. So next Tuesday is the earliest that we were able to meet which is why, you know, unfortunately my agenda review would have asked to not put this on the agenda at this time and to delay it so that we could have that opportunity with them. They came on the agenda and because it's here it was worth having a conversation we've been receiving input from the public but, you know, as has been mentioned before, you know, we're trying to have an inclusive project that we're asking for at this time is to revisit this after we've had the chance to have that conversation with the unions because if we had that conversation before today, I think we'd be in a position to move this forward but we haven't had that conversation and what we've seen in the staff report is a lot of outreach with businesses and contractors but we don't really have, you know, what is the position on unions because, you know, I think our objective is to try to figure out what's gonna work best for the community as a whole and without being able to have a conversation with the unions and labor before we move forward. I think that's a problem because we've heard from the non-union community but we haven't heard from the unions. Can I just add a really brief context? Mayor, in terms of a direct response to the why the delay as we, so we had the conversation with staff and everybody seemed amenable to moving forward with setting up a meeting. The doodle poll that we got was for weeks that it was three weeks out. So, you know, for a variety of reasons, people's schedules, I'm not sure. It just took that long to get the meeting scheduled. There are a lot of things we're on vacation during July. So, bringing city staff together along with council members and the building to take care of the people who've been taking that off. Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. You know, I seconded the motion. First of all, I just wanna thank the staff and director Menard. I know that you've been working hard on this. I also wanna thank all the business owners and union representatives who are watching us this afternoon and participating in this discussion. I especially am glad that we were able to have both the speaking economic work completed. And I think I'm gonna echo much of what you've heard, which is, you know, we need to design a program that's gonna work for our local workforce. And I think that we have provided a pathway to continue to explore what PLA may look like for the city of Santa Cruz. But I do share the interest in the, you know, the workforce development piece in this. I think that, I mean, I have family members that work in the industry, in the construction industry. It's known throughout the industry that Santa Cruz, you know, the workforce is not being developed that's gonna replace folks. And we need to support our local companies to be able to have the opportunity to do that. And so I think that the workforce and community benefit approach is of great interest to me. I think there's a pathway included in this motion where the PLA can be further explored. But I do believe that there's an effort made to basically try to move this along. I remember a very expensive conversation in June and early June on our priorities where, you know, there was, you know, very clear direction and, you know, to bring this back in August. And so I feel like our staff has done their due diligence. I think, I know when the item was brought to the council back in January, it seemed very clear there had been quite a lot of conversations with labor and the unions back then. So I'm supportive of the motion. I think this, you know, I'm very interested in just moving ahead with the benefits that we can get out of this program and really the focus on our local workforce, which I think is very important. And so those are my comments. I will be, yeah, I'm supportive of the motion, obviously, since I seconded it. Thank you. I need to use that, I don't know what I'll have you. But just to give you my opportunity to instruct, I'd like to, we've been sitting now for, I think what's going on, almost two hours, two hours, so three hours. So while we take a quick five minute break and come right back, we're going to finish with the item. The video is on so you can see the video. That way we know that you're back. We can go ahead and get started. And I think we're just waiting on our team. We're going to go on deck, speed, Council Member Matthews, Council Member Byers, Council Member Brown, and then Council Member Golder. I'm done. Okay. Council Member Byers. I'm sort of, I'm glad we had that break because it's the way it can help a lot because I am just, it wouldn't be continued. When Council Member Politely are asking that it be continued, there is no timeline. Sometimes you can't continue on the agenda item. You've got some grant waiting or for some reason there's a deadline.  It can be brought, it can be brought back in August. And the fact that the Mayor was not an agenda review, because I've been a lot of gender reviews and did, ran many of them. And the Mayor controlled the agenda in it. It's on the agenda. Why would he get there without the Mayor reviewing the agenda and said, good idea? And I think everything showed in good faith that the Council, the staff members, I guess three, two Council Members and the Trade Union to a doodle, once you don't believe them, someone bring out the doodle and show that they tried, tried to get it as soon as possible. And so it's August 18th. It could have been August 14th. Life would have been great. It isn't, it's not until the 18th. And somebody's telling me what is wrong with continuing this agenda item and there's no deadline. There's no reason not to, at least it's been presented, that they wouldn't continue it for two weeks, this month. I just, I guess I've just never had that happen and occurred not because I'm one of the people made the motion. Just any Council Member, no matter majority and minority wants to continue something. And there's no reason not to. I just, somebody clue me in. I'm missing something. Yeah, I think Council Member Byers pretty much summed up my, I will say that I'll be moving amendments to the main motion when it looks like that's where we're gonna go, but I will be offering amendments. Council Member Byers, point. I think there's been, just in my short time on Council, times when I would have rather had more time to research something, but when it's on the agenda, I get on Thursday, I get some days to have people reach out to me or I can reach out to people and get that information. And so I feel like that's what's been on the agendas and that are gonna be coming on the agendas. I feel like that is the urgency that we can't keep having these long, long, long meetings. And there is so many things that when we, when we talked about what our priorities were, that we haven't even addressed yet this year. And so with that, I think there's a little bit of a sense of urgency and since staff did take the time and the labor unions could have reached out to any of us at any point since January. It wasn't like it had, like they had to wait for it to get on the agenda. Like I said, I was being reached out to by business owners and contractors and both union and non-union people that I know in the community since January. And so for that, I feel like I'm prepared to make an educated decision, which we all vote. And then I just wanted, yeah, I guess that's pretty much it. I, yeah, that's all I was saying. The other thing was the process. So what's the process now? That's why I'm a little confused. So are we gonna vote on Councilman's motion to postpone and then. And under your leading guidelines, when there's a substitute motion council first on whether to accept the substitute motion. And if it's accepted, then the council will vote on the substitute motion and the original motion will essentially wither and die on the line. Thank you for clarifying that from. Yeah, thank you for the comments. I just want to clarify, and I'm just trying to look up a few things here as we're doing this. I was at a gender review. I was informed right before the meeting that the mayor was not going to attend. I did not have time to call the mayor to check in with him. So I just want to be clear. I am not the person who put this on the agenda or did I have any control about why it stayed there or didn't stay on the agenda. So I was asked literally, I was informed about 15 minutes before the meeting started, the mayor wasn't able to attend. So I was responding to a list that continues to always be developed and is iterative as we work through various parts of the agenda. And I guess what I'm trying to understand here is a little bit about past history in terms of when this was supposed to be brought back. I remember a very long discussion on the night and there was very clear intent that this move forward as quickly as possible. And so I think that our staff was responding to that and I think that the work that was done is satisfactory. I don't know, we've had a lot of people taking time out of their day to be part of the meeting today. A lot of businesses are on the phone with us. I'm not quite sure how two weeks is going to make a big difference. And I think I understand the meeting is next week but there could have been a meeting on Friday. If this was what was needed. So I struggle with the conveyance that somehow we're forcing this down our colleague's growth as we're just trying to process a request that has been on the books since last January and we're trying to respond to a lot of different items that I agree, I think we need to move through and we have a lot of priorities that we're not getting to. So I want to clarify a few of the comments made by my colleague and I'll defer to the next speaker, to the next council member in terms of other comments. Okay, if I could just respond. I do want to bring forward a few things that I think are being overlooked, one of which is that when COVID hit, so that we wouldn't have shorter meetings so that we weren't hurting staff. So we were really trying to focus on the pandemic response and why this has taken as long as it has. And we were trying to not give direction to staff to work on these types of items that were not a priority at the time. It came back to us at the beginning of July. And again, I think the staff probably would have been done in terms of outreach. The reason why this meeting is important because it is that missing piece of outreach on us. We reached out to those outreach centers to the chamber. There was outreach center to the contractors and they've had an opportunity to weigh in. And we haven't, and we tried to get an opportunity to speak with building and construction trades sooner. And we weren't able to get that as soon as we could. And this is something that came out of meetings that Councilmember Brown and I had with staff saying that we want to do the rest of the community. And we really think we can play forward, but we want to have an opportunity to sit down with the unions as well, with staff, so we can all be in the same conversation so that we can all, you know, please tell us a little bit and hear from staff and hear the concerns. We can cheer with, we can work with the unions and try to work something out that would be, you know, something that we can bring forward and try to come into consensus on. And we have, and we, we tried to get that meeting to happen sooner. And, you know, people's schedules wouldn't allow for it, but as soon as, as soon as we really get it, it's auto-taping. And so, you know, I think what we're trying to do is really ensure the one piece that's missing is the work ethic change. It might have, there might be other recommendations that would come, but it would ensure that everyone had an opportunity to participate in this process based on, you know, priorities, why does the income come quicker? I'm going to move the discussion. I would just withdraw all my motion and I know I'm going to disappoint some people on that, but I don't want fellow council members to feel that they have been blindsided. I agree this is not urgent. My position is not going to change substantially into two weeks or four weeks. So no secrets there. I will say when this was first delivered to the city council earlier this year, it was a very heavy handed, delivered fully hatched item. And that was not appreciated. There was no effort to reach out to the broader community that time. And that's why direction was given when it came back to us. To stop, reach out to the broader, learn about our local labor force, workforce, learn about the options, talk to people before running forward a finished product. So for those who feel that this is being, there has not been adequate discussion, let me say that was the framework in which this was first presented. So I am willing to withdraw my motion in the interest of giving time for those who want another short bit of time to engage with labor, fine. You know, other council members can remake the motion and they may very well be disappointed with me. I have tried as some people know over the years to be accommodating and allow for discussion. We all know this is not going to, there is no calendar deadline facing us on this. But let's be honest, those who want discussion now with labor, fine, we will all hear that. We had a very strong case made earlier in the year without consulting with the broader community at all. Let's hear the full story. Let's hear what it means for our local workforce. Let's learn what it means in terms of the realities of doing project city projects. And then it will come back and then we'll decide. So with that, I'm going to withdraw my motion. I can't hear you. I was saying that in this meeting with the units before we make our final decision, I think it would be beneficial for the community just for providing. One second. I would just ask that those who's wishes have been accommodated in this move would extend equal openness as we go through the process. And then Matthews. Thank you. And yeah, Council Member Matthews, I appreciate your willingness to do this. I want to say that having not been one of the council members who originally brought this to our agenda, I too have since then been very interested in trying to have more of a conversation about this and not have it be one sided and not have it entirely be two minutes of the, you know, in public comment to us because I don't think that's the way that we're going to get to some kind of end recommendation that we can all feel good about. We may never get there, but we haven't even tried that yet. And so I appreciate your willingness to hold off to at least take this next step. And I certainly, you know, I will not forget that you've given us some additional time to have that conversation, but I just want to be clear that my intention was never to, you know, bring something fully formed and have it be, you know, imposed upon the city and all of its employers without discussion, my goal. And I appreciate your recognition of our desire for more conversation. Welcome to the audience. I think the most of was to table this at this meeting and to reschedule it. I first said the second meeting in August and the mayor asked if I'd make that more flexible. So I was just asking to delay it for two weeks. Either way, it was very simple motion, just that we postpone this for two weeks. It's all set. Mayor Cummings, specifically it was the motion that would be voted on is to postpone it to come back either the August 25th or the September 8th council meeting. Yeah, that's what it ended up. Just because in terms of agenda reports, that's not necessarily needs to have a strict timeline associated with that. I accept that suggestion. That'd be flexible in the timeline. But yes, the 25th, I realize now, now that I'm getting the agenda from Thursday