Hi, I'm Maria Vazcanales, the Executive Director of the RETO CITALES. When it comes to artificial intelligence and inclusion, I think that we have a lot of issues in Latin America currently in having real access to data, information about what kind of data is collected by private companies or by governments that are starting to use this kind of technology and to learn in which way this data affects the decision making after affect the lives of the people in the region. As a lawyer, I think that for complete this task we need to go and be more effective in our advocacy work with the legislative bodies and also with the governments that are trying to implement this kind of technology for providing solutions to real problems of the people to provide some social services and other kind of things that the government are implementing this kind of technology. Many times there is a lot of excitement in Latin America to just rely in the new technology and the new thing that it's in hype but we think that this is not enough if you don't do this regulatory assessment from a human rights perspective that you need to be embedded in the design and implementation of this new type of technologies. First we need to have more actual research coming from academic institutions and that research needs to be connected with the work that activist organizations, society organizations are making for providing valuable information to the decision makers. So at the end there is a value in work together and presented a more multi-stakeholder approach in the decision making to help the implementation of this kind of technology that can influence the authorities that are deciding about.


Our next recitation will be by Hailey Bouchard from South Burlington High School. Personal by Tony Hoagland. Don't take it personal, they said, but I did. I took it all quite personal. The breeze and the river and the color of the fields, the price of grapefruit and stamps, the wet hair of women in the rain and I cursed what hurt me and I praised what gave me joy. The most simple minded of possible responses. The government reminded me of my father with its deafness and its laws and the weather reminded me of my mom with her tropical squalls. Enjoy it while you can. They said of happiness. Think first. They said of talk. Get over it. They said at the school of broken hearts. But I couldn't and I didn't. And I don't believe in the clean break. I believe in the compound fracture served with the sauce of dirty regret. I believe in saying it all and taking it all back and saying it again for good measure while the air fills up with I'm sorry's like wheeling birds and the trees look seasick in the wind.  You were that yellow caboose, the moon disappearing over a ridge of cloud. I was the dog chained in some fool's backyard barking and barking trying to convince everything else to take it personal too. This recitation is by Hailey Bouchard, a senior at South Burlington High School. Hailey tells us she drives her teachers crazy, but she also loves reading Shakespeare and knows American sign language. The death of allegory, Billy Collins, hearing what became of all those tall abstractions that used to pose, robe and statuesque in paintings and parade about on the pages of the Renaissance, displaying their capital letters like license plates. Truth cantering on a powerful horse. Chastity, eyes downcast, fluttering with veils. Each one with marble come to life, a thought in a coat. Courtesy, bowing with one hand always extended. Villainy, sharpening an instrument behind a wall. Reason with her crown and constancy, alert behind a helm. They're all retired now, consigned to a Florida for tropes. Justice is there, standing by an open refrigerator. Valor lies in bed, listening to the rain. Even death has nothing to do but mend his cloak and hood. And all their props are locked away in a warehouse. Hour glasses, globes, blindfolds and shackles. Even if you called them back, there are no places left for them to go. No garden of mirth or bower of bliss. The valley of forgiveness is lined with condominiums and chainsaws are howling in the forest of despair. Here, on the table near the window, is a face of peonies and next to it, black binoculars and a money clip. Exactly the kind of thing we now prefer, objects that sit quietly on a line in lower case, themselves and nothing more. A wheelbarrow, an empty mailbox, a razor blade resting in a glass ashtray. As for the others, the great ideas on horseback and the long-haired virtues in embroidered gowns, it looks as though they have traveled down that road you see on the final page of story books. The one that winds up a green hillside and disappears into an unseen valley. Where everyone must be fast asleep. Our next recitation will be by Tate Clark from the Sharon Academy. Very Large Moth by Craig Arnold after DHL. Your first thought when the light snaps on and the black wings clatter about the kitchen is a bat. The clear part of your mind considers rabies. The other part does not consider, knows only to startle and cower away from the slap of its wings. Though it is soon clearly not a bat, but a moth and harmless. Still you are shy of it. It clings to the hood of the stove, not black but brown. Its orange eyes sparkle like televisions. Its leg joints are large enough to count. How could you kill it? Where would you hide the body? A creature so solid must have room for a soul. And if this is so, why not in a creature half its size or half its size again and so on down to the ants? Clearly it must be saved. Caught in a shopping bag and rushed to the front door, afraid to crush it, feeling the plastic rattle loosened into the night air. It batters the porch light, throwing fitful shadows around the landing. That was a really big moth is all you can say to the doorman who has watched your whole performance with a smile. The half compassion and half horror we feel for the creatures we want not to hurt and prefer not to touch. Our next recitation is by Hannah Funk from Mount Abraham Union High School. Windigo by Louise Erdrich for Angela. The Windigo is a flesh eating wintry demon with a man buried deep inside of it. In some Chippewa stories a young girl vanquishes this monster by forcing boiling lard down its throat, thereby releasing the human at the core of ice.  Towels flapped on the hooks and the dog crept off, groaning to the deepest part of the woods. In the hackles of dry brush a thin laughter started up. Mother scolded the food warm and smooth in the pot and called you to eat. But I spoke in the cold trees. New one I have come for you child, hide and lie still. The sumac pushed sour red cones through the air copper burned in the raw wood. You saw me drag toward you.  You dug your hands into my pale melting fur.  Steam rolled from my wintry arms. Each leaf shivered from the bushes we passed until they stood naked spread like the clean spines of fish. Then your warm hands hummed over and shuffled themselves full of the ice and the snow. I would darken and spill all night running until at last morning broke the cold earth and I carried you home a river shaking in the sun. Our next recitation will be by Lee Gallagher a sophomore at Mount Anthony Union High School. Lee enjoys painting, drawing, acting, reading and singing. Life in a love by Robert Browning. Escape me never beloved while I am I and you are you so long as the world contains us both me the loving and you the loath while the one eludes must the other pursue. My life is at a fault at last I fear it seems too much like a fate indeed though I try my best I shall scarce succeed but what if I fail of my purpose here it is but to keep the nerves at strain to dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall and baffled get up and begin again so the chase takes up one's life that's all while look but once from your farthest bound at me so deep in the dust and dark no sooner the old hope goes to ground than a new one straight to the self-same mark. I shape me ever removed. Our next recitation will be by Eliza Goodell a sophomore at Oxbow High School. Eliza loves to play music, sail and she also loves dancing. Luke Havergall by Edwin Arlington Robinson. Go to the western gate Luke Havergall. There were the vines cling crimson on the wall and in the twilight wait for what will come. The leaves will whisper there of her and some like flying words will strike you as they fall but go and if you listen she will call. Go to the western gate Luke Havergall Luke Havergall. No there is not a dawn in eastern skies to rift that fiery night that's in your eyes but there where western glooms are gathering the dark will end the dark if anything. God slays himself with every leaf that flies and hell is more than half of paradise. No there is not a dawn in eastern skies in eastern skies. Out of a grave I come to tell you this. Out of a grave I come to quench the kiss that flames upon your forehead with a glow that blinds you to the way that you must go. Yes there is yet one way to where she is bitter but one that faith may never miss.  There is the western gate Luke Havergall.  Go for the winds are tearing them away nor think to riddle the dead words they say nor any more to feel them as they fall but go and if you trust her she will call. There is the western gate Luke Havergall Luke Havergall. Our next recitation will be by Ekaterina Langlois from Bellows Free Academy Fairfax. The Albatross by Kate Bass. When I know you are coming home I put on this necklace glass beads on a silken thread a blue that used to match my eyes. I like to think I am remembering you. I like to think you don't forget. The necklace lies heavy on my skin. It clatters when I reach down to lift my screaming child. I swing her roll her in my arms until she forgets. The beads glitter in the flicker of a TV set as I sit her on my lap and wish away the afternoon. I wait until I hear a gate latch lift. The turn of key and lock. I sit amongst toys and unwashed clothes. I sit and she fingers the beads until you speak in a voice that no longer seems familiar. Only strange. I turn as our child tugs at the string. I hear a snap and a sound like falling rain. Ekaterina Langlois is a senior at Bellows Free Academy Fairfax. She loves cheerleading and can do a back flip. Domestic situation by Ernest Hilbert. Maybe you've heard about this. Maybe not. A man came home and chucked his girlfriend's cat in the wood chipper. This really happened. Dinner wasn't ready on time. A lot of other little things went wrong. He spat on her father who came out when he learned about it. He also broke her pinky, stole her checks, and got her sister pregnant. But she stood by him, stood strong through it all because she loved him. She loved him. You see, she actually said that and then she went and married him. She felt some unique call. Don't try to understand what another person means by love. Don't even bother. This recitation will be by Isabel Kotlowitz from Thetford Academy. Dear reader by Rita May-Rees, you have forgotten it all. You have forgotten your name, where you lived, who you loved, why. I am simply your nurse, terse and unlovely.  Chair, book, daughter, soup. And when we are alone, I tell you what lies in each direction. This way is death and this way after a longer walk is death and that way is death.  