It is 6 p.m. Today is Wednesday, July 26th, and I'd like to call to order this regularly scheduled hybrid meeting of the Board of Commissioners of the Chittenden Solid Waste District. The packet was sent out the other day. You all hopefully have had a chance to review it. Well, on the agenda, the first item on the agenda is the agenda. Are there any requests to make any changes or additions to the agenda? Yes, Alison? Yes, I'm looking for other business. And what would the topic be? I'm looking for an update on the fill-in of Josh's position. Josh Tyler's update on staff vacancies. Okay, very good. Any other requests? I would then say we will follow the agenda as presented in the packet with the addition of another business and update on staff vacancies. Sarah will update us on. The next item on the agenda is the public comment period. I don't believe there are any members of the public present in the district offices. Are there any members of the public present via Zoom or on the phone? Does not appear. I'm seeing no one via Zoom. So we will go ahead and close the public comment period. Item three on the agenda is the consent agenda, which consists of the minutes of the June 28th, 2023, regular and organizational meetings of the boards of commission, board of commissioners program updates, executive director update, and the serve Vermont VISTA volunteer letter of support. Just by way of notice that if we were updated that the finance report was removed from the consent agenda and will not be addressed tonight at all. Any requests to remove any of those items from the consent agenda? I would just like to thank Sarah for the update on Mount sand and the Murph or the Murph funding. Appreciate it. Any requests to pull something from the consent agenda for further discussion? Yes. By way of getting kudos to staff, it looks like the budget to actuals for FY 23 was pretty on par. So I just want to commend that for their diligence on that. Thank you. It's nice to hear. But that is not a request to pull something out for further discussion. I will now say that the consent agenda will be accepted as presented in the packet. Thank you for those comments. Next item on the agenda is executive session. The purpose of discussing the Williston host town agreement and also ongoing consideration of Flynn Avenue. We have language that could be read into the record to move us into executive session. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. A motion that the board of commissioners of the Chittenden solid waste district go into executive session to discuss contract negotiations with the city of Burlington. Regarding the Flynn Avenue property and contract negotiations with the town of Williston regarding the host town agreement where premature general public knowledge would clearly place the district. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I have a substantial disadvantage and to permit authorized staff, other invited parties and the solid waste district attorney to be present for this session. So moved. Yes. Seconds up Burlington. Thank you. It's been moved and seconded that we enter into executive session. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you. Thank you. No, no, no. I have a separate link from Sarah. I believe Sarah is actually going to repair to her office. Is that correct? We're going to try it here. So I'm going to give it a go. It doesn't work. I will go in my office. Recording in progress. We're ready to have a motion to exit executive session. Second. Thank you. It's been moved and seconded that we exit executive session public session. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. Any abstentions? We're back in public session. The next item on the agenda is other business and there was a request from for Sara to give us an update on staffing vacancies. Thank you Allison for bringing that up though. Yes I think as I may have mentioned after drug operations Josh Tyler had resigned that I was working with my management team to kind of redeploy Josh's main duties across the other managers Jen being one of them, Brian being another one. Josh Estee as well and Nola Ritchie also took on a few oversight duties and then I also took on some projects. So Dan didn't take anything on. He's got enough to do. So what basically the operations team and I decided to do was to work with the current status quo for a while because the director of operations job as written and then as kind of added onto by Josh had grown pretty significantly and I think was unmanageable. So we want to take another evaluation and really a look and analyze how we want the team to work together. What are things that are better suited to be in-house? What are better suited to be farmed out? What are the projects coming up over the next few years that need kind of director level oversight or is it something where we really just need project management? We knew we needed that regardless so we have offered project management position to a candidate, Kaley Barber and she is she was actually here this week looking for housing so she and her family are moving out here from Washington state for this job and we are thrilled to bring her on board so she will be basically taking the role of in-house engineer project manager construction manager and that was a lot of what was or could have matter what was eating up Josh's time but there's little projects it was you know kind of keeping track of that. So she will be working with the MRF team the new MRF team which is Jen, me, Josh Estee. We brought our bringing on Tony Barber Gallo in a consultant role Tony is a former CSWD employee who was our staff engineer for from the beginning for many years built the current MRF so he'll be focusing solely on the MRF new MRF project so we feel that in the immediate near term recovered so we're going to leave that position open for certainly the next six months but probably this fiscal year and then over the course of the next six to nine months again working with my operations team saying how is this working what's not working what could be improved how do we want this to look going forward do you want a single point of contact you know apart from between you know operations managers and me is that necessary just feel it out and take a little time so we didn't want to try to jump in try to find someone right away to take this massive job we want to make sure that the job is is still needed as is if not what should it be and what it's going to look like and how do we adjust that and can we find someone to do that if there's not someone in-house who is keeping afloat and we have that plan as far as who's what it's so far it's only been about a month then but it's working well that's what you're looking for Allison great and appreciate getting it all on the table for everybody out Brynn yeah I was wondering as a result of dividing up that workload if there's um already observed over time that's happening or additional anticipated over time that's will be a result to and potential impact to the budget so we did the main impact has been to josh sd josh addition to compliance and safety in the environment depot has taken on oversight of the current MRF and the biosolids program so we did re-classify his job position and that did result in a higher classification so that has been adjusted already as far as additional overtime that's not anticipated and there wouldn't be any impact to the budget because they're salary so we we don't we get comped on we don't get overtime any other questions or discussion on on staffing at this point well i think we're ready then for a motion to adjourn it's been moved and seconded that this meeting be adjourned all those in favor please say aye hi hi we are adjourned


sliding scale and pay what you can pricing. I'll just come out and say it. I don't think it's a good idea for most business owners, including myself and many of my clients. And I'll just say this, if you are a big fan of that kind of pricing and you're not interested in hearing an opposing viewpoint, you don't have to watch this video. I could save you that time because I have been around that kind of pricing based on what I see colleagues, my friends, my clients, some of them use sliding scale pricing. I've been around it for about 12, 15 years. And I have tried it myself. And I'll just come out and say, I don't think it's a good idea. And I'll share why there's a couple of reasons. One is that it puts a burden on the customer to decide what is right. So in my viewpoint, the customer or the client has already had to do the labor of deciding whether the product or service is right for them. Okay, so because as we all know, so much of marketing is, I mean, most consumers know to distrust marketing, why? Because so much of marketing is hyped up. It's buyer beware is the typical phrase, which is the marketer's job, the business owner's job is to do their very best to persuade you that their product is probably right for you because they just want you to spend money with them. Of course, the more ethical and authentic business owners say, well, no, we want the right fit. We want that it's really a win-win, but the customer or client doesn't know that. So just buyer beware is most of the good advice most of the time. So the client is already having to think through, to read through what the service or product is about. And then maybe even having to talk to their family about whether, especially if it's a larger price thing, or just at least to think through their own budget, hopefully most some people don't even do that, but at least just to sit with it hopefully for a moment or five, whether or not the product is right. They've done that labor already. And now with sliding scale and pay what you can, now you're asking them to do the additional labor of, okay, customer, client, you have to choose which price to pay. And let me say this, especially if it's a service where you are providing a, like you are interfacing with the client, you the business owner interfacing with the client, it puts a lot of pressure on the client to say, well, I don't want to pay something that might offend the service provider. Now, this is especially, maybe especially true for some cultures that are more sensitive to offending others. I mean, I guess my lineage, my culture, generally speaking, Asian cultures and not only, many others don't want to offend. And so, or are particularly sensitive to it. I would say American culture is less so. In America, we're less afraid of offending others. We're more bold about it. So maybe for Americans, it's like, well, I'm just gonna pay the lowest rate I can. And I don't care what you think about it. I don't know. I don't feel that way. So for example, there was a restaurant in my neighborhood many years ago, this is more than 10 years ago now that charged pay what you can pricing. And I loved the restaurant. It was like wholesome type of food. I think it was vegetarian or it was vegetarian, maybe not vegan, but I loved it. And I loved going there. And their menu was really weird because it was just items and then they had no pricing on any of them. And I had to figure it out. And I always felt nervous about it because I didn't pay until the end. I'm like, oh my gosh, what am I supposed to pay for this thing? So it was, so I experienced that burden pretty quickly. Now there are bigger companies I've heard that do kind of sliding scale pay, which I've heard Panera used to do it. Maybe I don't know if they do it anymore. And I feel like with the corporation, it's less, it's more faceless. And it's just like, okay, you don't mind just paying the least you can perhaps or whatever you felt right that day. But with a small business owner, especially if it's face-to-face service, like if I were hiring you as a coach or a consultant or a healer or a mentor or whatever, and you asked me to pay what I want, what I can or pay a sliding scale, you're giving me quite a bit of burden and pressure to not offend the relationship by paying too little. Or on the other hand, making myself feel like I didn't get a good deal by paying too much. You're burdening me either way. I would rather you just tell me what the price is and let me decide whether or not it's in, it's my right budget or not. And if not, I'll just say, you know what? And here's the thing, it's okay that the customer or client stretches a little bit. So the whole sliding scale, pay what you want comes from a really good place. I agree, it comes from a place of compassion, right? And it's like, oh, I know that I wanna serve these people but they tell me they can't afford it. Now that's an interesting part too. We'll talk about that in a bit. They tell me they can't afford it but I still want to help them. So I'm gonna give them a lower price than I would everybody else. And that's where it begins.  