night that there's a very little turnaround time from one meeting to the next meeting. If you want to ensure that we do, that this doesn't get underneath the flexibility. I appreciate some of the comments, but again, I don't understand the urgency in this. Don't understand why we're pushing this. I recall a meeting, the meeting in January and officially going to be a study to understand how PLAs could potentially be beneficial or also if there was downside, actually there was a motion made to actually begin an ordinance that night. So to say that this isn't been pushed, it has been pushed. I'm hearing sort of both kinds of comments right now, which is there's no rush to this, but I'm also hearing, well, it needs to come back to the second meeting in August or the first meeting in September, which to me is being pushed. So I'm trying to understand. I feel like, yeah, I'm just trying to understand because I don't feel like there's, I don't feel like the intent is clear because I think that two things are being said. We don't want to vote today on this because we have additional work to do, but as soon as we do that work, we're going to want to get this right back on the agenda and get a vote. There's a lot of people who took a lot of time to come here today. A lot of our local employers, a lot of our local family-owned businesses are on the phone listening to us right now. And we've been at this for over two hours. Now we're going to postpone it because it's not really urgent, but we're going to make sure it comes back in two to three weeks. So I'm frustrated because we're taking people's time and I don't know what my vote will be in a few minutes here, but it's frustrating. And I don't think the, it's a very frustrating conversation. So I would like to request it possible if I could attend your meeting with the building and trade union folks, if that would be acceptable to you. Because I think that might be beneficial to have a few more, another seat at the table. So I don't know when the meeting is scheduled for and I don't want to mess with schedule. So I'm trying to be exact as appropriate. So thank you. This is becoming, when it is because of the fact that we agreed to have a meeting on August 18th. So the frustration is shared. We discussed having a meeting with the building trade for bringing this forward when I had my meeting with the city manager the other day and wasn't really sure the best thing to do in terms of just deleting it from the agenda or there'd be some discussion. But I think that this discussion has been helpful in understanding, I do think that we want to not continue kicking this down the road because we've probably gotten more work done if it hasn't been for COVID. But given the position that we're more than happy, I think that we're going to be sure that we came to the meeting with us. And I'm hoping we can get through this so it's not continuing to just come back. And everybody's frustration. There's nothing I disdain more than meeting for meeting's sake. And like many of us, I have a full-time job and this is a second part-time job. And I don't have the luxury of being on that agenda review committee. And so when I get my agenda Thursday night and I look at it, sometimes I up to one in the morning and then Friday night and Saturday all day and Monday and Monday. And so I think it's kind of up to us to do our due diligence and it's up to reach out to people but we think our stakeholders in these decisions that we're gonna be making. And I also don't wanna like upset anybody to the point where we're working together. So if we need another couple of weeks, fine. But I, and so I'm not gonna walk that, but I would prefer when some things on the agenda that we address that issue after meeting or remove it from the agenda as soon as you realize that there's some mistake.  And yet it's frustrating. And my opinion in general, this is the meaning that we've said a little bit. Yeah, like it's nice that you and Council Member Myers and Brown get to meet with labor, like in a, in a, in a group, but like the rest of us are prohibited from meeting in that group because of the- No, no. I like it brown act, right? No, no. We can meet? Yeah. If I could. We can't be in that same meeting, but any of us could meet with labor representatives on our own. Right, and they could have reached out to us. Yeah. Since Thursday. If anyone would have reached out to me, I would have met with them between Thursday and today. That's a bit too, because I think that, again, I think, I think the issue here isn't about process because what staff was doing was we were following direction just to bring it back on the state. Yes. And I think, unfortunately, what happened with gender review was, I actually missed the gender review too, I happened to be off that day. And so there was a misunderstanding there, but there's no deliberate attempt to try to push something in a particular date or anything like that. That was the date it was set by Council. That's what the staff was working towards. If it had been a different date, it would have been a different date. And then with respect to the meeting with the unions, again, I wasn't involved in it directly, but I understand the staff was, there were then the oppressor meeting with about a different topic. And so they weren't correlating the meeting with this action item. And so I think that's why there was that disconnect. But again, it wasn't any deliberate attempt to try to subvert the process or make the process, somehow force the issue at all. I just want to be clear about that. So I know there's, there's a difference of the things on the council, but as far as the staff was concerned, we were just simply trying to bring it forward, do the work that the council asked, bring it in a timely fashion. And if that communication had happened ahead of time and the request would have made to delay it a few weeks, I don't think we would have had any problem with that at all. Just that the way that we had worked out, it just happened to work out this way. I think it's just unfortunate events, nothing deliberate on the part of anyone. I'll come over to virus. I'm okay. Thank you. Well, I want to thank Cynthia, council member. It's hard to describe because that's a hard thing to do. And you have a lot of great colleagues here who I think, you don't know what the vote would be, but you certainly have a lot of support. And I appreciate it. And the second thing I appreciate is I knew nothing about the history. I knew nothing about a meeting in January where it sounded just from the words you used here kind of shoved down your throat or something to that effect. I did watch some meetings way back in January, February, but I didn't see this one. So I didn't have any background of how this came about. I just thought it, because you had a good staff direction. I know the new rule is staff direction to work on something that's going over eight hours. So anyway, I thank you very much for telling me all about that kind of helps with the big picture. And thank you, council member Murd. I was going to, for stepping up, I was going to almost make a motion that a third council member attend the meeting should this happen. So I think you just stepped up together. That was very much on my mind to have a third person. I think it's very appropriate given all of this discussion. This is definitely a learning opportunity, hopefully. And I think if we could have gone back, it sounds like maybe we would have been able to do this differently and save some time. I will just say that I appreciate council member Meyers wanting to join the meeting. I just, my hope is we're thinking about the bigger picture, the longer vision, recognizing where we are coming from and using the best information with community input and data to get the results that we want to see for our community. And so as you move forward with your discussions, having that in mind. And then in general, in terms of just sort of a agenda, agendizing, maybe Tony, you could work with the mayor or there is discretion of the mayor to pull items. So as you have potential for this to occur again, maybe there's a learning opportunity around, whether or not there was a window of time where this could have actually not, maybe not to the agenda given the concerns. But I don't think we need to belabor the point at this moment. I know we've had a long discussion. So I'm happy to go ahead and if you're ready, we can go ahead and take the vote. Very quick. Yeah, I really appreciate the conversation and definitely a learning opportunity for how to move forward. I didn't mean to suggest by saying that it was very surprising to me that this came on the agenda prior to a conversation with the building trade to suggest that there was some intentional undermining of the process. So that was not my, that's not my feeling. That was not my intention. And most importantly, Vice Mayor Meyers, the meeting is scheduled for next Tuesday, the 19th, 18th, sorry, Tuesday the 18th, women's suffrage day at 8.30 a.m. And we can send you the Zoom. And thank you for offering to participate. I just want to be clear that what's coming back to us will be this same staff report, this same item. It's not going to be a whole new fully cooked or something or other. We are postponing this item as it was presented to us today and we'll deal with it whenever. Is there agreement? Is that what the intention is? I think that's the intention, but I think there's also the opportunity to allow the building trades to weigh in. So I don't know. Yeah, yeah, comment, but comment on this agenda. Yeah. Yeah, I just, I wanted to make that similar clarification. I will share that I received a lot of communication since Friday through today that despite repeated attempts to also try to get meetings, that those meetings with some of the local business folks were not honored either. So, and I know specifically there's been attempts, they are coming to try to have meetings with you. And so, several people mentioned that there was not even a response. So, I'm very concerned that we're gonna come back with yet another iteration of this to Council Member Matthews' concern. And if we're going to be truly continuing to develop this with our community, then let's make sure we develop with all of our community. Some commitment that is necessary. We do those communications as well. I think it's important. I think this has been kind of a misstep. And I just wanna make sure that our local businesses are one of the most important things we should be considering right now as we figure out how to recover from COVID, the next labor force for Santa Cruz. And so we need to be very careful and very open to hearing from our local businesses. They're suffering, they're part of the solution for how to move ahead. So, I would appreciate to make sure that we extend those invitations as needed. And that if we need time and we need to take the time, we keep working on this until we get it right. So, that's my request. And thank you. Can you this item to note later than the September 8th council meeting? Understand it may get postponed. Understanding it may get postponed. I'm gonna vote no on this. And I have an additional motion to make before we close off this item. Thank you. And Mayor Cummings. Matthews, Golder, Watkins, Byers and they're coming voting in favor by Mayor Myers-Thompson wants to make it. Yeah, I'd like to make a motion that we request the mayor also to meet with the construction industry during this time as appropriate and with the additional council members as appropriate. Local construction industry. I'll just say that I'm more than happy to meet them and I can do that. So, I mean, if you want the company to go on then it's fine but I'm more than happy to meet with local construction companies. I think that it's direction to do that. If there are emails I wanna follow up, I'm happy to reach out to those folks who I wanna make sure that we're gonna have a representative in my lack of interest. I really want to just make the- City of this motion, I would be happy to meet with anybody who wants to meet with me in terms of contractor employers who are non-union. I have not received not one message requesting to talk with me. The only messages I've received are the bundled ones that we get that go to all council members opposing project labor agreements. So I'm happy to talk with anybody. I agree with Mayor Cummings that it would be a little unwieldy for us to all go reach out. But if anybody out there who's listening wants to communicate, I'm happy to take it. I'll withdraw my motion and I'll work with local businesses to see who we can pull together. Thank you. Council member- She's offering a potential alternative which would be that you could say that for the record but if the motion's withdrawn and there's agreement then I think that'd be fine. Okay, council member Rebs. And at this point it's simply a comment but I appreciate the effort to reach out to a broader spectrum of stakeholders and that might also include local organizations involved in workforce development. City Attorney, the attendee was and when we're opening up for public comment please go sign on your phone and you'll be given two minutes to talk to me. Yes, thank you Mayor Cummings, members of the City Council. The sidewalk vendors in the City of Santa Cruz and in the last summer and again this summer I'm sure council members have received communications from members of the public and in particular downtown and beach area merchants concerned about sidewalk vending activities. We had a recent incident down on Beach Street involving essentially an argument over which vendor could set up in a particular location. There's also been an altercation with a local merchant and a vendor down there. Ordnance is coming before you because of a change in state law that occurred back in the Brown administration. It was enacted in September of 2018 and went into effect on January of 2019 and I guess where I would start is that under our current ordinance language the City is very seriously constrains the types of sidewalk vending activities that are allowed in the City. And what the state law did is it basically undermined the City's ability to regulate sidewalk vending in a myriad of ways that I'll go into. The ordinance that's in your agenda packet is lengthy and complicated and I'm not gonna go into each chapter but that is the product of the fact that as the municipal code evolves the activities that would constitute sidewalk vending were incorporated in different areas of the municipal code. Chapter 522 regulates mobile vendors under the current code but it doesn't distinguish really between mobile vendors that operate in a motor vehicle and those that operate in a mobile push cart or other type of device that can be set up on a City sidewalk as opposed to in the street. Chapter 5.81 deals with vending and display devices on City property and it largely restricts or prohibits commercial vending in the downtown area and in areas along West Cliff Drive and B Street. And then Chapter 1310 seriously restricts the ability to set up vending activities in City beaches and parks. Its own terms, SB 946 applies to charter cities and essentially prohibits the local regulation of sidewalk vendors except in accordance with government code sections 51038 and 51039. It also states that existing ordinances that conflict with the state statute are valid only so long as they substantially comply with SB 946. So the current restrictions on sidewalk vending activities have not been enforced since January of 2019 because the state law now prohibits the city from regulating sidewalk vending activities in the way that our current ordinance, our current municipal code does. For instance, under SB 946, the city cannot require the sidewalk vendor to only operate within specific parts