You gripped my forearm in your terrible, swift hand and said she is everything. You gave me a shake, everything to me. And then you fell back into the well, deep in the well of everything. And I stand at the edge and call chair, book, daughter, soup. Isabel Kotlowitz is a senior at Thetford Academy. She likes to downhill ski, stargaze and read fantasy novels. She once spent three days and three nights alone in the snowy woods for a mountain solo school trip. Solitude by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone for the sad old earth must borrow its mirth but has trouble enough of its own. Sing and the hills will answer. Psy, it is lost on the air. The echoes bound to a joyful sound but shrink from voicing care. Rejoice and men will seek you. Grieve and they turn and go. They want full measure of all your pleasure but they do not need your woe. Be glad and your friends are many. Be sad and you lose them all. There are none to decline your nectared wine but alone you must drink life's gall. Feast and your halls are crowded. Fast and the world goes by. Succeed and give and it helps you live but no man can help you die. There is room in the halls of pleasure for a large and lordly train but one by one we must all file on through the narrow aisles of pain. Our next recitation will be by Kaylee Osier from Green Mountain Union High School. Echo by Christina Rossetti. Come to me in the silence of the night. Come in the speaking silence of a dream.  Come back in tears. Oh memory. Hope. Love of finished years. Oh dream how sweet. Too sweet. Too bitter sweet. Whose awakening should have been in paradise where souls brimful of love abide and meet. Where thirsting longing eyes watch the slow door. That opening letting in lets out no more. Yet come to me in dreams that I may live my very life again though cold in death. Come back to me in dreams that I may give pulse for pulse. Breath for breath. Speak low. Lean low. As long ago my love how long ago. Kaylee is a senior at Green Mountain High School. She loves to sing and act and she's lived in five states. Domestic situation by Ernest Tilbert. Maybe you've heard about this. Maybe not. A man came home and shucked his girlfriend's cat into the woodchipper. Dinner this really happened. Dinner wasn't ready on time. A lot of other little things went wrong. He spacked on her father who came out when he learned about it. He also broke her pinky, stole her checks and got her sister pregnant. But she stood by him, stood strong through it all because she loved him. She loved him, you see. She actually said that and then she went and married him. She felt some unique call. Don't try to understand what another person means by love. Don't even bother. Our next recitation will be by Anna Van Dyne. Anna is a senior at Harwood Union High School. She loves learning, asking questions and visiting new places. She also loves oatmeal because it has endless possibilities. Monet refuses the operation by Liesl Mueller. Doctor, you say there are no halos around the street lights in Paris and what I see is an aberration caused by old age and affliction. I tell you it has taken me all my life to arrive at the image of gas lamps as angels to soften and blur and finally banish the edges you regret I don't see. To learn that the line I called the horizon does not exist and sky and water so long apart are the same state of being. Fifty-four years before I could see Ruan Cathedral is built on parallel shafts of sun and now you want to restore my youthful errors fixed notions of top and bottom the illusion of three-dimensional space, wisteria, separate from the bridge it covers. What can I say to convince you the houses of parliament dissolve night after night to become the fluid dream of the Thames? I will not return to a universe of objects that don't know each other as if islands were not the lost children of one great continent. The world is flux and light becomes what it touches becomes water lilies on water above and below water becomes lilac and mauve and yellow and white and cerulean lamps small fists passing sunlight so quickly to one another that it would take long streaming hair inside my brush to catch it to paint the speed of light our weighted shapes these verticals burn to mix with air and change our bones skin clothes to gases doctor if only you could see how heaven poles are into its arms and how infinitely the heart expands to claim this world blue vapor without and


Hello. Hi there, Suzanne. Welcome. Thank you. We're just waiting for our subcommittee members. And then we can go ahead and start. Good afternoon, Mayor Rogers. Howdy. Looks like we are still waiting for vice mayor Rogers and council member Alvarez. We'll give one more minute here. I know the vice mayor had a pack schedule. Sounds good. It looks like I see council member Alvarez. Good afternoon, council member Alvarez. Good afternoon. How's everyone doing? Doing good. Thank you. How are you? Are you able to hear me? Yes, I can. Okay. Perfect. Perfect. Let's go ahead and take the roll and go ahead and get started today. Council member Alvarez. Present. Vice mayor Rogers. Present. Mayor Rogers. Here. Let the record show all council members are present. Great. First of all, thank you everybody for being here. Council members. Do we have any announcements before we get started? Anything from you, Amy? None for me. Thank you. Great. We'll go ahead and go on then to approval of the minutes. We. Have none here today. So we'll start with public comments for non agenda items. If you're interested in giving a. Public comment today for items that are not on our current agenda. Go ahead and hit the raise hand feature on zoom. We'll go ahead and start with Woody and then go to Kevin. Just one moment. Sorry.  Woody, I have enabled your speaking permissions. If you can please unmute yourself. Great. Thanks so much. Can you see the timer on your screen? I do. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And if I yourself for public record, if you so choose and your time begins now. Sure. It's a woody Hastings. And I live in unincorporated Sonoma County. And I just want to make it clear that. I'm just speaking today for myself, not on behalf of any. Organization. And I, I really, I just want to say that. You know, there's this Earth Day event tomorrow and it's a great honor to be here. And I just want to say that the members of this committee. Have made, had made efforts to. Try to adjust that. Idea that, that. Event so that. It could at least, you know, accommodate walk-ups and, and bicyclists and whatnot. And then. The city, the time. Yeah, the time. It doesn't seem to be moving, but I won't take three minutes. I just wanted to say. I just wanted to say that the city is. Hosting an event where for Earth Day, that. People are asked to drive up in an automobile. You know, and I understand the need to distribute the water saving kits and all that. And that's good. But, you know, it seems like there might be other ways to get that out without a. Drive up. Event.  You know, of, of, of the purpose and meaning of the event. You know, itself. Okay. That's all I wanted to say. Thanks so much. And thanks for your efforts to try to. To try to sort of adjust it. Okay. That's all. All right. Thanks, Woody. Next we'll go to Kevin. Kevin, I have enabled your speaking permissions. Do you see the timer on your screen? I do. Yes. Thank you. Time begins now. Okay. Very good. I also won't need anywhere near three minutes. I always, I want to take the opportunity when the climate action subcommittee meets to continue to promote, having a sustainability director in our city and an implementation team for our climate action plan. And for a staff member to be a member of the urban sustainability director's network. I think those are, are all things that, that would be great for the, the climate action subcommittee to, to push for. And also we talk about the fact that we can't effectively address the climate crisis unless we're effectively addressing social justice and equity. And I'm just wondering if there's a way that the climate action subcommittee could really promote Santa Rosa and helping implement programs that support these communities of color and low income relative to climate change and environmentally sustainable practices. So those are my thoughts. And thank you for giving me the opportunity to voice them. Absolutely. Thank you, Kevin. Next up is Mark. Mark, I have enabled your speaking permissions. Do you see the timer on your screen? I sure do. Thank you. Thank you. Perfect. Your time begins now. Alrighty. Yeah. Nice new timer too. So appreciate that. Very visual. Yeah. Just a couple of quick things and then keeping with the trend. I won't talk too long. Really appreciated the minutes that we had for, that were published for the meeting a while back. And just hoping that we can continue getting regular minutes. I know it's a, yet another thing for staff and, and I really appreciate how, how they're doing that. The other thing was not actually, I think that's about it. I do echo the, the ideas that Woody brought up about the, the whole Earth Day activity. And I understand that it's a little tricky to put something together, but other jurisdictions are doing that. And I also agree about the, with what Kevin said about joining the urban sustainability network. And I lost my train of thought should have written it down. So I'm going to put my hand down and thanks bunch. All right. Thank you so much, Mark. I'm seeing no other hands. Council members, we did have a late correspondence that was added to the agenda. Also on the, the same issue with the Earth Day. So if you had a chance, make sure you read through that from Eris. And with that, we'll move on to item number five. That's our discussion items. And we'll move on to item number five. And item number five point one, our RCPA, Sonoma climate mobilization strategy. How's it going, Suzanne? Great. Good afternoon, mayor and council members. My name is Suzanne Smith. I'm the executive director of the Sonoma County transportation authority. And for purposes of today, the regional climate protection authority, our sister agency. We have three items, I think, and we'll move on to item number five. And we'll move on to item number five. And we'll move on to item number six. And we'll move on to item number seven. So I'll take a look at all. All right. Thank you, Suzanne. Thank you, mayor Rogers, vice mayor Rogers and council member Alvarez. Really appreciate your interest in this topic. So today I would like to just give an overview of our mobilization strategy. And kind of where we're at and what our current next steps are. So next slide, please. There we go. And then give you an overview of the individual strategies within the overall framework. Talk briefly about RCPA's role and our next steps. So next slide, please. So the mobilization strategy was adopted by the RCPA board on March 8th, 2021. And it's a strategy that we've been working on over the last year with a lot of involvement from community members, organizations, staff members from the different member jurisdictions for the RCPA. So we've got quite a bit of input and participation in the process and came up with the overall strategy, which as I said, was adopted in March. And so on this slide, you