santa cruz showed the nation how to do it correctly and uh, and some of those people are People like joy flinn and bella and tige and the list could go on But I just wanted to recognize a few of the many protesters who have just done an amazing job And I can guarantee you that we're going to work together To make sure that there's change. It's real. It's substantive And uh, and at the end something you can touch and feel and see For policing That's all I have And I just want to thank the the teeth and the All our police officers too that have been really uh Had to do a lot of work in recent days and weeks Okay, so it's been an amazing job Thank you mayor There any council members that thanks Andy for that update? Um, are there any council members who have any questions at this time? Okay, here none. Thanks chief council meeting calendar I'll now call the clerk to city clerk to provide any updates to the calendar We don't have any updates to our consensus agenda Uh, first up is the consensus agenda. These are items numbers 5 through 15 For members of the public who are streaming this meeting now is the time to call in if you want to comment on items 5 through 15 The instructions are now on your screen Please remember to mute your streaming device for the cue saying that you have been unmuted All items will be acted upon in one motion unless an item is pulled by a council member for further discussion Are there any council members who would like to pull any items? If so, please raise your hand Council member matthews Yes, I'd like to pull item 7. I'm supportive of it. I want to just suggest a small additional language that is Pretty supportive. Yeah, and you're muted. The parlings on the wharf. I'd like to pull that I'll consent with the exception of items numbers 7 and 8 If you'd like to comment on any of the consent items with the exceptions of number 7 and 8 Now is the time to please call in Uh, when you're in the meeting, please press star 9 on your phone to raise your hand And we will recognize you and give you two minutes to speak Just in commenting on these items will bring it back to council for action and deliberation We're looking for a motion on The consensus agenda items with the exception of number 7 and 8 Council member matthews Yes, I'll go ahead and move consent just except for those two items 7 and 8 Oh, I don't second that Okay, so a motion by council member matthews Seconded by council member walk-ins To move all the items on consent with the exception of number 7 and 8 I'll call in court to do a roll call vote Council member Byers Matthews Vice mayor Meyers And mayor Cummings Passes unanimously Now we'll bring it back to council member walk-ins for item number 7 on consent Me Council member Matthews Oh, sorry Matthews, sorry Yeah, item 7 is a resolution supporting the league of california city Uh campaign to support local recovery vibrant city strong economies and it's a great program Um, I would just like to suggest the addition It calls for us to submit a letter to the governor legislative delegation congressional realm Representatives and I gave the some additional language to Bonnie which you can put up. It's very straightforward I'd like to add and local community partners Expressing support for the campaign objectives and further authorizing official communication on specific city priorities that are consistent with this campaign And my reason for suggesting that is as we know a lot of the state and federal funding is some in such a state of flocks and what is Potentially available for and we have our own needs related to that So I'd like to just give us a clear Green light for the city staff particularly since we're going to be off in july When they see things of our interests that are consistent with that league of california city campaign to just go ahead and Activate and also the the league Website for this campaign has some good fact sheets. Uh one directed labor one directed directed at business And the national materials and so I do think some of our Community partners across the spectrum will be very supportive of this as well So that's the suggestion for including that language Are there any council members who would like to comment on this item at this time? If there are members of the public who would like to comment on items seven on our agenda A resolution to support leave california cities support local recovery campaign Please call in now And when you are when you've gotten into the room, please press star nine On your phone to raise your hand and be acknowledged You will have two minutes to comment Seeing no members of the public that would like to comment on this item I'll bring it back to council for action and deliberation Remember, yeah, I'll just go ahead and move the item as amended I'll second it However, sorry. Okay. No, go ahead marching. I forgot to raise my hand We had a motion by councilman Matthews Seconded by councilmember Watkins to move item number seven I'll turn it over to the clerk for the roll call vote councilmember buyers Hi, Matthews Hi brown Hi boulder Watkins Hi vice mayor mires Hi and mayor Cummings Hi That passes unanimously And we'll move on to the next item which is item number eight That was pulled by councilmember buyers applications for an economic adjustment Assistance grants for the Santa Cruz and municipal works from the u.s department of commerce and economic development administration Here, thank you Thank you, bonnie. I spoke to you the other day and you gave me quite a bit of time going over this And then I walked out there yesterday And it just raised a couple more questions. Uh, so here I am Probably asked you to kind of summarize again when I went out there with surprise house Enormous a piece of property that is And I think whenever you tear down a building it always looks twice as big as your memory Will have you think about that building, but uh, anyway, uh What what has come up and I think I asked you about If we don't get this grant are the partings still to be Fixed or I guess brand new you're going to replace them. I think right? Yeah, so we have House funding set aside for this project. It's just after we met with our eda representative and She's funded us Recommended for funding and we were awarded funding from economic development administration in the past for the war That she felt this was a really good fit for a grant And so any amount of funding we can replace with grant funding We're always up for for pursuing that because that would free up our Less restrictive funding for other city priorities. So we saw this as an opportunity to replace some of the city funding that That is set aside for this project Thank you, and I assume Are we advertising that that property is available for somebody to build a restaurant or I assume whatever they would do Yeah, so that property we have been in And some of the council members that have been on the council during this time, but we've come to council several times with an existing work tenant who is very interested in that property and Council had approved some preliminary Plans for the property and there's some outstanding negotiation items. So at this time Considering the financial situation We're our plan was To fix the substrate the infrastructure that we need to support new development and then come back to council with To sort of summarize where we are today and get direction Whether or not to pursue these existing negotiations for the site or to put out a request for proposal for new development on the site But right now given the financial investment and the cost of the infrastructure It's just not financially feasible for Someone to come in at this point And take on that in addition to a complete new building but to take on the substrate cost as well As I understand I think I read here too there'll be Part of the project will be improved improved the sidewalk or whatever you