of the public right of way except when the restriction is directly related to objective health safety or welfare concerns. We also cannot prohibit sidewalk vendors from operating in a city park or on the beach unless the city already has an agreement with a third party vendor for exclusive concessions inside the park. SB 946 does enable the city to adopt objective or reasonable time, place and manner restrictions inside a park if the restrictions are directly related to objective health safety or welfare concerns or are necessary to ensure the public's use and enjoyment of the park or are necessary to prevent an undue concentration of commercial activity that unreasonably interferes with the character of the park. City cannot require a vendor to obtain the approval of a non-governmental entity before selling food or merchandise. The city can require a vendor that sells food items to obtain a permit from the county health department, however. To operate only in designated neighborhoods except when the restriction is directly related to objective health safety or welfare concerns. In residential areas, the statute allows the city to prohibit stationary sidewalk vendors from operating in residential zones such as lemonade stands. But it cannot prohibit roaming sidewalk vendors such as push carts. The city cannot restrict the overall number of sidewalk vendors permitted to operate within a jurisdiction and accept if the restriction is directly related to objective health safety or welfare concerns. With regard to objective health safety or welfare concerns, the statute expressly states that perceived community animus and economic competition did not constitute objective health safety or welfare concerns. So if you think about, for instance, sidewalk vendors that may compete with brick and mortar merchants along Beach Street and concerns about the impact of that vending activity on the viability of commercial brick and mortar businesses adjacent, the fact that they may have a negative financial impact on competitive brick and mortar merchants is not a factor that you can take into account in attempting to regulate sidewalk vendors. What the statute allows the city to regulate by ordinance, it allows the city to limit hours of operation for sidewalk vendors, so long as they are not unduly restrictive, but it defines unduly restrictive as they cannot be more restrictive than any limitations on other businesses on the same street. The city can regulate or impose sanitary conditions and requirements to comply with disabled access standards and can require vendors to submit information to the city regarding their operations, including a mailing address, a description of merchandise to be sold and other information. The city is allowed to prohibit sidewalk vendors from operating near farmer's markets, swap meets and other events subject to a special events permit. The city can require the sidewalk vendor to essentially register with the California Department of Tax and the administration, so that theoretically they could be required to collect and pay sales tax relations on sidewalk vendors to administrative citations. So under the current law, if a vendor is selling in violation of the city's municipal code, they can be issued an infraction citation and be required to go to court or pay a fine. The new law would restrict the city to issue an administrative citation that would have to be administered by the city, but it's not clear how the city would be able to compel vendors who are cited with an administrative citation to appear and contest the citation or pay a fine. So I suppose what it relegates the city to doing is if it issues administrative citations and they go unpaid, the city would essentially be able to file a civil action against the vendors, but to collect on unpaid administrative fines or penalties, I have serious reservations about the effectiveness of those types of fines or penalties as a deterrent. In enacting SB 946, the state legislature stated as it's among other objectives that the purpose of the statute was to provide important entrepreneurship and economic development opportunities to low income and immigrant communities and to increase public access to desired goods such as culturally significant food and merchandise. I will say that although that's the stated intent, there's nothing in SB 946 that restricts who can operate a sidewalk vending operation. So what I worry about are corporations that can come in, hire staff and bring in merchandise and compete directly with brick and mortar businesses. The intent of the legislature was really twofold. One is to support, it has a valid intent to support entrepreneurship among low income individuals and immigrant communities and also it was intended by the administrative citation provision to reduce the risk of someone who is vending, someone who's undocumented and is cited for vending activities in violation of a local ordinance to come into the criminal court system and thereby draw the attention of immigration officials. So that was the intent, laudable as it was, the statute doesn't really have any mechanism for restricting who is allowed to bend, corporations have the same rights to set up vending booths on sidewalks in Santa Cruz and throughout the state of California as any individual entrepreneur. So like I said, the ordinance is complicated and there's a red line version of the ordinance in your packet. I'm happy to answer any questions about any aspect of it. But essentially all of the restrictions and the provisions that I referred to in my report in SB 946 incorporate those restrictions. So I wish we were coming to the council with measures to address some of the legitimate concerns about sidewalk vending activities that are going on right now in the community but that's not what this is about. It's really just to bring our ordinance into compliance with state law and the council members. Yeah, I understand. I mean, this is all about coming into compliance with existing state law. Given this, what are the opportunities to do more than we are now doing in terms of enforcement, setting rules, et cetera. And just given some of the testimony that we've been receiving lately about the antagonism, the confrontations. People are being, residents are being stared down by people and they're kind of afraid to go out. That seems to me getting to the health, safety, welfare concerns and inability of people to enjoy the park in a way. I mean, from what we're hearing, there's some pretty, as well as the bike safety stuff, but it seems like the situation is progressing and getting more and more unpleasant. And so that's my question. What can we be doing that we're not already? Yeah, I would put it in different ways. What are we doing that we would not be able to do but for the fact that we have a public health emergency. Right, right. I agree. As the city manager mentioned in an earlier report, the city manager has issued an executive order that places restrictions on sidewalk vending activities that are designed to reduce the risk that they could become a vector for transmission of COVID-19. Right. SB 9, and I believe we absolutely have the authority to do that under the emergency powers based on the declared COVID-19 emergency. But under SB 946, expressly states that we cannot require sidewalk vendors to only operate within specific parts of the public right of way. And we can't also, we can also not limit the number of sidewalk vendors that are allowed to then within the city. So, you know, in terms of what tools we have for effective regulation, barring objective evidence that an activity constitutes a public health safety and welfare. You know, we don't have good tools in our toolkit under SB 946. And how about the food vendor question? Food vendors are already under existing health and safety code provisions required to have a license from the county health department in order to sell food and in edible products. They generally can't get a license because the way they're operated doesn't comply with state health regulations. And so there has been an effort to discontinue those activities as they're going on, especially along Beach Street through enforcement. But unless there's an enforcement system but unless there's an enforcement presence there, no sooner our officers leave the area than they set up shop again immediately. And so under SB 946, we still will have the ability to require a license from the county health department, but the enforcement aspect will still be a challenge. And someone who is cited for not having a license will be put into our administrative penalty process. Council Member Brown. The quick question. So yeah, we have received, thank you for Tony for working on this and trying to figure out how we navigate our way through. We've, some of the messaging that I've received at least, and I think it went to the whole council suggested that there are local vendors who have been around who are really actually independent who are now experiencing this influx from elsewhere. And I recognize that 946 does not, and nor any other statute or legislation allow us to restrict out-of-town access. But one of the things in, at least one of those messages was related to parking and the fact that people are coming and parking and sitting for many hours, kind of longer than two-hour parking certainly would allow and metering. So I'm just wondering if you've thought about that or if there's any discussion about that possibly being a way to disincentivize the race to Beach Street? Certainly there's been just a competition to get the good spots on Beach Street. And you're right, I've been on Beach Street a number of times over the course of summer and I recognize some vendors that have been on Pacific Avenue and have been here for years.  And under the statute, we don't really have the ability to restrict who gets to set up shop in our city to residents. We just like we can't do that for brick and mortar businesses. Obviously, manager wanted to weigh in. Yeah, there've been a number of challenges around that with vendors spending a night in vehicles and at the booths or in also storing supplies and tents and vehicles on the beach and other locations. And so we are working with parking also on trying to address it from a parking perspective. But it's just really difficult because again, they're very good at keeping an eye out on enforcement and they're constantly adapting. And so it's just become really, really difficult. So I'm afraid we might have to do a pretty drastic measure to just, again, I look at it from a public health perspective and we need to just act quickly. So we may have to just do a more drastic, not allowing it for a period of time in order to get a handle on it. And then maybe scale it back after that. So we're working with the city attorney's office now on coming up with something, but I think we need to act pretty quickly to try to do something that's gonna be effective pretty quickly. And if I could just qualify my question since you also responded, Martine, I guess when I say, you know, parking, the issue of parking is their way to address that. I also have heard about the challenges that people in the beach plots have. And I mean, I know in the abstract that's an issue and I know it's getting ever more challenging for people to have parking. And so I'm not, I guess I'm just wondering if, you know, like a blunt instrument that may end up affecting neighbors and community members is not something that I wanted to suggest I was interested in at all. But, you know, anyway, so I just wanted to clarify that. No, okay, I'm sorry. I mean, maybe I'm just interested in that. But yes, we have heard from the beach area residents concerns about the parking, which is related to not necessarily the Bending, but and all of them would be part of it. But also just the fact that with people being shelter in place, parking is more of a challenge. And so Public Works is working to, and Peter Pichet, our liaison is working with the neighbors there to come up with various options to try to address the parking issue there too. There's also a food vendor. It's a mobile vendor there. Also, I think we'll be working with them to figure out how to make things work for that neighborhood there. So there are some neighborhood issues that we're working with them to resolve and separate from the Bending issue as well. I think a million questions and comments. You said that they said there's administrative process. Can you tell me a little more about that, Tony? Why are vendors to, how they can be located and identification? And then in order to enforce, we would issue an administrative citation. It looks just like a criminal citation, only instead of being submitted to the court. And in which case, when the criminal process or court when decided even for infraction, the failure to appear is a misdemeanor under California law. We don't have the ability to pursue people who ignore their administrative citations by citing them for criminal conduct because the remedies that the legislature nature provided us to enforce our own sidewalk regulations are limited to these administrative funds. And then in which need to, first of all, provide a time period within which the administrative citation can be paid. And it's not, it doesn't really give us an effective remedy for going out and forcing someone to comply. And in fact, it provides an administrative process where someone who is cited can seek a hearing on their ability to pay. And under certain circumstances, the fines that are assessed can only be 20% of the amount that are outlined in our code, which is $100 for a first violation and $100 for a second violation. And each additional violation within one year is a $500 fine. So I essentially, I think where we're headed here is that we would be filing small claims actions against these vendors and they're not gonna be easy to get into small claims court. And if they are, if they do, it's not gonna be easy to enforce it, the judgment against them. All right, and so I just have to say that I'm sure that this SB946 had good intentions when it was written, but for me, and I'm all for promoting entrepreneurialism, but I think that it's worded with immigrant communities being spelled out right there. It's kind of systemic racism and thinking that our immigrant communities can't make a living another way. And I have to say, I spend a lot of time at the flea market and I've seen some of these vendors in over the years at the flea market. I have to say that my 19-year-old daughter had run-ins with them for the last whole summer while she had to have her bike parked down there and she couldn't access it at night and she left work. My 16-year-old had an incident with them where they were throwing the plastic cellophane onto the beach and he tried to confront them about not littering. And so my thought is, what about something else? What about jamming? People have to littering. What about ADA access to sidewalks? What about the camping, the overnight camping on the beach above the high tide line? Like, what about things that are already in place for that specific section of street and not trying to like reinvent the wheels or anything else we can do? So violations of other provisions of the municipal code, and of course our camping ordinance is, at this point, not really enforced but based on a certain decision that you're all familiar with. But other violations of the municipal code that aren't specifically restricted to vending like littering on city beaches, we can say under our municipal code and those do constitute either infraction or misdemeanor violations that can be prosecuted and I also does prosecute those in the criminal courts. The problem is they're very difficult to identify the perpetrator. A lot of, and if there's a witness, that's not a law enforcement