to move forward, to develop and negotiate with us, the building trades and with our attorneys and your attorneys to the actual terms as they see fit, as you guys see fit and no offense to the staff, but obviously they've been clouded by many different things that they picked up off the internet and not just from the actual ABC or the building trades. So I think the community would benefit from the council looking into this a little further and having its own negotiations for the benefit of this community and for the equity of the Santa Rosa and the region. So again, thank you for your time and consider this project. Thank you so much, John. We'll go to Rick, followed by Maddie. Yeah, can you hear me? Yes, we can. All right, thanks. I'm Rick Cross. I'm with the VSS International. We're a payment maintenance contractor. As many of you know, VSS is an open shop contractor where obviously our employees are not required to join or financially support a union as a condition of their employment or hiring, therefore becoming a union contractor for a project for the sole source of performing project in the city of Santa Rosa would cause a lot of problems for us and our employees. To answer the earlier question about just that, there was a question that one of the city council members asked about increased costs. What does that come from? It really boils down to, I mean, there's some minor costs that'll hit the project for sure with paperwork and some admin costs and that sort of thing. But the meat of it is really the PLAs reduce competition by sole sourcing union contractors through agreements like PLAs. This practice results in the costs that are inflated due to the elimination of competition. If there's less competitors out there, the price goes up. We see it all the time. If I get wind that there's only a couple of us bitten on a project, our price goes up. It just, it's the elimination of competition is why costs rise. And as agencies are faced with cuts and with this inflation thing we're seeing and the cost of fuel and the cost of asphalt on a lot of your, maybe not your vertical projects, but your horizontal projects where there's asphalt involved, I don't know why you would limit your competition. It'll affect your road budgets drastically. There should be an increased discussions on ways agencies like the city of Santa Rosa can cut costs, not raise costs. Quick, quickly, a city of Sacramento and Stockton have both gone away with PLAs. They voted unanimously to put them in place. And then once they saw the results on bid day, both city of Sacramento and Stockton, some of the big leaders behind PLAs gone away with them here recently on all their resurfacing projects. Anything that had the asphalt on those horizontal projects, they wouldn't waive from it. They used to receive on an average of five bids for 20 plus year, you can go back and I took a snapshot of the last seven and they were receiving five bids all within budget every year. In 2019, when they went with that project labor agreement, they had one bidder, it was 41.5% over the engineers estimate. They didn't award it, they went out with the same exact project, use the one bidder's price the following year, increased it by 41% by engineers estimate. And again, they got the same bidder at 17% higher than the inflated engineers estimate. It's just, it's crazy. So I just implore you guys to look at your last resurfacing projects. We did three of them last year. I think we got, we bid on three of them. We got two of them. You guys out on an average of five bidders on one, four bidders on another, they were all within budget. If you go with a PLA like this, we won't be bidding your work regretfully.  Thank you. Thank you, Rick. We'll go to Maddie. Hi, I had trouble getting my mute off. Good afternoon, Mayor Rogers, Vice Mayor Alvarez and council members. Thank you for allowing me to speak today. Something that we haven't heard much about today is who gets prioritized to do this work on PLAs with project labor agreements, performance statistics under PLA show a net increase across the board in proportional representation of women and minorities engaged in apprenticeship programs. PLAs actively increase the number of those individuals recruited into and retained by those programs. Now I'm going to go to the Portrait of Sonoma County, the recent update. It stresses the importance of concrete policy action by local government to address racial and economic disparities in wages, education, housing, health care, and on the job health and safety. On page seven, the report states, and this is a quote from the report, the inequities we see in Sonoma County are the result of decisions and policies, people in power, most of them white men put into action, different decisions can create better, more equitable outcomes. I want to stress I'm quoting here, this is not me. And it goes on to say the inequities, the inequalities that exist today are not natural or viable, nor are they a product of chance. They are the result of policy decisions made by people in power. Different decisions made through different, more inclusive decision-making process can lead to better, fairer outcomes. Now I'm off the report, 68% of the overall membership in the building trades affiliated locals are minorities. In Sonoma County, that number is closer to 70%. Our North Bay TIP program, the Trades Introduction Program, has placed a heavy focus on recruiting women and minorities, specifically minority females, in the apprenticeship program and prioritizing grant funding assistance for the support services that they may need, such as childcare and so on. So I'm just gonna go back for a second to that last statement from the portrait of Sonoma County, different decisions made through different, more inclusive decision-making processes can lead to better, fairer outcomes. So like I say, this hasn't been addressed today. The people in these programs, PLAs are apprenticeship programs target minority groups and women, women of color, and underserved populations. So please keep that in mind while you're making this decision. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you, Maddie. We'll do last call for hands-on Zoom. If you're interested in providing public comment on Zoom, hit the raise hand feature. Okay, I'm gonna bring it back to the chamber. We'll start with Michael, followed by Frank C. Thank you. Is the mic working? Yes, we can hear you. Okay. Make sure to eat the microphone, get nice and close. Okay, I see, they have a mask on it. Okay, so basically what I'm getting out of this discussion is that this isn't about monopoly, this is about basically providing a level playing field and people choosing to participate in these projects or choosing not to and then to alleged discrimination seems to be not a really fair characterization what's going on. I should have introduced myself, council members. Excuse me, Michael Allen. I have appeared before you many times and appreciate your public service, all of you and appreciate the work of the staff. I believe that, I've worked on a lot of public policy issues in my life and I believe that working together we can increase outreach to all the disadvantaged communities in Santa Rosa and Sonoma County and the adjacent counties will be part of the local labor policy. What we're talking about is providing good public policy as a almost a leg up to the ladder that the ladder that will take people up into the middle class. And I can't emphasize that more. We're talking about creating opportunity for those who've been dispossessed, disadvantaged and increasing that possibility of being able to raise up themselves and their families. To me, when we talk about the threshold issue whether it be $500,000, a million, five million or these figures tossed around, what you really need to understand from our standpoint, from the trades which represents about 20,000 members of the four counties and 20,000 union households is that we see that the more work we can work cooperatively with you through negotiation where basically it's something that's good public policy that basically makes sense for the taxpayers because we're all taxpayers and we all want the money to be spelt wisely but it increases our capacity to train more and more people locally and raise them up. And I don't think we can stress that too much. We're talking about raising up people. We're not talking about trying to push people down or exclude them. We're trying to be inclusive. And to me, I think if you get nothing else from the discussion, we do want to sit down with you, take the information from the staff report, take the information that we have, maximize the advantages as discussed in the report. And for those disadvantages at side, are they folktales or are they real? And if there's some reality to them, then work through those disadvantages so that we would end up with a product that the staff would be proud of, the public, the taxpayers would be proud of, and this council would feel they had achieved something moving towards the true equity and advancement of our disadvantaged communities. So thank you so much for listening to me. And I guess I finished with five minutes to spare. Thank you so much. Thank you, Michael. We'll go to Frank C, followed by Frank R. Can you hear me okay? Yes, we can. Thank you so much. And thank you for all the work you do, and particularly on this project. My name is Frank Cuneo, I'm the director of the North Bay Trades Introduction Program that we call North Bay TIP. You have heard a few references to. Before I became that director, I grew up in Sonoma County on a vegetable farm and had lots of siblings, so I figured out I had to fend for myself. It took me 10 years after high school to learn about apprenticeship, and eventually I did apply for it. During my apprenticeship as a sheet metal worker, I wanna point out that I worked on both small projects, residential homes, and also larger projects like the jail here in Sonoma, I mean, in Santa Rosa and the hospital, et cetera. Both of those were good learning experiences, I believe in well-rounded training, and when you're talking about different types of jobs to include in the PLA, you might consider that. The North Bay TIP program works under the approval of the North Bay Building Trades Council, and it was developed with the concept of connecting construction apprenticeships with local communities. We seek out disadvantaged people, and I wanna also note that some of those have been non-union workers to help them lift themselves up through apprenticeship and a great career. We refer to joint apprenticeship programs, but not those exclusively. I really believe in joint apprenticeships. I served in my career as an apprentice training coordinator for 20 years. Sat through many meetings on a joint panel that was equally staffed by employer representatives and worker representatives, and I cannot tell you how many discussions or if you wanna call them arguments happened, but eventually they all pretty much long-term resulted in a balanced program, and I really appreciated the quality of that. At the same time, every person on those committees were very invested in the apprenticeship, and they typically did not hesitate to fund it, to take actions to develop the quality of the program, and those are some of the reasons that a joint apprenticeship has proven so many times to be higher quality. I should also mention, before I retired, I was the President of the California Apprenticeship Coordinators Association indirectly representing about 50,000 apprentices. Like apprenticeships, we have capacity, sorry, I'd be happy to talk with you more. Thank you so much, Frank. We'll go to Frank R, followed by Sam. Good afternoon, City Council members. Thank you for your service. My name is Frank Reardon, Business Agent for the Plumbers Union, Local 38. I am the full-time elected officer representing the North Bay for the Plumbers. I have spent 25 years in the field in the last 17 years as a representative for the Plumbers. Of the 25 years in the field, 24 were spent on the road for four hours a day, and the work done was mostly in San Francisco. The idea of going to work, the idea of ongoing work being done here in town by my contractors is something we in the building trades have been working on and hoping for for a long time. I wanna thank you for us all making it to this point today. We, the Plumbers, have a state of the art training center right here in Santa Rosa. We train to the highest level possible, all things plumbing, pipe fitting, welding, and HVAC. We train people to thrive in a career, not just perform on a job and then be forced to go and look for another one when that one is done. Our members look and hope for a sustainable flow of work to support them here locally within the community where they live, and their children go to school. They wanna be a part of Santa Rosa and not just exist in it as if it were a bedroom community. By having a PLA in place, the City Council will be going a very long way in strengthening the fabric of our city, making a really tangible improvement in the lives of your constituents, allowing them to work locally and get home to their families early enough to be with them as a dad or mom, not just walk in the house after spending two hours on the road with only enough time to say good night if they're lucky. Any and all public money projects or maintenance must be done at prevailing wage rates. Prevailing wage is literally the wage we negotiate. It is our wage that is set. One of the benefits of a PLA is that there will be more oversight on contractors to ensure that there is no wage theft. The wage theft is very common on most public works jobs due to a lack of oversight. This agreement would close that loophole at no cost to the city. It is performed as part of the function of what I and our other affiliate PLA will also ensure that Santa Rosa will once again have highly skilled apprentices and journey persons working on these projects. The residents of Santa Rosa, of which I am one, expect all tradespeople doing work on the public dime to be skilled, highly competent, and professional. Nothing else should be acceptable. By having trained tradespeople doing city work, the public can and should expect the highest quality of work at no additional cost to them. In closing, the staff report you have received is a long way from allowing these things to happen. I would urge you to please not adopt the staff recommendations as written and to sit down with the building trades representative to negotiate the agreement policy that will achieve the goals the labor community is looking for. Thank you for this chance to speak to you. Thank you, Frank. We'll go to Sam, followed by Jack. Hi, there, is this working? Yep. Hi, my name is Sam Crump. I've lived in Santa Rosa for the last 10 years in Sonoma County for over 20 years. I completed the apprenticeship program in Local 38 this past December. Along with the best signatory contractors, Local 38 trains and teaches the most qualified plumbers and pipe fitters in the industry. I did not just join the union for a job but to master a trade. But with that, I've received more possibilities than I ever thought possible, such as a skill set that I'll forever have, financial security that has allowed me to settle down and start a family of my own here in Sonoma County. I'm a first generation Local 38 plumber. I hope to pass down not only the skills I've learned to my children, but to also instill in them the love and respect for union labor that I've come to recognize as a major importance in our community. Santa Rosa has a unique opportunity with Local 38 calling it home to its union hall. It is providing vocational training that is unmatched for future generations of Santa Rosa. There is a strong sense of pride that I have when working in Sonoma County. When I work on a school, I think my kids might go to class here. When I work on a hospital, I think my grandmother might be staying here and that's no small matter. The pride in the craftsmanship is visible in the quality of work. I thank you for the PLA discussion, but I ask you not to adapt the staff recommendation as written, but to sit down with labor and produce a final draft that will support local skilled labor and apprenticeships. Thank you. Thank you, Sam. We'll go to Jack, followed by Nicole. Oh, he's pretty tall. Well, good afternoon, honorable Mayor Rogers, council members and staff. My name is Jack Buckhorn, executive director of the North Bay Labor Council and resident Santa Rosa. I'm here to ask for your support in advancing a project labor agreement policy that will leverage Santa Rosa's capital improvement dollars to help meet the city's goals of enhancing our highly skilled workforce by increasing access to successful union apprenticeship programs that benefit diversity, equity and broader inclusion in the workforce. Supporting a PLA policy is a proven strategy to achieve these goals and I would argue a necessary investment in our community. Just this month, California's labor and workforce development agency published a report called Advancing Apprenticeship in California, a five point action plan. This action plan seeks to grow and expand access to traditional construction apprenticeships for women and disadvantaged communities. One of the action steps is to quote, leverage and educate stakeholders on project labor agreements, a mechanism that supports workforce diversity in publicly funded projects, emphasis added. Here are just a few of the many reasons California's labor and workforce development agency recommended using PLAs to increase equality and reach disadvantaged communities. According to statistics provided by the California Division of Apprenticeship Standards for 2021, union joint labor management apprenticeship programs provide the vast majority of state approved apprenticeship training. 