hat come in because there may be federal funding that makes that nexus or where is that nexus because NEPA I know just from the nightmare of dealing with NEPA all the time that there has to be a federal nexus so there has to either be a federal permit federal funding what have you my understanding is that the federal nexus is the application for section 8 vouchers but I would note that that is a separate process it's not part of this application so they would need to comply with NEPA in order to secure an agreement with I suppose county housing department for section 8 vouchers so I'm just curious so the NEPA review would be done by the county housing authority then my understanding is that the city would do it but again it would be a separate process from this application okay thank you any questions from council members on this at all you're good okay then take a roll call vote on this motion the motion is made by council member Cummings and seconded by council member Brown and Bonnie why don't we go ahead and do a roll call vote council member Watkins is absent voluntary Johnson Brown Cummings Boulder Vice Mayor Brunner no Mayor Myers I'm a no on this too and I just also for the record I really want to be able to look at the additional materials that are going to be provided and I definitely look forward to the December 14th meeting where we can continue discussing this and so my no is based on that interest in new materials and continuing to the December 14th for that discussion okay we will go ahead and move on do you need a motion at all or no what do you need action taken you need another motion right the motion that's the staff motion is not if you didn't do that when you have to do something else oh you're right sorry I'm losing my mind the glass box is kind of distracting me okay so that motion fails and so we will have to come back and I would look to a motion for on the floor for this item council member boulder I'd like to make a motion as it's written in the packet to consider rescinding the decision to deny the 831 water street project and direct staff to review the additional materials provided by the applicant to determine if the project can be brought into substantial compliance with the city's objective zoning subdivision and design standards to consider scheduling follow up public oversight hearing at the December 14 city council meeting and three direct staff to complete the senate bill 35 objective standards consistency review in light of the new information I have a comment if I could the recommended action was that the council consider taking these actions the motion should be to rescind the decision scheduled to follow up public oversight meeting and direct staff okay thank you thank you Tony okay and vice mayor Brutner okay okay so we have a motion to rescind the decision schedule a follow up public oversight hearing on December 14 at the city at the December 14 2021 city council member meeting excuse me and then direct staff to complete the senate bill 35 review objective standards consistency review we'll go ahead and do a roll call vote did I capture that correctly Tony okay thank you council member comments on item number three which is direct staff to complete the senate bill objective standards consistency review is that for all subsequent SB 35 projects was that just for this project because I know we had direction at other meetings that city council would be that objective standard review committee this is not intended to change any existing council policy the council would still conduct the public oversight hearing at its December 14 meeting but the staff would complete the objective standards analysis and present it to the council at that time thank you council member just to confirm the sort of review of this project related to the new information right so it's a application it's not in any way affect anything else thank you I just wanted to make a comment that I understand the move that is being made here and I too look forward to looking at the new information I just believe that that should come to us in a new application given the the course that this is taken so I just wanted to be clear about that thank you okay so we'll go ahead and do a roll call vote council member Watkins is absent Callentary Johnson aye Brown no no Boulder aye Mayor Meyers aye that motion passes in favor and two against we will move on to item number 19 now this is a proposal to create a city ad hoc committee for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an item you want to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen if you are planning to speak you're going to want to press star nine on your phone we're going to make a few comments the three council members who brought this forward will make a very very short presentation but just make some comments and then I'm going to take it out to see if there's questions from council members and then we'll bring it out to public comments so if you do want to comment please go ahead and get yourself in the queue for that this is a proposal to create a city council ad hoc committee charge to investigate and provide the full council direction whether to establish an at large directly elected mayor direction regarding establishment of future primary or general election timelines and or consideration of ranked choice voting within potential council districts and three advise the council on other matters related to the city charter as they relate to the implementation of a by district voting based structure I guess I can all start this off and I'll look to council member walkins is not here today has any additions to just a brief discussion of this item we brought this item forward primarily after again looking through really a massive really a monumental change that's ahead of us due to the California voting rights act we as a council have been deliberating on this item for gosh almost I think two years now when we first received the lawsuit that we were out of compliance with the California voters rights act for the public many communities throughout California are under similar legal litigation by the by primarily one one law firm primarily but with members of their communities signing on to complete this litigation to have cities in California really consider representation based on the demographics of the census and have those demographics represented on the city councils for those towns we have initiated this through our process of going towards this district election through a settlement agreement that was completed with the litigants we have established a timeline and a process to complete this work with the idea of having seven districts seven district proposal for the city council to move forward with and I believe remind me city manager I believe by March or April correct yes that's right to make a decision so on the maps and the districts they could people who might be interested in running for the various vacancies would have information that they needed so this process has been underway thank you for a number of months we've held a number of city council meetings as well as we've initiated I think at least three public meetings on this one of which was an actual public hearing held concurrent with city council meeting and we three members that brought this forward in addition to those outreach we've also heard personally from various members of our community to investigate the other matters that may come along with the district one being looking at and bringing forward to this council an analysis of what an at large strictly elected mayor may look like for this community secondly is looking at how will our district elections be governed as they move forward and one of the a couple of different things have been brought forward in actually comments by the council as well as the community one is looking at the use of primaries potentially in the process of looking at district elections the other mentioned several months ago when we had a public hearing was ranked choice voting and that's another thing that could be looked at by this ad hoc committee and then finally the third would be to look at the actual city charter revisions that would be necessary to actually look at a possible recommendation on those two items I just mentioned as well as the basic premise of implementing the by district voting base structure so we feel that the public process is important the demographers doing the work we also feel like there's a time sensitive things where we don't want to be working as a community and adjusting our election process over several election cycles and over multiple years so we're bringing this forward today to just get support hopefully to do a process also to look at these other questions and then actually bring back something as quickly as the first meeting in January if we can so that we our council colleagues can have these conversations sooner rather than later because these are questions that are out in the community right now I know we receive some communications from the community and I think we all sit in probably a little bit of the same place in terms of being forced to go to districts and whether that's going to be a good thing or a bad thing for Santa Cruz but the fact is and Tony can mention this again we're up against this decision with not a lot of good legal basis to mount a fight against it at least one that's been successful in any other city and that can come with quite a bit of cost possibly even into the millions in trying to fight some of these to fight this process so that's really the intent of this is to put a set of people together do this work rather quickly and get you some materials for our colleagues to continue to discuss so that we have this kind of discussion concurrent with the districts that are being drawn and managed through the demographer based through the demographer led process which is really what needs to be done to get to the districts for 2022 Tony I don't know if you have anything to add in terms of all of that but you've tracked on some of this and I know we've had a conversation about this item so I'd see if you had anything to add no that that sums it up very well I'm happy to answer any questions or respond to comments of council members and I