call the walkway In front of it So that would help. Yeah attract somebody too as well. Okay. Thanks a lot that I think Those were my questions I'd like to take this opportunity also The resolution in the packet Right is actually needs to be updated. So we intended to have two resolutions for two applications But in our haste and I take responsibility for it The wrong resolution is in the packet. So I was just about to read it. Yeah, so you will notice We we had two and only one made it in the packet. So So one the staff report talked about the work and the resolution your packet is actually to support the revolving loan program That we would like to bring forward to you at the next meeting on june 23rd So I apologize for that mistake. I can screen share The actual right Resolution may make sure I have the right one up because I have both pulled up on my desktop That's fine with me. If it's okay as the mayor to substitute the right resolution Yeah, can is this the right one? Is it say warp on the top? I can't see it. Okay. So this is the right resolution that should have been in your packet and I apologize for that error And our plan as as indicated in the staff report is to come back to you on the 23rd To also get your direction to apply for an additional application For a countywide revolving loan program and we've been in discussion With the other jurisdictions about this and we just anecdotally Just received news from our eda representative that they have accepted our community economic development strategy That was prepared countywide through the workforce investment board So we're really we're really happy that they support the plan and the revolving loan program fits right with that said Approved report. So we think they'll be a really good response to a countywide revolving loan program as well But this is the resolution for the work that should be in your packet So the recommendation on page one, which is Resolution authorizing is the correct Worrying there. So I will move that resolution recommendation 8.1. Yes. Oh, you want probably hearing first. Sorry. Yeah, I like to comment on Item number eight, which is an application for an economic adjustment assistance grant So the Santa Cruz municipal war from the us department of commerce and the economic development administration Please call in now And once you've entered the call, please and you'll be given two minutes to speak So the public would like to speak to this item. I'll bring it back to council for action and deliberation Some of the buyers Okay, I'll move the 8 page 1 8.1 the recommendation resolution authorizing the city manager to apply An accepted grant from the us department of commerce economic development administration For funding the Santa Cruz municipal war from the economic adjustment assistance grant program We have a second from outrunner Matthews There's no further questions or comments I'll turn it over to the clerk for the vote Councilmember buyers Matthews Vice mayor Myers I And mayor Cummings That is unanimously Okay, we'll move on to our next item business, which is the consent public hearings These are items number 16 through 18 For members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an item you'd like to comment on Now it's the time to call in using the instructions on your screen Uh, are there any council members who would wish to pull items 16 through 18? Like who would wish to speak to these items, which is our consent public hearing Now it's the time to do so You'll need to call in with the number on your screen and then press star nine on your phone to raise your hand And once you've been recognized you'll be given two minutes to speak on this item public who'd like to speak this item I'll bring it back to council for action and deliberation Vice mayor Myers go ahead and move the consent public hearing items item number 16 Second reading and final final adoption of ordinance number 2020-10 The item number 17 downtown association parking and business improvement area assessments And item number 18 cooperative retail management business real property improvement district assessments for fiscal year 2021 I'm most of my councilman Myers Vice mayor Myers Councilman Matthews Matthews there's no further discussion. We will turn over to the clerk that clerk to take the vote Councilmember Byers Hi, Matthews Hi Brown Hi Boulder Hi Watkins Vice mayor Myers I'm and mayor Cummings Hi, the passage unanimously Our agenda is item number 19 Which is a public hearing for a cannabis retail license to allow license transfers For members of the public who are streaming into this meeting If this is an item you want to comment on how the time call and Using the instructions on your screen The order will be a presentation of the item by staff for the council members who brought the item forward Followed by questions from the council We will then take public comment and then return to council for action deliberation With this I will turn it over to our presenters Catherine Donovan senior planner and Matthew Van Waugh Principal planner Good afternoon council and members of the public I'm having a little trouble with my zoom today. It's not allowing me To share my screen. So I'm going to ask bonnie bush to bring up the presentation We're here tonight this afternoon With a an ordinance amendment To allow The transfer of cannabis licenses Next slide In september of 2017 The city council directed staff to Write an ordinance to allow adult use Cannabis and to limit the number of retailers To no more than five But to also allow the addition of more retailers by resolution rather than ordinance Um, they also requested that we support local minority and women known businesses Along with some other community benefits And as a result of this direction staff created The cannabis retailer license And the licenses are awarded through a competitive process And it's they're based on a number of factors Including the support of local minority and women owned businesses There was also a limit on license transfers Not allowing the transfers because Since the licenses were awarded on a competitive basis We didn't want Someone to win an award because they had a lot of our community benefits And then promptly Sell that license to somebody else who might not meet those same factors Next slide As soon as the ordinance went into place The retailers made it very clear that they wanted to be able to Sell their businesses and transfer their licenses They because the sale of cannabis is still Illegal federally It's very hard to raise capital in the normal fashion And so the only way that Businesses are able to raise capital other than Getting it from friends and relatives is by investment and to do that We the city If there's an investment in a bill for 20 percent, we consider that a change in license Retailers also want to be able to regroup Recoup their investment If they're ready to retire or just want to get into some other type of business And um, we hear a lot that they want to be treated like any other Business And one other concern is what would happen if an owner died And the license couldn't be transferred to the owner's heirs These are all valid points and We we have considered those In the writing of this ordinance But from the city's perspective, there are some conflicts Because the licenses were awarded based on the community benefits that were being provided By the specific business Allowing transfers create a conflict there because We won't necessarily get the same benefits um and because They the process was set up that if one business closed There would be a new competitive process and we might actually get More community benefits than the original business was providing In addition, because there are only five licenses That creates sort of what we call the medallion the taxicab medallion um effect where The business The price of the business is is that not