ssion on the Prevention of Violence Against Women to look for any possible solutions to make the neighborhood safer. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate all the comments of my colleagues. Thank you to staff and to the appellant and to everyone that came to speak to this issue. I think in terms of this decision, I'm really taking into account the kids that bike or walk to our neighborhood schools, Bayview and Mision Hill. From that neighborhood down And in addition, there's parking signs up that don't allow parking from midnight to 6 a.m. from what I can see and two hour parking restrictions and other parts of that, those blocks. And I think in this case, no, you're right. I would not want no parking in front of my house. It would be really inconvenient. But I think in this case, even if it was my street, I would have to outweigh the greater good for the community and especially the number of kids that we partner with Ecology Action. We have a whole safe routes to school program that we're encouraging to try and raise the next generation not to be as lazy as me and to get out on their bikes. I do like to walk, but biking is not my favorite. And so to move to those goals, I think in this case, I'm gonna support the staff's recommendation. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Vice Mayor. Council Member Watkins is recognized. Hi, I'll just be really brief. Thank you, Mayor. I wanna thank our staff. I wanna thank all those who came and spoke. I know these, one of the community members who spoke mentioned these decisions are always tough because you are trying to balance all kinds of components. And I appreciate the motion before us. I think there has been work that's been put in to get us to this place and the balance of the broader community with those of the neighbors and trying to do our best to really move forward in a direction that's gonna be good for everybody, I think is what ultimately we're seeking to achieve in regards to the public safety as the chair of the Public Safety Task Force, I just wanna commit that I'm happy to have that agendized and I can work with staff to do that. And I do think though it is a broader issue. It's a community and a neighborhood issue, but it's a city issue. And I think as a task force or as a committee dedicated to this purpose, that's a really applicable and important component for us to discuss. So just wanted to commit to that as part of the motion and a next step. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Council Member Brown is recognized. Thank you. I'll just quickly say I wanna thank the public works, the city staff who've worked on this first and foremost because you really have incorporated a lot of the recommendations that came out and addressed the concerns. Not all of them can be addressed through this project and those concerns extend well beyond whether or not we do this project or we don't. So I really appreciate the concern and the interest in exploring this through our commissions and hopefully through the city council at some point, we can be proactive about how to address those challenges. And really, I mean, concerns, challenges just doesn't seem like an appropriate word, when people are afraid and they feel traumatized. I wanna take that very seriously. And I also wanna add that we're hearing a lot about safety on the Laurel Street Hill. I lived at the bottom of it, I've ridden on it. I mean, I'm very familiar with it, as many of you are. So I have my own personal feelings about wanting that to feel safer for people who are navigating those streets. But I did wanna ask because the point has been made and we all know that simply adding the bike lanes is not gonna address the hazards of high speeds on the road. And so I just would be, I'm concerned about that and I'd like to continue to talk about that. And so I don't have really a question here, but I just wanna make sure that that stays in the mix and I know that you're aware of it and I think it is really important that we acknowledge it here as well. So thank you. Okay, everybody good? Everybody good? Okay. Thank you. A couple of comments. One, as I said earlier, I think that Appellant did a very good job of raising a set of legitimate concerns. I think that the council member, Kyle and Tari Johnson's amendments to the recommendation are helpful in that regard. I wonder if I might offer something as an additional direction. See if this works for you. Add additional direction that the city manager return at budget hearings with a plan for installing safety devices that prohibit remaining on traffic islands or medians at the city's 10 most busy intersections. Does not, let me see if that's okay with you. If okay with the second? Okay, so if I might engage the city manager for just a moment on this, the thought here is that much of what I heard this afternoon can be the same critiques and criticism of many of our other intersections in the city. I think that it's at least from my perspective, having folks, the only reason you should be on a median at an intersection is because you didn't walk fast enough when the light said green. And so if you're still there, I understand that. But people essentially setting up shop on a city median is I think dangerous for that person or that person for the general public, for other folks who are trying to get through the intersection for motorists and everybody else. So if you would be, if that motion makes sense, I would like to include it in the direction. And I see that the public works director is inching his way to the microphone. Mayor Keely, if I may, before Nathan weighs in, our city attorney was whispering some concerns in my ear. I'd like to give him an opportunity to speak to it first. I think that the direction is fine, but we will need to do some legal analysis about potential first amendment issues associated with what is essentially tan amount to an anti-loitering. What is essentially a tan amount to a prohibition on loitering on traffic medians. There's a legal analysis that needs to accompany that discussion, so. Well, thank you. Just to make the council aware of that. I'm glad you received that, thank you. Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon again, council members, mayor. If I may, just get some clarification with regards to safety devices on islands. As I heard the friendly amendment to the motion, if we're referring to rectangular rapid flashing beacons, pedestrian activated devices that help pedestrians cross those type of intersections, we usually put them in medians. We actually have a grant funded project that we're working on. We've applied for grant funding to install these RRFBs actually at this location on. I'm sorry, I don't know, I lost the thread here. Sorry, I was referring to the traffic, kind of traffic devices that you're referring to, and I wasn't sure if it was a rectangular rapid flashing beacon. I have no idea, I'm not sure, but let me make it clear from my perspective, if it wasn't clear, I think it's very unsafe for anybody to remain in the middle of a street on a median or a traffic island, except when you are crossing the street and the light didn't give you sufficient time to get across and you can only make it to the median, that should be the only reason that you are there, that there is no other reason that makes any kind of public safety sense. That's what I'm trying to get to. Gotcha. One other thing that we can do to help address that, actually we do in some of our medians, we do install a river rock in our medians, some of them where it's basically four to six inch boulders that help deter people from standing on those medians. Yeah, I don't think that works well, I think that we all observe that that doesn't work well, so rather than negotiate it here, that's the direction return of budgetarians with a way to do that at the 10 busiest intersections and understanding that there are legal issues that council would like to draw to our attention. Sir. Thank you, Mayor. So with some of the feedback initially from our public works director and our city attorney, we understand the spirit of the request, so what we can do is bring back some options at a later date as we move through budget hearings. Thank you so much. Further debate or discussion? Yes, Ms. Brunner. I'm just trying to understand how this connects with this item. This is about safety in our roadways and desires to reduce the conflict between vehicles and individuals not in vehicles. I think that's the nexus or at least the one I'm trying to draw. Okay, I was just trying to understand the median question and what median exists here and I understand your intention, but I was trying to understand the connection to this item. That is my connection to the item. I can weigh in here. Excuse me. Pardon me, Mayor. If I could just weigh in on that point. Certainly. That council member Brunner made. I do think that this discussion needs to be circumscribed because this is not an item on your agenda. What I understood the requested direction was to bring it back for council consideration, which is appropriate under the product. Thank you. Good. Any other questions or comments? Seeing and hearing none, clerk will call the roll. Council Member Newsom. Aye. Brown. Aye. Watkins. Aye. Brunner. Aye. Calentary Johnson. Aye. Vice Mayor Golder. Aye. Motion passes and so ordered. Thank you all for your participation. Thank you for being here this afternoon. We are going to stand in recess for 15 minutes time. We will be back here at five, 10. We stand in recess until that time. An urban development with regard to a consolidation plan and how we would spend such funds. We are going to have a presentation by both Jessica Mellor and Jessica Dewitt. And that will be followed by the normal course of things. Good afternoon. Welcome to Chambers. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council Member. I'm Jessica Dewitt, the city's housing manager. And next to me is Jessica Mellor, the city housing team's principal management analyst. So every year the federal department of housing and urban development allocates community development block grant funding and home funding to designated jurisdictions. Now the city of Santa Cruz is one of those designated jurisdictions and recently has received its notification of its annual allotment. So now Jess Mellor is gonna walk us through our staff funding recommendations and the proposed budget based off of the RFP process. Yes, thank you Mayor Keely and Council Members for having us here today to discuss the HUD annual action plan budget. As Jessica mentioned, we do receive federal funding every year from the Housing and Urban Development Department. And the annual action plan is a city proposal on how to spend those awarded funds. So before you today, the council needs to make initial funding recommendations for the 2023-2024 annual action plan. We also need you to amend or approve the amendment to the 2019-2020 annual action plan to reallocate $100,000 in CDBG funds. We also would like you to direct staff to publish the 2023 NRSA plan, which will be posted for review next month for public review. And then we also need you to support us amending the citizen participation plan as well today. So jumping right in, here's the CDBG funding for program year 23 at a glance. HUD has awarded us $568,725 for this program year. We estimate that the city will receive $50,000 in program income. And program income is just income that's earned on loans that have been funded from prior year CDBG funds. There's also $100,000, which we mentioned on the prior slide in prior year funding available to reallocate. And so prior year funding can be a combination of underestimated program income, canceled projects and projects that have not used their entire funding award. And then those amounts are returned back to the overall CDBG pot each year. So in total, we're looking at $718,725 in CDBG funding. So HUD has a formula that sets aside 20% of that grant and program income for administration. And what this covers is the city's administration costs to administer the CDBG program. We do also have some administrative costs associated with two other city programs, the rehab program and the home security deposit program that we need to cover with these funds. So that leaves us with $583,080 to split between the public services and projects. So for our programs this year, we received three applications, one from the teen center, which is run by our Parks and Recreation Department and provides teen focused programming to the community. We also have an application from Second Harvest Food Bank for their food distribution program, which reduces food insecurity to our lower income residents. And we also have an application from Nueva Vista Community Resources, which provides programming to lower income residents at both their Beach Flats Community Center and La Familia Center. So HUD does cap funding for their public service programs at 15%, which would be about $84,000 this year. But HUD does also allow certain organizations which are community based development organizations or CBDOs, which operate in a neighborhood revitalization strategy area or NRSA to receive funding above that 15% cap. So the city currently has one CBDO and that's Nueva Vista. We've marked it with a gold star on the slide so that you can easily pick it out. Therefore, the total amount that we can award to public service programs can exceed that 15% cap when we work with CBDOs. So we're recommending that we fund all the programs at an increased funding level when you compare it to last year. And it's worth noting that this would be a one-time increase in funding and next year's funding recommendations will have to depend on what applications we receive and how much money we receive from HUD. So we're recommending this increase in funding this year to maximize our allowed spending on public services. And so the total recommendation for programs is $205,000 this year. Moving on to our project applications, we received two of them. The first from Monarch Services for renovations to the Mariposa House. This project will fund improvements that will benefit the health, safety, and sustainability of the project and its participants. Some of the improvements will include touchless hygiene and lighting systems, installation of an HVAC system, as well as other improvements to reduce water and energy consumption. The other application we received is for the Civic Auditorium AD improvements, which will benefit users with lots of safety features. And it will be beneficial not only for public events, but also for emergency events as well. And the total requests we received this year for projects was a little over $375,000. Thankfully, we have enough funding to be able to recommend funding both of these projects fully. So the total amount we're proposing for projects is $378,080. So in summary, our CDBG recommendations are to fund our community programs at $205,000, fund capital projects at $378,080, and fund administration for city and city programs at $135,645. And that completely spends out our estimated $718,725 for CDBG. Moving on to our home funding category, HUD has allocated us $499,440. And we're also estimating we'll receive about $100,000 in program income, and we do have $226,972 in prior year funding available for reallocation. So in total, we're looking at $826,412 for our home program this year. And just like with CDBG, HUD has a formula set aside of 10% for administration. And again, that covers the city's costs to administer the home program. And that's $59,944 this year, or program year. HUD formula also has a set aside of 15% for CHODOs. And what a CHODO is is a community housing development organization. They're a private nonprofit that creates affordable housing for the community they serve. And CHODO set asides for this program year would be $74,916. So that