just add that Deputy City Attorney Cassie Bronson has been working a lot on these district elections matters and she's also available to answer questions for me. Thank you, thanks Cassie for being here. I'm happy to answer any questions on the item. Yeah, thank you I appreciate the intention here and I do recognize that there are a lot of questions circulating in the community about what this is going to mean and we have a relatively constrained process specifically related to the districting because this was initiated through a potential legal challenge trying to be polite about how this came before us. I guess I and we previously had intended to have a more thorough community conversation where the charter review committee was established and members of the community were appointed to that committee that work was curtailed unfortunately we have not since that time reinvigorated that body or tried to reestablish some kind of space to have this conversation and so I worry about the short turnaround at this time I guess I'm wondering what you all thought about that given the these are really fundamental issues and if we want to make a decision to perhaps put something on the ballot for a charter amendment it's very difficult to envision doing that having one maybe two conversations at the city council without some additional work and community engagement so I guess I'm just wondering this work getting us to a place where we will could make those kinds of decisions in a very quick turnaround I'm just I saw Rosemary lean forward I think what we envisioned we've done some research there's a number of cities who are in the same boat we are and several that are a little bit ahead of us so we've looked at charter amendments that have been brought forward and voted on some have been successful some of them haven't we've also just looked at how communities have assessed you know whether or not a directly elected at large mayor is something that people need to look at what are the duties of that I mean there's a lot of questions on that so I think really what the intent of our ad hoc committee our community you know also has expressed some members at least I've talked to is you know that this can be disruptive to have your sort of election process influx over several cycles and so I think our intent is to utilize some of the work that's been done in other cities working with Tony and Cassie to you know look at charter amendment language that we can bring back to you sooner rather than later you know explore the primary piece to it kind of put in writing some of these other questions that are out there do some work around those and come with some discussion really some discussion proposals rather than sort of putting all this on the back burner and that's really I think the intent is that you know we don't you know we don't sort of try to do this two three you know two three election cycles from now because I think we did learn that most communities if they're going to make changes in their districts you know you try to do your package as quickly and as closely integrated as possible otherwise it gets very confusing to the public you know if you go from you know seven to six or what have it you know plus I think we also want to have a conversation with you all transparently in front of our constituents about you know what this is really going to mean and if you did have a directly elected mayor what would how would the council need to operate in that kind of setting you know because even though that might be a directly elected at large position or you know elected position without the rest of those colleagues you know you're not going to get a lot done as just the mayor so really helping us have some conversations around the dynamics of what our governance looks like into the future and so you know it's hard to do that in a compressed time frame but as you know we've had a lot going on this year and I think it's just an expression to try to catch up to the process around the seven districts which has been a little intangible and not super available to folks absolutely can I ask a quick follow up question sure and then I'll go to council member Golder or did you want to respond I just wanted to say that I think in closed session all of us agreed that we didn't like how we got where we are like we don't like being threatened and we didn't like that we were having to only talk about it behind closed doors and so I think the fact that we can open it up in putting it on the agenda and having updates from the committee I mean other than the options that we put on there I didn't see a whole heck of a lot of voice I think and I'm not alone in a concern that if we just went to seven council members there'd be actions in the city and things we know it would be you know very divisive so I mean I think we all we've talked about this idea of a charter amendment to elect a and that large mayor would help in unification of the council moving forward with this different system that we're not accustomed to and so I think that with everything that we've been working on this kind of has been put to the back burner and honestly I haven't thought about it unless it's been brought up in closed session packets but like the bottom line is the clock is ticking and we're going to have to get there and so I would just like for us to be able to take some control as a as a as a governing body to make those decisions you know and that that was kind of our conversation Thanks I do have a follow up I guess I'll just in response to that I just want to say I just wish this had come to us much sooner and I recognize that we've been busy but I felt like the general tenor of our conversations have been well we just aren't going to be able to deal with that and so I was going along with that kind of what seemed to be the general will of the council and city leadership and so it's just a little frustrating to now get it without a lot of time to kind of work through what information will be collected who's going to be weighing in and all of that it's a bummer but we are where we are my follow up question and I'm asking this my questions about community engagement seem to be triggering strong responses and so I want to be really clear that I really just want to know in terms of your work is the intention to create space that's available for members of the community to speak with you and how will that happen and are you doing targeted outreach or will they be advertised if you're going to have meetings and just some of that about the process would be helpful yeah I mean I guess I would like to comment real quick and Renee can jump into a little bit on your frustration about I shared the same frustration and I think what we've found in the last few months is staff leadership that has said yes let's ask this question frankly and so I think we were all a little bit frustrated about how we were going to do the process and there was not a lot of it was a very strict process that was presented to us sort of a cookie cutter sort of this is how you do it is how we get to the finish line and then we'll figure everything else afterwards and so I think I guess for me I wasn't really comfortable with that and I did want to try to like you know kind of push try to push a little bit to get more communication and more discussion with the community if we get approval to do the ad hoc committee we certainly will you know come back as a committee and try to operationalize something pretty quickly and you know the clock is ticking but we would I would anticipate and I think we've all anticipated as much outreach as possible obviously we want to have something for people to work with so not speaking too much in generalities but really looking at specifics looking at maybe what other cities have done and then you know really pulling on different groups and organizations that we can access as quickly as possible I know Democratic Women's Club for example just did a session on this so looking at you know the other Democratic clubs in town you know wherever we can get that access to with these discussions I think is our intent to the extent that we can and it's a tight timeline and it'll be but again we may come to the conclusion that if we move this fast we need more time or we may get there and as a council feel comfortable with putting something on the ballot for the voters to think about they again then just kind of become part of the process you know and taking another step on this important governance question so that's kind of what I see happening I don't know council member Golder and yeah council member any of you I guess and first I want to thank you all for bringing this forward and I also share some of the frustration that was expressed because I felt like earlier this year we were having these discussions the intent was to kind of focus on as council member Brown said if we try to focus on all three of these at the same time it could be a bit overwhelming for people and so we really wanted to focus on the district elections and I totally get because I had these questions and then come to me about what are we going to do about the mayor is it going to rotate, is it not do we have two council members or per district do we have one and so trying to focus that conversation just on the districts made sense but I also understand there's a lot of other questions out there that need to be addressed and yeah it seemed like previously recommendations we had received were to kind of move with one piece at a time and now there's rationale behind why we need to do more at the same time I will share that I'm pretty concerned and maybe I'll ask a couple questions to see if I can get some clarification one is I'm wondering and this doesn't have to come to us today but I'm wondering I know that during the first community meeting that Ralph had put on regarding district elections with the community I think these two topics were brought up my understanding was that they were going to be discussed briefly at that meeting they weren't going to go into very much detail but I'm just wondering if if that happened and if so if there's any kind of comments we might be able to get from what came out of that meeting hi I'm thinking you're making a reference to the September 