n the scope of work. There were some things presented that were outside our grant scope of work. Overall, the comments were very supportive of the project and we did take time to review all of those comments received. As we took into consideration all of these comments, we worked with the landscape architect to attempt to integrate as many as possible into the design. We also worked with the parks department as they will be conducting the maintenance of this facility. We also took this project to the design review board to receive their input. That went very well. They were very supportive of the project and I'm happy to show you in a moment the renderings as you may have seen actually out on the front lawn, some of those wonderful posters and signs. They're really looking at how we can actually integrate this with the architecture and they were very pleased with what we've been able to put together so far in doing that. So taking a look at the renderings, you can see here, this is the main gathering area. We've got a couple of different elements here, stormwater treatment swale to allow the water that comes off the rooftop to infiltrate and be cleaned and go back into the ground. We also have, as you can see, new plantings and signage that tells people what they're looking at and tells them what kind of project this really is and how innovative it is. This is just, if you were to continue up into that area, you can see here the walkways. These are all going to be pathways so people can walk into this area. We're actually going to be repurposing the granite slabs from the old courthouse into the swale as both the historical and water quality element of this design. And then once you come all the way up to the main gathering area, this is actually going to be an outdoor classroom where we intend to teach about both stormwater quality and water use efficiency. Applications for people at their home or at their business. You can see the rainwater harvesting cistern in this photo, as well as, again, more signage and hardscape there. All of the hardscape will also be permeable. And then this is the corner, just across from the Roxy West demonstration area. We are using this area as more of a natural habitat area. We're using valley oaks and native planting as an attempt to have it feel more like the creek corridor across the street. This is also going to be an area with a pathway across it so that people can connect and walk into the main gathering area on the other side of the stairs. In the parking lot itself, we're also going to be putting in what's called bioretention. So these are specialized landscape areas within the existing islands that will accept runoff and treat that stormwater removed pollutants. And then this is a really unique opportunity to retrofit a site instead of doing this in a new development site. So we'll have signage talking about that process and how to be successful in a retrofit situation. So our next steps, we are going to be submitting for permits very shortly here with bid award happening this winter. We'll be starting construction in the spring of 16 and have a project completion by winter 16, 17. So we're really looking forward to a beautiful and functional teaching landscape here at City Hall. And I'd be happy to take any questions you may have. Questions, council? Just a couple of quick ones from me. I'm glad that you solicited and reviewed comments. Did you respond or acknowledge those folks? My apologies, I meant to mention that yes, we did a response to all comments that we posted on the website. And also if anyone, if they provided their contact information, we have a contact list of people involved with the project. We also made it available that way. It's actually still there if anyone's interested in taking a look at it. Also, I noticed that one of the comments from the design review board had to do with reducing signage or at least less is more. But you mentioned signage a few times in your presentation. What was your response? How did you take that advice from the DRB? So there's both sides of that, as you can imagine. Signage is an important element because this is a teaching garden. So we need to make sure that we have information for the public and for people coming to take the classes. However, what we have looked at is really using kind of a minimalist design. We can, instead of having it just be all text, we can do that in a much more effective way by using our kind of graphic design. The other thing we're doing is we have a variety of sign types. So I talk about signage a lot, but they're not all the giant signs that are solid information. They also include things like plant tags so that people know what type of plant they're looking at. So we tried to be really strategic about placing them where there was something to teach on and not have it be a solid kind of array of signs, if you will. So we've definitely located all of the signs. There is a grant deliverable that we have a certain number of them, but have split that out so that they're really teaching on the element that they're next to. All right. I really like the idea of using this as an educational opportunity and I know we have to provide information if it's going to be that, so thanks. I do have one card on this, at least one. Mr. DeWitt. Yes, sir, thank you very much. I wanted to thank the staff for doing this. It's such an exciting thing. I'd like to let the teaching begin now, if you will. It would be really nice if you could involve scout troops, both girl and boy scout troops, brownie scouts, cub scouts, and start now. You've got the signs up out there. You could begin an opportunity to let them see what's going to occur and perhaps even help in taking out the old grass. There was a member of the North Bay Conservation Corps here earlier and he and I were talking about how these are the types of things that can help to get a interest in a young person and help them find a career along their life. Also, please try to save all the trees that you can that are currently on site. Right now they're water starved. They're drought stressed out there and it would be really wonderful if you could set it up so that we can save them if possible with any rain that comes this year and not have to take out any of those trees, especially 40 year old redwoods that have been here for a long while. So all in all, this is a wonderful thing. I came to the original meetings and I've been following it and hoping that good things will come from it. So let the teaching begin as soon as possible. All the best to you. Thank you. Thank you. That's all the cards I have. Next staff briefing. Thank you, Ms. Moore. Item 6.3, update regarding recycling issues. Gloria Hurtado, deputy city manager presenting. Close enough. Good evening. I'd like to introduce Steve McCaffrey, who's the director of government relations for North Bay Corporation. And you may have read some articles about some challenges North Bay's having. And Steve's gonna give an update on what they're doing to improve the recycling situation and also where they are in terms of their cease and desist order. Thank you. Steve McCaffrey with Santa Rosa recycling and collection. I'd like to take a moment and talk about the history of recycling here in Santa Rosa. Back in 1977, the city of Santa Rosa with its partner redwood empire disposal became the first city recognized by the state of California to have comprehensive city-wide curbside program. Back in 1978, a year later, came the first of the three stackable containers that were used for curbside recycling. You may recall back in those days when container was for newspaper, one for cans and one for bottles. Those were developed here in Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa has a very proud history of being a leader in curbside recycling programs. Redwood Empire Disposal, which was the predecessor of Santa Rosa recycling and collection, sold the company to Waste Management. Waste Management in the mid-90s introduced the single stream recycling program that we're all familiar with today. Program was introduced for the economy of consolidating the transportation and making it much more efficient and allowing additional materials to be added to the recycling collection. This was a huge advantage in advance, not just Santa Rosa, but the entire county to an outstanding 74% recovery rate, one of the highest in the state. This also has a serious downfall as the carts can mask a lot of the problems that are inherent in a program. And that is people will add material that doesn't belong into the blue cart. We are, as a company, deficient on a technicality where our recycling program and our facilities are not to be above 10%. That 10% standard was written back in the days when we had the three stackable carts and then people weren't adding material that didn't belong there because it would have been shameful and seen by all the neighbors. That's not the case with the cart. About eight weeks ago today, I think eight weeks ago tomorrow, we were visited by the LEA, the local enforcement agency. In this case, it's Sonoma County Environmental Health Services at the request of Cal Recycle, the people that oversee recycling for the state based on a complaint that was received at the Department of Toxics and Substance Control that we were operating over the 10% limit. This was not a surprise to Cal Recycle because prior, in March, we invited Cal Recycle in to take a look at our facilities and we shared with them a lot of the frustrations that we had. One of the frustrations was the amount of contamination that we did have in a blue cart, but we were also frustrated with not being able to bring material to the ports and have it shipped to the markets around the world. When the LEA showed up eight weeks ago, they found our recycling and contamination levels unacceptable. They were above 24%, in fact, the numbers were, I believe, 24% at our one facility at 3,400 Standish and 27% across the street at our other facility at 3,417 Standish. They immediately told us that they were going to be issuing a cease and desist order. Since that time, they have issued a cease and desist order that we are able to keep operating as we work with the LEA through this program. Through steps that we were able to put into place immediately, we are able to get our recycling. The last report I got on one side of the street, it's about a 11% contamination level, yet on the other side of the street, it's still around 19. The LEA has said there's gonna be zero tolerance. We need to be at 9.9% or else they will continue with this cease and desist. We've been meeting with them weekly ever since and we do have a plan that we have presented. Now, this is not a plan that's been approved by the LEA, but we do have a facility down in our Petaluma facility where we are able to move 200 of our cleanest loads down there for immediately being shipped out. We are also able, excuse me, that's 100 tons and that's 100 tons per day. We are then working with different facilities that have a transfer station permit to ship the dirtiest 200 tons per day to other facilities where we can transload them and have them processed properly. The rest of the material should be clean enough to allow us to operate underneath the temperature sent standard, but this is just a short-term fix to allow us to keep operating. What we do have to do is address where the problem is originating from and that is in the people that choose to contaminate the blue card. That's going to be a multitask event and that we are going to be embarking on and we have actually already started in other cities. The first thing that we are doing is a public education campaign. Many of you have probably seen in the Press Democrat and the other papers where we are notifying residents about our problem and that we are under strict zero tolerance level for garbage being placed into the cans. The other thing that we will be doing is we are working with Conservation Corps and we wanna be able to walk the streets and look in the cans, tag the cans and leave the cans that are contaminated behind. Now, when I've met with your staff, we made a commitment to them that we would not embark upon this in the city of Santa Rosa without sitting down with them first, letting them know exactly the areas that we'll be targeting and seeking their approval before we do this plan. The reason why we do this is this is very, it's tough love because when we leave behind a garbage, excuse me, a recycling cart, it will be tagged, it will be explained why and they will be given the residence which will be allowed to clean up that cart and if they do clean it, we will come back first time only and empty the cart. If they are a repeat offender, we will be leaving those carts behind and that's where we come to you today and we say we will need your support because we are under orders from the LEA. There's zero tolerance and that's getting translate to the street when we start leaving carts behind. When that happens, calls will come to you and say in what is the matter, we would like our cart picked up and so it's gonna be a very tough process that we go through and this is not just a one time event. This is gonna be a long process to get through this. The long-term fix on this is that we get a transfer permit for our facilities. That's a process that doesn't take overnight. We've tried it many times over the years and every time we do, we do get challenged generally from a law firm, Los O'Jerry, down in the city of Oakland, which challenges almost all major Sequa projects of this type and so we don't anticipate being able to get this transfer permit immediately and so this is something that we are gonna have to work through. I will have to say that the LEA, the Sonoma County Environmental Health Services, they have always been very close allies to us. They have defended us when we come under attack on water quality issues and others because they know we do a good job. In this case, they are doing their job very well, which is very hard for me because they are being very strict but they're being very fair. We continue to work with them and they have made it very clear to us though they are operating under zero tolerance, they also wanna see us succeed and so so far there's been times where it's been tense but the dialogue has been fantastic by all parties and we will continue working with the LEA to make sure that we are able to continue the recycling which the city of Santa Rosa has taken so seriously and should be very proud of. We won't let you down on this and we continue to keep staff informed as this moves along and I'm available for questions. Council. This goes through. