I'm going to go ahead and start the meeting. All right, good evening and welcome to our 6th of October 8, 2020, special meeting of the city council to revise the adopted budget for fiscal year 2021. I have a few announcements and then we'll move on to our regular meeting. The next meeting is being broadcast live on community television channel 25 and it's streaming on the city's website, cityofsanicures.com. All council members are participating in this meeting remotely and I want to thank the public for staying home to view tonight's city council meeting. If you wish to comment on tonight's agenda item, call in at the beginning of the item using the instructions on your screen. Please mute your television or streaming device once you've called in and listened through your phone. Please note that there's a delay in streaming so if you continue to listen on your television or streaming device, you may miss your opportunity to speak. When it's time for public comment, you'll need to press star 9 on your phone to raise your hand. So if it's your time to speak during public comment within an outfit that you've been unmuted, the time will then be set to two minutes and you may hang up once you've done comment. With that, I'd like to ask the clerk to please call the roll. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Byers. Aye. Matthew. Here. Council Member Watkins, I believe is currently absent. Vice Mayor Myers. Here. And Mayor Cummings. Our budget on our agenda this evening is general business for fiscal year 2021, the live budget adoption. For members of the public who are streaming in, if you'd like to comment on this item, now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen. The order will be a presentation by staff, follow-up questions from council. We will then take public comment and return to the council for deliberation and action. I would now like to ask the city manager, Martin Bernal, to introduce the item. Thank you, Mayor. I also wanted to maybe just, I know we have a Council Member Matthews, who has a complex, maybe turn it over to her just to make a note of that before we get started. Yes, I'd like to make a brief statement. Many people know, not everybody does, that my son is a San Francisco Park Ranger and that's a major item on our agenda. Although there's no direct financial relationship, I am concerned about the appearance of a conflict of interest when that item comes up. I had asked the city attorney about this previously and he sent some research and based on his advice, I am going to recuse myself from that specific item on our budget discussions this evening. I concur with that advice. And I have asked the city manager and mayor to structure the discussion so that I can recuse myself from the Ranger issue specifically, but participate in the rest of the budget discussion. I think I've presented that accurately. Thank you. Police, I'd just like to ask Council Members that we were referring from discussing anything related to the Rangers. We can say that for after we've had all our discussion and then have a discussion regarding the Rangers at the end so that Council Member Matthews can refuse herself and then join us again for, and then when we get to making decisions around the Rangers, but we say that for the end so Council Member Matthews can refuse herself. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Mayor. Yes, so we'll be doing a presentation and hopefully you see the presentation up on your screen. The next slide, please. So this is the overview. I'll give an overview of the presentation. I'll start off with an introduction. And then we'll have our provide you with updates on actions to date, the forecast, the city's implementation and updated forecast, as well as work at the committee and the recommendations before you and the updated forecast in detail. And then she'll turn it over to Assistant City Manager Laura Schmidt who will review next steps that you received a report related to the forecast that had been prepared by management partners. And we had anticipated coming to you on September 22 with budget actions. We asked that that be deferred today in order to allow our finance director and our finance department to collect some additional data. They were in the process of reconcilating the fiscal year 2021 budget numbers. In other words, doing the last year's closeout and getting more accurate data as far as how we ended the last fiscal year in terms of our revenues and in terms of our expenditures. And felt that having that additional data would provide more information that we could include into our model and our forecast and give us a better sense of what we needed to do. And so I'll just kind of briefly, excuse me, give you an overview of what we found. In essence, the overall fiscal situation really has not changed in general, meaning that we still have a structural budget deficit before us and that's what we're facing, we're facing a structural budget deficit, meaning that we anticipate deficits over multiple years. And so that puts us in a position to have to take reductions in order to, for expenditures to meet the revenues over multiple years. However, there is some bit of good news in that the, we did end the year in a better cash position, so we didn't draw down our fund balance as much as we had anticipated. So that does give us a little bit more flexibility. And the main thing is that looking ahead, it does allow us to reduce our second year cut. So we still have to do a $10 million set of cuts over two years as opposed to a $12 million set of cuts. So if we do $6 million this year, then the following year, fiscal year 2022, that'll be closer to $4 million, the $3.75 million that's listed here. So again, it doesn't necessarily change our basic overall fiscal