Necessarily on the value of the business itself, but on the value of being able to Open a business in Santa Cruz by getting one of those Five licenses Next slide so as we were looking at Ways that we could allow license transfers and we considered how we could resolve these conflicts And the easiest way Is to remove the limit on the number of licenses because If there is no limit then the license itself Does not create this artificial value Um and we can also Require that new and new owners Provide either the same or similar value community benefits As were brought by the original owners as we started talking about removing the limit on the number of licenses Um, we got a lot of pushback um We felt that it was A reasonable course because one of the reasons that we had had the limit in the first place was that um, this was a a new frontier and the city council at the time Wanted to have some control over potential impacts and sometimes to see how this whole business shook out and Whether this was going to be a problematic thing that we didn't actually want to allow or whether we could just open it up Um, but we have not had any problems with our existing businesses. There's been no increase in Crime in the areas where they are open. They're They don't have significant calls for service, which is generally a metric that we use to To find whether a business is a problem business or not um There are also limitations on where The businesses can go And so they're limited the zoning limits actually limit somewhat the number of businesses because they're only allowed in specific commercial locations And there are buffers around other kind of businesses and around sensitive uses such as school and we found with the first round of licenses That there's also a limited number of properties available and that's true for any business that wants to open, you know, most commercial properties try to have a business a lease in place and so There usually aren't that many open Properties that are available for lease at any one time um, and we found with the cannabis businesses even if a lease a business might a building might be available um Owners were either reluctant to lease to cannabis businesses because they are still federally illegal or If they were willing to lease They might also want to jack up the price and we we got lots of reports of that happening In addition to the zoning and the limit on the number of properties. There are also market limits there there's a certain amount of Cannabis sales that the market can support and beyond that businesses just won't be able to survive So there's a sort of a Darwinian effect there where You know, if we got too many businesses some of them would have naturally go out of business And we worked with the um council cannabis subcommittee on these issues and they Had asked us to look into other ways that we might be able to stop this what we're calling the medallion effect the the um increase in cost in the price of the business due to the limit on the licenses And we were not able to come up with any other um method of of stopping that other than increasing the number of licenses Next slide um So we met with the industry and listened to their concerns and um Since they've opened The businesses have um It has not been an easy road. There's a lot of restrictions by the state. There are Uh, a lot of taxes to be paid. The state also has some pretty intense fees on cannabis businesses and um There's a lot of competition with online purveyors who We are not able to stop from selling from delivering into the city um So the industry has had to deal with all of these issues and the idea of of having More businesses come in at this time Was very unwelcome to them And they also expressed a concern that there would be an over concentration In Santa Cruz if we allowed more businesses to open and an over concentration is when you have um A number of businesses per capita that is larger than um in the general area usually measured by the county um Although there are other other matrix matrices for Considering over concentration. Sometimes it's considered by census tract, but um, that is actually not a very accurate Way to to view over concentration But as a result of those industry concerns Um, the subcommittee Decided to recommend against lifting the limit at this time Right, and I should mention that although they recommended not to lift the limit That recommendation was not unanimous. So there was some disagreement among the subcommittee members themselves So looking at the actual changes for the license transfer We used the city of capitolas ordinance as a model This was one that was recommended by Some members of the industry and the council itself When we had addressed this back in september and as we worked on the actual transfer piece um, we had we had some issues of concern and we ended up Developing two different options Option one is very similar to capitolas. It requires a new license um, if over 50 of the ownership changes and if The change is under 50 percent Then um, the owners are required to inform the city of the changes in ownership and Would need to meet the original factors We're a little concerned with this one because Meeting the the original factors when we came up with those original factors We had not had experience in this field before and Going through the process we gained a lot of knowledge and we realized that those factors Need to be tightened up. There's some factors that really don't apply anymore There's other factors that for instance the local residency or woman or minority owned businesses There's no number attached to that. So um, if a business That was originally 100 percent woman owned Old 50 percent of the business To people who were not women May have that factor the fact that they were women owned may have helped them Get that original award And now they weren't no longer meeting the factor in terms of the competition But they would still qualify under the old factors next slide and the Council subcommittee are recommending option two Which is that a new license would be required required for any ownership change And then the new and improved factors Would apply to all changes and um, this provides more transparency and it also Means that we don't have to continue tracking the original factors for The original licenses and whatever changes they've gone through and the new factors for new licenses Now that applying for a new license is not extremely onerous The most onerous thing is that There's a background check and that would be required anyway Whether it was an ownership change or simply a new person owning A portion of the business So we did not feel this is a particularly onerous Request and and it provides the city with more transparency and also allows us to apply the new and improved factors next slide when we revised these factors we We made two new requirements One was a factor which was to pay the living wage and the second was something new that was suggested by the Council subcommittee and that was to have language in there that um, the business would not interfere with The employees forming a union or joining a union um, we also Had some revisions to the factors we um, put a number On the local residency minority or women owned business Factors so that it has to be at least 50 percent in order to qualify for those factors We had stronger definitions for employee benefits and some of the other factors and we also require that For the license transfers, which are not going through a competitive process That they must meet six out of the nine factors Next slide and we also had a couple of new factors one was a limit on how many businesses that the new business could own um limiting to no more than six businesses and that was a Considering small and local businesses. We wanted to um have something that Allowed businesses to grow a bit but still You