18th meeting is that correct public hearing that happened there was a council setting and then there was a follow up I think in late August though my recollection of that meeting which I intended either I intended all of it but frankly I don't remember at this point was that it wasn't very well attended and this issue did not come up in any substantive way that's my recollection you know I can I can jump in here Rosemary hi I think I was at that meeting and it was before the actual public hearings there was sort of a less formal meeting that I did with Ralph Demarca where some of these ideas were sort of discussed and it was mostly an educational opportunity for a lot of the public and explain some of these concepts to them it appeared to me that most of the comments were along the lines of do we really have to go to district elections and sort of those sorts of comments and questions rather than sort of getting into the intricacies of how many people feel really strongly about the directly elected mayor for example but I think it was actually a really nice educational opportunity for the public and those members of the public who did attend to sort of ask me questions about the legalities and Ralph was there too so I did attend that meeting yes thank you Kelsey and then I guess a follow-up question because I'm really trying to see if I understand what's going to be happening in January so is what is the idea that when this comes back to us in January there will be a motion of whether we move towards at-large mayor and district elections or is it to create the community outreach kind of process because I also can be a question for Rosemary I'm just wondering the staff's role in this because we're moving into the holiday season and I know a lot of council members there might be council members going back to Chicago since I didn't get a chance to spend Christmas with my family since 2019 I know that's probably somewhere for a lot of people who have been constrained in terms of travel and spending time with their families because of COVID and just knowing that people are going to be really focusing on family and holidays I think it might be difficult to get the type of engagement that we want and so just really trying to understand timeline and process and also the staff because I know that the city goes dark I do think that the issue of staff support is important we do have a person who's assigned to Casey Heemard it's been assigned on the district election item and she had some continuity with that group that was organized in 2018 to look at the governor's structure or 2017 whatever it was but she had some engagement in that group so she's been assigned to work on that particular issue but you're right we've got holiday closure sort of coming up beginning on the 20th and there will be relatively little going on in terms of staff support available during that period of time but I don't know what the council group that has been working on this is prepared to do and when they're prepared to bring it so the conversation Donna and I had had a lot to do with that particular timeline. And I think councilmember Cummings I think we could I mean it does say in the staff report trying to get this something back to us so we can continue to have this conversation by the first meeting in January but to your comments the first meeting or the first meeting in February to give ourselves it's in the staff report it's not actually in the agenda report I should say in the last very last paragraph there but I think and councilmember Golder let me know I think our intent is to get something second meeting in January or first meeting in February and the reason we would sort of put the pedal on the metal in a sense is that if we do after all the outreach and work if we're starting to get what looks to be consensus or at least some potential support we can draft that charter amendment and try to put it on the ballot so we just need to we won't be able to get there if we don't sort of also acknowledge the ballot schedule that we're still looking at so that was kind of the intent with kind of the accelerated timeline more so than you know trying to just trying to get some work done that I think I feel like we sort of missed a better timeline for because you know we just you know it's just where we are so that's kind of where but I think we can back that up to your point first meeting in February or something we shoot for then I guess a follow up question and maybe staff could also weigh in on this in terms of getting an item on the I guess is the intention to have this on the June ballot or the November because it seems like if we put this on the November ballot with the district election questions that would give us a lot of time you know it could be if we don't have to for example vote to put the charter amendment on the November ballot until like June that could provide you know this big window of time when the council can that group and you know maybe there's another community group that could really do that outreach and get us that information back and I have a really clear transparent process so yeah I guess the question is you know it seems like if it's June it's gonna be really tight if it's November there's a lot more flexibility and I feel like I'd be more comfortable that would go on the ballot in June if we move in that direction but I'd like to hear from staff and then any council comments on that because I just like really for me when I first saw this item the questions that came to mind were who we're gonna do outreach with it's the holidays that might not be staff support like and then you know what is the process and I think we laid that out very clear when it came to the redistricting we have these meetings on these days we can weigh in and without that information I'm a little I was reserved when I first read this but through our discussion I'm becoming a little bit more comfortable but would like to kind of hear about what kind of flexibility there is and when I'm just gonna get placed on yeah I think one of the probably one of the first things that the committee will want to dive into is looking at the timing questions you know what is feasible is there is it you know how feasible would it be if it was the November ballot versus the November ballot and that will in part guide the recommendation that would come back to the City Council and then I think there's just a lot of thinking has to go into if the transition to an at-large elected mayor is going to occur that's not the only decision that the council is going to have to confront what will the mayor's authority be how long will the term be you know and all of that will have to be incorporated into a charter amendment that would be placed before the voters so I think the June primary election is a tight timeline and it really depends on you know how quickly the committee is able to do its work and bring recommendations back to the City Council and to the public for you know for discussion and debate Council Member Brown thank you just a couple of follow-up questions which are have been on my mind for a while and I've sort of just again as I said been kind of going along going with the flow that's been laid out as the recommended course of action under the circumstances I wonder given that these are very important questions and I appreciate the interest and the willingness to put time into and trying to work through them and I know that if we have districts in November at least with respect to any of these changes that are pretty fundamental to the electoral process that would have to be handled prior to November if we are not going to put seven districts on for three out of seven in November if we're only going to end up having six districts so there's the timing question and I wonder also given that the initial attorney is now been disbarred in at least one state and as far as I can tell the current attorney on the case is very difficult to reach because there's no public information available that is a working phone number for example I'm not sure where that attorney is at and so I just wonder given that and given the fact that the census was late this year if there might be a possibility of negotiating additional time for making the decision around districts if we want to take this route and we need until November to really lay that out what the possibilities might be and I guess I'm mostly asking my colleagues here if that's something that you would even entertain if it was possible because I think that this is is really important and I don't want to have it be so rushed that we say never mind we can't do it and then we just kind of live with what we get and I'll look to Cassie or Tony but maybe answer the if you don't mind councilman around maybe I'll have them weigh in on the answer and then vice mayor I saw you I don't know if it's Cassie or Tony or both of you Tony you want to go I would say it's council like us to communicate with the plaintiff's attorney that is something the council could have our office to do if we I just feel that if we just fail to move forward with the district elections along the timeline that we're going on now we do sort of open ourselves up to a risk of potentially somebody else swooping in and making claims against the city but I would I wonder if Tony has anything else to add to that Tony did you have anything to add to that sorry my computer just died no I think that's right we will I guess the only thing I would add is that we've not had any problems communicating with the attorney and we have contact information and I don't know what other inquiries have been made but I imagine that an attorney in that situation would be leery of talking to members of the public who is called to ask questions if I can I understand that I just I just wanted to let you know that we're not not upon my recommendation members of the public have attempted to reach the attorney and their disconnected phone numbers so it just to me kind of felt like what are we dealing with with our attorney that's not really on top of it once again I just I don't know that's not my primary reason for asking this question the you know the I think the primary rationale is the census in data is coming late we are under the gun for