94% of all construction apprentices are enrolled in union apprenticeship programs. That's 48,614 out of 51,698. 93% of all apprenticeship graduates are produced by union programs. 11,045 out of 11,929 in 2021. 68% of participant in union programs are people of color. That's 33,532 out of 49,443. 96% of all women in state approved apprenticeship programs are in union programs. That's 1,225 out of 1,275. In Sonoma County today, union apprenticeship programs are training over 678 apprentices and all 15 of the building trades while the non-union programs have 117 registered apprentices and five construction trades. Over half of the non-union apprentices are registered with one program, the Independent Roofing Contractors of California. Unfortunately, only 25% of the apprentices in this program have graduated over the last five years. Regionally, union apprenticeship programs have consistently trained over 92% of all the registered apprentices in Marin Lake, Minnesino, Napa, Solano, and Sonoma counties, 2,437 out of 2,633 and have an outstanding graduation rate. In conclusion, I ask for your vote and support of project labor agreements to move our society forward with equality of opportunity and taxpayer accountability. Thank you. Thank you so much, Jack. We'll go to Nicole. Good afternoon, Mayor and members of the City Council. Nicole Gehring with Associated Builders and Contractors Northern California Chapter. I've been advocating for our journey workers and apprentices for over 15 years for their ability to be able to work on public works projects. Our graduate, we have been actually graduating apprentices for over two decades, producing some of the most skilled and qualified journey workers in the state who because of a project labor agreement would be limited because of the quotas and restrictions on the PLA language, they would not be allowed to work on the projects in the city of a PLA where to be put into place, including our apprentices. Our apprentices are unilateral and because of the joint language we see in most of the PLAs, these people are of all walks of life, minorities, veterans, women, second chance people, people who are homeless living in their car that have completed our pre-apprenticeship programs, they would not be able to work on PLA projects because of the language that we see in the PLA projects. That's why we decided to meet with the city to see if we could maybe work on a workforce development program that we could include everybody in this process and try to get more people into the trades. As we know, we desperately need people right now into the trades. We have a major workforce shortage. Many of the construction workers are aging out. Many of the apprentices aren't coming to us as you heard before until 10 years outside of high school. I mean, we need to do something and we need to include everybody in these pipelines. That's why I support the goals that the city staff has put forth. I wholeheartedly support those. And I would also ask you to go out to the, I know that you went out to the companies that are in the area, but the questions weren't asked to them if they supported a PLA or if PLAs would increase costs or if they were a disincentive to bid. The North Coast Builders Exchange did the survey a few years back and they should redo it again because they did say that 74% of the respondents of the survey did say PLAs increased costs. 68% said they were a disincentive to bid and 75% said they reduced bidders. And the union firms in that survey also said that 50% increased, 50% of them said that PLAs increased costs. Only 10% said that they wouldn't bid that they were not a disincentive to bid and 45% said that they would reduce bidders.  You have examples of bids being rejected because of prices coming in over the engineer's estimates, projects being pulled and going back to bid. Watsonville just had a project. So I would encourage you to just look for a workforce development policy and work with your North Coast Builders Exchange. They have a core program. We have pre-apprenticeship programs. The unions have pre-apprenticeship. We all work together. We can bring more people into the industry and into the trade. So I thank you very much for your time and for holding this session today. Thank you. Thank you so much, Nicole. Last call for public comment. Okay, I'm gonna bring it back to council. First of all, I wanna thank everybody for being here today and for providing comment. I'm gonna go ahead and start with Raisa, reminding us again, what type of feedback you would like from council members. Okay, so again, if you'd like to see it, it's on slide 24. And what we are looking for is local labor definition. Again, we recommended Sonoma Marin, NACA, Mendocino, and Lake counties. And whether or not you want to consider local craft trade workers only and whether or not professional consultants and other administrative staff should be excluded. The second thing is on community workforce agreements. The key point here is whether a test of 30% local workforce requirement would be acceptable. The other thing is if you have any thoughts on sanction or merit labor, and lastly on local labor in regard to pre-apprentice and apprenticeship requirements, if there is a percentage that you would like to require of pre-apprentices. The other thing is on project criteria, we need to know if you want to consider all public infrastructure project types or if there are some that you don't want to include and also whether or not you want it to be project by project or to be applied unilaterally. And then lastly, on that point, if there are exemptions for project types, specifically with special funding requirements, or if there's language around that, that would be acceptable for you. And then on project criteria, the recommendation of $5 million and above index to CPI, is that acceptable? If not, what is the threshold that you would like to see? And may we have an index to the CPI? And then lastly on the policy term, is it acceptable to you to put a term of three years so that we can assess it in that time or figure out how to get the most relevant data that would be helpful for you and the return to counsel with any recommendations on changes that might be needed at the end of three years. And if not three years, what term, if any, would be acceptable to you? Oh, and I should say the other part of that is on slide 25, I keep forgetting, and slide 25 is do you want to, if especially a PLA is not going to be applied across the board and there are some exceptions or there is a threshold, are there any changes, language changes, and amendments that you want to make to existing contract requirements, again, to give language overlay similar to PLA or at the far end of the spectrum, do you want to not do a PLA and consider simply doing amendments to the existing construction contract? Great, thank you so much, Raisa. And I do want to start off just by thanking staff on this. I know as we entered into the discussion more and more data requests came back and I've got to say I think that staff really did a good job of trying to hone in on the complexities of this issue and why it's been difficult to have the conversation. I also want to thank Council Member Sawyer and Council Member Fleming for being willing to have the conversation. We, John and I were joking pretty early on this is a conversation that's more than a decade in the making and nobody seemed to really want to have it but everybody wanted to fight about it. And so I want to thank the Economic Development Subcommittee for unanimously saying it's time for us to have this conversation one way or another. Let's throw everything on the table. Let's have an honest conversation about it and let's see if this is for better or worse something that we want to do here in our community. With that, I'm going to kick it over to Council Member Sawyer to start us off with direction to staff. Thank you Mayor and I also want to thank Council Member Fleming for the, we actually had fun. I mean we don't probably agree on many of the points of the presentation today and some things don't really need to be agreed on at all. We have some philosophical differences but it was a great conversation not only between the two of us but with staff and this report that you are seeing this evening is an example of staff working very, very hard with the subcommittee trying to identify those sticky parts that need to be dealt with. No, it has, in my many years on the Council this topic has been avoided and we decided that it was time to have the conversation and we did. So and I want to mention that I really think that any way that we can improve our process for contracts, I'm in favor of and I know that that's really not necessarily a question here but I think there are, I think there are alternatives available to us where we can improve the workforce and a program like that I would be very supportive of. I think Peter Rumble actually took many words out of my mouth and he more than I could write down and he really identified some really key points one of which is this is not about those that are in favor of PLAs being evil and those that are not in favor of them being evil these are people that have responsibilities and the non-union, those that are the non-union and are looking for us to move away from PLAs have a job to do and that job is to convince us why we don't need PLAs and the union reps are here to convince us that PLAs are beneficial to the community and all of the great results of what a city can derive from having a PLA. I think that PLAs are a solution looking for a problem. I think that Santa Rosa, especially when you think about vertical versus horizontal, I looked at the projects that were sitting there, I would ask that at the same time that we get the numbers we find that we also identify those projects which are vertical and which are horizontal so that we can understand which ones would be most affected by Santa Rosa or by a PLA. I think that along with those individuals having a job to do, I also have a job to do and my role is to provide an even playing field for all individuals and companies looking to do business with the city of Santa Rosa. I think the PLAs, by definition, do not provide a level playing field. That's my opinion and I know that this is a war of statistics and facts. Maybe that's why so many councils decided not to move in this direction by having the conversation at all but I do have a concern about the fairness of a PLA program that requires a worker to join a group to do business depending on the threshold with Santa Rosa. I think by its nature it's unfair and I think it's my role to make sure that that playing field is level. Now, as far as getting to race and I think I can go piece by piece if that would be helpful to you on the various feedback questions that you have. Some of these would suggest that we're already talking about a PLA agreement so I'll just say, just that it doesn't apply to me because I am not in favor of moving forward with a PLA. Although I am interested in having more conversation about a community workforce agreement, I'm not sure that I'm clear exactly what that, the ins and outs and all the details involved in that which would look like a compromise. I'm okay with actually with the local labor definition. I think that's fine. I have no problem with that. The community workforce agreement, I spoke to that. Sanction or merit labor, I think I wanna open it up to everyone. I think everyone should have a crack at city contracts as long as the PLA is not involved. So I'll just reiterate that and I may see it another couple of times if necessary. The apprenticeship requirements, I am not familiar enough with what would be required and I'm gonna leave that to staff to fair it out exactly what kind of requirements as far as apprenticeship programs or should be required. Project criteria, all public infrastructure projects should be open to everyone. So another way of saying what I said before. Project value threshold none because I'm not interested in a threshold. Other key considerations, policy term. Choosing three years sounds interesting but since I'm not in favor of this particular program, I might wanna apply it to the community workforce agreement if I knew more about that but I think that probably wraps it up and I'll just stop. And again, I appreciate everyone in this room for being here today, offering their personal and professional perspectives on a very controversial at times, controversial discussion. So I thank you. If I may, even if you, I guess the first question should have been yes or no on a PLA but even if you are not in favor of it as it sounds like you are not council member Sawyer, the answers to those questions are still helpful specific to any community workforce agreement or any contract overlays that we might consider. So even answering the questions are still helpful. So was there something that I, did I leave out something? No, you did not. Council member, I think Raisa was asking if you're in favor against the PLA. I think I heard that you are against it and what I'm saying is that even though you are not in favor of PLA, the answers to all those questions are relevant to an existing, amending an existing contract, construction contract, or could be applied to a community workforce agreement that would be that overlay, if that makes sense. It does.  But if I left something out that you need direction on, I'm more than happy to provide it. Council members, by the way. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Once again, staff, I really appreciate all this information. What's been interesting since I first learned about this when I first got on council in 2014, it's been the same conversation. You'll get people who are staunchly in favor and staunchly against it. So it's just what more information can you have? And for me, what has struck me is, I totally get the union perspective because they're tasked with what's in the best interest of their membership, right? Or our role, or at least the role that I see, is I'm looking at what's in the best interest of the city of San Rosa, eliminating the competition. I just don't, I disagree with that. And again, I appreciate the passion, I appreciate the perspectives. We all want to do what's best for this community, what's best for the employees. So I totally get it. There's just different ways of achieving that. So for me, right, I'm just gonna jump to slide 25, the next one. Basically, I'm in favor of amending the existing contract requirements and all the staff recommendations I'm supportive of. The two areas of questions slash concern I would be, one about the community workforce agreement. The recommendation is test the 30% local workforce. The accountability in consequences of not achieving that, if it does come back to this body, I'd be interested in hearing how do you manage that? Looking at the example of the city of Hayward where they're shooting for 30%, they only achieve 19%. So what happens? What's the accountability? Do funds come back? I would like to explore that a little bit more. And then the same thing that I think the mayor first brought it up is three years enough to actually get enough data to make for the future councils to make that informed decision about what's in the best interest of the city of San Rosa. Thanks. Thank you council member, council member Fleming. Thank you. And I think that everybody here has done a great job and council member Schwedhelm said, we're tasked with figuring out what is in the best interest of the community. And I think on that, we all agree. We are here to figure out what's in the best interest of the community. And the pieces of this that really struck me that have me leaning towards going with a project labor agreement has to do with the amount of the apprentices that are produced by our labor unions and the types of people who get into middle class jobs as a result of that. And I don't know that there's any definitive data if you were to get everybody in a room. It seems like if you're in favor of project labor agreements you can find data that supports that. And if you're opposed to them you can find data that supports that. And so I think what we have to say is it potentially might cost more to go with a project labor agreement. The question for me is, is that cost worth the benefit to our community? And if the fact of the matter is that we're developing more apprentices here as a result of investing in organized labor in the trades then the answer is obviously for me, yes. So with that I will go forward and answer the questions. But before I do that there's one thing that I wanna say which is there was a point brought up about bids on contracts. And I think we need to build in a piece here where if we don't get enough organized bids or we don't get any organized bids for that matter that we do have some way to develop those folks, those businesses and or go out to bid beyond our region or figure out a way to get bidders. But I think that first we should see if it happens and I agree that five years rather than three years is probably the time to come back and see if it didn't work. So, Marisa please help me keep track here. So I'm in favor of including crafts in this primarily. I think that in the future we may wanna include other types of projects besides vertical but for now it's fine to start with vertical projects. I think the 30% is fine. I support going with signatories rather than merit and project threshold of 5% to me seems good. Did I leave anything out, Marisa? No, that was it. But when you said project threshold of 5% do you mean five million and above? I did. I think I was getting 30% in five years and five million dollars all conflated there. Yes, I think five million dollars is the right amount to start on this. Did I miss any of the other pieces? No, I think that's it, that's great. Thank you. Okay, the last thing that I wanna add is that equity, we often talk about equity but I think what equity is in this situation is opportunity and I think we all agree that equity and or opportunity is really important and the challenge is is that when it costs money and here's a situation where it might cost money and we have to put our money where our values are and for me the value is in creating a broader workforce that is more representative of our local community. Thank you to everybody. Thank you, Council Member. Let's go to Council Member Rogers. Thank you, Mayor. I just would like to thank the staff for taking the time to listen and incorporate all the feedback that you were given into this presentation. So for PLA in general, yes, I would like to see what it looks like for the threshold and then also local labor definition. I would like to see percentages really, really high but then if we can't meet that, I know that that may be an obstacle. So maybe starting off lower with longer projects, maybe getting to a higher percentage, which I think is very obtainable because I've seen some of the apprenticeship programs that we have locally and I know that we can do that. So it's not something that I don't think that we can do. So in addition to that, so yes, hiring locally is a priority for me. And the reason why I wanna go with the threshold is because I do want projects, I do want people or companies to be able to have the option to bid on projects locally, smaller companies and companies that can stay competitive and that are not necessarily a part of a union, but that they're really small and maybe wouldn't benefit them to be in a union or they don't have enough people or I just know that there's different reasons why companies are not in a union that are really small. And so I wanna give them the opportunity to continue to bid on city projects. The five million is okay, the three-year term is okay and I love the apprenticeship requirement and the pre-apprenticeship requirement and I think that if we provide more projects, like if we build it, then they will come. I think if we provide the projects, then it will definitely give us the opportunity to see our local workforce only increase and that it will allow our local middle class to only flourish and get bigger, but we have the expertise right here. We just have to have the projects and hire locally in order for us to utilize it. And then lastly, I wanna say, I hear the word community being thrown out and this is a time where I feel like I'm not sure when people say that word what community they're talking about because there are people that are from lower socioeconomic parts of our city that would love to be a part of our apprenticeship programs and just be able to provide for their family and this would be awesome for them or to get jobs where they would have good benefits and so and be safe and all the things that a PLA would provide and the things that were named that a PLA brings, I think are so important and that is why I want and I believe it's important for us to explore a PLA and to really sit down with labor and see how we can make it work for us, right? And so how it's not limiting for the city but how we can build and make something so prosperous for us and for our community because there are so many people that can benefit from a PLA in our community. And so with that, I do wanna encourage the PLA to go forward and I do wanna encourage people that work with the apprenticeship programs to get out there and get people that are of lower socioeconomic people that are at disadvantaged backgrounds and maybe that can be of our criteria to have them involved and see how we can build them up because to me that's building our community up. So thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Council Member. Excuse me, Mayor, Council Member Raj because I just asked one question in relation to the applicability of a PLA, one of the questions that Rice and I are interested in is, is all projects that she labeled that are in the capital program? With exclusions? With the exclusions, so, okay, thank you. Council Member McDonald. Thank you, Mayor. So I am in favor of moving forward with the PLA. I think that they're the best way for us to go on coordinating projects and so I can just go through some of this but some of it I'd like to just direct staff to go back and meet with the building trades as well as their lawyers to vet out some of these nuances so that when it does finally come back to council, some of that's already done for us because we can say and try to define local labor but in fact, they may say, well, we have some of these skilled labor force in Solano County or a neighboring county that isn't too much further so I don't want to subject ourselves to just saying only in these areas so I'd like to hear more from building trades council to be able to tell us where the labor and workforce is so I'm definitely in favor of local workforce and so I don't mind the 30% at all but I do want to also get some of that data back from building trades and letting us know where their labor and workforce is which I think one of your slides actually indicated to us the percentages of where they actually are located so I think we're fine on that 30% what I would want to do is if we couldn't get that I don't want anyone in any business that we're contracted with to be penalized in any way for not being able to do that if they had to bring people in from out of the area it would be up to the businesses in fact to either put them up locally or to be able to pay them to come in or provide them with vehicles to get here. Let's see, as far as the apprentice programs I totally agree with that's where you have skilled labor and workforce because they're in constant training so I'm in favor of all of that to ensure that we have a properly skilled workforce doing our projects. Let's see, as far as the threshold I am not certain five million is the right threshold I'd like to go back again to the trades to see what their thought processes on percentages of jobs versus the actual amount while some of our jobs in the next three years seem to meet that threshold to be able to do the vast majority of our work I think around 74% of it or so was around that five million dollar threshold I would be interested in seeing if we should maybe in fact lower it to maybe three million dollars because coordinating work in project labor agreements is what I'm actually interested in so those efficiencies and cutting red tape because the work's done ahead of time so that's the kind of thing that I would wanna have a look at and really again going back to have a little bit more data on those projects and how many were actually done. Agree with council member Fleming on the three years probably not being enough that maybe we should come back at five years with proper data on some of these because we can see even with our current projects that a lot of times we plan for them to be done within this fiscal year but often times they're delayed and we can see with a shortage of actual construction equipment coming in and procurement of equipment we could see a delay so I'm not sure that three years is a proper amount of time for us to have the good data on that. Let's see, the other thing I would like to look at is you mentioned a couple of grants and I would wanna make sure that we weren't excluding ourselves from any grants because there could be potential language that would not want that type of agreement ahead of time so I would wanna make sure that the city would be protected in that and I think that working with the trade industry we could come to agreements I'd still be interested in having a workforce agreement under grants so that we are still protected in using high quality workers within the city budget and then also in emergency services I would be interested in seeing if we need to act swiftly and under fire and we've seen a lot of times where we have to move dirt and things like that and that there wouldn't be any language that would preclude us from actually needing to move swiftly on projects when we've had emergencies but other than that I just wanna thank staff for this great presentation I appreciate that council's brought it forward I certainly have done some exploration on project labor agreements both sides of it and spoken to people so I appreciate it coming forward today and again my direction is to go with project labor agreements, thank you. Thank you council member, let's go to the vice mayor. Thank you mayor. Being one of the most recent appointees or elected to the council and seeing that this project has been going on for such a long time I must ask during that time period how much involvement have we had from both union and non-union labor groups in the discussion and the presentation? Vice mayor, so up to this year we haven't spent a lot of time as a staff really working on project labor agreements as the mayor alluded to there have been a lot of starts and stops over the last decade or more however since staff was put into this project of bringing this forward we've spent quite a bit of time we've had two or three meetings with North Bay Trades Council and the TIP program we've had two or three meetings with the associated building contractors as well as Wicca so we've done our best to work through the trades programs as well as talking with some of our local contractors and business groups so we've made a concerted effort since given the nods to move forward however prior to this it was more of a start and stop type of motion and that's why I think this hasn't moved forward with prior councils. Thank you and as you and I well known when we've involved the community it seems to go a little bit smoother such as our experience with the Bennett Valley Golf Course where we definitely saw the pros of involving the community in the discussion so I hope that moving forward we will continue to do the same as I'm sure we will. And also to that importance it's too many times that we hear the word equity being floated around and it's almost as many times as one party ultimately disagrees with the original agreement that was entered by both and to minimize that is why a PLA is important. It puts both sides with the clear understanding of what the original intent is and the goal is as well. I believe that the PLA increases that opportunity as mentioned by one of my colleagues prior. Apprenticeships also does the same. So it's clear. It's clear for me the importance of a PLA in our system and with the thresholds I believe that the questions that were asked of us earlier were the threshold of the five million the 30% the three years. I believe some of the other questions that were asked of us were the counties as being considered local labor areas and it's funny how it's also our tribes that come from those counties as well that are recognized locally. So you find the correlation between one another. So it goes to show that some things do not change. Therefore we need to work where we live and live where we work. And if we were to ask ourselves what dignity and employment means it's definitely unionized labor that makes that dignity happen. So it's why I find the PLA to be so important. But again, I must stress we must involve those that our policy involves to be have a seat at the table. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Vice Mayor. So staff that have worked with me for the last six years I think know that I have two main focuses when it comes to policy development. One is using the purchasing power of the city to better our residents. And we certainly saw that when we switched to 100% renewable energy. It was more expensive but it was the right thing to do. I look at this through that same lens. We sit up here and we spend millions every year on homelessness. We spend millions every year on affordable housing. And this is a policy that we can enact that allows us to invest in our community and in our workers to make sure that we're not exacerbating those inequalities that then in our budget times we're trying to figure out how to fund programs to make up for. I'm gonna be a big supporter of this as we move forward. The other thing that staff knows is that I view policy development as an iterative process. We rarely get it right the first time even when we have great data and we're always gonna have to come back and retool and rework and really do things to sander those away as we see how it impacts us in our local community. The great news about this policy is that there is no good data one way or the other. The only way that we're gonna get it is if we create it. And so I am very supportive of us doing this as a five year pilot program where we track the data and see did it cost the city more money? Did that actually matter to us? What was the impact that it had on the workers? Did we see lower bids, a number of bids as well as the price? Is it something that our community and the future is going to have the data that they need to say, yes, this is how we're going to invest in our community and it made sense for us? And can we turn around to them, provide that information to other cities who are struggling with that same question and who do when they do a Google search, see doom and gloom and see sunshine and roses depending on which link they click on? I don't know the ins and outs of most of the laws that'll pertain to this. I do wanna give my direction to staff to go back and work with the attorneys to negotiate something that meets the values of the city and what's being expressed by the council while in still compliance with law. For example, I heard in public comment that perhaps design build projects are not eligible if you have a PLA policy that's in place. That'd be an exemption that I'd be looking for when this policy comes back after it's been negotiated. I like the definition of local labor, but perhaps in discussions with folks who do this, we'll find that there's a better answer for what will work for Santa Rosa. Let's try it and if it doesn't work, we'll change it, we'll try something else. The threshold question to me seems a little bit like a trap and the reason being 2023 is the year where we have substantial projects that we normally wouldn't have coming forward and coming to fruition finally. We finally found the funding for them. So using 2023 as a threshold guide tells me nothing about what's gonna happen in 2024. It tells me nothing about what's gonna happen in 2025. I'd rather use historical averages for the city. That way we're not basing our threshold and then paging it to CPI based on an outlier. The goal that I'm looking for and I expressed this at the Economic Development Committee is not a specific dollar threshold, but you tell me what percentage of work we're shooting for. If we're looking at it and we're saying based on the criteria that we've come up with, we want 75% of projects to qualify. That can be a moving target to me year to year as we adopt our CIP budget. But I wanna know what the policy is going to be to make sure that there's a certainty of work where if a worker comes through an apprentice program and we say if you invest in yourself, we'll invest in you. And we'll make sure that we use the purchasing power of the city to make sure that you and your family can afford to live here. And that's what I'm looking for. Raisa, Jason, do you guys have clear enough direction from council? I believe we do. Yes, I agree. Perfect. We'll come back in September. Again, I wanna thank everybody for being here, everybody on Zoom. This has been over a three hour study session. So I know we've got other things to get to. I hope you'll indulge us. We're gonna take a quick five minute bathroom break and then we'll come back and we'll start our regular council meeting. Thank you, everybody. Welcome back, Madam City Clerk. Can you please call the roll? Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Schwedhelm. Here. Council Member Sawyer. Here. Council Member Rogers. Present. Council Member McDonald. Here. Council Member Fleming. Here. Vice Mayor Alvarez. Present. Mayor Rogers. Here. Let the record show that all council members are present. Great. So council, I'm gonna jump around our agenda just a little bit. We are going to start with our proclamations today before we get too far into it. Then we'll jump to our public hearings, which we are required to start before a certain time. We probably will take a dinner break after the public hearings and then we'll come back for our report items, our staff updates, our council member comments, all of those sorts of things. Really fast, let's get a report out from our closed session from the city attorney since she just took a bite. Excellent timing, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much. Council met in closed session on purchase on the price and terms for purchase of property on Bellevue Avenue and gave direction to staff. No final action was taken. Thank you. Perfect. Then we'll go to our proclamations. The first one is item 7.1. It's a proclamation for zero waste week. So I'm gonna have council member McDonald read the proclamation. And then I know we have Joey Hednewitz that's able to provide a little bit of comments before we present it to the recipient. Thank you, Mayor. Whereas each year, zero waste Sonoma and community partners host a one day zero waste symposium as a local opportunity for industry and the public to gain insight on zero waste topics and trends, share ideas and network. And whereas this year zero waste Sonoma has collaborated with North Bay groups and volunteers to expand the community event for an entire week in late July aimed at educating and empowering various sectors of the public to act towards zero waste. And whereas the city of Santa Rosa along with other sponsors will be holding zero waste events throughout the week of July 24th through 30th. Now therefore be it resolved that Chris Rogers, Mayor of the city of Santa Rosa on behalf of the entire city council do hereby proclaim July 24th through July 30th as zero waste week. Thank you, Council Member. I'm gonna jump over to Joey, our zero waste coordinator. Thank you, Mayor and city council members. Yes, as Mr. Rogers, the mayor said I'm Joey Hednewitz, zero waste coordinator for the city of Santa Rosa. And just wanted to talk a little bit about zero waste week. So this is the first annual North Bay zero waste week held here in Sonoma County. It is gonna be a couple of weeks from now July 24th through the 30th. Throughout the week, North Bay communities, Santa Rosa include will offer zero waste activities and events to raise public awareness for environmental impacts of waste in ways you can live a more zero waste lifestyle by committing to reducing, reusing, recycling, repurposing and composting waste. Anyone can be part of the solution. And so we do look forward to the community members joining us during zero waste week. We do have some specific events here being held in Santa Rosa. And then also some larger events happening in the county which I will have my associates alone with all speak to after that. But as far as the events in Santa Rosa are concerned, we do have a street cleanup day on Sebastopol Road on July 27th from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Our project area of focus is gonna be between Dutton Avenue and Stony Point Road. So we need to be doing like a community beautification, asking community members to come participate and help us clean up. We will be starting at 665 Sebastopol Road. That is the new location of the Motote Food Truck Park. If you haven't been out there, I was out there last week for a site visit and it's an excellent community space with some food and some nice culture going on out there. So I definitely ask folks to check out if you haven't been out there if you're not gonna join us during zero waste week. One for the community to know that food and light snacks or light snacks and refreshments will be provided during that timeframe. That is being sponsored by Recology, Zero Waste Santa Rosa, Saluna Outreach Solutions and Motote Food Truck Park. Once again, that's gonna be on July 27th from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. out on Sebastopol Road. Additionally, we are gonna be having a zero waste webinar where you can learn to detect and fix leaks in your home irrigation system. So it doesn't also just include waste, so we also wanna make sure that we bring some attention to the water situation and the water drop that we're currently in. We will be hosting a zero waste compost webinar where you can learn how to compost at your home using your kitchen and garden scraps by participating in an online compost event, which that information will be shared with the public very shortly on our social media channels and srcity.org. And finally, you can stop by our zero waste table on Sunday during the Live at Juliard Park concert series to receive information on zero waste practices and pick up a water-saving toolkit. And now I would like to elevate Sloan Pagol, zero waste program manager for Zero Waste Sonoma to speak a little bit more about the greater zero waste week. Good afternoon, Council Mayor and staff. I wanna thank the City of Santa Rosa on behalf of Zero Waste Sonoma for recognizing this inaugural week of zero waste activities. Zero Waste Sonoma, Recology, Saluna Outreach Solutions, Sonoma Water, the UCCE Master Food Preservers and Master Composters, Sonoma Clean Power, Sonoma County Libraries, and many other community partners have been working together to offer this full week of events throughout the county, as Joey mentioned. I'd like to invite all attendees of today's meeting to visit www.zerowastenorthbay.org to see the full schedule and get details for those individual events. Just wanna highlight another event that's happening in Santa Rosa, which is our second Fixit Clinic and Reuse Fair on July 24th. That's at 3251 Santa Rosa Avenue from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. It's a free community event with a chance for folks to get help fixing bicycles, textiles, wheeled transportation, lamps, small appliances, and a knife sharpening as well.  So if you want more information, I just suggest you go to the website. And once again, thank you for this acknowledgement of this week of Zero Waste Action, and we hope to see you out there at some of these events. All right, thank you so much, Joey and Sloan. Really appreciate it. And Joey, we'll make sure that you get this proclamation to hang up as well. Let's move on to item 7.2. Council Member Sweathelm, this is your item. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And this is all about Bob. Why don't you step up to the podium there just so we know who, as we're describing you, this is who we're talking about. Thanks, Bob. So it's my pleasure to read this proclamation. Whereas 48 years ago, when he was a Viking, a student at Montgomery High School, Bob Borowitz began his career in the golf industry in the maintenance department at the Bennett Valley Golf Course. And whereas after graduating from Sacramento State University in 1980 with a Bachelor of Science degree in administration, he returned to maintenance of the course while building his professional golf career. And whereas in 1982, Bob began working with former Bennett Valley Golf Course Operator, John Flakman, in the pro shop. And whereas Bob learned the operations and business of golf from John while continuing to grow his professional golf career. And whereas he played in many professional golf tournaments, including the Professional Golf Association Qualifiers with the goal of becoming a professional golfer. And whereas in 1986, after completing the PGA Apprentice Program, Bob became a certified class APGA professional and served as a Bennett Valley Golf Course Golf Pro while continuing to learn the golf industry trade and operations. And whereas he was a two-time Collegiate All-American for Division II Golf Championships and represented the United States in PGA Cup matches in 1992. And whereas in 2001, Bob and John became partners in operating the Bennett Valley Golf Course, which included the food and beverage operations until 2004, when John retired and Bob became the sole operator of the golf course and restaurant. Whereas Bob returned exclusively to golf operations and instruction in 2007, after the city retained an outside operator for the hospitality business. And whereas Bob's golf game is described as having the perfect swing with impeccable timing, which he has taught to the community through his work at Bennett Valley Golf Course. And whereas he has devoted his career to golf operations and instruction, specifically to Bennett Valley Golf Course, now therefore be it resolved that Chris Rogers, the mayor of the city of Santa Rosa, on behalf of the entire city council, do hereby acknowledge Bob Borowitz for his 48 years of service to the golf community and Bennett Valley Golf Course and do hereby wish a happy and fulfilling retirement to Bob Borowitz. Thank you. And if I could just comment on this proclamation, Bob, you know, it talks a lot about your accomplishments, but one of the things I've always enjoyed in everyone without exception when I say out of Bennett Valley Golf Course is the family atmosphere that you have helped create. And it's not just you and I know when I spoke with you on your last day out of the course, it's not just you, but the culture that you have established out of the course is unparalleled. It's a lovely place to go. And we talked about our recent discussions with Bennett Valley Golf Course, what a gem for the community is. A lot of it is due to you and your staff and the attitude that you bring to it. So thank you, thank you, thank you. All the job brought back some great memories. I wrote up something, I just want to be real quick with it, but there are few people I need to acknowledge along the way in 48 years out there. I've been very, very fortunate to have first of all foremost my wife Andrea up on the top row. If you don't know which one, she's the one on the left-hand side if you're looking up there. Thank her. It's quite an honor and very humbling when Jen mentioned that I was to receive this honor and acknowledgement. I don't feel deserving. I mean, I was just, basically I was getting paid to do a job and I was fortunate enough to have a great crew, specifically two of my main principal, Jim Canago and Don Ballard have been with me for over 40 years out there. And the big is the reason why the Golf Course is what it is. And as Tom, you mentioned, it's become more of a family operation which with past, I would say directors not in a bad way but they sort of insinuated there's too much of a family operation and need to be more business-like run which I'd always thought we could do both. But anyway, I'm glad you appreciate that, Tom and I think most of the golfers do out there. Don Ballard was our and currently is a superintendent. He's gonna stick around. He took care of all the maintenance aspect of the Golf Course. And Jim Canago, probably my best friend has run the golf shop operations for me. I never referred to these two guys as employees, more as partners. Every employer should be so lucky to have a couple guys or gals to look after their business as way they did for me. And it'd be really hard for anything to screw things up with the staff I inherited from, you mentioned John Flackman. He's the most instrumental person in my business life. He was the first and foremost a friend, a mentor and a partner. It was a privilege to have the opportunity to continue his legacy and try to uphold the standards he set. Pretty much all that I have accomplished at Bennett Valley is due to John's mentorship and his trust he had in handing over the