know, there's there's some Very large businesses out there and we would prefer to have smaller businesses in the city and so that was Having this as a factor allows that to weigh into the decision and another factor was to um have an employee owned business A business that was at least 50 percent employee owned that would be another factor. So That would weigh in toward qualifying as a business And some of the original factors were removed Prior legal business experience We felt was important in the original application period when we didn't have any experience in this But it's not so important now We also required clean energy originally, but now that All of our energy comes from monorail bay clean energy consortium It's not a required factor because everybody qualifies um, we also had a factor that Was that you carry a majority of organic products, but There is no organic certification for cannabis products yet There there is language in the state regulations That someday there will be but it's been Two plus years and it still doesn't exist and so that didn't make sense at this time as a factor so There was some community outreach on this we had two initial meetings that were Virtual meetings one was We we reached out to the cannabis industry Both in the city and in the county And the second meeting was for the general public But the truth of the matter is both of those meetings were attended by the same industry group we had virtually no new people at the general public meeting And after After those two meetings We set up an additional meeting with the the industry group and the subcommittee So that the industry group could speak directly to the subcommittee about their concerns Next slide So at this time we have two recommendations The first recommendation both the subcommittee and staff recommend that the city adopt option two and staff also recommends that the council approve expanding the number of licenses and this Because it can be done by resolution if the council if the full council votes on that we could actually bring back a resolution with the second reading of this Ordinance and that could occur at the same time Have any questions? I'd be happy to answer them. Thank you for that presentation um Are there any council members of questions of the staff this time? I'm saying none. I do have a question. Um, I said an email earlier to um our planning director lee butler I was wondering if you could speak to tax revenue that was generated in 2019 and 2020 from cannabis I'm sure if you receive that email Please you want to address that? Yes, absolutely. Um Good afternoon mayor and council members lee butler. I'm the director of planning and community development and we did get a response from um the finance department and it based on actually generated and the question from the mayor was uh comparisons between march april and may of 2019 versus 2020 in march 2020 was actually about $25,000 higher in terms of the cannabis tax that was generated in 2020 versus 2019 It flip-locked in april where in april of 2019 it was about 16,000 and some change higher in 2019 than in 2020. So, um, just to um to let you know that that was uh variable between those two months and then the may figures are not yet available for 2020 So we don't have a comparison between those two yet So april down march was up 25,000 but april was down 16,000 Raise my hand quick enough when you ask for questions. Um I have a question about um I know that revenues are sort of one way we're measuring the community benefits. Um, but I'm just curious also Do we have any other ways to evaluate sort of the community benefits coming from? um From our this industry in our community. Um, since we have these factors, are those Are we using those factors to kind of look at that question? I don't know if this is for lee. Maybe I'm just not quite sure how we're measuring that or I don't know if the submitting members Talk to discuss that at all. Well, I think that's one of the reasons why We in the subcommittee landed on the revised factors. Um, it was Um It is one of the ways that we help to provide additional community benefits. Certainly we get revenue um from the Retail sales and there's a portion of that as the council is aware that goes towards, um, child care Um, or excuse me, uh, children's funds that are children's funds get hated to those sources and um identified on an annual basis by the council but what we What we concluded was essentially the improved factors allow for the integrity of the original competition to remain in place As Catherine was explaining the The original factors may have had, uh, you know an equipment set of businesses except that Um, one was 60 percent minority or women owned and two others or three others were say, you know, 40 45 and 50 percent So if everything else was equal, we would have awarded it to the um, the business with the 60 percent and if they then go and modify their ownership structure such that there is a uh lower Percentage of minority and women owned businesses if their original application came in in that fashion They wouldn't have been awarded the license in the first place. So the updated factors do allow us to um better reflect the values that the council originally specified and that we discussed as part of the um subcommittee as Still being important factors to support, um, you know with a variety of things Um included there, um Uh paying living wages um women minority owned businesses Um employee owned businesses and so forth So those are those are certainly community benefits that These businesses can bring as they meet those factors and that the um That the um community the cannabis um industry folks who participated in the community or in the in the meetings Did they bring any other factors for consideration to for the subcommittee and did you guys Analyze those or i'm just curious about anything else I see matt popping on i'll let him respond to that We did we did bring them up at the meeting but the majority of the discussion with industry Revolved around the increase in licenses and the license transfer piece So it it it was it was mentioned, but we didn't get any feedback at the time from the from the industry Okay, thank you. That's all Thank you. Uh, so in response donna to your uh vice mayor mires to your question, uh, um the We did not have industry input into The factors that we kind of final when we were finalizing this process, but um, I have now heard From the industry in response to what we have here one additional factor, which um, I'll just mention Which I think makes sense. We can talk about it when we get to deliberations related to having a relationship with, uh, You know transparent relationship with a financial institution So we can talk about that later, but so that was the input that I have seen Related to the factors. Otherwise, I've heard, you know, I've not heard anything negative about the rest of them So I have a question related to the percentage ownership transfer to trigger new license or, you know, the the factors being reviewed the new factor kind of Review process evaluation process and it made sense as we were talking about in the subcommittee to, uh, you know, try to address that issue that um, lee bottler just mentioned about, you know, Well, how will we know if you know close to a majority of, uh, you know, shift that dynamic and and then we don't have Those factors kind of covered and but then I have also Now since then have thought about and have heard from folks who are concerned about the the need for Going through that process that's laid out in option two Uh for any transfer For example in the so I'm wondering if my question would be how would that work like for example, if um, you know, uh an employer wanted to have An employee stock ownership program or some other kind of mechanism where, uh, there are kind of small Given to or purchased by um employees for