see our overall goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030, which is a stretch goal. I will acknowledge that right up front, but we believe it is very important based on the climate science and the crisis that we face. In terms of the guiding principles, I won't read through all of these, but one of the things that I wanted to highlight for you is that we really attempted to integrate equity both into the guiding principles as well as the entire strategy document. This is an area that's very important to our board. I've gotten a lot of great feedback from our board, as well as community members on the importance of equity. And we also recognize that there's much more work to be done as we move forward to implement the strategy. But just wanted to call that out in terms of our guiding principles. The other thing that I'll note is that we attempted in our meeting to focus very much on high impact strategies. So we did not include all of the different actions that are possible and necessary to address climate change. And resilience and adaptation, but really focused on those strategies that we felt local government was able to control and to have an impact on and really focus on those initial strategies. So that's some of the framework or background for the strategy itself. So with that, I'll go on to the next slide. So here is a one potential model for getting to the 23 carbon neutral goal. And what this shows here is our different sectors of emissions. And you can see, and I know this is well known across the county in terms of the percentage of our emissions that comes from transportation. It is our largest producer of emissions in the county, followed by building energy. And then ag, so fertilizer, livestock, water, wastewater and solid waste. And so for achieving our 2030 goal, we have assumed an 80% reduction across the board in the different sectors. And then to get fully to zero, we have to assume or achieve an amount of carbon sequestration. So we don't, based on what we know now and the solutions that we see in front of us, we don't see us getting to zero emissions by 2030. And so that requires us to implement sequestration practices to pull that remaining CO2 out of the atmosphere. And so that's that green bar that you see there. And lastly, I'll just note that as you look through the strategy, you may notice that we don't have specific reduction strategies focused on the ag sector other than the sequestration goals. But we do intend as we're working with the ag sector on sequestration to also look for opportunities to reduce emissions in that ag sector. So next slide, please. So here is an overall layout of the different strategies that we have, and we've organized them into four initiative areas, decarbonization, or basically stopping the burning of fossil fuels, sequestration and ecosystem services, which is that green bar that I showed on the previous slide, resilience and adaptation, recognizing that we are facing today and have faced over the last number of years, the impacts of the climate crisis in terms of wildfires, drought, flooding, et cetera. And so resilience and adaptation will continue to be an important area for us to focus on. And then finally, equity and community engagement we see as really being foundational and fundamental to all of the other strategies. And so we have a number of objectives in this area. So I'll run through them just briefly before going on to the priority areas for the near future. So under decarbonization, we have the building energy area or sector, and there's two main strategies there. One is all electric buildings campaign. And the second is carbon free electricity. So in all electric buildings by that, we mean both existing buildings. So doing energy retrofits to make them more energy efficient and then converting those gas powered appliances to, to electric. And that is a huge challenge we face given the number of existing buildings that we have both on the residential and commercial side. And then for new construction, which kudos to the city of Santa Rosa for adopting the all electric ordinance that you have, have done. And that is something that we would like to see happen across the county so that our new construction is all electric one forward. And then carbon free electricity is really continuing the good work that Sonoma clean power has already done and accomplished in Sonoma County in terms of cleaning up our energy supply. So encouraging more customers to move to evergreen as well as businesses. And continuing to look for more renewable sources of electricity working with our partners in Sonoma clean power. On the transportation side, we have three main strategies. The drive less Sonoma County campaign is all about reducing our driving and implementing alternatives to driving. So things like transit, more bike, bike and pet, pet access, EV access for all is accelerating the adoption of electric vehicles in Sonoma County, making sure that we have charging stations accessible to everyone who needs access to them. And really looking for ways to make that access more equitable. We recognize that currently up to this point, EVs have been more accessible for those with the means to purchase them. So we really want to look at ways to broaden the accessibility of those electric vehicles, as well as looking for other solutions. So for example, the e bike program that Sonoma clean power is piloting the incentive program and looking at other smaller modes of electric mobility that might be more accessible to a broader set of our community. And then the vehicle miles travel bank is a more policy or technical solution that we are just beginning to explore as a way of funding many of these transportation improvements that we have on our in our strategy. And then solid waste zero waste by 2030. I think the strategy says it all and I know that something that the city of Santa Rosa is really pursuing under sequestration ecosystem services. We have three main strategies protecting existing carbon stocks. So protecting what we've already stored in terms of CO2 in our plants and soils. And then increasing the sequestration of carbon again in plants and soils, you know, using our working in natural lands, applying practices like no till farming, applying compost and planting techniques like adding hedgerows that have been shown to increase the sequestration of carbon in those landscapes. As well as working with our city partners on urban greening projects, tree planting, ways to bring more greenery into the city. And then finally scaling up the infrastructure for sequestration, really recognizing that we, you know, we need a lot of infrastructure to support these efforts from the workforce that can implement the practices to things like nursery plants and compost and all of those supplies that will support those strategies. And then moving on to resilience and adaptation. We have two strategies. One is looking at the energy grid for the future, recognizing the impact of PSPS events and, you know, other threats to our energy or electricity grid. And so working with Sonoma Clean Power and others to strengthen that and, you know, looking at solutions like micro grids, for example. And then moving on to resilience and adaptation. And then moving on to resilience and adaptation. And then moving on to resilience and resilience. Sonoma County is really taking the many reports and plans that have been developed to date and continuing to implement those and move those forward. And we did just finish a lot finished, but had a major milestone in one of the projects or objectives underneath here, which was the urban land Institute just conducted a panel here in Sonoma County over the last week and it's been a long time since then. So we're going to start to come out from the urban land Institute in about three months and we'll certainly share the recording from today's presentation presentation and the PowerPoint slides on our website. If you weren't able to join us this morning. And then finally equity and community engagement. These are strategies designed to more equitably engage our entire community and also work with our local jurisdictions to integrate equity and climate into all of our policies. Which talks about where we're focusing initially, we being the RCPA. So we presented the strategy to our board and they adopted it along with direction to staff on areas that RCPA staff will be focusing on in the near future. So in, you know, the rest of 2021, 2022, you know, we are a small and mighty team and we need to focus our efforts on those areas that we think we can have some traction on or make progress in the near term. So this doesn't mean that all the other strategies aren't important and that we don't want our members and partners to be working on them, but just that these are the areas that RCPA will be initially focusing on. So in the drive less Sonoma County campaign, our board has been working with local transit providers to look at the future of transit and put together a set of recommendations and plans to strengthen our local transit system. And so we want to work with and support that effort to improve our transit system. And then in the EV access for all partnership, we want to continue the work that we've been doing over the last number of years with Sonoma Clean Power to continue to implement public and workplace charging stations, looking for ways to, for example, implement more of those charging stations in our rental housing stock and other places that may not have them today. Also want to support the use of e-bikes and other lightweight EVs and then create a more accessible and affordable EV assistance service, which would be, for example, having a way to more easily share and communicate the rebates and the incentive programs that are available to lower income residents to actually purchase a used or new EV and so looking for ways to make that whole process easier. Under the increased carbon stocks strategy, we want to work with our local ag producers and the regional resource conservation districts who are already working in this area to scale up the carbon sequestration and carbon farm plans, which is a tool that's used to plan the changes that will be implemented to increase sequestration. Under the engaging the community, we are working with our board on increasing the diversity of representation on our climate action advisory committee, which is a very important advisory committee to our board into the RCPA. We want to begin developing a more strategic engagement and education campaign and then really partnering with our local community-based organizations to support the campaign because we know they have the connections and the relationships in the community that RCPA doesn't currently have. And then finally on the equity and climate and all policies, we want to take a look at national models of equity impact assessments that have been implemented in other places like Seattle and a number of other cities and then implement those equity impact assessment processes and tools and then work with our local jurisdictions to develop a checklist that would support the integration of equity and climate in all the policies. So I'll go on to the next slide, please. So in terms of our role, so RCPA is really