And what about this person who can clearly afford more? So I charge them more. It starts to become complex and fraught with emotional challenges from both sides. So let's say that similarly it's funny, like also in Asian cultures or other cultures, I'm sure too, like Asian cultures love a good deal. Love a great deal. Like always trying to find sales and whatever. And so pay what you can, pay what you want. It's like now as an Asian-American I have this kind of conflicting thing because on the one hand my Asian side says, oh, don't offend on the one hand. And on the other hand, get the best deal possible. And then my American side said just, well, just pay what is reasonable and just pick a number and do me. I don't know, maybe I'm conflating these cultural things too much. But still the bottom line is it's a burden to the client to have to decide even though they've already decided to buy or not to buy, that's a decision. Oh, I was gonna say that the brilliance of what I like about a simple price, like one price, like you pay it or you don't pay it, is this, the customer or client just has to say, well, that's the price. And I have to decide whether or not that's a great deal. Oh my gosh, what a great deal. I'm getting such a good deal by paying this price. Or on the other side, I really want this product or service and I just have to stretch my willingness to pay a little bit. Maybe I was willing to pay $150 for this thing, but they're charging 250. I really like the service. I really like this product. Let me just stretch to pay the 250 because I really believe in it. I really want it. It's okay to let the customer stretch a little bit. They might say, George, isn't that burdening the customer? No, you're just, because for many customers, they've probably find it a great deal. There's a few people who are stretching and then once they stretch, they realize, oh, it was a good decision or they might decide, oh, it's a bad decision. Then that trains them on future purchases. So you're actually helping the market by training the customer to decide to stretch or to find that it's a good deal. Okay, so number one point is that it burdens the client, especially if it's a face-to-face kind of service. They don't want to offend you and they want to get a good deal. There's emotional difficulty there. Number one, number two is, do you really know the client's financial situation? And are they, so for example, I often see sliding scale based on income. Okay, if your income is between zero and 10,000 a year, you pay this low price. If your income is between 10 and 45,000 a year, you pay this middle price. Income is between 45 and 75,000.  Now, two common situations. What if my income is just about zero because I'm supported by my spouse, which happened actually in the beginning of my, before my business started to get my first client before I was trying to figure out how to make a full-time business 12 years ago, I was being supported by my wife. So my income was zero, but she was making pretty good money and I had some savings. So it's like, how do you, right? It's like, then I should pay you, I should pay the lowest price or get your service or free or whatever, right. Now, on the other hand, here's the other hand. I have had, I've known several service providers who have told me that they're wealthiest clients are often the ones who try to get the best deal possible, who try to negotiate the lowest price. There is something to be said about miserly wealthy people. Some, not all, some wealthy people are quite miserly. That's partly why they got to become so wealthy. And so they are always penny pinching and looking for the great deal, even though they have plenty of money or more money than most people in their city or in their state or in their province. And so I've heard, like I said, from several service providers that they're wealthiest clients are ones who kind of, if they give a sliding scale, they're always trying to get the best lowest deal. And then on the other hand, some of the least financially capable clients are sometimes the most generous.  So they end up paying more on a sliding scale, even though they probably shouldn't.  And just to complete the story about the restaurant I said earlier, I always paid like 20 to $25 for a plate of food even though they probably would have charged, I mean, just surrounding restaurant, they probably would have charged $12 to $15. I always paid 20 or 25 because I wanted to support the restaurant.  So like I was always trying to pay more even though back then when I was doing it, I was, my business wasn't successful yet. So I didn't have much money, but I gave what I could.  So those are some of the issues. I had, let me look at my notes because I had some other things to share with you here. So, oh, that's right. I mean, let me share with you a healthier alternative now. It's like, okay, George, all right, got it. You don't like pay what you can. You don't like sliding scale price. You prefer a single price because it's simpler and it helps to train the customer. I mean, it's simpler for the customer, number one, and it helps them to either say, wow, what a great deal or because a single price. There's no emotional resentment on either side, right? Single price, you know? But so here's the healthier alternative. If you still feel like, well, I still want to help people that can't afford me. This is where you need to have the multiple tiers of offers. And I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen with you real quick because this is an image that I want you to keep in mind, okay? Let me go ahead and share my screen. Thanks for your patience here. All right, so this is you at the center. This is your one-on-one clients. This is your group program. This is your online courses, books. Maybe some of you don't even have books or online courses or group programs and maybe it's time for you to consider creating them, especially if you want to serve people of lesser financial means, okay? Because essentially with each circle, you could serve more people, but they're farther away from you. So you have less responsibility towards them. You can't customize your advice as much for the people who are farther away from you and you can charge a lot less, so free content. For the people who can't afford it, I am happy that they are consuming my videos for free, that they are reading my articles for free. I have over 1,000 videos for you to watch at your leisure on my YouTube channel and I invite you to go and do that. Please do, you know, free content for everybody, whether or not you are poor or wealthy or have no income or have all the money in the world, I don't care, you can consume my free content as many people as it doesn't cost me anything more for you to go to my Facebook page, Instagram, account, YouTube channel and consume as much as you want for free, all you can eat. And I will keep on putting free content out there for more help without charging anything, right? And then a little bit closer to you are books. Books are something you take more effort than free content to put together. My books are a collection of my free content, it's true. It is, so if you didn't know that, you know, if you'd like, oh, I wanna save money, I wanna buy George's books, you don't have to. You just consume all my blog posts for free. It's just that the books, I take the time to organize certain blog posts into one single theme. I take more time editing them, I put them into, yeah, get a book cover done, all that stuff. So books takes me more effort and so it's more of a product. I don't charge much, I think at this time I charge something like five to $20 for each of my books depending on if you buy paperback or digital, right? And then online courses are further closer to me because in my online courses, I respond to all the students' questions as many as I possibly can personally and I take obviously quite a bit more effort to put together an online course on a very specific topic, step by step with templates and, you know, videos and resource guides and interaction with the student and exercises for the students, all that stuff. So it's more interactive. So therefore I charge more than my books, quite a bit more than my books from my online courses but not as much as my group program which is even closer to me because people can, I am taking care of my group program participants, you know, it feels like all day long. It's, I'm happy to do it. I'm joyful that they are my group program but I have much more interaction with them than I do with just a student of a course, a random course here or there. And then finally the one-to-one clients, obviously, I have the closest to me and therefore I have most responsibility and most customization and I can charge most for that. I'll put the link in the notes of the video so you can take a look. But that is the alternative that I recommend instead of sliding scale. You just have different tiers for different people who either they have different financial means or they're just not ready to pay you yet.  If they could say, yeah, I don't have any income but what they're not telling you is that their spouse is happy to support their personal development or their fam or maybe they have, you know, they come from wealthy family and they're able to, you know, they have lots of savings or whatever it may be or they can easily ask somebody in their life or their business partner, you know, you don't know and yet someone who's paying you a lot might be, I never, I'm always careful like, okay, somebody who, you know, whenever someone applies to my program, I always say, hey, is this the financial hardship for you to do this? Because if it is, I don't want to take that money from you. You know, my group program is getting closer and closer to me and so I'm very careful about whether people are spending money that maybe they shouldn't be spending including on me or, you know, any business coach. But so I, and then a common sort of objection to this, well, George, it seems socially unjust that, you know, you are giving people different services who have different financial means. I'm like, well, hold on a second, hold on, hold on. Think of a teacher you admire. Think of a, I don't know, yoga teacher you really enjoy or think of, well, any teacher or mentor you really appreciate. Think about that person. Okay, now do you want that person to have financial up and down based on whether or not their students can pay them or want to pay them? What if a bunch of people who have low financial means want to work with that person? Do you want them to not be able to make a living? Of course not. And then people who do sliding skills say, well, we have clever ways to get people to think thoughtfully think through and then we only have limited sliding skills spots. I'm like, if you have limited sliding skills spots, that's kind of defeating the purpose. I mean, it's kind of to me, it's like, well, then you're just you're not helping everybody who wants you to help them. You're not. So then you're back to the healthier alternative having multiple tiers, right? Fine. If you want to have like a limited sliding skill that's up to you, but I feel like you're still you're kind of, it's kind of a crutch. It's kind of like, well, I want to feel good that I'm being compassionate, but not to everybody just to like three people I can afford to become. Really? Why don't you be compassionate to everybody and just tell everybody, listen, I have multiple tiers. Please consume all the free content. Don't ever buy from me. You don't want to. You can't afford it. Don't buy from me. Don't. But if you can afford it and are willing to stretch yourself on the budget, like I never spent money on this kind of coaching before I'm gonna just willing to stretch myself to see how it is and then have great, you know then you, then you. So anyway, I think I've said enough. I hope this is helpful. I look forward to any comments or questions you have about this kind of thing. And no matter what, I wish you a viable business where you feel like you're really serving people from the heart and where your customers and clients feel like you're charging a reasonable rate. So I wish you well. Take care.