example, like how how would that I mean that seems like it would be a pretty um ownerist process both for the city and Um for the business anytime a new person came into that structure that it would be considered a new Business, so I'm just wondering if you kind of any thoughts about that. I'd like to try to figure that out before we finalize this Yes, we actually discussed this and um If their business structure was that they would have say 20 percent of shares That would be um employee options Then that would just be considered that 20 percent would be just a chunk and People could come and go and it wouldn't make any difference. We wouldn't be looking at the individuals who were employees owning those certain percentages, but that would be part of their um business structure that they brought to us with a either their original license or With a license transfer at some point so that we We would know that there was this 20 percent that was divided up among his employees If I could just if I thank you if I could just follow up really quickly, um Maybe that maybe I didn't read this clearly, but that wasn't clear to me an option too that the 20 percent was still um Was it's intact there and I know we did have that discussion But I I guess maybe I need to you know, I did read it and I just wasn't entirely clear So maybe I missed something Yeah, no, there is no there's nothing in the in the option that speaks to the 20 percent, but if the um If the business came to us and they said okay We are going to have 20 percent or 15 or 15. I was trying to say that if If a business came to us and they told us they were 10 employee owned 15 50 whatever it may be Then that would be Considered their their business structure and that would be one owner first day Um, so they would only have to come back to us if there was a change in that percentage of employee ownership Or public ownership, you know, it could be someone that is traded on you know, a public publicly traded company that is You know 60 publicly traded and you know 40 percent if they establish up front that the 60 percent or 40 percent or 20 percent Whatever it is um is Traded or sold to the employees then um That structure would be remaining intact the ownership wouldn't be considered to change there The way the language is written um, it would seem that that would be a better argument for option number one because I think what we were trying to Prevent with the first option, which is why I mean we worked on the first option and then kind of Last minute, you know, there was some issues that came up Which is why we moved to option number two and while I Totally agree with you know the Desire behind creating option number two around kind of having some checks and balances and being able to know who's buying into the business um I don't like the point out that we currently don't have any Enforcement and follow-up that's my understanding and correct me if i'm wrong, but we Mine and I guess this is a question like how often have we been checking to ensure that the standards of these businesses It's got their license or still met. I've been regularly checking. That's one of the benefits of the uh improved Factors in fact the ordinance before you requires that the um annual that on an annual basis the companies provide an affidavit specifying their compliance with the factors that they identify um as Qualifying them for the license in the first place. So that is something that is a significant improvement in the ordinance that's before the council Finished the thought that I had before but I do have some concern some serious concern with um, the fact that there isn't any language in the option two around You know that would really support employee-owned businesses and where it's with option number one there's a lot of flexibility and Not having to come to the city to apply for a new license unless you Exceed that 50 percent threshold So I feel like that would actually allow businesses to create these employee-owned options Below that 50 percent where that people are coming and going and they're selling Different shares Yeah, they could do that freely without having to go to the city every single time for a new license In addition to that in option number one There's also provision that says that if there's a change in ownership that they will let the City know and I think within that they're going to say, you know There's been a change of ownership or we have a change of ownership form We can have those different criteria to determine whether or not Maybe the people who are buying in actually bring benefits to the city versus to track from those benefits I think the assumption that we've been having the assumption on the conversation is that For whatever reason we're going to lose benefit But I think there's an opportunity where we can actually gain more and if the city is informed of that we're keeping track that I think that you know, it could be you know easier for The for easier on the city and on the industry for not having to constantly Be doing paperwork to renew licenses and paying the fees associated with them to councilmember Watson Thank you mayor and Thank you colleagues and staff for your work on this I know it's been a long process um I guess my my original my original Handraises about the children's fine and the community benefits But as the conversation is taking a turn I will just say one of the things that made me more comfortable with option two is that we're really on an ongoing basis setting for The fact the factors to be considered and given that Excuse me Number eight of the factors in our agenda report shows that the majority of the business employee owned it seems to me that that would help Meet that concern And then I think also further Based on the input that staff provided Our subcommittee in regards to the concerns raised in option one Option two felt like a better fit to really adhere to our community benefit And I think that to me is what stands out the most is how are we seeing community benefit from Our policy as it relates to the cannabis policy And then I guess the other thing I would I guess ask Is one I just would say I support option I I'm supportive of option two as we as we continue our deliberations based on the input we received as a subcommittee Um, and I know that cathard mentioned in the presentation that there wasn't uh consensus by the subcommittee on the increase of retail cannabis licenses I think that um and I've mentioned this before that we've had we chose five sort of just randomly arbitrarily and that There is an opportunity for us to um increase it. So we don't have these artificial values in place And I don't know if staff um Could potentially if we were to move forward come back with zoning regulations so that if we were to increase It wouldn't be out of scale with stana crews and or if they've already done that analysis It's certainly up to the discretion of the council to identify the Number of additional retail licenses that the council sees fit You know It was I would say uh somewhat of an arbitrary Discussion, you know at the original council. I was like should it be seven should it be four should it be five And they kind of just landed on the middle But I think it wasn't arbitrary in that the council at the time was um wanting to make sure that it was a relatively low number to um Ensure that if there were impacts from these we didn't know what the impacts would be and If there were going to be impacts the council, I think rightfully wanted to limit those impacts To a small number of establishments and not have those impacts widespread across the community Since that time we haven't experienced those impacts And so it's it's the council's discretion to say they could be increased by one or they could be increased by You know an unlimited number The council could also say You know look at Different zoning allowances