officer, then the witness would have to essentially make a citizen's arrest or sign a citation as the witness to the criminal activity. So it's very challenging to enforce those types of restrictions. We can do it, but it's just not going to put a big dent in the activity that's really, that's, you know, to intact a sense of frustration in my presentation here today. It's because the legislature and its wisdom stated in SB 946 that this law applies to charter cities because it's a matter of statewide concern. And under California law, under the California constitution, as a charter city, the city is supposed to have authority over or considered municipal affairs. And to me, you know, regulating commerce in a commercial district, that seems kind of like a municipal affair to me. You know, the council want to promote regulations that support local brick and mortar businesses. Seems like a municipal affair to me. But under the legal standards that apply, it would be very challenging for the city to take a position that it's not required to comply with the state law. Thank you. And after a public comment, I could make a motion to move it forward as it's written to, I'm fine with that. Just a minute, you may have already touched on this, but we've just heard so many different terms. I know the city manager and the staff have a regulation on the vendors to be on the street, pre-s, a public safety concern. And so I was wondering if there's anything that could be put aside. Sidewalk vendors from other sidewalk vendors or from entrances to businesses or what have you to the extent that those are directly intended to address objective health and safety issues. We have the ability to adopt those types of regulations. They would still be enforceable under the administrative citation process that I described. I think though that the issue of spacing is kind of tricky based on our observations of the enforcement of our order, which was drafted and intended to basically provide the ability to engage in social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. And so we adopted an executive order that had spacing restrictions in it. And it somewhat ironically has resulted in the types of altercations that would not be necessary if we had no spacing restrictions. So yes, I think we can adopt spacing restrictions but the more broadly they're worded than the more likely we may be subject to a legal challenge under the SB9 person. I think we can adopt clearly have a direct bearing on public health and safety issues. This is Robert of Homeless United for Friendship and Freedom. Is that correct? Yeah, I agree with you on this. Oh, my God. And so do I want to point out. I heard about the inadvisability from the city attorney of the spacing restrictions both legally in terms of court challenge and practically regarding what actually happens when they put those in. And I've been wondering, because we've had this current situation for two years of ending ordinances. Now I understand Councilman Gold is concerned about the real problems that occur with blockages of the sidewalk, ADA problems, those of that sort. I probably disagree with a number of other things but that's not the issue. The issue is, is it really to the point that the traditional burden on the police cause more conflict between us, this and the attorney, and perhaps for very good reason, to actually re-institute the application of substances to other's bodies, including but not limited to paint styles and inks. The provision of personal services such as hair weaving, cutting, or styling. The completion or other completion of visual art. You can't complete a painting on Pacific Avenue if you want. The creation of visual art, which is mass produced or produced with limited variation. And this is the important thing I think for a number of people on Pacific who are a draw to tourists even in the COVID era. The creation of handicrafts such as weaving, carving, stitching, sewing, lacing, and beating objects I'm reading from the ordinance, such as jewelry, pottery, silver work, leather goods, and trinkets. So my concern here is that this will promote I think a disrespect for law. If you have a law, first of all, it's going through an administrative process, which definitely provides people any rights if they are, if they do go to court. It doesn't provide the actual city with any real recourse for making people pay, except taking people to court who probably don't have a money anyway. So that's a real concern. So my concern is also, of course, is how this is going to be applied against homeless and poor people. Ask yourself how many complaints have been made in the last year. These stats do not appear in the staff report. We don't know this. So I'd say if you're really going to want this ordinance, it doesn't sound like it's immediate in any way. Bring it back, bring it back, and bring it back with some real figures about all the big problems that have happened at downtown of Pacific Avenue, which is really my primary concern in the last year, and in the last two years, actually, because that's how the ordinance has been, that non-enforcement has happened. Essentially, a whole mass of downtown ordinances which this was the latest restrictive ordinance, this is the same ordinance we had passed by the City Council four years ago, really. It's been slightly extended and changed, but it's primarily the same kind of thing, but it is not a good law for a number of reasons, some of which I've already stated. The community knows it, too. And so in chief, we know it puts up censors to drive away homeless people from outside the post office and violations of CDC, shelter and police guidelines. Then three times the censors have been taken down by community members, and they're concerned with our own city codes, with the Constitution, with the CDC guidelines, and we also train the rookie police force. So direct action will get the job done and it will restore conscious faith and morale, as well as physical health to the community, because moving people who are sheltering in place, which is one of the uses this ordinance could be put to, because it talks about these storage of property on ordinances, that's the new language in the ordinance. So giving the police a license to move along vendors, or anyone sitting where it could be described with a display device, and making it illegal to put your possessions on a blanket on the ground, is both history of the conscience and also unfair. The next speaker you have on the line. Hello? But it seems like your hands are tied, as far as enforcement, which is a, I can see pros and cons to this. And so it also applies to parks, is what I understand. So my concern is about what if, you know, food vendors selling stuff in parks, how will they, you know, how will we be assured that they'll clean up after themselves, and not cause, you know, health and safety hazards, will there be, will they have to provide, you know, trash cans? Will the city have to provide them? And also I was thinking, maybe there could be a special area for craftspeople to sell, so that they're not all jumbled in with all the other, you know, tachikis or little trinkets and things like that. Not too happy with this situation, but I guess I'll just avoid the beach. Thanks, bye-bye. So I'll then please start on your phone, raise your hand and we'll be doing two minutes. I would make a motion and add to introduce for publication ordinance, revising the three chapters of the Santa Cruz Municipal Code. So bringing them into compliance with SB 946, and then the rest of the language, the three major municipal code chapters requiring revisions are chapter 5.22, pertaining to mobile vendors, chapter 5.81, pertaining to vending and display devices on city property, and chapter 13.10, pertaining to sales in and on city parks and beaches. But I also want to say one thing, I can't really say this, but I kind of agree with Robert Norse in that I think some of the people selling things downtown sometimes are kind of a draw for tourists, and it seems like the real nuisance. I mean, I do know that we need to focus on the brick and mortar businesses, and I understand that our hands are tied in a number of situations here, but I think that this situation that's going on on Beach Street is really what's the problem. And there is a lot of people selling things and have been selling things for years, but the guy that sells crystals and whatever that are fine. A comment on the council member Golder's comment and also a suggestion. Before SB 946, the city prohibited generally vending activities on Beach Street, West Cliff and on Pacific Avenue, but there was an exception for works of art or other products that were craft work that were produced by the individuals who were selling their wares. Like the secret set, that was secret set. But the little spiders and the little trinkets that have always been sold down on Pacific Avenue, and that was an exception that was written in recognition of the fact that some of that work constitutes expressive activity, personal works of art, for instance. On SB 946, those vendors are going to be competing with people selling t-shirts, hats, and stickers as well, so. Yeah, it's a shame. I know like I was just looking around my house right now, I can't even count the number of things I've bought off the streets from people. And so I think, you know, there's a place for it, but I think what's happening on Beach Street is not a hand, so, David. And then my suggestion is going to be to add in the appropriate location, both in chapter 1310 and chapter 5.81, the following. No person shall place, erect, or maintain a display device within 10 feet of any building entrance, stairway, wheelchair access ramp, fire hydrant, bench, sculpture, or planter. I may have overlooked something, but. I don't even want to think I think I would like to. What was that last addition, Mayor Cummings? Right, right. Incorporate, but they have to like pick up anything that they bring and take it with them, like pass or trash type thing. Yes, I think that we could add language that says, vendors shall be responsible for removal of their own garbage and refugees and shall not public. Refuge containers for that purpose. Thank you. And then not to like beat a dead horse, but is there a limit on the size that these can be? Or could I set one that spans the whole length of the street with like eight tents? Is there any limit on that? We restrict the size, I believe. We could, or the state does? The state does not. The state didn't think about that. Would we be interested in incorporating something to restrict the size to anybody, anybody want to add a comment? City council, they promulgate additional regulations concerning the time, place, or manner of sidewalk bending activities. Violation of which would also be a violation of the municipal code. I'm not amiss, but did you mention like in or within so many feet of the planner boxes? I know that's been another concern that we've heard that they're setting up inside the planner box for the trees. Yes, there was a provision in the ordinance that didn't allow them to utilize planner boxes, but the new language would prohibit bending within 10 feet of a building entrance or stairway, wheelchair access ramp, bike rack, fire hydrant bench, sculpture, or planter. In a second, can we clarify a response to council member Golder's question about the size? I think that I agree that's a way to approach that particular question. My preference would be that it be, there'd be some kind of accountability for the council if there's any major change occurs that is within the bounds of what we can restrict that it would come to the council.  I think you, I just heard you say a way to deal with the question about maybe thinking about size and restricting based on sizes that we could include some language that suggests that other restrictions may be to be determined by the city manager or the council. Right. So I guess I'm just like, I mean, I'm just wanting it, wanting to clarify what role the council has versus staff making those kinds of decisions. I think we need to be involved when it's some kind of significant ordinance change. Yeah, well, the regulations would be either by an executive order of the city manager or by resolution of the city council. That's what I had in mind. Okay. But if the council's preference is that such regulations come before the council, then you could simply limit it to authorizing additional regulations to be promulgated by the city council by resolution. And that would be another option for you to consider. I'll ask the questions because I wanna necessarily create a process that maybe delays intervening when there's a serious problem. I just wanted to make sure that we weren't feeding the ability to make decisions about this in the future to, you know, just that tiny language could be a significant change. So I'm fine with executive order, particularly under these circumstances. I don't wanna hold this up on that. I'm just trying to get clear about what that means or what that could mean. The mind of the council that in the chapter 1310, they already provide that the director of parks and recreation can promulgate additional regulations when necessary to ensure the park's use and enjoyment of a given park or beach. For beaches, natural resource and recreational opportunities. So we could add language to that effect in chapter 5.81 as well. Thank you. The deputy chief's still there? Enforcement. You know, I just know all the little one-liners affecting Pacific Avenue and how hard that's been. It's extremely cumbersome. You know, it sounds like I just, this seems overwhelming with the no, no, no, no, no. Just wanna take from you about enforcement. Yeah, that's a great question. We have officers out with tape measures. You know, it's at 10 feet, it's at 10 feet, six inches, it's at nine feet, six inches. So it's not the most ideal. But as you've heard with the restrictions that we face under SB 946, you know, we've been working hard with other staff and other departments to try to find some sort of solution to this. This probably gives us the best option to try to control it better than what it's been the last seven weeks. So I agree, it's not the best situation for officers, but it gives us, it does give us some direction. And I was just reminded that there was a suggestion that we add language that would require the sidewalk vendors to pack their own trash. So that's another option for you to consider. I thought that was already in it, no? Okay. I prefer the option allowing the Parks and Rec Director to establish additional guideline regulations as necessary and just inform us. And this is done frequently. And it's, I think, just a much better solution. It's not that anything's secret, but it's just the management of the spaces as long as there's an understood direction, we support limitations on size, then come up with something that is kind of a common sense and beneficial guideline. You know, you don't need three, four by eight foot tables full of stuff. So anyway, I prefer an administrative discretion with council being informed when there are changes. And then if anyone has a serious problem with it, they can bring it up. Yeah, I thought that was just clarified. I was just trying to get clarification on what it would look like. And I believe Tony said that it's in there. So yeah, thank you. Council Member Byers, if I your nomination to appoint them, I'd like to be at WS. Does Mayor Cummings nomination? Mervyn Mays, who is Council Member Byers nomination? Council Member Golders. We have to go to the public. No, I just was prepared to ratify the nomination. Okay, and then Council Member Byers, do you have any more members of the public? Move that we ratify the nominations. And I'll second that. And I do have a question following the vote. A