ill switch for you so the current um trail Just turn it off The current trail is a tenths of a mile approximately 12 feet wide and a 10 foot offset from The edge from the centerline of the track and Where the exist where an existing fence Will go off with the project There's one crossing at the wharf intersection with a cross bike There's new storm drain. There are new wood lag retaining walls that mike had shown you as part of the art project Specifically that type of wall was chosen for a variety of reasons It's harder to graffiti It reflects a railroad theme Those type of walls require less excavation because they drill footings rather than Dig out for a spread footing. So there's less disruption of the area The walls are anywhere from three and a half to 19 and a half feet tall There's a dark sky compliant lighting and security cameras proposed. There's wayfinding directional and safety signage This piece of the alignment for the environmental review was uh Cut into a segment several segments segment f is from bay in california to Essentially the edge of the treatment plant There is This is the beginning of the trail Or to the side this is what it looks like Once it would be constructed Emergency access at the middle there where it says vehicles only authorized The trail accessing directly to the bay california street intersection And the stop sign that's currently at Bay and california avenue is moved to bay and california street So there's a stop crossing for pedestrian and bicyclists to make the move across the street And ties into phase one of segment seven And you can see the green striping on the bottom right And that's what's called the cross bike crossing and there's one at the other end at the wharf intersection And that was planned for during the design of the roundabout This is a typical detail in that area where you have the path that's 12 foot wide the Um right in here the two foot clearance minimums between each side for You know bike pedals and handlebars This is the retaining wall In this very section, there's no storm drain system. It starts further down There's a v ditch behind the retaining wall at the top which has been eliminated with the project To reduce uh, you know further excavation And um work on the hillside You can see that there's street lights and cameras up at that level The distance down here at the bottom between the center line of the track and the edge of the fence is 10 feet And that's the typical standard. There are times that we can get closer to the center line of the track You get to eight and a half feet In most of this case where it's curved track 10 is the minimum But at the very end uh down by the sanctuary center, it is going to be eight and a half feet This is a typical wood lagging wall Um, but the supports or the columns are a lot closer than what's proposed in this project This is uh segment g and segment segment g has Uh one feature that's a bit unique from what i've described so far and that's a turnout in this area here Um, which is uh informally called railroad bobs and that is a flatter area with um no trees And that provides a turnout for emergency vehicles or maintenance vehicles so they're not blocking the path Uh, this is again the same uh typical section in this area. The retaining walls are taller Um as they're further into the slope There's anchors at the very top where the wall is higher You can see this sort of this line dash line here. That's the existing slope that's cut back into for the trail There's storm drain in this uh in this part of the project Now currently there's no drainage facilities there for this part and you know, there's And that can be noted by standing water and the in the draining drainage ditches that haven't been maintained um This will eliminate those uh the inlets the catch basins that Tie into the storm drain will have inserts that prevent sediment and trash from getting into the storm drain The storm storm drain is ultimately tied into the neary legume pump station And that during the dry weather season isn't open to cow beach. It's closed off It backs into the uh wastewater treatment plant and is actually treated by the wastewater treatment plant during the wet weather season before Usually it's about october 15 before the winter starts the whole piping system is cleaned That water is taken to the treatment plant before it's open to cow beach So actually the the storm drain system is going to operate better than the current drainage system or lack of drainage system out there right now During um in this section and I forgot to mention the previous section there are the removal of 12 heritage trees and part of the mitigation measures is root pruning and uh tree mitigation efforts with the ability to try to save More trees as well as protection measures that mike had mentioned In segment g there are three heritage trees that are removed This is a cross section where that turnout area is which is base rock And this allows for you know areas for vehicles to get out of the way They're going to have to maintain the path as well as emergency services us This segment or this piece is h and that's from essentially the neary legume pump station out to the wharf intersection This is the area the eucalyptus grove that was mentioned Where when we redesigned the project the wall in this area We were able to Save five of the six trees that we intended originally to take out heritage eucalyptus and The one that's remaining we will try to save it We won't know until construction once we're able to expose the vegetation and the roots All that work is done under the guidance of the urban cities urban forester the section Again this so again, it's 10 foot from the center line This this is where the new wall is located This is the storm drain system that comes from neary legume and the pump station The smaller one next to it is the storm drain system For the trail itself Half again is 12 feet wide In this section, which is uh the sanctuary scenic centers on the left of the the photo are left And the car's parking that's the little parking lot across from the sanctuary center In this case here, we are eight and a half feet from the center line of track To the edge of the path and again the path is still 12 feet wide Trees are replaced being replaced at two to one the heritage trees The willows that are being removed are replaced at three to one and they will be planted at antinellis pond Some of the tree replacements that are occurring for this This segment will be for this phase will be planted in phase one So they'll be planted in advance of the construction of this project When mike had noted One of the alternatives we went from a 16 foot wide trail to a 12 foot wide trail We did actually look at the tree count and there were 18 fewer trees Removed with the narrower trail And one of the things that often comes up is why can't we remove the track? Well in this case, we really do have an active rail And and so I have a short video after the environmental presentation just to show What we're in camp really does out there in order to give people a sense of really how things operate For the railroad So with that i'm going to turn it over to leo menna with icf who did the environmental review for the city Hey everyone So i'll give you an overview of what we did for our environmental documentation for the Phase two of the center cruise rail trail project So the initial study was initial study mitigated negative negative declaration or ism and d Was published on july 13th 2018 And was available for review for a total of 30 days from july 13th to august 13th 2018 The analysis that we did in this document was prepared using the secret thresholds as well as the 1990 guidelines that That mike mentioned And so when determining our our whether a product whether our project would result in a potentially significant impact We considered those thresholds So i'll give you an example for biological resources We have to look at whether a project would result in a substantially adverse effect on special set of species or Habitat for example, so that's the question that we were answering in our document So our analysis included um, we identified potentially significant impacts that would be mitigated to a less insignificant level for um, aesthetics air quality biological resources cultural resources geology and soils Hazards and hazardous materials hydrology and water quality noise and transportation And right now I think i'll just focus on one of the key issues of this project, which is biological resources Since trees are going to be removed and vegetation would be permanently affected by the installation of the project so The projects the project does include several pre-construction measures in order to minimize impacts to special set of species To a less insignificant level and these species include the california red legged frog western pond turtle Special status birds special status bats the san francisco dusky footer wood rat and monarch butterfly The ism and d also includes mitigation measures requiring the replanting of willow trees at a three to one ratio So for all the willow trees that are going to be removed three will be planted in kind at um, not sorry not in kind But will be planted at antennae pond um The loss due to this project represents um Approximately 2.5 of the total riparian cover in the new lagoon area So that is what we considered when determining our our um our impact Based on the site features, um and the habitat relative to relative to the areas a whole And and considering that we would be mitigating at a three to one ratio It was concluded that the impact could be reduced to a less insignificant level And it wouldn't exceed that threshold of substantially adversely affecting riparian habitat And I would also like to note here that antennae pond Was chosen as a site for restoration because it is known a documented area For california red legged frog, which is a federally listed species So this project is actually going to Result in the creation of habitat for that that could be used by this federally listed species And in our um We also prepared a natural environment study for cal trends in that that document identified that neary lagoon due to the presence of predator species and due to its Location close to development sites has a lower potential To support california red legged frog. So this project is a creating habitat for this federally listed species um And on that I just did want to note that this project did go Under nipa review. So we prepared an a natural environment study with cal trends and that that um That document had the same information that was included in our ism and d and that Document was approved by cal trends. We received a c e and cal trends did do consultation With the u.s. Department of Fish and Wildlife Service So that's actually how we came up with the mitigation measure of planting um willow trees at antinally pond They consulted with us fish and wildlife service us fish and wildlife service what said well, you know, there's um To mitigate for the impact to california red legged frog and riparian cover You can uh plant plant at antinally pond, which is a place that is known to have california red legged frog So during our review period we did receive several comments Um including from the coastal commission the monterey bay air resource district the sierra club and from individuals 96 individuals in support and tenant opposition um We reviewed all those letters and responded to the coastal commission Monterey bay air resource district and the sierra club with letters addressing their concerns on october 31st um And we the city concluded that the comments raised in the letter did not rise to a level of significance However, we did identify that there was one comment about the monarch butterfly That warranted a recirculation of the ism and to address the potential impacts on that species From the removal of the one eucalyptus tree in the grove So based on that comment We did do a recirculation of the ism and and we took this as an opportunity to also update the ism and with some analysis that we did for air quality impacts as well as Updating the project to reflect the Realignment that reduced the number of trees to be removed So we published that recirculated ism and d on january 7th 2019 and it was circulated until february 6th 2019 So that document um did have an additional analysis for monarch butterfly So we included a um an analysis that identified that construction impacts could be mitigated to a less insignificant level Through uh pre-construction measures. So we added another mitigation measure that said before construction happens You'll look at the site and identify if there's any monarch butterflies there And if there are and if they're not you will do these these measures accordingly Um, and we also concluded in there that the loss of the one tree would not rise to that threshold of significance of substantially adversely affecting a species so we The way that we came up with that conclusion was by looking at background information And I Site visits that identified that the site was not a significant overwind overwind tree population. There weren't nectar sources That there would be a loss of one trees one tree compared to the more than 40 trees that are there Which represents a 5 loss of the total growth size. So taking all that into account. We concluded a less insignificant impact On this species from the removal of that one tree. So that's how we came up with that conclusion So during that second review period of that recirculated ism and d we did receive further comments from the monterey Bay air resource district the sierra club and from individuals 36 in support and three in opposition And the comments that were received were predominantly focused on aesthetics biological resources including monarch butterfly habitat hydrological resources climate change and alternatives and based on the review of the comments again, we identified that These impacts did not rise to a level of significance and That that was all documented in our correspondence. So in summary I would just say that the ism and d was prepared taking into consideration the secret thresholds of substantially adversely affecting a resource and conclusions were made based on The evidence that we that we were able to obtain and that's all documented in our in our document as well as in our Correspondence which you've had the time to review and I'd also just like to reiterate that this project would result in beneficial environmental impacts including that which I mentioned about california renegade frog as well as of greenhouse gas reductions, which was also documented in the ism and d so That's it for me. If you have further questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Thank you So in the planning commission staff report on page nine of that report I've listed 57 general plan goals policies or actions that support the development of the rail trail There's also three specific lcp local coastal plan policies that support the trail And although the this is outside of the neary lagoon management agents management Plan boundaries There are three objectives and policies in the neary lagoon management plan that support This project so again, those are on page nine I didn't want to list them all on your staff report, but we attached the planning commission staff report and you can see those on page nine So In summary the This phase two of segment seven would be the third Leg of the whole western sides trail that would be a off street bicycle trail The project will reduce transportation related to energy use greenhouse gas generation And it'll provide an equitable and sustainable alternative to coastal access for pedestrians bicyclists and the disabled And that last slide is our recommendation So the