would leave us with $691,522 to split between programs and projects in our home budget. And this year we had two applications for our home funds. One is for the security deposit program that we operate in partnership with the Housing Authority of the County of Santa Cruz. And we also received a application for affordable housing for Pacific Station North project. So a little bit about these two projects and programs. The security deposit program has been funded by alternate sources for the past two years, but we've completely exhausted those funds. So we're looking to fund it with home funding again. This security deposit assistance is primarily limited to low-income households. So those would be households at or under 60% of the area median income. And this program provides households with one month's rent as a security deposit. So that's how the main focus of that program. We have been communicating with the Housing Authority and they've said they anticipate a 42% increase in the need for this program, just for this current program year that ends it at the end of June. But they also think there's gonna be an increased need for assistance next program year as well. And a little bit about Metro Pacific Station North. It's a 128-unit family project with a majority two-in-three bedroom rentals. It will be 100% affordable and this allocation will target filling that gap in funding needed for this project to help it go forward. So all that said, we're recommending the Home Security Deposit Program be funded at $80,000 and the Pacific Station North project at $626,524. And I just wanna point out, like I put on the slide, that does include that Chodo set aside. So if you're looking at that total number and the total number from the previous slide, that's why it looks different because we've rolled the Chodo set aside in there. All right, next steps. After we get your budget recommendations today, we're gonna draft the 2023-24 annual action plan, make that available for public review and comment, and then we'll have a second public hearing on April 25th for the action plan and funding recommendations to be finalized by council. And then after another review and comment period, we will submit the action plan to HUD in May. Funding for our programs will be available as early as July 1st and project funding will likely be available in fall or winter. Just a little bit more. So this is item three on that list of items I need you to approve today. We have prepared a two-year 2023 NRSA plan to link our NRSA time period with our five-year consolidated plan cycle. And that's so that future consolidated plans and NRSA plans will cover the same time period. That's a goal that HUD has. They like to see those two plans match up. So once again, NRSA, it means neighborhood revitalization strategy area. So mouthful. And it allows jurisdictions like the city to coordinate our resources and engage in community revitalization strategies for designated low-income areas while encouraging reinvestment of human and economic capital while empowering low-income residents. And in order to achieve this, HUD does require grantees like the city to have a realistic strategy and implementation plan. And that's what that NRSA plan is. We do get multiple incentives from HUD, which encourage the development of NRSA. And the 2023 plan is gonna focus on two strategy areas. The first being CBDO, Community Services Aspect. And that's when we talked about that 15% cap. That's that perk that we're looking for to go over that 15%. And then we also have Housing and Economic Development, which has the potential to provide job opportunities and increase access to housing to help improve economic stability and household self-sufficiency. So it's an important note here that having an NRSA doesn't give us any extra funding, unfortunately, but it is a way for us to target our CDBG funds in the city. And also the two strategies that I just mentioned, it's not anything new. We don't have to launch any new programs or projects or anything. We're just focusing on activities that are already happening and making sure that we're getting credit for them with HUD. So the draft NRSA plan will be posted online next month for everyone to review and to be able to comment. And if you have any specific comments or questions, please feel free to email me at the email on the slide. One last part here, because we've had some changes to community or council committees, we need to update our citizen participation plan to reflect that. So with the community programs committee being incorporated into the Health and All Policies Committee, we're gonna make that change in our participation plan. We're gonna change the name of the committee. And then in order to accommodate the Health and All Policies Committee regular meeting schedule, we're gonna change a couple of our action plan release schedule items. So every year, our notice of funding available for these CDBG and home funds will be released in October instead of November. Our applications are gonna be due in December instead of January, which I'm sure a lot of our grantees will be excited about. And then we'll be meeting with the city council committee Health and All Policies Committee in January. And a copy and red line of this plan will be available for review prior to the next public hearing. And again, any questions, comments, concerns, please feel free to email me at the email on the slide. Thank you very much. And please let Jessica know if we can answer any questions for you. Well, thank you both very much. Let me ask if there are council member clarifying questions at this point. Okay, this would be the opportunity for public comment. We'll recognize you for up to three minutes time. And if we have folks who are calling in online, what I'll do is I'll start with Mr. Reese, then I'll go online, then I'll go to a person here, then we'll go online. We'll alternate back and forth. Good afternoon, Mr. Reese. Mr. Mayor and fellow council members, my name is Gary Reese. I'm the executive director for the Santa Cruz County Symphony and we've been across the street for 65 years in the Civic Auditorium. One of the things, the thing that I am here tonight for is to wholeheartedly support the staff recommendation for the $320,000 ADA improvements for the Civic. This primarily revolves around providing handrails for the Civic Auditorium. We have been calling for this for dozens of years. Most of our patrons are like me, they're old people, they can't do stairs. And every year I lose more and more subscribers because people are unable. We try to, we do our best to accommodate them by moving their seats to better locations. But if there comes a time when people just say they're not coming back. And as much as I don't like the lost revenue, what I am more fearful is when that actually there is an accident that involves some severe injury. These are concrete stairs, they're wooden backs on the chairs. I personally have fallen on them during rehearsals. I don't intend to sue the city but I don't know if the next person won't. And I think that none of us, I sat through the item preceding here where we talked a lot about safety and I think that the city needs to consider this if nothing else as a risk management issue because I think it's a lawsuit waiting to happen. And I know that there is great talk and we've had talks with the Santa Cruz Warriors about a new auditorium. And that hopefully will happen. But in the meantime, and that's several if not five years away, this could provide an opportunity to continue to service our organization. We are the largest revenue producers for the Civic Auditorium, followed closely by the Cabrillo Music Festival and if Ellen Primac had known about this and I'm not blaming anybody because it sort of came up late, she would have been here as well. I probably if I'd known a little bit in advance I would have had the auditorium filled and I will intend to have it filled on April 25th. But so that's my pitch. Please approve the staff recommendation. And this council may have heard many people come up to here and talk about how city employees aren't any good, they don't have good service. Let me tell you that your Civic staff is one of the best staffs that I have ever worked with. They are accommodating, they do everything they can to provide revenue for the city, for us, and any organization that goes in to perform at the Civic. So thank you for having wonderful people at the Civic. Mr. Reese, thank you very much. We have someone online, let's go to them. This would be Mr. Phillip, is that correct? Yes, hi. Mr. Phillip, good afternoon. I found it disturbing in item 16 that the poverty rate of targeted areas is 36% and the citywide is 18%. Poverty is calculated in various ways, usually understated by including handouts as income and CPM poverty. So not only show what your figures mean, but the poverty rate for California CPM poverty is only 12% because CPM discounts the handouts. The point is poverty in San Cruz sounds wildly high similar to the homeless situation. There must be factors here that import or sustain poverty at above average levels. Maybe city sanctuary status plays a role. Maybe people becoming dependent on subsidy does. Government dependence is an undesirable condition that some of this grants money should, as a priority, seek to reduce. However, I suspect that the effective equity narrative exists here that assumes under average, no tax payers have some sort of an unearned privilege right to endless benefit instead of a generosity combined with a mutual moral duty to improve their self reliance. Perhaps that explains the missing element here best described as teach a person to fish, then insist that they fish. That is not represented by most of these perfunctory handouts to the same organizations without much in the way of real metric performance demands beyond stating their handout methods that would permanently improve to self reliance lives or like tenant sanctuary could be replaced with individual spending 15 minutes on the internet, getting tenant advice. For example, an idea would be tying extra money to organizations for each graduation of an approved English second language improvement class that then qualifies individuals of such achievement to paid admission to more costly others, extra skill building adult ed class fees. Now back to these grants and in general, which are part of the big outside money that has its own interests. I wonder about the accounting of administrative costs as these are a fixed percentage of total amounts of outside money interest, local, which are willing to pay for and whether that actually pays the total administrative fate such as great, such as pensions or even the actual real time operational administrative costs. I doubt anyone here even knows you just assigned the max to yourselves. It matters either way, what it really is. We hear city accountants lament systemic financial problems that will only get worse in the city but no one ever says what those are. Gotta be something. I've always wondered what the percentage of overall administrative costs of the city is for comparison. You should be concerned with the importation of poverty as well as homelessness. In so far it is not a stretch to say if poor people find it extremely extra doable to just stay poor homeless here, they will survive that way but their numbers will accumulate again, indicating the need for some skill building for self-reliance demands instead of just handout. Anyway, I'm glad you're spending money on the civic. I'm sure many of these organizations do good work. I just don't know if all the accounting adds up to all the structure of poverty. Thank you, sir. Good afternoon. Uh-huh. It is the honorable clam chowder cook-off judge. Yes, sir. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Good, thank you. Hello, mayor and council members. Thank you for giving us a moment to speak today. My name is Jessie Bond. I'm the recreation supervisor at the Civic Auditorium. As you know, the Civic was built in 1939 and just doesn't have adequate ADA accommodations. This is our number one complaint from our patrons and producers, like you heard from Gary today. We hear from many patrons that they just can't buy tickets anymore due to our steep stairs and lack of handrails. The Santa Cruz Symphony issued a survey to their patrons based on COVID, what patrons would like to see from that. We overwhelmingly heard that people were more afraid of our stairs than COVID. This will begin to affect our business and who can use the venue. Aligned with the health and all policies, we should be providing a performing art center that is accessible to everyone to enjoy. I ask you to vote in favor of the staff recommendation. Thank you for your time and thank you to my fellow Jessica's for the presentation. Thank you. Thank you very much. Ms. Bush, do we have Mr. Snyder? Is that correct? No? Oh, yeah. We do, okay. Mr. Snyder, good afternoon. Hello. Actually, I think I'm speaking on the wrong topic, but I'm fully in support of them in bringing actions to the session. That's fine. We'll get back to you on the item you called in about, is that all right with you, sir? Okay, good. Thank you. Good afternoon. Good afternoon again. Yeah, this is HUD stuff as well as, I mean, CDBG that's, I had the pleasure of chatting with HUD's Inspector General staff for about 12 hours one week because I'd had a voucher for 15 months and just couldn't market rates for other than what we were being funded for. And my only point is that I am highly motivated to help some of my friends that are ready to get housing and finding creative solutions you know, I read 800 and some pages of the section eight thing found some, because we were creating some marketing or marketing collateral package to show to landlords about, this is how cool it is to rent to us, but I found some loopholes that I'm not gonna mention, but on page 800 and such and such. My point, anything, I know they've had some little sitting just chat committees, whatever, back when four years ago, and Martina maybe, I can't remember who's there, Chris Cronin and Drew Glover were still around and sat in on things. Anything that needs to be done, I'm looking for a job, but I'm happy to do things for free that results in some creative solution finding and I'm highly motivated. And I'll be up next for the final chat, if I can stay awake, thank you. Thank you so much. And is Peter next? Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, city council. This is Peter Bichier, community liaison for the city of Santa Cruz. Some of you council members know me and know some of my work that I do with the city, but some of them are new. So I just wanna share with you that the Nueva Vista Center is very crucial into our work in doing outreach in beach flat area and beach flat community. In that center, most of the time we host a lot of our workshops. For example, in the last month, we've had two workshops, one with Tiffany Wise-West on erosion and sea level rise and that was actually five different sessions starting from the end of the year to now. And then also we had a meeting a couple of weeks ago on the San Lorenzo Parks and Rec meeting as well, just to share and have input from the community. And many times that those people just don't have access to really computers and they usually at the time of the city council, they're still barely coming back to work or also busy. So they don't have much of the inputs and the community center usually is a very good place and area where we can reach out and hear a little bit the underserved. So they're really crucial and I encourage you to fund them. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good evening. Hi, Darius Mohsending here. Excuse me, I guess I accidentally walked in on the last presentation. I'm here for the other ones, but I noticed a deposit program, the city's deposit program administered by the housing authority, he was covered. And as a landlord, I'll be honest with you. I kind of have to hold my nose when I'm taking those deposits and I've taken a lot of them. The reason is the folks that are on section eight, getting vouchers, they've had 10 years if they're on the waiting list, 10 years to save for a deposit, they will know they have to pay. Say the average deposit is $2,500, anybody could save 68 cents a day towards that deposit. I would suggest maybe doing a matching program. The city matches dollar for dollar, the deposit. So A, you could then help twice as many folks to get the deposit and have them put some skin in the game. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Ms. Bush, next person online. No more. That's all the folks online. Anyone else who's with us wish to provide comment to the council on this item. All right. The matter is back before the council. And let me ask if there is a motion that. I'll make the motion. Excuse me. I'll make a motion. Sir. Motion. A second. And your motion is moving the staff recommendation. Okay. And there's a motion and a second. Under discussion, would you like to open on your motion? Yes. I'm very excited to see this agenda item. You know, it provides funds for community programs that serve the vulnerable members of our community. It also helps provide funds for an affordable housing project that is needed in our community. And it helps promote community revitalization in lower income areas of our community that desperately need it. So I support this recommended agenda item. For the debate or discussion on this item. Ms. Collin Tar-Johnson. Just a brief comment. I want to thank the work of staff on this and the organizations and the city departments that are providing the services to the community. And I just want to acknowledge and thank council member Brown for her years of work on the community programs committee. Thank you. Further question or comment? Ms. Brunner. Thank you. There we go. Thank you. I'm glad with that. The possibility to assist with these programs and funding exists. Thank you. If I might for a moment. Thank you for your very fine report. I think that every element of what you have suggested is worthy and important. And I support it, comma, but one. The idea that we would put a third of a million dollars into a facility, the civic auditorium, which is far past its useful life. And I don't think is going to have a bright future in front of it, especially when, as opposed to if, when a new facility, multi-use facility is going to be constructed in our downtown in the very new future. It does seem to me that it is likely anyway that the parks department, which made the application for this item, I would imagine they also have other ADA related unmet needs such as on the municipal wharf, which in my judgment might be more worthy of our investment of a third of a million dollars than investing a third of a million dollars in a facility. Again, that is I think way beyond its useful life. And there is no plan by this city to try to in effect rehab this thing so that going forward it's where we're putting all of our eggs in terms of an auditorium in the city of Santa Cruz. So my question is, if Mr. Elliott is available, Mr. Elliott, good afternoon. Good afternoon, Mayor. So let me do in public what we did in private earlier today and that is me ask you if there are other capital outlay parks needs in terms of ADA deficiencies, for example, on the municipal wharf that would fit into this category of funding instead of the civic auditorium. Yeah, thank you, mayor and thank you council members. Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity and yeah, happy to speak to that. So across the city's park system, we've got a number of deficiencies from an ADA perspective. The city adopted its ADA transition plan pretty progressively after ADA was adopted in 1990. The city adopted its first transition plan in 1993, which is pretty good. Since then we've continued to assess ADA conditions throughout our park system and as things have sort of fallen into disrepair or as ADA code has changed over time, we've continued to assess the needs across the system. So we do have a lot of needs. What I would say is that a lot of those needs are have been identified and reported sort of a compliance and condition report that we did a few years ago. So that includes the wharf, that includes the civic auditorium as well as parks or most of our projects, we don't at this time have specifics in terms of what a project scope might be. So mayor to your question on the wharf in terms of a specific project, we know what the deficiencies are. We don't have a project identified at the wharf right now. And with some of the questions around the wharf master plan and the future of the wharf, similar questions, do we invest in the wharf and some of these ADA improvements in the immediate term? Do we wait to do those in a more holistic strategic way as part of the wharf master plan? So for the council and just for the council's consideration, I would say that at the wharf in particular as well as other parks, we don't have a fully fleshed out and specified project as it relates to ADA that would be a great replacement in this case for the civic. The civic, this is a project from an accessibility standpoint a liability standpoint and safety as executive director Reese spoke to. This is something that's been out there in terms of a concept and more specifics for a number of years, but it's proven to be a difficult one to fund through the city's general fund. So we've asked for a number of years it's been hard to fund through the city's general fund. So this opportunity through CDBG to fund not just hand railing but some of the less glamorous things at the civic like our toilets and strobe lights for individuals who might be hearing impaired. There are a lot of improvements we need to make to reach compliance at the civic auditorium to make it both compliant but safer. And just to be clear, we were not looking toward at this time a huge investment in the civic auditorium but really a very modest and we hope strategic investment and what I mean mayor by that is we're not looking for a $20 million investment in the civic right now but looking for strategic investments to keep the facility safe, accessible for the public. So it can continue to be successful over the next say five years or more in a sort of a transition period looking ahead to the potential warriors facility. So, and I'll just mention that the safety is important for both the public as executive director resoluted to but important for staff as well. And we've had some staff incidents at the civic coming down those stairs that can be treacherous. It's been flagged in the local media as well. And so that's why that's really where this comes from as far as a proposal to address a funding need that we've struggled with a safety need, a liability need but to invest in the civic in a strategic way really kind of looking over the next five to seven year horizon. So I hope that answers some of that question and happy to answer any more questions that council may have. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Elliot. I do have a follow up question if I could without reference to the war does your department have other unmet ADA capital improvement needs that might be eligible for this category of funding? I'd say we do generally, but again, they're not packaged in a specific way as far as a project. I'm sorry, say that again, I just didn't hear you. Yeah, so yes, we have many ADA needs throughout parks and recreation but they're not packaged in a sort of project specific way. In other words, we don't have them specified to the extent that they're ready to bring to this CDBG discussion today or funding. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. Further debate or discussion? Seeing and hearing none clerk will call the roll. Council Member Newsome. Aye. Brown. Aye. Watkins. Aye. Brunner. Aye. Council Member Johnson. Aye. Vice Mayor Golder. Aye. Keely. Aye. Mushroom carries and so ordered. What we'd like to do at this point is we will take a brief break. We will come back from that break. We're going to have oral communication. We're also going to have obviously the item that many of you are probably here on this evening and the mixed use project. We will take those up in due course as we move along. We will see you again at, let's make this 27 minute break. We'll be back here at 6.20. This session of the Santa Cruz City Council is back in order following an early evening break. We are on item number 17. This is an item with many component parts to it but essentially relate in total to the downtown mixed use project proposal. We will receive a staff report. We will then take public comment on all aspects. We will then, the matter will come back before the council for action. We have a couple of issues that are combined in here and that is all of those items that relate to the mixed use project and the item that relates to the appeal of the Parks and Recreation Commission decision that council member Newsom and I have brought forward to the council as essentially an appeal. Let me welcome staff here. Good evening. Nice to see you, sir. The floor is yours. Good evening, Mayor Keely and members of the city council. My name is Tim Mayer, senior planner with the city. This evening's next agenda item is review of the proposed development of the downtown library affordable housing project located at 113 and 119 Lincoln Street. Just ensure that my presentation is visible to members of the audience. We'll take a second and get this all organized correctly. Ms. Bush will undoubtedly make this happen. So as I was mentioning, the project requests approval of a number of entitlements including a non-residential demolition authorization permit, special use permit, design permit, a lot line adjustment and heritage tree removal permit. Proposal includes several actions including combination of two adjacent lots, demolition of the existing commercial building and city surface parking lot and construction of the downtown library affordable housing project. Project site is shown here, bordered in red. The site is an approximately 66,921 square foot, which is approximately 1.55 acre, roughly rectangular area consisting of two adjacent lots located in the city's central business district. The two parcels composing the project site are bordered by Lincoln Street to the north, Cedar Street to the west, Cathcart Street to the south and an alley to the east. Surrounding land uses include parking lots, quasi-public uses and commercial establishments including businesses along Pacific Avenue to the east. Here's a view of the existing lot as seen from the corner of Cedar Street and Cathcart Street from the southwest corner of the project area. The existing city surface parking lot number four appears in the middle of the site along with existing streets and sidewalks of the site's perimeter. Here's another view of the project site from this time for its northwest corner at the intersection of Cedar Street and Lincoln Street. The existing total fitness building at 113 Lincoln Street. One of the two addresses making up the project area is visible here in the background. As proposed, the project includes a new 273,194 square foot eight-story building encompassing several components as listed on this slide. In addition to the project components listed on the slide here, right-of-way improvements will include construction of new curb and gutter and expansion of sidewalks, which will be built at 10 to 12 feet wide as directed by the downtown plan. The pedestrian access to the residences will be provided on both Cathcart Street and Lincoln Street. Emergency vehicle access and service access will be provided via one-way alley leading north from Cathcart to Lincoln Street and aligned with the city's, excuse me, the site's easterly property line. This slide illustrates the proposed site plan. The building envelope shown here in gray would occupy most of the subject site in order to achieve project programming goals as directed by the city council. The library, childcare, and commercial uses will be located adjacent to the Cedar Street frontage, which is on the bottom here. The north is pointing to the kind of the upper left. While the parking structure would be placed further away back over here at the east side of the site with housing units positioned above this portion of the building area. Four loading and unloading parking spaces are included along Cedar Street as shown over here, split into two different groups of two each, and five on-street parking spaces along Lincoln Street over here on the left-hand side of the slide with the relocated bus stop provided on Cedar Street just north of its intersection with Cathcart Street as shown here. This slide shows the building's west elevation near the top of the slide. You can hear me okay. Thank you. The primary pedestrian entry to the project is located approximately mid-block along Cedar Street near the middle, shown over here. The bottom three stories include extensive glazing to provide visibility to the building's interior, creating a sense of activity and vitality. The structure incorporates numerous offset planes formed by a variety of curves, projections, and recesses, and the residential component is set back significantly from the primary frontage along Cedar Street. Distinct from the library, commercial tenant space, and childcare components for ready access while providing both privacy and separation. So the residential component is shown here in the background. The east elevation of the building, seen at the bottom of the slide, shows the five-story residential component placed above the parking garage, featuring four-form concrete base and three-tone stucco with metal trim exterior. The building's north and south elevations are shown on the slide here. The parking structure would step down to a height of less than 35 feet as required by the downtown plan and would be placed adjacent to the street access from Cathcart. The design conforms to the Cedar Street Village Corridor design criteria as included in the downtown plan, which advances the informal village qualities of the Cedar Street Village Corridor, promotes the vision of the city's downtown plan and provides a visually interesting and durable structure that fulfills the directives of the city council while enhancing the aesthetic environment and integrating a multi-use facility in the city's downtown urban core. State's Density Bonus Law allows any residential project within a half mile of a major transit stop to request exemptions for maximum density controls which are unlimited in the case of this project due to the project's affordability levels and its location within a half mile of a major transit stop. The base density plans shown here in the upper left present a fully conforming project with two stories of underground parking, again shown in the upper left corner of the slide. The applicant has requested approval of a Density Bonus Variation, proposes both an incentive concession and a waiver to allow for the additional height beyond the 50 foot, 50 foot limitation as specified in the downtown plan. The cost of subterranean construction make underground parking an option not feasible for the project and therefore an incentive concession as requested for placement of parking at surface level provide actual and identifiable cost reductions. Placement of the residential component of the project above the structure parking facility provide for the number of residential units included in the project. Requests for a density bonus waiver because the project would otherwise be physically precluded from construction of the number of residential units allowable under density bonus. Without