situation. We're still in a position where we have to make a structural reduction so that we don't draw down our fund balances to an unacceptable level. I think the main thing is that whereas before we were facing a position where we're going to draw down our fund balance to a very, very low unacceptable level that really put us in a perilous position, particularly if anything else happened. We had any kind of disaster with respect to storms or anything else that happened. Now this allows us to have reserves that are still below what they need to be, but a little better off at a 10% level as opposed to lower than that and certainly not the 17% level that we need to have. So that's kind of an overview of really what's happened. And now I'll turn it over to our finance director who'll go through the details of the forecast and the recommendations before you. Thank you, City Manager. I have a confession to make. I did something on my computer and I lost the ability to turn my screen on. So I apologize, this is my first time doing a presentation and I'm on my home computer, so there we go. Thank you. How's that? Yes, that's working. OK, thank you. So so far, we've adopted the status quo working budget on July 2nd, 2020. And that was basically a copy of the 1920 adopted budget or revised budget. We also hired management partners to prepare the COVID and recessionary forecast. They're a well-known firm made up of former finance directors and city managers. So they have a lot of experience in the field. They work with a lot of cities. So we were happy to work with them. And they have a forecast that they've built and they can use for multiple cities and they put in our data and use our data to make the analysis. And council implemented some budget saving measures already for fiscal year 2021. We implemented a hiring freeze. We also implemented a 10% reduction in personnel costs. So this was either a furlough or a layoffs in the police department or some frozen positions in the fire department. This resulted in a 4.5 million in estimated savings. If you'll notice that is a little bit less than what was presented before, which was 5.7 million. The 4.5 million number comes from the actual personnel estimates we have now in this revised budget. So it excludes the early retirement positions and the positions that are proposed for elimination. So the estimated savings went down. We also have the early retirement incentive that was offered. 26 employees took advantage of that, resulting in 1.4 million in savings. The estimate that was presented previously was 1.8 million. So this also went down a little bit because we netted it out with the cashouts that were for these long-time employees. So the savings was just a little bit less. We implemented a voluntary time off policy. We also deferred general fund-supported CIP projects. And we've identified as much as we can for FEMA reimbursements and federal and state aid. And we established a council budget committee and we've been meeting with them. This is a list of the 26 positions that retired early by department. And as you can see, the public works number is quite a bit higher than everyone else, but they also have the largest number of full-time equivalents. So as a percentage, it's not any higher than any other department. The management partner's forecast was presented to the council on August 18, 2020. It included a COVID impact, a recessionary impact, and the existing structural deficit. They recommended 12 million in solutions over two years. And these solutions could be comprised of enhanced revenues, service delivery changes, expenditure controls or cost shifts, and service level reductions. And we have a little bit of each of those in the proposal tonight. This is a graph of their presentation. So they recommended it came out with like 11 to 14 million in solutions if you look at the best case and then the worst case. So we went with the baseline case in the middle, which was the 12 million in solutions. The dotted blue line is the city's reserve goal, which is about 17% of expenditures. That is also the government finance officers association, their recommended reserve goal. The red line is the city's actual projected fund balance or cash position. And as you can see, it drops pretty low. That's why we're bringing this to you tonight so we can bring that up to an acceptable level. We definitely don't want to fall below 10 million. That's only about 10% of our general fund expenditures. So we also took some other measures to try to get that reserve or cash balance up. And most of these are in the proposal that is presented tonight. We adjusted the reserve funds when we could. The balance in the workers comp fund was considerably higher than we need to meet current claims. So we recommended pulling out 3.5 million from that fund. And 1.9 million of that goes to the general fund. And the other 1.6 million goes to the enterprise funds. We eliminated the fiscal year 2020 transfer of TOT to the ED trust fund. That brought back 1.1 million to the general fund. It also leaves them enough to do their projects. And then we reduced the fiscal year 2021 TOT transfer to the ED trust fund by half. And because the TOT had reduced significantly in 2020, that resulted in a $400,000 savings to the general fund, when it's normally quite a bit more. We also reduced the workers comp rates by 25%. And then we asked each department to cut a total of 6 million in the fiscal 2021 budget, targeting sustainability. So we asked that the cuts be permanent and not one time in nature, as that's what we really need to do to bring up that red line that we looked at earlier. We set a reduction target for each department. At a minimum, we asked for 6% and for some departments, we gave a little bit higher target