Hello everybody, Andrea here. So it's that time of year where you need to make sure to submit your self assessment so that you are not audited for sure for your portfolio or to take the quality assurance exam. So you do have until the end of January to fill out your self assessment. Do it now after the video do it right now because trust me you will forget. Even if you're a day late, you are automatically audited so it's something very simple we have to do just fill it out and the CD HO is happy so I'm going to show you guys how to do that so let me just share my screen here. So once you log in you need to go to your smile portal, and it will open up such as this so if you guys look on the upper left hand side. Do you see this option here where it says self assessment year 2021 status complete. I have already filled it out so that's why my status says complete. If yours does not say complete you need to fill it out so how do you do that, you would go down to where it says dashboard and click on their verify employment status and practice addresses so click on that. And it will take you to another screen where you need to verify where you work. If you are in more than one area, you will have to put in all of the offices that you work in okay. The internet's just really slow right now so once you fill all of that out I'm just going to reshare my screen because the Internet's really slow. Once you fill that out. Then you need to fill out your self assessment so you would just click self assessment, it will pop up. And remember if you have to click your practice type I've already submitted mine so it might just pop up for you automatically but if you see something like this, you would just click wherever it tells you to pretty self explanatory, and then fill out your self assessment your self assessment has nothing to do with right answers wrong answers. It just wants you to be aware of what you should be doing. You would say whether you have met the standard partially you do not meet or it does not apply. It's not that simple. If you guys notice I don't meet every single standard as an example, where it says I seek opportunities to participate in mentorships. I said I partially meet this. I said that because I mentor students all the time, but not with the CDHO program. There's an actual program that you can become a mentor with the CDHO. That's because you have to devote a certain amount of hours that I just simply can't. But I would not say that I have met this standard because I simply haven't. So that's why I say I partially have met it. For most of them I have met because as a hygienist. I know this is what I'm supposed to be doing. I have met everything and click all of that. Notice how the mentorship where I said I partially met it does generate a suggested goal for me so that means if you were to do your portfolio, you should have something like this as your goal because if you said you had partially met this. So that's all that means a lot of dental hygienists asks me ask me what that means it just means if you wanted to use that as a goal, they've done the work for you and formulated a goal for you. So please make sure to fill this out you guys and click save at the bottom. You can see I don't have that option because I've already filled mine out. Make sure up here it says complete after you fill everything out because sometimes that just means if it doesn't say complete it could just mean you haven't clicked save somewhere, or something happened, it must say complete for it to go through. Good luck you guys please just fill it out now otherwise you will forget it happens so often if you forget you are automatically audited. Nobody wants to be audited automatically. Thank you guys for watching happy new year by the way it's January 1 and I will see you guys in the next video.


All right, Adrian, it looks like we might have everybody on. Are we good to go? Yes, we do. We were giving it just another minute to let some attendees join. But we are ready to get started now. Welcome everyone. I am Adrian Mertens. I am the chief communications intergovernmental relations officer for the city of Santa Rosa, and I will be facilitating this evening's meeting. This is the glass fire rebuilding and recovery meeting hosted by city of Santa Rosa staff. The meeting is intended to provide updates and answers to questions for those who are rebuilding repairing their homes within the city limits in the glass fire burn scar area. And also for those who are living within the glass fire burn scar area and Santa Rosa and want to be kept up to date on what's happening with recovery and rebuilding. So I'll touch on a couple of quick logistics. All community members that are joining this meeting are participating as zoom attendees. And so your microphone is muted and your cameras are off and only today's panelists will be viewed on screen during the meeting. And also if you're calling from a telephone for privacy concerns Kaylee or zoom host is renaming your viewable phone number to citizen, and only the last four digits of your phone number will show on the screen. Also, we are recording this meeting. And so if you are able to stay on for the entire meeting, and this will be made available on our website and the next 24 to 48 hours, and will be sent out in one of our future recovery updates this week. I do want to thank everyone for taking time to join us this evening as we embark on the new year. We recognize that there's a lot going on right now. And we recognize this is an especially difficult and stressful time for those in our community who are rebuilding or repairing their homes. Joining me this evening, our staff from our cities glass fire recovery team who have been working the closest on our efforts as we move forward from this disaster. Our hope for tonight is that we are able to support you with answers to any of the questions that you may currently have related to recovery. Before we jump into updates from our panelists, I am going to turn it over first to Mayor Chris Rogers and then to Council Member Jack Tibbets, who represents District three, which includes the areas that were impacted by the glass fire. Both of them would like to offer just a few brief remarks before we begin and so I will start with Mayor Rogers. Thank you so much, Adrienne. And first of all, I wanted to welcome folks. We are in a new year. We do have a new mayor and new council members, but the priorities of the city have been shifted. And we are here tonight. Mostly to listen is to see what barriers still exist for getting folks home and to maintain that commitment to do so and to work with you to get everybody back. We know it's been very challenging with the pandemic. We know that even seeing a red flag warning this last week has induced some PTSD for folks. And we just want to make sure that you understand that we're here to support you and to hear from you. I represent the downtown area for Santa Rosa, but now as mayor also want to be involved in all of these issues. So feel free to reach out to me if you do have anything that you need or any questions. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Jack Tibbets, who is our council member who represents district three and Jack I know has been working hard day in and day out to make sure that people get what they need as we move forward with our rebuild. Thanks, Mayor. To the folks who are attending tonight's meeting I just wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself to you. For those of you who probably don't know me. I am your council representative in Santa Rosa's district three. I just want you to know that my heart goes out to you. I can't say that I've lost my home and I know what that's like, but I can tell you that you will have my own yielding support. And I think I speak for everybody here who's a part of this team at the city of Santa Rosa. I've watched Jesse Oswald and his team and a lot of the people who are here tonight get us through multiple fires now and the pandemic and in my opinion they do a very good job. They do the best of their ability. And if there's ever a time where you feel like something might not be getting through or you need just that little extra push. I hope you will email me so that I can work with them to try to find a resolution to whatever issue could present itself in your rebuilding process. So with that I want to give you my personal email address it's the one I check the most, and that is Jay is in Jack, Tibbets, T-I-B-B-E-T-T-S, one eight at gmail.com. And again is Jay Tibbets 18 at gmail.com and again please reach out to me so I can advocate for you. I will say that in the almost four and a half years that I've been on the council, being able to advocate for fire survivors is probably my biggest honor and this is certainly no different. And I wish you all the best. Thank you mayor and council member. Okay, so our staff panelists are prepared to give updates on several topic areas for agenda this evening. And Kaley's put the topic areas up on the screen. We will take up to two questions from attendees. If there are any following each of the staff updates, and then we will have additional time for more Q&A at the end of all of the updates. And then once we open for questions from attendees, I'll ask that you raise your hand using the raise your hand feature and zoom. And if you are dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. Great. So let's get to our first staff update. And then we'll be starting with an update on Skyhawk Park and open space area, specifically to cover the damages from the fire repairs and the reasoning for the ongoing closure of the open space area. To kick things off it'll be Jeremy Gundy our deputy director of field services from transportation and public works. Good evening my name is Jeremy Gundy I'm the deputy director for field services for the city's transportation and public parks department. So tonight I'm here to speak about the city's open space located in the skyhawk community off mountain Hawk Drive. In the last fire, the area was closed to the public do the hazards created when the fire burned through this area. The remain this remains closed until the repairs can be made and the hazards can be eliminated. Now some of these hazards identified include the fire damage trees, wooden pathway steps, the storm drain lids and the pedestrian bridge that burned. After the fire, the city has been working on mitigating the hazards by removing the trees, replacing storm drain lids and inspecting storm drain pipes. Initially, 160 foot section of damage storm drain pipe was discovered. And then following some significant rain events that we had in December, a second section of pipe was also discovered. The discovery of this pipe prompted the city to harden the closure of the open space with some additional snow fencing and some signage and barricades. And then city crews took immediate action to stabilize the surrounding area and are currently in the planning phase of the work of the repair work. Along the along with the two sections of the storm dream pipe that burned. The crews