the requested incentive concession, the project's parking component would be prohibitively expensive and without granting of the waiver, the proposed development would be physically precluded from development of the number of residential units allowable for consistency with state density bonus law and the city's general plan which residential density is indirectly regulated by FAAR or floor area ratio. This slide shows a multi-tiered architecture of the building including the three-story library with commercial tenant space over on the upper left here including as well as the commercial tenant space and childcare facility. The housing component includes 124, 100% affordable units including 13 studio units, 48 one bedroom units, 32 two bedroom units and 31 three bedroom units distributed over five floors. The project provides 100% of the residential units as affordable units exclusive managers unit consistent with city regulations which require minimally 20% of the residential units as affordable. The building's fourth floor including new green roof appears at the bottom left hand corner of the slide. The fifth and sixth floors are shown here in the upper right with offsets and planes fitting units of a range of sizes while providing for interesting besides. The building seventh and eighth floor again or occupied here is shown in the lower right hand corner by residential units. One thing to note is that the design of the project has undergone significant modifications from its initial scope and original concept. Early considerations for parking capacity for example let staff to consider designs of up to 400 parking spaces which have been reduced to the present scale with capacity. Okay I think what we're going to do let's see if we can figure out what's going on here for a second rather than repeating it. We got to figure out what's going on here. That particular mic you have to talk right on the microphone. Okay I'll try that is it? There we go. Thank you so much. Thank you Ms. Bush. Thank you. As I was mentioning the project is further undergone design modifications to include 258 parking spaces strategically placed throughout the site far exceeding the minimum number of bicycle parking spaces as required by the city's municipal code. Over the past several years through public engagement the project has evolved from a combined library and garage project to a flagship downtown destination facility incorporating library, commercial childcare, parking and significant number of affordable housing units and as well as amenities such as a green roof and outdoor rooftop patio terrace as envisioned through public outreach efforts and as directed by the city council. A heritage tree removal permit is required for removal of any trees of heritage size as established by the city's municipal code. An application for heritage tree removal permit was submitted in October of 2022 which proposed removal of all 12 trees at the project site. The tree removal permit was supported by an arborist report which identifies nine of the existing 12 trees as heritage size trees. All 12 trees are exotic non-native varieties with each tree exhibiting a range of adverse health and or other conditions. In September of 2022 an addendum was submitted prepared by the same arborist which clarifies the viability for retention and relocation of existing trees. The addendum describes a low likelihood for long-term health of any relocated tree at the project site. A subsequent addendum for a second addendum included detail of the condition of the existing magnolia tree near the center of the project site whose health had declined appreciably since the preparation of the original arborist report. The landscape plan is shown here on the right-hand side of the slide. Integrates 14 city street trees exceeding the code requirement for both the size and number of replacement trees required. The building's green roof, as shown in the lower left-hand corner, would further add to foliage and carbon sequestration capacity of the project site as modified. One item to note as well is that a recommended condition of approval related to planting of replacement trees is relevant. Ordinarily, tree replacement in a one-to-one ratio is required with one tree planted on site for each tree removed. In the case of the proposed project, given the community concern related to impacts of tree removal, the recommended condition of approval includes planting of nine trees, one for each heritage tree proposed to be removed in addition to 12 new trees, planted offsite in the downtown area for a total of 21 trees planted to replace the nine heritage trees removed. Potential locations for offsite planting of replacement trees have already been identified. This slide shows recommended conditions of approval which have been modified since the time of preparation of the staff report for today's hearing. At the March 2nd Planning Commission meeting, the Planning Commission introduced several recommended conditions of approval. The first, as shown here, the first condition relates to the provision of electric vehicle charging stations. And the second relates to the provision of building features accommodating a future potential food service use within the commercial tenant space included. Staff have requested minor modifications to the conditions of approval as suggested by the Planning Commission as shown in the strikeouts and as underlined here. The project is subject to the review under the California Environmental Quality Act or CEQA. Following a thorough analysis, the project has been found eligible for a statutory exemption under Public Resources Code 21083.3 and a categorical infill exemption under section 15332 of the CEQA guidelines. The light line adjustment for the project has also been deemed eligible for a minor land division categorical exemption which is section 15305 of CEQA. The full environmental analysis is attached to the staff report for the project and has been available on the city's website for some time. Staff have made findings to support the proposed project. Staff recommends that the city council acknowledge the environmental determination and approve the project entitlements including the non-residential demolition authorization permit, the use permit, design permit, light line adjustment, inheritance tree removal permit based upon the findings included in conditions of approval attached to the staff report with modifications as noted. Staff and the applicant are available to answer questions. Thank you very much for your time. This concludes staff's presentation. Thank you very much. Let me ask first if council members have questions, clarifying questions on this item. Okay, we will now go to public comment on this. This is your- Mayor, sorry. Yes, I'm sorry. You had authorized 15 minutes for the group that originally provided the appeal. I didn't know if you wanted to include that as public comment or no. Oh, good. I want to be real clear about that point. The appeal was actually brought forward by council member Newsom and myself. So I believe we are essentially the appellants. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay, now the folks on whose behalf I will be glad to cede my time to folks who asked us to do that in terms of rather than Mr. Newsom and myself providing our argument. Frankly, what we were interested in is making sure that the matter of the trees got before the council so that we could have a robust discussion about it. So any of you who want to speak to the tree issue, why don't we go with you first? And when we've exhausted that, then we'll go to folks who wish to speak to the project more generally or about some other aspect of it. Are you here to comment on the tree appeal? Come on forward. Good evening. Good evening. My name is Jane Doyle. I'm going to have to read this. The following is a quote from Oswan of the Abenaki Nation. Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.  There are five, as I understand it, that the Arborist Company has declared healthy. Any architect worth her or his salt could easily design around them. It's done all the time. If you will permit these trees to stay, they will continue to take carbon from the atmosphere. They will soften the hard-aged look of the cement block scheduled for the lot, and they will give some shade on a hot day, in addition to any trees that new ones that are planted. I would like to assume that Mayor Keely will support keeping the healthy trees based on his support for Arbor Day found under mayor proclamations on this meeting agenda. It reads in part, urging students and citizens to plant trees, to offset climate change and enhance our local environment and natural world for our present and future generations. So thank you, Mayor Keely, for that. In closing, I just wanna repeat the wise reminder from the Abenaki elder, only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught, will we realize that we cannot eat money? Well-timed. Thank you very much. Ms. Bush, let me... So let me advise you, what we're going to do is we have several folks joining us online, so I will simply alternate someone who's with us in chambers, someone online, someone in chambers, someone online. So now we will go to, I believe, Ms. Marcus. Would that be correct? Ms. Marcus, good evening. Good evening. Thank you, Mayor Keely and council members. Can you all hear me? Yes, we can. Great, great. So yes, my name is Laura Marcus and I am the CEO of Dientha's Community Dental Care. Over my almost 20 year tenure at Dientha's, we have partnered with the city in many ways from providing dental care to thousands of city residents at our various clinics, to establishing a clinic for people experiencing homelessness at Housing Matters with CDBG funds, to our most recent plans of establishing a new clinic downtown on Front Street at Pacific Station South in partnership with Santa Cruz Community Health, which we expect to open in a few years. The new clinic will help us better serve up to 3,000 of the 18,000 medical enrollees located in the city of Santa Cruz who need access to high quality dental care. Although some of our patients use public transportation, many, as well as the majority of our staff, need a place to park if this new clinic is going to be accessible. The downtown library project, including the parking garage, is something that our plans have been dependent on. Not only will it provide accessible parking a few blocks away, but it will also offer much needed and 100% affordable housing, which may directly support our patients. And it offers an incredible, beautiful and modern library and spaces for other commercial tenants. With Diantha's recent multi-use project on Capitol Road with Santa Cruz Community Health and Mid-Pen Housing, we have shown success in putting affordable housing on the same campus as other publicly accessible services. Projects like this allow for a maximum use of our limited available land in Santa Cruz, and the library project will make for a revitalized downtown and create a vibrant space for the community as well as affordable homes for so many people in need. Diantha's absolutely supports this project and we urge you to support it as well. Thank you for your testimony. Good evening, good evening. Hi, I'm Nettie Calvin. I'm here representing the Beach Flats area. And I'm just really want to emphasize how valuable the trees are to me as a citizen because in the Beach Flats area, we do not have yards. Everything is very paved over. And so I do appreciate the efforts that there would be replacement trees along with the building project. But I've noticed that the building projects in my area have trees that do not provide any shade. And so it doesn't make those trees unvaluable, but they simply are not the equivalent even if you plant multiple trees of a heritage tree that provides shade. I would also like to emphasize that the trees growing in a parking lot are ill because they don't have proper land to grow on. And so I don't think that that constitutes removing them simply because they aren't doing well because they're growing in hospitable conditions. So that said, I would also like to ask everyone to consider that the trees that are 70 years old and provide a certain value in beauty cannot be replaced for any value. No dollar amount could bring back those trees even with the science and technology we have today. So I would ask that we please, as a community, really even though we need housing desperately, and I agree with that, we need to consider keeping the trees as well because think of the beauty that they could add along with that project so that people who go in and out of there could see beautiful natural objects in this very cemented area because we need to consider the high-density aspect of our neighborhoods. So, and please consider that if we plant trees now, that is important, and people 70 years from now will be able to appreciate them the way that I can appreciate these trees today that we all can. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. It seems that we are to Ms. Baez. Would that be correct? Ms. Baez, good afternoon. Mr. Baez, thank you, mayor. Excuse me, I'm sorry, sir. My apologies. Good evening. No worries, no worries at all. I wanna say good evening, mayor Keely and city council. I wanna thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today. My name is Renee Baez. I'm a field representative for Carpenter's Local 505. And I'm here today to just speak about three simple things which will benefit the great city of Santa Cruz. And I believe these three things should also be basic labor standards. One, that's the use of apprenticeship programs. Two, that's healthcare for workers and their families and three is a local hire. You see projects that invest in apprenticeships, healthcare and local hire is the right choice for the construction workers and the community. This allows the workers and their families to live in the communities that they work in. This also means those wages that are earned will be reinvested back into the local community as they spend their earnings. We need affordable housing. We need housing, I agree. And the construction workers who are working on these projects also deserve and need respect, dignity and a livable wage. And to be upfront, the majority of the projects being built in the area do not have any labor requirements and could be considered a crime scene just by how much these workers are being exploited and robbed of their wages and benefits. But projects like this have the ability to change lives for those who live right here in this community. So my question is this, being that it's a public works and prevailing wage, will this project utilize apprenticeships? Will carpenters from local 505 right here in this community be able to work in this community and work on this project? Why wouldn't we have local hire? Public works projects should have labor standards in place that generate opportunities for the residents. And because it's a prevailing wage project, it's also vulnerable for wage theft. So I just wanna know what the city is doing to prevent and protect the men and women who will be working on this project. What are we doing to protect them from being exploited by non-responsible developers and the non-responsible contractors that they hire? I just want you guys to consider the labor standards we're planning. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Bias. Good evening. Hi there, honorable, hopefully tree heroes. My name's Kersha Durham. I'm here talking for the trees and my students. Number one, I think until funding happens, it doesn't make sense to touch our beloved trees, especially the healthy ones. Leslie Keely has said some of my trees around my house weren't healthy, but they're there 20 years later. So until there's funding, let's not cut them and have a painful eyesore like the holes we had before by the Rittenhouse building, remember that? People are drawn to Santa Cruz because of the natural beauty. Not for the big buildings, not for the libraries, especially not for parking garages. We are drawn here, why? Because of large trees. Over 1,000 people in the last day have signed and sent letters, 1,300 people in less than 24 hours. That shows Santa Cruz people love trees, not tiny ornamentals that you've planted on Pacific after the earthquake, but large trees. Look at those liquid ambers. Please direct architects to design around our beloved trees. No one yet, not in the Parks and Rec meeting I was in, not in the Planning Commission meeting, no one yet has asked them to look at a design that has our heritage trees in them. So let's fast forward into the future. The Torgrad leads you down to the large plaza by the beautiful big library. And there, instead of a flat plaza with tree lists or tiny ornamentals, instead of having a tiny square foot childcare patio, which imagine Renee, the size of this, a childcare patio that small, they will have a beautiful, huge outdoor area. Here we are. Maybe we can call it the Fred Keely Commons.  Santa Cruz visionaries voted long ago to keep the precious trees. Look around at us. When I walk into town, I see canopies. It's the most beautiful thing. Please do the right thing. Large trees capture carbon, you know that. And you don't have the funding. So don't clear cut for a sad whole. Thank you. We will go to someone online now. That would be Ms. Greenside. Good evening, Ms. Greenside. Ms. Greenside, I'll let you know that apparently you are still muted. Okay, I'm going to go to someone here and then we'll go back to Ms. Greenside. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening, council persons in Mayor Keely and Vice Mayor Golder. I grew up in a 5,000 acre ranch in Rancho Vistoso in Tucson, Arizona. And our Hacienda was a final house built in the 30s. And it was surrounded by a very lush oasis about an acre of really intense planting. My grandmother was a landscape architecture architect. And one of my chief loves as a child was going up and I built my first construction project was a tree house and a giant mulberry tree. It had walls, window, door, a roof and running water with steel pipe. And I did that when I was in middle school. And I used to go up there and get up there on a hot summer day and get way up in that mulberry tree where I had a hammock and hide up there because there was no ladder up to my tree house. And I could hear my dad and my mom down there, where's Johnny? You know, he's supposed to be doing his chores and I'm not going up and getting him. Well, I'm not either. And so that was my connection to nature and then when the mulberries were up that was easy eating too. So that was, I had that tree house all the way through high school. And it was just, it was a refuge for me because my brothers, I didn't get along with my brothers sometimes. But what I want to say, I want you to consider this next comment to be a California Public Records Act request in Oral 1 under California Government Code 6254 at SQL. You all know how well I've handled that over the years. And I want to see any records of tree maintenance made on those trees inside the last 10 years. Now, I don't know how far back the maintenance records go. But there's no excuse for those trees being in the condition that the arborist was described. There's no excuse whatsoever. They all they need was good care. No excuse whatsoever. All these other trees are taken care of. So that records request is on the record. Thank you. Thank you, sir. We'll now go back to Ms. Greensight online. Good evening, Ms. Greensight. Is that better? Can you hear me? There we go. Oh, thank you very much. I'll just get rid of the phone. And I thank you, Mayor Keely and Council members. I'm sorry not to join you. I tested positive for COVID this morning. So I'm working a bit hard to be here this evening, but thank you, et cetera. I'm representing Save Our Big Trees, which was a group that was formed in 2012 to 2015 when the city was weakening, changing and weakening its heritage tree ordinance without any environmental review. And none of you was on the council at that time. There's a bit of a myth that Santa Cruz people will sue at the drop of a hat. I can assure you that is not the case. We went to every meeting during that period and we submitted documents, we gave testimony and we were ignored. So at the last desperation, we sought legal help. The three judges at the appellate court ruled in our favor and they upheld the resolution that forms the basis for your decision about the heritage tree ordinance. Namely, a construction project, you can only remove it if a construction project design cannot be altered to accommodate existing heritage trees. During like 2021 and 2022, letters were submitted to Ms. Lipscomb from the Sierra Club, from Save Our Big Trees and others reminding her of this resolution. And we got assurances that that was just fine, that they were aware of that. However, the public record shows that there was no discussion on trying to alter the design to accommodate any of the heritage trees as is required in that resolution. Although as you heard from staff, there have been quite a few alterations in the design but not one discussion on accommodating any of these trees. This was despite a letter from Ms. Keady in June of 2022 where she wrote to Ms. Lipscomb and quote, she says, have any design changes been asserted that would save any trees further resolution requirement? She received no response and the only time this issue was ever discussed was after the permit to remove the heritage trees was granted by the Parks and Rec Department. That is the only time the architect weighed in and said, well, we can't do that because you want to save all the trees, that was inaccurate. Or we can't do that because counselors directed us to use the whole lot. Well, that is not, that's despite the consulting arbor saying that five trees were worth preserving and he only added an addendum to that after he was advised that, no, our design is covering the whole lot. Planning commission had an inquiry of strategies for the reduction in the heat gain of buildings with the facade. Well, the trees would achieve that. We are not about in any sense stopping this project at all. We just want you to do the right thing and follow your own codes and procedures and save a couple of trees. We think it's a small ask, it will improve the project and I'll finish by quoting from the letter submitted on our behalf by attorney Bill Parkham who says, if a public project cannot be slightly modified to accommodate the trees on the periphery of a project site, then any project can simply propose development throughout the four corners of a project site and not have to make alternatives to retain heritage trees on the periphery. This is absurd. The city is attempting to circumvent its own standards and impliedly graft onto the resolution the less onerous criteria that were rejected in save our big trees versus city of Santa Cruz in 2015. In fact, the decision by the Parks and Recreation Commission, the four who voted to deny the appeal was based on unsupported statements that the project cannot be altered in any manner to accommodate the trees on the periphery of the site. And he just asks that you should direct the project architect to review the matter. If this was honest and above board, we would have documents that said, well, we tried to do designs and here's our five, 10, 20 pages of why it wouldn't work. So I hope you will do the right thing by the trees and by the people who are urging you to follow your own rules. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Greensight. Good evening. My name is Joanne Katzen and I wanna thank the council, mayor and the public for being here especially. Anyhow, and I wanna also mention that I have four family members who can't be here to work in San Jose and two are college students and none in the area anymore. So they would be here and agree with me on what I have to say. My association goes back and with Santa Cruz goes back to 1979 when I was a student at the university. Like a lot of people, I spent many, many days going down the Pacific Garden Mall and when I wasn't in class, walking in and out of shops and especially bookshop Santa Cruz and logos, I must admit, and then occasionally spending some money especially in those stores. I did not have much money then but I didn't even know little that I know. A few years later that I would come back, become a teacher in Watsonville as I was a bilingual teacher. Hello Renee, we worked at the same school together and then I was for over 25 years until I retired, I taught in Watsonville and I actually did spend a lot of time in Santa Cruz and still on the Mall. Now I've seen many changes over those years, none for the better, none at all. As a matter of fact, for the worse, I've noticed the buildings going up and they have never seen such monstrosities except in San Jose and Los Angeles and that's the truth. I have, I don't know who would approve such monstrosities going right to the curves without greenery around. But anyhow, to get to the point here, it's now I have a desire to avoid the downtown altogether but one of the reasons I'm here is because I also couldn't be silent in the face of yet another drastic decision which will reverberate into the future long after all of us gone and at least I think we should spare the trees and let those trees live. And if not us, who will speak for the trees? Thank you. Thank you very much. I think our next participant is online and that would be Ms. Avalise. Good evening. I am sitting. Good evening. Good afternoon, City Councilman. My name is Suspecta Vales. I am a housing coordinator, advocated the housing choices and not- If I could just pause you for a second. Your voice is very soft. So if you would speak up that, we could hear you a bit better. Thank you. Good afternoon, City Councilman. My name is Suspecta Vales. I am a housing coordinator, advocated housing choices and non-profit service provider helping people with developmental and other disabilities find and retain affordable housing throughout Santa Cruz County. I am calling in support of the development at Eden Housing that will include 104 apartments with 11 houses set aside for people with disabilities. The site is ideal, situated near transition and downtown making it perfect location for development of a walkable, bikeable and more sustainable community. We strongly support the planning committees recommended that the support can be used for the affordable housing development who can use the space to develop more affordable housing and deeper levels of affordable housing. Then that would be achieved under the inclusion of housing or deans. This is especially important for meeting housing needs for Santa Cruz special needs population, including people with developmental disabilities who require deeply affordable rents paired with coordinator support services funded by San Andreas Regional Center. By having affordable housings available for special needs population, they will be provided with support, service to live in the community and have an onsite resident coordinator to check in with them regularly, contact their circle support, create an additional safety net for our clients. We hope to see the city commit to that creating housing opportunities which increase housing accessibility for people with developmental disabilities so they can remain in the community where they live or work. Where a person with development disability which can affect cognitive functioning, living without support for family or service providers can put them in an extremely vulnerable position and we can only hope that this client was able to find some safety and sustainability. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good evening. Until you get to the microphone, I can't hear a word you're saying. I'm sorry. Okay, sorry. I want to thank you for letting me speak. I am only briefly giving you information about. Would you be kind enough to state your name for the record? Susan Cavallieri. Thank you so much. Okay. I have a paper which talks about carbon sequestration by lot four trees. It was done using the information given by Dryad Arborist and is using my tree, I tree tools. So with the loss of 12 large trees at lot four, if the calculations indicate that 49 trees would be needed in order to match those trees which have been removed from lot four and this would be 10 years after planting. So if you could look at that, it will take years to get the carbon sequestration that we need. So thank you. Thank you very much. Let's next go to Mr. Golden Kranz who is online. Good evening, sir. Thank you, mayor and council members. Appreciate the opportunity. I'm here as the chair of the county democratic party. We took a strong stand in favor of this mixed use project and in opposition to the ballot initiative that was on last November's ballot. With respect to the ballot initiative, the people have spoken decisively. People of the city have declared that they want to move forward with this. I also have been watching this project through prior city councils and most recently the planning commission meeting and I've seen the project improve every time it goes under consideration. Most recently, I think your planning commission did a commendable job in asking questions about sustainable materials, about the green roof, about the open space for the childcare center and I thought overall they really had their eye on positive aspects of the program in terms of the versatility of it moving forward. I would like to say as a practitioner and teacher of environmental science that when the prior speaker did an analysis of the carbon sequestration of the trees that in addition to the replacement trees, you got to think about the people's ability to live there and walk to work. I'm on the board of Santa Cruz Community Health. You heard our friend Laura Marcus describe a growing downtown. We have a hundred employees who are commuting up from Watsonville and Salinas to work downtown. And if they had a chance to live there and walk to work, that's where the carbon gets removed. So I think the council's done a great job. Planning commission's done a great job and I hope you will move forward and approve this project as is. Thank you kindly. Thank you, Mr. Goldencrantz. Good evening. Greetings mayor and council members. My name is Kyle Kelly and I come to yet again support the library housing project. I think one important part to recognize is the other, everyone who's not in the room with us now, the people who have already been displaced or who even right now live in San Lorenzo Valley or Watsonville or Salinas that could be living downtown. And this is about looking at the forest instead of the trees right inside. This comes back to instead of worrying about carbon capture, let's just not emit the carbon. Let's allow more people to live downtown. Let's allow childcare to be right near like where a lot of people are working. Let's bring all of that together, library, housing, childcare. So I'm hopeful that we can continue on with this project. And I think importantly, I hope that everyone is able to look and think about like, am I a parent? How many children do I have? Do we create enough housing for our own children or our grandchildren? Are we making sure that we're leaving room and leaving a powerful legacy for the future?  Thank you. Mr. Kelly, thank you. Thank you for your service on the school board. Let's go to Mr. Snyder online. Good evening, sir. Good evening. So I have a lot of thoughts about this project. You know, there's definitely something to be said for, you know, renewal of the library. But I think you're funding this entire project. You're kind of threading the needle by combining the library funding, the transportation funding and the housing, the low income housing development funding. So it's all getting sort of lashed together in one chimera project. And it's kind of a real huge, you know, it needs to be, I think it needs to be sort of shrunken down.  