recommendation uh to the city council is to deny the appeal and adopt the mitigated negative declaration the mitigation monitoring and reporting program And approve the coastal design slope modification variants And the heritage tree removals based on the findings that are listed in your draft resolution So that concludes our presentation chris wants to show his Um video and then we're available for any questions It comes down from uh rory canter passing by the people side and entering the y and the y is used specifically to turn the train around And uh currently rory camp pass tractor tries a thousand feet up Into towards neary lagoon past neary lagoon and up to essentially the area where The treatment plant starts and if you were to look up on You know bay street, it's about where liberty street comes in Fast forward a little bit here As the the train goes past the y you can see over here this This green roof that's essentially railroad bob area where the Where the turnout will be for vehicles that maintain the path or for emergency services Um just recently. I think it was yesterday the day before there was actually a fire in the neary lagoon section adjacent to the wastewater treatment plant Um, which was an you know issue issue started with illegal camping Um and did have it have you know, it's where a lot of the main power source comes in for the treatment plant So it's another reason the more highs that we have on the path the more public use The better Things work. So as you can see it backed all the way up in order to do the train I could too for the train. This is not the longest train that they have they have busier season they have also Trains there for corporate events, etc. It has to get past the switch in order to make um To flip it and turn it Um The ceo with roaring camp was uh going to attend but had an emergency and could not She wanted to make sure that she noted that They were supportive of the trail and that this has been uh active use an active line for them for many years The route about to the um to the boardwalk The last piece of the report is the fiscal impact and currently there's two million dollars dedicated as a local match for A future grant the grant from prop 68 that you heard about today doesn't require A local match and if we're successful then this local match, which is A million from the city's measure d and a million from the regional transportation commission's measure d Can be dedicated to um other portions of the rail trail Um We also have another opportunity in the in the near future To apply for another grant for this project and One of the things that's really important to have these days for A grant application is the matching money And the approved permits and environmental certified environmental document And without those it's very difficult to get grants Um One question came up about what if the saver required to do any ir The ir is estimated to cost about 200 000 And in the staff reports as six to twelve months to prepare and the public process I've been told uh by a number of people that i'm overly optimistic And that it would actually take uh quite a bit longer Right mike Anyway, so that concludes my uh our presentation Guy Preston with the regional transportation commission Which has prepared the master plan and his important funding partner in this would like to say something before we Get into this Hi, uh, thank you for the professional courtesy By your city manager to allow me to come and address the city council and thank you for uh listening to me today The rtc started um dedicating funds to the segment seven project in 2013 A month after the rtc completed and adopted a master plan for the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail network The coastal rail trail forms the spine of the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail Segment seven is one of the highest priority projects Of the 20 segments identified in the plan RTC also completed and certified a programmatic eir On the master plan to help streamline Implementation and environmental clearance of future projects RTC is pleased with the partnership Of the city of Santa Cruz and the great care that the city of Santa Cruz took in improving The project beyond its description in the master plan The segment seven phase two environmental document shows impacts as being less than significant With mitigations offered for potential impacts I want to echo what chris and your environmental team has said with respect to the quality of mitigation The quality of mitigation that you see in this project is far superior to the impacts that you have in an area which is much degraded additionally The city of Santa Cruz adopted the rtc's master plan in march 2015 RTC appreciates the city's commitment to deliver the city's portion of the coastal rail trail as a Bicycle and pedestrian path within or adjacent to the rail right away that is separated from motor vehicle traffic I also recently attended one of our Elderly and disabled committee meetings and they emphasized the importance of the segment of the trail because The alternative right now is to go up west cliff which has a serious grade and a lot of them cannot maneuver Going up west cliff I also ride my bike over to west side quite a bit and it's very congested and the segment of the trail would Provide significant relief and an alternative for bicyclists that would be much safer off of the street network and Out of grade that is more favorable for elderly and disabled people I also want to Emphasize something that your city manager mentioned and that's grant funding The rtc is working with the city to obtain grants And one of the first questions always asked is does the project have environmental clearance? There is going to be significant competition for grant funding And I would like to see some of those state and and federal funds brought to santa cruz county So we can complete the coastal rail trail. Thank you for allowing me to address the commission and let me know if you have any questions Okay, that concludes. I believe the staff portion of the Appeal here public hearing here today. Is that I had tallied the comments that we got since Yesterday and it looks like approximately we got 87 emails that were basically in favor One of those emails had a petition that was signed by 520 people in favor of the project And we had 15 emails that were concerned with the project or against it That concludes our presentation. Okay. Thank you very much Before we have an opportunity to hear from our appellants. I'll go ahead and see if there's any clarifying questions that the council may have at this time Knowing that you could also ask them in a future question question. Councilman Myers Just a question for the environmental consultant. You mentioned that the coastal commission had Submitted a comment letter. I think on the first version of the is mnd Do you I I've been looking through the hundreds of pages of material But I could you could you just summarize what what that letter Included, please I would have to take a look at that one again. Okay. Yeah, I know that that Some of the comments didn't have anything to do with the initial study they also Were interested in seeing different alternatives Sort of brought forward in the staff report even though that that wasn't a requirement And they were also interested in making sure that we looked through the neary lagoon plan To make sure that some of the policies in that plan didn't conflict with this project And that's sort of what we highlighted in the staff report. I don't remember if there was I think they also had some questions clarifications about visual renderings of the retaining walls and how those look like So we sent those in mostly clarifying questions And similar questions concerning biological resource impacts and Because the coastal permit does have requirements having to do with a tree Tree plantings. I believe that's that as well. I can try to find that for you I don't have that printed with me because as you said, there's a there's a lot. Yeah Any additional clarifying questions for staff at this time? Okay vice-mayors Thank you for the presentation from all folks who presented today. I was just curious What was the initial rationale for? moving forward with a mitigated negative deck As opposed to an EIR Well, um, I can try answering that because I wasn't I'm what I am aware of is that because No impacts were found to rise to a level of significance That all impacts could be mitigated to a less insignificant level Then that's that and since an ISM and D allows that that that's what was moved forward with Yeah Okay, seeing no additional questions at this time. Thank you We'll go ahead and allow for our appellants to address the council at this time And you will have a total of 15 minutes to speak and present evidence in support of your appeal I also will note that you will have a opportunity after public comment To provide a five-minute rebuttal at which time you will not be allowed to introduce any new information and Would you like the time broken up for in between or how how would you like to share the time between the two of you? Thanks for asking We I'm going to speak and then Julianne will speak and so If you would maybe stop the clock as we shift that would be very helpful Okay, so the clock will be set for 15 minutes and then when there's that transition time We'll go ahead and pause the time as you shift your presentation. Okay Thank you very much. I think I know many of you but for those who don't know me I'm Rachel O'Malley. I'm here because we agree. We agree on a lot of things We agree that we're in a climate crisis And we also agree with a biodiversity crisis. We agree that we need to get out of our cars We support vision zero We support the rail we support the Monterey Bay sanctuary signage trail But even good projects require trade-offs We all agree that everything we do affects our natural environment We always have to consider the climate and we have to also consider biodiversity We're in a biodiversity crisis. How do we do that? Here in Santa Cruz it's through our environmental review process We evaluate impacts and we avoid or mitigate the ones that we can That's what our code says. We also have the environmental quality act You've heard about right now and the coastal permit requirements The environmental quality act Is interesting because it's about disclosure to the public and public participation It is also about minimizing damage to the environment and disclosing effects and also disclosing what the decision makers are doing, right? So it's about democracy The coastal permit Fortunately also protects vegetation and natural habitats and natural resources. So that's a second layer that we get to Go through we all agree Again on those values. This is what we all believe in everyone sitting here Quickly sequel requirements the initial study you've heard a little bit about that's to decide Are we doing a negative declaration if there's no potential impacts or an EIR if there are potentially significant impacts Okay, that's the the standard of the law if it's potentially significant do an EIR EIR also analyzes alternatives that avoid impacts which mitigate mitigate a neg deck. Ev you've just heard does not Our project can't be considered until the final environmental documents are complete So this project sorry, I'm going so fast at seven minutes the proposed project you've heard about it already This is essentially replacing the repair this riparian corridor with that wall. You just saw We all agree that building it in the natural areas will have some impacts the question is are they significant Your staff says no, I believe we've shown yes What's the difference the thresholds of significance your staff has told you about the first one It the effect on a species that's sensitive or candidate or special status and their mitigations protect them from construction But not from permanent loss of habitat. That's what i'm talking about There are other thresholds that CEQA requires us to look at not just the sensitive species the first one which would be biological resources B Is riparian habitat that has been delineated like neary lagoon big Lagoon our best freshwater well and right. I believe Based on my professional experience that the proposed mitigations are inadequate and do not sufficiently describe the impacts on neary lagoon More important there are two other areas of biological resources that CEQA requires us to look at the first one is The unnamed creeks right the ones that we found here when we were looking at our site for the first time And this was new to me as well. I hadn't been there till I went We all agree including your staff that the project will eliminate just under an acre of wetland. Oops. I can't go back That's okay, but it's degraded. There are no wetlands left in california that are pristine so Even destruction of a human influence wetland should be considered significant in fact the eir for the Whole rail trail included that that even if it's not mapped An artifact of a construction of the railroad corridor They're still under the jurisdiction of the coastal commission and the regional water quality control board That's from the eir. We did not use the ar. We did not use from the master plan Said that impacts include loss of habitat and habitat degradation And erosion from erosion of those just disturbed beds. So The actions that we did use in our document, which was not that document We specifically did not tear off it are about frogs and pond turtles individuals and about avoiding them When we see them what i'm talking about is restoring the habitat. We're paving over and also restoring hydrologic function Not just specific individual species So there are two other there's one other important threshold that sequel requires us to look at which is movement Of resident and migratory species. That's not your special status named listed blah blah blah This is actually part of the threshold Again, the mitigations are focused on special status species and they Talk about construction and they talk about But they don't cover loss of the habitat now you've heard that The photo of a gray fox is not substantive evidence that there are corridors here as a biologist I'm sorry.  