that reason and if we want to make some of the have this conversation and make some of these other decisions we do need the time had we done this sooner we wouldn't you know I wouldn't be asking this but we didn't and so it's just a question it's I'm not trying to disrupt the process I'm not trying to stall the process I personally would like this to be over sooner as soon as possible but I do feel like it's our responsibility to you know oversee the process in the most thoughtful and you know efficacious way that we can any other comments or questions from council members sorry sorry that's okay so my question is my understanding of the proposal to create this City Council ad hoc committee is to explore some of this information and return to council with direction and that would include timing the timing issue that council member Brown has brought up and I was also actually wondering I seem to remember previously in a discussion with Cassie Bronson when we talked about November the reason going to seven districts was simply because there were seven council members and it would not require a charter amendment but anything else requiring a charter amendment would require a vote and so the timing does come into question with we can't wait until November for that possibility correct without an extension of the settlement so the path that the council and the path that the city is on right now is our demographer is going to be drawing seven districts and those and that is what will get in the drawings and that's that's what will be out for the city to consider you know early 2022 it is possible that the council could approve moving to seven districts seven districts and then at a later time propose a charter amendment to have this directly elected mayor and also change to six districts that would require redistricting we have talked to our consultant and he said that is possible and that is something that's not outside the lens of things that he's done before but it would be a redistricting that would occur shortly after our initial districting we do have I do believe in 2022 we have three council seats that are up for re-election and so those could proceed along the approved seven district map and then you know it's possible to would be possible to sort of make a charter amendment do a redistricting and then have an election of the other three districts it's you know not an ideal situation a little bit complicated but this is something we talked about with our demographer and it's possible but the path we're going on right now is seven districts that was my follow-up question that the idea of most a charter amendment from November versus pre okay thank you okay Vice Mayor Brunner can you take over the meeting for one minute I want to talk to somebody in the back of the room is there any other questions on this at this point and I think we could look for a motion public public public public public public so let's see for members of the public if you're interested in commenting on a proposal to create a city ad hoc committee please line up to my left if you are in person and I don't see any members of the public in person to speak on this so if you are streaming the meeting online or streaming via community TV please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand and when it is your time to speak you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted the timer will then be set to two minutes so I will go ahead and look out to see if there are any members of the public with their hands raised on this item I do not see any members of the public their hands raised okay so give it one more second alright so we will take it back to council for deliberation and council member golder you had your hand up I'm happy to make a motion to create a discussion about the full council with one discretion to establish an establishment of future primary or general election timelines and consideration of rank choice voting and three advice council on other matters related to the city charter as they relate to the implementation of my district voting base structure okay so we had a first from council member golder did I read the wrong thing I did it didn't I I was going to ask you to clarify that I didn't bring my glasses down I was zooming all the way in I'm so sorry guys I read the subject can I also have you council member golder you're very quiet sorry I don't fit in this big chair okay I'm going to make a motion as it's written in the agenda packet do I have to read it you do not thank you council member for future reference for future reference you can say I move the recommended action thank you Tony who was the second I was okay and Bonnie can we do a roll call I'm sorry council member Cummings yeah I guess I'll just ask again so the because I'm really concerned because the way it's written it sounds like that over the break this group is going to have some community meetings during the holiday season and then we'll be making a recommendation on whether we should have an at large mayor rank choice voting and primaries at the meeting in January and I'm supportive of having these discussions I think it's really important that we start moving into having these discussions with the community but having a decision brought back early in the year especially during the time when so many people are likely not to be available that's the biggest concern I have right now and I mean I'd be comfortable with establishing this committee to bring back a process for you know having these discussions and outlining you know the groups that they're and I don't think that this prevents the group from starting to meet with some community groups right like if the Democratic women's club has reached out and has expressed that they've discussed this and want to meet with the subcommittee that's fine you know if there's other groups that can be engaged with I think that's great and if that information can come back along with the process I'd feel more comfortable with that because I'm just really concerned with the amount of time and people's availability during the holiday season to have to be you know really truly engaged in this and the transparency around the process so I wonder if and I don't know if the staff's recommendation can be put up on the screen or the sorry the subcommittee recommendation can be put up on the screen I'm trying to figure out a way to a way that I can feel comfortable with supporting this because for the reasons expressed I do understand the need to have these discussions but I mean for all the things that we brought up today I'm just really concerned with having a direction in terms of move forward with at-large mayor at the first meeting in January. In the motion there's nothing about and it would be brought forward it's not part of the motion it was just really part of the discussion and I think I was looking that way so I'll go counter Johnson and Brown. Those are some really valid concerns and I had the same questions and didn't ask and what I heard was you members of the potential subcommittee heard that and that we wouldn't be bringing it back at the first meeting in January we'd extend it out a little bit further so I just wanted to clarify if there's potential if we brought something back in January at the first meeting in January for the process so here's the groups where we've confirmed outreach to use of their people's democratic they were going to hold it so we can do some work during the holidays to potentially identify a set of meeting dates people who we can outreach to and we can bring you an update if that would work in the first meeting in January and then you would know the trajectory ahead in terms of all that and then we would shoot basically for trying to get a lot of that work done second meeting in January or first meeting in February if we go to the November ballot and I think that's why for me I want to try to understand and to Tony's point if we want to go to March we just need to understand what that looks like so I think that's something that we don't want to jump over as a council I'd like to have that conversation with the council to say okay here's why we wouldn't do it go in March here's why we would go in June in terms of a charter met before the voters so I think that's I completely understand your concerns and you know never don't really want to work all over the holidays but that's kind of as you said the timeline is a little bit it's sort of driven by some of these realities around ballot stuff council member Hanan so that would be great and I think really for us but also for the public to just have a sense of like here's what we've done so far we're going to work for whatever it is two weeks or a month and we are going to meet on these dates just so people know what's happening and feel like they have access to the information and to the conversation that would definitely make me feel more comfortable about turning around I wonder if I could add a comment briefly it seems to me like what the council is discussing at this point is really doing the homework to prepare a range of options for the public to consider so I don't think it's envisioned that that the committee would be bringing a recommendation to the council to adopt at the first time it's presented really what you need to have in front of you is what's realistic what are the options what are the potential good points and bad points associated with each so that you have enough information to have a meaningful dialogue with members of the public on those issues so the outreach I think but I think it's premature until you have a better sense of what exactly is being proposed thank you for that council member commentary I just wanted to add that we not only rely on the three members of the ad hoc committee that we all do our outreach and as we do but just really be intentional and reach out to the community and do this work with you so that we get as much input as possible in a short amount of time that we have great so I think what we would propose is that I think to Tony's point it would be both I think council member Cummings sort of looking at these three things but actually developing a little bit of those of that package but then in the very first meeting in January getting some