than that. We also asked them to eliminate vacant positions when possible and to evaluate their professional services to see if they needed to carry those balances. The revenue forecast that's in tonight's proposal is based on the fiscal year 2020 actuals. We do need to monitor it closely as it may be optimistic. As you know, being a tourist town July and August are our largest months for revenue. So we've already missed those. So we just want to make sure we carefully monitor that and we may recommend adjustments at mid-year. The council budget committee met three times and it was broken into two different rounds. Management partners presented their model for review and comment from the council. So we had the two rounds of meetings and then we had a third round earlier this week to bring this final recommendation to you. So our target was $6 million in some kind of solution. We found just over $13,000 in ongoing revenue. That's a new source from the state. It's a part of a fee that we're going to collect. On this timeframe, it's harder to find any more new revenues. We need a little bit longer look to do that. So we did focus on the expenditure side. In the service level reduction or elimination category, we found over $2.1 million in savings. In the service delivery alternative or cost shift, we found $1.75 million in savings. And in one-time reductions, we found $1.4 million. So the proposed total of reductions is $5,334,000. The shortfall is $665,000. However, we make up $400,000 of that with the stopping the transfer from TOT to the ED trust fund. So in the finance department, the target was $189,000. We eliminated two vacant positions. One is an accountant in audits. One is a management analyst in risk, which is only half funded by the general fund. We're also recommending that we reclassify one vacant position from an accounting assistant two to an administrative assistant three, as we don't have an administrative person in the department. And then we found $72,000 in other reductions for the office lease in the NIAC building, software travel, and office furniture for total reductions of almost $270,000. In the information technology budget, their target was $219,000. They have several vacancies in their department, so we didn't recommend eliminating any personnel at this time, but we will evaluate it at mid-year. Yes. I'm sorry, if I may interrupt this really briefly, just for the council. These slides summarize the proposed reductions, but in your packet is a spreadsheet that details these numbers, which you may want to reference when you begin your deliberations. I just wanted to highlight that for the council. Thank you. Thank you, Martine. So IT did propose extending computer replacements. That saves about $100,000 for the general fund. By human resources, they have a very small budget. They did recommend eliminating one vacant administrative position that's funded half by the general fund, and then they have some other miscellaneous service reductions. The city manager's office has mostly service reductions, and it's broken down by category in the department. City attorney, just about $50,000. City council, $32,000. City clerk, $28,000. The city manager division, $51,000. The animal shelter, JPA, $77,000. And the community programs, $152,000. The council budget committee did want to want us to tell you that they had a concern in that area, so I think it'll be for further discussion tonight. And Martine and Laura, if you would like to speak on any of those, please feel free. Just to add that this category includes a number of divisions as Kim pointed out, and the breakdown of the community programs is in the table that's attached to your packet as well. And then it's offset by, in addition, that council requested earlier in the year when we implemented the Employee for a Low Program, and it's for economic hardship for employees, so the net reductions are $360,000. Oh, I should add, I'm sorry, one other thing, and that is the, I believe there's a request also to fund the UCSC advocate position as well, so that would have to be added to the budget as well. In the public works department, they're recommending eliminating one vacant assistant engineer to position and engineering, and they also had some other various reductions in services and supplies and street maintenance, parking services division, and they're also recommending reallocating some of their administrative costs to the enterprise funds when possible. So the total reductions are just under $600,000. The fire department's target was $1.15 million. They did propose freezing three firefighter positions if they become vacant, so we will evaluate that throughout the year if they have any vacancies. And they also propose reductions in the marine rescue program in fire prevention and EMS, and then distributing the office of emergency services to all funds. So as we found out in the recent fire, the OES also worked in the enterprise funds, so we are distributing that to those funds. So total reductions for them are $295,000. The department has had the largest target of $1.7 million. They're proposing a reorg for one of their divisions, and that's the ranger positions. They proposed eliminating 12 ranger positions for almost $1.3 million, and they would like to offset that by adding six community service officer positions for just under $600,000. I think the chief will be here later, and he can speak to the reason for the reorganization. They also propose eliminating a vacant crime analyst position and a victim advocate position, and that position is filled. Other reductions are in community services, records, investigations, and administration for a total reduction of $1.7 million. And as you can see in the note, the council budget committee also had a concern