We actually have a fair amount of natives supporting interesting native birds Very important native birds and even some of the invasives we've been told Well, the ivy which is generally awful isn't supporting monarchs because it's not fruiting well I actually took this photo in the corridor. It is flowering. It is supporting monarchs. We haven't measured it sorry the last thing Emanatory findings the very last category of the sequel checklist cumulative impacts This document should have peered off of the master plan document instead. It used the city plan Which doesn't cover the whole project So We should have done an eir. We should do an eir. It could have significant impacts on the environment I have 30 years of experience doing this. I can tell you this should have Had an eir So what do we do now at this point the fastest thing to do would just be to do the eir It's the right thing to do. We all care about the environment if we defend the inadequate Negdeck it can go all the way into 2020 The california coastal commission will hear appeals on this. It's appealable to the coastal commission They care a lot about wetlands. They want us to avoid it. They want us to look at alternatives You've heard we've looked at the alternatives, but remember the disclosure park remember the public park That's what the eir is about. We actually have to look at the alternatives systematically in an organized way. We do have alternatives We agree We're in a climate crisis biodiversity crisis And in santa cruz. We're also In a biological hot spot Look at the united states in that picture. We are it. We need to work together Measure twice cut once We only have one planet Please request an eir before you make your final decision You I think we're ready to proceed. Thank you very much Mayor Watkins city council members jillian greenside We are here today to appeal to you to reject the mitigated negative declaration for the project before you and direct staff To prepare an environmental impact report for the pros proposed project Segment seven phase two of the rail trail or as the birds butterflies and the gray fox call it home This project has the potential to impact the natural environment significantly California law requires that significant impacts be disclosed to decision makers and the public Before you make a decision about the project The document before you an mnd is used only for projects that could not significantly impact the environment An eir is needed to fully assess and prevent or minimize damage to the environment by means of project alternatives Mitigation measures and mitigation monitoring Additional mitigation and alternatives to lessen the impacts outline have not been considered Defending the mnd in approving this project as proposed would expose the city to legal risk bureaucratic delays and additional cost An eir can be far shorter and cheaper than is suggested in the agenda report At the last parks and recreation commission meeting The director estimated that the eir for the entire parks master plan Could be completed in a six month time frame at a cost of $40,000 The project before you today is less than a mile in length and some environmental work has already been done The regional transportation commission's eir for the entire rail trail Contains mitigations that the city could use for this segment although they declined to tear it off that Preparing an eir will get the project up and running most quickly Defending this flawed mnd will result at least in an appeal to the california coastal commission The ccc has an urgent interest in protecting remaining wetlands and riparian habitat and is likely to accept an appeal We support the rail trail We thank mere Watkins for representing the city at the upcoming climate meeting We all support getting folks out of our cars We also need to acknowledge when we are sacrificing the natural environment to achieve this end And fully mitigate what we can We must achieve the goals of the project while simultaneously protecting this habitat area We all agree as people who care about the environment that environmental review must be consistent for all projects The ones we do support as well as the ones we don't To point out a few inadequacies in the mnd before you The conclusion that this is a low quality riparian habitat by the city's biologist is directly contradicted by the evidence we submitted The mnd uses regional databases rather than on-site observation We provided a 110 page submission of evidence by biologist dr. Rachel O'Malley phd Documenting that this project has significant impacts on the environment On request the city said none of its biologists reports was available Sequa requires that an eir be completed when experts have differing opinions and there is public controversy which applies here An eir is necessary for a proper traffic circulation study to assess safety and vmt vehicle miles traveled reduction associated with the project The impact of great numbers of bicyclists on the wharf roundabouts and already impacted intersection should be studied Moving the wharf kiosks would only speed cars up not good for bicyclists or pedestrians Alignment of bike trails is important However, this alignment does not connect to west cliff drive Nor allow easy access from the lower west side streets the button to bay street and the bay street bike paths An eir would allow a thorough examination of alternatives Alternatives which exist and avoid both larboranke park and the steep dream hill hill dream in hill But they have not been carefully evaluated The conclusion from our staff and consultants is that quote the project would not significantly change the conditions relative to existing conditions This is hard to fathom Consider that this three quarter mile project involves the removal of 42 trees 16 of them heritage trees The removal of thousands of cubic yards of soil The removal of all undergrowth and brush habitat All nectar sources for the myriad of butterflies observed on the trail Covering the soil with a 12 foot wide three quarter of a mile long impervious service trail erecting a 54 inch wire fence on one side And a three to 19 feet high retaining wall on the other Introducing lights security cameras and hundreds of humans into this habitat And the conclusion is no significant change This is a change from a silver oasis into an urban corridor Complete with mechanical light operated monarchs as is proposed in the arts master plan In conclusion we ask that you vote to reject the mitigated negative declaration for this project And direct your staff to begin begin preparation of an eir as quickly as possible To lay the groundwork for a rail trail project that meets both human and habitat needs Which in the long run are all connected? Thank you very much Thank you So at this point we'll go ahead and turn it over to our responding applicant, which I have here as leo menna And you'll have 15 minutes to speak and present any evidence at this time and or staff. I believe So you'll have up to 15 minutes. Okay. Thank you So i'm going to try to respond to everything that was mentioned and I will just say that most of the answers that Or most of what i'm going to be discussing is already in the record as a part of our correspondence So i'll begin with the question around tiering. Why did we not tier from the from the Eir for the master plan And I'll just say that there is no requirement for a lead agency to Tier from from this the city has the ultimate discretion to make that decision and in this case they decided to make The decision to do a complete analysis of the project in an ism nd you And doing doing so by analyzing all potential impacts according to the sequel guidelines Okay, so I hope that clarifies that Um, and I'll just read to you exactly what we what our response Says the letter correctly identifies that the recirculated ism nd does not include the mitigation measures from the Monterey bay Sanctuary scenic trail network plan fat finally air the city is As a lead agency uses discretion to not tear from this finally i are the city crafted mitigation for habitat loss based on site specific considerations Specifically mitigation for the impacts on the disturbed riparian habitat was crafted based on consultation with caltrans During the need for process who in turn consulted with the department of fish and wildlife and determined that the proposed mitigation Of planting willows around antinally pond was sufficient to mitigate the impact And that's from the letter dated april 29 2019 um, the next thing that i'll i'll discuss is the question around wetlands and site observations We did do site observations that's documented in our Um in our ism nd as well as in our correspondence where we did go to the site as recently as i'll have to look at my notes, but you know Before our correspondence in in in april to see the site where the Monarch butterfly habitat was going to be be lost in 2019 so Our conclusions are based on Not just what the what records but also field Field reviews and that's all documented in the ism nd as well as our nes The natural environment study in terms of wetlands a site assessment was done To identify whether any wetlands would be affected by this project. What was what was identified was that the area south of the south of the site due to The vegetation there and the ordinary high watermark That area was classified as a riparian land cover So that's what we're talking about when we're talking about impacts of the 0.93 acres that would be affected By this project which is classified as riparian land cover and which we have qualified as low quality due to its separation from the railroad track the presence of non-native vegetation and Again, it's uh, it's the location of the ordinary high watermark The next thing that I will Address to you is the question around the loss of the riparian land cover Again our conclusion was based on whether this project would result in a substantial adverse effect On riparian habitat but as well as as well as special set of species and that's documented in our correspondence as well We looked at the quality of the site the whole site nere lagoon We looked at the 0.93 acres located on the south side of the railroad between Well, there's a between the lagoon and south of that is labyrinth park So considering all that this narrow strip of vegetation that is that we calculated to be a total of 2.2 acres That which we then identified we would Effect 0.93 acres Considering that we did include mitigation for the restoration of habitat off site The reason we we haven't done it on site is because there's not there's no space So we're looking off site to mitigate that that that that impact at a three to one ratio Not a one to one ratio not a two to one ratio, but three times the effect I will Continue with talking about I'll just I'll I'll add about the question about How VMT and greenhouse gases we did receive a comment that that we didn't account for the project's impact on greenhouse gases and In our correspondence we've documented that not this project will Mitigate trees at a one one two to one and three one ratio Which would offset the impact from any kind of carbon loss due to the removal of trees as well as the overall reduction in Vehicle trips as well as the fact that this project is supported in the climate action plan There was a there was a question about or there was a there was a comment about Lights and the effect of lights on species That's again something that was included in the document and included as an analysis in the document as well as in our correspondence We've identified mitigation measure in our aesthetics impacts that would require the screening of lights so that it's located on the rail and not disseminating Far from it. So again, that is something that we have considered and that we've documented in our document The the question about the converting this into an urban corridor This this area is already in an urban area. It's in the middle of the city of Santa Cruz Next to a wastewater treatment plant next to an active railroad and next to a park and next to homes as well So I just like to say that This place is already an urban area and our 0.93 loss of riparian habitat considering everything that I've mentioned Would not exceed that threshold of significance I think that's that's our And that's it for me. Thanks Just one response to something about moving the kiosk at the work. That's not in this plan All we are is tying into the existing roundabout And that the the crossing of pedestrians and bike was already Contemplated known about when the design of the roundabout was done. So it's taken into consideration Thank you Okay, so at this point we um, we'll go ahead and have our opportunity for a public comment to occur What that will look like is we'll go ahead and start since there's two approved extra time Organizations speaking they'll go ahead and go first for the four minutes Then we'll go ahead and open it up to individuals who would like to address the council Even just briefly in one minute and then those that would like to address the council within the two-minute time frame So we'll start with jenna cole who is the new executive director of bike santa Cruz county and jenna. You'll have up to four minutes Good afternoon. Thank you for honoring the request mayor Watkins City council members city manager and staff My name is jenna cole and I thank you. I am the new executive director at bike santa Cruz county This is my sixth day on the job And I feel as though the past week has been a crash course in all things bike santa Cruz county I kind of feel like i'm back in college again I'm here today representing our group We are here to encourage you to deny the appeal of the planning commission's decision to move forward with segment seven phase two The mission of bike santa Cruz county is to promote Bicycling How can we best accomplish this by supporting the actions and the projects that make it safer and easier for people to ride their bikes? The monorail based sanctuary scenic trail will do just this Providing sanctuary for folks who are intimidated by riding on streets that were created for cars To have a relatively level surface to get from point a to point b To entice folks, especially youth and families outside Away from their phones and their computers To access nature that is close to their home to their work and to their school To reduce the barriers of steep hills and heavy traffic that may leave people Unwilling to even try to ride their bike or walk as a means of transportation In doing this we reduce the human impact on the environment We increase community health and well-being and most importantly, we increase the health and the well-being of our youth As a watsonville native, I am impressed with the walkability of santa Cruz From my office. I was easily able to walk here today What was not super easy Was riding my bike to santa Cruz from my home this morning I found myself seeking some solace from the commuting madness that is freedom boulevard and so cal avenue I veered off the heavily trafficked roadway pedaled through capitolah and up The bike bypass the bike and pedestrian bypass there by knob hill I ran up claire street and I wove through the neighborhoods in live oak via a Bike and pedestrian friendly passageways over to bromar that has a really great bike lane Through the calm of iran a gulch Only joining the fray again at branza 40 and being able to just slide back down into my office The moments where I could relax a little bit on my bike Not to be on heightened alert the entire time watching for cars Watching for trucks and for buses Those moments were the sweet spots in my commute this morning All neighborhoods all residents Deserve access to those sweet spots on their commute from work To and from work to and from school to and from shopping or play Segment seven phase two is a little more than a half mile of sweetness It has the ability to link the residents of beach flats With easier access to their school to their work to shopping and to play To enjoy the area that they live in a little bit more To help people start thinking about how they can navigate the city without getting into a car every single time To create a new mindset for our youth It's reshaping the norm We believe that the city has done its due diligence in studying the information Is that four that's four and you're welcome to leave any comments you like and we can review them also. Thank you so much Thank you for having me today We'll go ahead and now invite up erica stranovic, excuse me, but sorry stranovic. No worries. It's senojevic. Oh, well, okay. There you go Thank you very much from the Sierra club and you'll have also four minutes. Thank you so much So my name is erica stranovic And I represent the sierra club and i'm conservation committee chair, which is what i'm doing so And I really want to emphasize that the sierra club really loves the idea of reducing vehicle miles traveled We want the rail trail to succeed because we completely agree with bike santa cruz county that it's hard to ride your bikes out there However, we are not talking about a segment that actually addresses highway one traffic We're talking about section seven segment two, which is Nowhere near the highway one traffic impacts that we're attempting to address This will actually pretty much be an excursion train piece of the of the ride so And we really