quick question. Okay. So the motion by Council Member Brown, seconded by Council Member Mathews, wrote on my own, of course. Council Member Byers. A question for Martín. Who's staffing the CPVAW these days? Okay. There's been quite a bit of turnover. You know, there was a fairly cohesive, stable and productive commission for a good chunk of time. By nature, there's evolution, but there's been a lot of turnover. And so in both staff, several times. And in the commission members. And so I'm just curious about what kind of orientation they get. There'll be three new members coming on as there'll be a couple of other recent ones. And it seems to find the right person to give an orientation. Just on the background, and what maybe some goal setting for this group. You know, it seems like it's somewhat of a challenge to look into that and see what we can do to eat your breakfast and a lot of turn around. So maybe for a little bit more. And is it a different project, you know, that they've worked on over the last few years? Okay. We'll follow up maybe a more robust orientation program or just kick off program for them. So. So many positives from the Warriors. And hard to believe it's been, I think, eight years. And, you know, I've gotten a lot, we've got a lot of emails this week. Just in the last few days, I think when this hit the agenda packet, I've seen an uptick in people writing us letters and saying that they're excited. They want us to make this happen. And so I really look forward to working with our staff and the Warriors and the corporate office and whoever it is that we need to try to keep this wonderful asset in our community. So look forward to doing the work. We would go deep into that to keep the Warriors here. And I just want to assure whoever's listening that that, that's not the intention. I'm sure that our economic development director will touch on that. But the discussion focused more on who were the potential partners to include in the discussion. Pretty preliminary and yet serious. And then have been a very strong economic positive for the city. And that's part of what is, that's part of what's our interest. Plus the games are fun and they're the community college partners. Just want to stress the, we are not talking about subsidizing a giant arena for the Warriors. There's one thing I'd like to mention. I have an opportunity to sit down with Chris Murphy and smaller members of the community. I really want to talk about more opportunities for outreach. Engage with the community, role models and mentors for the kids in our community and other businesses as well in our community for the best of our conversation. Thank you mayor for Matthews and all of the council. I'm excited that this is before us. We meet frequently with the Warriors and the Seaside Company. But we don't often come to council and talk about sort of what is the status of our agreement, what's the status of both the lease with the Seaside Company as well as with Santa Cruz Warriors. So I'm excited that we have that opportunity today. When we first started discussions in 2011 with Golden State Warriors at the time, now we have their franchise, you know, the G League Santa Cruz Warriors. One of the things and one of our goals that actually the council set for us was that not only would the Warriors become part of the community and that was one of the goals, was that also we chose a location that really helped to revitalize an area of lower Pacific. And I think we've really been able, we've been really successful at that point. Where the Warriors is located, this partnership that we have with the Seaside Company and with the Santa Cruz Warriors has really helped revitalize that lower Pacific area and be a key sort of a catalyst for connecting the downtown and the beach area, which is one of our main goals set for us by the council at that time. So we feel really good about that. We'd love for them to stay permanently in Santa Cruz. Some of the letters that you've received over the last few days, talk about, you know, the reading program that the players go into the schools and read with the children and just the positive impact that our local team has had in the community. The community green when people go to games, you know, and connect and it's just, it has become such a part of our community and our culture here in Santa Cruz. From a financial standpoint, I did wanna address a couple of the letters that came in. There was some concern raised about that our agreement would forgive any outstanding balance at the termination of our lease agreement. I just wanted to clarify that and say the existing arrangement has us splitting any outstanding balance that's not repaid at the end of any lease agreement or after any extension. So today where we are here now almost eight years into the agreement, but we still have another year on the existing agreement with less than possible after that is that they've repaid $3 million of the $4 million loan. They're paying on average about a little under half a million a year that gets applied towards the loan. What goes in the loan, we have approved repayments, principal and interest payments. In addition, we have concession revenue, we have facility use fees and any event revenue beyond the Warriors game. All of that gets applied to the loan. So each year we are chipping away at that outstanding balance and with the existing agreement that we have and then on top of that we receive parking revenue related to games as well as admissions tax. So if you put all of these funding sources together both the loan repayments plus the interest on top of the loan on the principal plus the admissions tax plus the rent revenue for the parking, we actually received more than what we loaned to the Warriors originally. So I wanted to clarify that and any sort of future options that we come back to you I think will be creative in nature. We're looking at what are ways we recognize right now this is from a fiscal standpoint in the middle of a pandemic the worst time to come forward asking for public subsidy which some of the letters were concerned about. We would be concerned with that too. I think we want to be creative and look at ways and look at our partnership and how we can keep them their home here in Santa Cruz. So I'll stop there. This is an item also from the council members. So I want to respect that but I'm happy to answer any specific question you have. Just a moment. If you remember the public who's watching to call in, there will be numbers displayed on your screen. Once you call in, please press start nine on your phone to raise your hand in about two minutes to weigh in on this item. Good evening, Mayor Cummings and City Council members. I want to first of all thank Bonnie Lipskin and the Economic Development Department. This is Casey Byers, Santa Cruz Chamber of Commerce. We are 100% behind moving forward with this item. There are many members of the Chamber that are seasoned ticket holders to the Warriors and they look forward to the opportunity of seeing their hometown team grow in our hometown. So I encourage you to swiftly move through this item, get it on board and actually find a location that is compatible with what the Warriors need, what the seaside company needs and what our town needs. Thank you. Now's the time to call in and once you dial in, please press start nine on your phone to begin in two minutes to speak. Seeing no other numbers of the public who'd like to speak to us on this item, I'm gonna bring it back. That's a question for Bonnie. What, go with the deadline, not the deadline, but when there's a lease and you probably said it but I missed it. But the decision lease has a term that goes through September of 2021. So a little over a year from now, although there is a clause in the lease that allows us by mutual written consent to extend it for one more year. So we have one more year for sure, potentially two more years. Okay. Sure, and I just wanted to add, because I should have when I originally spoke and acknowledged our city manager who has been really instrumental in supporting the warriors and actually securing the warriors in the first place and being supportive throughout the last seven and a half years. So I don't know, Martina, if you wanna say a few words, but I think you've been one of the biggest warriors supporters from the very beginning. No, thank you. Thank you, Bonnie, first of all, but yeah, I think the council members have kind of expressed just the overall benefits that the team has brought. Many of them, you know, I think we didn't expect that from the very beginning. And it was a bit of a surprise that how successful they've been in so far is really being an opportunity for a cross section of the community. It really is a place where you see people from all sectors of the community all come together. So that's really wonderful to see. And I think the expectation out there is that moving forward, this will be a partnership and this is not intended to be a 100% or a primary public kind of a project here. It's a partnership, a true private partnership is gonna work for our community. And Martina, anybody else that was on council back then and brought this forward, I think it's just been such a tremendous asset to the community. And I remember when a fifth grader in my class presented it as the current event, I thought they were tricking me because I was like, no, putting up a stadium, how fast we want, no. And then just seeing just the further on which the community rally behind the Warriors and the enthusiasm that they brought to the schools and the arts communities and bringing in, they had different people presenting at half time or opening. And it just, I couldn't believe how exciting basketball became to everybody in town. And my own daughter danced with their Santa Cruz Junior Jam Squad one year and they got to go up and dance at the school at the state arena. And so it's just all these opportunities that I think kids have got and just giving them a positive outlet. I can't, I have nothing but wonderful things to say about this, even though I will never be a basketball player. I'm not even five feet tall, but I have become a huge fan. So, thank you. And I'll make a motion if anybody doesn't want to. Yes, making Santa Cruz Warriors, the permanent home in Santa Cruz and all of the language that's in our report. Do you want me to read it or? I'll take it. That we can work hard to make this happen. And I do also want to thank Martine for all his work over the years and several community members who've been the Warriors for a long time. Brain Warriors jerseys on the wall at his office. Just note that. I put up a couple of tenants on my door there. Yeah, so it's a strong message. That's a little bit of a number of what? That remained. I had my hand up because I was going to make a motion too. Thank you, Council Member Golder. And thank you to the council members that brought this forward. I think the Warriors, for all the reasons we discussed, have been a really great attribute and contribution to our city. And we want to do our best to make them a permanent resident here. So thank you for bringing this forward. And I'm hopeful we can get it done. The Warriors. Yeah, I'll just express my many thanks to everyone who's been involved in this process of bringing the Warriors here and working with them. Martine, Bonnie, and I know you've been doing a lot of work on this and we don't hear about it all the time. But I have been a basketball player and I love basketball as my favorite sport. So I was so thrilled to learn that they were coming. I know that there were initially some concerns in the neighborhoods about the potential impact. And I haven't heard anything since then. And I think that just the whole way it's been handled has been great. I would ask for a friendly amendment to say enthusiastically support. I'm just really happy to see this happening. And I also want to appreciate Bonnie for making the comments about the concern about subsidizing this project. And I think that that's the conversation that we will have ongoing about how the city can support the Warriors and find them a permanent home or help them produce a permanent home. So thanks a lot, everybody. Team effort, really appreciate it. I wasn't on the council at the time that this concept was developed. It's a little great for me on council. But let's look at the calendar. That was happening when we were just coming out of that recession. And that was a pretty gloomy time. And I think right now, obviously it's worse, but we sometimes feel kind of paralyzed by the reality ahead of us. And yet this is the case where the leaders at the time took a look at an opportunity and followed it to how it could develop into the future. So I think maybe that's instructive for us at a time that is challenging that in the long run, this can continue to be a really wonderful thing. So I just want to point out a little historical frame in there. I was on the council when it all happened. And very exciting. Mine, somebody who didn't know this, but the D-Team came from Bismarck, North Dakota. And I had 11 family members who had seized tickets to the warriors in Bismarck, North Dakota. They were not happy because they knew that they were going to leave and the heavens from Bismarck, North Dakota winners to Santa Cruz. Because the best, well, season is in the winter, so it turned out very well. But I also want to acknowledge Tina Schultz was at the time, right, my team assistant city manager, and really provided a lot of the legwork that needed to be done and did. And you're right, we did it right in the recession 2012, 2012, so it's wonderful, absolutely. Thank you everybody again, but I was thinking in my head, it's really like super optimistic to think about that, yeah, we can't be together now, but Sunday and we're thinking long-term, we'll be able to gather again and go see sports and have fun. And so I think that's what makes this even more exciting tonight. And I just got an email, but I'm gonna start serving lunch tomorrow. There's like 10 different sites. Yes. For Santa Cruz. Well, I'm just gonna join in once we have more, everyone will get started. Council Member Beyer. Here. And Mayor Cummings. This is an opportunity for people who are streaming in the meeting or calling in to set the counter as your hand. You have two minutes, you're trying to speak, you'll hear an announcement that you've been unmuted. Super request that you clearly and slowly state your name before making your comment. So you can accurately capture it in the meeting minutes however it is not required and you will be given two minutes. Loudon Nelson's center name changed. It actually reflects the man who's named after, whose name is actually London Nelson. He was actually a really remarkable man, a former slave who came here in 1856. After he died, he left a pretty big section of property from Whirl Street all the way down. I believe to Pacific Ave, where the clock tower is now. And after he passed away, they erroneously changed or made an error in calling him Loudon when anything that predates his death is actually London, Halloween viewing. And I think what a better time than now to get that corrected. The public would like to speak on items that are not on our agenda this evening. Please call and use your numbers on your screen and when you're ready to speak. Vincent is included in the public agenda packet only on the day of the meeting in the new website format depriving the public of time to read it no matter when it was sent in. I'm wondering why the pride flags were allowed to be displayed more than a month beyond their 30th expiration date. Maybe I missed it, but I never did see any BLM or Pan African flags displayed or any BLM street mural. But I'm good with that as I think that brand is more than tarnished by the violent