Aditi, been already introduced, so I'll just skip. My interest lies in security privacy and technosocialogy, which is basically impact of tech on humans and society or all. So diving directly into the topic, before beginning, I would like to have a show of hands of how many people have used Android ever or hacked Android. Yeah, all of us. I think all of us are kind of familiar with Android, which kind of makes sense because you're here. So if you have, you would have seen these permission outlets. Like, one appears when you're installing the app, where the app asks you a bunch of permissions. Then you can go to Settings and see what all app permissions have been there. And then the third one is a newly introduced one, which I really like, where you can decide whether you want to give permission throughout the time when you're using the app or also in the background and stuff like that. But we are here to demystify as to what permissions actually mean in Android world. So I'll try to do that in four simple steps. The first part of it is, why are you shown this screen? So if you're trying to code an Android app, suppose you're trying to code a weather app and it needs your location permission, when you add the function of get geocordinate, so get whatever, Android Studio asks you to add this particular permission in your Android manifest file. So in Android, there is Android manifest.xml, which is kind of the central file where all the permissions are listed. So they are shown up here, so uses permission brackets. So all the permissions that the app would be needing would be listed in here. So that is the first part. The app developer defining that this is the set of permission I need in order for my app to work. And when you install, Android picks up the same set and shows you out in the dialog box that we just saw. So that is the first part. The other part is, what happens in Android world? So if you have an app, how Android actually treats that app? So in Android, every app has a package name. And the funny part is it's not even unique. Like com.android.chrome identifies Chrome app, but you can as well create an app with that package name. Although it would not install on your device if Chrome already exists, but that loophole is there. So for Android, it identifies every app with the package name. And the interesting bit here is the user ID. So it assigns a particular user ID to the app, and it has this set of permissions listed on the app. So where can you find the central file? It is data system slash packages.xml. So you need to be root. Or if you're an emulator, you can do ADB root. And then you can pull this file out. And you can see all the packages, all the apps, which are in Android, and all the permissions associated with that app. So now here you see that it is just a list of strings, like Android permission or device power. What does this string exactly mean in OS world? So the next bit I'll show is a really interesting file, which does this mapping of the string with a group ID. Now, Android is nothing but Linux, right? And UIDs and group IDs kind of make sense to us, because we are familiar with it in Linux world. So you'll see that each permission is essentially related to a group ID here. For example, Bluetooth admin has a group ID, NetBT admin. And then there is a separate file, which does the mapping of group ID with the corresponding group code, which is a numeric value. So in Linux, UIDs are used to separate users, because Linux was designed to be a multi-user OS. So you had UIDs so that users can not interfere with each other's spaces. You do not have accessor sources of other user. Android kind of repurposed the same logic for apps. So every app basically has its own UID and a set of permissions, which are listed as GIDs. So that is in brief how permissions actually work in kernel land, in Android. And usually, whenever an app starts, Android has Dalvik VM, which uses to run Java or Kotlin code. Whenever you launch an app, it does not create the VM. It rather folks off a process from Zygot. So Zygot is a central process, which has root access. It has all the loaded libraries that your app needs in order to perform. And whenever you launch an app, basically, it just folks out of that thread. So Zygot has everything. And at the time of working, it assigns a set of group IDs that we just talked about, so that is the permissions that the app would have, and capabilities, and also a different UID. So at the time of specialization, app basically becomes its own app. Like, the privilege is reduced, and it is reduced to the group IDs to the permissions that the app asked for. So that is what happens. And this book, Android Security Internals, I find it really interesting by Nicollet. He has detailed a lot more into what happens exactly in Android kernel land and how security is ensured. So having talked about that, what all permissions can an app declare? So I was interested in seeing what all permissions are there on Android system. And to do that, you can simply try doing PMList, permissions dash f, which will list all the permissions on your device. Now note that not all permissions are seen across all the devices, because apps can also create their own custom permissions, which show up. And whenever you see in any permission here, they would be a permission, a package. Sometimes they also give the description. But the interesting bit here is the protection level. So the protection level can be normal, dangerous, privilege, signature, or privilege. We'll talk about the normal and dangerous one more. So normal is a set of permissions. Taking a step back, Android introduced permissions to limit access. You cannot access resources like location without declaring a permission. Now, the permissions that fall under normal are the ones that developers need to define in Android manifest, but they do not need user intervention. So you can as well define normal permissions, but it would not be shown in a prompt to user. They'll just stay there. Dangers are the ones like location for which you are shown prompt for. And then there are other like signature, or signature, or system. These are usually very restricted permissions. You cannot, not every app can define it. And there are usually signatures involved. Or the app needs to be in system. So usually system apps or custom apps of the OEMs use those kind of permissions. But I was not interested in data collected after defining this permission. I was interested in data collected without defining any permission on Android. So I created an app. I called it Jon Snow app. You know nothing. And this is the Android manifest of that app. So you see that there is no user's permission here. Like it's not using any permission. And that was the whole idea that without using any permission, what all information can I extract? So I'll just show the app right now. So you can see that it's like no permissions requested. It's grayed out. A rare occasion on Android. And when I say, what do you know, it'll give you the basic details like manufacturer, model, supported 32-bit stuff like that. And then I asked it, and hardware details, fingerprints, and stuff like that. And it also shows you whether configurations like ADB is enabled or not. Here, USB mass storage, Wi-Fi is on or not. Airplane mode is on or not. Data roaming, boot count, HTTP proxy.  So it was OK. It was interesting. Some information about my system, which is fine. It also tells you settings, which are very personal to you, like accessibility settings, inversion of colors, or parental controls on your device, whether they're established or not, whether you have touch exploration or not. Most interestingly, it was also able to know all the apps that I'm using. So the names of the apps, banking apps, or any other things. And this bit is the favorite one, because it is also able to gather information, which is kind of not like it doesn't need that kind of information. So information like when is your wake up alarm set up to. So I'll be waking up in six hours. Any app would know that. Or whether I'm listening to a song or not, based on the audio status. Microphone is mute or not. Battery is charging or not. Clipboard, what is the last thing you copied? So if you forward a chat from your loved one to someone else, this app, which has no permission setting on your device, will be able to read that message, or any link that you showed, anything that you copied, basically. And along with that, app widgets, so whatever widgets you installed on your mobile phones other than the apps. So it was able to collect all this information, and honestly, it was just a first goal. So I went to Android Studio and global settings, system settings, and I tried to access everything that Android Studio was letting me access without defining a permission. And this was what I was able to get in the first goal. And why does it matter? So I think this is a kind of broader problem in privacy that we say that these are data points, and these are just system settings, and we need it. But if you put a human behind these data points, you can easily make inferences about someone. So if you have apps you use, there has been research around that, that just on the basis of the apps you use, you can find out the gender of a person, or ethnicity, or age group, or addictions, health problems. If you're using banking apps, they will know which bank your money goes into, lifestyle apps, where do you shop your clothes from, and stuff like that. Because there's an app for everything. So app name kind of indicates your preference or your choice in life. Similarly, device controls, accessibility, health conditions, whether you are a child or not, these can be shown based on whether your parental controls are established or not. Clipboard data, Bluetooth on, right? So they are all these things. And the most importantly is that all the set of information, since it's so much, can be easily used to do device fingerprinting. So there has been talks around apps basically using a thing called advertising ID. So they collect everything from whatever you are performing on the app. They collect that information. They add a unique identifier, which can profile you, which is advertising ID. And it sends it over to advertising server. So that is how they maintain a profile of you, right? And the talks around advertising ID was that users should be able or given the right to remove that link of profiling and the ID used to identify that person. But that link does not hold, like that choice is no more there when your device can be so easily fingerprinted. And for browser fingerprinting, we still have had more discussions. But for Android device fingerprinting, there has been no solution as such for now. Other challenges that I see in existing permission model is permission re-delegation. In Android, since it is the, because of the rich functionality it offers, it allows for IPC, which is inter-processed communication. So it can easily happen that app A is taking location permission, app B is taking gallery permission, and then both of them are talking to each other through custom content your eyes or other ways in which Android allows information to be accessed across apps. And I did a little bit of experiment. I would not go in deep because we have very less minutes here. But what I tried to do was, can I find which app is talking to which app on my Android device? And I was able to do that by looking into the binder calls. So Android allows for IPC through binder. And binder does a lot of logging. So for every process, it keeps process logs, which get erased after some time. And those logs have the information of whether which process was interacted to from this process. So I kind of tried to use that log and make a mapping. So there's a script which you can share for people who are interested. So you can know which apps are talking on your device. But we will not go more in detail here. Let's talk about some other stuff. So what else is problematic? Then there's a thing called common libraries. So you use libraries for crash, dump collection. You use libraries for logging. And those libraries, whenever they are integrated, they have the same kind of access that the app has. So whatever permissions the app has access to, the library also has. And the library is a third-party thing all together. So they can take, again, location from one app. And that library is part of another app, so it can take images from the other app and basically collect and file you. How many minutes left? I'm sorry. Thank you. OK, so that is something which is happening, right? Like library collecting data or apps interacting with each other. And these are active problems which Android is trying to figure out how to solve as a platform. But I think there are broader conceptual concerns as well when it comes to privacy. For example, it's coping of data and granularized controls. Let's take this case. Allow SMS messaging to send and view SMS messages, right? So when you give this SMS read permission, it can basically read any SMS that comes to you. And the thing that I find problematic in this model is that you're kind of giving access to the storage. So when you allow the permission, you basically give the keys to your storage. But you do not know what will end up in your storage, right? Like what kind of SMS is it holding the confidential information? Is there a choice in which we can restrict that no only SMS from now on or the OTP that your app needs, you should only read that? We cannot define that choice, right? So today, when you give the SMS just because an app needs to read an OTP, you basically expose the whole SMS stack. So it can contain any SMS. It can contain any PII. And that is essentially additional information that you are giving off, which you don't need to, essentially. But we don't have a choice to restrict that. Another interesting thing is what happens to my previously collected data if I revoke permission. So the revoke permission flow itself is not very well designed. You can go and say that I don't give this permission anymore. But that revocation, how is it reflected on server side? Have people deleted your data because you do not want them to use it anymore? That flow is again not there happening. And then this is a really interesting thing that talking about data, and it's not related to Android, it's just in privacy in general. Whenever you share information, you do not share just your information, right? So if you're sharing, suppose you're giving access of your gallery, your gallery will not hold just your pictures.  