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. Thank you for coming down and presenting what's going on. I always appreciate having more information presented directly to us so we can talk to our constituents. I do have a question with respect to something you said about the transfer permit and am I correct that the colloquialism for that would be outhauling? Until we get the transfer permit, there should be some outhauling because we are not allowed to bring those contaminated loads into our facility unless the total amount that we handle is 9.9% or less. So if the community effort is effective, meaning people aren't contaminating their carts though, if that can be put into place, will that bring the numbers down below that 10%? Absolutely, we just don't expect it to be immediate. It's a long process. Okay, so are you sort of required to pursue the transfer permits while simultaneously and employing this community effort? Is that kind of what I'm hearing? Yes, that's exactly right. It's two tracks. Okay, but if the community effort is successful, what then will you do with that transfer permit application? We would still continue to have it because I figure once you start down that trail, you might as well have it, but it should not change the habits of the people. It is a good thing to have if needed. And then that way, there will be no questions on what we're doing. And one thing I do wanna emphasize, and I think your questions bring up a really good point, there is no environmental concern on any activities that we're doing. And when we do get the transfer permit, we're gonna keep operating as we are now. And so it's not like we plan on getting a transfer permit and then not allowing us to really do anything more than we're doing now. Under the MOA, the landfill deal that the county and Republican and all the cities made, we are gonna be building what we call a dirty mirf, but a material recovery facility that allows contaminated material to be processed. And that's gonna be up at the central landfill where they do have that type of permit that allows that activity. And so really the transfer permit is to satisfy CalRecycle and the LEA that we will always be in compliance from then on. Okay, thank you for that. And one further question. I'm gonna assume that our constituents, our residents, will continue to be great stewards and very responsive. And when we are successful with the community side effort, will you still be required to take, I think you said it was the 200 pounds or 200 tons of the dirtiest? Will those, what will happen with them? They'll come back home where they belong to be processed here on Steendish Avenue. Okay, thank you. May I just add one side note? And that is, and this is a quick update, it doesn't have to do with the blue cart, but we have been promising an electric garbage truck to the city of Santa Rosa for the last couple of years. And just a quick update, we did check with the manufacturer and was on October 1st, and he did promise us any day. And so we are hoping to have by the end of the month the first electric garbage truck in this nation running on our streets as a test demonstration. And so I just wanted to put that out there that that should be coming very soon. Thank you, everybody. We've got a lot of people in the room and the custom in here is if you like something, wave your hands, don't applaud. And we'll move on with the item that we're talking about, which is recycling Ms. Combs. Thank you for coming in and talking with us. I wonder if at any point you're reconsidering the single stream process. I'm actually looking at the can here that a number of council members have used that would imply it's sort of blue, so maybe it's an example. And it's got clean paper in it, which I'm guessing is okay, but it also has soda cans in it, which will drip on the clean paper and make it dirty. So would this pass or not pass? No, that would pass. It would pass even though the paper had become contaminated paper. Yes. Where we do start running into problems is like the food containers. So when I pull this one out, that's like aluminum foil inside. Is that, is that good or not? I didn't say who. Is that a good one or not? No, that is not. That would be considered a contaminant. Okay, so this can would be rejected because even though somebody might have thought that was aluminum foil or recyclable, it isn't. Is that right? Technically 100%. Okay, that's, you got to what, so I'm a little concerned. I think we have amazing citizens. They have stepped up on water conservation when we asked them to. They volunteer when we asked them to. So it really concerns me to kind of be extreme in our treatment of our residents because it's really hard to know what goes in that blue can and what doesn't when it's a mixed stream. So I'm very concerned about hearing the educational process more in more detail. You know, there's no like label on the top of my can that says what can and can't go in it clearly in multiple languages. So I'm having a little trouble with the kind of one can and you're out. I mean, even in baseball, you get three. So I'm wondering if you can kind of clarify how we will not blame but engage our residents in kind of the contest of doing this right. Can you kind of clarify that for me, maybe say it another way? Yeah, I would love to. First off, staff has made that very clear to us that anything that we will do will have to have a lot of engagement with the residents ahead of time. In terms of, there's been a dramatic paradigm shift in the way recycling is being handled around the world. And if you don't mind, I'm just gonna take a brief moment to touch on it. When the Olympics were held in Beijing in 2012, the world discovered what was happening in the environment in China. China, which has been where, oh, 90% of the export material where basically all the material collected in Santa Rosa was going, it was going over to China and it turned out that China was so polluted that it woke up the world's eyes. So I'm gonna rephrase what I think you just said, which was that the market for recycled materials has dropped because China isn't buying what they used to buy. And that's, so I'm trying to sort out is that what's happening here to our residents is that you're having a problem selling your product or is what's happening here that we need to maybe not have a single screen so that things don't get contaminated? I'm not saying, I think that you're on the right course. It is, two things are happening. And one is that there is people that put raw garbage in there. And the other thing is that the quality of the material going overseas has changed and they're less receptive of material. And so your thought on, should we get rid of single stream? That is a thought that would have to be expanded upon. There would be a lot of implications on how we collect all the different commodities because the idea of the three containers that I mentioned earlier, there's cartoons when we first started shifting to single stream that showed front lawns with building blocks of material with all the different things being collected. And so that sort of shift would be so dramatic, would have to change everything that we do. So it might even be something, taking a look at dry material versus wet material, that sort of pick up. And so, do I see a shift? Absolutely, how we do it, I'm not there yet. But for the immediate on the three strikes and you're out, if you can get the LAA to give me three strikes and I'm out, I'm happy to do the three strikes on the blue cans as well. But the LAA is not as tolerant and we're not even given the one strike and we're out. And so that is why we are acting so immediate. But the one thing I do want to say.   Our plan is to, as best we can, we want to come forward with a plan that is ready, aim, fire. We don't want to come out firing before we know exactly where the target is. So if I may ask, we just entered some kind of agreements as a county with the waste agency. Did you not know that this was coming up prior to those agreements? Had you had no messages from regulatory agencies regarding this prior to the contracts that we just went through? Like in eight years of the... Long conversation. Yeah, long conversation. But I would just put it this way. In March, we brought CalRecycle in and showed them everything that we were doing. And it opened up their eyes and they said, wow, we did not realize from up in Sacramento how tough things are to move product. That was in March is the first time that Sacramento got any idea of how tough it was out there. We got follow-up phone calls saying, our bosses were not aware of the port strike in Oakland affecting recycling. And so really this conversation started when you guys remember when we sent out our six page little book on the state of recycling where the kitty cat or unicycler cat was asking for help. That is really when this conversation started. Other questions? There also is in the newsletter that North Bay sends out an article every month or quarterly that you send it out that tells people what can and can't go. And that's one of the things that Mr. Tatto and I have been talking to them about more education before they start enforcement. So that's the track that we've been on. Mr. Oliver. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And that is one of the things that I will be interested in is a better understanding of what the education plan is. What's the strategy? Not just to press Democrat, but I think also was mentioned multiple languages and multiple media, whether it's radio, bilingual newspapers. I'd like to know what the plan is going to be before we start moving towards the enforcement, if you will. I don't want to create a situation where suddenly my neighbor's dumping his stuff in mine to circumvent things, you know what I mean? So I think really that education will be important. And I know we want to get back to that 9.9%. Let's shoot for 0% if we can as far as education. I think we can eliminate that. And again, it's starting to gather around some type of community campaign to make this happen because it is in everybody's best interest. But I do agree that the education and the reminders, because I get confused. I mean, it's like that. The fewer the headlights and by default it may have to go into the garbage because I'm not quite sure. And I know we get the information, but it is a lot. I mean, the list is lengthy. And trying to remember all that is a trick sometimes. So I would appreciate more information on the plan for the actual education piece. Thank you. And we have made that commitment to the city. Mr. Schwadhelm. Just from my perspective, I truly see this as a shared responsibility and I appreciate the steps that you're sharing with us. But where I'm a little unclear, so what is the next step? And if you can give me a timeline before your company would start taking any action or at least coming back to the council. The next step for us and why we don't have anything to put in your hands today is we need to come to agreement with the LAA on exactly what those steps will be. We're still in discussion.  And then from there, we'll sit down and come up with our outreach plan from there. I wanna thank Councilman Combs for pulling out the trash because I think it's a very clear demonstration that someone who pays attention to this kind of stuff does not know what should or shouldn't go into those cans. And education is what's needed here. And in your presentation, what I heard you say the next step was is that you were gonna work with the Conservation Corps and go out and start looking in people's cans and then leaving them there. And I don't think that that should be the next step. What I think you should do is tell people what they're doing right and what they're doing wrong. And to come in here and tell us that we're gonna have to deal with the consequences of people not getting their cans picked up is not the next step as far as I'm concerned. Putting ads in the press Democrat, I'm sorry to say they employed me for a long time. But the circulation of that newspaper 20 years ago was 100,000. It's 50,000 today. People don't see those ads. And if they do see those ads, the ones who read them and actually pay attention to what's going on is even smaller than that 50,000. There needs to be an effort and it's not a newsletter. It's, maybe you need the Conservation Corps to go out and talk to people about what's in their cans rather than tag them. So you can hear my frustration here, I hope. This isn't a problem because the market changed or because there was a port strike. The 10% rule has always been a 10% rule, am I right? That hasn't changed. And to call that a technicality when you're more than twice the allowed amount of contamination at both your facilities is quite an understatement. So I would encourage the city, our staff, to work with you on figuring out a education campaign. But to me, that's the next step and that's where I hope we'd see this go. Thank you for those comments. I do wanna say that, you're right, in my point when I say it's a technicality, I just wanna assure everybody it was not an environmental problem that we had. There was not a leak, there was not a spill, there was not contamination of our facilities. And so it's a permit issue, more serious permit issue, more than an actual event that took place. I wanna assure you that when I first sat down with the staff on this, that's what you just said was conveyed to me and that is our plan and I'm sorry if I did not make that more clear. I have a couple of cards on this item, Mr. Chernef. Oh, thank you, Mayor. I'll start off by telling you I had a dream last night that I would be facing a panel of heroes. And the reason I would know that they were heroes because in the center would be one wearing a red scarf. And of course this includes Ernesto who's off to the side. So I'm asking, how is it possible that this matter is not being handled properly to start with? Isn't this company receiving enough of our tax money? How much of this tax money of ours is going to their lawyers or upper management and their CEO? Is there not an abundance of skilled workers looking to work? We're talking trash, garbage, and recycling. We're all weary of the recycling in D.C. of the trash of bar lawyers parading around as Republicans and Democrats, is that right? And if by papal law, which is superior to American jurors prudence, the Bar Association works for the Pope, right? Therefore, regarding separation of church and state, state bar lawyers should never be permitted in public office, right? Everybody needs to get off the fence to solve this issue and everything else.  