feedback from the council on along with the list of referrals from all of you on how we should do the outreach but then we need to have something to outreach about we can't have a general conversation about for example the directly elected mayor what are the duties of that person so I think we want to have a little bit of meat on the bone so that our discussion with the community actually gets a response to some of the options that we'll be analyzing if that makes sense that being said I'm wondering if as a friendly amendment we could add two points one would be to return with a process and timeline for community engagement and then the other would be to add in addition to what's on there the reestablishment of the charter review committee and I bring that last point up because it's like there's going to be a lot of time to if it seems like these conversations are going to be much more lengthy and it might be in our interest to reestablish the citizens charter review committee so that if this is going to be a longer timeline than we anticipate and people in the community have expressed they would like us to make district elections and have this be a longer conversation it might be worth rather than this becoming a political issue the community plays a large role and we establish a charter review committee because there's a number of when that body was together these topics were all on there but there were a number of other topics and it might be that if we want to move towards addressing everything we have a citizen so it's just putting an option on there as well for that to happen first I want to see where the so I'm not familiar with the charter review amendment committee so I'm just trying to look I'm looking on the city's website right now trying to see what it was and if someone wants to tell me more about it and maybe I can read it while you guys are asking your questions I'm happy to explain it to you okay so I'm not exactly sure what year it was established I know it was before I was on the council but there was a committee that was established I think when David Terrazas was mayor and actually Sandy you might be able to speak to it because you were actually on the council at this time so maybe it would be better for you to sure so we established a charter review committee that was comprised of members of the community each council member nominated someone and then we had a few additional at large positions they began to meet Casey Heemard actually was the staff person for that doing a great job they began to gather information about these different possibilities ranked choice directly elected at large mayor were included it included other considerations such as the number of city council seats pay for doing this job and a few other items proportional representation was also discussed and there's a small group of people in the community who are really interested in us exploring that possibility as well so they were all kind of in the mix the committee began to meet and it was for a variety of reasons shuttered and my expectation was that it would be revisited and that didn't happen and our previous city manager pretty much said no, that's not happening so there's for fiscal reasons that that was not something that the city wanted to consider and that was part of a grand jury report that sort of got set up to just they know we're done, we're not doing we're not continuing down this road but I thought that they were generating some really productive conversation there was a lot of disagreement there was a lot of strong opinions and they were working together to try to find a way forward to have that conversation and bring us the council a package of perhaps not unifying but options so we did not get the benefit of more thorough deep dive into the possibilities and what the implications would be and looking at other jurisdictions and so that's kind of it was a process that I think had a lot of potential it did it was a significant project for the city and if we really I would love to see that happen realistically I understand under the timelines that we've got it's difficult to think about and I wanted to ask councilmember Cummings when you say reestablish I believe you're talking about consideration of reestablishing the charter amendment these are all if you in your work that we need to do here that maybe that's something you might include as a recommendation to us or at least consider an alternative way forward or a longer term process if it seems like that would be thank you that totally helped me understand and I was looking it over and I saw they had just only a couple meetings it looks like I'm not sure why it ended but I think consider reestablishing the charter amendment totally reasonable to me your intent? I was going to say the intent of this was that since it says the subcommittee will be charged with exploring and returning to council their recommendations that's kind of what it's under their recommendations on transitioning their recommendations on reestablishing the charter amendment committee in addition to the recommendations that you all would bring around mayor voting all these that included because it seems like that's just another approach to addressing these issues is whether we should have a citizens committee and leave this charge and really make it so that it's not a political issue that it's really citizen driven they're coming to us there's been a bunch of outreach so it's just a way of trying to provide another option for moving down this path the maker of the motions is okay with it and the seconder is too did you have a comment? that was exactly my comment it said reestablish the charter amendment committee but I was curious if that meant return with some recommendation whether or not that should be reestablished it sounds like that charter review committee information specific to this topic might be helpful context for ad hoc committee so I'm sure after exploring this topic those considerations will be brought forward if I could just jump in briefly sure I was involved with the charter review committee I think they met twice and I want to say it was in the August and September of 2018 November 1, 2019 thank you in any event I saved all that information that was reviewed and we'll be happy to discuss that with the committee so that you can evaluate whether or not to bring a recommendation back to reestablish something like that okay thank you if I could just put in one plea I'm not going to ask that it be formalized in a friendly amendment but we've received communications from a group that is interested in pursuing or looking at evaluative proportional representation it's a model that's used in mostly in Europe it's very different from the way that we do our elections but I think it's really interesting and I think that there's some things about it that might just kind of generate some expansive conversation about what we can do to engage our community in the electoral process and ensure that votes aren't diluted I mean that's really what this has driven this right is dilution of the vote and you know lack of representation by certain interest groups protected classes so I'm just going to put in a plea to take a call from the folks who are interested in talking with you about evaluative proportional representation and hearing more about it great thanks thank you I just get clarification is it the charter amendment committee or charter review committee charter review I think it was called charter review that's probably right can we do a roll call though good morning did you call for public comment yet I didn't put it out to public comment oh no it's uh Sonya brought it out to public comment Sonya yeah Sonya had it alright okay right? yeah councilmember Watkins is absent Callentary Johnson Brown Cummings Boulder Vice Mayor Brunner that motion passes unanimously okay we have a little decision making here to do we are an hour and ten minutes ahead of time and next we have the updated water rate structure and establishing the revised drought cost recovery fees to implement to be implemented in response to a council declared water shortage emergency rosemary is this noticed at this time could we move into this item and then it's noted for after 10 a.m. this morning so we're good so question for council is do you want to take a long break and then come back or would you like to keep moving we have one other item behind this which is the election of our mayor and our vice mayor and then we have a roll comment so we could breeze through this and get out early this evening does that sound okay I was just don't you want to prolong your hearing my surface it's like I want to I want to get on one of those back boards that put you back the other way okay just a quick remind just for council members because we're learning how to do this when we leave or when we're in this room our mics are still live all the time now rather than getting turned off this is just like a testing they're testing the mics so if we have another hybrid meeting that wouldn't be the case oh it's just for now okay but is the public hearing us there was somebody that texted though they were having trouble hearing yeah but then the sound went off people just aren't speaking loud enough I think it's a zoom to zoom issue not they're okay hearing us got it for the most part okay we will reconvene and move on to item number uh 20 20 where's my can you just go under my computer next up on the agenda is item number 20 adopt a resolution establishing an updated water rate structure and establishing revised drought cost recovery fees to be implemented in response to a council declared water shortage emergency for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an item you want to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen if you so I'll go ahead and we are going to have a very short presentation by our city manager who is also our water director on this item and then we will go ahead and have questions from council and then we will take it out to the public and my understanding is this is actually a formal public hearing right for this so guide me as needed rosemary with regard to that in terms of how people you know need to how much time on the public hearing turn it over to rosemary