Whether that's Additional zoning districts where it's allowed or increased buffers so that there are fewer that are allowed you know, it's it's really up to the discretion of the council and We are happy to do whatever analysis the council would like us to surrounding that Or if the council wants to keep the current, you know buffers and allowed allowable zoning districts in place and just Increase the number that is something that's easy to do as well so We're happy to talk through that with the council that doesn't have to be tonight if it is tonight it would or today It would be helpful to get if that conversation happens today It would be helpful to get some direction so that we Have a more informed discussion when we come back to actually make some changes at a future meeting And then I just had one one last sort of point I wanted to raise that we did recognize the fact that we haven't necessarily engaged with Compliance and enforcement and as a subcommittee wanted to move in the direction of making sure that we're really You know, we're able to capture those that are legally Distributing cannabis in our community and and and that enforcement conversation was going to be forthcoming as a recommendation as well My name is I was not on the committee. So I do have a bunch of questions Maybe in reverse order Regarding the number I am comfortable saying the existing number. It's true It's a pretty low number, but it's a high number per capita for stances. So Honestly to me it needs to increase that And then I just have some questions so in no particular order I can't think of any other industry that we condition to this degree. So I guess it's been questioned for weeks Uh, and I think just because of the fact that it's a new industry when we did this three years ago As you say and a bit arbitrary Um, the I don't know the closest thing I can think of is maybe liquor stores that just um all of the required all the requirements um are Rather extraordinary compared to what how we normally get permit It's usually just for a use maybe just for Tony to It's for particular use Don't require who owns it and who Who lives locally and you know all those other things. So that's one question Just the intensity of conditioning Um, I would like to know more about the process of transfer whether it's one or two, but What's the cost of a transfer the timeline of a transfer and what would be the reason for Denial of a transfer second question um Where are the community best that's described because number nine of the nine Possible conditions to make That's other communities as described in detail improved by the planning department the other question and then In terms of annual compliance, it seems like a significant question Um, it could be things of one or two It could be as simple as a self assessment like we do for the remel section form I continue to need this. I continue to need this whatever so So these are just questions that occurred to me I'll lead each of them. Uh, friends, that's correct. Um, I I am not aware of certain certainly we regulate things like um else and so forth, but in terms of the number of requirements this is Substantially more limiting and that is directly tied to the fact that we only allow a few of those businesses And that was the intent of the council at the very beginning it was If we're only going to allow a few of these then we should Open then then we should only have those businesses that are providing the highest amount of community benefits as those Businesses that get to operate in place and then I think there's a very valid question about, you know, Should we be, you know, there's still the point of those being great factors? And maybe we would want to do that, you know from a policy perspective that still brings in a lot of really good benefits like living wage for example and Um, uh other benefits that are specified as part of the factors So there's no reason why it couldn't be but I think the the genesis of that was the fact that There are a very limited number of these and we should only be providing them to those that are providing the biggest the most community benefits Um, which you know again is why I think uh, the the updated factors are important if there's no competition in trading off the Consist to new ownership then those new factors the application of those new factors is that much more important um Second you asked about the cost of the transfer We did have an indication in the report that we could Come back to council with a reduced fee for a licensed transfer If that's the council's desire we had I can tell you what the the fee was for the original competition and that was around 1500 or 1600 dollars ballpark for that may have been a little bit less 12 or In the range of 12 to 1600 dollars is my recollection from uh, December of 2017 when we did that and Certainly without the competition You know, we may spend a little bit less time on that and we can if if the Council does go with this option. We can return and Establish a new fee for just the license transfer You asked about The timeline for that that could be done relatively quickly once we get the documentation that's required To to make that to make those determinations We would be coming up with a list of required documents that could establish the Um consistency with each of the factors so that it's easy so that the application form says here's what you can provide to show how you're meeting x y and z and Once those documents are provided it should be a pretty quick and easy review Um, and then the reasons for denial run if they're not meeting the required number of factors or two if they don't meet a background Uh, if they don't pass the uh, yes, I'm sorry. I'm having trouble unmuting We do have any ordinance that if you have been, um convicted of fraud or a number of other similar type crimes that you, um, are not eligible Thank you for reminding me of that one. Yeah, there is a um A provision about unfair business practices and it goes into certain types So that may not be caught by a background a police background check or may be caught as part of a police background check And then uh, if it's described, oh the uh, so there isn't an actual description of that Factor number nine Which was additional benefits. Um, you know, it could be a wide variety of things We didn't want to To say it has to be these but you know one that just pops to mind as you were Mentioning, what could those be? that could be something like The paid time to volunteer with a A nonprofit organization of their choice Something like that would certainly be a community benefit that we can say hey, that's great that's going to do something great for this community and So we didn't want to say It has to be these but if someone comes with something that is The community at large then we would take that into consideration was compliance and self-inspection similar to what we do with the The rental inspection service and yes, that is something that we built in to the The draft ordinance under 6.91 090 We require that all cannabis Retail businesses provide an annual affidavit confirming the business is meeting each of those requirements. So yes We we want to make sure that that is continually And that they are offering to those criteria Those are all the questions from councilman Matthews. I'm the one to council member brown Council member golder. I have a question and then council member Watkins the answer I'm just trying to figure this kind of zero versus 50 plus 1 Percent kind of difference and and how we sort through that What so remind me the state? trigger The requirement for any license. What is that 20 percent? It's 20 percent. Okay, okay You know, there's been the ban the box historically With buying cannabis and some of those people may want to get in the industry now But this was by You know having a background check and somebody who is