They're about to send $76.6 billion of our property taxes to the Fed, which is almost entirely staffed by bar lawyers. The solution to this real garbage is the shutdown of our finances and supporting it. And this message has been received well and with enthusiasm to numerous veterans, labor, law enforcement organizations in 17 cities from Los Angeles, Long Beach to San Francisco and Oakland to withhold our hard earned money because we need it here. And for you listening, you simply need to require the power of 10. You talk to 10 of your friends and you say, well, do we have enough courage to withhold our mortgages and rents and our property taxes since it's ours and we're tired of paying lawyers and the bankers is in California the most powerful state in the world? Is that why they take 72% of the IRS and Fed's entire budget from California while the rest of the country kicks out 28%? We keep the money here and we can support Susan Gorin's plan for the Developmental Center for vets and homeless children. We can do everything and solve every problem when we just hold on to our own hard earned money instead of giving it to a bunch of garbage people in DC that are just gonna spend it on more military or killing poor people and sending our poor people as soldiers to do this. I suggest you all look up the state of Jefferson and know that Sheriff David Clark has been chosen as vice president for the only person the media won't. Mr. Chernef, you know the rules. Thank you. Next speaker is Kim. I have a kind of a question and I recently learned that the city of Roseville just north of Sacramento is doing something I'd never heard of with their trash garbage and recycling. They're going back to one can put everything in it. The sorting happens at the site, the trash site. I'm wondering if anybody has thought about possibly doing it that way. Educating people to do it is so difficult and even somebody who studies it, you still have questions about what's right and what's wrong to go into the recycling can. I was amazed to hear this plan and I don't know all the ramifications. I don't know all the pluses and minuses. One of the pluses for people who live in Roseville is there aren't so many trucks on the street on that day of pickup because it's just one can to pick up. The sorting happens at the site, at the standish or the dump site. Anyway, an idea different out of the box of what's being talked about today. Thanks. Thank you. Vesta cope sticks. Thank you. I have a concern with the Tough Love campaign especially because our, well I live out on the Russian River and what I find is that we have a lot of homeless encampments and the people who don't have trash service at these homeless encampments use the trash cans that are left on the street that are put out at night before people go to bed and are picked up in the morning just after dawn and they don't pay any attention to whether it's a blue can, a black can or a green can. They take their trash and put it in those receptacles and it probably happens in Santa Rosa as well. The, it's nice that they're doing that because it saves us a lot of time and energy for picking up after them as volunteers trying to clean up our watershed. But the fact is is that a lot of people who won't pay for trash service are simply taking advantage of those cans out on the sidewalk at night. So you could accuse a homeowner who is paying for trash service that they're putting the wrong trash in that can. It could not be them. It could be anybody passing by with a car or passing by on foot who simply wants to dispose of their trash in some rational manner instead of throwing it on the street. So I think that there's no way really to honestly say that it's the homeowner or the trash service person who's paying the bill who's at fault for putting the mixed use in the wrong can. And then the other one is education. Yeah, it is extremely difficult to know. And so what a lot of people I know do is they simply put anything that is vaguely recyclable into the blue can and they think it doesn't matter what it is and they assume that someone along the line is being paid to sort through that recycled material to determine what it really is. And if you sat down with your trash and your recycled material virtually anybody, no matter how conscious they are, about 50% of it would not be recyclable by what the trash service says is recyclable. The rest of it is just wishing and hoping that it is. And they don't want it to go into the landfill. So they're putting the responsibility on the shoulders of the trash company to determine what is and what is not. And as far as education is concerned, I mean two things, go ahead and pay for an ad in the Sonoma County Gazette and I'll be happy. And then the other one is I think your idea of putting like literally signage on each can would make a difference is can you put this in this can? What is this object you're about to put in this can? It's right on the can. There's a lot of old cans out there in the world that are being replaced these days if they had fresh signage on them as each new can came out to replace the old one that clearly identified was to go in it, that would help a lot. But like I say, honest to God, I don't think it's the homeowners who are always putting the trash in those trash cans. Thank you. Thank you. Are there signs? I think there are signs on some cans or under the lid or on top of the lid. That is correct and we are currently putting stickers on all the metal cans at this time and eventually we want to sticker all the blue cans as well. It's a long process though. There's about 150,000 cans out there. Where are the metal cans? The front end loader that also we have single stream recycling as well. Signs would be good. Anything else council? Yes, Ms. Carlstrom. Just a thought that Santa Rosa water put out unintentionally hilarious little flyer on what you can and can't put down the toilet. So you might ask them how they did it. Thank you for that. All right, thank you for that report. We're on to city manager and city attorney's reports. So I had the privilege of attending the League of California City's annual conference in the city of Santa Rosa and its employees received some very good recognition in the Beacon Award. That program provides a framework for local governments to share best practices that create healthier, more efficient, vibrant communities. The program honors voluntary efforts by local governments for reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save energy and adopt policies that promote sustainability. The Beacon program is sponsored by the Institute for Local Government and Statewide Energy Efficiency Collaborative. And we received a platinum award for best practice in activities around sustainability and a silver award for 8% agency energy savings in 2015. The folks that, there are lots of folks within the organization to be thanked, but I wanna pull out a few folks that were really instrumental in achieving the award and actually getting us where we are today. That would be the lead person on this, which is Lisa Krantz, Erica Gage, Tasha Wright, Nicole Dorotinsky, John Marion, Joy Gibson, Michael Van Middle, and David Gouin. So thank you to the staff and everybody who is involved in that process. And after I finish my announcements, I'll pass around the award so you can take a second to look at them. I'd also like to take a moment and introduce you to a new member of the executive team. His name is Jaime Pena Herrera. Jaime has been a Santa Rosaan for almost 15 years. He has a broad-based experience in marketing, public relations, entrepreneurship, strategic planning, diversity, inclusion, and community partnership building. He has lots of degrees, including a master's degree in the field of government from Harvard. Jaime has volunteered to serve on boards and commissions for several organizations, including the Santa Rosa Junior College Bond Oversight Committee, Sinova County Foundation Advisory Board, KBBF bilingual radio station, Napa Chamber of Commerce, Napa County Tobacco Advisory Board, Napa County Community Foundation, Napa Lake County's Work Investment Board, and many others. So I'd like to take a moment and have Jaime come down and introduce himself to you all. And he has started, he started last week as our new director of community engagement. Welcome Jaime. I appreciate the opportunity and talk about engagement. And to see this crowd is just amazing to me and particularly the students. I love to see that. So I'm incredibly honored and humbled by the opportunity. And I wanted to thank you for your support for this role. It's very important to our community. And I look forward to working with each of you and hear your thoughts about some of the areas that we can concentrate as well as interacting with our great community. My kids were asking me about what is a community engagement director. And one of my kids says, is it related to weddings? So that's a thought. We can get some additional revenue there. But in my mind, the way I see it, this is the, it's a bridge between the great work that the city is already doing in our community and find a way to get input in a way that is meaningful in a way that we can measure it and get back to the community with tangible ideas about that. So I'm again, very excited to be here and thanks for the opportunity. Madam city attorney. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. I also had the privilege of attending the league conference which has a special track for city attorneys which always brings very current and useful information. Next week or later this week, I will be attending the public law executive committee meetings for the state bar. So I'll be out of the office Thursday and Friday but available by email or phone. And then I'd also like to announce that we have just hired a new assistant city attorney to replace Mike Casey who you acknowledged at your last meeting who recently retired and his name is Adam Abel. He comes to us with over 25 years of litigation experience primarily representing public agencies. So we're very thrilled to have him join our team. And I'm sure you'll be meeting him at upcoming closed sessions regarding litigation matters. Thank you. Thank you. That was fast, the hire. Any statements of abstention tonight? All right, we'll go to mayor and council members reports. We'll start at this end. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. I just want to thank all the community members that came out and supported the gang prevention week which I think ended last Sunday but a lot of activities. I just want to acknowledge everybody that came out and participated in that. And I too, along with my colleagues were at the lead conference and soaking up a lot of valuable information and hopefully it was a productive week for everybody as well. Ms. Combs. Thank you, mayor. So I had the good fortune of attending the annual conference in San Jose also. Lots to learn there. Attended the Everyday Democracy Forum last night sponsored by the Santa Rosa Together Group. Excellent, excellent job. And had an art in public places meeting yesterday. The dragon sculpture under the dragon mosaic that's under the bridge. There was a process conversation in which we asked the Redwood Empire Chinese Association to get with the artist and come back with a couple of options for solutions so that the head of the dragon could be in some way returned in a way that would reduce the vandalism to the eyes of the dragon. And to bring back a couple of proposals at different price ranges so we can figure out what is a meaningful way to handle that difficulty. It was an interesting meeting and I really appreciate that the willingness of the artist to work with the Redwood Empire Chinese Association. Ms. Carlstrom. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. I was not able to join the rest of my colleagues at the League of California Cities Conference last week because I was hosting my son's second birthday party. He turned two yesterday. And just briefly, I wanna let you guys know as our representative to the Russian River Watershed Association, I attended a meeting last week where we received a presentation from a representative of the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board on cannabis discharge. This state is gearing up for discharge permits and already has a general order in place for various sizes, square footage of cultivation. They were very quick to point out that they are not mandating nor encouraging cultivation, simply regulating any of the discharge and runoff that may occur as a result. So we will get more information. I've asked that the regional board send the presentation to us so that I can make it available to our city. And the Russian River Watershed Association will be coming back to us as a council to do another update on the Safe Medicine Disposal Program and give you an update on numbers. And that's it, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Swedhelm. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I also attended the League of Cities and the Everyday Democracy meeting last night. Also attended another Everyday Democracy meeting at Catholic Charities today, organized by Santa Rosa Together to specifically talk about those concepts from last night to help us deal with our homeless conversation. So that was very a rich conversation. Also this weekend I was able to participate in the Levi's Grand Fondo at both the festival on Friday and then on Saturday. And although there was a very tragic event out on the road, I just do want to compliment city staff with all the comments I heard and experienced at Finley Center when you have 6,000 people plus hundreds of volunteers. City staff was excellent in their performance there, if they'll pass my thanks. Thank you. Speaking of bicycling, it was announced publicly this week that the tour of California will return to Santa Rosa in 2016. Thank you. I also attended the League of California Cities Conference. Lots of good information exchanged there. And was at the Everyday Democracy thing last night. I need to announce the Downtown subcommittee met this morning. I'm gonna go right into council subcommittee reports. Downtown subcommittee met this morning. The main topic of conversation was courthouse square. As you'll remember, the council two weeks ago directed the staff to move forward with this project and we're wasting no time. Staff today asked members of the public and members of the Downtown subcommittee for input on certain design elements of the new streets on the east and west side of the square. The frontage is along third and fourth street and some other design elements that included parking and other infrastructure type of questions. Those, they got some direction, some feedback from the Downtown subcommittee. They'll be asking for direction on these items from the entire council later on this month, I believe. So you can expect that to be coming back. Any other council subcommittee reports? And do we have any regional, local, state committee type of reports? A-Bagmates tomorrow. All right. Okay, we have some business to attend to regarding this week's county mayors and council members association. Do we have some help with this? Yes, sure. So this is appointments that are made by the mayors and council members association. You've received several letters of interest for people who are interested in the position as the league of cities, North Bay Executive Board. There's two members who are serving two year terms. And I'm sure our city clerk could remind you who you received letters of interest from. There was one letter received from the incumbent, Susan Harvey, who's a council member for the city of Cattadi. So just the one letter was received. So then since we've only received one letter, assuming you would support council member Harvey, we just asked the council to direct the vice mayor who will be our representative to support Ms. Harvey in that position. I'll make a motion to reappoint Cattadi council members, Susan Harvey to the board. Second. Thank you. Do we have votes on that? I have five eyes. Is it appropriate for us to allow him discretion on the second position? Is there any, yes. Okay, cause we don't know who's... Yeah, I don't know if there will be any further nominations at that point. So I would move that we allow the vice mayor discretion in voting for the second position that is as yet unapplied for. Yes. Second. All right, your votes. Thank you for that awesome responsibility. We don't have any minutes to approve. We'll move on to the consent calendar. We're not there yet. It's 530. It's not 530 yet. Item 11.1, motion contract award, pavement preventative maintenance 2015. 