Marxist uncivilized death, injury and destruction meted out nationwide used as cover by that banner for Marxist anarchist purposes. I wonder what the stale date is on the BLM graffiti monument that is now the clock tower. I wonder when the Lighthouse Bank, my bank, will think it's safe for employees to return to work there. I wonder when the life to satisfy many will figure out setting goals, obtaining skills, working daily toward those goals with respect for other's rights every day will result in a better world for all than blaming others, destruction, discrimination, seeking special government favors, revolution and trashing all this great country as accomplished giving up theirs and everyone else's rights while abusing public property in the First Amendment. I wonder if or when respect for this country's ideals will return. It's a progressive left mess that is Chicago. Seattle or Portland is just a headline ugly violence of chaos. An unattainable utopian socialist communist fantasy. Historations of the life to Marxist lies matter. That's where Sackers' politics is going. The white man appreciation month. They've done a lot for this country and I don't see the recognition coming from the council. No, really, tell me why not. Justin, I think you're muted. The last four digits will be for number 1703. Now's your opportunity to speak. Is that 1703? Hi, council members and mayors. This is Barbara Meister and with Holy Cross Catholic Church here in Santa Cruz. We have several people who would like to speak tonight. Not several, just a few. On the oral communication time period we've been instructing them how to call in. So if you could just be patient a little bit to make sure that our folks have a chance to call in. And I just wanted to make sure we allow enough time for them to have a chance to get in. It's very challenging to try to participate in these public deliberations these days. So I would appreciate if you just give us a few minutes to make sure we can get folks in through the process. Thank you so much. All right, thank you. Thank you for letting us know. We'll move on to our next speaker. I've been unmuted. Hi, this is everyday show. I'm the president of the electric auto association of the California Central Coast. And I wanted to commend the council. I was not able to attend the meeting earlier so I don't know actually what happened. I only saw the agenda. But I understand that you are at least considering the buying of our first large truck that's electrified, an electric garbage truck which is an excellent choice. And because every time they start up, they spew a lot of the, as an organization have been working on the transportation electrified for well over 50 years before we actually even had the major manufacturers. So I spoke with our director or the supervisor of our waste management before thinking as is the council for even considering this and as M. Bart is for giving the grant. And she's very forward thinking because there were some obstacles that were just logistical and she has come up with a way to think outside the box and make it work. There wasn't enough room to have two spaces for the story, solidating the route. We commend you and look forward to, and if you have any questions, I am available for consultation. I will find you a source for electric vehicle in that type of vehicle that you're looking for. Thank you. Yep. Diarrhea and oral communications please, but we will have two minutes to speak. Next caller, please unmute your phone. I just wanted to make a couple of points. I just wanted to first express some public support for the ofrenda that was mentioned by the gentleman earlier. This is at the Bell Tower and has been in place by a lot of community members. And I think it's been a really great opportunity for some healing to happen. A lot of people have gorgeous show of solidarity so I just really wanted to just say that first, you know that there are people out here who are really benefiting from having it out in our public spaces and to keep it up as long as possible. And then the other two points I wanted to address are that will be really beneficial for a lot of folks on sending eviction moratorium indefinitely not just keep pushing it off by a month or two each time people are living in really precarious situations right now and need to know that their housing is going to be safe until COVID has subsided. In September 30, it feels like a very arbitrary date to have right now. And the second point I wanted to make is that city council needs to really start looking at adding like inflation and mortgage inflation to their next agenda. It could be a huge undertaking but as a community I think we need to come together to brainstorm some ideas to alleviate some of the hardships that a lot of tenants and homeowners and some creepers are facing right now. They're going to only keep facing until COVID decides and that is really indefinite. So we need to talk about some long cancellations for folks. Thank you. Thank you. Again, if you'd like to speak to any item or sorry if you'd like to make a comment during all communications on items that are not on our agenda please press star nine on your phone after you've called in to raise your hand. One, two, nine, you are on the line. One, two, nine, you are able to speak. One, two, nine. Hi, my name is Socorro Robles. I'm going to speak in Spanish because I can't speak English. Is that okay? You don't need to know that. Mayor, would you have Peter on the line? Okay, Peter, do you want to hold the camera? Sure. Yes, ma'am. If you can speak but give me a chance until when I give you one or two sentences and then I'll bring it to you. Okay. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Socorro Robles. Good afternoon. I'm Socorro Robles. Y soy de la Organización Sendero en Santa Cruz and I'm from Sendero Santa Cruz Organization. Solamente quiero agradecerles a los Fonsejales de Santa Cruz for I want to thank the city council extender el moratorio para las familias to extend the moratorium for the families de septiembre until the 30th of september. Y también quiero agradecerles por el programa de emergencia que tiene para todos los alimentos que nos están dando. And I also want to thank you for all the emergency food that you have provided to the community. Con nuestra organización agarramos 38 solicitudes a familias y no se van a dar a chance con eso. With our organization, we've helped 38 families and that will help the tremendously of the people. Estamos pidiéndoles, por favor, que no solamente nos ayuden con los 12 meses para poder recuperarnos. But we also would like to extend that help for at least 12 months in order to recuperate and for these people to get back on their feet. Porque no van a ser suficientes 12 meses ya que nuestras necesidades son bastantes, pero estamos pidiendo un poquito para que nos ayudemos. Nosotros somos gente trabajadora. We are really people who would like to work and we think 12 months is where we're going to need to help to get back on our feet. Tenemos jóvenes que están estudiando, tenemos muchachos que quieren seguir estudiando y por toda esa situación no tenemos los recursos para mandarlo a los deshuelos. Y nos ayudan también. We have young students that are willing to work and those two study, but with the COVID they're unable to go to school and with the funds we're helping to do to school them at home. So we would like to have to include the young people who are also affected with this crisis and include them in the also this recovery program. And thank you very much to our organization senderos, Kopa and the whole community who's helping out people who are in need. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good evening. Hi, my name is Neri Garcia. I am a leader with Kopa and I wanted to thank you guys for being with us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. Hi, my name is Neri Garcia. I am a leader with Kopa and I wanted to thank you guys so much for this meeting and allowing our public comments and means a lot to us. I have personally led two virtual house meetings and I would like to thank council members Brown, Matthews, Walkins and Myers for attending those meetings and agreeing to work with us. It really means a lot to us. It means a lot to our community to feel so connected and like they can really trust their council members. It's nice to see their face and kind of see them as one of us. So thank you so much. For taking that time with us. We appreciate it. We also want to thank you for extending the moratorium to September 30th to help our families and also for having a emergency rental assistance program. We managed to help 38 families like apply for this program who are very thankful and blessed that you were able to do this. So once again, thank you. And I am calling to request a 12 month payback period for rent that is owed for well, you know, many families during this crisis. I have called countless families to invite them to their virtual house meeting and it always ends up with them telling kind of tragic stories about like their difficulties and their struggle to pay back rent once the moratorium is over. So thank you for having us. Thank you for letting me this moment to speak. And I invite all of you to our next virtual house meetings and I hope to keep seeing you guys there and to keep working with us. Thank you. Thank you. Glad for visitors of your phone number 3129. You are now able to speak oral communications. Now is the time to press star nine on your phone to raise your hand if you have not spoken already. I'll give you one more time with 3129. We'll answer the next caller. My name is Candice Brown. I'm Santa Cruz. Can you hear me? I just want to speak briefly and thank you for this opportunity. I'm not a renter but I'm talking to members of my community including people that I formally worked with, colleagues and friends. And some of them are describing situations that are quite dire where they have been working in retail and they were laid off. And then they have not for strange reasons been able to receive unemployment because of delays by EDD. And in one case in particular, I know they have not received it and they're still pending and they've been waiting for months. They are living in affordable housing. They were concerned that they would have to leave the affordable housing because they would have no income and no guaranteed income. And so I'd like to ask the city to look into a situation where people are expecting EDD and they could get a huge lump sum at some point but also in affordable housing. And so could they have a deferment until such time as they could work out the issues with EDD which could take more than September 30th. I just wanted to make you aware of this. I know people in my community that are having serious mental health problems because of this and I'm quite concerned in some cases. So I wanted to reach out to you and let you know about the situation. So thank you. What is the 4041 young one? Si, buenas tardes. Si me escuchan? Si. Mi nombre es Pablo Romero y soy miembro de la Iglesia Holy Cross y líder de Copa. Okay, dejame chance de yo traducir. So my name is Carlos Romero and I'm from the Holy Cross Church and also with the NGO Copa. I'd like to thank the City Council to have participated into the virtual home meetings and also to extend the moratorium for house eviction until the 30th of September. And also to extend the moratorium for house eviction until the 30th of September. Y agradecerles también por el programa de emergencia de alquiler e informar sobre nuestro alcaldes. And also for extending the house eviction program and the assistance on rental emergency. Hasta donde alcance y a través de las estensas de alimentos y obtuvimos 38 solicitudes para la solicitud de la alciler. And we'd also like to thank everybody about the 38th applications and that we received to help 38 families to pay their rent. Y consejo un periodo más de 12 meses para poder recuperarnos con pagar la renta de vida durante esta pandemia cuando la emergencia, hasta que la emergencia termine. And after an extension of what's the ability of 12 months without rent to be able to recover and be back on their feet. Y de nuevo cuenta pues a invitarlos a los miembros del consejo a otra reunión en el futuro para participar y trabajemos juntos en apoyo a la comunidad. Muchas gracias. And they would like very much to also have some of the members of the city council to participate in another virtual house meetings. And thank you very much. Gracias, Ted. Yes, hi. Good afternoon, good evening. City Council members and mayor. My name is Jorge Saabala. I'm a meter at Holy Cross Parish in the Pentagon Community Health. Coming to the last four months in March. And so as you hear today, we do have a couple of community members that were successfully able to connect but others that still haven't been able to. However, I just want to reiterate the thanks for creating the emergency rental assistance program. We were successful in connecting 38 families to that program and we'll be following up with them to see them through it. And if they do not qualify we have developed a system to help them connect with other resources. And so we know that it cannot just be on the city and so we're partnering with other resource centers to help these families in this process. But we do need the city to step up again before August but we'll rent after August because they are all working very minimal hours at this time with many families only having one person working three days a week instead of five. And so we would also like to reconvene on the idea of a payback period. I heard the translation earlier with Carlos and we are not asking for 12 months of free rent but a 12 months of payback period for the rent that is owed for families as they recover. So we look forward to reconnecting with city council members. Good afternoon. My name is Liz Robles and I am an active member of the organizations in Middles in Santa Cruz. First of all, thank you for accepting my call. I would like to thank you for having us here and for being able to have had been working with our community through these very hard times to help our especially Latinx families who are going through a very difficult time. There are hours being cut out while having a family to support. And so we would like to first of all, thank you for everything you do for the city of Santa Cruz as well as extending the moratorium. And we would also like to ask if we could hopefully extend back to 12 months for the help with rent since that is something that many of our families are having a very difficult time figuring out how are they gonna keep their homes. In addition, we'd like to thank the city for providing places around the city to be able to pick up food for those families who might need it. So thank you very much. And since that'll really encourage, encourages any one of our members to please come out. Maybe we help these families once a month if you are ever able to see how all your help and the help in our community, the changes that it does for our families that would be great. So we would just like to thank you for your help thus far and we hope that you continue with the support as well as extend the help for the 12 months coming. Thank you. Yeah, private, it was three, one, two, nine. Please follow when you're able to speak. Good evening. My name is Ezebel Velasco and I'm a member of the Holocaust and leader of the COPPA. Ezebel, wait a second so I can translate. So good evening, my name is Ezebel Velasco and I'm also with the NGO COPPA. I'd like to thank the city council and for the people of the members who came to our virtual house meeting. And also in the emergency assistance program helping people who could not make ends meet for the under rent. We have submitted 38 applications and we hope that all of them will qualify. So we'd like to have an extension of 12 months rent help. And we hope that you will extend the 12 month help to pay a rent. And also thank you for extending the moratorium on rent eviction until the 30th of September. It was a pleasure to be with you on our virtual house meetings and we hope to see you again. Okay, with that, we're gonna close out our oral communications and we're gonna move on to our last item of the day which is our item number 34, Community Advisory Committee on Homelessness as Elliot and Tom Slade. We also have our facilitator for the Community Advisory Committee on Homelessness for the name the presenters who are bringing this item forward. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor and Madam Vice Mayor, members of the city council and those of the public who are participating as well. My name is Fred Keely. I have the privilege of having been asked by the mayor a year and a few months ago if I would be the convener of the catch. And I wanna be clear what that is. What my duties are is as a convener and as a guide, if you will, to assist the catch in getting their work done. I do not have and did not have a vote on this body. It's more like being a presiding officer without a vote. The council and the first court in established the catch with a clear mandate to take a look at work that had been done by predecessor interests on two different occasions. Once in the late 90s and one in the relatively late 2000 teens. And those reports looked at a range of issues around those experiencing homelessness as well as our general community in terms of homelessness as well. The catch came together for its first meeting after the council had made your appointments to the catch and gave a charge to the catch to make a couple of other appointments as it deemed appropriate to fill out the representation on the catch so that it was a truly representative body in terms of both the house community and the unhoused community and various segments therein. I think in my judgment anyway, the appointments did in fact reflect that diversity in our city and a special note of thanks for the council making sure that those who had lived experience in terms of homelessness that their voices were on and heard at the catch from beginning to end. In July of 2019, the first catch meeting was held and at that the body made its initial organizational decisions selecting Taj Lahey and Candace Elliott as their co-chairs by unanimous decision. I will use that point to say that it was the goal of the catch on every single vote and they cast about 320 votes over the course of time that all but one of those votes was a unanimous consensus agreement. Let me be careful about what that means. That doesn't mean everyone jumped up and down and was thrilled with what they voted for necessarily every time but there was robust and seriously robust debate and discussion yet at each one of those votes when the time came to shape a motion and to move forward, consensus was achieved. As I say, there was one vote that particularly sticks in my mind that was not a unanimous vote but the others were. The at that organizational meeting in addition to selecting co-chairs, the body adopted there and at subsequent meetings bylaws so that they could operate with a set of rules of the road that everyone, all members of the catch as well as member of the public would understand what the rules of the road were. The catch also indicated that it very much wanted to have significant public outreach and engagement and as a consequence of that, not only were the catch meetings held in the evening so that folks could be able to attend, there were also times where the catch moved its meeting from the police community station to the veterans hall to one of the high schools so that the body could move around and engage segments of the community as would be the case. During many of the initial, I would say dozen or so of the catch meetings, they were a combination of two things. One was getting everyone up to speed on the issue, which is to put it mildly compound and complex. And so panels of folks were invited to come and present across a fairly wide spectrum of opinions and points of view. And those were made typically at the front end for the first hour or so of the catch meetings and then the catch would pivot to its actual business in terms of decision-making. You are, one other point I'd like to make about the organizational meeting, that is a mayor reference that there are other folks in addition to myself and Taj and Candace, we have chairs of the relevant subcommittees of the body. And this is worth taking a second on it. The body is a, was good sized body, you know, just over a dozen folks. So getting work done between meetings in order for the meetings to be decision-making, debate and discussion and decision-making, a subcommittee structure was set up. And each of the three subcommittees had a lane that they were going to work in and debate and discuss issues in that lane and then bring it forth to catch for consideration. Some of those folks are with you this evening as well and certainly will make substantive. My presentation's a process presentation. The co-chairs and other members of the catch will make substantive presentations too in a few minutes. One of the first things that the catch did and spent some time on was the following notion. And that is that although the city of Santa Cruz is the most obvious place where folks living and experiencing homelessness, it is the most obvious place in terms of visibility, in terms of seeing folks living in our community, part of our community who are experiencing homelessness. Not so much in the county, not so much in the other three cities. That's not to say it doesn't happen. We know that it does. But we do know that in the city of Santa Cruz it's fairly visible. Gave rise to an issue that the catch went at when looking at previous reports. And that was that some of the previous reports on this issue to the city made it seem as if the city government is totally responsible or largely responsible for addressing the issue in all of its manifestations. One of the things that catch did early was educate themselves about who in fact does have what responsibility when it comes to working with and assisting those members of the community who are experiencing homelessness. It was clear that the federal government has essentially left the field a very long time ago. The state governments, both in California and elsewhere are really the levels of government that make the policy and provide most of the funding for dealing with those experiencing, working with those who experiencing homelessness. In that regard, the state of California about two years ago made a serious commitment to housing generally and affordable housing in particular and then those experiencing homelessness as a component part of that. That money, both general fund money and bond money was directed to counties. Counties are literally as you probably know I don't mean to provide a civics lesson, you know this but counties are literally a subdivision of the state of California. Legislature could go into session tomorrow and say instead of 58 counties we're gonna have 158 counties and that would be the law. Counties deliver are the delivery mechanisms for the state's programs of health, human services and to some degree criminal justice system. Cities are not designed by their very nature to provide those services. That is not their function. They do it as an adjunct function. They do it if they wish to do it. They do it by allocating general fund money in various cases. But in terms of governmental design what the catch learned is that the state and the counties are really in the lead on this to get actual progress in many cases. And that was one of the things that the catch did in terms of its series of recommendations to you is to recommend to you those things you can do and are uniquely positioned to do as opposed to here's every recommendation you figure out what the proper level of government is for dealing with it. In December of 2019, the first report came forward from the catch by unanimous vote by consensus to you. That report contained nine recommendations and all nine of those were accepted and then adopted by the city council with direction to the city management to implement those recommendations. This is where I would like to pause and thank Susie O'Hara and Megan Bunch, Ron Prince, city staff generally for their assistance in helping the catch do its work by doing research and providing it back by answering questions, providing information back to the catch. It was enormously helpful to the catch and literally could not have been done without that level of staffing, but the catch is not the city government. The catch is an advisory body to you. What you've received from them is their work and their thoughts and opinions about how to deal with this vaccine issue in positive and substantial ways. That led the catch to its February 2020 presentation to you, which contained 22 recommendations. The first set in December were what could be done immediately? Where can you locate some temporary bathrooms, some sanitation facilities, some sleeping areas, what are things that could be done right now? In February, it was, here's a couple of more of those, but here are some medium term recommendations that the catch has to steal down from enormous amounts and hours of meetings and input. And those recommendations were forwarded to you. And the council then from that list selected a fairly large number that you not only accepted, but that you then turned those around and operationalized those. In this recommendation, which you are receiving now, this report contains four recommendations, which the co-chairs will be going for. By design, the first report was immediate, short term, quick, what can be done. Second report midterm, these now tonight are recommendations that have a longer term to them so that together this body of work can result in better outcomes. I will say two quick things. The grand jury has also issued a report on the topic of homelessness and I was asked to be prepared to make some comments on that. I will say, I will be very brief on this. The grand jury's report, I think like all grand jury reports, are uneven. This particular report, I think matched up quite well with the kind of look at what the government roughly speaking, those involved community engagement, effective governance on this issue, insufficient resources, and utilization of existing resources. I will say this about that report. They had a total of 18 recommendations, the grand jury. They had nine recommendations of those 18, which solely were directed at the county of Santa Cruz. They had eight recommendations, which were directed at the county of Santa Cruz, all four cities. They had one recommendation unique to the city of Santa Cruz, and it matches up to one of the major recommendations you will hear this evening. So I don't think they're very far apart in terms of what they're doing. I do think that they got the same education, maybe that the catch got, which is I'll sort of close where I started. The fact that those experiencing homelessness that we can, that is obvious in our community, and maybe not as obvious in the three other cities and in the county at large, does not make it solely the city's responsibility to solve. So I think you see that, where the catch got very focused on what this city government can do effectively on this issue. Mr. Mayor, Madam Vice Mayor, members of City Council, thank you for every kindness you've extended to me during this period of time and for the privilege of being the convener of this organization, excuse me, of this committee. And I would now like to turn it back to the mayor. I believe you will be calling on both Taj Lahey and Candace Elliott. Thank you very much. Thank you. Before we continue, I need to take a quick break. We have a revenue issue down here at City Hall. So if we can just pause the meeting for about council members to turn the videos back on, I think we can get moving again with the second portion. If I might, Mr. Mayor, I think this is the point where Candace Elliott and Taj Lahey will make presentations on the final report, sir. I'll just wait for owners to join. Once they have everybody on, we'll get started again. Waiting on council members, Matthews, buyers, and the Watkins to join the meeting. Your video on once you're back, so we can get started. Tom, maybe we'll just go ahead and get started and hopefully Martino jump on here at any minute. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, council members. Thank you, Fred, for that wonderful introduction and a little history lesson as to what Catch has done. In the past year, it's been an amazing journey and we couldn't have done it alone. So thank you to the staff as well. Susie and Megan have been instrumental and amazing throughout this whole process. We're gonna jump right into recommendations. We have just a few this time. As Fred said, some of the recommendations that we've had in the past were pretty hefty and lengthy. Given COVID, we just have to call it what it is. COVID kind of threw a monkey wrench into a lot of things. However, that said, a lot of really great strides have been made in the city and it's pretty wonderful to see. So what we have is the first one is sanctioned, camping and safe sleeping. Given the COVID pandemic, much of the homelessness response was taken on by city and county staff, which is wonderful. Many strides were made in terms of setting up managed encampments. The catch recommends that the city maintain a similar or larger scale of safe sleeping through COVID-19 recovery and beyond and use lessons learned during the COVID-19 response to ensure constant improvement and community compatibility. In short, to keep doing what is being done right now to house our fellow community members. If you look around town, you will see several different encampments that have been put up and from what I've heard, they're working really well and so we're just asking that they continue from this point on. And that's our first recommendation. Candice? Thanks, Tash. Thank you to all of you council members and to staff who has been so helpful through this whole process. Our second recommendation is around community engagement. In short, we recommend you keep doing community engagement around homelessness. There are, it's a very dynamic space and I've definitely learned that through this process. There are a lot of sort of changing stakeholders. There are a few stakeholders that are consistent who are sort of always there, but I think a lot of the key people inside of say nonprofit organizations and other sort of government positions change over on a regular basis and so continuing to engage those people is really important. And I've seen some of the great side effects of community engagement. I think that it's a way that our community gets to know each other. It's a way that our community can share their perspectives, but it's also a way that we can inform people about things that are going on and include them in the decision-making process. As an HR manager, I know that people really hate uncertainty and this is definitely a space where there is a lot of uncertainty for all of the people involved. So the more that we can be engaging in the community, the more we can share information, the more comfortable people in general will be with whatever decision it is that happened, even if there's disagreement about which way to move forward. And I'll turn it back to Tash. Great, thank you. That was one of the things that was a pretty much unanimous yes all the time when we had our meetings that sharing with the community what's happening, asking the community for feedback was a way to get the