in this area, so that's noted for you. The parks department had a target of $883,000. They propose $212,000 in position eliminations. One is a vacant special events coordinator, and there's a half-time vacant box office representative. Other reductions are mostly one-time due to the pandemic and the recreation department not running their programs. So the total is $1.1 million. The economic development department had a target of $361,000. They recommended eliminating one vacant arts manager position, and then they proposed reductions in project administration and downtown services. One of the downtown services of sidewalk waste removal was recommended to move to the kiosk maintenance fund, and then there's a reduction in properties management for total reductions of just under $350,000. The planning and community development department had a target of $421,000. They proposed eliminating three and a half vacant positions, a building inspector, an administrative assistant to a code compliance specialist, and a half-time associate planner. They also had other reductions of around $105,000 in administration, current planning, advanced planning, building and safety in the rental program, so their total reductions are just over half a million. And for some, you know, for I think almost every department, there are recommended reductions with travel and training, mostly because we're not able to participate in that right now.  So as you can see, the red line for 1920, because we took so many one-time measures with reserve funds, we got closer to our reserve line, but then it drops off again next year. So with this proposal here, it's implementing $3.75 million in ongoing savings starting in fiscal 2022. The lowest fund balance is estimated around 60% of the goal, and then the goal would be restored in 2026. So you can see that red line come up to meet the blue line then. And then in 2028, we could restore two million in cuts, you know, some kind of cuts or a budget increase at that time. And all of these proposals depend on, you know, the cuts being ongoing and sustainable. So one-time cuts help us for the year, but to really make this work, they need to be sustainable. I'm going to turn it over to Laura at this time. Actually, can I just say one quick thing, Laura, before you start? I just wanted to just really quickly just point out a couple of things, and that is that, you know, what we're having to do really is unprecedented in the sense that we've never faced a situation where we've had to make this level of cuts this quickly. And so it's very hard to do it in a way that is what we normally would do in terms of the vetting process and in terms of the discussions, because it had to be really accelerated in order to make the cuts in a timely fashion to address our fiscal situation. And so it's very, very hard. But I can tell you that the departments work really, really hard to come up with options that really to the extent that we could as much as possible limited impacts to essential services into our employees.  And so I do want to thank, you know, our leadership team and our employees who have worked really hard to try to come up with options. The work isn't done yet, unfortunately. But again, just highlight that this is really unprecedented and unfortunate, but something that we just sort of forced to do at this particular point in time. Thank you, Martine. As City Manager, Bernal said, as we transition from fiscal year 21 to fiscal year 22, we'll start looking at longer term options for budget solutions. So if you'll recall in our August 18 update for management partners, they had quite a few solutions on the revenue and expenditure side. But many of those could not be turned around in the eight to nine weeks that we had to be able to get to the actual solutions for the departments to be able to try to beat that $6 million mark. So as we start planning for fiscal year 22, we'll be looking at revenue, having conversations with the council and the budget committee and among staff as far as any November 2021 ballot measure that we might entertain. And then additionally, if you'll recall for management partners, they did recommend that we start to look at the delivery of our services and how much it costs us to deliver those services compared to how much we're charging for them. So the more those are a one to one, we get to fuller cost recovery and we have many instances where we are falling short on the cost recovery of how much our services go into the service that we give to the community versus how much we're actually charging. So we'll start to look at that over the next few months as well. On the expenditure side in fiscal year 22 for personnel, we will relook at the vacancies, especially trying to focus on any vacancies that are out there and eliminating those. If we freeze the position for one year, that's a one time. It does not help us sustain that fund balance that we need and the reduction of our core expenditures. We need to eliminate vacant positions and then we'll also have the departments look at those retirement positions that are frozen right now. Those who will unfreeze come fiscal year 22 and those could help us toward the sustainable solutions that we need to find. On the service delivery side, there were several recommendations about consolidating and looking at different ways to do our liability and workers' compensation efforts. Those are spread between the finance and human resources departments right now. Also looking at our management and analytical capacity and any other departmental service delivery efficiencies that we can find. Finance continues to look at our professional services and miscellaneous services and doing a really deep level analysis of those expenditures and seeing how we might be able