And it is interesting. It is obviously complex to solve. But it kind of gives you, if you think about the question of, can you actually control what amount of your personal information goes online? Today, the answer is very difficult. You cannot, in a way, because if you just talk about, say, contacts, for example. So let's say Alice, Bob, and Carol are here in MCS 2022. And they Alice shared the contact to Bob so that they can connect. But later on, Bob happens to have a crowdsourcing app. And that contact got uploaded onto the cloud. The next day, Alice found out that, hey, my contact isn't there, and I do not like it. So she raised a request and said that please take my contact off, or PII off the cloud. And they might entertain that request and take it off. But then the data, which has already left Alice's device, has now reached to Bob. And Bob happened to share it with Carol. And then Carol happens the app, and it again ends up online. So basically, can you control? The answer is no, given the permission or once you have shared, basically it goes out of your reach. So these are the kind of problems that we are seeing in Android. And there are initiatives. There are talks around privacy sandbox in Android, which can potentially help us address it. But there's no significant piece of work which answers the question or provides a solution right now. So these are some of the challenges by platform design. And we have not even touched about the GDPR angle of it. So we have not talked about apps which take permissions. You have given permissions to them. You have trusted them to handle your data with respect. But they end up exposing it, right? So there have been articles. These are all fetched from wired. And they keep on happening every month. There are some article or the other indicating that. This app has leaked information out there. And that kind of shows uttered disrespect or an improper process system or policies around handling user data. So I would just like you to take a minute now and think what info about you is stored and monitored online. Like, can you think about today sitting here, what all information about you would be online? And when I think about it, I basically have no clue. And I would not, and I would not blame you because no one asked you anyway, right? They just uploaded it. The permission models are missed. So you have a lot of information, whether you believe it or not, about you online. And you're being tracked. And the data is being used. So that is all I had to talk about. Thank you so much for attending the talk. And yeah. Aditi, thank you so much. Can we take some questions if we have the time? Awesome. There's two microphones in the middle, folks, for the last time. Let's have some questions. OK, front line, please. Does it work? Yes. All right, so far, these pop-up messages, I've considered them to either be a placebo or one of the ways Google tries to thwart the competition. I'm a bit of a cynic with these pop-up questions. So let's reverse it for a moment. Which of the pop-up questions you think actually work? Can you explain what do you mean by pop-up questions? The pop-up questions for permission, the permission boxes. OK, so you're talking which ones work. Which ones work? So see, the intention of having them in the first place was to provide some sort of controls. What we're talking about is that they are not enough or there's a lot which can be worked upon. So we had things like, for example, initially, in order to access Wi-Fi, anyone could have access to your Wi-Fi. And then there was a study that, just based on the Wi-Fi, someone can interpret the location of the person. So they made that in order to access Wi-Fi, they added the condition that you need to declare location permission. So they are taking steps in that direction. And I do believe that if I'm giving location permission, it kind of gives me a little bit more control around whether my information is going out or not. So I would say that the ones which are there do work in some capacity. But there are still loopholes or things that need to be addressed. Because even if you give the permission, it is the first level of control that works. But once the data is gone out, after that, what happens to our data? There is a lot of scope of data flowing across which you do not control. All right, and this is, again, the cynic in me. How much of this is intentional? So the model that we are working on is advertising models. Oh, I would say that it is intentional in a way that if you're using Google products, the advertising model itself would need, in order to give you the right ads, they need to profile you. But at the same time, they claim that you can remove the advertising idea, or you have the rights to get off the system, not get personalized ads. So the things we are talking about here is how effective are those controls, right? So the choice should be there. The model is, unfortunately, or fortunately, advertising model. So it is intentional, of course. But then do you have a choice to be off-grid? That choice is something that we are discussing here. At first, thank you for your talk, of course. I have two few quick questions. First, about the Sandbox, about the modern Android with the work profiles. Like, there are different apps which are able to Sandbox or use the work profile as a Sandbox. I was wondering about the different provision models. Like, is it as secure as they say? Or is there data being shared between the work profile and the normal, personal profile? So I have not worked a lot with work profiles. They have introduced it recently. But based on whatever I've read in the documentation, they have a base in which you can share information across. But again, you have to be explicit about it. And then they have some sort of permission model around it. I think it's logically a separate space. So they have kind of tried to create the same different users kind of stuff, like you have in Linux. Another layer on top of that, you cannot share resources all together. And when I tried to create an app and work profile, it was actually difficult to have that communication. So I would say that, yeah, it does work. But I've not done a thorough study to say, yeah, it's fully secure in the way they are claiming it to be. And one last question is about the global permission model. Because some phones have also, like you say, like you cannot declare specific permission for the apps, like which apps are installed on your device. But there are global permissions, like allow apps to view other apps installs on the device. If you turn it off, no app will be able to use it. Can you tell me some more about how these, are they vendor-specific? Or are they built in OSPs? Or like, how do they work? The global app permissions? Yeah, I do not know how to do it. I think that's probably not the official term. But there are, in the settings app, they are like setting allow apps to view other apps on your device, or allow apps to know which other apps are installed on the device. That's the thing which doesn't have a app-to-app specific permission, but you can turn it off. Okay, so you're saying that a particular permission is given to all different apps, and then you can select which apps have that permission or not? No, it's more like there's one setting in the privacy app, like turn off, that apps will be able to view apps installs on the device. And when it's off, no app on the device can view which other apps are installed on the device. Oh, okay, so you're talking about, yeah, yeah, yeah. So they added a permission, I think, after Android 10 or Android 11, where you need to define the permission in order to see other apps installed. But this thing worked on the latest model as well. And if the permission, so there is some permission around the extracting the code. So from an app, you can also extract the code of other app. That is how usually app scanning or code scanning tools work on device. So they have added some restrictions around whether you can acquire the code, the binaries of the other app through your app, but the package names or the name of the apps can be attained. And if there was a permission, I think this one worked without permission, but the permission that they've added also normal, so it would not be taking users, you know, user won't be shown the prompt to allow, let an app read other apps. It will just work in background. I'll show it later. Yeah, sure, let's discuss it off after this. Thank you for the very interesting talk. Is there any way you could turn all those permissions off? You showed that even an app which has no permissions at all has a lot of permissions anyway. So could you turn off those permissions? For example, to delete them from an XML file? Because I have no smartphone. And that's of course a good way not to be profiled that way, but it becomes much more difficult time proceeds because everyone expects you to have one. So is there a way to turn profiling off? Currently, no. No, thanks. Thanks for your question, though. Maybe in addition to the question of the previous gentleman, if you use an open source Android distribution instead of the one that comes pre-installed with your phone, would that then solve these problems or at least improve them or does that doesn't even matter? I think it depends on if you wanna play around with Android OS, you can as well create yourself. Like I have known people taking care of the analytics module or how the collection happens and making changes somewhere there and having a custom OS version, like the vanilla one, but blocking certain things and then flashing that on the mobile and using it to be more secure. So I've seen people doing that. If you're using OEMs, I think those are even more bizarre because a lot of OEMs, like OEMs by OEM, I mean Samsung and other device manufacturers, they are coming up with pre-installed apps, right? So a bunch of them, more than what you need or what vanilla Android offers, a lot of them are like just custom apps which actually work or run at the system level itself, seeing everything that you're doing on device. So OEM would be like the least preference, building your own Android OS, which will take a bunch of work, but building that and then customizing it is a good option. If you are interested in that, you can do that. That will definitely help or reduce it in some extent. But again, you have to be conscious of the apps that you're installing, right? So if the app itself is collecting your information, the change that you would be doing on kernel level is restrict them to collect the information. So if you're able to do that in the source code, awesome. If you're not, then you have to be conscious of the apps that you're installing. Right, thank you. Okay, thanks. Hello, thank you for the wonderful talk and this is indeed quite scary to think about. I was wondering, what's your