11.2, motion contract extension, investment advisory services. Council, any questions on the consent items? Mr. Schwedem. For the second item, it's probably for our finance director. So reading the staff report, it talked about performance of the portfolio and how it specifically mentioned how this firm, we basically beat the benchmark. Can that be tied into actually what we are compensated them for? Like they have to meet this for us to compensate them at this level, basically based on performance? Well, we set the benchmarks. We have quarterly meetings with an investment advisory group and we set those benchmarks for them. So they've consistently always beat those benchmarks. I'm not sure that we could actually tie compensation to that. It's usually tied to the amount of assets they're managing for us. So how much money they're actually investing on a continual basis. They do actively manage the investments for us. So I guess my interest would be both sides at performance and managing the investments. So I'm not really clear. Could we explore that? We can explore that with our next RFP process, which would be before this contract expires, we'll be going out with an RFP to, and we can certainly explore that as an option. Thank you. That's would be my interest. Further questions? Ms. Combs. I think you have this. Yes, Vice Mayor, I will move consent items 11.1 and 11.2 and wait for the read of the text. Second. Your votes passes with four eyes. Have a couple of cards for public comments starting with Dwayne DeWitt. Thank you folks. Today there was a matter down in Oakland at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission on one plan Bay Area, as well as a conference on planning. And I happened to saw two Santa Rosa employees down there. And I was like, wow, okay, they're paying attention. This is good. This right here that I've put up points out that with urban greening, you can find ways to get funding from the government. Might surprise you, but the Senate Bill 375 that was put together by the state has ideas in which you can get funding and help the community through what's called the Strategic Growth Council, the cap and trade money for the greenhouse gas reductions. And that whole system has been set up, but very few people are tuned into it yet. It could be something that could help us here in Santa Rosa should your staff and the new community engagement person seek to reach out and get more things going on. Just below that, it talks about transit oriented development and that whole Roseland specific plan that's being put together is based on that. So this is a spot where you can get these things going. And right now I'm gonna put this nice little map here of the creeks of Southwest Santa Rosa that show Roseland Creek and how for well over a decade, we've been advocating to get a greenway, a bikeway along Roseland Creek. And folks might think, well, you know, those guys just dream too big. But hey, I know we could do some positive things because today at that plan Bay Area 2040, they pointed out that priority conservation areas and bicycle and pedestrian networks were the way to get the money. So there you go. When I would go to meetings and say, hey, remember that Southwest greenway, people would be go like, oh, there's no money. Yeah, there is money. It's amazing, but it's out there. You just have to ask in the right way to the right people, it turns out. So they're going to be re authorizing new funding starting in the new O-bag, they call it. And that starts at the end of this year. And then that new money becomes available and communities that can prove they have good community engagement and are looking for what's called social equity in their planning for urban greening will be the ones who get the most money. And the money is guaranteed here in Sonoma County, a certain amount, a pie, if you will. And we have to figure out how we can get our slice of the pie. And I would like to be helping on that.  I know staff's real busy, but we who love community engagement will engage with that new paid staff member and have nothing but a good time. Thank you very much for your help. Thank you. Orlene Curler. Good evening. I represent Troop 37 Boy Scouts of America. I am their counselor for citizen in the community. And we had three of these young men with us, but they had to leave early because of sports engagements. But it was a wonderful experience for them to be here. This was their first opportunity to ever see a city council in action. I would just like one suggestion since Boy Scouts of America is a very patriotic organization. I was expecting to see a pledge of allegiance when you start your meetings. And I think that used to be the case when I have come to these meetings before. So I was just in hopes you might consider that. And also I would just like to let you know this man's suggestion earlier of engaging our Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts in this project of the centers of gardens. I think that would be a wonderful activity for them and make them feel more a part of the community. Thank you. Thank you. Peter Chernef. Thank you very much. I'd like to address the concept of thinking. You know, I think you can find it on the internet where they'll show you a couple of different kinds of monkeys and chimpanzees peeling a banana. And we are so foolish that we peel it from the opposite end which is twice more difficult. We've been taught to park in driveways and told to drive on parkways. When it comes to comprehension and communication, we severely lack common sense in this here nation. Are we all dumber than a box of hammers? We lead the world with people locked in our slammers or perhaps we need to Google our noodle to 100 patented mind control technologies which go a long way to stifling our thinking and psychologies. For while in DC, Insanity walks the yard, it be we right here in this room holding all the cards. We are the most powerful state in the world. What kind of psychology and thinking has been placed upon us over decades and decades that tells us it's okay to send our money to a bunch of lawyers in DC at the Fed that think it's far more than funny, that we send them all these billions of dollars and then we call back to them as we hollers, we need a couple of nickels to fix some of our pickles while they keep 95%. Have we lost our collective minds? Well, perhaps I need to press a button. I had this whole room rigged.  Look to your neighbors, look to your friends because the road goes on forever and the party never ends but why should we be supporting the party that spends its time screwing us? I invite you all aboard the Freedom Rose Bus. California is the place and this is the time for us to get together and seesaw this crime. I've had this discussion in 15, 18 cities in the last seven days and most everyone's agreed that we need to go ahead and get the landowners together with honest law enforcement and the farm workers and simply exclude those that spend their entire careers as government sanctioned thieves. Let me ask you in your heart upon who do you believe the almighty liberator is in our heart? It is far past time for us to start. I am Peter King of Masterpiece Theater. The authority is mine to say as I do and the authority be ours to make it come true. Thank you. I say it you here. Mr. Cherniff, report items. Item 13.1, report Southeast Greenway existing conditions, opportunities and constraints report and proposed initiation of general plan amendment, rezoning and associated environmental review. Erin Morris, senior planner presenting. Thank you Vice Mayor Sawyer and members of council. I'm delighted to be here tonight to present the existing conditions, opportunities and constraints report for the Southeast Greenway property as well as Vice Mayor Corsi. What did I say? Oh yes, I'm sorry, I've now mixed up my two. Can we have the overhead reduced? I'll start again. Vice Mayor Corsi and members of council, I'm delighted to be here to present our existing conditions and opportunities and constraints report for the Southeast Greenway and also the staff proposal to initiate a general plan amendment and rezoning for the property. Recent background on this in 2013, the council established a goal of supporting the efforts of the Southeast Greenway campaign by monitoring and providing information. In 2014, the city of Santa Rosa entered into a community partnership with the Sonoma County Water Agency, Sonoma County regional parks, land paths and the Southeast Greenway campaign to explore this 57 acre site and potential future uses. And in 2015, the partners along with the Sonoma Land Trust and Caltrans entered into a memorandum of understanding about working together and collaborating to move forward with the vision and ultimately hopefully public acquisition of this land. And I should say local public acquisition. You have a copy of the report. I'm hoping that you've seen this map before. This is an overview map that shows the extent of the 57 acres we're talking about. The property begins at Farmers Lane and travels approximately two miles to the east to touch on Spring Lake Regional Park. The report that you have divides the land into several sections, which are noted on there. And I'll go into a little more detail about the contents of the report in a moment.  I think it's important to talk about where this land came from. And this is actually in the opportunities and constraints analysis. Over the course of 20 year period in the 1950s to the 1970s, Caltrans acquired 65 parcels as part of a future extension of Highway 12 as a freeway that would have gone over Spring Lake Park and connected back up with Highway 12. In 1957, Caltrans entered into an agreement with the city of Santa Rosa that this land would be a freeway. In 1964 is when the water agency built the Santa Rosa Creek Reservoir which we now call Spring Lake as part of the Central Sonoma Watershed Project. In 1974, that's when Spring Lake Regional Park opened to the public. Years later, as late as 1984, the Santa Rosa General Plan was showing a freeway on this land, a black line basically that went through in the community and over the park. In 1991, it was decided to take that freeway off of our general plan. So since 1991, this land has not had a general plan designation with the removal of the freeway designation back in 1991. Some more history because there's been a lot of activity related to this land. In 2009, the Southeast Greenway Campaign formed and they're a citizen group. There are a lot of them here right now in green shirts behind me and they formed due to some interests regarding this land. In 2010, they helped bring about a design charrette by UC Berkeley, it was a community visioning process for what might happen with the land. In 2011, it's a very popular site as you can tell, the American Institute of Architects came to Santa Rosa and did a community charrette, again kind of a visioning exercise. And then in 2011 and 2013, and as I said earlier 2014, the city council adopted various resolutions identifying an interest in seeing something happen with this land and supporting the campaign. So I already touched on the formation of the partnership. Another key thing in 2014 is that Caltrans officially rescinded the freeway agreement. So the land is now no longer planned to be a freeway by the state of California and the property could be sold. That's part of why the memorandum of understanding that you agreed to enter into in July of this year is so important because it's ultimately Caltrans agreeing to work with the partners and the land trust on a community vision for the property. And that's what we just did back in July. So now I'm gonna talk a little bit about the report and I'm not gonna go into a lot of detail but if you have questions, I'd be certainly happy to answer them. The report divides the 57 acres into basically three sub areas, a west, a central and an east. It's a very large long piece of property so that was helpful. It goes into detail about existing features that are on the site. Site is mostly vacant. The eastern sub area has some horse tabling. Two folks have leases with Caltrans where they have their horses there but the rest of the land is not leased and it's basically vacant, vacant land. And the report goes into details about not just the site but everything that surrounds the site. The report discusses the general plan for the area. Well, this site doesn't have a designation. The area around it certainly does so it talks about the general plan, the zoning. And then it identifies existing policies that affect the land or might affect future uses of the land, city plans and then public projects and publicly owned land in the vicinity of the 57 acres. So some of the key features that the report gets into we describe and identify the existing roadway network. This piece of land is bisected by numerous public streets that you can see when you're out there. There's also three creeks, Matanzas Creek, Spring Creek and Sierra Park Creek that cut through the site in different locations. We went into some detail about the pattern of the surrounding development, the land uses, the height, the kind of the neighborhoods around the site. The report identifies the location of the Spring Creek diversion and this is important because it's an existing feature. Essentially, Spring Creek is collected at summer field. It goes under and through this property, goes under Montgomery High School and eventually reconnects at Farmers Lane. So it's just something that needs to be thought about when we look at future uses. Also the report identifies an undeveloped roadway that is located between Mayette Avenue and Hoenn Avenue near the Freedman Center. It's a 20 foot public right-of-way that's been there since the late 1800s. That's interesting. And then the report goes into detail about natural features. A city biologist and I walked the entire property with permission from Caltrans and did kind of our biologists thankfully did an initial assessment and that information is in the report by section and then you have the entire report at your disposal. So just a bit about the existing plans that affect the use of this property. In 2011, the city adopted the 2010 Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan and it envisions and it calls for a class one bicycle path connecting from Hoenn Avenue near Montgomery High School. Basically we're Hoenn and Cypress and Hoenn Intersect out to Spring Lake Regional Park. So that's really a