are currently working on securing the contract for additional erosion control measures and purchasing the additional materials to repair the bridge and the steps. Our goal is to reopen the area to the public as quickly as possible. And we do appreciate your understanding and patience while we work towards repairing this damage. And this concludes my report for the open space and I'd like to turn it over to Sean McNeill, the deputy director of environmental services. Thank you, Jeremy and first I'd just like to say I'm sorry for the impact that the glass fire has had on you and your loved ones and my heart goes out to you. But I'm going to speak a little bit about the impact that the fires had on the environment and what we can do to help protect that. The buildings and infrastructure burn the pollutants from those buildings in that infrastructure can make their way into our local creeks and if they do get in there. Then it's very difficult for us to get in and remediate that damage so our efforts really are on trying to keep the pollutants in place where they are located and prevent them from migrating into our creeks. And doing that is by providing free waddles for people to put out around their burned areas. We're protecting our storm drain system, which flows directly from our streets into our creeks, and making sure that the inlets there. And then we're working with Jeremy Gundy's team to ensure that the infrastructure that has impacts to our creeks is getting repaired as quickly as possible. We know that the burned plastic pipes can emit many toxins so it's a deep concern for our watershed task force to abate these burn storm drain pipes and get that damage cleaned up and repaired as soon as possible. So we are also on the side of getting the park open for everybody. It's part of protecting the environment. Another thing I want to just mention is when fire comes through an area and burns heavy and hot. It does change a lot of the characteristics of that landscape, as far as its ability to shed water. What happens when it rains is that water then starts instead of getting captured by plants and taken into the plants. It's now flowing over surfaces potentially causing erosion, carrying debris down into our local riverways, which can cause debris flow and mud flows. So we are under a heightened worry for potential flood and debris flows and signs have been placed. And just want to remind folks that if you are concerned about these hazards to just pay attention to the local alerts, please go on to the city's website. We have a whole landing page rain ready on the alert side, please take a look at what you can do on your property there, as well as what you can do to protect yourself. Should we come under a situation of debris flows or mud flow events. We would know this well in advance before it happens. Fortunately for us, the rainfall that we've gotten so far is what we're calling Goldilocks rain, which is it's just the right amount to get vegetation growing in the burned areas, and not enough to cause runoff and erosion. We would like a little more rain than we've been getting but it's it's been good so far for the risk of flooding. So should we move to the next slide please. I also just want to reiterate that the city is making these waddles available for for free for people who would like to help the city protect our storm water by controlling the pollution running off from any burned properties. We have protected the storm drain inlets and these with these waddles these are weighted waddles. You can place these around the perimeter of a burned property to prevent any pollution from migrating off that property will be captured by these waddles. We also have on our website have directions and how to use them, and they're conveniently located at Skyhawk Park and rink and valley community park. So if you're in the burn scar area, please take advantage of these free resources that the city is providing. I just want to mention, not necessarily related to our storm water system but our drinking water system. The city did go through and do extensive testing of the drinking water system in the affected areas. We noticed that there was no elevated risk of pollution from the fire that we were able to maintain positive pressure throughout the event, and that has not led to any contamination of the water so the water is safe and dependable. Both for people who are living within the burn scar, as well as people who are planning to rebuild with that I think Jeremy and I are available for any questions. Thank you, Sean. And just for those on the meeting Sean referenced a website a couple times.  There is a rain ready section, as well as updates on Skyhawk Park and open space. And I did say we would take two questions before we move to the next update so at this time if there are any attendees with questions related to open space to Skyhawk open space area or to watershed protection concerns. We'll take those now. Mark Brown has a question. Mark I have enabled your speaking permissions. Good evening everybody. My name is Mark Brown I do live in the skyhawk subdivision and I first wanted to thank you all for the work that you've been doing before, during and after the fire it's been incredible. And not quite a question but I'll get to a question I completely support your closure of the open space area. Yes it's an inconvenience but you guys have your good reasons. So what you're watching disbelief is people walk by the signs that say it's closed apparently those signs don't count for them. And, and I do understand you guys will be putting something up that kind of explains the why for the closure, and perhaps that'll that'll help. I think we can look at this fire as a reset for the bramble that started to accumulate in the creek bed. I know that it is a very difficult chore to keep up on that but perhaps this is an opportunity to start grazing goats or sheep in the bottom of the creek bed, and do that on an annual basis and that'll really help with keeping that down and just wanted to ask if that has been considered. Thank you very much. Can I take that as far as the, the watershed in the creek area. Yeah, I think that's a great question mark. We're definitely interested in looking at creative solutions for maintaining our open space areas. But I can say for water quality perspective we typically try to keep grazing animals outside of creeks. And just that's that's kind of the regulations around that, but it doesn't mean that we're not open to creative solutions for the issues that that we face. Also, I want to mention that riparian areas which are the air, the vegetation around creeks have special protections, both from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, as well as the regional water quality control board. So we are not, it's not easy for the city to do a lot of vegetation removal in these areas, as we're there trying to keep them fish friendly. I don't know Jeremy if you have more to add about maintenance of the park. Well, I was just going to say to the beginning of the first part of Mark's question we are. As you mentioned, we, yes, I can confirm we're working on signage that does provide more of an explanation as to the reasoning behind the closure. And we do expect to get those signs produced and posted in the next few days. And then on, we will have further discussion on vegetation management it wasn't one of the items called out on our, on our agenda for tonight, but we did send out a survey to our residents within the glass fire burn scar area and got a number of other concerns related to, you know, what the city would be doing in terms of prevention, future wildfires and so we did have that as an item we were going to ask that question at the end and have our assistant fire marshal speak to that as well so we will get to that to more information on that later in the meeting. And it doesn't look like we have any other hands on watershed protection. So we'll go ahead and move to our next staff update.  And then following him will be Jesse Oswald our chief building official. Good evening. And thank you attendees for being here appreciate everybody's time. So, diving right in to fire damage trees unfortunately we got some experience in the effects of them following the tubs fire a number of staff on this call dealt extensively with the concerns, not only of ours but of the communities following what we saw in both the tubs and the nuns fire and we took a lot of those lessons learned and move them forward into the 2020 fire. The first thing that wanted to cover was the addition of the fire damage trees under the state's debris removal program. So in 2017 that was not something that was available for us however it was something that we advocated for and did a lot of work for behind the scenes that we hope is actually what played into having this program available first for the campfire in Duke County and then for us here in Sonoma County. What that means is that if you have fire damage trees that will or are likely to die is to die as a determined by an arborist that is provided by the state. Within the next five years those trees will be available to be removed through the state's right of entry program. We saw a lot of needs for tree removals in 2017 and we understand that typically the bucket of money available for for tree removal is typically pretty limited. So there is a benefit to enrolling in this program and having trees that are a threat to the right away meaning the tree could fall into a road or onto public infrastructure so whether it's a water meter hydrant or some sort of public utility. If the tree is likely to fall in that it would be most likely eligible under the state's program. So we're really working hard to get our residents into that. Obviously not only does it remove the, the tree but it also remove the eye hazard or I saw. And then we did want to clarify. We are already getting a number of comments about a lot of trees, whether it's an open space or throughout the burn area is that we're not going to actually require the removal of every single tree to be not requiring every single tree to be removed in the burn scar. So we're going to remove require the removal as many of them as we can that would be a threat to either right away a threat to following falling on a neighbor's property, or some or a public safety risk, but you will see a lot of trees that are going to be left in place. And I'll tell you a little bit more on what I mean by the bucket of tree money so typically on your policy, you'll have different line items so there's policy or money available for debris removal for accessory structures and then a lot of policies will actually have a very specific line item for tree removal. I think from the experience in 2017 losing my home and a number of trees that had to be removed. I definitely would have stood to benefit from a program like this. Oftentimes you only have the several thousand dollars to remove the trees. So offsetting some of those costs with the state's program would be beneficial. If it costs the state to remove $20,000 to remove your trees but you only had $2,000 worth of tree removal money. That's all that they would ask for in return. However, there's likely additional work that you'd have to do on your property so if you had other tree removal work that need to be done and you exhausted that $2,000 you would know nothing to the state. Another issue that we're working on is the PG&E tree removal issue that has become quite a hot topic. So PG&E has been removing what they refer to as priority one and priority two trees within the glass fire burn area. Several thousand trees have been removed. The issue that we have run into is that PG&E is not currently offering a wood removal program. So when a tree is felled on your property by PG&E is ultimately your responsibility to have it removed. The city and county are both working to get that changed and working to have PG&E potentially mitigate that. We're working with not only our legal side but also with the California Public Utilities Commission. So we understand that has caused a lot of concerns and a lot of issues within the glass fire footprint but know that we are still working to advocate on behalf of our community about some of the issues caused by those trees that have been felled.  