impression of the iOS model in that regard? I, maybe I have missed the part, but personally I've been quite impressed with the occasional granularity of permissions that I have been asked for. Yeah, so I guess iOS, I would say, so there's a catch here, right? Anyway, if you're using Google or Apple, the first thing you're doing as soon as you buy the device is showing your confidence in the company. So they will be taking the data for sure. But now the question comes to whether the data is just with the company or is it going with advertisers or trackers? So in iOS I found that they, I think recently they introduced a feature in their setting, in privacy settings, to stop tracking across all the apps. And that has actually made a lot of other companies who rely on data really angry because they are not able to get the right information into profile and do their work. So they have added that and I actually respect them for doing that. They also have features like, for example, in Instagram, if you're sharing photo, rather than giving access to your whole gallery, they ask you to pick the photo. So those are the kind of controls which can potentially be there in Android as well, but we do not see them in Android much. So my preference would be a little bit towards iOS. Not an official statement though, yeah. I think the approach you're taking with the app that has no permissions and then seeing what it can do is interesting and shocking to see how many data points you can still retrieve. Yeah. This is a bad point, of course, for Android compared to Linux, but on the other hand, if you look at a normal Linux distribution, it tends to run all the apps as the same user with access to all the same data. Now, if you combine the two and take a sandbox on the Linux in which you run each app in its own sandbox, it would be interesting to see how much information your app would still report. You might know you can run APK files on your desktop or on other mobile operating systems that have a sort of emulation layer for running APK files. It would be interesting to see how your app fares in that. So you're saying you're talking, I did not fully understand it, but is your question around application sandboxing and whether that, because Android does it in some ways, I'm trying to understand. So instead of taking Android, take a Linux distribution and a program like Anbox which can run Android applications.  Because if you do that, you have a separate sandbox on Linux for every app, I think. Yes, that is interesting. There are two questions, two things that come to my mind right now here. One is the way, so Android had that as I got and forking off as I got because of memory optimization and it's a smaller chip, they wanna make it work in pockets. It is a thing which will be there and a lot of apps. So they have the optimizations around that. So it's like all the things that I am taking are kind of global common utilities, basically the information that I got from and it's already loaded in as I got and it's forking off as I got. So you already have that permission. So if you are trying to completely sandbox it, it might work but it might not be performant or efficient or might conflict with their initial ideologies of why they chose it to be working. Another thing is in Android, there's a lot of cross-app interaction which is intentional. Like if you're going to WhatsApp, you want to add a contact, you're talking to another app there and that is intentional, that offers rich functionality and convenience to user. So it cannot completely peace and box it still, right? So that is the problem. Okay, thank you. Okay, I'm sorry but we are out of time now so I'm afraid no more questions. Perhaps a DT would hang around afterwards maybe if folks have any others. Thank you once again a DT please.  Thank you.


Hello and welcome to People's Dispatch. For over a decade now, the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement has been leading the campaign against Israel's policies of apartheid and brutality against the people of Palestine. The BDS movement has specifically focused on institutions, both commercial and non-commercial, which have ties with Israel, and pressurized them to cut those ties. There has been a special focus on organizations which maintain links with Israel's military as well as the illegal settlements in the West Bank. Today, we are joined by Imen Habib of the BDS movement of France. Hello, Imen. Hello. Welcome. Imen, could you first talk a bit about the BDS movement in France itself? Because in every country, there are some specific characteristics the movement has and specific strategies the movement follows. So how do you see the movement in France and what are its key methodologies of organizing? So the movement in France, the BDS campaign, has been launched in 2009 after the Cast League massacre in Gaza. We think it was important to start a real BDS and coordinated BDS campaign in France. So we have different targets and we are, of course, in coordination with the Palestinian campaign, BDS campaign, and we have several targets since several years. And this year, we have, of course, different targets like AXA, which is the main insurance French company. And they are involved on LB system, which is the biggest arm industry. And they have also investment on five Israeli banks. And we are asking them to respect international law. So we have the AXA campaign and we have also a campaign, a cultural campaign, because Israel recognized to use culture to whitewash apartheid. And so it's a very important campaign for us because Israel is very sensitive to the image. And we think it's important to say, no, you cannot go to Israel to produce yourself into like a normal situation, it's a normal situation. So we try to explain this by letter, by contact with French artists. And we had last year the French-Israel season, which is cultural French-Israel season. It was a season of propaganda between the French government and the Israeli government. And we have, and it was a failure for Israel propaganda because it was not a success in terms of people who was not interested. And we, in a lot of cities, we disrupted events because we refuse the normalization with Israel apartheid. So it's a kind of way that we do in France to denounce this apartheid. And what has been the response generally as far as the campaign goes in France, as in how have the people responded to the campaign? So the citizens are very sensitive when we protest and when we organize, when we explain why we are boycotting Israeli apartheid. The most of the people understand the situation and understand why we are campaigning on the boycott today. On the artist, it depends, there is some people, we have some artists in France say they want to dialogue. But we are saying to them, when you go to Israel, to play in Israel, you are not dialling, you are whitewashing apartheid. And so some artists respond that, some other artist doesn't understand, and you have also artists who are sensitive, who don't think about that before. But when you explain them the situation, they are ready to heard about the campaign. So we have a lot of work to do, and it's very useful to do this work. And what about the state? Has there been any active attempts by the state to prevent any of these campaigns? In France, since 2009 and 2010, we have been confronted to the repression, they tried to forbid the BDS campaign, they tried to instrumentalize the law to attack us. So they say BDS, and they still say BDS is illegal, but it's not true. We always explain that, because a lot of people, when they think that the BDS campaign is not legal in France, and it's not true. So they are targeting, the French government is targeting the BDS campaign, but we are still here, and we are still doing the campaign, and we are determined to fight because it's an attack also more globally than BDS, but on the freedom of speech. On all the social movements, it's not only BDS, and it's important to be here and to defend the freedom of speech, the solidarity with Palestinians, but also our main freedom of speech. Also could you talk about some of the campaigns, like for instance against HSBC and Violia for that matter, or even the Eurovision campaign for that matter, which has got quite a bit of international problems. Yeah, there was a successful HSBC campaign in Great Britain, and we try to, we will try to inspire ourselves from this campaign, because for the AXA campaign it's very similar. It's also a bank, and it was successful because HSBC declared that they will remove their investment on LBC, which is a criminal company, and it's great news, so it's a news from 2019, so it's very recent, and it's inspiring, and we hope to have the same results for the AXA campaign. Yeah. Thank you. That's all we have time for today, keep watching People's Dispatch.


Hey guys, it's Nova and we're back on The Nova Show. We're actually in my home recording studio. I've been busy working on my new album, The Red Light District, but I wanted to take some time to talk to you guys, my family, the Fino family. The Nova Show is designed to help you guys at home produce and record better quality music, build your fan bases, and hopefully you guys can learn a thing or two with my tips and tricks. Through The Nova Show, I'm hoping to create a great music community here at Freedom. If you guys have any comments, any questions, please do not hesitate. Leave a comment below. I do check it. People always ask me, what do you record your music? Who mixes and masters your music? And who shoots your videos? Truth is, I do everything on my own in my own recording studio with my own equipment. Hopefully through The Nova Show, I can teach you guys some tips and tricks that can help you guys do the exact same thing at home. So in today's Music News, I want to highlight Tyrese. For the first time in his career, he has a number one album with 77,000 units sold. Now, the reason why I'm highlighting Tyrese is because he records most of his music in his own home studio, not many people notice. But it just goes to show you, you don't have to be in a big million dollar studio to create great records. So shout out to Tyrese. So in today's episode, I'm going to be highlighting home recording studios, okay? Now, you have to have the basics for a great home recording space, okay? And before we get to all the complicated things, I want to start off with your computer and your software, also known as the DAW. So my first tip is to build a buy your computer based on what software you're looking to run in your home studio. My personal home studio is built on an iMac computer with 2.7 Intel Core i5 processors. I also have four gigs of RAM and a 500 gig internal hard drive. Now, with that being said, you can also go higher with the specs, but I always recommend to have at least four gigs of RAM.  I also recommend storing your music sessions on an external hard drive and not your internal. And storing sessions on the same hard drive that is running this session can cause issues. Running your session on an external hard drive will ease the power strain on your computer. Now, let's get to the software. Again, depending on the computer, there are many, many options. On the low end, you have basic programs like CoolEdit, Sony Vegas, and such. And on the higher end, you have Cubase, Logic, and Pro Tools. I personally use Pro Tools and I always recommend the software. Now, it does get a little pricey with the basic version costing about $1.99 and the full version costing about $5.99. And that's just the software. Now, with Pro Tools and any other software, you're going to need an interface. This is how you get the sound from your microphone to your software and or computer. Pro Tools has their own line of interfaces, which also vary in pricing. I recommend getting their inbox product, which is on the low end, or in DG003, which is what I have. And that's a little bit on the higher end. Now, with the LE versions, you get a maximum of 32 tracks, audio tracks. As opposed to the HD version, which is 256 audio tracks, which is pretty high and you're not going to be using nearly as much. So as you can see, my home studio is pretty great. I have a lot of expensive software and recording gear, but I started with the basics first. So don't worry, you guys will also get there as well. And with my help, I hope that I can make it easier for you guys. That's it for today's episode. I wanted to keep it real basic. I just touched on the basic steps needed for a home recording studio. Until next time, you guys take care. I know several of you have asked me regarding my music. The SoundCloud link is below.  As part of the Freedom Family, that's my gift to you guys. Go ahead and use it.