key, that's probably the key thing that comes out of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan but that plan also shows how that facility ties in with the rest of the city's bicycle network which I think is an important thing to think about. The second plan is a Citywide Creek Master Plan. It identifies enhancement and restoration concepts for each of the creeks that goes through this area. They were significantly modified with flood control projects and so there's some ideas about how to restore them. The Groundwater Master Plan is the water departments and the city's plan for management of the city's groundwater and in particular it identifies the need for some emergency supply wells and this area has favorable conditions for those wells so that's a city interest is to try to find locations for those wells on or near this property. And then we also talked about the city of Santa Rosa's General Plan 2035 and although the site doesn't have a designation it's surrounded by designated lands so it's important to think about the plan and existing uses around the property. So I'm gonna briefly step through the opportunities that are, this is toward the end of the report. It's kind of summarized based on the analysis of each of the sub areas. The site has actually excellent public access. Although CalTrans prefer the public not to be on there now there are a network of public streets that surround the site that provide potential future entry points into the site. There's definitely ample room for the recreation uses that are discussed in the memorandum of understanding and the city's original and initial thinking about uses for the land. There seems to be an opportunity to implement the creek plan with creek restoration because there's space around the creeks to possibly do that. The MOU talks about environmental mitigation sites that this land could possibly be a place to do projects that would be mitigation for offsite projects so it could be like a receiver site and there's space for that too. And then we really looked at like what are the different kinds of land uses that might happen here and I'll talk a little bit more about that in the next slide. We're gonna talk about constraints. The biggest constraint that really came out of our work not just on the report but also the partnership. We've been meeting for a year, we've been talking about this land is the fact that the site does not have a general plan designation. It's difficult to figure out how to go forward when there isn't an adopted community vision for the site. It's also an unusual size and configuration. It's very rare to find 57 acres of land in the middle of your city. It's long, there's a skinny piece of it that's only 70 feet wide. Most of it's quite wide but it's cut up by numerous public streets so it's just kind of an interesting site. There'll be a lot of public improvements that will be needed. Street crossings to connect the pieces are important but the existing streets that go through the land are not all of them improved to city standards. Some of them need sidewalks and bike lanes and whatnot. There's the creeks on the site are a feature that needs to be attended to. The hydrology in the area is sensitive. The reason why there were all these flood control projects was because there was flooding in these neighborhoods surrounding the Greenway and that's something that any future development needs to think about and take into account. And then of course the interface with existing neighborhoods. There's long established neighborhoods that surround this land and of course there'll be a lot of interest in what happens on this land because it has the potential to affect folks that are directly near the site. So talking a little bit about the staff proposal for the general plan amendment. The reason why we're recommending that the council initiate a general plan amendment is because it would ultimately allow the city to establish a land use vision for this property. And then we could zone the site consistent with that vision and the site would be ready to move forward with whatever uses we'd like to do with it. When we've been working with the partnership the main interest is public recreation, the class one bicycle path and other uses like that. We've been told by the Sonoma Land Trust as one of our partners that it's very difficult to fundraise when there isn't a designated a city plan for the land when there's no adopted city policy for what the uses are gonna be. We envision that as you can see also from the folks that are here tonight and have written to you that this will require a collaborative, highly engaging community planning process and that we're gonna really need to get out there. We talked to a lot of people. We did mail a notice to the 700 property owners that have land within 500 feet of the site and we put out the notice to all of our known community groups but that's just kind of what we normally do. This is gonna require a whole lot more to make this successful. And then we wanted to note that and we've met with Caltrans and they conditionally support the proposal to move forward with the general plan amendment for their land and they've written a letter to that effect that's in your packet. Excuse me. Ms. Morris. Oh yes. When you say conditionally it just raises the question, what are the conditions? They don't have a number, like a list of numbered conditions but they do talk about looking at a variety of land uses and they do have an interest in seeing the city look at a variety of land uses and we've discussed that with them that they're interested in seeing us look at not just one use but looking at alternatives too. Thank you. So the initial staff vision and this is captured in the draft resolution so I wanna walk you through it. We'd like you to direct us to initiate a general plan amendment and really focus primarily on parks and recreation uses. This is consistent with the partnership and with the MOU and with the work we've done to date. We would though like to analyze and evaluate other uses that would be hopefully compatible with the parks and rec and also with the surrounding neighborhoods and these include higher density housing due to the community need for more housing. A retail use is possibly near farmer's lane on the elevated piece that's right on farmer's lane that's sort of cut off from the rest of the land and then we thought it'd be good to look at public institutional to put that designation near Montgomery. There've been some discussion about kind of creating some kind of shared uses with the high school and with the city on that land. So we'd like to explore that as an alternative land use designation but I think it's really important to know and the resolution says this that we know this proposal will evolve through our community planning process. We just, we wanna start somewhere but we envision that with the engagement what comes back to you could be slightly different or you'll have options or something along those lines. Our preliminary schedule, if you decide to move forward with the resolution tonight and direct us to move forward we're going to put out a request for proposal for consultant support by the end of this month. We're hoping to interview, select and deal with the contract for consultant to bring that back to you in January of 2016. We would then begin work on the project in January, February of 2016 and the goal would be to complete the project within 12 months. And so the staff recommendation is to both accept the report and by resolution initiate the general plan amendment and rezoning of the site with direction to staff. I would just like to note that as talked about in your resolution, we envision in preparation of an environmental impact report to provide the environmental clearance for the project. Before I go to questions, would you please talk about the cost of the EIR and the general plan amendment process and where those funds are coming from? We have approximately $310,000 in community developments budget that is available for this project. So we'd be looking to bring people on board with that as our cost. And that's adequate for both the EIR and the general plan process. Yes, we believe so. Mr. Vice Mayor. Thank you. Are there questions from the council? Ms. Gomes. Thank you very much for bringing this forward. It's an exciting day for some of us who've worked a long time on aspects of this project. So how far to the north and the south of the property will be reviewed for the general plan? Are you looking only at the property itself or are you looking at it as a corridor? We had a property come up not too long ago where there was, I think it was along North Street where there was a corridor that took into account properties fairly surprisingly far away to me, you know, a couple of blocks over on each side. Does this intend to look at only the property or will we be also looking at the property to the north and the south? Council member, our intention was to look at the property that's owned by Caltrans at this time that doesn't have any, it is not a part of the general plan. So our intention was to make it the 57 acres as shown on the overhead. There may be some interaction between the site and the surrounding neighborhood that would have an impact. And so I'm concerned that we will miss the opportunity if we don't also look at adjacent properties. What we could do is start with the Caltrans property because just to focus on that for a minute, what we're trying to do is get a general plan adopted, do an environmental document, which will lead us to be able to acquire the property. If as a part of the engagement process, we identify some of the examples of adjacent properties that also need attention, I think what we could do is bring it back to the council for further review and maybe a redirection of efforts in that regard. So there's room in our conversations going down the line for that because my recollection is the 2011 Estat project included a couple of those properties with some ideas. So I'm concerned about making sure that we integrate the ideas from the 2011 Estat. Is there a cost impact difference to us on the four different types of land uses that you've listed for us? Retail business, high density, residential, public institutional versus just park and recreation. I think a slight difference in the sense that if you have more alternatives to consider that's gonna cost a little bit more. But when you do an environmental impact report, you typically have to have alternatives anyway. I have been unclear in what I've asked. Will Caltrans expect us to pay more if we have designated it retail commercial versus park? And so I would hate for us to use parkland that we paid a premium price for because somewhere along the line it got labeled commercial. What Caltrans has told us is that their job is to receive highest and best use for the value of the property. And they understand, like Erin said, our conversations with Caltrans is knowing that we're gonna look at various options and they're encouraging that their direction or what they've told us is their job is to receive highest and best use for that property. If it's our intention to use it as recreation and parks land, I hate for us to pay the premium price for commercial property. And I just am concerned about that. So is there a consequence to us if we designated the whole area park or residential? I think, you know, the Caltrans has been willing to participate in this because we're keeping the opportunities open and that there is room to negotiate in some of these conversations. So if we limit the pathway for success, we potentially call into question the commitment of the conditional commitment to the process. Okay, I think I heard. Does this include the Merlita Road site on the other side in the assessment? I understand that the main plan for the Greenway does not, but does this process that we're discussing include the site on the other side? No, it does not. Okay, thank you very much. And I'm really excited to see this. I also am a little concerned about the public institutional. I have heard a rumor that the school board might be interested in additional parking. And I wanted to make sure that while anything that moved us forward in wonderful unanimity with the high school included something other than parking as their goal. And that's duly noted. I'm sure there will be plenty of rumors about plenty of usages that will come out. Yes, it's just a rumor. I just want to make sure that we don't waste this land that way. Thank you so much. I'm really excited that we've come to this point. Thanks very much. Thanks, councilor. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. Just a couple of questions. Have we had any further indication from Caltrans as to what they're expecting this purchase price to be? No, we have not. The process that we... So once again, I believe there's a slippery slope to this conversation in that we have not been given a price point. And I think when I started in this conversation, the feeling was that there was going to be no negotiation. And so I would say we are in a very favorable position. This is a unique partnership that Caltrans has entered into. And there's nothing for us to speculate on on that front except they are willing to negotiate with us with the Cotysl that the usual expectation is highest and best used. But again, that's the usual expectation. This seems to be a very unique opportunity and partnership we're engaged in. I appreciate that. And the uniqueness of the situation leads to my second question. I'm seeking to understand typically when a project comes before us seeking a general plan amendment, there has to be very specific reasons for it, right? It has to be a very specific project, meaning a very specific designation and a community purpose, et cetera. And I fully appreciate that that's inappropriate for this setting because we don't yet know what each of these parcels might become. But how are we able to still move forward with a general plan amendment? That's an interesting question. In order to propose a general plan amendment, our general plan says that applicants have to identify the unique circumstances or things that have changed in the community that really are why you need to amend the general plan or they have to identify plans and policies or other basically change factors that support why to do this. And this is a case where just recently the state of California has decided that this is not gonna be a freeway. So if there's ever been a project that has an answer to the why, this is probably that one. So that's our change circumstance. And then the aspect of, we've typically been very specific about, well, we're legally required to include piece mailing.  