So we did have an arborist come through and removed a lot of the trees that Jeremy had talked about earlier. But there's a lot of trees that had the foliage burned off of it but an arborist has determined that those trees will survive. So with that, those will remain at this point in time but will continue to monitor it. So if you have concerns, again, feel free to reach out to us. But know that it's definitely not something we're ignoring. We are actively working on it, similar to what we did in 2017. We're encouraging people to take the proactive approach and deal with the trees as they can. We know that there will be some property owners that can't or won't deal with them. Not to understand what they're going through but we understand also the concerns of those neighbors that do want to see the trees removed and ones that do need to be will have a process in place to deal with that so we're currently working to modify an ordinance that we have right now to deal with the remaining fire damage trees that need to be removed, both in the tubs, nuns and now glass fire footprints. And that is all I have. I'll let Jesse jump in and talk about any proactive tree removal permit requirements from the city. Good evening everybody thank you for spending some time with us this evening. My colleague is we're very sorry for the losses you've suffered, and this team is committed to working with you to get through and get you all back home and get things taken care of for your property. So trees fire damage trees on private property specifically with this segment. It's really about these trees that are considered either heritage trees or protected trees that you may have on a property on your property that could be damaged and you wish to remove those. And again, this segment is specifically for those folks that have not enrolled in the state's ROE program for tree removal or have some other method that they're going through, and it really is targeting these heritage or protected trees. I'm going to give a summary of the process but we do have a very clear step by step process on the same web website that that we're all referencing this evening. Basically what it comes down to is if you have one of these trees and there's a list on the website as well of these trees. And that you believe is damaged want to have it removed we have a no cost application to submit to us to have the tree removed in a quick part of this that makes it easier for us to approve is again certified arborist would evaluate the tree and provide a statement that the tree is either hazardous or dangerous, and that it does need to be removed in their professional opinion. With that submittal coming to us here and planning and economic development, we would process the the removal approval approval quickly, especially when it's accompanied by that certified arborist report. I can help you with those and again reach out to myself or any of the team to to give you any more details on that and again, we do have some great information on our website. Thank you Jesse. And again that website is srcity.org forward slash glass fire recovery and there is a button icon on that homepage. So if you have any damaged trees and all of the information that Jesse covered and that Paul covered is on that page. All right, I will stop now to see if there's any questions on fire damage trees on private property before we move to our next staff update so if you do have a question use the raise your hand feature to let us know. And seeing no hands raised we'll go ahead and move to our next staff update, which will be focused on debris removal. And so I will first turn it over to Kimplin Robbins our assistant fire marshal from the Santa Rosa fire department to give an update. And then that will be followed by Jesse Oswald again with some additional information. Thank you, Adrian. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for taking the time to be with us tonight. Paul Lowenthal, excuse me Paul Lowenthal and I are the co leads for the Santa Rosa debris task force. And we are glad to see that several residents have already had their parcels cleared of fire debris and are mostly waiting for soil sampling results before they are approved to begin the process. Currently, with the exception of a couple parcels, all residents with damaged or destroyed structures have entered into either the state consolidated debris removal or private debris removal program. And the task force has now focused our attention on providing resources and support to those residents who have non structural or minor debris remaining on their property. We want to remind those residents to work with their insurance companies before removing debris in case a claim was or can be made on the removal of these items, which can include fences, trampolines play structures patio furniture, barbecues covers and recreational sporting equipment. We are issuing exemptions for those who would like to take these minor burn debris items to the landfill for disposal. And you can find and complete the conditional exemption form at SR city.org forward slash glass fire recovery under the hazardous waste and debris removal icon. We have received questions related to treated wood waste, specifically railroad ties, which are considered a hazardous waste. And we are working with the state currently to determine the best way to pick up and dispose of these items. If your property has treated wood waste and you have questions on proper disposal, please feel free to reach out for to us for any assistance. We do have cleanups underway in city limits, although we don't receive notice before work is initiated on a property. Once we are aware we do track this information. There will be a deadline established for debris removal completion. And if it seems that a parcel is waiting for this removal it may be a state consolidated consolidated debris removal program property. Parcel debris removal is prioritized based on risk areas, which can include schools, waterways environmentally sensitive areas and vulnerable populations. Cal OES has created a debris operations dashboard that can provide specific details of the cleanup process for all fires in the state. The city has added the link for this dashboard on our SR city.org forward slash glass recovery webpage for reference. If there are any additional questions or concerns on the debris cleanup and removal, you can reach us at rebuild at SR city.org or call<PHONE_NUMBER>. And that is all I have for now. All right, hello again everyone. Jesse Oswald chief building official. We'll now talk about some of the next parts of the process which is actually our permitting a rebuilt center and permitting for say repairs and rebuilding. Can I just stop you for one sec. I'm sorry. I just want to make sure there weren't any questions on debris removal before we move into that next item. And it looks like we do have one. I'm healing you want to facilitate that. Of course Sonya I have enabled your speaking permission if you're able to unmute your microphone. Hi, good evening. Thank you city of Santa Rosa people for being here for us. I had submitted this question earlier. My home is in rink and valley and it was partially burned. We still have a little, some of the structure is still standing. And I've just was up in the neighborhood today and I've gotten talked to my neighbors at length about their concerns. When we have high winds, our roofing material is blowing off our house. We have not been able to settle with our insurance company as far as getting debris removal. Anyway, our latest windstorm this week, one of my neighbors found 45 pieces of our roofing material in his yard. It's scratched up his car, and I don't know what to do at this point we are working with an attorney, but we would really like to put some pressure on our insurance company to approve our debris removal and so we can move forward and keep our neighbors out of harm's way. Thanks for the question. Really quick just to clarify so I can answer it appropriately are you already submitted have you already submitted a private debris removal application for your residents or did you submit a state right of entry form. We did a private one and I understand that we could not do a state one because there are still portions of our house still standing. Okay, so I'll try and answer as quickly as I can so we surveyed all homes within the glass fire burn burn scar and found approximately 10 homes that were similar to what you're describing where there was more than one wall standing. And are currently submitted all those addresses to the state for potential inclusion into the program. All but four different properties submitted private debris removal applications and only four actually submitted the right of entry form. We did initially deny that a process that the request and we're in the process of filing an appeal to include the properties that submitted a right of entry that are similar to what you're describing into the state's program so that's still underway. So it was an option that we were working to fight for our residents for for the private property debris removal programs it sounds like you've got an application in for it, but your property or your insurance will not allow it to proceed because they're not considering it a full debris removal is that correct. They haven't just, well, I guess they haven't decided whether or not they, we should remove the foundation. They had told us before Thanksgiving that they had approved it, and then they are turning went back and said does that mean you're approving full removal including the foundation they said oh wait a minute let us get back to you. Well they finally sent an engineer last week so it's we're going on almost two months since they had, you know, looked at our debris removal estimates, and they just really seem to be dragging their feet and at this