disproportionately impacted by the system Mine is my sense is that that will prevent somebody like that from being able to be considered as an owner And so I'm just curious and also I'm just curious about what the threshold is So if someone had a DUI would that disqualify them or you know, if they had They got not fighting got an assault battery charge that's qualified and so it was kind of the levels Of disqualification as it relates to like background checks for ownership And that might be a statewide, you know policy, but I'm just kind of curious Um, I'm sure there is a statewide policy, but in terms of the city what we're looking for is either Fraud type crimes or violent crimes or Not cannabis-related crimes, but really hard drug crimes And you know one one charge 15 years ago is not going to disqualify you So it's not a you know a hard in the past if you have ever been convicted. You're out We're looking at exactly what you were convicted for and whether it really Has any relation to having a cannabis business if If we know that you have a history of cheating on your taxes And one of the things we get from cannabis businesses is tax revenue We're not likely to want to give you a license Um, but if you were convicted of smoking marijuana in your front yard 25 years ago That would not Have any impact at all that maybe we have sort of two questions I think one of the things that when we created this policy We really did talk about wanting to move in the direction of not only trying to incentivize more uh diversity and ownership of the those businesses but also to work towards an equity type program And I know that that's been sort of a conversation that hopefully it's going to be Figured out a bit in terms of trying to reconcile those past discrimination tactics that have left folks At a disadvantage So I do I mean at some point I I know that cap and had mentioned that she's looking at different examples around that But I did want to see uh, lee if you could speak to the information that we received in terms of the cannabis purchase agreement That are in place for two of our existing cannabis businesses and Kind of the the challenges and nuances that arose as as a result of that information That was a part of the discussion one of the cannabis businesses has an agreement to sell with the publicly traded company and so that information is publicly available and That spurred some conversations with staff in the subcommittee about Some of the the factors that we had already been discussing things like locally owned businesses women in minority owned businesses and Employee owned businesses And I think in some respects it reaffirmed the The values that that we had expressed and wanting to Aim to achieve those but also recognizing that you know, we We can't necessarily preclude You know larger publicly traded or You know multi-state Organizations, there's another conversation with another retailer about a multi-state Organization that's looking to purchase them and so just given that context We we talked about the importance of the factors and trying to keep those profits local and Recycle back into our community and to support small locally owned businesses. So that was that was part of the conversation that we had With staff and some of the conversation that we had with the subcommittee as well I just have a follow-up question to that so information really informed us moving in the direction of option two to really ensure that we can Maintain those community benefits and values that we seek to uphold but then also the The amount that that agreement was for which is I think Like two 225 million or something like that That informed the artificial inflation value of having the five You know licenses that are kind of coveted in your opinion sure so the agreement was 2.25 million something going for memory in that range so The in different manner Oftentimes it is based on your annual gross revenue And there are different factors for This is so you know a retail clothing store might have a different factor for their annual sales is certain than a liquor store for example And so You know there could be some analysis related to that. I I don't know what the the factor is for a A cannabis retailer, but I think the argument stands to reason that if there are only five licenses That there is a value to The license itself and not only to the business Because there is a limited number of them anytime there's a limited quantity of something just the simple laws of Supply and demand there's a value And that value's increased if there's a demand and there's a limited supply And then to your your initial point in response to my earlier comments about the sale You're correct that I think did influence where we landed in terms of the option two and looking at the The new fact have those things that Really maintain the integrity of the original competition like the 50 percent women or minority owned 50 or majority of the business is Owned by someone who's been a local resident for three years the original factors those original factors Um, you know you could arguably have a minority owned and you still meet that factor You still meet that factor because the original factors don't have a threshold They don't have a threshold because there was a competition And the competition allowed us to say well, you're at only at 40 percent And so we could we could sort those out through that competition But without a competition It it became it was more important to really include those thresholds at a level at which we feel it would have been likely competitive in the first place um That's where we land in where we did and not the the conversations about the The potential sales certainly informs that 22 options. I just wanted to point out that the review factors Between the two items the between two options are identical because the only real difference is the When the city had when they have to apply for any license so the main difference between these two is that With option one license can be sold or the a person can buy into a business And we won't trigger a license transfer so long as it doesn't exceed 50 percent And if they do have a change in ownership, they have to notify the city If there's any change in ownership, they have to apply for any license So I just wanted to make sure that was clear that that's the main difference between these two items before us So yeah, I just wanted to to mention that and then I know that you know, we're trying to provide these these You know factors so that businesses don't just get their licenses and sell them I feel like though it needs to be said too that I think what we really want is to ensure the community benefits locally owned But I mean there's a lot of companies and Santa Cruz that started here and have sold so Looker sold to google and we didn't stop them from doing that new leaves sold to some other You know grocery store company We didn't stop them from doing that and I'm not, you know Encouraging the sale of our businesses to larger corporations at all whatsoever But I but I want wanting to bring up that this is the only industry that we're like highly regulating on how Do you know if they can be bought or sold or expand? We do have just in more than six other cannabis establishments And one concern that was brought up by some members of the industry is that if our local business If a local business does so well to where they're able to expand just moving because the industry's really been Needing to increase their capital and business is the only way they can do that at this time But I think there's some other things you may want to consider moving forward questions or concierge. Yeah, please Say that You know if businesses are expanding not prevented from doing so, but they might need to meet another one of those criteria So you have to then you know pay a higher living wage for example. So so it could