reins to me in 2001 when he asked me to become his partner. In closing, I'd like to thank the city of Santa Rosa for placing their trust in me to oversee Bennett Valley golf course and for giving me the chance to be able to spend my entire career in golf, which doesn't happen very often. And it's been such an unbelievable run, a great facility and thank everybody. I didn't get a chance to meet all the council members. I've known John and Tom and Chris for some time now. But I've always found that you folks have been very easy to work with. Sometimes things take a little longer than we'd like, as you're well aware of, but in general, I appreciate all the support that you've given us at the golf course. Thank you. Thank you so much, Bob. And one of the things that I'll point out as we've gone through this process of finding a new operator was just hearing from the community about how much they've loved you and the family atmosphere, as Tom said, but really you, your personality and how welcoming you made them feel at the course and wanting to make sure that we didn't lose that aspect as we moved forward. We're gonna bring you down. We're gonna bring your family down. We'll take a brief moment and take some pictures. But first I wanna open it up for public comment for folks who might wanna add their well wishes here before we take the photos as well. Thank you. Well, if I could just add a few words to Tom's words, I think somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 rounds a year, every year consistently, the highest utilization of any golf course in the United States, as I understand, that led to, I think, the goodwill and feeling, as the mayor mentions, that so many people in this community have for that facility in Newen and led to, I think, the need that people have, the resonance that they have with that facility was because of the way it was run, the way it was maintained. And again, with 100,000 to 200,000 rounds a year on the golf course, that's a lot of where it's two and three times the number that is normally played on a course that gets made. And that's a public course. And on a private course, they would have maybe 18,000, maybe 50,000 rounds, it'd be an enormous number on a private course. Santa Rosa Country Club, maybe 20,000 rounds. So they had 10 times as many rounds, but they had to maintain and make the course playable for everybody. And that's a feat, that's a thing that everyone remembers. And that's kind of the difference between the two places. Thank you, Thomas. Let's go back to Zoom and Gregory. Yeah, I have the distinct pleasure of representing the Benavali Golf Club as a member of the board. Our board wants to say the same joy of working with Bob.  We've gotten to know him pretty well and a whole lot of our members are standing to salute him. And we wish him well. Thank you, Gregory. We'll look and see if there's any other comment. Okay, we'll go ahead and bring it back. We'll take a quick break while we take some photos and then we'll be back for the rest of our council meeting. Excuse me, Mayor, can I just? Oh yeah, sorry, go ahead, John. Not a problem. Bob, excuse me. You know, these warehouses are packed with a great deal of information that I had no idea about. When we were sitting around asking in the Mayor's conference room at times and elsewhere when it wasn't available because of the talking about the golf course and the golf committee. And quite frankly, I mean, you're very modest but I honestly had no idea of the qualifications and the history of the man I was sitting across the table with or from. So it's really impressive. Thank you for your many years of service. You are loved by your team and the participants at the golf course and you will be dearly missed. Almost as much as I miss my dark hair, which we both had at the time we started seeing each other. But it happens, but congratulations. Anyone else, Council? Great.  I wanna welcome everybody down. Madam City Attorney. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to correct my report out on the real property negotiation closed session. Although I was close, it is adjacent to Bellevue Avenue. The address of the property that was discussed in closed session is 3012 Dutton Meadow. Just wanna make that correction for the record and thank you. Perfect, we appreciate it. So as I mentioned, we're gonna jump around a little bit. We're gonna jump to our first public hearing of the night that's item 16.1. Madam City Manager, go ahead and take it away. Good afternoon, item 16.1 is a public hearing, a resolution of necessity for the acquisition by imminent domain of easement interest in portions of real property, commonly known as 4912 and 4914 Highway 12, APNS 031-240-006 and 031-240-067 for the Los Alamos trunk sewer replacement project. I'd like to introduce Stephanie Valkovic, our associate real property agent. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council members. I'm joined here tonight by Jill Scott, the city's real estate manager as well as Mark Easter, the city's outside council from Best Increase Krieger. And I'm actually gonna turn it over to Mr. Easter to provide some background on the hearing. Sure, good evening. This is a hearing for the city to consider adopting resolution necessity for the acquisition by imminent domain of permanent and temporary easement interest for the Los Alamos trunk sewer replacement project To adopt the resolution, the city council must by two-thirds vote of all the voting members make the following findings. Number one, that the public interest and necessity required this project, that the project's been planned in a manner that's most beneficial to the public with the least private injury, that these property interests are needed for the project and that the offer of just compensation has been made to the owner. Staff will make a presentation on these findings. Any interested property owners who are here will have an opportunity to speak and then members of the public will have an opportunity also to speak on these issues. Just a couple of other things. The issues to be discussed tonight at the hearing are, and actually once the public speaks then the hearing is closed and the council can have discussion and vote. The issue of value is not the subject of discussion tonight other than confirming that the required offer has been made. The issues to be discussed are the findings that I just recited. The property owner will certainly have an opportunity to seek greater compensation if there's eminent domain proceedings and adopting this resolution necessity if the council chooses to do so does not terminate negotiations with the property. Thank you and just one matter of housekeeping if we could have the clerk note for the record the proof of mailing of the notice of hearing to the property owner. Yes, I did receive the proof of mailing of the notice of hearing to the affected property owner. The notice of the hearing invited the owner to appear and be heard on the matter described and the hearing notice was provided to the property owner by first class mail 15 calendar days before the hearing in accordance with the statute. The property owner will be speaking at the meeting. Thank you. So as you just heard, we're here to discuss easements needed in connection with the Los Alamos trunk sewer replacement project specifically easements over a portion of the property is located at 4912 and 4914 Sonoma Highway which properties are owned by Samantha Zappelli. Next slide please. Staff first came to council on May 24th to present this item on that day, the motion to adopt the resolution of necessity did not secure the five votes necessary to pass but a motion was made to reconsider the item and at the June 7th council meeting council voted in the affirmative on the motion for reconsideration allowing this item to be re heard today. Next slide please. The 2014 sanitary sewer system master plan update identified roughly three miles of the Los Alamos trunk sewer for replacement. The current trunk was constructed in the 1950s and is nearly 70 years old and in deteriorated condition. This project is the number one high priority project for maintaining desired service levels within the city's sewage collection system. And it is designed to provide increased trunk capacity and reliability while reducing maintenance requirements. Failure to complete the project could result in sewer overflow, environmental impacts, permit violations and fines. Next slide please. Segment one of the project begins at Streamside Drive and runs easterly to Elaine Drive. This alignment was selected in an effort to collect flows from the existing trunk while working to minimize the amount of bypass pumping operations needed during construction to minimize impacts on future development by private property owners as well as to minimize the impact of the project on heritage trees. Next slide please. The subject property is located toward the eastern most end of segment one, a few properties west of Elaine Drive and south of highway 12. The existing trunk sewer currently crosses a portion of the western parcel of the property and this is shown in red and the proposed easements for realignment are shown in teal in this picture. Next slide please. Over the past year and a half, the city and its right away consultant have actively tried to reach an agreement with the property owner with dozens of phone calls, site visits and staking of the easements, 80 or more emails back and forth between the parties and most recently through a meeting with the project team, the property owner and her attorney. Next slide please. The city first extended a formal offer to the property owner in January, 2021 in the amount of the appraised value for the easements. The property owner then hired an independent appraiser at city expense to value the easements. Next slide please. The independent appraisal was significantly higher than the original appraisal. However, in an effort to reach an agreement with the property owner, the city made a revised offer in September, 2021 in the amount of that appraisal. And then in November, 2021, the city made a final and revised offer providing additional compensation above that already being provided for the replacement of fruit trees being impacted by the project. In spite of these good faith efforts, the parties have been unable to reach an agreement on price and terms. Since 2019, 28 other necessary easements have been acquired for the project for more than a dozen property owners. So these outstanding easements that we're here to discuss tonight are the last and final easements needed for the city to move forward with construction of segment one of the project. Which leads us to staff's recommendation to council. Next slide please. It is recommended by the water and transportation and public works departments and real estate services that the city council conduct a public hearing and adopt a resolution of necessity by a two thirds vote declaring the necessity of acquisition by imminent domain of two permanent easement interests and two temporary construction easement interests in portions of certain real property more particularly described as Sonoma County assessor parcel numbers 031-240-006 and 031-240-067 for the Los Alamos trunk sewer replacement project. And this concludes this portion of the presentation. Myself, Jill, Mr. Easter and representatives from the water department and project team are available to answer any questions. Great, thank you so much. I'll look to my colleagues to see if anybody has any questions on this item. Okay, we'll go ahead and open the public hearing. I'm gonna go ahead and start with the property owner for comment. I just wanted to state on our meeting that we had last week and I hired an attorney. Hold on one second. Let's make sure the microphones turned on. The microphones turned on. You just need to talk a little closer to the mic so we can hear you better. Is that better? A little bit closer. Okay, is that better? Yeah, that's better. Thank you. Okay, so I just wanted to state that I'm definitely in knowing that this is a necessary project.  So it goes in the middle of the parcels and it has been a business. It's been in business since 1958. So there's like water lines, power lines that coincide with my home and business. So it's not just the sewer project. And when we had our meeting last week, you know, we brought up those things. Sorry, brought up those things and asked to maybe be added to the insurance policy of the construction company because also our building is very old. So it's just gonna disturb more than just the sewer project. It's my family's livelihood and also employees' livelihoods that are in between. And I'm just trying to get those things sorted out of what are we gonna do if this happens or what are we gonna do with the abandoned sewer project? And just things of that nature on top of getting a third appraisal to maybe coincide with the two that we've gotten. But it's just a little bit more details than, you know, yes, the project needs to go through but we just need to figure out the logistics of everything. So that's all I have to say. Great, thank you. Is there any other public comment in the chamber on this item? Let me go ahead and look towards Zoom as well. If you have comment, hit the raise hand feature on Zoom. I see no raised hands and we have no voicemail public comment on this item. Thomas, are you looking to speak? Okay, we'll go ahead and close the public hearing then. And I will bring it back to see if there are any additional questions, any comments? Mr. Vice Mayor? Thank you, Mayor. In regards to the comments that we just heard in regards to added liability, what issues are being foreseen from the city center to make sure that the livelihood of both residents and employees are being looked after? Thank you for your question, Vice Mayor. At the meeting, the project management team spoke about the insurance coverage for the project. However, in terms of the matter, hand to night, the project necessity, the minimization of impacts on private for the greater public good, we believe we've addressed all of these concerns. I've spoken to our appraisers, I'm a Radaway consultant and the information provided did not lead us to believe that there would be any change in the conclusions or recommendations to counsel tonight and that we could, this kind of evidence could be provided to the court if there was anything concrete in nature, I guess. And I guess if I don't know if Jill might have anything to add on that matter. How do you mean counsel? And normally in a project, there's insurance that's provided and liability insurance with the contractors that is provided to her and would be provided to anyone. She had additional concerns. Her, my understanding is that her attorney was looking into it and was gonna get back to us. We provided all of the information and all of the documents to her attorney. If there's anything else that we need to be concerned with with that, we will definitely address it and move forward with the situation as we go through this. As I think Stephanie had talked about, we will continue to negotiate with this and the negotiations will continue this being part of it as we go on tonight. We're just here to prove the project necessity. Does that answer your question? It doesn't. I think it's clear to all parties involved that there is a clear necessity to move forward. I just hope that we are looking after the best interests of every resident and resident, including the one that we have before us tonight. Thank you. And counsel member, I can assure you that we are and we are addressing every piece of this. It is greatly appreciated, Jill. Thank you. Council member Rogers, do you wanna put a motion on the table for consideration? I move that adoption of the resolution of the council of the city of Santa Rosa adopting a resolution of necessity for the acquisition by eminent domain of easement interests in proportions of certain real property commonly known as 4912 and 4914 highway 12 and more particularly described as assessor parcel numbers 031-240-006 and 031-240-067 for the Los Alamos trunk sewer replacement project and way for the reading of the text. Second. Motion from council member Rogers and a second I believe from council member Sawyer. I think that's what he was going for. I was going for. Any additional comments from council? Okay, Madam City Clerk, please call the roll. Council member Schwedhelm. Aye. Council member Sawyer. Aye. Council member Rogers. Aye. Council member McDonald. Aye. Council member Fleming. Aye. Vice mayor Alvarez. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. There were seven eyes. This resolution required five affirmative votes to pass and that passed with seven eyes. Great, thank you so much. Item 16.2 is an urgency ordinance amending city code chapter 18-52 flood damage protection amendments to comply with minimum requirements of the National Flood Disaster Protection Act and the National Flood Insurance Program, NFIP, and setting a public hearing for adoption. I would like to introduce Chief Building Official Jesse Oswald. Thank you, Madam City Manager, for giving the presentation up. Perfect, thank you so much. Well, good evening, Mayor Rogers, Vice Mayor Alvarez and council members. We're here tonight to actually hear this for a second time coming forward as an urgency ordinance for the chapter 18-52 flood damage protection urgency ordinance. Next slide, please. So the center of the city code 18-52 flood damage protection is a local operational and physical element of the National Flood Insurance Program known as the NFIP under FEMA. The ordinance sets forth requirements for construction and development within designated flood prone areas. Next slide, please. Government code section 36937B allows an ordinance to take effect immediately if it is an ordinance for the immediate preservation of public peace, health or safety, and it contains a declaration of the facts constituting the urgency. Section eight of the Center of the City Charter authorizes the city council to adopt an urgency ordinance, an urgency measure to take effect immediately upon its adoption if necessary to preserve the public peace, health or safety if such ordinance contains the reasons for its urgency. It does require a 5-7 council vote for adoption. Next slide, please. So FEMA has recently completed a flood insurance study known as an FIS and a flood insurance rate map known as a FIRM for areas within Sonoma County and primarily outside the city of Santa Rosa limits. The study was focused on Todd Creek and its tributary areas. In a letter from Rachel Sears, high-level manager with FEMA, she indicated that no significant changes have been made to the flood hazard data on the FIRM. Next slide, please. The FIS and FIRM will become effective July 19th, 2022, necessitating the adoption of changes to our local ordinance to maintain participation in the national flood insurance program to ensure continued uninterrupted enrollment in the program. The effective data, the ordinance must be prior to July 19th. And some of the effects, not on the slides, but in the staff report of not having the ordinance in effect prior to July 19th were provided. And I can go over those if needed. Next slide, please. So a majority of the changes were really to provide clarifying terms definitions and procedural requirements. A few of the highlighted changes were the addition of a definition of recreational vehicle that didn't exist in the ordinance before, addition of standards for locating recreational vehicles within flood prone areas, procedural clarifications for applying the requirements to develop within the flood prone areas, addition of one technical requirement to require establishment of floor elevations in flood prone areas to be one foot above base flood elevation. Next slide, please. So this picture depicts essentially the blue area being the water. The old requirement would have been that the lowest floor level be at or above that level of the potential flood waters. Next slide, please. So the new requirement is that any lowest floor or new development or some actions considered triggering the requirement that that lowest floor be now one foot above those projected flood waters. Next slide, please. But it is recommended by the Planning and Economic Development Department that the council adopt an urgency ordinance amending city code chapter 18-52, flood damage protection to comply with regulatory requirements that our ordinance coincide with 44 code of federal regulation 60.3. And I'm happy to answer any questions. Right, thank you so much, Jesse. Appreciate it. Council, do we have any questions? Let's go to public comment, see if there's any comments in the chamber. Seeing none, let's see if there's any hands. We'll start with Gregory. Yeah, thank you, Jesse. I was just curious as to whether or not we have any estimate as to the number of recreational vehicles in flood prone areas which will now be out of compliance. That's my question. Hopefully I'll get an answer either from Jesse or later on. But I'm curious because as you know, we're using recreational vehicles we're trying to provide temporary housing and I don't wanna be out of compliance. Great, thank you so much, Gregory. I don't see any other hands. So let me throw that question over to Jesse. See if he has an answer. Thank you, Mayor. So fortunately, this flood study that created the new maps touched a very, very small portion of the city limits of Santa Rosa. So there are no known structures even in any areas within the city of Santa Rosa that this flood study would affect. Great, thank you so much. And if there's follow-up questions, Gregory, feel free to email over. I know Jesse's very responsive on these issues. I'll bring it back to council then. Council Member Swedum, do you wanna put a motion on the table? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yes, I will. I move an urgency ordinance of the council of the city of Santa Rosa adopting amendments to city code chapter 18-52, flood damage protection to comply with regulatory requirements that the city of Santa Rosa's city code coincide with a 44 code of federal regulations, 60.3 and wait for the reading in the text. Second. We have a motion from Council Member Swedum and a second from Council Member Sawyer. Any additional discussion? Mr. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. Jesse, you said it only touches a part of the city of Santa Rosa. What part would that be? It is in the southwest area, parts of the tributaries of the Todd Creek, which as we know that is mostly isolated in any areas that could have overflow very far southwest. Very well. I've heard the saying, creating a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Would that qualify? And I asked it very rhetorically. But nonetheless though, it seems like, actually here's a question. Would this increase anyone's insurance that we know of? Would this increase other than the new structures? So for, if, so I'll speak specifically to anything in the city of Santa Rosa. Yes, sir. The limits. Right now there are no known structures that this would affect and that would, if there were, the flood insurance rates could increase for a property that had a structure that was previously not designated in any flood prone area or flood zone. So yes, this type of action could increase flood rates, flood insurance rates. And that possibility is, if I heard you correctly, is for a home being built outside of, let's say five miles away from Todd Road? The area specific, if it's been identified in the map that has been identified in the map. So. For all in that area. Yeah, correct. So this, that what we're discussing is just that area, not, not anything else on our, on our, on our masks. Thank you for taking the time to educate me on that. Thank you, Judge. Any other questions or comments? Okay, let's call the vote. Thank you. Council Member Schwedhelm. Aye. Council Member Sawyer. Aye. Council Member Rogers. Aye. Council Member McDonald. Aye. Council Member Fleming. Aye. Vice Mayor Alvarez. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. But the recommendation passes with seven ayes. Great. All right, council. We're going to take a quick dinner break. We'll come back at 635. All right, Madam City Clerk, let's reestablish our quorum. Council Member Schwedhelm. Here. Council Member Sawyer. Here. Council Member Rogers. Aye. Council Member McDonald. Here. Council Member Fleming. Here. Vice Mayor Alvarez. Here. Mayor Rogers. Here. Let the record show that all council members are present. All right, we're going to jump back in our agenda. We're going to go to public comment for non-agenda items. If you are interested in providing comment for non-agenda items, go ahead and hit the raise hand feature on your Zoom. And Sandy, I'm going to ask you to facilitate if you would. Thank you. Mayor, I see no raised hands. There is nobody present in the chamber. And there's no voicemail public comment on this item. Great. Let's go on, then, to item 15.1. Item 15.1 is a report, renewing sales tax measure, funding for public safety and violence prevention, Scott Alonso, Intergovernmental Relations and Legislative Officer will present the report. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Rogers, Vice Mayor Alvarez, members of the council, and city manager, Smith. Tonight, we are hearing an agenda item about renewing a sales tax measure, funding for public safety and violence prevention for this November's general election. And next slide, please. And tonight, we're joined by various members of city department leadership, as well as one of our consultants, Brian Godby, from Godby Research. So tonight, I will be presenting the staff presentation, and then we'll be turning it over to Brian for his presentation, and then we'll turn it back over to the chamber for questions in the rest of the meeting for this item. So just as brief introduction, we are talking about the current sales tax measure, O, which expires on March 31st, 2025. It was passed in November 2004 as a 20-year dedicated quarter-send sales tax to fund public safety and violence prevention programs. And in 2004, in November, it received 70% in the affirmative. So it needed a 2-thirds vote to pass, which it did. And the recommendation from staff tonight is to place a renewal measure on this November's ballot that would extend the quarter-send sales tax for an additional 20 years. This renewal measure would continue funding the allocation percentages as currently outlined in the measure O ordinance, whereas 40% goes to the police department, 40% goes to the fire department, and 20% goes to violence prevention programs. And just as brief background for measure O, it provides dedicated funding for those departments and approximately $10 million a year for those programs. That varies for year to year. As you heard a couple weeks ago for your fiscal year budget, measure O received $20 million for this coming fiscal year. But that is approximately about $10 million when you look at the averages. And there is a specific expenditure plan that the council approved and then updated in 2016 that currently measure O must follow. And so just as background for what positions are funded by measure O, we have 16 employees in the police department. Some of those employees, nine of them are officers, one sergeant, one lieutenant, two field and evidence technicians, one community service officer, one communication supervisor, and one police technician. The fire department uses a portion of their measure O funding to support 10 positions. And the violence prevention program have nine positions tied to measure O funding. And that's five positions when the office of community engagement and four positions within the recreation division for neighborhood services. And then next slide, please. Oh, no, should, all right. And measure O funds have allowed SRPD to provide increased patrol services, respond to local emergencies, conduct enhanced traffic enforcement and have an increased presence in the downtown area with the substation of the transit wall. And that's our downtown enforcement team, which is specifically called out in the measure O ordinance. The fire department has used measure O funds to construct and relocate fire stations and purchase specialized equipment, such as new engines and radios. And this work includes replacing outdated fire stations five, 10 and 11. Measure O currently also provides funding for the Santa Rosa Violence Prevention Partnership, innovative youth development programming that serves at risk, low income and homeless youth and families and to the choice grant program, which provides an average of 650,000 to 840,000 to local organizations supporting youth and families. Next slide, please. So the analysis, what we're discussing here tonight is the renewal measure since measure O is set to expire in 2025. So what we just looked at through many months of public outreach and engagement, we also conducted two surveys for the city Santa Rosa that Brian Godby will discuss. And so really we wanted to present the council with options tonight with our recommendation and certainly hear from you all in the community about what they'd like to see for a future sales tax measure. So the proposed measure tonight retains the current allocation of tax revenues to each department as currently allocated. And we're concerned that a loss of dedicated funding could lead to staff or program reductions when measure O expires on March, after March 31st, 2025. So Godby research will have a separate PowerPoint presentation tonight but this is a top level review. The average, after the two surveys that Godby research did, the latest survey we did back in June was a tracking survey that found a residence of Santa Rosa paper renewal measure at 73% approval and a total of 668 residents participated in that tracking survey from June 9th to June 14th, 2022. And then just as brief background as mentioned in the staff report, we conducted various community meetings with stakeholders and groups. We had 13 community meetings. We had seven town halls with council members in person and remote. And we also sent out three male pieces in literature. And we also had an online survey in English and Spanish on Let's Connect Santa Rosa known as Let's Connect SR. So we've received about 200 responses to that survey. That number has increased since the staff report was published as the latest mail piece encouraged residents to return the actual piece of the mail are back to city hall. And we've received some responses already from that from over the weekend. So we're updating that literally as we speak that's about 200 responses there. Next slide please. So as I mentioned the town hall meetings, we had, I guess, sorry, six council meetings. Some of those town hall meetings with council members were in person and remote. And we also had Spanish translation available for all of those meetings that the city was hosting. And some of the common things we wanted to call out that's mentioned in the staff report but also for the public. Some of the common areas that we heard about we heard overall support for current programs and funding within the measure of framework. We heard support for mental health response being a component of future public safety funding including in response, which is mentioned in the updated ordinance before you tonight for mental health response teams and resources. We also heard to call out Roseland as a specific neighborhood regarding police services as there are certain areas in the city and the current expenditure plan that call out where police services would be deployed. And we also heard support for homeless services and prevention as allowable uses for future