to control those on a year-in-year-out basis. So we'll continue that work in fiscal year 22. And then just overall looking at fundamental sustainable service adjustments. And in some of those cases, we need to come back to you to have conversations if those are going to affect services to the community to get your feedback because making fundamental changes of these sorts has to have some impact on the services that we deliver. And those will often manifest themselves to the community and also to one another if we're internal service providers. So that's what we're looking for for fiscal year 22. And with that, I don't know, Martin, if you had any final comments as we turn it over to council for questions. The department heads are all on the line and available to help though. Thank you. So with that, I think we'll turn it over to Mayor Cummings. Thank you all for that presentation. We'll see if there's any council members that currently have questions. And again, my thoughts are that we can focus on items that are not related to the park rangers so that we can have those discussions first. And then if there's any discussion to be had with the park rangers, we can save that so that councilor Matthews can do so. So with that, I'll turn it over to councilor Matthews. The city manager did mention, and I wanted to bring up here, what's the appropriate time to add in an allocation for the city county task force on university growth. You mentioned it briefly in the city council category. And that amount would be 20,000 for our share of that project. Yes, what I would suggest is that when you do your motion on the actions around the budget, separating out the ranger one, when you do the main motion that includes all the items included in there as an addition, my understanding is the $23,000 request, I think that's what I would recommend, just including it in the main motion. And just to refresh the council members and public, this is a task force that was set up at council direction. It has participation and funding from both the city and the county. The task force is composed of council members coming around to myself with the city staff, and then on the county side, county supervisor, Ryan Coonerty and staff support there. And the task force is directing, and there's an advisory council too, community response to the university's long range development plan coming up and how we can have the city's voice heard. I think it's very important. So that will get added in at the appropriate time. We also have Dr. Butler, who's the staff person. I don't know if we wanted to add anything. I would just add that the proposal included two options, a five-month proposal and a six-month proposal. And so the amount that council member Matthews cited, it was the five-month proposal at $20,000. And then the six-month proposal was at $24,000. And I can look and see what the county did, the county recently approved funding. And I don't know at the top of my head if they did the five months. Cynthia looks like... They did $20,000. They did the $20,000. Thank you. Yeah, so we can match that. Thank you. You know, I want to start at the all the departments. I had no questions on finance, human services, city attorney, city manager's office, then north of fire. Okay, public works department. By the way, I did talk to Mark Zettel today for a while and got most of my questions answered as I compare what that merchant fee was about. When I didn't ask him, I don't see mentioned here, the flow street project, which a lot of us implemented now, I think just a few streets and so many more wanted. I believe the request was a lot more than we cut it down to, what, $20,000. Is there money to do more streets? I didn't see a one-line budget on it. It probably was way in the back, but I didn't get that. No, I think it was $30,000. That was... $30,000, maybe, yeah. We've fully implemented this at this point. As far as it's interesting, the feedback we're getting from the streets that have those streets and then the neighboring streets, it's fairly mixed, not all positive, as we're not surprised. There's been a lot of maintenance as far as trying to relocate the equipment back into the location. They're initially set out. I guess they're getting moved. It seems to be taking a little more staff time than people thought as well. We're working with the neighborhood captains to try to take on that activity, but at this point, we're not recommending an expansion, so that would be the answer to that. Okay. Yeah, you're right about there are a lot of positive and there are some negatives, but the positives one to me are worth looking at, but I know we're not going to increase it right now. The money for one and nine, is it one and nine? Yeah. Are we having to fund that or sell our city budget or did we get enough grants to cover that whole intersection? You know, the general fund money isn't really in that in one and nine. It's more traffic impactee money that's there, and there are grant money that we receive from the state, so I don't believe there's any general fund money at this point. Now, if it's decided to expand one and nine and buy that whole property to do housing on that property on the central home, then that might take additional funding, but for the traffic improvements, I believe that's all covered with traffic impactee in the grant. Sorry about that. Okay. I think that's all for public works. Next, we're going to skip all of please right now or just the ranger part. Justin, I didn't quite understand. Justin Rangers. So any questions about the victim advocate or any other questions regarding police? I don't think, I won't note that the chief had previously scheduled, with previously scheduled to send a town hall, put it by the DA's office, so he's not available until after 7 p.m. So if you have questions that Andy might need to answer, I think it might be best to wait until he's able to be on the call after 7. Got it. I also, I want to go back to fire. I did talk to also to Jason and got most of my questions answered.  