point. It's, it's not looking good. I mean I'm just really concerned about and I was just there I see pieces of metal gutter hanging off the end of the roof and I understand so it sounds like the process of being held up until the determination can be made on the status of the foundation so from a safety standpoint we can work with you offline. Myself Kempelman and or Jesse Oswald just from a structural stability and a safety standpoint for the neighborhood because I'm 99% confident I know which property you're talking about. It might help work to get you what you need from documentation that shows that it is destroyed the structure itself to at least move forward regardless of what they do with the foundation to kind of mitigate the threat. Much appreciated, thank you that's what I needed. Thank you Paul, and, and I'm seeing no other hand so I will send it back your way Jesse, thank you. Thank you Adrian. So the, the next part of our mission for all of us here you folks that have lost your homes or have damage is going to be the permitting process. Our permit center, so to speak is all permitting for the glass fire recovery is going to be done through permanent city staff. We'll be prioritizing to meet the same time frames that we committed to for the Tubbs fire rebuild inspections, we will prioritize as well to keep projects moving once permits are issued. Our emails and calls will go to the same contact information that's contained on the website and it's essentially the primary contact and best way to get documents to us is rebuild at SRCity.org. And that team will give everyone involved that needs to, to get your projects moving. So for repairs on homes that that were not destroyed so we simply need some some permits to do any, any measure of things that is not a home replacement. You will likely need permits. And if you're not sure if you need permits for it certainly reach out to me directly my contact information is here on the screen. It's Jay Oswald at SRCity.org, and my direct line is 543-3249. There are some I have some brief examples of things that do not need building permits to repair replace fences that are seven feet tall or less accessory structures that are 120 square feet or less. Those are structures that we consider truly accessory structures like sheds play structures and things like that. Retaining walls don't necessarily need permits and inspections unless they're over four feet tall. And that measurement is from the bottom of the footing to the top of the wall. And any height retaining wall does require a permit. If it's holding what we call a surcharge in other words it's it's holding a hillside back behind it. There's pressure on the wall. Landscaping and irrigation generally don't need permits. We do get into items that do need permits. Most times plans will be required sometimes it can be very simple plans. Homeowners can draw their own plans. We can help you through that process and provide you information specifically on what you need to see, or we would need to see. There's the possibility always that certain permits don't even need plans. It's simply an application submitted to us, and we can work through describing it well and issue a permit in that manner. So that's that's a brief overview of permitting for repairs. The building is going to follow essentially the same processes that had had in the past and in our past fire and the new homes replacement homes will have to meet the 2019 California building and or residential codes. So, did exempt glass fire rebuilds from the recently passed all electric only ordinance for Santa Rosa so that's not going to be a concern. If folks were worried about all electric. We certainly encourage the all electric only for the benefits of provides the environment. So minimal landscaping is required on rebuilds for the front yard. Gabe Osborne will be coming up after me to describe some more details about landscaping and a bunch of our tools and we have to assist with that. And again, all of our submittal requirements that we have step by step processes for what it takes to develop a full permit submittal package. So if you have trouble finding any of that information again reach reach out directly to me at Jay Oswald and SR city dot org, or you can call me directly at 543-3249. And with that, I will turn it over to Gabe Osborne, unless we want to take questions before we go into landscaping and tools. No, let's go ahead and go to Gabe. Good evening everyone and I'd like to start by just mimicking what my colleagues have already mentioned. Truly sorry regarding the situation and what you're going through right now. Both Jesse and I were intimately involved in the rebuilding efforts associated with the tubs fire. We've really lived that process for three years now and we understand some of the struggles that you're going through. And most of what I'm going to touch on now is some of the tools that we develop that really cater to the full on rebuild that that is the heavy lift. That's going to take a significant amount of time. And we understand that that's on a different timeline than then potentially some of those other quicker restoration efforts. And in 2017 we saw a significant amount of permitting activity in the first quarter of 2018. And then we saw quite a bit the next year and we still see permits now so we understand that that timeline is a very personal decision there's a lot that goes into that. But we want to make sure we have the appropriate tools in place to help you make the decisions and support you along that process. Jesse mentioned for a full rebuild there is a whole permitting process to rebuild the house and that permitting process the heavy lift behind that is usually done by the licensed professionals you hire so you will have an architect that designs and you will have a contractor that builds. What we found in the tubs fire is there's a lot of steps along that process where you are actually making decisions. Those decisions are based on the design of the home. They're based on the placement of the home because we have created flexibility in our process to where you don't have to build back exactly what you had before. So in order to make these decisions we wanted to present as much of this information as possible in a self help sort of format. That was critical in tubs fire because we just had a significant number of people going through this, but I think it's equally is important in this period of time because of coven and our restrictions we're trying to publish as much information and digital format as possible. Next slide please. So one of the important decisions because we do have flexibility if you're going through the rebuild is really how do you want that home to look and we created as much flexibility as possible. And we knew that if there is any silver lining at all in this whole process as you rebuild that home hopefully it gives you what you needed, and hopefully it creates a home that more better matches the lifestyle you're currently in now. That can involve moving it on the site that can involve shrinking or growing the footprint. Sometimes that can grow it involve growing height so adding stories to that. It's an important piece to that decision before you even start that process or whatever referred to as setbacks. So that's the distance that a structure must maintain from side front and back property lines. And it's really critical to understand that box as you go through it, because you can make decisions about how large you can move that foundation or excuse me expand that foundation or if you can slide it forward or backward to increase your backyard. The tools that we've provided are available on the website that Adrian mentioned which is srcity.org slash glass fire rebuild on that front page there is a link to a parcel report search tool. You can click on that and it gives you the ability to either search by entering an address or you can search a map and select a parcel, and you would be presented with this format. And as you can see now the planning tab is highlighted on the static image. And what this does is give you very unique information about your parcel. So those setbacks will be that setbacks that apply to your parcel and those are minimum numbers. And important piece to this is we try to create as much flexibility as possible. So those setbacks may be less aggressive than the previous home so for example you may have had a 10 foot side yard setback. And in some situations you can reduce down based on zoning requirements to five feet so there might be a little more flexibility. So it's important to note it doesn't necessarily have to go back in the same placement that the foundation was prior to the fire. In addition that information we also have some standard information associated with fences how tall do they need to be can I put lattice on top of it. What if I wanted to build an accessory dwelling unit we have information on the page associated with that. So this is really catering to the property owner that's trying to make decisions on how to move forward the parcel. And once the building permit is applied for this website will also show a status of that permit. So you can click on the permits tab. You will see information about the review timelines the comments generated when it goes under inspection you can also track the inspection see what was scheduled whether it was approved or denied on our side. So we found that in the tabs fire this was a very helpful tool and we were able to incorporate all the specific data for the glass fire to allow it to translate over that fairly well. Next slide please. So in addition to a lot of the parcel specific information for making those decisions we also found the property owners are also we're also very interested in just really general information. What you can see here is we have a rebuilding document library that's also available on the same website. What's available now is some information that's really specific to the processes that you're going through, which might be doing still smoke damage if you've evolved past that you might be looking at rebuilding so it gives some information about what that building permit needs to look like those documents will expand with time. For example in the tabs fire we produce documents for reestablishing mail service we produce documents for what to expect when you're re occupying your home, as well as impacts to the street as construction commences and noise things of that nature as construction activities ramped up. So this will grow with time as we translate those documents over, but this is a really good resource to check for information that's really more global to the rebuild. And one of those documents as Jesse mentioned is associated with landscaping requirements and the reason we want to focus on this as you dive into the rebuild this may be something that the contractor pushes back on the property owner. We did see this in the tabs fire landscaping is required when it's associated with a building permit so if you're pulling a building permit to reconstruct the home, a small