minard okay great thank you very much I'm going to just give you a very brief couple of introductory comments and then I'm going to introduce I'm going to introduce Nancy fan who is our consultant from Raftalos consultants and she's going to go through a brief presentation that is has a lot of slides in it but one of the reasons I'm showing this particular document this is our public notice for the prop 218 hearing required and this document actually had something like eight pages in it and it includes a number of you know quite a bit of information about how we did the rates and then tables that you'll see familiar from the presentation you're about to see that has all of the rate proposals in them so the details of a lot of the slides that Nancy's going to show in her presentation very briefly are have been out there in the community since early October and the process for today is a is a is a public hearing it's a required public hearing to for the council to receive comments on the rates and to acknowledge the receipt of any protest receives if the protest receives are 50 percent of the total accounts plus one which would be a number over 12,000 in our case then the council is not authorized to proceed with the proposed rates so with that I'm going to turn it over to Nancy and allow her to share her screen with a panelist so I think you should be able to see her momentarily and have her share her screen and run through this presentation with you take it away Nancy that's good thank you so much Rosemary can everyone see my screen and hear me clearly yes we can thank you okay so good evening city council members of the public and thank you rosemary for the introduction I'm Nancy again and I'll be guiding us through the presentation today which starts with a little primer on the rate study process and then we'll dig into the numbers so that means the financial impact the proposed water rates and then the impact of these changes to the city's customers so the rate study process kicked off early last year and reviews how the city charges for water service the water utilities typically conduct rate studies as an industry best practice to maintain the utilities financial health today and also to determine the best path forward to meet financial obligations in the future so rate studies are often performed about every five years or so so the city's water rate study that we're looking today looks at past present and future so what the costs have been to provide water service what the water department's financial position is today and what needs to be accomplished in the future and how much that's expected to cost so the rate structure not only addresses what the city needs to provide to provide safe and reliable water service but how it can recover those costs by looking at the rate structure itself the city's water rate study followed these four major steps that are outlined on this slide the rate setting framework determines what the city wants to achieve from a financial policy for service and rate design process determines how to barely distribute those costs between your customers the financial plan review determines how much rate revenue the city needs to meet objectives and finally the rate adoption process involves the final report and proposed rates and the public hearings that we're all at meaningfully engage the public that meets the needs of not only the utility but also the customers and the community that serve so engaging the public throughout this process has been very critical and was made possible by the integrated efforts of the city council the water commission customer panels and water department staff so since the start of the last the study last direction at nine water commission meetings and two city council meetings we shared information through city communication channels and hosted eight customer panels to glean what matters most to the city's customers and then more recently property owners were notified of the proposed changes in the mails notice that Rosemary just showed on the screen earlier and today we have the public hearing to consider formally adopting the new rate structure and rate as a result of this process so one of the first things that we did in the study was to seek guidance from the city council and the water commission to determine the values based policies and objectives that would guide the study the council and commission established the following goals that serve kind of as their study north star and those include ensuring that water is affordable for essential use ensuring that we maintain transparency and equity for capital and water reliability needs and providing sufficient revenues to meet operating capital and customer service level needs and providing policy objectives that would guide the process we then looked at what this desired outcomes would be that led us to look at changes to the water rate structure which is how the city charges for water service so these changes are designed to make it simpler for the city's customers to understand what goes into their monthly water bills allows customers to easily manage their water use with costs to serve them based on the most recent available data and to ensure that water for essential indoor use remains affordable for everyone in the community so once we have determined the goals and objectives of the rate study we then move on to the financial impact the rate study assumes water use of approximately 2.4 billion gallons per year which is based on usage from fiscal year 2019 and so the reason that we use this historical year to estimate ongoing water consumption is to avoid capturing the shorter term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic for the entire study period the revenue needs consist of three different components so we have the O&M or operating component which funds the operating cost of the water utility the capital slash infrastructure reinvestment or IRF component which funds project cost and debt service and then the rate stabilization fee which is used to fund the rate stabilization reserve okay so if the city did not raise water rates we estimated that the water department collects approximately 39.3 million dollars under the previous consumption of 2.4 billion gallons of water used per year the proposed financial plan resulted in revenue needs of 42 million dollars and I'll use my cursor to circle that right there for the first year which is a 6.9 percent increase in rate revenue so just keep in mind that these revenues don't include the rate stabilization fee which I'll go over in a little bit for those from the proposed drought cost recovery fees that will be discussed later on in this presentation. Outlining the total revenue needs to fund operating and capital costs over the next five years we then smooth out the rate revenues in the latter four years to avoid kind of major rate strikes throughout the study period so the revenue needs determine how much rate revenue the city requires whereas the proposed rate structure changes impact how the city recovers those costs within its rate structure. With any rate study there will be inevitably simply by nature of conducting a rate study a utility and its cost change over time and so does this break all modifications to the rate structure which helps the city meet its defined objectives as mentioned in the prior slide. The first inside outside city surcharge will be eliminated which simplifies the rate structure and reduces administrative burden to city staff. Since the outside city surcharge represented only a small portion of the city's annual rate revenue the cost impact of this change is pretty marginal. The elevation surcharge which is only charged to customers that live at higher elevation zones will be extended from one zone to three different zones pumping water to the highest zone. The fire readiness to serve charge will be updated to allocate costs appropriately based on the capacity in the water system needed to provide firefighting services. And the north coast agriculture rates will now include two different options which is maintain reliability and decrease reliability and this is to address the water reliability challenges that the city is facing for these customers. And finally the residential tiers will shift from four tiers to three tiers to better align with the most recent usage characteristics and to simplify the rate structure between the rates that customers are charged and the cost to serve those customers. And so that also necessitates the clear rationale for the tier definition. Those residential tiers use tier one uses average winter use or five BCFs of water. This represents average indoor or essential water use since irrigation in the winter months is pretty minimal. The proposed tier two which is based on average summer use and goes up to six CCFs or nine CCFs per month that's a proxy for outdoor water use and irrigation use is highest in the summer months. So the proposed changes keep tier one at five CCFs tier two changes to nine CCFs per residential unit per month and then tier three is any average 10 CCFs or greater. So I'll move through the slides for the proposed water rate pretty quickly since this information is all available through the mail prop 218 notice as well as the city's website. The readiness to serve charge this mostly recovers costs associated with customer service billing and meter maintenance. Readiness to serve charge mostly recovers costs associated with meter maintenance to serve charges based on per CCF of water use and recovers the remaining operating costs of the utility. The infrastructure reinvestment fee is based on CCF of water and recovers the capital and debt service costs of the utility. Elevations are charged which is based on CCF of water use recovers the cost of pumping water to the higher elevation zone and then the rate stabilization fee will stay at one dollar per CCF which is used to fund the rate stabilization reserve. Since the city's rate structure is mostly dependent on consumption based revenue which allows the city's customers to have greater control over their water bills but also can create revenue and stability when customers use less water than protected. The funding this reserve helps the city mitigate the financial risk