want to make sure that this is the best possible project We aren't looking for a mediocre project. We want to make sure that this project succeeds fully So it actually reduces traffic the whole length of the trail um And because of that we really cannot ignore the fact that this is riparian habitat this is And cumulative riparian habitat throughout the rail trail project Needs to be addressed the environmental documents do not address the cumulative impact of all the riparian Habitat that will be lost along the rail trail and the section here really does not do an adequate job addressing The riparian habitat loss The other thing is that this is a wildlife corridor and that must also be addressed I am really bothered by the argument that because this area is not completely pristine That therefore it's okay to further degrade the habitat and excuse the metaphor But to me it seems like having somebody who's been abused their whole life and say hey, you know It's okay. You've been abused before let me keep abusing you and and that's just really how it occurs to me So I really hope that we get away from this idea that just because land is not pristine that it doesn't deserve our protection And the hope that it will be increased in biodiversity All of our land needs to be healed The protections that have been mentioned in the environmental documents are not sufficient and mostly only address Construction impacts they do not address long term impacts For example, there's some replacement habitat mentioned and there's some token reference to three to one riparian habitat reference however, I really want to be I'm concerned about that because There are many projects which are slated to have riparian habitat be mitigated and addressed or replaced however the mitigations Do not necessarily actually happen. Jesse street marsh in our backyard is one of those One such project that is very much associated with the replacement of the neary lagoon The yeah the neary lagoon park and jesse street marsh was never restored as the city had promised to do And furthermore the three to one as staff mentioned Yes, the there's a three to one standard for habitat replacement. That is because Immature wetlands is not equal to mature wetlands. So that is of course needed. However, I think we need to make sure it actually happens And the reality is that there may be other return alternatives that are cost effective and produce a better project And those need those options need to be evaluated the expensive retaining wall, which will damage the Ability for wildlife to migrate through there may not be necessary. The wall will also affect drainage patterns Which will further degrade the riparian habitat There's ample room on bay in labyrinth park And if a route up along that street was used That would lead to better connectivity for residents Your time is up, but you're welcome to leave your comments. Um, but that is concludes your four minutes. Okay. Thank you So at this point we'll open up to any individuals who want to address the council on this item What I'll do is ask if anybody briefly wants to address us Please line up to my left and you'll have an opportunity to do so in one minute And if you'd like to address us in the two minutes, you're welcome to do so We'll go ahead and have you do that after the one minute timeline So if anybody just wants to briefly address the council, I know that many of you have been here Waiting, please do so. You'll have one minute And if if there's nobody who wants the one minute, then we'll go ahead and open it up to the two minutes So interested in the one minute here. Okay Good afternoon. I'll do my best to do one minute. My name is bob morgan And as a representative of the campaign for sustainable transportation We urge you to move forward with The advocacy for a Mitigaya rather a declaration of a non eir review We walked the corridor this segment seven with Rachel O'Malley And we had a very healthy discussion after walking both that corridor as well as the bay and Westcliff drive proposed parallel project. We felt that that project was not satisfactory We do believe that this segment seven project will indeed enhance The potential for bike riders and pedestrians and we urge you to act quickly and efficiently and Approve this negative declaration. Thank you Anybody else within one minute, please? Okay Mayor Watkins council members. My name is solidine sale My wife and I live on western drive and we're 50 plus year county residents. We're also long time Sierra club members I speak today to urge your denial of the appeal of the planning commission's unanimous approval of phase two section seven of the coastal trail At this time the city faces a number of very serious challenges Budget housing homelessness among them The rail trail is a singular bright spot where a civic improvement project has been unanimously approved And results are already becoming apparent We love the new bike and pedestrian crossing of the San Lorenzo river on the train trestle Approval of phase two of section seven Will complete the last critical link between the east side west side and wilder ranch and the parklands beyond Thank you. Thank you Anybody else for the one minute time frame? My name is tom frederick's I Have attended rtc meetings in the development of the rail trail project I intended the city's planning meeting in in in advance of this meeting and I i'm basically an observer And what I take away from what i've seen so far Is that this could be the biggest public works project in the county? It's a protected transportation corridor that goes from one end to the other And I really got that when I went to the opening of the trestle bridge I really got that this is away from traffic It's safe and it has a multitude of multitude of uses and those uses Are the trail the trail and the rail benefit the least expensive modes of transportation. Thank you Hey And if there's no one else who wants to address us in the one minute, okay, please step forward Good afternoon council members. I'm matt ferrell. I live on the east side of Santa Cruz And I urge you to deny the appeal and approve segment section of the rail corridor Based on the experience of What arana gulch has done for our community on the east side? I think this will be a similar benefit to the west side of santa cruz. Thank you I don't believe I see anybody else who wants to address us briefly within the one minute timeline So we'll go ahead and open it up now for up to two minutes Thank you for having us here. I am kershiduram and I'm a longtime veteran environmentalist and And I'm an active transportation expert even sold my car and have biked around the county for 14 years But I'm coming here just having have served as a chair of the santa cruz transportation commission when you had a city transportation Commission and from my many years serving on the climate action task force and that is my goal I agree with my colleagues erica rachel jillion But I do not agree with the strategy because we have this urgency this overarching urgency of the climate crisis And I think we need to act like yesterday We are experiencing you just have to step outside The last month i've been pelted with um on my bicycle winter cold rock-sized hail pieces on my back In late may thunderstorms all right extreme heat I think i'm talking to people who agree that climate change is now it's happening It threatens a larger area or a beautiful redwood forest that rely on fog or not getting the fog they need to survive We need to change our behavior now Listen to people like gretta from sweden specifically car driving I know about transportation in the city of santa cruz in the county That's the biggest and largest contributed to climate crisis Is car driving and we need extreme measures to get people to convince them to change this behavior and get out of their cars So how do we do that?  I need an off-road path studies support this people need an off-road path I think I applaud the staff for listening to my colleagues concerns The one thing I would add is maybe they could meet with them one more time and just address specific refinements to better the design But don't delay this. I myself have waited 26 years waited 30 for ronagolch and similar This is so similar to ronagolch where we were divided. So, please don't delay it move it forward. Okay next speaker Hi, I'm uh elinor mendez. I just graduated high school. I'm also an intern at bike santa cruz county I'm not here representing bike santa cruz county though. I'm here representing the uh High schoolers and middle schoolers who I just left behind I Yeah as a young person in santa cruz and as a person with a lot of little cousins and a little sister there's a really huge need for bike lanes and Better bike facilities and santa cruz. I see this most urgently with my younger sister who is at home right now with all of her friends Playing pickup sticks in my living room because they can't get farther Than the boardwalk on their bikes. They don't feel safe riding on seabright or broadway or mission or bay or so cal That's That's about it. So this is not just um this This is urgent. This is not Something that can really be delayed any longer. Thank you Hello. Hello. Good afternoon. My name is mary odigard and I agree with elinor Because I work with children and it is really I when I work with children I walk and bike everywhere with them I also bike everywhere. I possibly can but especially when I'm with the children it's so much better to be safely away from the automobile and This is an opportunity to see this happen in our county. This segment is really important Another aspect of the segment that you've heard but I'll reiterate it is that there's a three percent grade that the railroad lines have used to put in wherever they are they don't Deviate much from that and so that makes it good for people that are a da and needs It's it's really important and I I Want to thank the city and the staff and all the people that have put in efforts to address a lot of the concerns that have been brought towards up to mitigate the environmental Degregation But I also know that as a railroad line they spray spray spray to kill everything along there This is going to be an improvement. There's going to be more life along that line I also know that um in that neighborhood on a sunday morning about a month ago I saw a gray fox cross in california avenue The creatures are out there with more people walking and riding and out of the automobile, which this is going to encourage The creatures are going to have a safer time and they're going to be out there with us and it's so sweet so I really recommend that you Deny the appeal and move forward and I also am a cr club member for a long time and I really want to see this happen. Thank you. Thank you Thanks speaker Micah bozner Sierra club member um, first I just want to say that I do respect the appellants I really appreciate how much they care about wetlands We have a large degrade at wetland at the jesse street march Which could be an active habitat and I urge the council at another meeting to work better on on recovering that Um, but I don't like that they say they support the rail trail because the rail trail is a specific thing The rail trail is a trail along the rail line And we've been working for that for 15 years to identify that to gather support for it to map it So if you don't if you want the trail somewhere else, you might care about bikes and the environment But you don't support the rail trail and and most people do I mean notice that you got about a thousand comments and you got about 20 against I mean, this is a 98 percent approval rating for the staff for the city like that never happens, right? So you don't have 98 percent of people come and say we support you we want you to do this That's that's unheard of and that's the history of the rail trail the appellants um Talk about EIRs in the sense that we should do an EIR for every change to a degraded habitat But I don't think that's the intent of environmental law Under that logic you'd have to do an EIR when you added a bedroom to your house or when you replaced a sewer line I mean this is a gravel filled Creosote filled rail road corridor with a road embankment on one side and a sewer treatment plan on the other Will it change? Yes. Is it is it anywhere near pristine habitat? No People have said this is similar to ronigolch, but it's not ronigolch was a much nicer habitat and ronigolch had significant opposition This is 2 percent opposition So just to start to read some of the people that don't usually come out to support city projects who are on record for this Foster from ride a wave edgar from the beach flats community center and simonton rolling seyer Peter scott chris connerly matilda rand the csft letter was signed by rick lonjanotti and bruce van allen jeffrey smidberg ron pomerance Micah posner these are people that are dubious of city projects But in this particular case we want you to go and want you to go yesterday and build this thing. Thank you Good afternoon. Hi. My name is teen andrietta and I have lived in santa cruz county since 1984 I am a seer club member and I disagree with this appeal And I am one of the many volunteers of friends of the rail trail who have been tabling All over the county to share news about the rail trail in general Our volunteers have been doing community outreach at farmers markets and special events like earth day Like to work day open streets the trestle ribbon coveting and other community fairs and events at these events We talk to people about the rail trail and the most common comment we get is What's taking so long? This is a popular project and people are eager to make the verses their voices heard And I just noticed here's a lot of our our postcards that we that get signed for the uh For the planning commission. I just got another person that just signed one We have delivered approximately 650 postcards in favor of segment seven phase two along the tracks Since the vote in april we have collected over 800 more postcards in favor of this project Most of the 800 cards are from the city of santa cruz residents including many from the beach flat residents These are just some of the copies from the beach flats residents that are in favor of this And let's see about 30 percent are from county residents who recognize that this segment is a part of a larger regional project If we don't build our segments as planned it damages the viability of the whole project. Thank you Here's another card. Uh, hello. I'm ryan sanataro. Uh, I've lived in santa cruz for quite a while I use my bicycle as my main mode of transportation here in uh in town And I want to speak in terms of the strategic vision that's involved in this decision here And basically you're being asked to uh Pay a lot of money create a lot of environmental destruction in the Very slim hope that there will be a commuter train that runs from the santa cruz boardwalk to Davenport that the voters of this county or the voters of United states will come up with the funds to be able to make something like that happen If you leave the tracks in place, you're forced to make these devil's choices of Where you end up with problematic A problematic construction the the vision of active transportation is one where you have a really proper divided trail where you can have slow people and you can have relatively fast people on their bicycles or their e-bikes You have the santa cruz greenway with 10 000 signatures And i'll bet half of those people also sign these green cards because the distinction between Rail and trail and a rail trail which in the united states means take out the rails and put in a trail Is not clearing people's minds as leaders you get the opportunity to take this higher view and look at the long run And if you put in a narrow trail