Hello and welcome to the Capitola Planning Commission meeting. This meeting is open to the public with both in-person attendance at the City of Capitola Council Chambers at 420 Capitola Avenue and remote attendance possible. The Planning Commission and staff are attending in-person and remotely via Zoom. There are several ways for the public to watch and participate. Information on how to join the meeting via Zoom is available on our website, cityofcapitola.org on the meeting agenda. The public can also live stream the meeting on the city's website or on YouTube. As always, this meeting is cablecast live on Spectrum Communications Cable TV Channel 8 and AT&T Universe Channel 99 and is being recorded to be reprodcast on the following Mondays and Fridays at 1 PM on Spectrum Channel 71 and Spectrum Channel 25. A recording of the meeting will also be available on the city's website after the meeting. Our technician tonight is T and as a reminder, please turn off your cell phones during the meeting. First side of this roll call and Pledge of Allegiance. Can we do the roll call first? Yes, thank you. No problem. Commissioner Esti. Here. Commissioner Judson. Here. Commissioner Wilk. Here. Commissioner Westman and Chair Christensen. Here. Then Pledge of Allegiance. Item two is additions and deletions to the agenda. We have done. Okay. Item three, additions. Excuse me. We have additional. That did receive additional materials for tonight's meeting. We had two emails related to item 7A as well as an updated attachment for that item and item 7C had one email correspondence. All additional materials have been made a part of the record for public viewing and are available online or in the back of the room. Thank you very much. Item four is oral communications. Members of the public may speak for up to three minutes unless otherwise specified by the chair. Individuals may not speak for more than once during oral communications. All speakers must address the entire legislative body and will not be permitted to engage in dialogue. Is there any? Good evening. City commuter. My name is Juan Cabbage. I'm a former security guard in Los Angeles Beach here. The leader's door is in the Black Valley George. We didn't have rooms because we didn't let anybody who was 21 years and younger inside of us. Because as you know, you cannot talk about it in the State of California when you're younger than 21 years ago. There was something else that was going on at the time. I pointed out to the Supreme Police Force this year in the capital city of Capitola in the traffic in the cocaine. I had business share in Capitola. I mentioned that the capital city of Capitola was a city of the chief. And I moved the puzzle of this bar and I walked on time through the capital abilities open again. I understand that there are no consequences of that. But there is a illegal trafficking of our subject and there was no permission or fine, any kind of sort of thing. Thank you very much for listening, or bless you, or anything else. In terms of how the city, where there was a homeless person next to the big mall they first in Capitola struggled with that, even near the breakdown. I didn't see any alcohol or drugs. I think it's a shame that the city of Capitola allows the homeless people who are struggling. There's housing, not cheaper housing, they're kind of higher. And the city of Capitola can chip in, can actually get people who are less cheap off the street. You know, beautiful city of Capitola. Thank you very much for listening, or bless you. Thank you, item five. Any staff comments? Any commission comments? Ben? I have a question probably for staff, I guess. We received a letter on Sunday, March 24th from John Mulray. And in it he states, and I'll quote it, over 10% of our current housing is vacant and unused paying us nearly nothing in property taxes. I scoured the housing element inventory, couldn't find such data. I'm sure you can't answer this question now, but this is true that one would think it would be, would have to be a significant part of our housing element. I don't know, I don't have to say about it. I just found it kind of a lot. This statement's kind of out of the blue. We can follow up on that. There are vacancies within. This is community development director, Katie Hurley speaking. And we can follow up on that. There are vacancies within the city of Capitola, but they definitely pay property tax, but they do sit vacant. And I can provide you with the data from the latest census on exactly what the current vacancy rate is in Capitola at a future date. Okay. Yeah, I looked in the American community of housing survey or ACS from the Census Bureau, we didn't stand out, it wasn't obvious what the vacancy rate was. So if you could get that, I'd appreciate it. Thanks, Katie. Any other item six, moving to the Consent Calendar. All matters listed under the Consent Calendar are considered by the Planning Commission to be routine and will be enacted by one motion on the form listed below. There will be no separate discussion on these items prior to the time. The Planning Commission votes on the action unless the Planning Commission requests specific items to be discussed for separate review. Items pulled for separate discussion will be considered in the order listed on the agenda. Item A, approval of February 1st, 2024 Planning Commission meeting minutes. Item B, approval of February 15th, 2024 special Planning Commission meeting minutes. And item C, approval of March 7th, 2020, 2024 Planning Commission meeting minutes. I'll make a motion to approve the Consent Calendar. I'll second. Motion and I'll second. We have a roll. Commissioner Estee. I'll have to abstain from approving February 1st since it wasn't here, but I approved the other two. Okay, noted. Commissioner Dunson. Approved. Commissioner Westman. Approved. Commissioner Welk. And chair question, Senator. Approved. Okay, moving on to the public hearing. Public hearings are intended to provide an opportunity for public discussion of each item listed as a public hearing. The following procedure is as follows. First is staff presentation, second Planning Commission questions, third public comment, fourth Planning Commission deliberation, and fifth decision. Item A is 1400 Wharf Road on Capitola Wharf. The project description is a design permit and conditional use permit for the rehabilitation, repair, and expansion of the historic Capitola Wharf. Recommended action is approve the amendments for permit and provide direction to proceed with option two for the layout and location of the donor panels. Use yourself. Yeah, I need to recuse. And does anybody else need to recuse? So since I drew the short straw, I'll take over as the chair to bring to Katie. And I'll be recusing myself also. Yeah. Okay, so I'm recusing based on relation and this. Okay. Sorry. Good evening, Planning Commissioners. I'll wait for our city clerk to let me know when it's okay to proceed with my presentation. You're good to go, Katie. Thanks for waiting. Thank you. Well, it's a pleasure to be back before you tonight. For the special meeting tonight, we'll be reviewing the Wharf project and the latest enhancements for the Wharf. It's been a combined effort with C-WAP, the Community Wharf Enhancement Project, and their representative tonight is Gail Ortiz, who's on via Zoom. Also, a few architectures here as they've been putting together the final plans for the Wharf to make sure we have everything laid out and represented correctly within our plans for installation. And I apologize tonight for not being in person, but I've got a little bug and I didn't wanna share it with you all. So thank you for allowing me to present from afar and in here, we're gonna jump into it. So tonight for the presentation, I'm gonna go over the slides of what's changed since the March 7th meeting. Then I'll have Dan Thompson or we'll have a representative from Fuse Architecture speak to any additional information and then Gail Ortiz will also speak on behalf of C-WAP. Following that, we'll take planning commissioner questions and then after the planning commission questions, we'll open this for public hearing for the public to speak. So I'll start my presentation if I can. There we go. So this image in front of you tonight is the latest image of the amendment to the design permit and CUP for the Capitola Wharf. As just going back on March 7th, 2024, the planning commission approved the lighting for the Wharf, viewing stations with telescopes, 40 benches, four tables and 10 trash receptacles. I'm not bringing the specifics of those items into my presentation tonight, but I do have them available on slides if anyone would like to look back at those. So at the March 7th planning commission, we got great feedback on direction for the entry archway, the iconic entry archway for the Capitola Wharf. The planning commission asked us to extend the mosaic tile to the cap, removing the dragon image. Also allowing the dragon to be implemented into elsewhere within the design. They asked that we decrease the fluted stone to four inches to create more space for the artwork on the entryway and to remove the illumination on the pillars. In terms of the gate, the planning commission asked that we remove the city logo on the gate. We were also directed to provide a site plan showing the full layout of the Wharf and where everything would be cited within the wharf. And then there were two signs proposed, one a wharf monument sign and also a wharf to wharf monument at the entryway to wharf road and out to the wharf. And those, they were asked to be removed from the project in whole, so those have been removed. They also asked for additional information on the donor panels, which we have this evening. And then in terms of the bathroom, there was a preference for the vertical wood clad on the bathrooms. So first I wanna introduce the artwork that will be done by Kathleen Cressetti. She's going to be doing mosaic tile panels. I have to apologize. The artwork has changed from a bird motif to kelp and an underwater, but the idea has changed. The representation I have here is the artwork that I had on hand, but it's going to change to kelp and an underwater scene as well. So we'll get further into that, but Kathleen Cressetti has gone through three public meetings, a public outreach meetings with Capitola residents and any interested members of the public and has been getting ongoing design feedback on the wharf entry panels as well as the donor panels. So it's really exciting. This artwork is evolving as we speak. And tonight you'll be providing direction on both the panels, her mosaic tile work on the entry archway as well as the mosaics in terms of location and size. The Art and Cultural Commission will be reviewing this, the final design with the actual artwork in a future meeting to come, so this April. So here is the updated entry archway design. The mosaic tile has been extended to the cap. The dragons, excuse me, have been relocated to be within the archway and then the looted stone on that flags each side of the mosaic artwork has been decreased to four inches in width and the illumination is no longer included in the pillars. The second request from the Planning Commission was to remove the city logo from the gate. And as you can see in this image, the city logo has been removed. Actually, I should also specify that you could, I was gonna mention that the dragons are in the archway right under the L and the A of Capitola and the fireball is still between them. So that symbolism of community is still within the archway, but a little less prominent. So, Pew's also put together a site plan with a, they've created a full site plan identifying the locations of the water refill station, which is shown in blue. The water refill station will also have a foot wash attached to it. The bronze scavenger hunt, which you'll be able to see on future slides a little closer up, and then the viewing stations on the site plan. The viewing stations I have highlighted in yellow. So throughout the work, there's gonna be a really fun meandering path of bronze art pieces that represent local sea life. The artwork will be recessed into the work decking, creating a meandering path. The work, the artwork will be done by Sean Manna again, and I apologize if I pronounced that incorrectly, of Bronze Works Fine Arts Foundry. And he's a local Santa Cruz artist. So here's just one example of a bronze rockfish. And these will vary in size and create that meandering path, which will go to each of the viewing stations along the wharf. I'm gonna sip a little water, I apologize. So within the next five or six images, I've highlighted along the site plan sections of the wharf. So this represents the entry to the wharf. And in blue, I'm showing the water-filled foot stations. And I'm hoping that you can see the bronze fish. They're numbered throughout. There's 40 of them along the entire wharf. So on the left of the slide is the entryway. You see the bathroom. And this is the next slide. The yellow is representing a viewing station, the first viewing station. There is a corridor going out on the wharf for cars, and it also makes the wharf ADA accessible by having a flat surface. So we are being thoughtful in not putting fish on top of that corridor because it's really hard, it would be harder to inlay it into. So you'll notice how the fish kind of jump over the drive lane there. But the fish lead to the first viewing station. And this is a more central along the wharf. You can see more of the fish, fish 13 through 20.  