trigger them into Additional we're taking care of I think back to all of you who are there when this got passed It must have been an enormous Long meetings because it's complicated and I understand the committee did the yeoman person's work on it But thank you. So this has been enlightening for more. I really don't have a question I just want pass on though because I noticed under the recommendation or under the staff report Direction on the number I just will put out on I think since you did too that To me five is just the size of our town and then what I looked at the number of hours. They're open in this I would call a fairly mid-sized or a small town So I'm just comfortable with the five and I'm not interested in expanding Yeah, um, so I was confused by your statement that the only um, that the conditions applied to both options one and two as I Understood that option two was the only one that required uh, a couple of Absolute requirements and then six out of nine additional requirements that would not be required by option one I understand that incorrectly Not six point nine one zero nine zero License requirement and the view factors those in option one it's the following required a and b and and um And it has the business must meet the minimum six of the following factors And then in second one It's the same. It's the the issue is that In option two it looks like In the red line version b the number two that would have also been an option one is actually In line with item b and so so much that they just didn't hit return um, but all the factors are identical where they have under number two Section six point nine one point zero nine zero It goes through from a to i And then numbers to grant for so all those conditions are the same if I can correct you You want to go ahead matt? Sure. Yeah, I was just going to say uh, these these new license requirements and factors are for a new license process So the the existing license holders can keep that license But the the only issue that we're Questioning right now is is what will trip a new license to be required? Uh, and that's the percentage of ownership that we're discussing Option one the page on a trip. Yeah, so an option one they could essentially have a 50 percent um change in ownership without triggering a new license without a review of the new factors Whereas an option two any change in ownership Aside from the thing that we talked about earlier with you know an ownership structure of like stock sales That any change in ownership would trigger A review for consistency with the new factors. So that's really the differential here is Do you want to have um that those new factors applied? In all instances or nearly all instances, you know, aside from the the stocks uh changing hands or Would you like to have a business be able to um Exchange some portion You know in the ordinance it's listed as 50 percent, but it doesn't have to be 50 percent the council could say 20 percent over 20 percent um, then a new license is triggered. So it isn't it isn't like Has to be one or the other there could be uh a Middle ground sure the council choose to So if I could just continue so option one as currently proposed is any license transfer over 60 percent Any transfer that's correct and that's in uh fixing. Yes, that's the council's discretion And then um as i'm understanding the discussion environment for a new license would include paying living wage allowing unionization And to come from Sandy transparent relationship with a financial institution or something along that line and also going through a background check those would be automatically required and then There are additional requirements Four of which have to do with ownership and the others of which have to do with um Community benefit and so forth Seems like Me has an extraordinary amount of requirements uniquely on this. So i'll just wait for the rest of the discussion Comments at this time Being none. We'll open it up to the public. So if there's any member of the public who would like to just to comment on um item number 19 on our agenda amendments To chapter 6.9 on canvas retail licenses The transfers now is the time to call in Uh, so you should see some numbers on your screen When you have gotten into the meeting, please press star nine on your phone And you will be given uh two minutes to speak I had uh kaleel from kind people's reach out for extra time And so we'll start with kaleel and we'll have a quick four minutes. Thank you council I appreciate everything that you are putting into this today My name is kaleel mutawa keel. I'm the co-CEO and founder of kind people's dispensary And I want to deliver a message today from my heart about the in the cannabis business owner The residents and accrues my entire life All of our current retail licensees are good local people with families And we consider ourselves to be significant partners with the city But yet we don't receive the same treatment as other businesses Kind people's pays hundreds of thousands a year in taxes to the city's general fund We create living wage jobs with 401k and health insurance plans. We have training programs We do get back to our community. We brought back to life at the lap dated corner on ocean street We are green business certified and all the while We are reducing consumption and dependence of alcohol opioids and pharmaceutical drugs in this beautiful place that we all love to call home And yet still the city does little to support our fledgling local industry Just as we jump through hoop after hoop to be compliant operators I too believe that the city has an obligation to enforce the code Go after the illegal operators and allow for an even playing field At a recent subcommittee meeting the county's cannabis licensing official sam laforte stated That he knew of at least six illegal operators currently in the city of santa cruz More than the number of legal ones significantly decreasing the tax base The city needs an enforcement protocol similar to the counties where they turn bad actors over to the tax administrator Isabina tax documents Calculate back taxes owed and place liens on businesses that don't pay through the secretary of state So before we consider more legal operators, please take care of the illegal ones I am at a loss now that after seven years of being in business on the coattails of a global pandemic The staff's recommendations to add more retailers when our community already has the highest per capita density of dispensaries anywhere in the state What is the basis for this and may we please have the chance to stabilize first The staff utilizes the the analogy that cannabis businesses are artificially inflated Like new york taxicab medallions We need to look far to the county to understand this couldn't be further from the truth Allowed to modify their ownership structures up to 100 percent Since their inception not a single one of the 20 county licenses have transferred since 2016 The truth is the cannabis businesses are valued just like any other on their fundamentals and unfortunately over taxation and regulation Have made their values far less than their non cannabis counterparts all factors being equal We cannot raise capital from banks. Many of us have taken second mortgages and have risked at all We are simply asking to align with the state and have the same ownership rules as the dispensaries in the city of Capitola and the county of Santa Cruz Please do not force us to compete at a disadvantage We were in survival made before the cobalt COVID crisis plummeted our revenues And increased our costs for PPE cleaning supplies and labor Our small town is saturated with cannabis retailers We do not have an access issue for consumers and adding more dispensaries will not bring in more tax revenue It will only hurt the local operators who for years have paved the way to legalization We are simply entrepreneurs att