funding. Next slide please. So additional feedback. We did hear from individuals supporting the current funding allocation but we also heard a fair amount of folks from the community asking for the council to increase the amount for violence prevention. The downtown businesses also supported the work of the downtown enforcement team. So that's some of their specific feedback we heard. Some common questions that we also heard during these meetings since April were how are measure funds used? Who are the nonprofit partners provided within the violence prevention partnership and including the choice grant program and just who is part of VPP? What type of programs for each are funded by measure O? How are the impacts of measure O being measured? Could in response be added to the future funding tax measure? And then what is the current sales tax rate in Santa Rosa? And can we afford another tax increase? So those are some of the common questions we heard throughout our various community meetings and presentations, so. Next slide please. So due to the fiscal impacts of current measure O funding and a potential expiration of those funds staff strongly recommends the placement of ballot measure for this upcoming general election. Staff also recommended maintaining strict fiscal accountability measures in the renewal measure including a citizens oversight committee tasked with ensuring that tax revenues are spent in accordance with the voter approved measure. And a renewal measure would give the community the opportunity to ensure that critical funding remains in place to prevent wildfires, prevent the closure of fire stations, provide crucial staffing in place for public safety and violence prevention programs. And lastly provide resources for adverse youth and their families. Next slide please. So lastly it's recommended by the city manager's office, finance department and communications and intergovernmental relations office that the city council one introduce an ordinance to amend chapter 3.26 of the Santa Rosa city code to extend a quarter cent transaction and use tax to fund public safety and violence prevention programs and to update permissible uses of the tax revenues and to approve a resolution ordering the submission of a ballot measure to seek voter approval of the ordinance at the November 8th, 2022 general municipal election and directing related actions. So with that the staff presentation is concluded and we'll bring it back to Mr. Brian Godby with Godby research for his PowerPoint. Thank you Scott, happy to be here this evening to present the results of the survey we conducted. I assume that somebody is putting that up for us. Yes, it just takes a minute for us to take the old one down and bring that up. Thank you. No worries, thank you. All right, next slide please. We'll dive right in. As Scott alluded to, but as you also may know, there were a variety of different objectives in the survey. First, we looked at the satisfaction with city services and management of taxpayer funds. We looked at the direction of the economy since that obviously has become certainly an important factor. As we had in the previous survey, we looked at the city's performance handling, the COVID crisis. We looked at potential support for a sales tax extension. Then we also looked at the kinds of things people would like to see the money spent on as well as looking at informational statements for both pro and con. And then we also looked at a duration issue to see how long the measure should be in place. And there's a wealth of demographic and behavioral characteristics that we use to validate the sample is representative of the likely voter universe that we're interested in, but also is available for segmentation and further analysis. Next slide, please. This is a brief overview of the methodology. We completed 668 interviews among our likely target audience here of November 2022 voters. There was actually a little bit larger sample wrap around. We also looked at November of 2024 as well as just residents. So there's additional information as noted in the footnotes there for the city analysis as well, but we wanted to focus on obviously the most imminent election. The sample was made up of landline sale and then text invitations and email invitations. So we did have an online component as well as the phone component, but it's important to note that the online component is of likely voters that we are inviting to the survey and we know they're likely voters. It is not of people that we're just posting a link on social media and anybody in the world could respond. We were in the field from June 9th through the 14th. The average phone survey was 24 minutes long and all of that gives us an error rate of plus or minus 3.77%, 4% in round numbers. Next slide, please. And next one after that. So diving into the first section, which is really that background information, including city services and the economy, those sorts of things. The first one was satisfaction with city services and here you see in the June survey we're at 55% satisfied. That's down a little bit from the October survey. We've seen that pattern across the board in the last six months and it's been a result most obviously of the economy and inflation increases in gas increases in groceries, et cetera. And people have just sort of been casting about looking for somebody to take their ire out on. And so that's been most of our city clients have seen this same sort of drop. I don't think it means that city services have declined because they're still being performed obviously at the same level, but you know, people are grouchy is what it really comes down to. Next slide, please. Next slide was the satisfaction with management of public funds. Similar idea here if you had the variance somewhat together you see we're at 41% in the June survey that was 46% in the October survey. Again, same thing going on. October was before the inflation started becoming an issue. So next slide, please. And this really highlights exactly what I'm talking about. It's a question we started asking in December for all of our clients. And as we started seeing prices of gas go up and people discussing inflation. So it's pretty straightforward question. What do you think the direction of the economy is gonna be in the next six months? 13% said better, 26% said about the same. Now that's where we are today. That's not necessarily that they think it's great and it's gonna stay great.  But it's not the worst worst that I've seen. We have done a variety of surveys and I've seen this as high as 62%. So this is comparatively speaking, okay. Although it certainly shows that there is a lot of pain out there and angst about the economy. Next question. Next question is the ranking on how the city is doing handling the COVID crisis. And as you can see here again, adding the variance somewhat together where it's 76% versus 20%. It's almost a four to one positive to negative ratio. This is actually a pretty good indication. I've seen this as low as 35% since we started asking this question in 2020. And I've seen it just a little higher at about 82, 83%. So you're at that very high end of the spectrum. So that's good news. Next question, please. So at this point in the survey, we switch gears from this background question and get into the heart of the matter. And you see the actual question that we asked on the right-hand side of the slide. It meets all of the statewide requirements. It doesn't exceed 75 words. It includes a tax rate. In this case is a quarter cent. It shows how much that raises annually, which is required by state law. And then it has a term, which is until ended by voters. The rest of it, because this is a sales tax weekend and special sales tax, we can specify exactly what we would use the money on and you can see the bullets reflect that. The way we analyze the data is we had the definitely and probably asked together to determine feasibility over the course of the survey, but we are starting at 70%. And obviously this is a measure that requires two thirds. So that's a pretty good place to start. Particularly when we compare it with the October data, which is in the lower left-hand corner, where we were asking a half cent sales tax. So that was a quarter cent renewal plus a half cent increase. We were only at 60%. So renewing the tax at the rate that it's been at, obviously is supported at a greater level. Next slide, please. This was a follow-up question, which really was designed to reinforce what might happen in the real world should the council decide to put this measure on a ballot. And that would be to say, this is just an extension, essentially. And you see when people hear that, all of a sudden they jump from 70% up to almost 75. And essentially they're hearing that this isn't the tax increase. And so that's an important piece of information. Next slide, please. The next set of questions that we asked was a very long list. It was offered in a random order, but these are all things that we might spend the money on if the council so decides. And we asked, would you be much more likely, somewhat more likely, or somewhat less likely to support the measure, knowing it would go to that particular item. When we're done with the surveying, we go back and assign numeric values to the response categories. And you see the numbers across the bottom of the slide. And we create this intensity scale, 1.31, 1.3, et cetera. And it's just a really hyper-accurate way to rank these items. It's also pretty obscure. So we also add the much more likely and the somewhat more likely together. And that's what you see reflected by the blue percentages with the arrow in between showing the range. And that puts it in context of the two-thirds majority necessary for this kind of measure to be successful. So at the top of this list, we have reducing the risk of wildfires and people are 81% more likely to support the measure knowing that the money would go for that purpose. Next is improving wildfire prevention preparedness and rapid 9-1-1 response and early alert systems to control fires. Obviously a similar issue is number one, just different wording. The same thing is true with the third item, improving wildfire prevention preparedness, including early fire alert and rapid response. Then preventing future fires, maintaining 9-1-1 emergency response. Obviously all of these are variations on the theme. Then we get to preventing closure of fire stations, rebuilding firefighting infrastructure, maintaining emergency disaster preparedness, including public health crisis, preventing advanced life support, or preventing cuts to advanced life support teams, and then providing mental health counseling and wraparound services and programs to help out rescues and their families. All of those are in our top tier, which means that they are statistically tied. I remember there was about a 4% margin of error, plus or minus, and you see that we range from 81% on the high end to 76% or the low end, but 76% is really pretty good considering we only need 66.7 to be successful. So all of these things are very important to people and score very well. Again, they're all within the margin of error. This is probably the best ranking for them that we find, but it is important to note that they're very close. Next slide, please. Then this is the remainder of the items that we asked, as I said, it was a long list, asked in a random order. You see some sample A, some sample Bs. That's where we were just saving time and doing a split sample, which we could do because we had a healthy sample size. And you see a variety of other things preventing significant reductions in the number of firefighters, paramedics, and law enforcement officers on down the list. I won't read them all in difference to the council's time, but the good news here is even in our second tier, not as important as the first tier, but still at the little bit above the two thirds threshold, even at the bottom of this list. So all of these things are important at the two thirds level or above. Next slide, please. So this is the set of informational items. These are essentially positive arguments and designed again to see what is important to voters that they know about this particular measure. The methodology is largely the same, although the scale is just truncated, there's no negative side of this equation because it's positive arguments in essence. So it's just much more likely, somewhat more likely in no effect. Everything else works the same way as it did on the previous slides. You just can't compare a 1.45 with the numbers on the previous rankings, but you can compare the percentages. And again, you notice just looking at the range here where as high as 82%, at least somewhat more likely for with fire seasons getting hotter, drier and more destructive, it's critical that we fund wildfire prevention. At the top of the list, at the bottom of the list, but very close at 79% in round numbers, the measure will remain and maintain fire protection throughout Santa Rosa and better protect lives and property. So both of those are important and everything in between. And the in between is things like, none of the money can be used for city administrator salaries, a popular accountability measure for this kind of proposal. The measure will help keep the city's fire stations open and staffed up with on-duty firefighters and paramedics. Essential purchases like groceries, medicines are exempt from the sales tax, which is obviously true. Another accountability component that is very popular. The measure will give Santa Rosa local control over local funds and cannot be taken by the state. Another accountability provision that's critical. Measure will require independent citizens oversight, yet again, another accountability measure, which are always important for these kinds of propositions. This funding will help upgrade aging emergency communication systems is important. The measure is critical for helping Santa Rosa prepare for hotter fire seasons. Another variation on an earlier argument. So all pretty strong arguments in favor of the measure. Next slide please. And again, we asked a longer list and this is the remainder of the items. The first few are in our top tier, but and are still good as well, just a little bit lower than what we saw on the first slide for the informational statements. The good news is we've got a lot of information that people wanna hear and need to hear. And then as we go into tier two, we do drop down into the sixties, but we're still above the two thirds threshold. So that's again, a really positive sign for this measure in this upcoming election. Next slide please. So at this point in the survey, we've talked about the measure, we've talked about what we might spend the money on. We've talked about some of the reasons to support it and some of the accountability provisions. And we come back to the exact same wording a second time. And you see we go from 70.2 to 76.4. So a 6.2% increase. That's certainly a very good sign and does suggest that this measure could be viable. However, there's more. Next slide please. The next set of questions is much the same methodology as the informational items, but in this particular case, these are the negative statements. So this is somebody who might be opposed to the measure, might say these kinds of things and we don't put a minus sign in front of them, make them seem bad. The higher the numbers are, the worse they are for the measure. So at the top of the negative list is the city government needs to cut waste and do a better job with taxpayer money than they currently do. Pretty standard anti-tax argument that we see almost always when we've had these kinds of measures go on the ballot. The measure locks 20 year old funding priorities in place and should be updated first at virtually the same level. Public employee salaries, benefits, and pensions are