that doesn't have like iran a gulch where You end up having people walking around each other where people go slowly where it becomes more dangerous You're what you're doing is condemning santa cruz county to a limited vision Based on a belief that is simply not going to happen and so I urge you to do whatever it takes to Change the discussion so that we actually get a rail trail here in santa cruz county that provides active transportation. Thank you I live in santa cruz on the west side Um The tracks are the problem. It's uh the presence of the tracks leave us Um quarreling over over the scraps what's left behind Dimethyl phenol anisol benzo quinone are listed as acutely toxic by the national center for biotechnology They are produced by natural processes acting on coal tar creosote Itself a band carcinogen Fully 50 percent of our rail corridors covered in creosote treated wood in the form of railroad ties and wood and ridges spanning marsh and aquatic habitat throughout our county Exposures by inhalation touch and leaching into water these materials persist bio accumulate and continue to be produced every day To my knowledge, there is no assessment remediation or accountability by way of eir sequa or epa due to the legal status of freight lines Broadly known as preemption On that basis alone good stewardship by our local leaders would indicate the removal and remediation of what may be the greatest biohazard in our county The plan thus far insisted upon by the rtc would increase exposure by of thousands of people per year Proximity and exposure being determined simply by the minimum distance allowed to a moving train Rail banking was created by the stb to separate rail operators from the financial Liability of lines that no longer pay while retaining all the legal status of preemption Pads are allowed in the interim and is typical of how paths are created across our nation Over 300 miles of trail have been returned to rail service since 1993 The authority of the stb under preemption is complete and its decisions perfunctory The existing rails are of no use for any future modern passenger rail And you're welcome to leave your comments if you like Hi, my name is berry scott. I live in aptos. I'm uh co-chair of the friends of the rail and trail and an advocate for transit and for trails I I've come today with to drop off 520 signatures 96 comments online Change.org device And it says please uphold the planning commission's unanimous decision in support of the west side trail and stand by the pledges you made during your campaign This phase along with the just completed sand Lorenzo trail expansion will connect all the Santa Cruz from the east side to the wilder ranch Not only that It'll allow me to take a to take a bike To these meetings from my home in aptos and thousands millions I don't know of other people to do the same but more importantly to me And i've been passionate about transportation and transit forever is those tracks are important anyone that tells you it's just an excursion train Or that we only really want to trail is missing Very important data The tracks are there for our future for transportation The rtc unanimously Voted to pursue High-capacity transit of some form On that corridor and we're building the trail now any attempts to get the tracks out Is in my opinion misguided and can only cause delays With respect to the the appellants passionate Work to improve the plan I applaud them. I think the system works I think what we've learned if you look and I've read the documents Nathan new yin's responses to the to the letters And the details and I can see that a lot of work has been done to make this a stronger plan a better design And I think at the end we end up with environmental Features That leave us in better shape than we are today if we do nothing. Thank you. Thank you Ah, good afternoon council members. I'm david van brink a santa cruz resident of 31 years as of last thursday And a member of the board of the friends of the rail and trail This is not a question of should we do an environmental review or should we not the city and its consultants Have done more than a year of environmental review They've published environmental documents take an input from the public delay the project in order to modify the project in response To those public comments, especially from the sierra club I expanded the scope of the review published the expanded review of the project and its environment This is what an environmental review and public engagement looks like the city has done exactly what it should have done We now have another new list of concerns another excited list of binomial species designations presented after all the others have been addressed We can always list some more To delay now with more review will not reveal new information. No new tradeoffs will be considered or will be available to consider It would be only that more delay on a fundamentally pro-environmental project Their planning commission gave extensive consideration and discussion to this issue They voted unanimously to approve the city staff's position that the lengthy environmental process conducted to date Should be finalized and the project should move forward The city has been responsive to concerns. The project is overwhelmingly pro-environmental And the public is overwhelmingly supportive and eager Um, please deny the appeal and move forward. Thank you Thank you Mayor Watkins council members. My name is bruce sawhill. I'm a santa Cruz resident and board member of friends of the rail and trail I have three points to make quickly One is about public health and safety This trail is not for the determined cyclists who are abundantly represented here today It's for the cyclists to be that aren't here the trail is to be a consistent and safe experience of refuge Free of challenges and gotchas Detouring onto streets like driving on the freeway and coming suddenly to a t-intersection with a stop sign Bay and west cliff is the only place I've had a bike accident in the last 30 years I've ridden through their hundreds of times on my way to go swim in the ocean. I would like to have an alternative About time and money Not only is time equivalent to money, but it is also equivalent to avoidable emissions of co2 and other environmental impacts If one segment of the rail trail is delayed or forced to adopt a more expensive alternative Less money is available to complete other portions of the rail trail in a timely fashion Or remediate environmental impact One isolated segment of the rail trail is like the first fax machine. Remember those it doesn't have to have It doesn't have a profound impact until it connects with others Uh segment 7b connects to the first completed segment the brilliantly engineered cantilevered trail bridge over the San Lorenzo river It's important on alternatives Descartes famously said a difference that makes no difference is no difference. He probably said it in french The alternatives put forth such as using some combination of bay street la boronca and the dream in Intersection have been considered and rejected on numerous grounds too steep for 88 too expensive too unsafe, etc The unacceptability of these alternatives will not change with an eir and summary Let us seize the day and move forward to 7b It's been seven years since we acquired the rail corridor. Deny the appeal time to ride Thank you I'm paul shellhammer a recent article in the new york times began with this sentence Climate change is the greatest challenge humanity has collectively faced The real question before you today is Are we in zanacruz serious about doing our part on climate change? Doing our part means above all else reducing carbon emissions in transportation Because in our community Transportation is the sector that generates more carbon emissions than all others combined The most achievable way to do that is to convert a portion of around town car trips To non-carbon alternatives like biking and walking Exactly what the trail in the rail corridor would do Climate change calls for urgency and we are failing the urgency test The rtc adopted the trail master plan and environmental document five and a half years ago A super majority of voters approved additional funding for trail construction Two and a half years ago and so far only a couple hundred yards of trail has even gotten as far as breaking ground Today you are being asked to further delay a key piece of the trail in a heavily populated area Where it would do the most good in converting around town car trips We have already had years of environmental study of this project The city began an environmental review and hired an environmental consultant four years ago The city has Caught the city has sought public comment has listened has modified the plan to Excuse me to deal with concerns only to have the new concern Only to have new concerns raised and the city has fully responded to those the city has done everything it should have The fact is the greatest threat to biodiversity by far is climate change I urge you to approve the resolution rejecting the appeal No more delays Hello, i'm shan shrum advocate for special needs adaptive and disabled communities in santa cruse in favor of the approved route The proposed alternative is not a da compliant beach street hill is too steep for those with a mobility impairment Street travel is also a much longer route The alternative will discourage trail use by those with disabilities because Bay west cliff intersection is very challenging for bicyclists and pedestrians, especially on summer weekends Pedestrians must find it or leave it because of a requirement to use the regular roads and blind people cannot read signage Children may not read signage Creating a frustrating experience may dissuade people from using the trail If a small group can change this route by threatening a lawsuit Think about another group who would threaten a lawsuit because the city has proposed an inaccessible trail diversity is here disability and I mean disabled and adaptive people with or without mobility equipment are here If you build your city without adaptive people in mind, that's a choice We can't wish these things into into existence Um, i'm building ramps walkways and boat launches on cal's beach July 13th for the disabled community because the city and the county won't We all have a choice And today the choice is yours. Thank you Oh, my name is steven slade. I'm the executive director of the land trust Our resident of the city for 20 some years Urge you to support the staff recommendation and proceed Just a few points. I mean one this is one part of a multi segment system And every single segment is going to have people coming up and arguing for delays Fortunately, you won't have many more of those but everybody else in the county will And so we could have the whole trail in 10 years or we could have it in 20 or 25 years We could have a whole trail, but oh you've got to climb up pass the dream in And uh, it's just sort of I don't know people are waiting for perfect. I think we're pretty close to perfect with what we have Uh, the second point I want to remain say is This is one acre of affected habitat in a county that has 250,000 acres So, you know the future of the planet is not going to rise and fall fall with this one acre Of course, the land trust is providing space at antinella pond to plant all the willow trees you want They grow really well And in fact if the city would like to own the pond, we are always ready to give it to you Right now today I could give it to you Or not And the final thing I want to say is I have to admit I'm confused when I hear We support the rail trail, but we're worried about lighting. We're worried about impervious surfaces We're worried about cutting down trees You can't build the rail trail without these things. So I don't know how to support the rail trail and be against its construction Um, we urge you to move ahead with this project I think the the positive response you saw about the san marinzo bridge Well, this is going to be 10 times that And I would think you would want to be a part of it. Thank you Hi marine people's executive director of trail now Um, of course we support a trail now with who we are But I think what we're here to talk more about is the elephant in the room and I I couldn't have used a better example than the video that chris showed about the roaring camp train going by there The current plan is 60 trains a day from 6 a.m. To 9 p.m. It's really not realistic So you're developing your plans. You're spending a lot of money I mean you're spending 20 million dollars a mile to build this Trail all to accommodate a future passenger train. But in reality, that's not happening The california transportation ash commission. I was there in march They're asking for a response from the rtc on their business plan of how they're going to fund this train It's irresponsible for our community to spend additional millions of dollars We need those millions of dollars for other things 22 heritage trestles hit in beach trestle. What are we going to do with that with 60 trains a day the capitol You're going to have to tear it down and build a concrete trestle trail train Bridge it's really not going to happen. And I think that's the main thing we need to think about So I would agree slow this down do the appeal process and hopefully You start to send the message that the elephant in the room Is that we're trying to build a trail to accommodate a future train will never happen How are we going to get 60 trains a day going from the west side? through the boardwalk Through it's realistically and so we're hopeful that you take that moment in time to think of Where how are we going to spend our money to make our community better? Thank you greener mcfarlane live oak I'd say I stepped into this whole subject first meeting I went to as capitol city council when sierra club mark mesetti miller presented and then bud colligan of greenway presented and then everyone got their two minutes and Um and right at the end one of the councillors says well, that's democracy folks and I went home really keyed up like I didn't feel like democracy it felt it felt full of things not being said and I was so keyed up that I got in touch with Jim ruff of center for wise democracy whose work I'd been following for many years One of the things that happened with his work the wisdom council process Which is supposed to give a we the people a true participatory democracy role Was in austria with syrian refugees pouring over the border and the wisdom council process into the electorate Was so phenomenally successful that they made a constitutional amendment So they have wisdom council process twice a year and more If the citizen says, you know, we need to talk about this issue and gets a thousand signatures They'll have more than two So that's my input. We've had Jim ruff come down and trained some of us and he's coming down again in july to train more And we've had one wisdom council in january that was about the coastal trail Randomly selected citizens and they came up with take the rails out Railbank and they were pulled from all the zip codes throughout the county random citizen for one and a half days Going through all of this. So that's um, there'll be another wisdom council. There'll be another training.  