And then there's the third viewing station just before you get on to the head of the wharf. And then once we get on to the very end of the wharf, the bronze fish are represented in orange color. And that's because over the next six months, we're gonna be going through a planning process for the long-term planning of the wharf and programming the end of the wharf and temporary and long-term uses. So we're thinking we would put prints into the wharf to represent where the fish will be installed at a later date, but knowing that we're not quite sure what the uses are going to be out there or what their footprints will be, we wanna leave some room to make sure that we do this right once they are installed. So there'll be prints in paint on the wharf on a temporary basis until we've identified the footprints of future uses. And then this last slide is the very end of the wharf. And you can see in yellow the viewing station. Also in green in each of these slides is where we're expecting that there'll be some type of interpretive artwork. There's a current grant out there and a separate RFP or a separate contract for that work being done, but we've shown that with each viewing station with these binoculars and a place to sit, there'll also be some, we're expecting to have some educational interpretive information on a sign at each of these locations. And I'm gonna go back, sorry. There's also the four squares shown in the middle are the tables. At the time of opening the wharf, we're planning not to affix the tables to the wharf at that time. We'll have them so that they can be moved around so we can really figure out where they belong. Originally, the idea was to have one picnic table with each viewing station, but due to the driving corridor, we cannot fit a picnic table with each viewing station. But hoping to place a picnic table near one of the viewing stations, either at the very end or along the wharf corridor in order for someone, sorry. So we're planning instead to have a bench with each viewing station and then the picnic tables will be in different locations within the wharf knowing that they don't fit correctly with the drive lands and such. Okay, another item the planning commission asked is for us to come back with more information on the donor panels. We've updated the site plan to show a few options. So under option one, the seven donor panels would be along the entryway into the wharf on the right, as shown in the yellow highlights. I'm also showing in blue highlight the location of the possibility of 10 bike racks. The 10 bike racks we also think can be pushed either further away from the bathroom and we'll get into that discussion that this is flexible and we're looking for planning commission feedback tonight. So this is option one with the seven panels located before the entryway. Each donor panel would measure two feet wide by three feet tall. And that spance of the railing as you're entering the wharf is just a little over 20 feet in depth. And I did have the opportunity to take each planning commissioner out to the site individually to see these options and how they would fit and showed some paper up on the gate or up on the railing so that they could understand how they would fit. So this is the image of option one with the panels out by the entryway. And as you can see, the area overlooking hoopers is free and clear and just the view back to Hooper's Beach on that side, but the panels to the right of the entry. Next option two is for the donor panels to be located after the bathroom. On the site plan, we show the donor panels after the bike racks. On the actual images we're gonna show you, the donor panels will be where the bike rack location is and that it would flip that the bike rack is on the right of the entrance and the bike racks would be beyond the donor panels. So tonight, if the planning commissioner to go with staff's recommendation of option two, we would be asking whether or not you would like the 10 bike racks next to the bathroom or beyond the donor panels. So here's the site plan showing the donor panels beyond bike racks. And here is the image showing the donor panels right after the bathrooms. Here's the entryway, which no longer has the panels to the right of the archway. And it shows the panels just beyond the bathrooms. This was staff's preferred option because of the iconic Capitola Wharf entryway and just the, I think we all have great pictures of this over the time over time and we really just, there was a preference on staff as to not overwhelm the entryway and then also to create a beautiful place for the donor panels that really stand on their own. The donor panels will have Kathleen Rassetti's artwork that flows with the artwork that's within the entryway. They'll also be, her artwork will be represented in the donor panels. So it really creates two different art or two connected but placed in separate areas of her artwork and it ties together, but it really allows them to stand on their own rather than having it all as you're entering the wharf. The third option for the donor panel is for the donor panel to be right after the bathroom located facing out towards the water as shown in that yellow highlight. On this image, you can see the seven by seven donor panel that's the size of the back of that side of the bathroom wall. It would be set a foot or two off of the bathroom wall and would include an underwater scene with donor names listed. And I think Gail will be able to provide more details of the artwork and how the donor panels work after my presentation. And here's an image of what that donor panel would look like about one foot off of the bathroom. The last item we're asking for direction on tonight is the bathrooms. At our last meeting, the planning commission provided direction to move forward with the vertical wood clad on the bathrooms. And after receiving bids on the cost of this, it's upwards of about $25,000. That includes installation for the bathrooms and it's kind of a price overrun in terms of our planning for the work enhancements. So tonight we are asking for the planning commission that if to pick an alternative as a paint color, we will try to install the vertical wood clad, but as of right now, it's not in the budget. And so we would like to have a second option of paint. And these images are real images of the ex-lube bathroom in different colors, shown in block one is like a very dark navy blue color. Two is a chrome, three is white, and four is a bronze color. So I'll be asking for direction on that this evening. And I also just wanted to give you an image of the waterfilling foot cleaning station. So here's the waterfills station that there'll be two fountains that are accessible and also a water refill station for water bottles that will be located next to the bathrooms. This comes with an option for a foot cleaning station just to enough your feet with water from the sand that will be an add-on at the bottom. So in terms of updates and in summary, this is the image of what we brought you at the last meeting. And I think all your recommendations were terrific, I think this design has come a long way. And let me say sorry. So that was the last meeting and this is the current design. So a lot more of the art really is more pronounced. The bathroom looks very nice and the little dragons are still there on the archway. So with that, next we'll have Dan Townsend with Fuse Architecture. I'm quickly gonna put on this animation that Fuse put together. And then once the animation completes, we'll have Dan speak and then Gail Ortiz. And the animation, Dan, you're welcome to comment on this while it's playing. But I do think it goes through all three options. Okay, I'll wait for it to load. Write my name down. Oh, I'm sorry. Want me to write my name on here? We'll load on that screen as well. I'll, let me see. Gotta reshare to the other screen, sorry. Oh wait for it, it's on the watch. Can you see that? So this is option two with the panels behind the bathrooms and then option three with the panel located looking out towards the ocean. Oh, and this is zooming in on a view station so you can see the telescope out there. It's just on a loop now. Okay, so I'll stop it here. Yeah, or you can just let it run if you want. This is fine as well. If we'll just keep going. Okay, go for it. Yeah, my name is Dan Townsend with Fuse Architects. Good evening commissioners and staff and thanks Katie for such an organized great presentation. We're happy to be back with some of the changes. We feel like we've followed the direction of commission and we're happy with the outcome. The options that you're looking at for the donor halls is what show it Joe now for the support staff's recommendation. And I think the commissions has seen this as well. The option two or the donor wall donor panels being beyond the restrooms as the mouth of the wharf is a little bit narrow there. So it feels good to us. The panel is being on the backside of the bathroom. There's some pros and cons to each one, but the pros are definitely that the donor names are more at eye level as you see on the back of the bathrooms. But I don't think it's a design killer either way. It could go with option two or three and be very successful as far as the donor panels go. We're happy to have shown the whole wharf and the walking path and the scavengers with the fish. It's nice to see it in the view you're seeing here. One thing to take note of, I'll just share my own opinions and our office opinion on some of the things that we have responded to from planning commission that popped up in the original presentation that we had on the seventh, we didn't show the light poles. Just take note about light pole that's right behind the gate. It seems a little, I don't think we need it. There's gonna be a light on the bathroom that might be sufficient. Alternatively, my own personal opinion is I don't think we need the light poles at all down the wharf. I think a better solution after seeing our renderings would be to have under rail lighting to shine down softer. I know that's part of the C-WAP program. You may be opposed to that, but that's just my opinion. I don't think we need the light poles. Something to discuss. Another thing to take note of is we had in the March 7th presentation, there were two signs out of the road that's a capital of the wharf and then where the wharf to wharf race monument is. We just took note of the existing sign that's out there says capital of the wharf, restaurant, loading and fishing. That's not gonna be the case anymore. So I don't know if you guys wanna discuss that. Maybe the sign is removed. We won't have a restaurant or boating out there. Or we could maybe take a look at that. We just had a capital of the wharf sign there. So either a new sign or something probably needs to be addressed. Otherwise, I'm here for questions. We're very happy with the amount of artwork that's on the columns. It looks beautiful. Proportions-wise, another opinion of mine. I think the four inches of stone and mosaic is a little off to, I get really picky about those little details. Feels like five inches of stone and the rest mosaic would be, again, not a design killer, but just a proportion of things that I look at a lot and our office looks at. I think that's about it. It's come together very nice. As Katie said, it's an improvement from the 7th till now with the commission's feedback and staff feedback. So thank you and I'm here for any questions. Let's hold questions till the end.  