How are we meeting that requirement here? So this is somewhat different because this is a city process that we are the ones initiating the general plan as opposed to an applicant who comes forward and then has to provide the greater detail that you've specified. The other concern is you can't just arbitrarily and intentionally down zone property just because you might wanna purchase it. So staff is required to look at all the uses and determine and it may be that a deal is cut by some part of it being used for retail that gets them some recovery so that it doesn't have to be paid for. So as Mr. McGlin said, they're being very cooperative and negotiating but you can't predetermine just because there's groups that may wanna purchase that property. I appreciate that explanation. I'm always keen to identify our findings getting back to my planning commission days. Those are all the questions that I have right now. Thanks very much for all your hard work on this. If I may follow up on the down zoning concept. My understanding is that down zoning involves asking for one sort of lower priced use in order to purchase but then later using it for something else that is worth more and if we're not going to use it for something else that's worth more, is that still classified as down zoning? I don't know if technically it's down zoning. In this case it would be zoning it to be the least valuable. Obviously Caltrans may not have the interest in having a park. So that's what I meant by that. Right now it's not actually zoned as Mr. Agalea said there is no general plan amendment for that entire area. So you're not really down zoning but you can't just pick the most favorable one because you have some ultimate plan. So we can't say what our intention is and zone based on our intention? Not when we don't own the property. No, you can't try to favorably zone to influence your financial interest. So you can't for example say that somebody can't have commercial property on a site that's appropriate for that or zone for that just because you might have to use your power of eminent domain or you may wanna purchase that property. So you just can't be arbitrary about it. In the past when a property is zoned in that has been out, we have looked at the property on either side and sort of pasted that zoning in to where it was. That's been a traditional technique. I was assuming we were not proposing that method now. Can you clarify for me, are we talking about taking the existing zoning on either side in order to satisfy Caltrans or are we talking about recreation and parks? Well, we're talking about recreation and parks and perhaps some of the other options that we told you about earlier. The thing that we wanted to avoid when appraisals were done and there's no general plan or no zoning, oftentimes an appraisal appraiser will look over the fence and determine that the hundred acres surrounding it is ex-general plan and assume that the new property will have the same and that is not an unrealistic assumption. So what the partnership and the rest of us involved thought is it would be better to go through this process where the vision for the property is studied where there's quite a bit of city involvement and engagement in this, that we establish a direction for this property, we adopt a general plan, complete an environmental impact report and then we have direction on that project, whatever that is and there's options that we've studied and included in the environmental impact report. Thank you. Thank you. I have a number of cards on this. I will be calling the speakers in twos so the next person can line up and be ready to speak. You'll have three minutes to speak if you can do it in less time, that's good. And the first speaker is Kirk Gibbany and he will be followed by Dwayne DeWitt. Good evening, vice mayor and council. Thank you for listening to me today. Mr. Gibbany, lift up that microphone a little higher if you can. The whole thing will come up too if you find the toggle switch. There you go. Thank you. Thank you. I'm a resident of the neighborhood known as Castle Rock, roughly 100 homes adjacent to Spring Lake Park and on the north side of the Caltrans property east of Summerfield Road. My parcel is adjacent to the Caltrans property. I am also an engineer and an experienced bicyclist having ridden over 100,000 miles in my lifetime. I attended several early Southeast Greenway campaign meetings and major activities since its inception in 2009. I was appointed by my neighbors to represent our neighborhood to the Greenway campaign at the American Institute of Architects Design Shared in February of 2011. A large fraction of the Castle Rock residents opposed any new park entrance or a bicycle or walking path on the Greenway east of Summerfield Road. The neighborhood was particularly concerned about traffic, parking, noise, loss of privacy, crime and damage to the environment. In a presentation that I gave to the AIA, I showed that a bicycle path through the eastern portion of the Greenway would be twice as steep as riding up New Anga and that a non-elite cyclist would struggle to ride up the hill. There are no less than five existing park entrances within one mile of the Greenway at Summerfield. One of these is a class one bicycle trail marked on city maps as a bike boulevard. No less the Kenwood, Santa Rosa or Spring Creek Trail. It is just 0.4 miles north of the Greenway at Summerfield Road and it is continuous with the Bay Area Ridge Trail. So why would we need another class one bicycle trail and park entrance? What would be the value? How many cyclists would use it? The very weak data in the 2010 Santa Rosa Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan do not support arguments for yet another bicycle path. Questionary results that are admittedly biased and statistically insignificant are nonetheless presented in the master plan. A traffic count for one fair weather spring day during peak commuting hours in 2008 on Summerfield Road at Sonoma Avenue showed bicycle counts that in the range of 22 to 29 per hour. Also from- Thank you, sir, your three minutes are up. Hello, my name is Dwayne DeWitt and I wanted to say thank you for this item. Excuse me, Dwayne. Yes. Following Dwayne will be Linda Davis. All right. I'm all for this. Please approve the idea of having the general plan amendment. Be aware though that highest and best use in the eyes of state bureaucrats may be different than in the eyes of locals. My comments are in honor of Howard Mose and June Mose who worked for decades to make sure that a freeway didn't come through there and now that that's not happening, let's do our best to make sure we get something very nice, a greenway, maybe some housing. You have to be very, very, I guess the term for this is diplomatic because as the comments before me just showed, there's all kinds of people paying all kinds of attention to every little thing you could imagine. So with that in mind, please go forward and have a wonderful time. Always keeping in mind, the Southwest Greenway also could link up to the Southeast Greenway. I love the shirt. Thank you very much. Thank you. Linda Davis will be followed by Greg Badano. Thank you. Well, my name is Linda Davis and I've been a resident of Santa Rosa for 36 years and I too live right next to the parcel that has been the Caltrans right of way. And back in April, I wrote each of you a letter and sent it to your office individually. I unfortunately didn't hear back anything from anyone, but at the time I invited you to come out to my place and I wanted to show you why this parcel is so important and precious to me. I'm here today not to either disagree or agree with this particular plan of the Southwest, the Southeast Greenway, but I'm here to share some real concerns and to also make a proposal, which I think you received today. There's two copies of it. My first one and then I altered it. So the second one is the one I want you to keep and it's the one that says, starts with the Community Boulevard Proposal. And I wrote this up because I feel like there are two very different segments up there in the map. The West and Central area is a very different kind of land than is the East section up there. And I feel they should be considered separately. And I would like to say that the concerns I have for this section, I'm gonna start with the Central and West is that it's a huge area. We're talking about lots of acreage. And if you include the East side, it's also 57 acres. And as I've lived there, I've looked in my backyard and wondered, how can they possibly make practical use of all of this? And I say that not critically, but of a concern. I feel like it's far more than is needed for a bike and walking trail. And I hope that if a trail, a bike and walking trail, that if a bike trail is made, it will also include a walking area for pedestrians. But there's a lot more land that's needed for that. And in back of my house, the stretch is about 200 feet wide and a bike trail would probably take, I don't know what, 20 at the most feet wide. That's 180 feet left with what? It's also a tremendous financial concern. Where's the money gonna come from? If Caltrans does give the land, I know they're not gonna give any money to use it and have the taxpayers been asked what they want to pay for. They were talking about not just immediate needs, but long term because I have least seven acres of that land for the last 18 years and I've worked it. And I've gone out there when I first arrived in Santa Rosa, that field behind our house was a mess. The grass was over my head. It was beautiful. It would wave in the wind, but it was a terrible fire danger and we did have a fire back there. There also, and so I began 18 years ago leasing that land and cleaning it up. I hauled out of their mattresses, car parts, beer cans, there were partiers back there. There were kids dirt biking back there. And we, oh dear. Anyway, I was hoping to read this to you, but. Thank you, Ms. Davis. We have your statement there that you wrote out and we'll take a look at that. Yes, you have the proposal. You have my phone number on the letter because I sent you the letter again last week. So I would be loved to talk with you more about it. Just a reminder, the light sun on the podiums, let you know when there's 30 seconds left you'll get a yellow light. Greg Badano is going to be followed by Thea Hintzel. Dear City Council and residents of Santa Rosa, we applaud the efforts of the Southeast Greenway Committee to transform the unused Caltrans property into a safe and uninterrupted passageway from Farmer's Lane to Summerfield Road. As a former cyclist, I'm well aware of the challenges and inherent dangers of riding on city streets. The Greenway would provide a safe route between these two points for cyclists and walkers alike. Our issue and our question is why it should continue beyond Summerfield Road when there are already multiple access points to the parks. And while the expense to develop a Greenway between Farmer's Lane and Summerfield Road will be considerable, the area east of Summerfield, which is in many places solid rock will be astronomical, not to mention the impact on the largely natural and untouched landscape. Caltrans currently leases a portion of the area east of Summerfield Road to multiple individuals who have successfully cared for and maintained the property for more than 20 years. This is something that can continue into the foreseeable future and result in a net profit for the city. Instead of spending huge sums of money to create yet another way into the park, why not put that much needed money into our crumbling city streets and relighting our darkened street lights? The southeast Greenway is a great idea, but it does not make financial sense for it to extend beyond Summerfield Road. Thank you. Thank you. Thea Hensel, followed by Vincent Hoglund. Good afternoon, Vice Mayor Corsi, Councilmembers and City Manager McGlynn. On behalf of the Santa Rosa Southeast Greenway supporters, I'd like to extend a big thank you to the Community Development Department, Chuck Regalia, Lisa Kranz and Erin Morris for this comprehensive report that they've given us today. I thought I knew this land like the back of my hand. I have learned much from the report and reading it that will open doors to future research and exploration. We're here today to ask you for the opportunity to do that with the General Plan Amendment and everything that that encompasses. As stewards of this earth, we can lend, let the land rise up to its glory of its full potential that can benefit the many and not just a few. Opportunities like this come once and we usually don't ever get a second chance. Let the people in this neglected neighborhood offer their new front yard to the community, to share and to care for it so that everyone can enjoy the natural opportunities that exist here. Young and old, residents East and West, students and seniors, let everyone have a voice and a choice. Creeks and critters deserve a chance to survive and thrive and so do the people in Santa Rosa. Let's provide a forum for all of the citizens to plan and share their ideas, their goals and their needs as we look to the decades ahead and to make smart decisions now for Greenway and Santa Rosa. Thank you. Thank you. Vincent Hoglund, followed by Rick Reisman. Good afternoon, Vice Mayor Corsi and members of the City Council. My name is Vincent Hoglund. I've been an appointed member of the Sonoma County Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee which advises the Board of Supervisors concerning bicycling pedestrian issues since its founding in 1993. I'm also an active member of the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition and the Santa Rosa Cycling Club. I'm quite an avid cyclist as I use my bicycle for transportation about 3,500 miles a year. The Southeast Greenway's Campaign's mission is to transform the vacant two-mile corridor connecting Spring Lake and Farmer's Lane into a vibrant urban Greenway that will serve as a strategic link in our non-motorized transportation system and improve the quality of life for the citizens of Santa Rosa and Sonoma County. My vision for the Greenway is an active transportation route that will significantly strengthen our regional network of trails. The city's Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan currently calls for a Class I Bicycle and Pedestrian Trail that stretches from Spring Lake Park to Montgomery High School. Such a trail has the potential to link with a proposed Sonoma Valley bike trail to the east, to downtown Santa Rosa, and the smart station as well as to existing West County trails leading all the way to Sebastopol and Forestville. Locally, the Greenway will also promote safe route to schools, allowing students to safely walk or bicycle to the five schools within a half a mile of the Greenway and three schools that are three-quarters of a mile away. This could reduce the traffic jams and pollution that occur on Hoenn, Yalupa, and surrounding streets around eight o'clock in the morning and three in the afternoon every school day. I believe the establishment of the Southeast Greenway will significantly add to the safety and enjoyment of cyclists, walkers, and outdoor enthusiasts in Santa Rosa and Sonoma County. Thank you. Thank you. Rick Kreisman, followed by David Hansen. Hello. I'd like to offer my perspective regarding the Southeast Greenway as a physician and neighbor of Spring Lake Park and Southeast Greenway. On a recent photo shoot in Spring