of revenue and stability due to this rate structure. So this graph shows the estimated impact to a residential customer bill each month. So customer with a five eighth inch meter using about four CCF of water per month will see less than a two dollar increase in their monthly water bill. Then when comparing the city of Santa Cruz with neighboring or similar water utilities the city's single family residential bills are on the lower to medium range of the various utilities that we see. And this is for a five eighth inch meter with a six CCF of water used per month. And this shows the sample residential bills for the five-year rate schedule for a residential customer with a five eighth inch meter using four CCF of water per month. And then we'll move on to the proposed drought rates or a drought cost recovery fee. Rates are designed to coincide with the specific drought stages which were defined by the city's water shortage contingency plan. These rates are meant to recover lost revenue due to reduced consumption during drought. Since the water's rate structure, city's water rate structure is largely dependent on consumption-based revenue. But the city's costs are mostly fixed and don't vary with water consumption. The proposed drought rates are a six charge based on meter size to ensure that the city can recover sufficient revenues during periods of drought. There are five different drought stages. Stage one, the 10% overall reduction in use. Stage two is 20% and so on and so forth. So in the instance that the city council formally just declares a drought stage, the drought rates corresponding with that drought stage can be implemented to maintain the utility's financial stability and allows the city to continue to provide reliable water service. The drought rates follow the same five-year implementation structure of the water rates which are adjusted in the latter years based on the revenue adjustments required in the financial plan. The PROC 218 notice shows the entire five-year schedule for all different drought stages that will show just the drought cost recovery fees for stage two. The graph shows the impact for a residential customer with a five-year, five-inch meter using six CCF of water per month. So we can see that at the baseline with no drought a customer will pay about $75 per month using that much water. And then in stage two with a 20% reduction with the drought cost recovery fee which is in gray right there applied to it will be paying approximately $80. I think that is the end of the presentation. Thank you. So now that the next step is if there are questions or then we can take the questions and then beyond that you can open the public caring and if you have anyone who would like to comment. Is there any questions from council members? Council Member Golder. Council Member Cummings. All right. I'm wondering if you could go back to slide 25 just for a quick second and I just wanted to catch that. Okay. So right now are what stage drought would we be in right now? What the the council declared stage one drought cost recovery fee or drought stage in April last year and the declaration really expired at the end of October. We did not actually implement a drought cost recovery fee structure in this last round partly because we were in between rate studies and the last study didn't really bring in very much water or very much money because it was that at a much lower level but also because we kind of made a decision that we would use the rate stabilization reserve to mitigate whatever impacts we ended up having this summer on the rather than trying to impose the drought cost recovery fee. The drought cost recovery fee has really been retained from the existing structure because our rates are so heavily dependent and honestly I would really not like to put it in place but if we got to a stage three stage four our rates would be so impacted by people cutting back our revenues would be so impacted by people cutting back the drought, the rate stabilization reserve probably wouldn't be enough to keep us whole so it's kind of it's linked to a council declaration for a specific stage if it's implemented it's not required to be implemented but if the go ahead and do implement it it's 12 months spreads out over 12 months and then it automatically stops unless the council re-ups another stage. Rosemary can you give us an example of like what rainfall would have to be or maybe last year where you've had to get like four or five like what would that look like that seems so extreme. Oh gosh, yeah that would be pretty bad. It would be like having a summer of 21 and a summer of 22 and a summer of 23 so it would be the same kind of very dry year we had last year about three years in a row recognizing that what we had done to get through the first year would draw down our reservoirs to some degree so it would be really horrible. It's one of the reasons why the big focus is applied development because if we're vulnerable in that way it would have negative consequences across the economy of the whole service area. Thank you guys very much. Councilmember Cummings did you have a question? I just had a clarifying question so when these rates kick in it's really to help cover because if people are cutting back they're not consuming as much water as we're looking for that and these fees are really to help continue to keep our operations moving in these times during drought understanding that at some point we're going to have more rain people will consume more water those rates will go down. So you're talking about drought cost recovery fees yes those are very specifically related to having us be able to maintain operations for our debt service right because we borrowed money for capital projects and we're continuing to do that but we need to be able to cover our debt service in particular so if you were to take 30% of our revenue and say we didn't get that this year because of having a 30% cutback then we would be at risk of not being able to meet our debt service and certainly to operate our operations as Nancy said the water department is a really high fixed cost entity about 8% of its total costs are variable and those are mostly power and chemicals whereas if we produce 10 million gallons today or 7 million gallons today the amount of our cost doesn't very very much because it's mostly in fixed cost and then again just for clarification anytime we go into those stages that decision comes to the council for absolutely and we would articulate that and in cases like a stage one in particular even though it would be authorized for us to go ahead and put the drought cost recovery fees on we might not do it because we would be able to say you know we would be able to absorb that that's one of the benefits of maintaining the rate stabilization reserve it gives us some flexibility so it's kind of and I think we would obviously tell you what we're planning to do but in general like in the stage one that we did in 2018 and the stage one we did this year we did not impose the drought cost recovery fees even though we could have thank you thank you seeing any other hands up I'll go ahead and take this out to the public for members of the public who are streaming this meeting on item number 20 if this is an item you want to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen we will go ahead and ask you to press star 9 on your phone to raise your hand and then when it is your time to speak you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted and then we'll set the timer for two minutes so again if you're in the audience tonight and you want to comment on item number 20 let's see who's out there in terms of wanting to comment on this item okay phone number ending in 6241 that's our first person so go ahead and press star 6 to unmute and you'll be ready to go good afternoon my name is Linda Will-Susan and I live in Live Oak I'd like to thank the Santa Cruz city council the interim city manager Rosemary Menard and the city of for the council's action earlier this year to permanently eliminate the surcharge on water rates by customers living outside the city limits this action which is an important aspect of today's water rates recommendation will ensure that rate payers throughout the city's water service area are billed in an equitable manner consistent with the city's policies and the state law thank you thank you next I have phone number ending in 1-810 yeah I don't have too much to say that we overdrive people won't use more than that or less windfall of money is there any provisions for carrying that over and not building every one the next year anything like that that's all I have to say thank you is anyone else in the audience today for item number 20 if you are if you could please raise your hand by pressing star 9 get a sense of who's out there okay then we'll go ahead and bring this back to council for deliberation so at this point we have received some protests and I'm going to ask the clerk to tell us if they come in and go to her offices yeah we've received 36 36 protests so the measure is 50% plus 1 which as I mentioned earlier would be around 12,000 to reach that 50% plus 1 we got there so at this point the council is able to move towards the motions that are here and there are two one is to actually adopt the rate increases that are laid out and the other one is to accept the cost of service analysis which was included in the packet it's an important document it's an administrative record of how we did what we did in combination with the long range financial plan that the council adopted in September it's the two pieces of the puzzle that brings forward the information that underlies the rate study work and the compliance with Prop 218 but also setting out the long range goals of what we need to generate in terms of revenue and the reasons behind that is there a council member ready to bring a motion forward or these two options council member Brown I will go ahead move the staff recommendation to adopt the resolution establishing an updated water rate structure and to accept the cost of service report as written in our agenda packet I just want to make a well actually I'll make the motion wait for a second I do have one comment I will second that motion council member Brown I