amount of landscaping in the front yard will be required. So there's state requirements associated with water use efficiency. There are certain requirements that go along with landscaping and those requirements, historically have required a property owner to hire someone to actually design a plan and submit it to show that it's consistent with state guidelines for water use efficient landscaping. We tackled in the tabs fire because anytime you bring in another licensed professional another plan that can add a layer of cost. We actually developed a program where you have free templates that you can use that are designs that can be scalable to your lot, and they can be submitted free of charge you can use them freely. And they can meet that requirement so it should help deflect some of that cost you would normally have on hiring landscape architect. We also have consultation services available within our permit center that will help you navigate that. So these are just some things to think about. As you move forward, based on where you are in the process, these documents are here, we completely understand that you might not be ready to dive into these quite yet. But just know that there's digital resources and then both Jesse and myself have committed to work with people directly to help them navigate any of these documents or any other issues that aren't presented on the website. And that includes my overview and at this point Jesse and I are available to answer any questions you might have about the rebuilding process. Thanks Gabe. And one thing I want to note that URL that's, oh, we just lost the screen that's okay. And the SR city or forward slash glass fire rebuild that's actually a new website. We have published that this week. And it's kind of an extension of the recovery website that has been available since very shortly after the glass fire, but this is really focused on the home repair and reconstruction process and everything related to permitting and everything that Jesse and Gabe covered so if you haven't been on that site and you are repairing or rebuilding your home and it's something we encourage you to take a look at. All right, and I will open it for any and all questions that anyone may have on any recovery topics at this time. Okay, and I'm not seeing any hands immediately and I did want to be sure that we addressed the question that we received a lot of feedback on in the surveys we sent out and that was how will the city be addressing the threat of future wildfires in our community. And so Paul, if you could take a stab at that one and perhaps in the meantime we might get more hands. Thank you. So yeah, like Adrian said we saw a pretty common theme and a lot of the responses that we got regularity regarding not only vegetation management in the burn scar but around it as well. There was feedback and comments regarding an adult state park. Howard Park spring lake, a lot of the open spaces so a couple pieces to that. A number of the questions and concerns were actually identified and addressed and what we refer to as our community wildfire protection plan. So those of you that are not familiar with it. The city approved and adopted a plan that we have developed over the last year and a half or so through council in September of 20. Ironically, and unfortunately, it was actually approved just a matter of weeks before the glass fire occurred and it did identify the greatest threat to the community is the area between the tubs and the nuns directly above skyhawk. They've been working on plans to implement for that area. Unfortunately, we saw the fire do exactly what we were worried it would do. But nonetheless, we're still committed to doing not only work in that same area, but around the city so there remains a threat to our community primarily right now. In the Malita Road corridor. Kind of the backside of Oakmont from what we would typically have is our normal south southwest wind flow where it could potentially push a fire out of spring lake or Howard Park direction towards those areas. There's a lot of unburned fuels and risks to the area up around the flamingo and really multiple parts of our community, including what burned in the tubs and nuns fire with the regrowth that's occurred. So, with that, we are doing a lot we're currently applying for three different grants. Speaking very generally total about $3.1 million and are fit into three different types of programs one is for evacuation route hardening so a lot of our major streets in and around our community primarily on the east side of town. We're looking at doing fuel reduction along those evacuation routes we're looking also looking at doing vegetation management and fuel reductions in open spaces that include areas like the skyhawk open space, as well as a lot of other areas in and around the east side of town. So we're very aware of the concerns we're aware of the risks, and we're currently working, not only towards grant applications, but there's also been an overwhelming request and support from our community to potentially use PG knee settlement funds. So we have provided a council with information, both through our public safety, the council's public safety committee, the economic stuff committee as well as to our full council, and currently are asked specific to vegetation management is five and a quarter million dollars. That is geared towards $5 million to start working on actionable items that are identified in the community wildfire protection plan, and then a quarter of a million dollars to put together another plan in five years from now, so that we continue to meet the needs of our community. Just recently, we currently have a budget that's specific to we debatement. That is what most residents up in the skyhawk areas specifically as well as out in Oakmont and the rink and valley area have seen the city do. There's a lot of the work that we do on our we debatement program. We are aware that based on how the fire burn. We're going to be working on the rock areas that were heavily brushed that we would not typically have done we debatement work on. We will be doing we debatement work on where it is required so we're going to be coming forward with an additional request for funding through council, based on the additional needs for we debatement following the glass fire meaning areas that we didn't have to deal with in the past we'll have to deal with now. There's a lot of projects that we're going to want to do in the area. So there's a lot of work that will be done that needs to be done. And quite honestly we look forward to working with our community partners and making a lot of these things happen. We've been eager and wanting to get a jumpstart on it. There have been several unsuccessful attempts for grant funding since the 2017 fires to do a lot of the work that people specifically asked for know that we're working very closely with council and very close with our consultants to work on securing grant funding so that we can absolutely take advantage of this place now to start mitigating the risks and protecting our community from additional wildfires that seem to be coming the new normal here locally unfortunately. Thank you Paul. All right, and so I will ask her. Oh, it looks like we have a question. You want to grab that one. Brian I have enabled enabled your speaking permissions if you can unmute your microphone. Brian are you able to unmute your microphone. It looks like he might have gotten disconnected. Let's wait a moment and see if he's able to jump back on. Looks like Mark Brown has a question in the meantime. Mark and I have enabled your speaking permissions. Good evening again and again thank you for everything I appreciate you guys put your time in tonight. And it's more of a request as you move forward with your vegetation management and I asked that you use a science based approach for contemporary development and science, which is exactly included in your community wildfire protection plan, and I asked that you not follow the poorly informed and fearful approaches that some people have been asking for such as completely removing all vegetation from our open space that quite frankly is not the answer to our problem. The answer is for homes to be hardened and people to take a house out approach. And if you look at all the homes that were destroyed in Skyhawk, and I've looked at every one of them. It was because what was done on the person's property or their neighbors property and not the wildland area that burned their homes down so I asked you to take a science approach science based approach thank you. Yeah thank you for that mark for background awareness yeah we are familiar and have had some HOAs throughout Santa Rosa that I don't want to minimize it but have had some knee jerk reactions where they want to do something that may not be in their best interest We typically understand that there's dollar amounts to mitigating different risks and we want to make sure that the money that is spent is going to do the most good for our community so yeah I have watched some HOAs remove all their spend their money on removing all the fuels within the open space, the larger diameter fuels the brush throughout the entire area, and it doesn't truly mitigate the risk of wildfire so we are very aware of your concerns. As you just indicated is address the scientific based approach is outlined in the plan, and our goal is also to help educate the community on what they can do to harden their structures. It was something that was actually noted by Cal OES and FEMA the director of Cal OES and the Region 9 coordinator from FEMA were in Skyhawk immediately after the glass fire and actually looked into the Skyhawk open space and saw a lot of the fuels, a lot of the landscape materials that were used in that area, that actually in some cases helped support the spread of fire. So our goal again is to is to help mitigate those risks and to help educate our community on what they can do in their rebuild process to build something that is more likely to withstand Embercast and withstand fires in the future. Thank you. Any further questions from our attendees. Okay, seeing none. We have put the contact information back up on the screen. So you can jot that down and that is a way to reach any of us about various recovery questions. So please feel free to reach out. If any time you have any questions. And I want to thank you again for your time tonight and again this meeting will be recorded. It's being recorded and will be posted on our recovery website in the next day or so. So thank you to everyone and have a good evening.


Here, the authors perform plaque reduction neutralization, PRNT, assays-quantitating SARS-CoV-2 specific neutralizing antibodies from 195 patients in different disease states and find that patients with severe disease exhibit higher peaks of neutralizing antibody titers than patients with mild or asymptomatic infections and that serum neutralizing antibody persists for over six months in most people. This article was authored by Eric H. Wailau, O&T, Wai Zhang, David S. Tsihui, and others.