The finished project almost never looks like the depictions. One thing that I know, you know, it's just really evident is that the central library is gonna take a huge hit in terms of how much floor space it has. If you compare the current library to this new two-story floor space you have allotted, it's actually a reduction of, I would estimate, over 35, maybe 40% in floor space. So the new library is actually gonna be, and the alley off to the side is just sounds like a really treacherous dark kind of a wild entrance for the UTC. University Town Center has a beautiful view of the sunset and the Magnolia Tree and the church and the horizon. And, you know, that's definitely gonna get blotted out much like Lincoln Street. And I'm just not in support of it, but, you know, it seems like it's moving forward. If you'd like to finish your thought, that will be okay. I don't have anything else to punctuate what I've already said. I guess that's how I feel about it. I think... Well, thank you very much for calling in. I very much appreciate that. Good evening. Good evening, Mayor and members of the council. Thanks for your time and consideration. This is really a crucial issue for the future of Santa Cruz. We all realize that. I wanna push away a false premise at the beginning, and that is that... Would you just follow record to state your name? I'm John Hall. Yes, you are. We're gonna speak to some extent as a sociologist here, so I won't lecture. So I wanna say, you know, there's a false premise that we have to choose between affordable housing and saving the trees, or between the library and saving the trees. We need to dismiss that idea. We want to see badly. The people who wanna save some trees want badly to see housing built in Santa Cruz. And we believe that we can, in this project, have both the housing, the library, and save two heritage trees. Sociologically, in the sociology of law, you have a problem if a city government does not honor its own ordinances and its own resolutions. Gillian Greensight has gone through the details, the Arborist Report, that says five trees that are heritage trees are worthy of preservation. She's shown you that there is no documentation that any effort was made to design an alternative plan that would accommodate the trees, two trees, even just two trees at the perimeter, and include the library, the housing, the parking garage, et cetera. So there's an issue of legitimacy of government if the city doesn't follow its own ordinances. I think that's something that you need to consider. The second thing, sociologically, is there's a great deal of social research, starting with the life and death, Jane Jacob's life and death of American cities, that shows that cities are for people who are on the streets, moving around, circulating, being with one another. I have never seen a public building. What I'm going to do, because I interrupted you once, I'm gonna give you another 15 seconds if you beef. I've never seen a civic building that didn't have an entrance other than being just a storefront-style entrance. We can do better here. I urge you to accommodate, to simply consider accommodating two trees. Thank you very much. Mr. Hall, thank you. Thank you for your good work on this. We will go to Ms. Loijos, who is online. Good evening. Hi, good evening. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Oh, great. Good evening, Mayor Keely and City Council members. My name is Dina Lojos, and I'm the Chief Strategy and Impact Officer at Santa Cruz Community Health. On behalf of our Board of Directors and the thousands of Santa Cruz City patients we serve, I'm here to express our support of the Downtown Library Affordable Housing Project. For nearly 50 years, Santa Cruz Community Health has provided high quality care to all people, regardless of their ability to pay. As a federally qualified health center, we're also a designated healthcare for the homeless site, dedicated to improving the health of the unhoused members of our community. In all, we serve the physical, emotional, and social needs of over 11,000 people, including over 2,000 of whom are unhoused. The housing crisis in our community continues to worsen with no end in sight. The need for affordable housing is the number one social issue facing our patients. If we could write prescriptions for affordable housing, we would do so without hesitation, as that is surely the fundamental treatment that so many of our patients' lives depend on. As a community, we do not have the luxury of shutting down affordable housing proposals. We have waited too long to build new housing stock. The fear of change can no longer be an excuse to prevent people, young and old, from accessing a safe and secure roof over their heads. The library housing project is one important step in the right direction. The Santa Cruz Community Health urges you to support the library affordable housing project, as is, thank you. Thank you very much. Good evening. Good evening. My name is Barbara Riverwoman. I found myself longing today as I thought about this meeting for a fairy tale. So being a preschool teacher and telling stories, I thought I would write one. So I just wrote this, it's a little rough. Once upon a time, there was a perfect little town nestled between a flowing river and a great ocean. The people in this town especially loved their trees and the trees loved them back. The breath of the trees filled the people's lungs with healthy air and the huge and beautiful white flowers on the magnolias and the flaming reds of the liquid ambers brought joy to everyone, but then two bad things happened. The little town became filled with monsters with strange names like Chevrolet and Ford and Tesla. And some people in the town made friends with the monsters and wanted to build more roads and houses for the monsters, even though the monsters breathed out poison and they were not beautiful. So then there was a fight. Three wise women made a very good law that the city could not cut down any special trees until they tried, as Jillian said, very, very hard to make room for them. Three wise men told the city it shouldn't build a house for monsters in the first place. So once again, this time the leaders of the little town paid a lot of money to some wise people, Nelson Newgard, to tell them what to do. They said the wise people said don't build houses for cars that will just make the monsters want to stay here, you should build parks for the future. So the leaders took a vote and it wasn't a fair vote, they voted to cut down the trees. The same people said maybe just a few trees. So the city leaders took another vote. And I will tell you my little granddaughter, as I told her I would tell her later what happens tonight, I will tell you later tonight what happened at the end of the story. Thank you. I'll say this, whether or not I agree with you on that, that was adorable. Our next caller online, welcome. Good evening council, my name is Eric Rodberg and I just wanted to clear up some errors that I've heard. The arborist definitely does not recommend retaining any of the trees. You found that they were all either unhealthy or in very poor growing conditions. And instead of just telling you what he said, I'm going to quote him because you've heard a lot of people telling you what he said and they weren't telling the truth. So this is a quotation. Quote, these trees will continue to increase in size, exacerbating current conditions. Many of the conditions observed can be expected to worsen over time. In my opinion, it is ill advised to retain these trees on site unless extensive design accommodation can be undertaken to enhance their growing condition and reduce risk. Consider removing and replacing all 12 trees with sound specimens that will not achieve large size and provide sufficient growing spaces. I would urge you to just go ahead with the planning commission's recommendation. The mesero people lost and they just won't accept the will of the people. Also, I would say the two trees that seem to be at the center of their efforts are liquid ambers and liquid ambers are considered a nuisance tree and prohibited to be planted as landscape trees in many communities for a whole bunch of reasons. So that's all I have to say. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Good evening. I'm Laurel Brune, Mayor Keely and City Council. I'm here to speak for trees and birds. Trees are so welcoming in a city such as ours. Why has Santa Cruz become popular? It's for its nature and not large tall buildings. Large buildings are unuseful and electricity or generator powers is out off the grid. Trees can bring us hope and compassion. Trees are alive. Trees can coexist with buildings, however. And a young person definitely needs and wants a tree. It is a relationship when we let it support us that way. People love them as part of the community now for many years. The community loves the trees. The trees have many benefits. One, shade, two, pollution filtering, three, carbon absorption, four, beauty, five, emotional and six, mental well-being. I'll explore how this actually works. When small saplings are planted, it takes years for their maturity. Replacement saplings do not equal heritage trees. It is estimated that a cubic meter of wood absorbs just under a ton of CO2 in a year. These trees will out give any building when the sun is too hot. The rain is too intense and winds are beyond duration. Smaller trees would be uprooted in the severe storm. Large trees endure. Modern buildings are useful under useful for heat or cooling when the power grid is out. Again, I say trees can bring back hope and compassion. They're a solid part of our early memories, DNA and spirit. Please thank you for considering keeping at least two or three trees. Thank you. Thank you so much. Ms. Filipini is next online. Good evening. Good evening, Lyra Filipini here. So over the- Ms. Filipini? Ms. Filipini, at least I'm having a hard time hearing you. I don't know if you need to get closer to your phone or whatever it might be, but see if you can step that up a little bit. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, is this better? That is better. Okay, great, thank you. Over the years, the lot for project concept has changed and improved a great deal. And many of you have played big roles in those improvements. Now that the majority of city voters chose this project as the path to affordable housing and a new library, let's move forward with one final improvement, one that would bring a meaningful remnant from decades of community events and markets to the parcels in new life and new purpose. Incorporating the two perimeter liquid ambers on the exterior would not only be beautiful, but also a step toward community healing, something I think we would all agree would be good. No pro-programmatic goals would need to be changed for this to happen. Clearly, the other protected heritage trees that the Arborist report did deem as, quote, worthy of preservation, end quote, would be less feasible to include because they're in the middle of the parcel. So no one's asking for that. But as has been demonstrated in the public record, there is plenty of space for all pro-grammatic goals to be fully achieved and also include just these two particular beautiful heritage trees on the perimeter. This would enhance the project both physically and equitably. People really love these particular large trees. After all, they are our heritage. But beyond that, following the associated ordinance and resolution is the right thing to do. And from what I can tell, it's pretty clear the ordinance has not yet been properly adhered to. I find this understandable when looking at the complexity of the project and the politics that have swirled around it. Yet I have full faith that if you direct them to, these talented architects can do modest design alterations to include just those two trees and relatively quickly too. I understand you need permits imminently so project funding applications can be submitted in a tight timeline. The original tree removal permits stated that they were conditional on project funding. Perhaps that could be tweaked to also include consideration of the implementation. That way you still have the permits and be able to apply for funding right away. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you, Mr. Filipini. Good evening. My name is Darius Mosni. First, I want to say at the outset, I'm not a climate denier.  I've heard a lot of discussion tonight about the trees and climate change and carbon sequestration. I brought my shop vac and this is 10 gallons. This is the entire, if this were a water, water, it would be the entire greenhouse gas output of China and that's 100 and the equivalent in drops of water is 151,000. I'm an engineer, I'm kind of a numbers guy. Santa Cruz, the entire Santa Cruz County carbon output is 345,000 tons as of 2018 numbers. It's one drop in this bucket, this 10 gallon bucket to make decisions about climate mitigation and our little community based on greenhouse gas output or trees capturing it. It's pretty irresponsible and I think it kind of demonstrates. And this is just China, not India, not Western Europe, not South America, just China. We are one drop in this 10 gallon bucket. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Let's go to the next person online. I have a phone number but I don't have a name but let me ask the person whose phone number ends in 6766, it's your opportunity to speak. Hello. Hi, good evening. You got me. Hi, it's somewhat commonly known as the other Fred these days. I'm, excuse me, I do mean to interrupt you. We can barely hear you so please do your best to speak loudly. Thank you, sir. Okay, Fred Geiger, Santa Cruz, sometimes the other Fred. But this is about to me, it's about the city following a law and you know, I'm tired as a taxpayer of seeing the city have to go to court so many times to defend things they've done that do not comply with the law, usually environmental laws. And then in the end, having to pay the legal fees for both sides when they lose and then complying in the end when they're forced to. The last three cases I'm aware of, this is class of city, over a million dollars in legal fees. Don't believe me, ask your city attorney. So you have some people here asking you not even comply with the full law about these heritage trees, nearly to save two out of something like seven or nine trees. I think it would be pitiful if this has to go to court and the project is lost, the library bond funding timeline is exceeded, all that nice affordable housing is jeopardized. I mean, how hard is it to say, cut a little space in this building, couple square feet here and there. These people want two trees, that's all they're asking for. What's the question? How hard is it? And it's the law anyway. So I mean, what's the hangup? Let the two trees be there, everybody's happy. I mean, I just don't get it, is it just arrogance or does the city doesn't feel like they ever have to comply with the law? I think it's disturbing and the amount of cost to the taxpayers and wasted legal fees, it's completely unjustifiable. So comply with the law, it's clear that it's there, excuses, the trees are this or that. The law is clear, it says you got to design the building around the trees and here people are only asking for two out of like seven or nine trees. So how else can you possibly go ahead intelligently? Thank you. Thank you so much. Good evening. Good evening. My name is Mary Odegaard and I would like to see housing and trees on lot four and I'm here to ask you to follow the city heritage trees code and request that the architects design a plan for that project that incorporates the trees. It's a simple request, it's a very sincere request. Those trees have beauty and they need to continue to stand and we can have housing and we can have trees. We don't have to choose between one or the other and we have a lot to be grateful for and I hope that you hear our sincere request for the trees all the best. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Sonnenfeld, good evening online. Yes, thank you. I just wanted to express my support for the library project. This has been a very multi years long saga and I hope that we're finally coming to some closure and be able to move on with the discourse around this. As was mentioned earlier, measure O was put to the voters and we soundly defeated it at a, I think close to 60 to 40. So nearly two thirds of the voters of Santa Cruz support this project and we like to see it move forward. I think we're all getting tired of debating every little single thing about this project. It's been getting better and better and better and as everyone who has spoken in support of this project this evening has mentioned so far, we need the affordable housing. It's a great library project. It'll include so many awesome features for our downtown community. So thank you for all your hard work and just appreciate everyone who's put so much soul into making this place for really the center of our downtown community. Thank you for your testimony. Good evening. Thank you so much. Of course. My name is Lisa Ekstrom. I think all of us care deeply for the future of the community. That's why we're here. I think we also all share concern for the climate emergency that we're all facing. I recently heard someone say that if you want to accomplish nothing, convince people that they're on opposite sides of each other and I believe we've all known the frustrations of that experience. For example, it could appear that one person's passionate protection of our heritage trees could be at cross purposes with another person's equally passionate push to get more affordable housing built as soon as possible. But what if we're not at cross purposes? What if it's not? Yes or no? What if it's, what if, what is, sorry, what if trees or this project is actually a false choice? In fact, as we work hard to create more much needed affordable housing downtown, these big trees will be even more of a crucial protection against rising levels of CO2, working hard to support environmental health, human health, even community health. It will take a very long time, as other people have said, for new sapling trees to protect us as the heritage trees already do. So what can we do together, honoring our need to affordably house more of our community and honor our ordinance and honor the trees that have been protecting us and continue to protect us? I come from a family of architects. I've seen many large projects change remarkably in their scope and if it weren't for the robust public engagement on this project, as many people have mentioned, we could still be here today, talking about a huge new parking garage with no affordable housing in sight. So please direct the architects of this project to create a design alteration to honor, accommodate, and save as many of our heritage trees on this site as possible. Thanks very much mayor and council members for your time and consideration. Thank you very much. We'll now go to Ms. Webster online. Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Great. Good afternoon, good evening actually. Sorry, Mayor Keely and council members, my name is Kalisha Webster and I'm the senior housing advocate housing places, the nonprofit service provider will provide on-site supportive services to residents with development and other disabilities and future affordable housing project proposed at the site like eating housing and for the future housing. I'm calling in support of the redevelopment of 113 and 119 industry into a vibrant new mixed use projects including a library and deeply affordable housing to do with a new transit in downtown may be the perfect location for creating a more sustainable and inclusive community. On behalf of the city's nearly 400 residents with development disabilities applauded the developer for including people with development of disabilities in their project plans. Today is currently home to nearly 300 adults with development disabilities only a third of whom have been able to transition from living independently with the supportive services they need to integrate into the community. Instead, most adults with developmental disabilities are living at home with age and parents due to the lack of deeply affordable housing available in the city increasing their risk of homelessness or displacement as they age in place. This is because many adults with developmental disabilities on fixed incomes from disability benefits are working part-time in low wage jobs and struggle to qualify for most of the affordable units currently available in the city. By collaborating with housing places who provide onsite supportive services for the 11 households living in the home set aside for people with developmental disabilities and offer units of the deepest levels of affordability. This project will address the housing needs of these adults wanting to live independently by meeting federal and state priorities to provide inclusive housing opportunities where people with and without disabilities will live side by side and helps to meet the city's legal mandate to affirmatively further their housing for a special needs population or to be committed a little further than for community housing options. We look forward to be able to support future residents of this project and strongly urge you to approve this project. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Webster. Good evening. I have a point of clarification I'm just wondering. I represent Save Some Trees. We are the appeal. Ms. Marin, right? Yes. Yes. And you... And I've been waiting because I thought it would be better for everybody to be able to make their comments. And I'm wondering, is that really true? Well, you can do it however you want. You do have extra time. Right. So you can do that now. You can do it as the last person to testify. However you wish to do it as fine. Okay, I think I'll wait just because it seems to interrupt the flow. Okay. Good, good. Thank you very much. Chairman Goldencrantz, welcome back. My mistake, sorry. Do you wish to testify on this, sir? Okay. I thought so. There we go. All right, good evening. Hi, good evening. My name is Eileen Ballian. I'm a longtime Dominican hospital employee. And I recognize the need for community projects which prioritize new housing. Most Santa Cruz residents face increasing difficulty accessing affordable housing. Many of my colleagues at Dominican struggle to find homes within their budget. And certainly the vulnerable population we treat at Dominican struggles in this current environment. The new library project allows for more housing along with giving us a much needed new library which I believe many of the library employees are in support of. I hope the council will support this important civic development. Thank you. Well, thank you. Ms. Duncan Merrill online. Good evening. Hi, can you hear me? Okay. Yes, we can. Great, thanks. Calling in to support the mixed use library project. I would like to applaud everyone involved for designing such an extraordinary project. The landscaping in particular which is my passion as a landscape designer is really quite beautiful. We are adding a rooftop garden to what is an existing surface lot that's just asphalt and 12 trees that are in a permanent state of decline. I am excited about a modernized library. I think it's incredible that we're adding 124, 100% affordable housing units. I am grateful for all the hard work from so many of my local Santa Cruz city residents for working so hard on this project. And I applaud the city council for finally taking it up after years of obstruction from the same exact people who promised us that once the voters had to say, they would knock it off. They would stop appealing this mixed use project. They would stop lying to the public. They would stop standing up for 12 trees in decline. They continue to call it 12 trees even though one of the ginkgos is barely a tree. It's barely hanging on, yet they include it in their account. I hope that this group has had enough that they have learned from the fact that 60% of our local electorate voted in favor of this extraordinary project. I thought they would stop, they haven't. They continue to mislead the public with untruths and questionable facts. But I personally would like to ask that our Santa Cruz city council adopt to this project without any changes. It is an important project and it is also important to set a standard for our city that a small group who are highly litigious will stop the constant battle with our locals and at least allow this project to move forward. Thank you guys for your time. Thanks for everything. Have a good night. Thank you, Maggie. Is there anybody that's in chambers wishes to speak still? Okay. Good evening. My name is Gianna Sodrisco. I'm the current president of the Friends of the Santa Cruz Public Libraries. I was on library staff for 33 years and I retired in 2019 as assistant library director. Friends of the Santa Cruz Public Libraries and its chapters are the fundraising arm that supports all the branches in the library. We have raised over almost $3 million to support the nine branches that have either reopened or about to reopen this year. So we have one more branch, the downtown branch. The downtown branch is very important because it is not only the branch, the local branch for the citizens, the residents of the city of Santa Cruz, but it is the hub of a library system. It offers collections, programs and staff support to all the branches. We, I'm sorry. You're doing great. I lost my place. We're not gonna count it against you, you're doing fine. Thank you very much, I'm very sorry. But it's really important for the library is that we have heard from citizens for the last seven years through numerous public meetings, through the media and through the ballot box that they support of a library. Go ahead. It's time to build it. Let's get this done. Thank you. Thank you very much. Ms. Stetson online. Good evening. Hi everyone, it's Grace Stoutman. I have had a lot of relationships with this mixed use project over the last year and a half, two years. First as the affordability and equity correspondent at Lookout Santa Cruz, then as the campaign coordinator for NOAA Measure O. Now as the communications manager at Housing Matters and also and potentially most importantly as a renter in this community trying to find affordable housing. It is very difficult to find affordable housing in Santa Cruz. If you have not looked recently, it's become even more difficult since I first moved here. This project has been in development for years as Janice and Maggie and Kyle and various other people have said and was approved by over 14,000 city voters. That's almost 60% of voters when it was put on the ballot last November. This project has been decided and we need to move forward with it to move forward as a community. One of the critics of the project earlier mentioned that she considers projects like this to be monstrosities. I think it's monstrosity that we are not prioritizing housing for all of our residents. We may be losing 12 non-native trees here in Lot 4 but we are gaining 124 units of affordable housing, a new library, healthcare facility, and outdoor green space. I hope that we can move forward with this project sooner rather than later. Thank you. Thank you so much. Good evening. Mayor Keely, I want to just clarification because I just spoke on the trees before and you said we would get an opportunity to speak on the rest of the project and another opportunity but the way things are going. Okay, let me... I'm not sure. Yeah, let me make sure. What I was trying to say is those folks who came here to speak on the tree portion of this issue, I was trying to get them sort of together. Okay, and I'll step aside if there's any left, okay? There we go. Everybody can testify one time, okay? One time. You don't get to come up on the appeal on the trees and then separate. So whatever you have to say, say it. That's the opportunity. Who has read their bright yellow packet that I included and everybody here got one? Yeah, why don't you say who it is you want to say? Okay. Well, what I want to say is the loss of the space, the common public space, as I see is the biggest tragedy. Okay, hang on just a second. Certainly. Mr. Golder. Just hold for a second. Yes, I just want to clarify who I am for the record. Hold on. Okay. Tell you what I'm going to do. Tell you what I'm going to do. I can see where it might have been somewhat confusing when I made my earlier comment. You testified earlier on this, but what I'm going to do out of an abundance of comment to you is give you 30 seconds. Okay. Well dig your yellow packet out and follow along with me because I think the most important point is the loss of the public space. We haven't, this city has not had an open space since 1910 when the streets were wide enough to turn a wagon with a four house team around. And the last opportunity we got was the earthquake. And we tried to pick it up there, but this is a public space that's mostly empty right now. And is a great location for what the folks that wanted to have it as a basically as a public plaza. It could be used for many different things. And I put together a list of spaces all over the world here that I use family and a video that you, I hope you had the time to look at, but I was going to make some comments about, for the lady who wrote the death and life of the great American cities, public spaces are extremely important and what you're losing, what you're going to murder here. You're losing opportunity that would cost at least $5 million to replace that land because that's the price of land for acre $2.4 million for acre. That's what the city paid for the front street. So I'm done. All right, read this before you vote. All right, please. Thank you very much. You got it in plenty of time. Excuse me. All right. Thank you. Would you also hand that to the clerk so we could have it for the record? They had actually all the copies, but I got plenty of copies out here. And it to the clerk, we'll be glad to include it in the record as well. Thank you, sir. All right. And tell us how we got to this point. Understood. Ms. Aguado, I hope that I have pronounced your name correctly. You are on. Good evening. Good evening. Anna Aguado from Head Start Under Encompass Community Services. Our program provides services, early child care services to families across our county. And in my experience, I do oversee the social services part of our program. And one of the major needs that families have mentioned is housing. And in addition to that, our staff struggle when families ask them for support in finding affordable housing, and it's very limited. So I do want to advocate for supporting additional housing in the community. In addition, I want to add that our program is on board to collaborate in the project to provide child care services as part of the project. We do want to make this in an effort to interrupt the cycles of poverty. And I ask that you consider approval of this project to support families and future generations. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your testimony. Good evening. I'm Narayan Wilder, local activist and independent journalist. And I come to speak because I think one of the only people in this room, under the age of like 25, so I have a pretty important perspective on this. And I'm feeling quite conflicted, to be honest, because I see I am somebody who is in need of affordable housing here in Santa Cruz. I currently live in Boulder Creek at the house where I've lived for my whole life because I can't find anywhere to move out. I just can't. I can't find anywhere to move into Santa Cruz. Around Santa Cruz, I can't find anything. But also, I do see the tree advocates things, particularly the it takes trees a long time to grow, takes many, many, many years for such large trees to grow, but also I see the not wanting to delay such a deeply important project for further and further pushing it back. Just one of the other things that I kind of thought about was the large-ish parking garage that is still there and those ideas of just like, there's this concept in urban design called induced demand. If you build it, they will come. So producing more car-centric infrastructure leads to more demand for cars and in this particularly very downtown area, very closely proximity to the transit center and walkability, I could also see not needing so much space developed to car parking and those kind of things. So I really don't know if I'm advocating for or against the program. I kind of just, I'm feeling very conflicted on it. And just as a youth who has a vested interest in this community, I was born in Felton. I've lived in Boulder Creek my entire life. I've been a citizen here my whole life. I'm also a permanent pedestrian. So I just, a lot of prevalent perspectives. I don't know how I feel. Thank you very much. Thank you for sharing your ambiguous feelings with us. That's good. We appreciate it. Mr. Phillip, you're online and you're on. Hi. Hey, before commenting on the library, could you clarify what happened to oral communications as you must have blown through that in a hot man a second? That was boned? Hi. I am very sorry. He's saying that oral communications was, he's saying that oral communications on the agenda was to happen before this item, but we could do it after. Oral communications going to happen as soon as we finish this item. Okay, thank you, sir. You're welcome, sir. Okay, I will comment on the library. The library is a hugely controversial project that with no doubt indicates that a pervasive consensus never did, doesn't and won't ever exist and measure O wasn't a straight up and down vote on it being junked up with other considerations. So it wasn't really a valid vote, although measure S was that had a very different idea about the use of library funds. My objections are that it is clear you want to repeatedly permanently sacrifice public property airspace that is really owned by everyone used by the many to the housing benefit of really very few housing crisis or not. I don't know if you intend to insist residents be screened for some kind of a need basis. I hope not. We don't live in Russia, not yet. And I suspect nothing prevents people of means just snapping up a good deal. The real problem is inflation and today's affordable housing is tomorrow's unaffordable housing. I hope in the future you get better consensus before embarking on the most expensive project ever undertaken here and put some limits on your ideas about giving away public property for the benefit of the few before it's all gone. Thanks. Thank you. Good evening. Good evening, Mayor Keely and council. My name is Jim Mechus, resident past water commissioner. I grew up in Santa Cruz using the old Carnegie library through high school. By the mid sixties, it was too small for a town of 30,000. So we built a current library. Our population has more than doubled again, 65,000. It's time. Please approve the project as proposed. Twice now the public has voted support for a library that will address current and future needs of our growing city. We also need affordable housing and this mixed development delivers 124 units all affordable. Reducing the project size to retain existing trees reduces the ability to provide either sufficient library or affordable housing. The only obstacle is the claim of heritage trees. If council were to pass a law declaring trees to be elephants, those trees wouldn't become elephants, only misnamed trees. And when compared to mature redwoods, some locally are up to 2,000 years old. There's not much heritage to the trees that were planted as parking lot decorations behind the local JC penny store 60 years ago. They're younger than I am. I don't consider myself heritage. The Arborist report says the current trees are in bad shape. They've had roots and tops aggressively pruned. Over the years, the root crowns are partially buried. There's disease and they do drop limbs. The mixed use project will replace them with 21 new trees, plus a living turf roof on the buildings.  That's combined with a beautiful, airy, functional design and affordable housing. I ask you to please approve this project. Thank you very much. Ms. Kuhl, I'm sorry, Ms. Kuhl, hold for just a second. The person whose phone number ends in 5652, you are on. Hi, my name is Candice Brown and as I'm listening to this, I was not involved in the great battle over measure O because I was dealing with the loss of a loved one. But one thing that is always concerned me about this project is that it is in the 100 year flood plain. And if you are going to consider the modifications to the project for a handful or a few trees, it would be a rare opportunity to rethink what would happen to the library in 100 year flood. It is a three story building, but there might be an opportunity to add another floor to put the community space at the bottom and the library collection up at the top because it's never been something that's been adequately discussed in my view. So we're talking about trees today, but we're also talking about a development that will be lasting for another 100 years. And it will live to see 100 year flood. So I hope you will consider that and it may be a rare opportunity to deal with it. Thank you very much. Thank you for your testimony. Good evening, Ms. Matthews.  Thanks. You are faced with a very exciting opportunity this evening to make a major investment in the future of our community. And I don't want you to lose track of that. This is, you have a wonderful staff report, not to repeat it. The staff report touches on so many aspects of our city's general plan. And this project not only fulfills but realizes so many of the goals in our general plan for affordable housing, for sustainability, for a vibrant downtown, for social equity, goes on and on and on. They're all contained in this community vision. And this project realizes them. This project also realizes hard work done on the library facilities master plan 10 years ago to look at our whole system, as was talked about. And we've seen in the intervening years almost all of the branches either completed or in the process of renovation. And we have seen, I hope you visited the branches, the excitement that those wonderful, renovated or new libraries bring to those communities. It's happening nationwide. And that's what we deserve for our downtown. We've seen the evolution of our downtown plan. I participated in the vision Santa Cruz after the earthquake and the downtown plan has evolved since then. Certainly now with COVID, the changes in work, work patterns, we're facing more changes for our downtown. And we need to accommodate that. We also have community imperatives for affordable housing that become only more severe every year. I particularly wanna call out the work that was done, the evolution of this plan and the change of the design to be considerate to the Cedar Corridor plan stepping down as it reaches out into the less dense neighborhood. I want to just show a couple of pictures if I could ask one to be put. I wanna show you my liquid amber chops. We're gonna freeze your time here for a second. Make sure you get the time. They told me they could do this. Maybe not. We'll know. I'll just say I moved to Santa Cruz in 1970. Shortly after that, I live on Walnut downtown. Man, this street is bleak. It's hot. So I organized tree planting along Walnut Avenue. And the first block, my block was liquid ambers. There I am. Look, an African print thing here. That's 1971. Trees for Walnut. Next to that, added the trees, 1971. That's my little babe there. He is now 50-something. The trees grew up. He grew up. Let's take a look at the next picture. Liquid ambers are not a great street tree. Those are those trees. They're brittle. They break. They have invasive roots. Virtually all the liquid ambers on Walnut are gone. They're not a good urban landscape tree. I also planted the sycamores along the 200 block of Walnut. And those are thriving. So I just want to put street trees in perspective. Finally, that third image that I showed you, just want to emphasize the map. Yeah. You're not going to be able to read this, but you'll see it. This is a sandborne map. It's an old insurance map from 1880-something. Of this block of downtown, Cathcart didn't go through. Cedar didn't go through. There was a shooting gallery. There were stables. We refused single-family houses without houses. My point being, downtown's evolved. And what we see before us now is a plan that's been so well thought out. It combines so many of the needs and good resources of our community to really meet the needs of this community now and for the future. So I urge you to support it. As presented, trying to save true, two non-healthy trees that aren't suitable is just a fool's air and it compromises the project beyond reproach. So let's realize the vision of the library housing project. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Matthews. Ms. Kuhl, you are online. Good evening. Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. So I'm actually calling because my daughter would like to say something on this issue. And then if there's any time left, I'll say something as well. Sounds fine. Hello, my name is Alison Kuhl. I am asking you to save the trees because I care about the environment and animals. You should respect things that have been here longer than you. Thank you. So that was my daughter and she's actually raising her voice on something that she cares about. Many of you know I'm the president of the Santa Cruz chapter of the California Homeless Union and I also work for a local nonprofit. I can definitely say we need housing. Housing is the number one thing that individuals who are unhoused need. With that being said, I also love trees and my daughter cries for the environment. So I just would like to say that if there's any way to save a couple of the trees and incorporate that in the design, I don't see any reason why you can't go back to the developer and say, you know, these trees are viable. We want you to save a couple of them. You know, we're hearing the community when it comes to that. So that's our two cents regarding this issue. Thank you. Ms. Keele, thank you and your daughter very much. Mr. Farrell, good evening. Good evening, Mayor Keeley and council members. I'm here today just to urge you to support staff recommendation and the public process that included review by the planning commission, which voted unanimously to support this project. And it included members on that commission who had opposed the project in the November election. So if the planning commission can see the path to approving this unanimously, I'm hoping the same thing could happen today at council. Secondly, the Parks and Recreation Commission considered the heritage tree appeal. They denied it. I think the commission serve at the pleasure and authority of the council. And I urge you to support the Parks and Recreation Commission in their finding. Thank you. Mr. Farrell, thank you very much. First name Chris online. Good evening. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and council. Good evening. Hi. So I would just encourage the council to follow city ordinance. You know, if this is somebody else, they would be red tagged probably for not following city ordinance. And it's your ordinance and you should follow it. How do you expect citizens to be lawful if their representatives are not following the law? It just kind of reeks of got candid shady deals and no transparency whatsoever. Additionally, the problem with this program for me is cities throughout the world are not allowing cars into the center city of town to make it more livable and by providing 200 plus parking spaces in downtown, you're just asking for more noise, pollution and parking issues that you already had said in a previous item number 15 that you want to encourage vision zero and climate action plan support. This does not support that whatsoever by inviting 200 and some odd cars into the heart of downtown. It's not gonna be, it's not gonna make for a livable city whatsoever. So I think the architect should go back, try to incorporate the trees per city of Santa Cruz city ordinance and breathe think about building a parking garage. Essentially it has a library attached to it. And I would also like to say that when I voted for measure as a dollars for renovation of a library, I voted for renovation of a library. I did not vote for a parking garage. So that's all I have to say. Thanks for listening. Thank you so much. This seals. Good evening. I'll be brief. We love the library. We love affordable housing. People love trees. And these pictures, you should have had 60 of them, I believe in the last few weeks coming into your email. And these were taken by people along the periphery, not in the inside. So there's tree five, which is quite healthy. You go look, it's obviously healthy. And also, I think one of these is on a liquid amber. But anyway, just to remind you, a lot of people in the city really love the trees. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Seals. Good evening, sir. We got word that there is someone online who is not able to raise their hand or we're not seeing their hand raised. So I'm gonna try to unmute them. Very good. So just hold for us for just a moment here. Good evening. My name is Elaine Johnson. Good evening. We can hear you. Can you hear me? Oh yes, we can. Please proceed. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor and Council Member, for the opportunity to speak this evening. I'm going in to talk about the downtown library and affordable housing project that I think is absolutely amazing and will continue and help to bring, you know, the much needed housing that is needed here through our Sanctus County. I couldn't think of a better place to build 124 affordable housing and rebuild the library. We'll have the childcare facility. I grew up in a place in New York where we had childcare facility and it was so impactful when parents stopped their kids off and knew that their kids were safe and they can come back home and pick up their children. So I'm here this evening to urge each and every one of you to support this project, allow this project to move forward as we can continue to allow Sanctus County and the city of Sanctus for this project to continue to be its vibrant community that it is. Thank you so very much. Have a good evening. Thank you. Now, let me see the gentle lady who wanted to go last. This is your opportunity. Here we go. Let's hold for us for just a second here. Just one second. You're on. Thank you. Good evening. Good evening. I'm Linda Marin and I am presenting for Give Our Trees a Chance Save Some Trees Coalition. Slightly, please. There are 12 groups and 890 individual people who signed on to our appeal of the tree cutting permit that Parks and Rec issued in October. Slightly, please. I feel as though a lot of this presentation has already been made by the general public and I'm gonna try and zoom past some of it. But I'll say disappointed of course that on December 12th, the Parks and Rec Commission denied our appeal and upheld the tree removal permit with a four to three vote. However, we still appeal to y