do want to make a comment about first of all think the water director and the staff and our consultants for this incredible amount of work that's gone into bringing up this proposal it doesn't I mean there are certain things that we can't do and we've had we've received comments and I've over the years lamented and I'm just going to do it one more time the fact that Prop 218 makes it very difficult for impossible really for us to do any kind of rate structure that addresses the financial situation of our customers and so low and fixed income people are adversely affected in ways that most don't experience from these incremental changes and so I just wanted to say that I know that folks have been writing in and talking about that and I wish there was more we could do but I also wanted to just reference that in a conversation that I had with our water director and interim city manager it sounds like there may be some possibilities and again I want to thank you for being on top of those possibilities and that we may be in a position to get into a pilot program or some sort there are things that may be coming I don't want to raise hopes but I do want to say that to the extent that any and all possible avenues for us to address that challenge I think we are pursuing and I'm confident that our staff is doing that so I just wanted to say that before we take the vote this is obviously over time this is going to have an impact and it's also going to keep our water system operating and that's what is the most important thing yes thanks for that you and I talked about it and I did mean to mention that and I forgot but the affordability issue is clearly one that is just totally in the front of me as we try to make this major investment and I guess I'll just say three things maybe briefly one is there is ongoing interest at the state level there certainly is a large money that's coming through right now to help deal with people who weren't able to pay their utility bills during the COVID situation at least the water part of their utility bills so that part is definitely something we're working on taking advantage of the federal infrastructure package that was signed into law last week includes funding for EPA to establish I think 30 to 40 pilot projects to look at affordability and I think because of the work we've already done on assessing water affordability in our community and something that we shared I've shared with you both in a separate session a while ago and then more recently I think as part of the little bit of the update that we did on the financial plan in the time frame in September we have a benchmark and I have asked the person who's done the work for us on that particular basis to update that looking forward to the end of this five-year rate period which as you can see from that one slide does include a significant increase for people using not that much water in what their costs would be those costs are mostly being driven by capital and that's the other piece of this which is being in a position to find ourselves resources from any kind of grants or you know those kinds of funds in the state or the federal level of which there are a lot right now does will benefit rate payers in this community and those things are aggressively being pursued and should we find ourselves in a situation where we get a huge chunk of money for a capital project particularly as a grant we will definitely be making adjustments to these rates so that they're sort of phased in more slowly or adjusted as needed because what's driving these rates over time is the reinvestment in the capital that is so important for water system that's already experiencing the effects of climate change and Rosemary with those adjustments also I've gotten a couple comments from the business community so I'm assuming those are not those kinds of things are evaluated across all of our service area for all types of users okay great yep okay so we have a motion on the floor by Council Member Brown seconded by Vice Mayor Brunner and Bonnie I would call for a roll call vote Council Member Watkins is absent by Calentary Johnson aye Brown aye Cummings aye Boulder aye Vice Mayor Brunner aye Mayor Myers aye that motion passes unanimously thank you to the whole water department I know this has been a and the water commission I know this has been a heavy lift for your department for several years so congratulations getting a lot done on the water department side that's for sure so thanks and just to confirm it passed unanimously Council Member Watkins absent Council Member Watkins absent absolutely sorry okay next up is agenda item number 21 which is our election of our new Mayor and Vice Mayor for 2022 for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an item you want to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen so we are the process we'll do here is we will go ahead I'm looking to Bonnie do we do Vice Mayor first or Mayor first we did Vice Mayor last year first but it's up to you why don't we go ahead and do Vice Mayor first and we'll do the nominations and then we'll go to public comment and then we'll take a vote correct probably public comment first and then the nomination okay so I'm going to go ahead and take this out to public comment this is our item number 21 tonight it's election of the new Mayor and Vice Mayor for 2022 if you are streaming this meeting please press star 9 on your phone to raise your hand when it is your time to speak you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted and we'll set the timer for two minutes and we don't have any just for the public there are no members of the public in the chambers so we're going to go straight to zoom if you want to comment on this item you'll need to please raise your hand at this point not seen any raised hands so I'll go ahead and take it back to my colleagues and I would look for nomination for the new Vice Mayor for 2022 I'd like to nominate Martin Watkins for Vice Mayor for 2022 and a second I'll second that second by Golder so we have nomination for to nominate Council Member Martin Watkins to be our Vice Mayor for the 2022 term seconded by Council Member Golder and could we do a roll call please Council Member Watkins is absent Council Member Johnson aye Brown aye Vice Mayor Brunner aye that nomination passes unanimously with Council Member Watkins absent I assume she knows she's going to be nominated right yes she did okay I'd like to look now for a nomination for Mayor from my colleagues I'd like to nominate I'd like to nominate I'd like to nominate I'd like to nominate I'd like to nominate I'd like to nominate Vice Mayor Brunner for Mayor second by Council Member Cummings so we have a nomination to nominate Sonia Brunner as our new Mayor for the 2022 term and that is a motion by Council Member Golder and a second by Council Member Cummings and can we do a roll call vote Council Member Watkins is absent Council Member Johnson aye Brown aye Vice Mayor Brunner aye that motion passes unanimously and we have Council Member Watkins as absent on that so congratulations new Mayor Brunner right on that's great and just for members of the public and the Vice Mayor are actually sat is that the word seated I think it's seated into their new rolls on December 14th so please come on out and celebrate our new leadership in the city and wish them well for 2022 our last item tonight is oral communications for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if you want to comment during oral communications now is the time to call in instructions are on your screen oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not listed on today's agenda are there any members of the public who wish to address the council I see that we have one hand up and that is a phone number ending in 1810 and you can unmute and you have two minutes to speak I was going to bring out the verbal flamethrower everyone politically disagree with as a racist white supremacist but instead I'll just revisit your white supremacist resolution item number 28 last meeting one essence of the Brown act is to require providing agenda items content to the council and public in advance a secretly prepared friendly resolution amendment as usual blindsided the council and public with surprise novel actions sidestepping the public entirely after public comment was over which then put council members on the spot with little considered analysis it's unlike other items with two hearings I had the chance I would have spoken about how wrong it is for legislative bodies to promote activism to expand upon novel restorative justice ideas because a you never even defined restorative justice anywhere except suggesting it's whatever the Santa Cruz equity collaboratives says it is that you blindly agreed to promote and b because justice is mostly fully occupied by state law and see okay I don't trust effective equity concepts to find restorative or less less leftist justice anything besides the press associating them with the BLM billboard the Santa Cruz equity collaboratives mysterious to me my opinion is the foundation of the leftist equity falsehood is the concept that a human's potential is some knowable certainty and also that a central picture idea quadruplet of SEQ people very inappropriately dressed in black t-shirts reading and white supremacy a pretrial criminal court hearing which made for a bad prejudice radical political optics suggesting they are leftist activists and not qualified parties to redesign justice anything Abby must stop his kiss my black arts t-shirt also conveys this grandstanding activism as does the BLM billboard itself I speculate their idea restorative justice may be a mob coercive political grandstanding public shaming I question your judgment specifying justice M for special access and blowing city dollars directing staff to engage with them for an undefined purpose which I will thank you your time that brings us to the end of our meeting this evening I just want to thank everybody that joined us on zoom not many people in the chambers but that's okay and wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving and our next meeting will be on November 30th at 4 p.m. so thank you everybody and the public and have a happy holiday good night are we still live Bonnie?