Lake Park, I was reawakened to the beauty of this place, which started as a flood control project by Sonoma County Water Agency, but has evolved to a well-loved place to hike, bike, and encounter nature in abundance. It's such a jewel for the neighbors in Bennett Valley, but also for the entire Sonoma County community. That beautiful day, my thoughts turn to the two-mile adjoining stretch of native grasses, of native trees, walnuts, and mixed grasses and weeds known as the Southeast Greenway. That has the potential to be a similar asset for Santa Rosa and Sonoma County. Its potential reminds me of other established community greenways that I have cherished on visits, such as Lithia Park in Ashland, Oregon, and Bidwell Park in Chico, if any of you have been to those places. I have also been impressed by the former 22-mile rail line in Central Atlanta, now known as the Atlanta Belt Line, that is transforming that inner city. In my professional role as an emergency physician, I am all too familiar with the unhealthy effects of our car-centered culture and the lack of exercise that pervades. I look forward to the day when the Southeast Greenway is developed as a pedestrian and bicycle connector route, and the 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. school traffic jams on Hone Avenue and other nearby streets are a thing of the past. Kids and adults can be more fit and have fun in the process. And Santa Rosa will increase its reputation of being a livable city that is attractive to residents that are already here, and those yet to arrive, as well as businesses looking for a desirable location. Thank you to Vice Mayor Corsi, the council members, and the city manager, and the community development department for the report, and your efforts so far, and your future considerations. Thank you. David Hansen followed by Wendy Elliott, Vice Mayor Corsi, city council members, and staff, David Hansen, landscape architect, and 23-year resident of Santa Rosa, and a member of the Circle of Friends of the Greenway. I'm proud and excited to support this opportunity before the city council. I came to this city and county to serve as the first employee and general manager at the Sonoma County Ag Preservation and Open Space District. And I'm proud that we have preserved 23,000 acres in that first seven years I was here, both of parkland, open space, and farmland. Among those lands, I was happy to include many landscapes and acres protected in and around the city of Santa Rosa. These lands included many separated lands on all four corners of the city. They included the first purchases on Taylor Mountain, Bennett Peak, the West County Trail, and separators between Ronan Park, Sebastopol, Sonoma Valley, and the city. I was chair of the Lamp Haz Board when we created the garden out at Bayer Farm, and I'm happy to have been the first designer of that garden. Now, after 45 years of being personally involved in preserving and managing over 70,000 acres of Greenland in the Bay Area, working for three open space districts and many trusts, I'm excited to be a part of this unique opportunity to support the preservation and creation of a sparkling 57-acre greenway in Southeast Santa Rosa. The history of great cities since the days when London purposely created the first city green belts in green spaces in the late 19th century has always been guided by an opportunistic and urgent need. Witness the value of Golden Gate Park, Central Park, Vancouver's Lineal Green Waterfronts, Chicago and Minneapolis's intertwining green lands, and in the rebuilding cities like New Orleans and Christchurch, New Zealand, my original hometown, and creating vital and necessary elements of greenways to help urban form and improve the quality of the citizens' life. Studies and my own personal research have shown that green spaces improve land values in and adjacent to these areas. Multi-use natural lands incorporated within developed areas improve public health and safety, increase soothing natural visual beauty, those in multifamily housing a chance to step outside, offering lands for nearby orchards and gardens for city dwellers, increase groundwater recharge, offer lineal recreation and underground utility and wildlife corridors which can connect and consolidate with surrounding trails and infrastructure with nearby creeks, parks and natural resource areas. I encourage you to proceed with the RFP to develop and process a general plan designation and rezoning of the property. Once the land is lost, a vibrant green and gold ribbon is done, but I'm always reminded of Will Rogers' statement, invest in natural land, they ain't makin' it anymore. Thank you, Mr. Hinton. Thank you. Wendy Elliott will be followed by Gina Kuklis. Good evening Vice Mayor Corsi, members of the council. My name is Wendy Elliott. I'm the conservation director for Sonoma Land Trust and it's always tough following David Hansen and I'm not gonna be as eloquent because I'm gonna talk about sort of dull things like appraisals and land value. Come a little closer. I was here a few months ago and I'm really happy to be back and I'm really excited that the Land Trust is part of this really interesting and vital and different kind of project for us. I want to echo some of the other comments and acknowledge the really terrific work done by staff. The professionalism, the level of integrity is way up there. Sonoma Land Trust fully supports the staff's recommendation to accept the report and initiate the general plan amendment process for the property. In fact, the lack of a land use designation for this property creates so much uncertainty about the property that I really don't see how we can move forward without this step. There's a couple of reasons. Assigning a dollar value to a property that does not have a land designation is very difficult and you heard a little bit about that. Appraisers rely on city and county land use designations to guide them and determine what can be built on a property and then derive the highest and best use. An appraiser faced with an assignment like this one and I've talked to about three of them in the course of the past year has a very tough task of trying to anticipate what the public is gonna do, what this community wants to see. The other piece that's very hard to do is raising funds for a project that is not yet identified. In advance of the general plan amendment, that's really difficult as well. The outcome of this public process that we're hopefully launching today is unpredictable. Funders are gonna be very unwilling to contribute to a project that we cannot clearly define and it will be difficult if not impossible to raise funds for a greenway unless funders can be assured that their dollars are funding an actual greenway. So I've found my role as the person helping to support the land acquisition pretty stymied without this necessary step. Completing the general plan amendment now is gonna remove these uncertainties and really give us the green light to go ahead. Once complete, we're gonna be ready to move ahead in delivering the promise of accessible public open space to the members of this community and beyond. And I think that's a legacy that I'm gonna be proud of and that we can all be very proud of. So thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Elliott. Gina Kuklis will be followed by Peter. Good evening. Peter Messel. You know who you are. Ms. Kuklis. Thank you. Good evening. This is my first opportunity to be in front of the San Rosa City Council. I hail from East on Highway 12 from the Sonoma Valley, technically Boy's Hot Springs. I have been, however, following this issue for about the last four or five years since having lunch one afternoon with Linda Prue and telling me all about it. I've been attending the meetings and following the issue. So I'm here today for two reasons. Also, not just as a resident from down the highway but also bringing a perspective of somebody interested in education of children as I represent the Bennett Valley area on the Sonoma County Board of Education. So why is somebody from Sonoma Valley interested in seeing the Southeast Greenway move forward? Because this is not just a neighborhood project. This is a regional project and it has big benefits to the part of the county I live in as well as all over Sonoma County and the connectivity issue has been brought up today. I personally have been working more than 20 years on getting bike paths through Sonoma Valley. We're finally seeing the development of our central Sonoma Valley trail, which I got was involved with getting in the county bike path plan back in the late 1990s. The regional parks is finally working on a feasibility study for the rest of the Sonoma Valley bike trail up to Malita Road. So this provides a wonderful opportunity to bike from Mount Shellville when we finally get the bike, proposed bike trail built there up to the city, through the city to the other side of, I guess somebody mentioned the Southwest Greenway. So I also wanna point out, we're talking a lot about biking and walking. The educational use of this property is wonderful. The vision is not just about biking and hiking. It's about all kinds of park and recreation uses. You know, it's located three quarters of a mile from eight schools, children that can be walking and riding bikes to school instead of being driven by their parents or driving themselves in the case of the high school. It's a wonderful opportunity for a lot of things. And bold, I don't know if any of you have had the opportunity of going to New York City and seeing the high line. That's, if you couldn't vision and take a former high off the ground train track, going through the former meat packing district and turn that into a park. How amazing, it'll put Santa Rosa on the map to create the wonderful vision that exists right now for this Greenway. You all as the city council members are real lucky to be part of creating something magnificent and marvelous for all of us in Sonoma County. Thank you. Thank you. Peter, you're gonna have to help me with the last name. I can't read it off of here. Peter Mazzi. Thank you so much for allowing me the opportunity to speak. First, I wanna say that I am a cyclist. I cycle pathways in Sonoma County approximately 100 miles every week. I'm a long distance runner, I'm a hiker. I'm also a homeowner in Castle Rock neighborhood, which is adjacent to the proposed Greenway. For 35 years, I've been exercising and using the parks and trails in Sonoma County.  What I can say is that I just do not have enough information about this. I've heard everything that from this is going to be a new paved entrance to Spring Lake Park to there's gonna be retail stores there. I think everything that's been done has been very secretive. Yes, I know that things have been open, but let's face it, there's a lot that I don't think the general public is aware of what's going on in this plan. I think back to Proposition A that a lot of people thought was, oh, this was even, this is a good idea. And when the public actually started finding out about Proposition A, we all know that it didn't pass. So some of the things I'm concerned with as a homeowner, I'm concerned with what's gonna happen behind my house. I live in a very tranquil place right now. I moved to that house for that reason. I saved for 17 years to move into that neighborhood that I live in. Yes, I knew, I signed a statement saying that I was aware that there could be a freeway going through there. By the time I moved in that neighborhood, there was never gonna be a freeway put through there. And I knew that. I would suggest the city council. It sounds like, I know that the city council has authorized $100,000 to be spent on this already. Sounds like today I heard about another 300 possibly that was gonna be spent on this. Take a walk down the Prince Greenway. The Prince Greenway is falling apart. It's dangerous to ride a cycle on that greenway. Believe me, I ride it every day. There's cracks in there. If you take a walk down the Prince Greenway, you'll see loitering, graffiti, drug use, alcohol use, sex acts I've seen right on the Prince Greenway, vandalism litter. A member of our public office was mugged, not a few feet from this building on the Prince Greenway. I don't want this in my backyard. You can't guarantee me that this is not gonna happen in my backyard. As you can see, this is an emotional issue for me. I don't intend on not making the public aware of what's being proposed there. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Cheryl D'Ozadelli. Sorry about that. And then Richard Canini. Wherever you like. Good evening. My name is Cheryl D'Ozadelli. I am born and raised here in Sonoma County. So over the last half century, I must say, I've seen a lot of changes to this city. What I'd like to bring this meeting back to is the general plan being amended. This is a huge, huge undertaking. And it does require certain criteria to amend the general plan. And all these ideas and all these wonderful thoughts and how people can be enhanced by this Greenway are all wonderful. But we gotta get back to what's real and legal and the steps that the council needs to take to amend the general plan. As far as I can tell, there's no definition. There's, nobody knows what the proposal is going to be specifically. And unless I am misunderstanding, that is a condition to change and amend the general plan. So until that definition is put out to the public and people agree on it, I think we're premature here to make a vote tonight to amend our general plan, which it goes out the next 20 years. Secondly, the report that came through, I've read it beginning to end. There's many errors and omissions in this report. I don't think they are on purpose, but we are in nearly year five of the worst drought in history. This report was done in March of this year, which was the beginning of year four. The biology and all the wildlife and the plants and animals and everything are completely out of whack for lack of different terminology to what normal is. And to do another study even this next year until we get normal rainfall and normal seasonal patterns to do a true reading of what's going on out of that property and that the entire greenway, we're premature here, completely. Everybody, the greenway, everybody, because nobody knows really the definition and the impact on the wildlife and what is really going on out there with this historic drought. And the Farmer's Almanac just came out. I don't know any of you have read this yet, but it's pretty accurate over the years. And the El Nino is not gonna hit the Northern California. It's gonna be Southern California. And I know I'm out of time, but please read it. It's, you know, that's the people think we're gonna get daylooshed. And I don't think we are. I hope they're wrong, but thank you very, very much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Mr. Canini, I guess Mr. Canini has gone home. Donna Mora, followed by David Grebel. Good evening. I have been in Sonoma County since the 50s. I have been actually live on Hoenn Avenue since the 90s. I've seen some changes and I'm really confused on the zoning, on what's really gonna be happening. I have concerns on some of our parks that we already have in recreations and greenways. You have homeless. Hoenn Avenue already has a really terrible record for traffic. Where's all this traffic going to go if you have something that somebody can go to like a park? I just have some major concerns. In fact, just last week, I had somebody come onto my property and tried to steal from a homeless person who I have heard over on that field, homeless people do go. So, and that's really all I have to say. I'm worried about traffic and who's gonna be paying for the upkeep on this if it does get approved. Thank you so much for listening. Mr. Grebel, and you'll be followed by Frank Baumgartner. Good evening. David Grebel with the Housing Advocacy Group. We strongly support the city taking control of this greenway and engaging in a planning process to determine the best uses of this wonderful 58-acre site. And we certainly don't oppose using a big chunk of these 58 acres for parks and a bike trail. We hope that bike trail goes all the way to Spring Lake right through all those expensive houses up there. But it shouldn't all be parkland. And the city has a huge crisis of housing, affordable housing, multifamily housing. Put some of that up in the east end of this greenway if you can, but put it, put it some of it. Should be a significant part of this greenway that addresses the, by everyone's estimation, an enormous housing crisis that the city faces. That'll, I think, help put this whole plan together. It'll generate a little revenue for the city and we'll put some eyes on the open space part of this parkland. The greenway advocates have done a fantastic job of getting us this far. And they deserve a huge amount of thanks for that. They aren't, in conversations with me, they've said they're not opposed to affordable housing, an affordable housing component here. And it's close to transportation, close to shopping, close to schools. I would caution against including more parking for Montgomery High School as part of, as one of the possible uses in this study.  