temperature, but also a way to bridge some of the gaps that may have existed. Thank you, Candice. So we go to public health. Under COVID-19, the city has deployed dozens of new portable restrooms and hand-washing facilities. It's been kind of wonderful to see because that was something that we recommended from I think our second report, but we were just asking for a couple to start small and because of COVID, one of the things we can say thank you for is that there are restrooms everywhere and hand-washing facilities. And so we're asking simply to just leave those up throughout COVID after that. And let's continue to fund those and also maybe make them a little prettier so that it will cut down on graffiti potential but then also make it so that it blends into the community a little bit better. And that is it for our last recommendation. Of course, give me my third recommendation. So our last recommendation to review with you tonight is envisioning Coral Street as a space where a navigation center, additional services can be located. And Coral Street is that street right over by Costco that typically has quite a number of people who are experiencing homelessness, living on the street, living near the train tracks, on the train tracks and using the train tracks as a way to move from where people are living further out in the Pogonis and in the forest towards town and there, oftentimes people see drug use happening there and in other cities, it has worked to take places such as that and to locate services there and to sort of re-imagine what the space looks like. And so by providing services, it actually ends up improving the location for the whole community and not just for the people who are currently using the space. Housing Matters is already located on that street. I don't know if many of you have had the ability to tour Housing Matters, but being able to go inside of that space and see what it actually looks like there is much different from what it looks like on the street. And so our sort of vision is, or a vision to look at would be to have that be a more comprehensive space where services can be offered for people who need them. So I would like to turn it back to the mayor. Thank you for giving us this time this evening to speak with you. We're here to answer your questions. Rafa and Amy, Susie and Megan are all also here to answer your questions this evening. Well, thank you for all the clicking together as well to find consensus, even though everybody wasn't happy it sounds like you were able to make recommendations that were reflective of an agreement that the community could make together. So we're very appreciative of the work that you all have been doing. I'll start by opening it up to council members to see if they have any questions and we'll start with council member Golder. Hi, everybody. I just wanted to thank everybody on this committee for the hours of volunteer work you did for your community and bringing this report forward to us. I know you sacrificed time and energy and I really hardly appreciate that. And I know the whole community does. So thank you. And homelessness is an issue that's near and dear to my heart. And I hope that we can work together to make things better for people who are experiencing homelessness. Thank you. And I still left it. I think I've been banging my head against the wall for about 20 years trying to get the community engaged and participate in this issue, totally unsuccessfully. Probably the little bit of success is I'm on the board of the housing matters and on that since the late 80s when it was, it's been many many things but now it's out in there. When we give tours, we know when we get people behind that gate and the other side of that gate they are so impressed and they hear about, they learn about it. But that's only four people a month or something like that. It just, it isn't working. So I don't know, I want to ask you very specifically if you ran into any ideas and even in meeting your board I didn't see things specific that people like myself could do or our organization could do maybe or the city could do. You want me to take that one too, please? Yeah, go for it. Yeah. I think I got to be one of those four people a month ago for housing matters when it was really amazing as they're a sibling. So the way that we approached community engagement was to create a sort of the first hour of a few of our meetings was focused towards specific topics related to homelessness. And so one of them was focused on public health and hygiene. Another one was very focused on safe sleeping in campground. And we invited people to participate in sort of a brainstorming process. And then we took that data and information and used it in order to make our recommendation. And the details of that process are in our previous reports, but I would be happy to expound on them in a later date if that would be helpful. Sure. Thank you. The other one I just aptly agree with all the work you've done and all your recommendations and not only anxious to implement but follow through that they say implement it if that's a correct jargon word. As you know, housing matter, their whole mission is get people in housing. Until we get them in a house, are we going to end homelessness? And of course that's a big, but we do know it works and it's successful.  And I think we've done, I think 180 probably got close to a thousand in housing and housing matters gotten close to 500. So that's almost 50 hundred off the street today and half those were on the street maybe two years ago. This didn't really speak to it and I know what it means is affordable housing. But I think even if we can just keep all of us, keep our eye on that ball with increase the case managers will really meet an overwhelming plea from the community is, and I don't want to use off the street, but that is why you get them in housing and we know the statistics are showing that they're staying. Takes a lot of work and a lot of case management, but they stay. So anyway, maybe you'll have a fifth report or something under these days and you could address that. Thank you. I think that's all and thank you for the words about Coral Street. We're working very hard on Coral Street and it's so unfortunate that the city wasn't able to buy that building because right next door that would have just really tied everything together. And we'd be so far down the road in resolving the immediate issues, but we're working on that and I'm sure you, everybody involved in sitting County will continue to work on funding and navigation center. Thank you. Can I just add something on housing? Yes. For me, yes. Oh yeah, so important to keep at the top of mind right now is to keep people from losing their housing. We need to keep people in the houses that they have and thinking creatively about the open spaces that we have available and commercial space houses that aren't being rented at this time. I remember buyers during the lifetime of the cat, the co-chair and the catch invited various folks, the federal official who came and made a rather lengthy for state and county officials as well who did. We were mindful of what Governor Newsom said at his first state of the state address, which is that all of your sleeping problem at navigation center helps solve your homeless problem. And there that two-step move is the one in terms of capital outlay and why I believe anyway, as an observer of it, not as a policymaker at the catch but that the catch very much dialed into the idea that a lot of what's going on over at housing matters is damn near everything that needs doing gets done over there, but it needs to be four, five or six times as much of it. That was I think where the catch settled on that issue. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Could I speak to the community dialogue piece? Okay, thank you. I know that we have a few new counts and I have been other reports of the catch, but one of the directives for us was for looking to the idea of wisdom council. And we did that. We explored wisdom council with Jim Rock, who's the founder of wisdom council. And there was actually an independent wisdom council like pilot setup that included former council members, Don Lane and other people, both advocates and people who've been, I guess you could say more conservative on this issue, we're all in the room together. And we recommended that the council explore the idea being on the catch was the sort of the cumbersome nature of being in a government body, trying to have conversations when people come up and they have two minutes to talk and then you don't get to respond. You don't really get to have a dialogue, you know? And so I would highly recommend the council look into wisdom council and or dynamic facilitation or some kind of a play for people can really talk and get to some deeper matters around this. I found it very frustrating to be on the catch. And not everyone was a great person on the catch. It's just that with the way the agenda set up, the way that it has to be facilitated, the way public comments happen. It's very formalized. And I really felt like we couldn't get to some real, what are the deeper issues on this wisdom council that we did have, which was more of a pilot than an actual council. I heard things from people that were very new to me like that there was less resistance to encampments than there was to tents from some people. And people were so concerned about tents. And yet I thought that they were resistant to having any encampments at all. And they weren't. These people that I saw as more conservative, for example. And then Brent Adams was there and he brought up the idea of, you know, we do need housing and housing is great, but we, in the meantime, happening, sort of emphasizing like what is happening now for people. It was saying the housing first issue at this time and it'll take time. And so anyway, there were a lot of things that came up and dialogues that happened between people who normally wouldn't even be in the same room together. And everyone sort of coming to some new understandings at least. So I'm just putting that out there. That's sort of why I joined the catch was I was interested in new ways of community dialogue. And I think that there's ways out there. It doesn't have to be wisdom councils, but ways to engage the community that really can get to some sort of group, more root cause discussions and sort of real solutions, if that makes any sense. Cause there's a depth that I think has been missing around this conversation. So that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you. Next up we have the council member Brown, Vice Mayor Myers and the council member Watkins. I just want to say thank you, thank you, thank you. I could spend a lot of time talking about how wonderful and dedicated you all are and have been and how much work you put in and kind of how inspiring it is. I'll leave it there cause we don't want to stay later than we need to. And I also want to thank Amy. Thank you for bringing that up. It's a constant kind of frustration of mine as well that the way our public meetings are set up as they need to be does not allow for that kind of in-depth conversation. And so I really want to just put out my two cents supporting the city taking a role and staying committed to trying to facilitate those spaces or at least be part of them in some way. I think that that will really keep us moving in the right direction in the community. I've been really heartened by the way that people have kind of just been okay with pretty significant expansion of safe sleeping zones. And so I think that really provides us with an opportunity to keep moving forward. And I thank you for your recommendations. And I just, as an aside, I'm just going to say, cause I have it here. Council member Byers mentioned that she's been thinking about that community engagement process and the challenges with it for about 20 years now. And I'm looking at minutes from July 2000, Council meeting when a homeless outdoors was reporting back to you all and you were there. So it's been more than 20 years. But so I do hope that we can really make some, like just with more kind of focused attention to how we do that, we can keep moving forward. My question is about the Coral Street area. And I'm glad to see that that was one of the main recommendations you're bringing us now as a space that can be better configured or expanded upon. And I know we had, there was a lost opportunity or foreclosed opportunity with the space over there which may reopen. But in the meantime, was there any, like what was the conversation like and were there any more specific ideas about like what housing matters would need? What level of like, are they of openness and willingness to be part of that? Are they and kind of, just to get a little bit more of a sense of what would it take to really achieve that vision? So I'm just, that's just a kind of an open question. If the all thought talks about that, I'd love to hear more. Yeah, I think this would be a great question for Susie O'Hara to take if that's okay. You saw that I prematurely unmuted and my kid walked by and slammed the door. Good evening, Council members. So pleased to be here and I do wanna also reiterate my thanks to the entire catch for their dedication during this process. And then of course, the assistance of Megan and Ron and Fred of course was just created such a space for success, sorry, there's my kid again. So with regard to Coral Street, I will say that the concept of really looking at Coral Street, the entire campus area around housing matters and thinking about how to best utilize all of the real assets that we have and potentially could look into utilizing and on behalf of really the county and the city, we have over the last several months since COVID kind of changed our entire dynamic back in March have been engaging really directly with housing matters and the county on re-envisioning that area. It's falling under the county's shelter and care task force of which I sit on and some of our other colleagues here at the city and housing matters sits on as well. And we are working with Milton Design Studios to think about how best to create navigation center, housing center, programming at Coral Street. And that is really gonna take a heavy lift on behalf of the county and the city to think about immediate COVID response to ensure that folks that are congregating on Coral Street are doing that in a way that's safe with regard to social distancing but also to lower barriers of access to the important services there, both at HPHP, the homeless person health project as well as housing matters. And Milton has really done a tremendous amount of work already a few council members have been able to engage in this process and I'd be really happy to bring more information to the entire council on that. But it is really hopefully gonna change the dynamic on Coral Street and make it a community center that can be appreciated and really invite the greater community into solutions around homelessness. So I'm happy to talk more about that Sandy at a future council meeting or one-on-one and share also some preliminary design considerations that Nielsen has provided in early in these conversations. Mya's are gonna have council members welcome. Good evening, Taj and Candice and Amy and any other cash members who are there this evening and thank you Mr. Keely for all your guidance for this group. I think sometimes it's hard to kind of understand when you're looking from the local perspective why things aren't getting done or why you can't fix something even though you have a compassionate community that really wants to help. So I think reminding everyone about the history of federal priorities, lack of funding, closing some of our mental health facilities in the late 70s in California. I mean, we're experi