here to act as a coordination hub and help align the efforts of our members and partners to make sure that we're not duplicating efforts to look for best practices across our jurisdictions and help develop, for example, model policies that could be implemented by other cities that have not yet taken on those actions. So an example of that would be some early work we did around the reach codes and working with our local jurisdictions to move forward on developing all electric ordinances. And we work closely with the city of Santa Rosa, for example, on its ordinance. The mobilization strategy is really our framework to help have these conversations with our local jurisdictions and community-based organizations, again to make sure that we're leveraging efforts across the region. And then probably most importantly, and one of our big challenges currently is identifying and securing the funding that will be needed to support all of these very important efforts. And so we're looking at ways that we could help bring more of that funding to Sonoma County. So next slide, please. This is my last slide. And then I'll go through the other steps. We're currently working on implementation plans for the priority strategies and researching funding sources, starting to look into that and beginning our work on community outreach and engagement. And really in that effort, working to figure out how we can more effectively center equity in the work that we do, certainly partnering with community-based organizations, and I mentioned earlier, and other ways that the RCPA can more effectively integrate equity into our work. And then you can see out 2022 and beyond. It's really all about, you know, implementing the plan, monitoring. We want to implement some indicators so that we can track our progress. And I'll say a bit more about that when I talk about the inventory in the next section. And so really using that to gauge our progress and to adjust our plans going forward. We really see this strategy as a living document and we know that we are going to learn as we move forward. And so we really want to not have it be a plan on the shelf, but something that we continually revisit and evaluate how it's working and evolve and change it. So that concludes my presentation on the mobilization strategy. And I welcome your comments and questions. Great. Thank you so much, Tanya. And before I go to questions from the council members, Amy, Amy and I had a discussion not too long ago about what the intent of the subcommittee was going to be or how to start prioritizing which action items we wanted to work our way through. So Amy, if you could just, and I don't mean to put you on the spot, what type of information or what type of comments from council members and from the public would best help you and the rest of staff sort of help us to chart this path forward. Sure. I think maybe focusing on some of the specific areas that RCPA will be focusing on implementing first. So I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. Comments there so we can see how we can collaborate in which city staff would be most appropriate to take initiative on those various efforts. So I think maybe. Yeah, I know there were quite a few and we don't have that slide up anymore, but specific comments on what, what the subcommittee is most interested in. We can see how it aligns with existing efforts as well. Okay, great. And maybe what we can do to when we come back for, for comments is perhaps we can get Tonya to share that slide again. I have it down as slide number six, which will have all of the priorities that RCPA is looking at before we go there. Council member Alvarez vice mayor. Do you have any questions for Tonya or for Amy? First of all, I want to thank Tonya for the, for the relentless effort to, to really bring us to that zero carbon footprint for as long as I can remember. I've always appreciated her efforts on the cab. I don't forget. I don't forget. It was good to see Tonya in regards to what I would want to see his focus is definitely going to be on the transportation. On the driving side. And the reason that I say so is comparing the 2000. And actually the 1990s to the 2018. I noticed that half that chart is still transportation, regardless of the 20 years that have transpired. So I definitely see that as a point of interest in, in a concern as well. In regards to the earth day in the comments that we heard from the public, I think it's something that we do need to speak on, that we are sending the wrong message, especially when half of those numbers seem to be transportation. Thank you. Okay. Vice mayor. I don't have any questions. I do appreciate the presentation. I appreciate all the hard work. I love that we're trying to incorporate some diversity. And reaching more communities because I believe that the more people that we reach the faster. It will be to get to our, you know, to our desired. And that's what we want. And so I just thank you very much. Great. And Tonya, I think my question for you. And, and I think you've heard this from a couple of other folks as well, just in the, the various presentations that you've given. Have you had a chance or is there a possibility for our CPA to really go through and help us to quantify. How to start eating this elephant. Right. Which if we put with our limited dollars, if we put it all towards accomplishing one thing, what's going to give us the best bang for our buck in terms of our carbon reductions, our greenhouse gas productions. So the analysis that we've done today has really been from our inventory. And so, you know, that's where we, we really look to transportation as one of the big pieces of, of where we need to direct our attention. And specifically in terms of, you know, in terms of, you know, swapping out our fossil fuel powered automobile fleet and light vehicle and heavy duty vehicle fleet with electric vehicles, recognizing that that doesn't solve the whole puzzle and that it is still very important to reduce driving as well. But that's, you know, part of the reason for really continuing to focus on that EV piece as well as the transit. So looking at those alternatives that are needed to help, you know, I also want to acknowledge there is much more analysis that could be done and probably should be done in some of these areas. You know, for example, as we start, you know, at the point where we start working on the building energy piece, starting to assess in more detail the existing building stock and starting to identify how do we start tackling that huge challenge of retrofitting those buildings. And I know that there's more data analysis will want to need to do in that regard, but we have not started that process yet. So. Yeah, I can appreciate that. And I think that our CPA and SCTA is the perfect nexus, particularly for our transportation networks. And Suzanne, if you want to. Feel free to jump in and offer some comments here on some of the work that SCTA is doing in collaboration. If that's helpful. Sure. Happy to. And council member Alvarez is absolutely right. Transportation is the. It's kind of a tough, it's not to crack, but it's also the most important one in a lot of ways because it is the biggest piece in our community. So we've done a number of things on the transportation side to date. But I'll just run through a few of those quickly. And then there's more to plenty more that we need to do going forward. About three or four years ago, we adopted what we called shift Sonoma County, which was a low carbon transportation action plan. And it's focused on fuel shift and mode shift. So how do we get people that quit driving gas, sibling cars and make EVs both affordable and accessible and charging reliable? And then how can we provide alternatives to driving? So how do we get that mode shift into transit, onto bikes, new creative approaches? And so we've done some pilot programs through trying to implement that plan. And we've tried car share in Sonoma County. And it didn't take off as much as we would have liked. And I think it was a little premature. It was a good, it was a good learning lesson though, because as Santa Rosa in particular starts focusing on downtown development, I think car share will actually be much more effective and we'll be able to thrive. And we didn't quite have that density and attract enough folks with our pilot program. But that was a good lesson. We have a guaranteed ride home program that we operate. So if people take transit and end up having to get home for an emergency or to pick up a child or something like that, they are guaranteed a free ride home. We also have bike share as part of our shift plan. And bike share is going to roll out later this year. We are working with your staff and all of the cities that are currently along the smart rail corridor to develop a bike share program. And in addition to all that, there's transit and Mayor Rogers serves as the chair of our future of transit ad hoc committee. And that group meets monthly, has been meeting monthly for the last, I don't know, four or five months now. Talking about how we use sort of the crisis that was the pandemic and how horrible that was for our transit users and transit operators, how do we come out of that stronger and bring people, new people back to transit, bring people back to transit and new people to transit. So we are working with our regional partners at MPC about, on that effort as well as with our three local bus operators as well as smart and go to get transit. So there are, I didn't said all of that. There's also this issue of housing and land use planning and the work that the city is doing around downtown development and new housing around smart, around transit stops really plays into that planning and implementation that gets us to get people to not drive for every trip they need to take. So I hope that was helpful, Mayor Rogers. Yeah, it was. Thank you. And actually started my day this morning watching a webinar that SCTA and our CPA helped put together with the Urban Land Institute to look at some of those call them policy decisions on where we place people and how to better integrate our transit network into it. So I know that that'll be available as well. I also just want to highlight how difficult it can be for people to do mode shift if they don't have safe bike lanes. And I know that that's, that's something that I would be interested in help helping us to prioritize other types of transit only matter if people feel safe or willing to use it. And I think my last question before I turn it over to the public really is looking at the carbon sequestration side of this. You know, there seems, there's a lot of balls that are in the air on transportation on building what I don't hear much of is the carbon sequestration side and in particular urban carbon sequestration and what types of policies or practices or incentives we can be putting into place in Santa Rosa to really help further that conversation. I don't know if either of you have any suggestions on how to approach that. So I know that there are other cities that are working on this. So we certainly could, you know, connect you or put you in touch with, with those cities. And there's a network that's working on urban greening specifically or urban carbon, carbon gardening, for example. And so we've initially chosen to focus on the ag side simply because there is some existing effort going on there and our resource conservation districts, for example, are working closely with ag producers on that topic. But yes, we could definitely find some additional resources that we could share with San Rosa to look at that urban piece because definitely lots of opportunities there. What hasn't been done so far that we can determine is a quantification of how much sequestration is possible within a city's boundaries. And so that's also something that we'll want to look into further. Great. Thank you. So I see one hand up so far. If you're interested in giving public comment on this item, go ahead and hit the raise hand feature on zoom. We'll start with Mark. Mark, I have enabled your speaking permissions. Terrific. Thank you. Yeah, I forgot to say where I live and all that. So Mark Mortensen, Santa Rosa in the West End neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to say thanks again to Tanya and RCPA staff for the great work on the SCMS. The mobilization strategies. I would encourage the city to be the first to adopt it. Give it a good home. And let's start working with RCPA to identify priorities. I think they've already identified some good priorities. And so I agree with Amy Nicholson that perhaps seeing if the city priorities and those priorities that, that RCPA has identified might, might align. So that they can, you know, we can have more people working on specific strategies. And there are a lot of strategies.  