Next is police. Parks and Rec. Tony left him a message. I think I think we talked. What are my questions there under what I got several calls, not proposing anything, but with so many of the class, I mean, I'm sorry that loud Nelson or somehow we can't offer a lot more classes. I think people are, you know, need classes now. They can't go anywhere, but zoom classes coming out of the library is doing some, but I wish loud Nelson could do many that they used to do. And I understand people aren't going to go there and I'm not suggesting loud Nelson be open. But if anybody in the rec world can think of how to offer classes within your budget, I mean, the community be appreciated. Oh, under economic development. I know I need some, Martin, I need some history on this. When did transferring to economic development happen? Is that a reason I can't start my video? Just as the host has stopped it. So that is a result of a ballot initiative. It was a general purpose ballot measure that was approved by the voters when we went from a 10% tax to a 11%. And the council committed to using that for economic development purposes. And that's why we created an internal economic development trust fund. So the general, it's a general fund revenue, but we've been dedicating it towards economic development purposes. That is the result of that ballot measure. And I don't know if Bonnie wants to add anything more to that, but we've been tracking it that way. And we have, you know, what we try to do is that when things get better, we try to make up for it. We've done that in the past with respect to when we had the last recession, we actually did some of that with our measure H funding, again, because we were in such dire situations. And then we made up for that. We can't do that again with measure H because we've since then issued bonds to pay off the and to do street work. And so it's largely tied up in that. Right. And director Bonnie, if you want to add anything, Bonnie. Thank you, Martine. Yes, I would just like to add that we also created at the time as redevelopment was being terminated. And so it was a recognition of continuing some of the work that we were doing in the community, particularly also a concern about affordable housing. So the overall fund is a combination of funding, both for affordable housing and for economic development initiatives that were approved by the council under our implementation plan. So for example, work in the downtown specifically improvements to Ocean Street, Water Street downtown Pacific Avenue improvements specifically related to Metro and the Metro project and the way finding are some of the projects, for example, that have been funded over time out of the trust fund. And then we had that the recommendations before you are such that we wanted to make sure that no major housing or economic development projects are impaired by temporary transfer. Again, it's just an attempt to get through these difficult times. I'm sure I voted for that. Thank you for that background. I just didn't know when it happened and it all makes sense. But you know, you do have a lot of money in that pot, like three and a half million. Something like that. We actually with the transfer, the actual available cash balance is under 800,000 at this point. So with the million transfer, we have with the committed funds that have already been approved by council, the actual balance is just a little under 800,000. So the committed funds are some of the projects downtown that we're building. Yes, they're the ones that I mentioned. So specifically we have funding set aside for the Metro project. We have funding for Pacific Avenue, lower Pacific Avenue improvements specifically related to the Metro project. We have some funding earmarked for Ocean Street improvements. And we have, yeah, so we have similar projects, the Wayfinding project that's underway right now and a few other similar projects. Thank you. Sorry, I didn't interrupt. Thank you. The Wayfinding, is that the one we did all that work, putting new signs all over town? Is that the way to find them? They're actually being installed right now. So this has been a long project in the work. So yes, it's gone through iterative design phase and then was was stalled. And now it's finally being being implemented and installed. And so it's pretty exciting. Okay, but it's the second generation, Catherine, because we set it years ago and this is the second generation. Okay, yeah, I know it's been around a long time and it comes and goes. So I'm glad you mentioned it, because I probably would start noticing that fine. Good. Thank you, Bonnie. Let me see. I think that's all I had there. Yeah, we don't need the trolley for sure. Thanks, Bonnie. I think that's all. The only one I had for planning is all made sense, which lead you've outlined. But I did have a question about our rental inspection. This is just an opportunity for me to get updated on some projects, because we don't run into each other in the halls that I would normally just ask these. Where are we in the rental inspection? Are we full steam ahead? Is it on cold? Are you talking about in the COVID environment, councilmember Byers? Well, first in general, and yes, is it different under COVID? I don't know, yeah. Sure. So yes, we are continuing with the rental inspection service. We have not proposed any cuts associated with that in large part. That is fully funded by the fees that rental providers provide to us. And so, you know, cutting positions there wouldn't offer any general