Good evening, planning commissioners and staff. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Good. We wanna thank Katie and Jessica for their help in redoing locations for different things on the wharf. It was really great to work with staff on that. And we just wanna recognize views. We all think they did an amazing job on these renderings and this design and we're just so pleased with it. We just have a few comments having to do with the benches and I'm gonna read these so that I get them right. The benches that are on the commission's spec sheets tonight that you see in your staff report are meant to be bolted to the wharf deck. They are the same benches that the city specified in the original plans. We researched many bench styles and recommended these that the wharf visitors are not able to move them around at will which we feel that they might. We understand it's the city's intention to be able to move the benches. So we asked for clarity at this meeting on that whether because it depends on which model gets ordered. As far as the tables are concerned, we would prefer that there might be two tables along somewhere along the run of the wharf and two tables at the end. The staff is recommending all four at the end. We think that for those people who have mobility issues and would like to have a resting spot along the wharf, it might be great. We understand that they can't be in the viewing stations and that's fine and they couldn't probably be on the left-hand side because there isn't room with the two drive paths but maybe there's another place for them. If that's possible, it would be great. The third thing is the viewing station benches. So we have four donors of $25,000 each who donated to these viewing stations. And we originally told them that there would be because we had worked for the city on this that there would be a bench, a table and the binoculars there. And we understand that the tables can't be there and that's fine. We can explain to them why that is. And so we don't want any tables on any of them because we don't want one donor to feel like they got more than another that wouldn't be fair. But we're hoping that the bench, each bench that's at each viewing station not have another, the old plaques that are going on some of the benches. We're hoping that those don't not go on the ones that are in the viewing stations because we think that would be a conflict of interest for these donors that donated $25,000. So the benches that are in the viewing stations, we're hoping do not have plaques of previous donors from the old wharf. Having to do with the donor panels, you received our previous letter stating our agreement with the staff option two. Now that we see the site plan, there seems to be something in front of option three. And it's either the foot washing water station or it may also be the bike loops. I thought it said bike loops.  So it gives us even more reason to really encourage the planning commission to go with option two. And we would prefer that they went after the bike racks. So furthest away from the bathroom. So if it went bathrooms, bike racks and the donor wall, it would seem appropriate to us. And as far as the light poles are concerned, I think under rail lighting would be beautiful. I think everybody would probably agree with that. There's one little glitch and that is that we did with the city's permission, we got donors of $10,000 for each one of those light poles. Their names would go on it. That's an agreement that we have with the city. If planning commissioners feel, this is the first time we've heard this. So if planning commissioners feel that that is a possible option, we might be able to explore other places where we could recognize those, but those are $10,000 donors. So they're the second largest donations and there were 10 of them. So I'm not sure exactly where we would be able to recognize them that would be as permanent and meaningful as a light pole. And that's up to the planning commissioners. So I'm also available for questions if anyone has any. Okay. Staff questions or a commissioner? Maybe for views or maybe just staff. I don't know, how is the car corridor demarcated? Is there any special surface or just lines or anybody know? Was the question, how is the drive aisle? Yeah, how does it, how does it called out? Or is it called out on the, in any way with lines? The different. It's a special material that is weather resistant and it has a thicker density to it. And it's, the surface of it is smooth so that you can, so a wheelchair, it's 36, each drive is 36 inches wide to allow for ADA access out to the end of the war. Okay, so the dashed area on the plans on E1.5, that'll be a special material put on top of the timber or material. Yes, yep. Oh, I have one quick question for you architects. On the illustrations, you're still showing the lights with the longer pole going out where a banner could be hung. And I thought we agreed at our last meeting that we were going to have them with shorter pole because there was concern about the banner pole being there really late. Yeah, I apologize, you're right. We pulled graphics from previous models like fixtures. But yes, the commission did agree that there wouldn't be banner on poles on there.  Yeah, one more thing just to comment on Gail's comment about the light poles. When I made that comment about the light poles, I wasn't aware that there were $10,000 donors per light. If it is part of the discussion, it's really the one that's right by the gate that just seems out of place. If we stick with light poles, I don't know if you can pull it up, Katie, or not, but the image of the front, you'll see it looks like the gate's gonna swing into the light pole. It just seems out of place if we can maybe relocate that. And I don't mean to make that a big part of this discussion, but we just noticed it. It just seems like we either don't need that one or it can be relocated. Yeah, Katie, I'd appreciate that if you did pull that up because I would like to see that again. I can do that. As I'm getting there, I will say the location of the light poles are based on the existing location of light poles and where the wiring has been run to historically. So yes, there you can see the one light pole right by the entry. It seems to be in the way. So question then for Ms. Ortiz, the $10,000, each light pole is associated with the $10,000 donor. So if we lose one, we have one donor to deal with. Yes. You're done with your questions. I have a few. So, yeah, Ms. Ortiz, since you're on the line, this whole donor methodology, I'd like to understand better. You mentioned $25,000 associated with viewing stations. So I'm assuming that those donors will be recognized at each of the viewing stations. You mentioned the light poles. Each donor will have their name somehow recognized on the light poles. Are they also on this donor plaque? How was that the whole thing negotiated? $25, you get a free pizza, $50, you get your name on that. You know, how did that work? That was negotiated with the city council. Working with the staff and it was presented to the city council at a public meeting and the donor opportunities were spelled out and approved by the city council. Specific things were specific amounts of money, very similar to the way we did it with the library. The largest donors that donated upwards $10,000, $25,000, not only get their name on something, but they also have it on the donor wall. Donors of lesser amounts only have their name on the donor wall. So we followed the same methodology that we used for the library. Okay, so I guess what the purpose of the question was, I would think that whether we choose option two or three could be affected by what was promised to the donors. For example. So all the donors would be on option two or three. Okay, so there wasn't any promises of location or the size of their names or... We did talk to them about it being before the gate, but we, after seeing that going out there with staff, we wholeheartedly agree with staff that before the gate just puts too many good things all in one spot, why not spread it out and also have that beautiful gate work that Fuse did and the artwork that'll be on it, be the main thing when people walk through. So I think our main concern with number three is that there's going to be something in front of, well, it's nearer a bathroom, which is probably not the best location. And it's, there seems to be something in front of it. And we would hate to have something blocking the view of the artwork. That just wouldn't make sense. So I'm not sure, maybe Katie can tell us what that freestanding white thing is. Is it the foot washing drinking fountains or is it a bike pole? Yes, so that is the foot washing, the drinking fountain, but that, if we were to go with option three, we would put that in a different location because it makes no sense to have that right in front of it. So that was just an oversight and there wasn't enough time to fix that in the rent. Okay. Yeah. That would make option three more palatable. I think we're still wanting to go with option two because the artist liked option two the best and we'd like to honor her vision of the donor wall, but it's up to the planning commission. The location is up to the planning commission. The artwork itself is up to the art and cultural commission. So you don't feel that the donors would feel upset with one option versus the other? I can't, no, I don't think so. Thank you. I think both of them would be beautiful. She'll do a good job with either one of them. And I mean, the back of the bathroom wall was originally my idea. Why don't we put it all in one large thing? And I think Katie was right that it is, or maybe it was Dan that said it would be at eye level and a larger scene. So it may even be cheaper to install the frame part of it too. So I don't know. I think either one would be fine. You also mentioned the, you prefer the, or like the idea of the lighting underneath the railing as opposed to the poles. Was that discussed at the C-Web and did they have an opinion or is that just your opinion? Tonight's the first time we've heard that. And we would, you know, it would be a problematic for us because we, I don't, I can't, I think there's something sort of permanent and solid about a freestanding, you know, their name would be right on the base of the light poles. There is a component that gets built into the light pole for that. So having their name somewhere on, it could be, you know, if it were on the railing, there's going to be a lot of probably other, I'm not sure, but the city may have the old, you know, donor plaques on the railing the way we used to have. And that wouldn't, you know, that those people paid, I don't know how much a hundred or a thousand or 500 or whatever it would, that wouldn't be fair. Where would we put those? So that is fairly problematic for us. It's a hundred thousand dollars we've raised for that. Okay, thank you. Maybe one other question. I don't know whether this is for you or for Fuse, but donor walls that were shown in the illustrations don't show any artwork at all. So I'm having a hard time imagining what they're really going to look like. Right.  