You know, I would encourage Tanya to take a look at the county of San Diego's implementation plan. And I'll send her a link on that one. It is very detailed. And, you know, it gets down right at down into that, the personnel required and the number of personnel and so on. I mean, it's a lot to take in for even those of us who immerse themselves in this, in the climate crisis. Fortunately that, you know, the next step is the implementation plan, which our CPA is going to be working out. I would encourage Tanya to take a look at the county of San Diego. Let's see, specific actions and ordinances or what need to happen next. No surprise there, along with obviously identifying funding. I would recommend also connecting the dots with the, you know, the urban land institute presentation and their recommendations. Connect those dots with, with the mobilization strategy put up by RCPA. And, you know, I think that's one of the common threads and. Oh yeah. One of the priorities that was identified by RCPA is collaborating with community based organizations. And yeah, there's a lot that needs to happen. And we're out here and we're ready to collaborate ready to help. You know, supporting in whatever we can do research and looking at, you know, looking for other. Specific actions. We know of these and we have a lot of good resources out here. For instance, on the sequestration side, I know of at least a couple of different tools that will calculate sequestration, carbon sequestration for a specific species of trees. And so there is information out there on, for helping out on urban sequestration, which also includes obviously carbon gardening. We have some ideas on that too. So happy to support and really appreciate the amount of work that has to happen here. And we want to help out. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Mark. Are there any other hands on this item? Right. I'm not seeing any. Do we have any voicemail public comments? We do not. Okay. Great. I'll bring it back to. To the council members then. I would be. Remiss if I didn't also mention our partnerships with Sonoma clean power, which I think are pretty critical, particularly on the electrification side. So I do want to give them a quick shout out. And then I'll also tell the council members in our league of cities, environmental quality committee meeting. Last week we had 50 council members who were on it. It was basically crickets. So I do think that that's a critical component and an important conversation topic. For us is how are we going to. Bring in funding to the scale that we need to meet the goals that we have and quite frankly, the science that, that we see. So that's my two cents. Any additional thoughts. Either Eddie or Natalie. For me, it is about education in our communities. And I think Natalie might have touched on that a little bit ago. And it's right. It's a, it's a lot of cricket. You know, so there's a lot of lack of education on the subject. And I know that a lot of organizations have come into the neighborhood to try to educate folks. And now as a councilman, I really want to be involved into those efforts. And so I guess I'm reaching out to, to folks who give me a call and definitely include me into those talks. And I think that's a really important thing. And I think that's a really important thing. And I think that, like, again, there's been a disconnect and I know it's not because of lack of effort. It's just maybe the way that's being received. So hopefully I can actually help influence that. Anything vice mayor. No, I feel the same way that Eddie feels definitely about getting involved. And Mark, I believe. Yes. This is something that we need to do by, you know, diversifying. I don't know all the terms and things because this is all new for me. Although it's not my, it's not for a lack of not wanting to be involved and learn. And I think as I progress on the council and on these boards, I will be able to contribute in a different way. So it definitely is. Educational experience that I am ready for, for the ride and to have others in my community. You know, I think it's really important for the community to get on the roller coaster too. So they can see what's going on and how they can contribute you also. All right. So I'll see if there's an interest from the subcommittee in. Recommending that the city sign off on the climate mobilization strategy and adopt its principles. I'm seeing a thumbs up motion from, from council member Alvarez and the thumbs up second from the vice mayor. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. But let's do it just in case. Callie. Council member Alvarez. I. Vice mayor. I. Mayor Rogers. I. Let the record show. That all council members have. Our an agreement. Perfect. Do you need any other direction, Amy? That was really helpful. And I think what we can do is work together and then come back to the subcommittee with some, some ideas and present it so that you all can hear it. And members of the public can as well. Perfect. Thank you. All right. And then with that, we'll move on to item 5.2. It's the overview of our greenhouse gas inventory. All right. And I think there should be a slide. Deck for this as well. Yeah. All right. Awesome. So you can go to the next slide, please. All right. So I wanted to give just a little bit of background on our greenhouse gas inventory and kind of conclude my remarks with some thoughts around additional indicators that we, that our CPA is thinking about, and I would welcome Santa Rosa's feedback on. So first, just a little bit of background for the inventories that we produced. We produced our first county wide inventory as part of the climate action 2020 and 2020 and beyond. And then we also published our second county wide inventory in the year 2020. In the year 2018. And in that plan, we, we shared a baseline inventory for 1990. And a 2010 greenhouse gas inventory. And that was all data that was used to inform that planning process. And then the RCK published an inventory update. For 2015 data in 2018. And for 2018 data in 2020. And then we're planning our next inventory, which will cover the year 2020. And then we're planning our next inventory, which will cover the year 2020, which is that we, it takes some time to, to produce the inventories. We're not able to, for example, report today on 2020 emissions, even though 2020 is past. And we have some anecdotal information, but we won't actually be able to publish that official full inventory until sometime in 2022. And I'll say a bit more about the reasons for that as I go forward, but. That is one of the limitations of using only GHG data to track the year 2020. And then we're planning our next inventory. And then we're planning to use a standard protocol for the inventory, which is the US community protocol. We've used the same methodology for all of our inventories. So you can be assured that when we're comparing year over year data, we're using the same methodology. It's an activity based inventory, which means that it measures the emissions that are under local government control. And they're from activities that happen within our county boundary. So the amount of fuel that's burned water, the amount of waste that's collected, the amount of waste that's collected. And we are including emissions. We're tracking the waste that we produce here in the county, regardless of where it's ultimately landfill. So we are counting for those emissions that are from waste buried outside of the county, as well as that transportation emissions that, that are used to truck that waste out of the county. It's a community wide inventory, which means that your Santa Rosa municipal data is part of the numbers that we're reporting. And we're not, not looking for the same data, but we're talking about the same data that's being used to bring the municipal emissions separate from the community as a whole. We are able to report and we do report both county wide and by jurisdiction, and we can provide the data for Santa Rosa to you on request. If you want to use that for planning purposes. And so in this slide here, you see the sectors that we're currently tracking with the inventory. We already talked about transportation, now including smart emissions because those were happening in 2018 for the first time. But we don't include airline emissions and we are hearing a fair amount of community interest in starting to track and report more information about air travel and how that impacts our emissions. But just to be clear that those emissions from the planes themselves are not included in the inventory. Certainly the airport ground operations, the energy used at the airport terminal and the airport ground support vehicles are all part of the inventory but not the actual flying part of it. So if you could go to the next slide please. So this slide is one that was shared as part of our last inventory update and it just shows you how we're doing relative to the 2020 goal that was set out in the previous climate action plan. And you, I think I have another slide that shows how far we need to get to reach that 2030 goal, the new 2030 goal. And then this chart on the right just gives you a sense for how emissions have changed over time and not surprisingly in the building sector you see that we have made excellent progress and really the majority of that we would attribute to SonomaClean power and to cleaning up our electricity supply. Unfortunately we don't have kind of low hanging fruit options like that in the other sectors which just means it's going to be harder to reduce emissions in other sectors as Suzanne mentioned related to transportation for example. So we can go to the next slide please. So here's the slide that shows the previous target and