out of control. We need to contain these costs before asking for a tax increase. Again, a standard anti-tax argument. With increasing inflation, grocery and gas prices and the ongoing COVID crisis now is the wrong time to ask for a tax increase at a similar level in our top tier. The measure provides too much money for police when we should be shifting resources and programs to other social services. And then we just voted two years ago to extend our sales tax for the city for 10 years. Now they want to increase it again. Obviously a pretty standard anti-tax argument. The bad news about all of these is they are above the 33.4% threshold necessary to defeat a special sales tax measure like this. So we need to be aware of that and we need to be prepared for that. And what that probably means is that obviously the city can't spend city resources on it, but there probably needs to be an independent organization that comes together to support this should the council place it on the ballot. The second tier there are again, pretty standard anti-tax arguments for the most part, but they're not as influential as those in the top tier. So next slide please. So again, now we come back to our ballot question again, same wording as the first two versions, but it's been just right after the negatives. So we've kind of beat up the measure pretty good and we expected it to go up after the positive side and we expect it to go down again after the negative side and you see that's what exactly what happens. We had started at 70%, we went up to 76, we're now back down to 71 in around numbers, but more importantly, the world doesn't work quite in the structure of the survey and we know that. So it's important to average the second and third test because that's what happens in the real world is some people hear the positives first and then the negatives, other people hear the negatives first and then the positives and there's just no way to control that. So if we average the two of them, we're at 73.6% and that's where we think that we would likely be if both sides engage in this debate during the fall if the council puts the measure on the ballot. And we didn't know where we were gonna wind up on this. This is a pretty good place and does suggest that this measure is feasible and the council could consider putting it on the ballot but we had a fallback because we didn't know if the term until ended by voters would be too long or not. So next slide please. This was an alternative which is essentially instead of until ended by voters what if it was 20 years and that actually doesn't help us in the real world it probably doesn't hurt us either but in comparison to until ended by voters it doesn't work as well. And we see that almost always because until ended by voters empowers them to terminate at any time they want while they could certainly terminate a 20 year measure there's a process to either. It seems like this is set in stone and that they're just less likely to like that. But we still again didn't know where we're gonna wind up. So next slide please. Here is essentially the same methodology but we're just saying instead of 20 years what if it was nine years and you see here we get a bump and now we're back to 69% and it's going up. Again this just shows you the sensitivity of the different durations being at a single digit is probably better than a double digit but they're not really killers in either sense of the word. So there's some flexibility associated with that. And we still think that once you choose a duration that this measure would be feasible and you should consider moving it forward. So that's my presentation and I can turn it back to Scott or answer questions as your preference. Thanks Brian, I appreciate that detail tonight. And so yes, just wanted to before we turn it over to questions, Mayor, I just wanna just highlight a few individuals for this effort. I know a lot of people made this possible tonight to help us get to this. So I just wanted to give a couple quick shout out to the city manager's office, city attorney's office, the finance department or communications and intergovernmental relations office, office community engagement, the recreation division, the fire department, police department, the council ad hoc committee, Brian Godby, Godby research and then Charles Heath who was unable to be here tonight but he was our other consultant who helped out a lot with TPWBH. So just a huge team effort here this evening to bring you this information and recommendation. I just wanted to highlight that specifically. It really was a team effort with all these community presentations and producing the collateral materials and speaking with the community. So with that, we're happy to answer questions. We have representatives from departments here along with Brian and myself. Great, thank you so much, Scott. Thank you, Brian. I do have a question for you, Brian and it's specifically on the term of the measure. And I've said this to you before and I tend to say this a lot when we talk about these until ended by voters is a very nice phrase to have that assumes that you don't have an opponent calling it a forever tax. Have you done any polling in other jurisdictions to see how being labeled as a forever tax impacts a measure? Yeah, we have and it certainly does have an impact. There's no question about that. And I think actually, let me just verify this, the full wording of one of these measures or one of the negatives did include the forever tax idea. So it is faked into that second test because we did mention it, but we didn't spend a lot of time on it. But yeah, it certainly does. It is the number one argument that anti-tax people are likely to use for or against the until ended by voters. Having said that, we've done dozens of measures that were until ended by voters and they've been successful. So it also, I think the data says that the council has flexibility here to decide what they're comfortable with, whether that is in perpetuity or 20 years or something else. I think the measure can withstand any of those options, even including people labeling it a forever tax. Great, thank you. Any questions from council members? Okay, let's go to public comment on this item. If you're interested in providing comment on measure O sales tax renewal, go ahead and hit the raise hand feature on your Zoom and I'll start with Mr. Weeks. Good evening, Mayor Rogers, council. My name is Kellan Weeks and I am a resident of Beaver Street. I just wanna take a moment today to offer my full throw to support for measure O. It's an invaluable resource that we cannot afford to lose and I would encourage every single citizen and member of the community that is currently listening to spread the word and encourage their neighbors to support it as well. Namely, the main reason I wanted to chime in is, A, I recognize the invaluable resources that is in terms of supporting our fire stations and obviously fires and ever present danger. And so I think it's really in our best interest that we continue to fund this to the fullest extent possible to ensure the safety and ongoing operation of our community. And then more importantly, I think everyone would agree that's listening in at least for those who know, in response is probably one of the best things this community has brought forward in years and I for one am very appreciative and very pleased to see how successful it has been. And I would again, actually offer my full throw of support for allocating funding and I encourage the city council to do so tonight and ensure that it is funded in future tax distributions as well. So with that, thank you very much for your time and I appreciate everyone being here. All right, all right. Thank you, James. We'll go on to Gregory. Yes, I'm Gregory Farron. I want to join Callum in supporting the measure but I want to do exactly what he did, which suggests that I'm a little disappointed that it's being designed to simply continue the past. There are things we've learned that seem to be making Santa Rosa safer. He mentions in response, I'd like to see a whole lot more prevention, a whole lot more neighborhood building, a whole lot more efforts to, as we've brought speakers in, build the resiliency of the city either before, during or after any disasters. I think there are a lot of things that we've learned and a lot of things to be learned that a fixed in stone measure and we've seen that in the last period of time for measure O, we've all been a little disappointed that it can't really be changed very much. This is just continuing the same thing and that doesn't make me feel very good about going to the voters and asking for however you put it, here's a way to prevent you from being harmed. This is a way, I would rather see it designed in a way that says this is how you strengthen the city. This is how you build the city's capability in the neighborhoods to be able to understand what to do to help each other. That's missing in all of this. That's not being suggested at all.  And that's not good enough. That's disappointing to all of us who have been working hard to try to build this kind of city that works with each other. So I'll join Calum in saying, God, we better do something to strengthen the city, but I'm not sure this is it. All right, thank you, Gregory. I see no other hands. Did we have any voicemails? We have no voicemail public comment on this item. Yep, I'll go ahead and bring it back and see if there's any additional questions from council members. Mr. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. Are there any figures that demonstrate violence in when Mezra was passed compared to 2021 or 2020 as a comparison? Anything that shows that we've seen the effectiveness of Mezra with the percentages as they were voted? Thank you, Vice Mayor. I will see if it looks like Deputy Director Teyes is here. And also we have Captain Corcoran also from Santa Rosa Police Department on behalf of Chief Cree tonight. So I will ask them if they would like to chime in on your question. Thank you, Scott. And good evening, Mayor Rogers, Vice Mayor Elvade, some members of council, my other days here. And thank you for that question. We actually do track, we do use a results-based accountability for the violence prevention aspect of the work that we do collectively with our nonprofits. So we do have it online. We have a 2020 update report which will show you that in coalition and collaboration with our nonprofits, we've been able to turn the curve in a lot of areas as it pertains to youth and violence. And I can give you one example. One example is our Boys and Girls Club Reach Program on our website, we find that we had 150 youth that participated in that program and 99% of the youth that participated in that Mezra grant funded program were able to avoid becoming re-incarcerated or re-enrolling into the system. So the work that we are doing is highlighted and outlined on a year-to-year basis. And we strive to continue to bring that outreach to the community to know what we're working on and whether it's being effective or not. So... And is there a figure that you could give me in what year that curve commenced and if it's still holding up to this day or to the most recent? Sure, thank you. And those results are from our Choice Cycle 10 which we just closed out. And that was from 2020. So given everything that took place in 2020, a lot of our nonprofits that we work with at that point in time were funding 10 different nonprofit programs. Another one of those was LifeWorks of Sonoma County which is a mental health service provider that provides bilingual and bicultural services and actually goes to where the community is to provide those services. And they also found a 93% reduction in risk-taking behavior like gang involvement, violence and substance abuse. So we have the 2020 out now. We're working on wrapping up this 2021. We just launched our Choice Cycle 11 grant cycle. So we have eight new agencies that, I'm sorry, eight new programs that were funding summer returners. And then, but one item that we really looked at that I want to include is that we made sure to bring in, to really listen to the community. We did a 2021 community needs assessment. And one of the prominent themes that came out was the need for community who wanted culturally relevant programming and more pro-social activities for youth, especially our 13 to 15 year olds, our middle school youth who we have seen time and time again, have been incredibly impacted by the pandemic. The youth truth survey that came out gave us some of this information. But as we're navigating through this, we have had almost most of the middle schools reach out to our department because the youth needs social emotional assistance. And I was going in that direction in 2020 was the last time that we were actually able to get these figures, taking into account the pandemic and the fires that we've experienced here in Santa Rosa. Do you think the funding that we currently have or have had is sufficient to address the issues that we foresee? That's a great question. And to be completely honest, we need to expand our capacity when it comes to specifically middle school youth and the research does back up that when youth are in middle school, cognitively they're developing and that's really the age where the prevention can take place and happen. We are working with the Santa Rosa City Schools and Rosalind University. Rosalind, Rosalind, you're, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I'm blank, the school district. I'll say happy birthday in the meantime. Believe me with that. Thank you. So the Rosalind Unified School District. See, it worked my godly, it worked. It worked. Yeah, thank you. The Rosalind Unified School District, the superintendent, we are trying to really collaborate and create a coalition around services and connecting youth to services, but young people are just having a very difficult time navigating. And in this time, we are seeing the most gang involvement and gang interest that we've seen in a very long time. So that's sort of newer, that's sort of a new thing that we're coming out of from the pandemic. Thank you. And thank you for being here as well, officer. In regards to, and actually this is more of a general question, not just to you directly, sir. Homelessness, mental health issues, where would that funding come from to address that would that be out of our police budget? Or would that be out of the community bonds prevention? If something like that were to be funded? So currently our homeless funding is coming out of the ARPA funding. So what we did this past year was take the one time funding and use it for homeless services. In the past, it has come out of our real estate transfer tax. But I do want to answer the question. We can get you the numbers of crime that we can report probably for the last five or six years. I think that there's very many tentacles to your question, right? Yes. Every year we have to look at augmenting services and actually finding a new way of doing business, right? So now we're talking about ghost guns and we're talking about side shows. So we have to commend our new police chief on the tactics and approaches that he's taking. So as these new, as side shows, as gun and gang violence goes up, we have to find a new way to tackle these issues. So you may see crime go down in one area where it goes up in another area. But as we report that information to you, then we can show where there's a decrease or there's an increase and what we're using, what we're uplifting in order to reduce those. To our city attorney, how close are we to solidifying the percentages that will be presented to the voter? We do have that in the draft ordinance and I wanted to clarify. So it still is 40% to, it's now entitled Law Enforcement, Police and Public Safety, 40% to firefighting paramedics, wildfire risk reduction a