That's more representative of the artist's work. It will be similar to that work, but it won't have quite as much kelp because we've already got kelp represented, but it would be sort of an underwater scene because each donor name will be in the shape of a glass fish that is running through the scene. So there probably would be some starfish on the bottom.  The larger donors would be at the top.  The bigger ones and then the minnows at the bottom. So does that answer your question? Yes, thank you. You've been very helpful. I do have a question of staff regarding, we have a letter that came in from a Mr. Sawyer proposing a design and it kind of begs the question, could you just repeat quickly how Fuse was selected as our designer of choice? Sure, this is Director Hurley. Fuse was selected during the initial process for the wharf reconstruction. So Fuse has been on contract with the city going back to, I think it's 2020 in which we entered a contract and RFP was put out and they were selected by the city. So they have a valid contract with the city for doing the work. Thank you. And then you mentioned the bathroom that this Planning Commission and SeaWeb preferred the wood siding but it was a cost problem 25K. You mentioned tonight that you would try to adhere with that request but it would like a backup plan. So two things, one is, I'm assuming 25K is just a ballpark estimate. We try to get it for less than that and that the savings we might have accrued from eliminating the monuments at the entrance of the wharf might be able to juggle the budget that way and somehow get that bathroom worked properly but is the point that the budget is still on flux and you're still not sure what you can and can't do? I really appreciate that question. So we have kind of fine tuned the budget because costs have gone up since the initial bids came into play and there's also a cost associated with change orders. So the overrun is real and it does go beyond the city's budget at this time. So at this point, unless we were to acquire more funds or take another portion when we looked at the budget, we removed the signs at the entryway. We've reevaluated the whole project based on exactly what's before you tonight. So this would be a budget overrun and that is why we are looking for feedback on possibly painting the bathrooms and I can definitely bring back other colors at a future date if none of these colors are satisfactory but at this time that siding would take us $25,000 over budget. That was based on views getting a bid from local contractors for the installation is my understanding and I direct to Khan is in the room if I'm wrong but I do know that we got a bid on the siding and it was at $25,000 beyond budget. Okay, thank you. Last question on the entryway where we asked for the monuments, a monument signed to be removed. We talked about palm trees, placing two palm trees in there. I know that was discussed at a planning commission meeting a long time ago but the two palm trees were a suggestion but they weren't actually voted on as I recall the meeting. And I would hope that, well, my question I guess is do you feel constrained to put in two palm trees and they're based on planning commission requests or some notion that was our direction? Can we give them that direction when we did the tree removal permit for the two pine trees? When I reviewed the meeting, I looked at the video, we talked about it, we suggested it and then Steve Jesberg said, well, we certainly could do that but where you have a tree replacement program this is all gonna be part of the study and we voted that okay, we didn't specifically express that we wanted two palm trees there, we were okay with his approach of that's an option and there's gonna be this tree replacement program that he's committed to. So I think we, if we really insist on two palm trees and frankly, it might be a little crowded, we should bring that up again. Yeah, I think I'll confess I haven't gone back and looked at it recently but my recollection was that we were taking two trees out and we were going to have those two trees replaced and we had some members that were interested in that as well. So I think if we're going to change that, we do need to sort of bring it back and talk about that again. So my question to staff is that your understanding as well? The area in which the planting where the trees were removed and we were planning on replanting there is actually very small palm trees planted in that area and my understanding is that the request is to bring back more significant palm trees along our entry corridor. I would, I can definitely come back to the Planning Commission with more information on that, but palm trees, I think there's the ability to plant two in that area because of there at the way that they grow in their root system. But if it's a matter of it being too crowded in terms of aesthetics, we can definitely find another spot for the second palm tree. There is quite a number of palm trees along that entry corridor into Capitola and then across the street, there's different trees. So I don't think it's appropriate really to throw a palm tree across the street before you go over the Stockton Bridge, but if you'd like, I'm happy to look at other options and bring that back maybe on a director's report to tell you about other replanting options. I'd be okay with that. And since we're at that location with regards to what Fuse Architects recommended that the existing sign there, I'm assuming that the plan is to have that removed. At this time, we were not planning on removing the sign. It does, it serves a purpose in terms of letting people know where the Capitola Wharf is. There was the idea of also installing directional signs. So we haven't gotten to that. We haven't had time to get that far yet, but I think once we have a replacement sign, that sign would be removed. But at this period or this juncture, we have no plan to remove that sign until we have something in its place approved that is a good directional sign for the public to identify where the Wharf is. As was pointed out, it's misleading now since there's no restaurant or a bateshop there. So it's something to consider. I won't belabor that. All right, those are my questions. Any other questions? By all means, let's move on to public hearings. Are the members of the public wish to weigh in on this topic? Please come forward to the microphone. State your name and if you want your name on the record, place your name on the sheet there. Good evening, Karen Hannah. So just two main issues that I wanted to speak to tonight. The location of the donor wall. Pretty much exactly what I said at the last hearing. I would hope that, and I guess this also could go for the benches and tables. A little bit of flexibility could be reserved for final placement once the area is completed. And because it's a little bit hard to tell from the drawings thus far, where the little bulb outs are and things like that. Personally, I think that the best location for the bike loops is right behind the bathrooms. It's at the beginning of the war if people might put their bikes there and then go down to the beach. It's a great location for it. I'd like to see the donor walls a little bit separated from that so that they really get, they can really shine on their own and not have a lot of hardware around them. So I would assume that the donor walls will be one of the very last things that might go up and that the placement might be fine tuned at that time. But I definitely support having it in the six to seven panels as opposed to the one big panel. And part of that is because brings me to my second issue which is the bathroom. So I have a craft gallery and craft gallery annex downtown.  And it's only been a couple of weeks and already people who have leaned their bicycles up against the wall have scratched the paint off and now we see the base color through. So you can imagine that that painted bathroom after everybody's banged into it and thrown their bicycles against it, it's gonna be brown or whatever color and blue. And if it's painted now, it's gonna have to be painted again in a few years. It probably won't get painted because the city won't have the money but it will need to be painted. So I think they should bite the bullet, put the wood cladding on it now, make it look good. You've all saw the picture from the Venetian courts what that blue bathroom looks like. It's a prominent feature of their view quarter. And I think the city owes it to everyone to make it look as good as possible and find another way to save a few thousand dollars and make that affordable. Thank you. Anyone else? My name is Keith Haley, I'm a resident here. I have four comments. First of all, practical one, it shows the gate swing to the left. There's nothing to support at that point in time. So I don't understand why there's a swing to the right so you could attach it to the bathroom for when you're working with it. It seems more a practical solution to me. Secondly, I totally agree with the comment about the bathroom. I would wonder if the city, a staff has ever sat down and done a forward looking projection of what the annual maintenance cost is gonna be for a pain wilt over time versus just doing expenditure at one time up front. The last two are mostly kind of just my comments. One thing, you know, in the artwork, if you go to Monterey Bay Aquarium, if you go to the Disney World or whatever, they spread the attractions or the art throughout the facility to get you to kind of move around and go from there. So I'm kind of, I don't understand and I've been on some of the meetings. I don't understand why all the artworks come together in one big piece. And so maybe I'll, so we can educate me on that. It seems to me that perhaps spreading it throughout the wharf would lead to people moving around and doing that. And then the last one might be like the ideas of the under the rail, but I totally understand Gail's comment about the light poles. Again, my only comment would be as the city done any type of evaluation of what the potential storm damage and resistance for the poles will be for the future. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Good evening. My name is Joe Palantraune. I'm not sure if I'm the minister or not, but I wanted to clarify a couple of things. The light poles that you saw in the rendering are the light poles that you've recommended. The arm is there that it's gonna allow the light to go on the wharf instead of over the water. So that arm is not for banners. It's the arm in air. Does that make sense? And I agree with the comment about that. One odd, I don't know left. I think it does look kind of weird with the arch. And finally, oh, and finally I would like to also agree with the other speakers about the bathroom. I think that's the first thing we'd see. It'd be terrible to see a blue striped brown lodged bathroom. That would clad beautiful. And I think it's really, it's the first building we see. And I think it's important. Thank you. Thank you. Let's bring it back to council deliverer, rather committee mission, deliberations with you. Oh, well. Why don't we do the donor wall, the bathroom, those things. I'll start then. I came into the meeting thinking option three behind the bathroom is probably the best, but then looking at the, listening to people, I think option two makes good sense. Some flexibility is to how the separation in the like loops, bathroom and donor wall, I think needs to be considered in the final actual placement of the, I would do the bathroom, bike loops and the donor wall, but separate them out so the people aren't leaning their bikes up against the donor wall. Is that what kind of ruin? Well, I would agree with you. I would like to see some flexibility. Like you said, it seems like they ought to put in, you know, the bathrooms there and then put in the bike rack and then go out and look and figure out, you know, does the donor wall need to be eight feet from the bike racks, didn't feed from the bike racks, you know, sort of have some flexibility. Just say that it's going to go in that general area. So let me disagree. I also think that option three is the way to go. Initially, and I still think so. And I keep talking about the artwork. I don't think a donor wall is artwork. I think it is, it obstructs the view. So when little Timmy wants to see the little sea lions out there, he can't because there's a donor wall in his way. So that's why I was wondering, I certainly don't want to offend the donors, but I think keeping the names of the donors out of the view lines, which would be putting them on the bathroom wall would be the best way to acknowledge them, but not to interfere with the wharf experience, which is all about looking at the ocean. And I have to, I thought that initially as well, but then looking at the bathroom placement here, sure shooting some bikes are going to be piled up against that thing and nobody's going to see the donor wall.  