trajectory that we were on with the 2020 plan which had us reaching the 80 percent below mark by 2050 and as I mentioned earlier that's been pulled up now to 2030. So you can just get a sense for the steepness of that curve and how much we need to reduce to actually achieve that goal. So next slide please. So I want to take just a minute to give a little background in terms of how we calculate emissions kind of what goes into those calculations and it's a fairly simple calculation if you will but it can get quite complex depending on the data that we're working with. But based on the protocol that we use for the inventory at its simplest level the emissions are calculated by taking some type of activity data and multiplying that by an emissions factor. So looking at on-road transportation for example the activity data that we use is from our Sonoma County travel model that SCTA maintains as well as data from the California Highway Performance Monitoring System that tracks overall vehicle miles traveled across the state. And then the emissions factors for that transportation come from a model that's maintained by the California Air Resources Board called the MFAC model. And this basically uses data from the DMV that gives the mix of vehicles that are registered in Sonoma County and it has data in terms of how much those vehicles pollute and we use that data combined with the vehicle miles traveled to calculate an estimate of our on-road transportation emissions. And then building energy is a little bit more straightforward it's basically our our electricity and our gas usage from the utility so from Sonoma Clean Power and PG&E and then using emissions factors that come for electricity from the climate registry and a model called eGrid and these are verified emission factors and this is one of the the things that makes causes a delay in us reporting our greenhouse gas emissions which is that that verification process takes some time and so for the last inventory for the 2018 inventory for example we didn't have those verified emission factors for electricity until I think it was early in 2020 and so that held up the final calculations for our inventory. So again just a little bit of background in terms of how we're actually calculating those emissions and so we can go to the next slide please. So I want to talk just briefly about another inventory methodology which is known as a consumption-based inventory and this slide shows you our sector-based or activity-based emissions inventory on the left hand side which for 2015 was about 3.4 million metric tons CO2 equivalent and then the consumption-based emissions inventory which really looks at the results or the emissions generated by our consumption pattern so the kind of food that we buy and the goods that we purchase and the services that we use and the travel so it would include things like airline travel for example and so you can see that those emissions calculated using that methodology are higher than our activity-based emissions and you can't just add the two types of inventories together to get a total because there is some overlap so for example the fuel that's used within the county would be included in both the consumption-based and the activity-based inventory but this is a type of inventory that we're hearing more interest again from the community in starting to report in part because it does give you a different picture in terms of the impact that our consumption patterns have. So if we go to the next slide which has a little bit more detail about what is in that consumption-based inventory and this is an inventory that was calculated by a group out of UC Berkeley and they use 2015 data so I don't have a more recent consumption-based inventory but that is something that we might want to consider doing in the future just to see how if and how our patterns have changed but you can again see a similar pattern here in that our transportation emissions are a significant portion of the overall footprint if you will this does include the air travel piece and then you can see from our other sectors like our foods the types of foods that we eat and the impact they have the services that we use our buildings which when we measure emissions in our activity-based we really look at the fuels that are burned so the electricity and the natural gas that are used to power those buildings but there are other components that contribute to the emissions from buildings the construction materials used the waste that's generated etc so that just gives you a picture of what would be within a consumption-based view of emissions. So let's go to the next slide please which I think is my last one so I mentioned at the beginning that we are interested in looking at other ways of tracking our progress on the mobilization strategy and given that we're not able to measure our GHG emissions as in as timely a way as we would like we're looking at other indicators of progress and so certainly we could look at some of those activity metrics so our electricity and gas usage we're able to get that on a much more not real-time basis but at least you know I could access the data for 2020 you know probably right now actually by reaching out to the utility so we could look at you know how is our electricity and gas usage changing over time same thing with water usage solid waste tonnage we have that available to us other metrics like transit ridership gasoline and diesel sales we can get some of that information looking at our electric vehicle sales which we will definitely want to look at these as part of our EV access for all partnership just how we're doing in terms of increasing the adoption of those vehicles you know can we track the number of energy retrofits that are completed and I'm sure there's many other types of indicators that we could consider tracking and really want to think about what are the most important indicators or measures of success that would be really helpful in you know tracking whether we're making progress or not so I will stop there and ask if you have any questions or comments great thanks Tanya just a quick question how are natural disasters like the fires accounted for in our inventory so we and this came up as a question in our 2018 inventory so for wildfires for example the we're not capturing the emissions from the actual wildfires themselves although there there has been an attempt at the state level to estimate emissions from wildfires and in fact there's a report a draft of a report that's out I believe for for public comment in terms of measuring those emissions but we don't include that in our inventory and then in terms of the solid waste the the materials that were burned that were landfill that turns out they're basically inert and so other than transportation costs and transportation emissions from moving that material out of the county or to the landfills once that material like the ash is in the landfills it's not actually producing additional emissions so we were able to take some of that into account but certainly there's more emissions from wildfires that we're not currently able to to track and report on okay questions from council members yes mario thank you in regards to the car cells could you elaborate what a what car cells incentives you've seen and what what you would like to what you envision as a an effective car cells for the electric vehicles please sure so Sonoma clean power for a number of years had an incentive program where it was actually an off the top I know it rebate is trying out the right word but it was an incentive so if you purchased an electric vehicle through one of the local dealers they would you know basically give you a certain amount off of that vehicle purchase you know so it helped with the cost of the vehicle but certainly didn't bring it down you know far enough to be affordable to everyone there are other programs that are that are being developed that would provide more of a you know not necessarily we want to look for programs that aren't rebate programs where you have to put out money up front and then apply to get money back which is how some of the state-level programs have operated so more of an upfront type of incentive is something that we'd be interested in to make them more accessible and certainly welcome your thoughts as well with the federal change the federal administration change that we've just experienced do you see anything coming from them in regards to rebates or or any type of incentives there are some there is some legislation in progress and I'd be happy to share the details of that with you that that would look at incentives you know tax credits for EVs extending existing tax credits for EVs and then looking at ways to make you know make EVs more accessible to low-income purchases so yes definitely with the change at the federal level we are expecting to see a lot more support for climate actually across all the sectors I would appreciate knowing what what they have coming down the pipe yeah thank you Tony I think I'm kind of struggling with low income what exactly is low income when we look at housing I know that there's a matrix for low income but when we look at the middle income brackets too there's also people that may not be able to go out and afford to replace a vehicle so that is something that I would want to look at a little bit more is what is exactly is low income and how can we find a program that broadens that a little bit more middle-class working families that want make this transition as we get out and educate more people we might have more of a desire for people to say hey you know I would like to replace my vehicle but they can't they're not high income so they can't necessarily let's go out and do that so I just did want to bring that that point up great thank you House Member Alvarez thank you once again mayor in regards to to charging stations what incentives do we currently offer the business community and are there any changes there at the federal level that you have seen yeah I believe that there will be changes at the federal level or additional programs and incentives that would support that there's been a program that Sonoma Clean Power has been leading called Cal EVIP that provides funding for local businesses and other you know property orders to install charging stations on their you know properties and that program actually I think it's fully subscribed because it was very popular and actually that program had a focus on getting more EV chargers out into our rural communities because that's an area where we have a need that hasn't been fulfilled yet so and that's the kind of program we want to look at you know finding additional funding to support more of that okay we'll go and we'll see if there's any public comment on this item we'll start with Mark followed by Kevin Mark I have enabled your speaking permissions great thank you thank you yeah um as far as the EV program goes I benefited from that Sonoma Clean Power program I as a teacher you know I don't have a huge income but I do have an EV and part of the the reason I have it is because of that plan from Sonoma Clean Power I would say also about EVs is that they are becoming more affordable especially now that we're getting leased EVs being returned you know people are