Hello and welcome to NewsClick. On January 14th, the United Kingdom, Germany and France, three of the signatories to the JCPOA or the Iran Nuclear Deal activated the conflict resolution mechanism of the deal against Iran. What this means in practical terms is just in just over 65 days, U.N. sanctions will be imposed on Iran once again. To talk more about this, we have with us Prabir Purgatis. Hello Prabir. Prabir just gives some context to the U.S. in mid-2018 withdrew from the deal. And after that they imposed heavy sanctions on Iran and there has been an escalation of hostility, the most recent example being the assassination of General Qasem Soleiman. And during all this time, we saw that the European countries kept paying lip service to the fact that they wanted the deal to continue. They did, they formed instex of payment mechanism and they kept saying that Iran should confirm to the deal. But now we have seen them actually activate claws of the deal which could basically mean the complete end of the deal. So what was the motivation probably behind these countries doing this? Let's see the broader context. I don't think we should narrowly look at the legalistic issues of the JCPOA. Because if we get into that, of course, then we get into the realm of national law, the way the sanctions were structured, the way the snapback of the sanctions would take place, what you are talking about. Let's look at what is broadly happening. The United States pulls out of the deal and has been ratcheting up the pressure on Iran, essentially asking it to submit. So this is in fact an undeclared war. In fact, if you look at the economic sanctions, these are really acts of war, what would be called international law terms also, violations of what would be the international law against taking these kinds of actions. So economic war is already being waged by the United States. To keep the deal alive, the European powers have really done nothing. As you said, paid lip service, the instax mechanism had hardly seen any transactions. And anyway, the major earner for Iran, which is oil, the oil exports do not come at the instax. So therefore, to say that they have done their bit on the doesn't stand water. But I think the bigger issue is where is it heading to? And I think it's clearly heading to not only confrontation with Iran, but a possible war with Iran, which is what really at the moment it seems Trump wants. Let's also look at what we already know about the Soleimani assassination. It's now clear that the decision to assassinate Soleimani had been taken quite some time back. The issue was only when and whether this opportunity or this particular window is the right one. That was the only discussion that was taking place. So it is not that it was suddenly a spur of the moment decision, as it has been portrayed and not that it was something that Trump actually did on his own, which is the other theory that is doing rounds that he was given a set of options. This is the only extreme option and this is not what something that the military establishment wanted and so on. The issue is that they were looking for a particular opportunity. It is also clear now that within the United States State Department itself, the various versions that have come up, it's very clear again that there is no question of imminent danger. The Soleimani was going planning to attack foreign embassies. They themselves have controverted these statements. So I think it's a clear pushing Iran towards war and the complete surrender of the European powers in front of the United States. So what we now have is completely abandoning of international law and the United States imposing whatever it assumes is its laws as the international law and expecting the global committee of nations to either follow it or stay neutral in it, which is where it seems to be heading. So I am looking at facing impeachment as he is, that I think that essentially Trump is looking for an October war or September October war, which is a time when it will really elections will heat up in the United States and that might ensure his reelection. And as we know, all presidents think a short war is a good war. Whether it will be a short war, it will be another quagmire, will it sink the entire region into disaster and probably the global economy needs to be seen. But how does it matter if Trump wins the reelection? So we could be looking at a scenario like that and not look at the larger international law implications of the nuclear deal, what is written in the fine print and the fact that the snapback provisions can be easily actuated if there is no will to keep to the deal, which is what the European nations, the U3 are saying. So the other aspect is that Russia and China have strongly continued to support this deal and like you pointed out, while the Europeans activated this mechanism now, they basically had nearly a year and a half of actually not sticking to the deal. So would Russia and China be in a position for instance to actually continue to support Iran's economy through their trading acts or will this activation of these sanctions make it difficult for them also? See, we are seeing unilateral war in economic terms on Russia, which has been sanctioned earlier. We are seeing economic trade war with China in which there is an agreement for a certain kind of truce but we do not know what the fine print of this is going to be. There is a threat that United States would like to disengage from China and keep it out of the global economy as far as it can. So we are not looking at only one war, which is the Iran war. You are really looking at multiple war fronts that United States seem to have opened. In this, can three of them come together to fight this war? Is that feasible? Given the fact that each of them have different economic interests. So that is also the issue. China is a net importer of energy. In fact, large quantities of energy and Russia and Iran both depend on exporter of energy. So there is a synergy over there but there is a whole lot of other things that China is engaged with and without the western economy that also becomes a problem for them. And if we divide the world completely economically, as the United States seems to be wanting to do, then that may not vote so well for also the Chinese economy. So yes, it can lead to destruction of the global economy but that doesn't help China either. So we are I think seeing very difficult times ahead for the global economy and for all countries. But I don't see that China and Russia have much of an option but to support Iran on this. Having said that, the problem that they have is the United Nations, the Security Council resolution had provisions by which virtually a snap snapping back of the original sanctions would take place. If there is even if the United States vetoes the decision that the JCPOA is actually okay and Iran is not transgressing it, even if Iran once it comes in the Security Council, even if Iran vetoes it, sorry United States vetoes it, there is even then there is a possibility of snapping back of the sanctions because you have to give relief every time this issue comes up. So if the understanding of the Iran Accord was that the US has agreed then obviously they have a stake in the peace. What the world didn't count on was that you have US actually acts like a wrong nation does not keep any agreement and therefore it can walk out of the agreement it has itself reached. Since this has happened a number of times in the past we don't have to dwell on this but having done that the snapping back of the sanctions in international law using United Security Council resolution is a possibility but yes Russia and China are big enough to say we don't agree with this and they can also veto any resolution that comes out. What the legal status that's why I was not getting into it, the legal status is really complicated for non-international law experts in the and studying of the UN date all the i's and t's have to be dotted and crossed before we understand the whole thing. So I think politically yes it is true that they can come together but can they really pull this off how much of the world should support them and if there is a war in October all this becomes a good point because lot of it will depend on what happens in the war and if there is a war on Iran it's a possibility at some point the Iran will have to seek peace and at that time this whole discussion then becomes about the post-war scenario not about what's happened what's happening now. So I would read this the UN UN is only one theater the basic issue is the European powers while paying lip service to the agreement has succumbed to the American pressure actually to go to war with Iran and all the pretends these are all pretends to that effect and I think we are looking at a very very dangerous situation. Unfortunately, Zarif is now in India at the moment that is rising a dialogues going on, India is actually completely a bystander in all of this and 80 percent as we have said again and again in this in this discussions here 80 percent of India's oil comes from West Asia any war over there as the United States seem to be shaping up really destructive for India also for China unfortunately the US unfortunately because in this case everybody else would be it except in the US they have enough fracking oil other oil sources at the moment so they're not going to be affected but the global economy and particularly India China Eastern East Asia will be very badly affected if any war takes place in West Asia but I think the way it's looking that that is the goal that Trump has because of his reelection if nothing else. Thank you so much for being that's all we have time for today keep watching NewsClick


The Law City of Z is packed with adventure and a stellar cast, but can it also deliver a powerful social message? Here's the director, James Gray, with more. Welcome to HitFix on Uprocks. I'm here with James Gray, the director of The Law City of Z. This is the story of Percy Fawcett. So tell us who he was and why he's important. He went down to the Amazon in 1906, and that's sort of like saying, let's go to Mars. Terrible disease, murderous savages. The journey may well mean your life. You know, he was sent down there originally just to make a map. Lost all interest in that, and started hearing about major archaeological finds. It basically took over his life. You must turn back. There is no turning back. There was a progressive side to him, and he believed that the indigenous peoples of Amazonia were capable of great things, and he was ridiculed for that. Are you insisting that these savages, they are equals? Their civilization may well predate our own. There have been a couple of guys attached to play Percy over the years. I know Brad Pitt originally wanted to play Percy, and then that went to Benedict Cumberbatch. And then it fell to Charlie Hunnam to take on the role. Did you get attached to each one and have to kind of rethink your approach as new actors came to the table? It's a great question. The answer is absolutely. There is no right person to cast. You know, they say that all the time. So-and-so is perfectly cast. Each actor has strengths and weaknesses. It doesn't matter who it is, you know, Marlon Brando. You know, Marlon Brando did comedies with Charlie Chaplin that weren't very good. You know, in the case of Brad Pitt, very magnetic person obviously, but he's also very American. We both started to feel it was a very British story. You know, Benedict is a very magnetic person also.  Very flattered. What happened with him was that his wife got pregnant, and she didn't want to give birth in the middle of the shoot, which would have been in the Amazon jungle. And Charlie, these things often happen for a reason. So I tailored the movie to him. Very swashbuckling, handsome person, but also a real need to prove himself. I know this is a sacrifice for all of us, but it won't be worth it. I only care about your lost city. I feel like there aren't a lot of these sort of epic sweeping adventure films anymore. You're right, they don't exist anymore. It's impossible for me to match what Francis Ford Coppola did with Apocalypse Now. And I can't match David Lean for his scope when he was in the desert for a year on Lawrence Arabia. The only thing that I can do is to try and bring something unique of me and hope that the audience comes. All right, so James, where and when can people see this film? April 14th, New York in Los Angeles, and then it goes nationwide, April 21st, the week after that. When James Gray isn't fighting rodent-sized mosquitoes in the Amazonian jungle, he told me he can usually be found at home in his living room, watching old movies, and avoiding social media. For more news and reviews on the Lost City of Z, keep coming back to Hit Fix on Uprocks.