So I don't think that's going to happen if we put it all along the rails of the war. And for me, I see this more as artwork in that the committee that has raised this money is spending a significant amount of money to have the donor's names incorporated on piece of art that's going to be done by the artist who's going to do the columns. That's true in both options. And so for me, I'm sort of looking at it more as artwork and recognition of donors. Well, what about then about the comment from the member of the audience who said, well, if it's artwork, then why don't you space it out? Well, I think that's the reason we moved it from the entry point of the war where the archway columns are to go further down the war. So it is being spread out. But for me, I like option two. I like the sort of breaking up the panels rather than having one big wall. So we've got two option twos, one option three. That sounds like a resolution. Let's move on then to the bathroom. All right. Are we gonna paint it? The bathroom and all the pictures I've looked at up until a couple of recent ones have been woodclad. I don't see why we would ever change woodclad to bright blue or black or white or gray or whatever pink or whatever color we would want to use. I mean, $25,000 is approximately 0.25%, probably a little bit less once we finish this project, the entire project funding. I wouldn't skimp on this wood personally. I agree with you again. Well, I think what I'm hearing is that they're looking for an option and we're saying, well, okay, there's only one option. And regardless of there's money or not, and if there's no money, obviously, it's gonna stay periwinkle blue until the money's there, which might be a long time. So we might wanna give them an option to at least paint it until we can get the money to put the wood up. The one thing I've learned about city projects is if you don't do it, when you originally know the project, it will never happen. There's no such thing as temporary in this city. So I would like to see them go ahead and do the wood cladding on the wall. I went out there and I was with Gail and Jessica and Katie and we talked about painting it and I was sort of going, oh, yeah, okay, well that might be okay if you could come up with the right color. And then I went home and thought about it and I think if we're gonna do it, we wanna do it right. I think $25,000 if that's the cost of it is, as Paul mentioned, a very minute part of the budget for the whole wharf. And we're spending millions of dollars out there. I think the bathroom is going to be the most used feature on the wharf. It's been desperately needed for a long time and I think we ought to do it right and do the wood paneling. And as Joe pointed out, the first thing you see when you go walk out there is the bathroom and it really needs to be wood because there's everything else beyond it. All right, let's all agree on that then, all right? Okay. Find a budget and put the wood on. Okay, other topics that have been brought up, things like the light poles should versus under railing lighting. Seems to me that we could keep all the light poles but maybe just find a way to move that one to a different, or space them differently. Is that something that you can, okay, I hear, I see a nodding in the architects, so. The light pole number one has a clearance of about a foot from the gate based on the plan view A1.0 that's used presented. It doesn't hit the light pole, it's close to it. And I don't have any opinion which way the top swings. I mean, I think that's an engineering thing and for people who are gonna work on the wharf. So, they can look at that, but I don't think we're saying it has to go one way or the other, figure out what's best for how the wharf operates. So I'm taking that as direction, keep the light poles, see if we can find better spacing so that it's more aesthetic. Okay, benches being bolted down was a topic. Well, I had a question about that because when I looked at the plans, I thought the only benches they were not talking about bolting down were the ones at the very end of the wharf. Could somebody tell me whether or not that is correct? Yeah, I can clarify on that. The benches at, all benches will be secured to the wharf. The four picnic benches at the end of the wharf are not going to be secured. They can be bolted in, but they will not be bolted in in the beginning as we figure out the correct placement for those benches. I mean, the picnic table. The picnic table, yep, sorry. But all benches will be facing outward and secured to the wharf. Okay, so. And we can definitely work with the suggestions that Gail suggested tonight of two picnic benches along the route out to the head of the wharf. But we have no plans at this point to bolt them down until we have a better idea of the long-term plan for the wharf. That's the picnic tables. So we have flexibility on the picnic tables. Right. I think it's what everybody wants and, you know. And then can I provide a little more clarity on one other item that was brought up tonight? There was mention of the donor plaques on benches. And tonight we cannot take direction on location of donor plaques on the benches or the railings. The city council was very clear that all existing donor plaques that are on the railings and benches come back. We will take into consideration the comments made this evening for how to, first, I need to, we've got to do our complete inventory and see how many benches and plaques were accounted for prior because they all need to come back. And I'll work with C-Web and keep the communication going on exactly what that number is and how to resolve this issue of viewing stations and benches and plaques. So, but we're in the process of creating a plaque memorial administrative policy. And I really, I think that's an item that I really need to take before city council and it wouldn't be appropriate for us to interfere with that process of the planning commission right now because they are working on an administrative policy but I can definitely continue to work with Gail and I understand the concerns of C-Web with the larger donors in the viewing stations and making sure they're adequately represented in those areas. There's just a lot more going on there in terms of lots of donor plaques, so. You have adequate direction then from the commission or do you need a motion? The, I think I would like a motion regarding just approval of the amendments to the design permit as directed this evening. And I am clear on your direction, so thank you. Okay, so I'll try or you wanna go ahead. Okay, I'm going to make a motion that the donor wall be option two with the staff and C-Web having flexibility to make adjustments to the exact location of the panels in relation to the bike racks. That the bathrooms have the wood on the exterior is shown on the plans. That the light pole at the entry be evaluated for its exact location to make certain that it doesn't interfere with the gate opening and is in an appropriate place. Anything else we need to include? That's good enough for me. Do I have a second? I'll second that. Okay, should we have a roll call vote? Should go quick. Commissioner Westman. Aye. Commissioner Wilk. No. And Commissioner Estee. Aye. Motion passes two to one. All right, let's move on to then item B722 as a colonial drive and take a five minute break while the rest of the commission comes back. Is it raining? Okay, welcome back. Is everybody ready? All right, moving on to Brian or the staff ready? I think Sean. Okay, moving on to planning hearing item B is 722 Escalona Drive and the project description is a tree removal permit for a removal of 35 trees located within the planned development zoning district. This project is in the coastal development zone but does not require a coastal development permit. Recommended action is approved application based on the attached conditions and findings for approval. Thank you and good evening. Couple quick notes before I get started. We have two applications that are gonna look very similar to each other back to back. They're both for trees. They're both in the same general by the same arborist. I did get some questions leading up to the meeting. I wanted to clarify the first one, which was that our stack report for the Escalona Avenue, or sorry, the Arc Avenue trees, we stated that all the trees are on city property. That is technically true. However, two of them are growing on city and RTC, Santa Cruz County property. They've grown into though if they've been identified by both the city and the RTC. But at this time, the city is electing to pursue removal of them. Both these reports are gonna be short and sweet. We have some robust arborist reporting on it, and hopefully I can answer any questions you have tonight. So with that, the application for you, as mentioned, is a true removal permit for approximately 35 trees. It's located at 722 Escalona Drive. This is a land of development zoning district serving single family residents. Long presentation, one moment. So as noted in the stack report, the site is endowed by a densely packed row, predominantly blue gump eucalyptus, some other varieties, recaluminal. Of we have the proposed tree removal plan. Staff has also superimposed an estimated boundary of the environmentally sensitive habitat area that overlaps with this site. It's for the Escalona Gulch Monarch Cove butterfly habitat. And as you can see, a number of the trees proposed removal in red, about 15 of them, are located within or right along the boundary of that habitat area. I also went ahead and noted several larger red circles. Those trees are trees that since the original reporting have either fallen down of the Rona Cord or been removed under emergency permitting due to hazardous conditions. As I just mentioned before, since the original review of this site by the Arborist in late 2023 and the publishing of the stack report, approximately seven trees have come down on the Rona Corp on this site. See some of the photos taken by the Arborist above. They've also removed a couple additional trees prophylactically as they were damaged or also showing signs of imminent failure. Of the trees listed for removal, six of them are displaying a risk of failure as well, either to property or to general safety or falling down the bluff. Those trees are proposed removal for those conditions. The remaining trees are being proposed removal under the grounds of fire risk production and forestry management. The trees, the majority of the trees listed in that group are predominant. Six p.m. Thank you.