Let's move this forward quickly. Okay, and in a way that doesn't detract from the other wonderful parks that the city has, which the city has a little stress for cash to maintain. So thank you very much. Thank you. Frank Baumgartner will be followed by Harold Wilson. And then the last card is John Coutula. Thank you, Vice Mayor, of course, and thank you to other members of the council. I also want to thank the community development department. I think you've done a superb job. And I think that the Greenway organization has done a great job of getting this thing moving and pushing it forward. I think we all love our parks. I'm a tennis player and not a very good one anymore. But the access, I think the accesses to the parks are fine. I don't necessarily want to see that change. And the previous speaker hit the nail in the head as far as I'm concerned too, because I'd like to see some provision for accessible housing. I think there's a pressing need and I hope that you'll consult with Catholic charities in the county and come up with a plan, a segment. I'm not talking about the whole thing because I think the bikeways and the trails and preserving the nature are key. And so I'll just keep it short. Thank you for the time. We should. Thank you, Mr. Baumgartner. Harold Wilson. Good evening, council. Way to go, Greenway people. Obviously worked very hard at this. I said, totally support the additional corridor through Santa Rosa. I walked here tonight on the Prince Memorial Greenway and made it fine. I think we could probably do all right with the rest. My issue tonight is help for homeless folks. So I'm hoping, I want to encourage you to put high on your priorities, low-cost housing or even no-cost housing. So this might be a fantastic opportunity to do a little bit for a lot of people in our community. Thank you. Thank you. John Coutula. I boarded that property right there in that little narrow spot you see on the top right corner. On my deed, it says that when the freeway was gonna go through, they're gonna take a pie piece of my property and my neighbor's property and give us fair market value. I haven't heard anything about any of that. I was gonna talk all about the crime and stuff, but I haven't heard anything about them taking my corner of my property from my, so I haven't heard, this is all I've been to. So I have. Thank you. That's all the cards I have. Is there anyone else who'd like to address the council on this issue? Okay, we'll bring it. Come on up. Hi, my name is Alexa Forrester. I live near Village Elementary School and I have two young children. And a number of people have said that the access to the parks are fine. I would argue that if you have a car, they're fine. If you aren't planning on traveling by car, especially with young children, there's very little safe way to access the park if you don't already live in the neighborhood's adjacent to Spring Lake Park. So I think that a pedestrian and bike access that's designated without car traffic would be a great improvement. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Very good. Thank you for all of your input on this. I believe it's the beginning of a long process. I'm going to bring this back to the council for questions or comments. First of all, Madam City Attorney, would you just briefly address the question about the city's legal authority to amend the general plan one more time? Sure. And just to be clear what the council is doing tonight is you're not voting on a general plan amendment you're authorizing staff to start the planning process which would culminate after environmental review as Mr. Rogel, you said in bringing back proposed general plan amendment to the council after public input and after the processes that community development staff has indicated. As I indicated before, the city also has apart from an applicant who owns a piece of property a right to initiate its own general plan amendments when it sees a need. In this case, as Ms. Morris indicated, the need is driven by the fact that the prior freeway has been abandoned by Caltrans and there is no land use designations for those portions of the real property that had previously been designated for that use. Thank you. Let's start with Mr. Schwedhelm. Sure, the city attorney may have answered this though. Just so my interest is maximum flexibility with community input with what we are voting on today that would be the direction that staff is recommending. Yes. Did I hear that correctly? And then this is maybe for CD staff. I also have some concerns with similar open areas like Joe Redotta Trail and Prince Morrow Greenway and some of the public safety concerns. During this planning process, how would that be addressed? We've already had a preliminary conversations with police department and fire department staff just as part of developing this report. But absolutely, that's referred to as environmental design to prevent crime. We wouldn't be looking at that as part of the community process. And so again, maybe this is too preliminary, but that would be a concern just not a design about what are we actually going to do. Yes. And again, the paralleling processes from Prince Morrow Greenway where maybe that wasn't a focus. I have a strong interest in making sure that is a primary focus for any development along this 57 acres. We understand. All right, thank you. Ms. Carlstrom, do you have any questions or comments? Sure. Thank you for keeping me up to speed on that. Ms. Colms. Wow. Thank you. Thea and Linda and all of the neighbors who have come out to express their neighborhood concerns. Thank you for the Greenway campaign for bringing us to this point. I was in the room when it was a planning commission conversation very premature. What was it, 07? When there was the initial attempt to consider a general plan amendment at that time. My recollection is that the planning commission approved that to move forward to the council, but council never took it up. So I was on the other side of the dais at that time. So it's kind of exciting to be on this side and have the council be discussing moving the amendment forward. I don't live in immediate proximity, but I'm kind of in the general zip code of this project. And really keenly aware of the three creek crossings, the five to eight schools that are in the area, numerous daycares, just lots of possibility with this project. Really excited to see the city having worked well with the community and with Caltrans, our city staff, who went from calling it the Highway 12 right of way to calling it the Greenway over the last, what, 10 years. Just really appreciated the hard work and persistence of a lot of folks. So I thank you for bringing us to this point. And I think that's just a comment. I hope that we take into account the concerns of the neighbors, as well as the overwhelming interests. There's been a lot of planning going here for a long time. And it looks, I'm really delighted to see us having a planning process that's actually the general plan planning process. It was a little unusual, I think, to have an SDAT that was instigated from a community group rather than from a city group. And I'm looking forward to seeing whether that becomes integrated into this plan or not. So I rather obviously am enthusiastically in favor of having the full proper community conversation moving this into the general plan. Thank you, staff, for bringing it forward to us. Mr. Alvarez. Thank you, thank you all for coming to express your views and concerns on this as well. I am very confident with the process that we've used with this so far. I mean, it's been years into making. I think it's been a very deliberate pace as opportunities come up. And I'd like to the direction we're heading. We're not at the final stages, but it's continuing to grow. And I know the opportunity for public input will continue to grow as well as we move forward. So I am very confident that everyone will be heard at the appropriate times as well. So I'm fully supportive of this process and the direction that we're heading. I keep having to remind myself that this was going to be a freeway. It's just incredible that we've gone from that to now having the opportunity to turn this into something that's really wonderful for everybody. A lot of cities would give anything to have the kind of opportunity that's presenting itself here. I'm sorry to hear someone say that they feel that this has been a secret. It's hard to keep things a secret for seven years, but I understand that at times, information doesn't come to you in the way that you want it to. And that's where we're going now. The other comment that I wrote down was that people don't have enough information about this to know whether to support it or not. That's where this process is gonna take us, to get that information, to find out what we want on that property, to find out what the opportunities are. And I think that without any study at all, there are some obvious ones. And that's to have a transportation corridor that gets people out of their cars. A lot of people noted that it's close to a lot of schools. I don't think it will add traffic to Hoenn Avenue. I think it will take traffic off of Hoenn Avenue. I also think that we have an opportunity with certain parts of this property. The frontages along the roads, such as Yilupa Avenue, come to mind to create development along those pieces that will help us pay for this property, that will provide us with affordable and market rate housing. I think that we can incentivize that property to create housing for all incomes. And also to create, not just housing, but development that invites and welcomes people onto this property as a park. That's an opportunity that I really don't want us to miss. So I'm glad we're gonna focus on looking at park and recreation uses here, but I also am very supportive of looking at housing, residential, mixed use opportunities along the frontages. And with that, I think it's your turn, Ms. Colstrom. Thank you, Mr. Reissmaier. Preliminarily, there was a property owner that had a question about whether there might be a taking. So I'm hopeful that somebody can meet with him just to assuage those fears, address that party parcel. This is, I think, the third or fourth time this project has come to me as a council member, so I've had plenty of time to state my support and congratulate you all on hard work. Keep it up. Really the one part I wanna, there are two parts I wanted to address that I also hope staff will find a way to incorporate housing. We have limited opportunities in the community. Find a way to make it work, please. And then secondly, and this is a charge to Jaime, who I'm thrilled to have on board, as well as, you're gonna tell me it's Jaime, aren't you? No, I'm gonna tell you to ask that of me and not direct staff. I can't, you're right. My point is that there's an engagement opportunity here. There are happy faces in this room and there are angry faces in this room right now. And that makes me nervous because this is a huge undertaking and angry faces tend to multiply if they are not addressed and engaged. And that is also a charge to the leaders of the Greenway campaign. These are your neighbors. You know, have that conversation. The best projects that we've had come to us have just really directly had that conversation instead of avoiding it. So I know you will, I have faith. I think that's it. As far as my concerns at this point, I appreciate the city attorney's clarification on the general plan amendment situation. You ready for me? Okay, so with that I will make a motion first to accept the report titled Southeast Greenway, existing conditions opportunities and constraints. Second? Council your votes. And that passes with five ayes. Thank you very much staff and thank you all for being here. There's also a resolution. I also have a resolution. Just one more case, wait. I mean, you can clap now. Part two. Part two. There's also, I will now move a resolution of the council of the city of Santa Rosa, initiating a general plan amendment and rezoning of the approximately 57 acre site, comprised of undeveloped highway 12 right away between Farmers Lane and Spring Lake Regional Park in Southeast Santa Rosa and waive for the reading of the text. Second? Votes. And that also passes five ayes. We have no public hearings. Written communications are noted. Noted. 15.1 quarterly capital improvement program projects update April to June, 2015, provided for information. 15.2 final map tapestry subdivision provided for information. Thank you, Mr. City Manager. We have one more item on the agenda. As you clear the room, please do it as quietly as you can. Do we have any other citizens interested in providing public comment on anything on or off the agenda tonight? Seeing none, we're adjourned. You still texting? Is this real, Mort? Yep.  Oh, I got to text Ashley. Ashley identified you when you wrapped your car around that light pole because you was caring more about that thing than a road. How many is she like? Not anymore. No text message as well.