turning in lease cars and so you know for instance to get a Nissan Leaf you know it's not a great range on it but it's 99 dollars a month a thousand dollars down and it's it's not exactly the high priced item that you know that they used to be of course none of us are going out and getting a Tesla right now but so EVs that being said there's there's a lot of talk about EVs as like a big solution on this but there are embedded greenhouse gas emissions with electric vehicles and so really you know I like to keep my EV parked and take the take my bike out more and and take the buses more but they don't make those connections and they don't run with the frequency and so you know we keep hearing the word transportation coming up throughout throughout the meeting today I really think that you know we've identified that biggest bang for the buck already and that you know actions around you know getting complete streets that are bike friendly and pedestrian friendly and transit that's affordable frequent and it goes to where we need where we need to go you know though that could be the first place to look um Steve Burdabaugh and the Sonoma County Transportation and Land Use Coalition and some of the folks on that group have a lot of great ideas on policy that would to incentivize people to use transit and bike paths and such and also to disincentivize the use of those autos as much as possible a lot of the trips are really short you know especially in Santa Rosa so a great opportunity for for you know if we just had safer bike paths that connected things and I know we'll be talking more about that coming up I really appreciate the fact that consumption based emissions is is being tracked and I put a note here about Portland Oregon being a case study for this but I also saw a link on Tanya's presentation about C-40 being one of the the link so I think she probably already knows about that one so I guess the moral of the story here is transportation transportation making it affordable thanks a bunch great thank you so much Mark Kevin Kevin I have enabled your speaking permissions okay thank you very much um with regard to tracking emissions and I uh apologize if this is already happening but I think there can be a lot done to and an easy way to uh determine how many gallons of gas are sold in either a city or or in our county and then I would like to see our CPA not only track those but actually set some goals and timetables for reducing that number also with regard to EVs I think it'd be great to educate the public about the especially in this area where we have the PSPS problem about the vehicle to home of technology in other words in the event of a PSPS there's technology that will allow people to use their electric car battery to actually power their home and I think if and those batteries are actually hold more than I understand they do than than even the Tesla power wall does so I think if more people realize some of the benefits beyond just you know cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions but some of the other benefits of having an electric vehicle maybe that it might help promote sales and then lastly and I wanted to bring this up and didn't I didn't hit the raise my hand button soon enough but when we talked about urban uh gardening carbon gardening I just wanted to mention the the fact that we do have this southeast greenway campaign strip of land running uh down our city especially between farmers lane and summerfield road where there is just land sitting there baking out there in the sun which and I understand from the southeast greenway people from Thia and others that they would not have any objection to steps taken by our city to actually add some amendments to that land and begin to utilize that land for carbon farming garden carbon gardening home I mean community gardens that are carbon based so just to throw that out there that it's it's an incredible resource for capturing carbon sequestering carbon and I'd like to see some creative thinking about how that can be done since the greenway campaign right now is in kind of a stalled posture and would have no objection to that kind of effort being made thank you all right thank you Kevin I'll go ahead bring it back we have any voicemail public comments we do not right uh any last thoughts from the different council members all right thank you Tanya we'll go ahead go on to item 5.3 I think this is Suzanne right yep it is and we've got some slides here as well um bringing it up right now my computer's moving a little slow this afternoon thank you I feel it all right so the item today was to uh check in with you about our local fail tax measures that are dedicated to transportation and what that's how that links with uh efforts related to climate change so just a quick history um the Sonoma County Transportation Authority led an effort back in 2004 to put a quarter-cent fail tax measure on the ballot was known as measure M and it was successfully passed by just over two-thirds of the voters of Sonoma County and it had a 20-year time frame so as we were getting we're believe it or not we're getting close to the end of that 20-year life and the SCTA board started discussions uh back in 2018 about uh when and how to approach a reauthorization of that quarter-cent fail tax the initial measure was very prescribed and it was very focused on certain projects uh so for example 40 of the measure was dedicated to highway 101 improvements uh 10 went to bus operators 5 went to passenger rail to smart uh 20 for local road uh rehabilitation 10 went to or 4 went to bike and pedestrian projects that were uh that were listed out explicitly in the measure and the same 20 went for roadway projects that were listed out explicitly in the measure part of the theory there was we needed to tell voters what we were going to spend their money on and then generate sort of a track record of delivering on on the promises made to voters so in 2018 and 2019 the board uh you know wanted to to advance a new measure uh acknowledging that we had been very successful with our current measure that we had leveraged that local money significantly to deliver important transportation projects but also that we had that we had a need to shift uh that we didn't need 40 percent frayway 101 anymore we needed funds for other types of projects uh smart has its own fail tax measure now so maybe we don't need uh five percent dedicated to that so the board put together what we've called the ghost phenomena act and that's what voters uh 71 of them supported in november uh and now we're in this kind of transition zone which is that orange piece on the slide there where we will be winding down measure m over the next couple few years and then ghost Sonoma actually goes into effect in april of 2025 so between now and then we will be ramping up efforts to identify what those key projects will be for early delivery in ghost Sonoma so the next slide please the ghost Sonoma expenditure plan is different uh significantly different from our initial sales tax measure not only because of things like highway 101 as i mentioned but also because we uh we took a different approach where we are less explicit about exactly which projects will get funded uh and we'll have more of a competitive approach for uh for certain categories so we divided the measure into 10 different buckets 38 percent is going to be directly allocated to public works departments like the city of santa rosa on a formula basis for smooth and maintained roads this is about double what was committed uh in measure m for pothole repair and local load maintenance uh 27 percent of the money is going to go towards a program that we were we are calling move traffic and improve safety and this is meant to address multi-modal approaches for infrastructure projects so it could be a road diet for example or it could be an improvement along mendicino avenue where you need bus turnouts and uh reef striping for bike lanes uh so that's that's going to be a competitive program um that has criteria spelled out in the sales tax measures but not specific projects 23 percent of the measure is dedicated towards bus service again more than double of what was previously committed from local funds for bus transit so that's an exciting opportunity to work with our bus operators uh in Sonoma county to uh to help grow service and look at creative approaches to get people getting people to take more transit and then the last category is build bikeways and pathways i mentioned measure m had four percent dedicated to bike and pedestrian pathways explicitly uh we've tripled that in this new measure so that 12 percent will go just towards bikeways and pathways and this could be for bike and pedestrian safety it could be infrastructure projects but it also could be programmatic we do have a safe route to school program uh in Sonoma county but it is um it's not in every school and it's very popular so we have opportunity perhaps to grow that program as well uh next slide please um so i've talked a little bit about these uh the move traffic and improve safety program is really um this is the one that i think we're going to have the most opportunity in the next couple of years to start talking about and engaging with our jurisdictions on what they aspire to deliver with with these funds um and i and i think there's a very clear climate nexus they may be infrastructure projects they may have roadway components but they are meant to be complete streets that uh can help with infill development projects for example or could even help with evacuation route planning uh so the this category i think is kind of the most uh intriguing and and provides the most sort of innovative opportunities next program or next slide i mentioned the addition the additional money for bus service it's a direct a direct convention to each of the bus operators but it's also an opportunity to do some innovative work around what we call um transportation demand management i mentioned earlier the free ride home program but there's also carpooling opportunities or new technologies that can be deployed to match people up with rides and as we come out of the pandemic and people are starting to feel more comfortable being around each other vaccines are more prevalent we have a really great opportunity with our new measure to explore different technologies and approaches to maximize the number of people in vehicles so buses are great and how can we look at van pools and carpooling programs as well next slide please and then lastly uh just to reiterate the bikeways and pathways component we are super excited for the opportunity to um to deliver on bike infrastructure the the measuring program uh that funded bike and pedestrian projects with the most successful in terms of delivery along with highway 101 those are the two programs where we hit it out of the park and so sort of rewarding that by saying we should triple the amount that goes to bike and ped so that's an exciting opportunity as well and as part of that i should note we are we at the scpa manage uh we develop and manage our county wide bicycle and pedestrian program and so we work with all of the cities and the county on a bike plan city of santa rosa has a great bike plan that we were served on your technical advisory