I have I'm responsible for a bunch of other people People really want this to happen um I also The person who was the first person who wrote the public art plan for the city of santa cruz And so I've been around a lot doing a lot of work for the city and I know what vision can do I know what taking action can do And I just urge you to take a step and take that next place. I read the Packet for the today's meeting. I've read the plans. I've gone through the entire thing And there's been an incredible amount of really excellent work your staff your consultants. They are very This is not bad. This is really good work. Well done caring thoughtful And then there is a couple of people who have brought forth some challenge an appeal And I just feel like the weight of all of the research 20 years 20 however many years this has been going on Out lives these this one challenge this one appeal I'm also currently a grant writer and a fundraiser and I know that when local money is committed to a project That brings in money from outside like the city and the rtc is said so Once it's committed locally once the environmental review is approved Or the I don't know the language of environment, but once you appeal this negative declaration And you get the and it's approved and it goes forward it will bring in more money and we can complete the trail So thank you Before we begin i'll just see how many folks still want to address the council on this item Okay, so in addition to the two you'll be our last speaker Hi, i'm jane meo And you kind of remind me of having to be a parent who has two totally different children with different needs So the question is not really I would like to block that out It's not really Who is right or wrong by doing justice To both of your children because these issues eir no eir Do have specific needs and requirements so I would say in view of that a Environmental organization saved some trees by just walking with staff through that area Indicates that there is value that an eir Happens because just imagine how good this can be. It's not a question of building the trail It's a question. How well it is built We have sacrificed the environment over and over in the name of Profit or you know of the future or whatever we wanted to name it we can't do it anymore The kids are out in the streets They're demonstrating because we as adults aren't able to get it together to environment, you know protect the environment We got to stop that we got to come together and we need the right kind of form To make sure the environment is You know considered it's time and We can do it So thank you hi, uh jared boggs public school teacher in wasville for 11 years. Um, I walk I walked this segment here about five hours ago I hope you all get a chance to do that also um Appellants are I just want to make that one point I haven't heard today that appellants are speaking as I understand it contrary to the national sear clubs policies Uh, the national sear club rightly makes action on climate change its highest environmental priority Therefore it has extensive policies on transportation issues primarily A strong position on encouraging no and low carbon transportation activities Especially biking walking and rail transit, which is exactly what you're looking at Uh, so I think that's something to consider this appeal itself um Something that I have noticed about it is that there's one scientist involved In this zip code in this area It should be so easy to get 10 lined up in a heartbeat around an issue like this So that means something to me just as to right off the bat um And that's something that I hope that you would consider too We're we're surrounded with scientific institutions laboratories governmental agencies all engaged Environmental science or related activities Yet the appeal after so many years One scientist involved in my humble opinion from what I've seen and heard It seems overzealous about limited environmental impact And not appreciating the enormous benefits Um, and that's your job and I trust that you're going to do a good job of that There's always costs and that was that was in their president the appellant's presentation and I appreciated that They're absolutely right And of course your job is to weigh those against the benefits which are enormous And I trust that you'll do that finally since I still have some time social justice my god I mean as a teacher in Watsonville I know somebody said this isn't close to root one. They're not seeing the point It's someone else said a segment by segment We want to get to Watsonville those people are being punished in traffic Good afternoon, and it has been a long afternoon I know you can see from the pile of postcards from the petitions that have been delivered from the letters and emails You've received. This is a popular project Um, I know that a lot of people were coming here at about one o'clock this afternoon because they wanted to speak to this issue And they have not all been able to stay because this is you know gone a long day and um, it'll be even longer for you I'm so sorry But I'd like to take a moment to just ask the people in the audience who want to see this segment of the trail built And designed as and do that soon to please stand up If you're here to support the project Thank you it's You have a chance to approve a very popular project today And yeah, there is opposition and I believe they are sincere, but they are small in number and in this case I believe they are in error I think that this is a misuse of the environmental review process to delay this this this project And make it more expensive and basically destroy it and move it somewhere else And then it's not a rail trail anymore as mica pointed out You know other people have already pointed out that um this trail is not adjacent to neary lagoon at all It's adjacent to the sewage treatment plant There are acres of cement and equipment between the proposed trail and the lagoon and the plant is full of Activities and lights all the time any additional light or activity along the trail Will not be next to the lagoon and will be insignificant compared to the current level of disruption that that area has There's been a lot of environmental review already There's been a lot of accommodation to the concerns The appellants have really failed to present any evidence that putting a path on the far side of the sewage plant Is going to from is going to have any damage to the biology of the lagoon No additional substantial evidence has been presented the mitigated negative declaration is sufficient And I the a new eir is not required the appeal should be denied and I hope you will do that today. Thank you And you will be our last speaker Good afternoon scott graham. Um, here we are we've got another case of we must destroy the environment in order to save it Um The city has sidestepped the environmental impact report process By declaring that there is no unmitigatable Things in this project, but they're putting up this ugly Retaining wall Which I don't see that it's even necessary and they have to cut down a bunch of trees in order to do this To put this wall in Instead of rushing To do this project The way it is Let's take a step back And do the best possible project We don't need to rush into this and do a lousy project which will be a blight And just end up with this huge retaining wall which will be covered with graffiti in no time Why don't we do a project where we can Keep that hillside intact keep as many trees as possible intact not upset this wetland that's in there that area not cut down all these trees You know there's there oh, we're well We're going to save a bunch of trees and only cut down one in the in the grove where the butterflies go Well, why not we why don't we just make fake butterflies and have them fly around, you know I'm sure that's there's somebody building them somewhere already So I would encourage you To take a step back here and order an environmental impact report It would have been better if there was an environmental impact report for the entire segment All the way from Davenport to Watsonville so that you wouldn't have to go through this now But they decided to not do that originally And uh, so here we are Thank you Okay, so at this point, um, we'll go ahead and close public comment The appellants will now have uh five minutes to rebut and at this time, um, no new evidence can be presented Um before you start could I just ask one thing? We will be sharing the time. Could we just pause the clock while we change guard? Thank you Is and just a clarification ma'am. Uh, Watkins I know no new information But is it possible to respond to some of the comments that were raised that I'm seeing a had an eye for mercy the attorney. That's appropriate Thank you. Okay. Yes, um, I'm ready. Oh, it's started. Okay. Thank you First of all, we're not we're not Talking for the Sierra Club and the Sierra Club though does have a policy of protecting the environment I fully understand people's strong feelings and it's pretty easy to get postcard signed when it's I'm imagining It's the rail trail people are trying to derail it We're here because we are speaking on the side of we also have to protect the environment And in terms of getting this project done as soon as possible If that is the goal then it would be better for you in terms of timing to Ask for an EIR. The other process will be far longer. I just like to take an example of that The idea that the environment has been looked at The the biologists have said that the tree mitigation That we'll be planting saplings so that the carbon emissions issue has been mitigated Surely you don't even have to be a biologist or an expert to know that a mature tree sequesters carbon at a Huge amount compared to a sapling and people have estimated 90 to 1 So we are taking down 42 trees in this area 16 of them Heritage three times 16 does not equal these 16 trees This is not an urban area if you have walked it. It is an oasis within an urban area The neary lagoon is not the project site. The project site is the site you have walked And having a rail line that goes through an area doesn't mean that the animal stop on butterfly's stop on one side Is is contiguous the We are not saying don't build we are saying that We can build it right. We can provide a safe Alternative that doesn't involve beach here. We've already said that and I think the last thing I'd say is that I will pass it to my colleague go ahead. Yeah I realize I was quite breathless. We have a great deal shorter time than the proponents So I do apologize tearing. No, I apologize. It sounded like I thought you were required to tear you were not I would recommend that you did I'm there you are But it it was not required. It would have actually substantially improved your analysis had you tiered But that was not The the point the point is that the cumulative impacts were insufficiently Examined because you did not tear you chose not to riparian assessment good to know that you did not do What I had thought you had done It makes it actually unfortunately worse because that means that you've missed a big section of the riparian Impact, which is a shame 2.5 percent of the neary lagoon riparian area Because you have a large riparian area. It makes the percentage smaller, but that actually makes the The habitat more valuable. It's a bigger patch and so Increasing the edge and reducing the size of an important patch is more damaging than Then taking an isolated patch away similarly a small amount when you jump when a Bird jumps from patch to patch in urban area. It needs those refuges It needs those patches that it can get through an urban wasteland. So biologically ecologically the theory is out of date I respect the fellow who was concerned that I'm only one person. I'm one unpaid person everyone else around here I think is paid. I am also the only phd that I'm aware of I don't know it's possible that others have the experience I do I I want us to do any IR so we can get more analysis not that mine is adequate at all Similarly the alternatives bay and west cliff Is unsafe If we put our money into the alternative that actually went that direction and our engineering and our brain and our smarts We could improve the safety and I actually just rolled it with a friend of mine Who's in a wheelchair and she preferred to go The route that I have and I'd be very happy to share with the city that is 100 80 and a compliant the whole way so There are alternatives that have not been considered The alternatives that have been looked at internally have not been done publicly It's the whole purpose of this is to actually get the input and the disclosure. So The last thing the last two things I want to say social justice We're committed to ADA easy trail all the way to the beach flats both directions I'm very very those who know me very interested in social justice and Supporters two of my friends said, you know These people want me to sign this card and they wouldn't really tell me what it was about now I'm not saying anything, but it really a thousand cards Multiplied by by the information that you get about it. Thank you. Thank you Okay, I want to thank um the everybody who is here today to speak to the item The presentations on behalf of the appellants and on behalf of our staff At this point, we'll go ahead and return back to our council for deliberation in action And I'll go ahead and see if there's any questions amongst our council members. So we have uh Council member lever and then vice mayor Cummings and then council member frown Thank you. Um, just wondering can I have one of those green postcards I'm trying to remember what's on them As to review that do you want to ask any additional questions? Um, yeah, so there's a lot Of content here, especially hearing from both the city staff the environmental researcher as well as the Appellants with regards to this section. I think there's Some very similar values as was mentioned by The appellants, but also an interesting conversation around The weight of immediate transportation relief to making sure that we're protecting the environment as sufficiently as we can The topic of carbon Sequestration with trees came up a couple of times and I was just curious with that three to one replacement Because I went and walked the segment just so people are aware I went and got a chance to walk through it look at all the trees and some of the suggested Spacing so I'm just curious because I noticed that there were trees there that were At least 50 maybe 100 years old that were growing along the rail corridor that were old oaks and stuff like that I believe so with the The heritage tree so with those Suggested replacement Trees are they going to adequately live up to the carbon sequestration of the trees that are slated or Slated to be removed and then if not how long is it estimated for it to take for them to reach That goal of carbon sequestration to match the existing vegetation that's there right now Um, the trees are two for ones are 24 inch box trees. So they're not you know the smaller Smaller trees, but I don't know that calculation. I've never seen it Okay, maybe the Researcher because it's rather it's rather relevant. I mean if we're talking about removing 42 trees 16 Or whatever 12 or heritage and we're replacing them on a three to one or two to one scale and some other location But they're going to be saplings or box trees that Significantly reduces the amount of carbon that they're able to take in and has there been calculations on that there has not been calculations on carbon sequestration typically Um In terms of what I've done on environmental documents. It's a qualitative analysis Um, it's considering all components of the project fact that this is going to reduce VMT This is going to reduce car trips. It's it's supported by the climate action plan Um, so that's just one component of of the of our analysis, but it's a qualitative analysis. Okay, um I appreciate that it is unfortunate To not have that data in front of us because I think we could make a really More informed decision if we had calculated that With the trees since we're on that topic when I went there I noticed that there were a ton of birds In the canopies of those trees of a big variety of them So cutting down those larger heritage trees or the willows that are sources of food as well as