committee and we're very engaged with but we're going to update our bike plan it hasn't been updated in a number of years so we're excited about the opportunity to do that work that planning work over the next couple of years and have it teed up for the new sales tax revenue money when it becomes available uh next slide please um so i mentioned the bike plan is one of the things coming up next we also will be adopting our long range county wide transportation plan later this year um we like mentioned earlier the the transit collaboration and we're talking about how we have a unified brand so that for users of bus transit they don't they can't tell the difference between buses they just get on a bus and they know it's going to take them somewhere in Sonoma county um so that's an exciting thing as well um and the the impetus for doing a local tax measure is obviously to fund local projects but it's also to leverage state and federal funds and uh we and our partners have been very successful in taking that that local money getting projects ready ready to go and then seeking outside grants at the state and federal and even regional levels uh to deliver sort of more projects in the highway 101 corridor we were successful at a rate of five to one so for every one dollar we had of local money we brought in five additional dollars of outside money uh some of our bike pred projects had similar success uh our other projects did as well and so we're excited to know that we've got another 20 years of local sales tax money that we can leverage uh especially in this era right now frankly with a new administration uh infrastructure planning and product and funding is very real at the federal level uh and the state has um sort of changed up the way they do transportation funding uh as of a few years ago and so there are new opportunities there as well uh and I think that concludes my presentation could you go the next slide yep uh so be happy to take questions all right council members any questions I don't have any questions a few notes that I took down what uh where that I really appreciate the fair free program for students I know for a long time we've had a fair free for JC students and me having high school students that like to go to the mall and go here and go there and it's not really a bikeable you know so then I have to drop them off or even um my children can be down to Petaluma for school and it's really hard to get public transportation that coincide with the scheduling to get them uh there at a decent hour um and so that has been a problem so I'm driving back and forth to uh to Petaluma as far as safety is concerned um I think that in the bike lanes that is very important to me and I think that not only do we need to make the roadways safe but we also need to have uh make sure that we have adequate patrol because there is a lot that people in cars are doing that I'm seeing more and more that don't make it safe so even if we build it um and it's there for people to utilize people may not feel safe too because of uh the the people that are continuing to be on our roadways that are running stop lights and stop signs that are not uh vigilant they're on their phones when they're driving I mean things like that so I think we probably need to uh have some collaboration with how we're going to address that for people's peace of mind um not just built having that infrastructure could I comment mr. mayor of course um thank you for bringing up fair free I should have said something about that because we did actually carve out a piece of the transit funding to dedicate to the fair free program it's really been very successful in multiple jurisdictions especially with students so totally appreciate that comment and the safety and enforcement issue especially around bikes um it is it's critical people aren't going to ride bikes if they don't feel safe and so making that infrastructure not just feel safe but be safe as well is is a high priority and Suzanne do you have uh I know that there was a quantification at some point about what the cost would be to do all transit completely fair free in the county do you remember what that number was I don't remember the number off the top of my head but it was uh I wanted to say it was between three and four million without low might be low I could have been just one of the I'm sorry I will I can I can find that and get about get it sorry don't me to put you on the spot just as we're talking about the fair free transit I remember we did look at it to see if in this measure we wanted to just make all transit free and I remember it crowded out everything else that we needed to do as well maybe it was eleven million and that's why it was not that's that's sounding a little bit more yeah I think that's right I think it was eleven million okay so councilmember alvarez any questions no I don't have any questions I didn't have common stuff if that's okay I really do appreciate that the the projects are requiring to have actually that's actually my question currently do we require the project to include a bike and pedestrian elements or is just something that that okay it is all right I'm very happy with that well it's uh so the way our current measure was written is they had to consider bike and pedestrian elements in in roadway projects but the language in our new measure is even stronger uh so yeah can we fix barham avenue please there's your question thank you all right amy anything to add okay we'll go to public comment on this item and see if anybody is interested in providing any mark I see your hand up first mark I have enabled your speaking permissions all righty thanks again um yeah I really appreciate the work done on this and you know the folks over at scta and in getting the the measure to go through and we all worked hard on that one we we like the the greater numbers you know climate activists are are happy about well we'll never be happy there's never never enough for transit and bike paths and always too much for roads it seems like but a couple quick comments we have transit ridership you know has been measured and on commutes and at one point it was measured to be two percent two percent of commuters um or two percent of the commute trips were taken by transit and that number actually went down and so I I appreciate that we've got money and measure and to try and increase that but um I really do think that looking at reducing fares and educating you know apparently fare box receipts are are not such a large part of the funding for transit from from what I've heard and so perhaps a program that educates uh educates community members about the cost of driving you know what is it 55 cents a mile or something for reimbursements on miles traveled versus the cost of bus travel you know you look at that over a year and the numbers come out pretty positive for taking a bus if you've got regular service convenient and you know it goes to where you need it to go um yeah a comment on bike paths obviously all bike paths are not created equal and so um you know there's some the cheapest route is you know painting painting green green sections of the road and calling it a bike path and that's not you know those paint does not keep people safe and so separated bike paths will be a an essential essential part of the solution here in transportation um the um the the city of Santa Rosa's bike and pedestrian master plan update has a goal goal number two it says maintain and expand the network identify and develop and maintain a complete and convenient bicycle and pedestrian network well um I was out there today and you know it's it's you got to go off off the paths quite frequently so and and they're mostly just stripes on a road or paint so um having more more connections for people to actually safely take take those trips would really help um the jurisdictions provided project ideas for gocinoma for the initial um work done on it each jurisdiction provided provided some ideas um I suggest maybe taking a look at those again and connecting them with the priorities that we've been talking about with our cpa thanks a bunch all right thanks mark and did we have any voicemail public comments we did not okay I'll bring it back and mark brought up a an interesting little wrinkle that I'll just mention which was farebox recovery um so we actually are required under state law to have a certain amount of farebox recovery or a certain percentage of farebox recovery and actually the funding for measure dd can be applied towards that formula as uh even if people aren't actually paying it as fares it's still the public's money that is supporting the public transit which is what actually allows us to do some of our fare free uh writer programs so I thought I would just mention that any additional comments from the subcommittee I have a comment but it's not about this so okay we'll come to you in just a minute then thank you just a quick thank you to Tanya and Suzanne for your time today to come and really help us to to get our c legs as we try to look at what we're going to do next here in santa rosa to really continue to push the envelope around climate to hit our climate action goals and obviously rcpa and scta are going to be huge huge partners for us in that over the next 20 years as you help fund many of the things that we would like to do so thank you for being here any last words thank you so much appreciate the opportunity right thank you and that was just an informational item so we'll move on now to subcommittee reports I think I heard the vice mayor say she had something she wanted to comment on yes and likewise I would like to thank Suzanne and Tanya for for coming very I enjoyed all the information and I look forward to us working collaboratively to see what you know what we can implement and make happen in our city in our county also as far as the I wanted to comment on earth day Chris mayor sorry I wasn't quite sure when is the that appropriate time to do so so as some people have mentioned we did try to see what we can change about earth day and what I was I was informed that the plans were made when we were more in covid and our tier was not the same and so we're going to keep it the way that it is but in honor of everyone that has brought it to our attention I am going to buy to earth day because I am not going through the line and I will be out of my vehicle anyway to greet the beautiful faces that will be coming through so I am going to bike just in honor of that it is earth day and I do realize that it probably would have been a better tribute to our to our mother earth if we did bike so I am going to to do that so that is that is my pledge to everyone that I'm going to get out and utilize my bike which I love doing anyway so thank you guys for bringing that to our attention I appreciate that as well uh vice mayor I will race you uh on our bikes I love a little competition all right ab do we have any staff announcements or staff comments I just wanted to thank Suzanne and Tonya for their presentations today it was great of them to take the time and share all that information with us and we certainly look forward to continuing to work with you on our various efforts great thank you that was our last item so with that we are adjourned for today thank you everybody