habitats for birds and other kinds of species With the relocation of smaller three-to-one willow trees. How long are we anticipating to see a Rejuvenation of that quality canopy that exists there right now. Um, I could I would have to check our Um mitigation plan to answer that question so I could I can try to get to that Um, I would have to get my computer though and and and pick that up. Okay. Okay. Should I do that? Yeah Okay, um, thank you as a point of clarification though not all trees are being removed. I know. Yeah. No, it's 40 46 42. How many? 42 so a considerable amount and then 16 are heritage trees. That's right Yeah, so 42 trees and 16 is heritage trees. That is a huge impact on canopy and wildlife Um, I also really appreciate the outreach work done by the group that did these green cards I know I'm a me organizer so I know how much work that takes in collecting signatures and talking with people But I don't notice anywhere on here that it mentions issues of environmental destruction or concerns about Environmental safety So I'm just curious if there's anyone from this group that collected them that could come and explain Why it's not included on here if it's a specific issue with the trail and Um Also how it's relevant. I'm just gonna go ahead and interrupt here that will that is not the Proper process for this type of of proceeding And so if you want to ask them offline in terms of any information for further clarification You're welcome to do so but at this time we won't be inviting anybody up to do that We've heard from the community. We've heard from the appellants We've heard from the staff so at this point in the public hearing it would not be appropriate to invite them up Okay, well then in that case I will just point out to my colleagues that there's nothing on this Letter of endorsement that talks about anything having to do with environment or environmental protection So just something that's something to be thinking about And let's see Oh, so the question about the mitigation solution is not being reviewed publicly Can we speak to that and have the mitigation? solutions And or alternative options been reviewed publicly with public input because the appellant said that it had not I can answer that question. Um, so I think what you're referring to is the alternatives. Yes, you are. Okay, so under sequa An initial study mitigated neglect recreation does not require an alternatives analysis and EIR does And so what we've referred to as The alternatives that have been considered have been documented in the correspondence with The coastal commission as well as the cr club. So, um in terms of it being a public process That isn't it isn't in the ism and d but that's because it isn't a required Thing in the ism and d. Okay. And so just to clarify. So i'm on the same page I just wanted to add to that is that the alternatives that staff have reviewed as part of the process Moving the trail to the other side of the track etc all the ones that mike and i had noted Have been in all the staff reports that have gone to the commissions and the council To date. So they've been part of the public process. Great. Um, My main concern though is for people that don't visit or go to planning commission meetings or review agenda packets And that are involved in community that may or may not be aware of the situations that are going on As you can tell i'm a big supporter of the environment, but i'm also a big supporter of alternate forms of transportation So this is a really tough situation To be in and I was just curious the appellant also mentioned that if we Order the eir it will be a shorter process than the alternate. Can you clarify what they're talking about? I think that's based on the assumption that by ordering the eir you would foreclose or eliminate the possibility of A legal challenge to the adequacy of the eir or of an appeal to the coastal commission, but neither of those are um a given and so If it were to circumvent Someone deciding to file an appeal um Then that might result in a shorter process But but it could still be appealed to the coastal commission after you Circulated and certified an environmental impact report or it could still be challenged in a in a sequa lawsuit And do you have an estimated timeline or city cost that would be incurred by that process if you just had to estimate from your experience um Whatever the timeline is it's longer than what I would estimate It's several months and in the six figures. Okay, so again just to bring it back to my colleagues So it's really i'm really In a hard spot with this one because I want to move the rail trail forward as quickly as possible But I don't want to cost us more money, but I want to protect the environment So it's thank you for answering the questions everyone. Um really really hard one Okay, uh, we have more questions for clarification I'll just sort of remind an orient art council to where we are in today's agenda We have a budget item to follow this item in addition to some uh public Uh consent public hearing items and then as you know, we have a big item before us in the evening So if um your questions are sort of uh oriented around what it would take in terms of information to make a decision in this regard I think for the purposes of being able to adequately address all the other items I'd go ahead and request that so we'll go ahead and start with council member brown vice mayor Cummings and then council member mires So I just want to make a quick comment appreciating all of the work that's gone into making this happen from The 1980s forward and thank you to people who have come out and and put a lot of time into Supporting the trail trail and the appellants as well for being really thorough in The review their review process and I think that the comments that have been made have made this project a better project In terms of the mitigations that we've been able to Get into the mitigated negative deck that is proposed So We've heard a lot about support for the trail trails, you know support support the trail only So, you know, but that's not really what we're here to consider today. Our primary responsibility Is about whether the project um that kind of the narrow questions about whether a fair argument can be made that there's Um likely to be significant or substantial impact and whether adequate alternatives are available and have been considered so um with respect to that I have um a question about the um I guess I'm I'm still not clear In terms of the mitigations that and I've read the the the document the r.t.c.'s program Environmental impact report and it sounds like there may be some mitigations in there that haven't been considered here in the negative deck that could Be could make the project a better project. I Can't figure out from I couldn't figure out where to find those because it's a it's an overall program EIR and so I couldn't discern because I'm not an expert which mitigations might be Make this a more environmentally friendly project So if we could get some clarification about that, I mean I I know that this is not a time to ask questions of but the appellants could try to Either answer that here or Perhaps be willing to to talk about that with our staff in the future. That would be really great um and then um, I Would just like to get a little clarification on the grading issue for the spawn street versus the um, the the rail corridor the rail trail corridor because I've seemed I've been hearing different Opinions about the ad a question. So I just want to get clarification on that um And I think that's All I've got in terms of questions In response to those two questions. So we're not a we don't understand what the alternative is that um, the appellant was referring to all the alternatives we've looked at You know that are off-route require going down the beach hill. There's it's not accessible Um providing getting enough right away to make an accessible would be buying private Property like the dream in or some of the other things like that to make it work with bigger ramps, etc and higher costs In reviewing the the master plan eir This product the mitigation measures before you are more site specific than those and those are bigger pictures So I think we're really addressing them. I don't know what else we could add that are in the master plan eir so Well, I guess since there are others who have a perspective on this Are the is any but anybody here wanting to suggest additional mitigations that might be considered as perhaps a way to move us forward More quickly. I'm just wondering if that's I'm not sure if I'm understanding. Are you asking this? Well, I'm just the appellants have said that they're Additionally there potentially are additional mitigations and I'm just trying to clarify is the only mitigation that the appellants What want to consider an alternative route? Or might there be mitigations along this corridor that could be considered? Yeah Okay, so we'll go ahead and maybe if you briefly have a response to that. We'll go ahead and give you I mean very brief Um into in terms of clarification I don't know if you really if you want to get specific to the question that you have before Well, I just if there I'm just trying to find a way to To address some of the concerns being That have brought to us without Further delaying the project. I'm just trying to see if there's a way we can move this forward And so the question before the appellant is what they're suggesting in terms of addressing those specifically. Yeah Yeah, okay, that's I'm not clear about that because like Mr. Schneider said the the master plan eir speaks to the entire rail trail not this particular segment So yes, I'll go ahead and maybe just one second I'll go ahead and have you respond, but I'll just um, maybe just orient us again back to the process the appellants had I'm just going to go ahead and orient us back to the process The appellants had 15 minutes to make their case in that regard five minutes of rebuttal And so to invite them back up I think is not necessarily common practice But the city attorney says that's possible if you want to just maybe briefly have one minute to clarify Anything very specific but the specific answer in that regard. I'm sorry. Excuse me. Mayor Watkins. Um the the the The eir mitigation I was alluding to is mitigation b b-2 parentheses b wetland and riparian habitat restoration impacts for jurisdictional Sorry, thank you impacts to jurisdictional wetland and riparian habitat shall be mitigated at a ratio of minimum Two to one for each segment and now this is not the same as willows individual willows Remember a whole thicket of willows is one tree. So Three trees is not a wetland Ratio, but wetland Mitigation All restoration compensatory mitigation areas shall be permanently protected through a conservation easement or deed restriction As and it shall occur as close to the impacted habitat as possible. So that's from the feir that wasn't used So that was the answer next question. Okay. Thank you. And then the other thing is if you turn the screen on I um, I did provide a Picture of the alternative. Okay Okay, sure. Okay Okay, so while that screen turned on you can review that we'll go ahead and have vice mayor come in So my next question is um What is the current vegetation management along the trail? I would imagine that because we have trains going through there on occasion that there's likely to be some form of vegetation management Um, yeah, that's the responsibility of the regional transportation commission that owns the right away And so they do some brush removal and maintenance the cities helped with the trash cleanup and things like that And then the other question I know that there was a mention of 42 trees and there's the 16 heritage trees that are going to be replaced at 2 to 1 ratio Is there any potential for the other trees to also be replaced maybe one for one? um, there is always that if you wanted to Requires that a condition. It's not part of the environmental mitigation, but as a condition for the project that's possible There's the associated cost and finding the location of what those Trees can be tricky because the ride away the rail rideways constrained, but there are other areas within the city That's possible to replant Okay, I just like to make a statement. Um, so One of the things that I've seen from this and I it's a difficult Topic to make a decision on because on one hand you have the potential Impacts on the biological species that occur along that trail In addition to that you have the benefits the environmental benefits from getting people out of cars and getting people on to Alternative forms of transportation in this case Getting them on to bikes and also the benefits the community benefits that come from rather than having people bike in the street Or um, you know, if they're a wheelchair bound Riding in the street that you have a safe secure path for people to actually use From a biological perspective, I mean this is more of a degraded habitat within our Within all the green spaces that we have access to It's currently very underutilized and I feel like this trail would be a very good way to access the space Um, the staff has done a great job with working with community members to increase the mitigations And um, I feel like it would be great if we can add some other conditions and we make our decisions. So, um I personally think that this is a really great project and given the Costs benefits and weighing the costs and benefits to having the trail I actually would be fine making a motion to accept the staff recommendation to deny to deny the appeal at this point in time I'll go ahead. Okay. Well, we have a motion by vice mayor Cummings is seconded by council member Matthews Was there any further comments? I've okay Your comments have been made. Okay. Interesting time. Okay. Okay. So, um council member Glover any Yeah, thank you. Um, so Vice mayor Cummings with that motion you had mentioned And it was confirmed by the staff that there would have to be specific direction for one to one replacement of the trees So are you got would you include that in your motion that we would make that effort not not make the effort But make the dedication to replace one for one for every tree that is outside of the Two for one and three for one designations of willows and heritage trees Great And Since I think I'm still not entirely clear but I did read And sir in response to dr. O'Malley's response that it's there is some Reference to that in the appeal on page 11. So but I'm still not entirely clear what it is Would you be willing to include? I don't know if it would be a condition or exactly what we would call it but um that direct our staff to have a continuing conversation with the appellants to try to Work with them to see if there are other mitigations that that might be acceptable or supported And I'd also say that includes the wetland mitigations So that's a friendly amendment accepted If we could phrase it that there be An ongoing discussion as the project moves forward for Further improvements that could be the appellants. It could be community members. Yeah, I wouldn't want to deny It's not a legal requirement, but it's okay. We'll go ahead and I'll go ahead and restate that So we have a motion by vice mayor Cummings to accept The staff recommendation to deny the appeal to condition it with having a one for one Or pardon me. What was the specifics of the tree one from one for all trees that aren't heritage trees one from one for all trees that are not heritage Or willows or willows and then to incorporate within the motion a Opportunity for ongoing conversation between staff as well as the appellants or other community members to continually look for ways to mitigate any environmental impacts. Is that adequately or appropriately I say direction to staff to communicate with the appellants and Allow the for other community input You know, we've now had about four versions of language and this will not be news to anyone I like to be clear what the language is. Do you want as the seconder of the motion with difference? Yeah That we give direction for staff to continue discussion With appellants and any interest to community managers on further improvements To the project as the plans move forward Is that accepted by the maker of the motion? And there's one point of clarification that I just Want to say is also with the one-to-one replacement that we do not replace any invasive species period We'll go ahead and okay comes from Matthews You know, I haven't looked at all those trees. Are they acacias? Are they, you know, that's my guess is a lot of them are invasive In and of themselves So, you know, I'm being generous. I think the one-to-one replacement for non-heritage trees is Probably overreaching. I'm willing to go along with it. Um, I leave it to our arborist to Um, determine appropriate places within our whole city Limits to to make good choices on that Oh, if you know, if it's 16 heritage and do the math whatever is left over on one-to-one That's an acceptable way to move forward to me Okay, let's leave it. Okay. Yeah, okay. So all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that passes unanimously We'll go ahead and take a two-minute break while we change Bring us back to our city council meeting I would like to reorder our, uh, agenda here. We're going to go ahead and Just temporarily pause the next side in which we'll we anticipate having a longer conversation on And move forward with our consent public hearing and our consent public hearing are items 28 through 32 on our agenda uh, I uh My understanding is that there aren't any council members interested in polling any of those items at this time And so um in that regard we'll go ahead and see if there's any member of the community that wanted to address this on any item 28 through 32 I think seeing none We're going to go ahead and bring it back to the council for action Is there a motion to move the consent public hearing? Okay, I think it was a motion by council member Matthews Okay, we'll do second by vice mayor Cummings. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that passes unanimously So we're able to now go back to item number 27 on our agenda item number 27 are in on our agenda Is our budget and I will go ahead and turn it over to Marcus and Tracy to give us a staff report Good afternoon council members mayor We have a brief presentation because this is our Third in-depth opportunity. We've received very clear direction on may 8th More direction on may 28th, and we ended in the may 28th meeting very close, but still with a small A balance to fully fund our next year's general fund budget The rest of the city's budget is still doing relatively well So what we're focused today on is just that small delta for our general fund budget to finish that And if you'll allow us we'll go through our presentation and where we really would like to finish up is in Your direction on our live model on all the outstanding items What I handed out in front of you is a two page summary of all the outstanding items to confirm Page one and page two and that's where we really want to get your direction And a lot of this was summarized in the staff report and all the attachments But we try to distill down to two pages that really the the key outstanding items that we can focus on So we've seen this slide before but it's with repeating ongoing projected shortfalls exist in the out years Solving this year's deficit will decrease future deficits Um deficits are projected into the mid 2020s and we should plan for surpluses to build up against a slow slowdown You've seen these charts before this we're just doing a few quick three slides of overview This is the projection of where our cash balances went end up Within our general fund are available reserves So that's our 10 percent general fund reserve and our city public trust and economic development trust We are projected to fall short When we when we finish the audit this year Possibly as high as 3.7 million dollars, which might require us would require us to come back to council And indicate which trusts to defund to cure our deficit deficit or 10 percent reserve This will be a conversation we have In the fall it really is contingent on there's a lot of cost to firm up Especially with the priority to unsheltered services And how much we're going to reimburse so there's still some work to do there to fine tune that number Just our order magnitude is we have some work now to make sure our reserves and trusts are where they need to be And we have concerns going out ahead with projected deficits that tracy just Recapped we have challenges coming ahead Much of which again isn't are doing this is a state wide countrywide issue With regard to lack of funding for infrastructure Loss of revenue and tax basis shrinking for us and many other states increases in pension Payments to the state to backfill their portfolio shortfalls a lot of those things. We don't necessarily have control over So we're we're concerned about what's coming ahead And that's where we're taking aggressive action now And we've continued to take aggressive action to not let that happen But it is getting closer. We're In a potential model In 2022 all our reserves would be depleted and that's we do not want to end up there And that's we're desperately inquisitively trying to avoid So these are the deferred items that were discussed on the may 28th budget hearing Council decided to defer these items and not include them in the budget solution packages These are still in the budget No community group reductions were taken no open street reductions And there was an increase in parking permits and meters that I believe you guys saw earlier today I mean you just want to reiterate there are no proposed community group reductions and There's no reductions currently for open streets. It's as funded as it was entering this budget process There was a discussion about it and it was it was deferred. So there's no Changes on that. I know there's been a lot of public concern about that particular item It's where we do need action today and we'll we'll get to the live models Kind of two budget those first two items are specific to the budget items three and four house cleaning sort of Item one is approving essentially the budget is scheduled changes that you have in front of you and item two is since A portion of our budget impact will be determined later this evening is to allow identifying some contingent budget solutions dependent on how much the rental housing task force would be funded from zero to two hundred fifty thousand dollars We were asking for the direction now so that we can Essentially move forward with an adopted budget contingent on what happens later tonight, and we'd already have that direction decided So that's option two. It's a little atypical for us to do this, but since it's just a few hours away I think this feels like a reasonable alternative option three is just affirming the water commission's recommendations regarding the water department's budget and option four is An amendment to our risk policy that helps fund 450 thousand dollar solutions for this fiscal year So it's tied to the budget's action But those are the four motions we're looking for today And we've be effectively done with the budget process. I'd like you to move on with bigger better things We don't need you to read pull out the magnifying glass to read this It's in front of you on the handout and we'll have the live model up with a clearer view But essentially you've seen the schedule before this is the about it was 2.26 million dollars before of the changes since we proposed the budget and that's created a lot of our Necessities to adopt budget solutions The number we've decreased the number to 2.09 million that's by starting with a premise of unfunding the council assistance We recognize that that'll be discussed but under this model that got us to a budget balance play So where we're at now is still adding 2.09 million in new additions Those additions are listed here. They're the same additions you've seen in the past except for the council assistance and they're on the handout in front of you Included in our solutions are 711 thousand dollars of new solutions that were identified in the staff report The biggest one is omitting our risk policy to essentially create a deductible program in place So if there are any claims by the general fund or any other operations Those operations would only be exposed to Most cases at 10 of the claim liability and the rest is picked up by insurance fund It's really a financing mechanism that the all the The general fund the police department the water department the garbage fund They would all pay it back over time, but essentially in year one they'd be limited to the only 10 percent of the claim amount We have the Taking we took out the 250,000 dollars again recognizing that that will be discussed later tonight and we have a contingency for that 63,000 you already approved earlier today for the parking permit fee increases We have a balance to restore the it help desk of 12 000 dollars to add back to the budget and 30 000 dollars to reduce engineering services and restore meter hood replacements these were on the fringes items that were Modest in their ability, but could have some good impact. So we got to a net 711 thousand dollars of solutions We had to factor in our asa joint powers or animal services authority joint powers Authority increased their budget by for us 23.3 23,300 so we have to reflect that That just summarizes This is the delta big it is balanced with all these actions we Would be balanced the second motion related to the Rental housing task force. So we've recommended bringing back some things that were deferred As a contingent option so to the extent that up to 250,000 dollars might be approved later this evening These would be the probably the priority order of how we would fund the 250,000 dollars Starting essentially with 30,000 and the 10,000 I just talked about from public works We'd bring back those 40,000 in reductions We'd go back to the parking permit program that you just approved early this morning or this afternoon And possibly consider increases there, but we also have parking meter rates to look at one of those two could be a 17,000 dollar increase delta We're also recommending to bring back Some items that were deferred Items related to facility repairs about 60,000 dollars. These are generic repairs placeholders for city general fund facilities across And there's 30,000 was placeholder for vegetation management that was we'd have to come back to council if there became a need We wouldn't ignore it, but we would just eliminate that flexibility We'd bridge any gap by What is ending up right now about 103,000 dollars of extra budget available? So that would get us to 250. This would be motion to pre authorize us to implement these actions Again kind of dependent on what the number is agreed upon later this evening And I could pause there if that makes any sense. We haven't done this a lot. I just want to make sure that made some sense Maybe I'll just say for clarity. My understanding is that you are sort of presenting before us two budget options One of which we if we were to adopt both this is my understanding is no matter what happens This evening there will be a budget to reflect that and so what this this budget option that we would potentially adopt incorporates the 250,000 that could be allocated to the rental housing task force and these would be the Elements that would be used to offset that cost. Does that accurately reflect that? Okay My one question What's shown as Alt e2 Increase the residential and guest parking permits. We just did that so we would go back for an additional increase Or look at there's still the parking meters to be considered in the beach area. One of those two could come back Okay, as a change further increases Is the intention to go through this list? Yes, so what I just want to recap is the outstanding motions and then we'll go right to the live model Which is you've got a hard copy of it and we've got the model up Again, we're looking for essentially there's three parts to adopt a balanced budget Approving the one two point oh nine million dollars in additions The seven hundred eleven thousand dollars of solutions and the a say member contribution increase that would essentially give us a balanced budget We asked for the authority to give us the contingent authority To balance anything that might be done later tonight with the rental housing task force and that would cover our grounds So we'd be effectively done with the budget with these actions and then items three and four house cleaning to help with the budget process That's the end of our presentation and if there's a pause to just make sure there are any questions on this otherwise We'd be happy to jump right into the model. Okay I'm wondering if we want to see if there's any questions for clarity at this time Maybe go ahead and open it up to the community if there's any public input and then return back for Our work on the model. Does that seem appropriate? Okay. Any questions councilman? Yeah, this is just a clarity one so on the rental housing task force the way it shows on this form that you've given us It's c Or So in a motion we would adopt a C for a which is sustaining The rental housing task force with additional actions and a c for b Without it Or would we adopt A whole second motion How do you just i'm just trying to We just thought for clarity we do it as a second motion. Okay. Got it two parts two motions. Okay Any additional questions for clarification at this time councilmember Just wondering if you're if you have the woman self-defense program in there and where is that Yeah, it's listed in the in there are 2.9 million dollars of additions The right there can show me or It's the cpva w That's in our adopted. That's yeah, there's there was I was confusing Is this something that the cpva w they already act on that and they approved it or Their budget is already included in the proposed budget. There was no changes to their funding level And I don't believe there's been any do they not decide how they spend their budget or We grant the authority and then they determine how it's spent Right, but so this is an imposition though We were said what you were telling them to fund this or they chose to fund this What are you pointing to this? I'm missing the point. I'm sorry. I'm just I'm not cpva w They made a decision to fund this woman's self-defense program Do you see a women's self-defense program? Is that are you specifically finding something in the documents in regards to that? Are you I'm asking this question. Um, just does Because it's never been clear to me how this it's going to be funded Um, well, I'll go ahead and maybe just uh, generally the way it works is a The council adopts a budget that includes funding for the commission and then the commission Works to develop their programming and the the self-defense funding is something they've traditionally funded Although I think they were looking at it and I can I can find out specifically but But it is ultimately up to the commission to decide what to do and to Recommend to the council. It does come back to you. For example, if they have to be agreements I have to be approved and that sort of thing I mean because originally this was part of our budget here I'd like to put it back in because it just it was never removed the 20 000 There was never a reduction in their funding, but it's not it's still not clear It's not clear about the cpva w they run their own budget. They