funds benefits. And we are still inspecting residences. And we are also offering upon request remote inspections for those. And so if people want to use FaceTime or Zoom or other means by which to allow us to go in and do a remote inspection if they're concerned about COVID issues. And so we do offer that now as well. I think one of the reduction was the code enforcement position, remind me for some. Yes, there is a code enforcement officer, and that's the same classification title as our rental inspectors. We would not be eliminating one of the two rental inspectors that we have. This is one of the three code enforcement officers that we have. And so there would be implications in terms of delays on enforcement actions or sending letters rather than doing site visits. Particularly for we've got categories of concern, you know, with category one being life safety issues and category four going down to things like weeds or in areas that, you know, aren't fire prone or things like too many chickens on a property, you know. So those lower level concerns might just be getting letters instead of the site visits. Thanks, Lee. Thanks for the updates for me right now. Before from our team, I was wondering maybe this is a question about what we could think about right now, but in the long term, about how much we, how much the city leases for office space, and if it's been looked at as potential kind of cost savings to have folks working from home or a reuse of city-owned properties in terms of the lease spaces we have for office space. I would say certainly the pandemic has obviously provided a different work environment that I think lends itself in some applications and in some departments to perhaps different models, and not in other, so this really depends. There will be an opportunity to do that in that right now, for example, we don't house all of our departments in city-owned facilities. The big exception right now is the finance department, which is in an ag building. Although it is paying rent to our housing trust fund, so it's in a way it's actually helping us towards housing, but I think it will provide the opportunity for us to look at that as that facility has to turn over and as we look at how the telecommuting or the teleconferencing or videoconferencing is working in the organization, and I think a lot of organizations are having to do that, so yes, we'll look at that. Okay, everything. That's all I have and then I'll have more questions later. So I got most of my questions answered in the budget committee, so I just have a couple based on the read of the full packet that we received for this meeting. So the first one is for planning, and they're really just clarifying questions. The first, as I understand that we are eligible for a $300,000-ish grant from AMBAG for the REAP program, which is regional early access planning, and I'm wondering, is that in this budget? Is there any anticipation of getting that? Are we applying for it? What's going on with that one? And the other one just really quickly is it's item 281 on page 60. I just don't know what it is. I'm trying to, I can't, like, I couldn't come up with something that made sounds for the acronym, the SA-L-H-I-S, L-H-I-H Merge Fund. What are those two about? I will, I'll jump on the first question, and I'll ask Sarah de Leon to jump on the specifics of that second one. So with regards to the REAP grant, we actually have three sizable grants that we have recently applied for, one of which we've been granted. It's $310,000, and that was the SB2 grant for the objective standards work, and we have, we have budgeted about $180,000. There's some flexibility there, but about $180,000 that could come in to the city for reimbursement of costs. We also have $300,000 that's coming from the LEAP grant, and that is going towards the housing element. And then the council approved, if there's extra funding associated with that, for that to go to the expansion of the downtown. The REAP grant we're actually bringing to you on this coming Tuesday with a request to apply for an expansion of the downtown, and the REAP and the LEAP are both $300,000. There will be some portion of that that it can go towards staff reimbursement as it reimburses staff time. There will also be significant consultant costs with both of those, but there is some staff reimbursement that would be anticipated. Those, because they are one-time grants, they haven't been built into the cuts associated with this, but we're hoping that what that does is it essentially will serve as revenue to us and offset some of the expenditures that we have once we get those reimbursants back from the state. So it is funding that we are expecting, but it isn't built into the budget specifically here because we'll still have those staff cost expenses. So that'll all just be reflected then in the next budget update or at whatever point they're kind of quickly confirmed and designated. Yeah, we'll have offsetting revenue coming back in for those. And I believe, Sarah, is that the, if you can give the acronym, is that the strong motion fee, Sarah? Oh, you're muted, Sarah. All right, Council Member Brown, what page were you looking at? It's page 60, item 281. Thank you. I was looking at, I was trying to find 281. I'm sorry about that, item 281. And the acronym you see is... It's S-A-L-H-I-H Smurged. Yeah, I'm not seeing that. It doesn't look like strong motion to me, Lee. Let me take a look and I can get that because I'm not seeing it on page 60. It's, I mean, is it page 60? It's not on page 60. It's attachment number six. It's an attachment six. Gotcha, I'm not rolling. Item 261. Low and moderate income house funds. Oh, 261, the Community Development Block Grant. That's what you're saying? 281. No, it's 281. Under, it's at the top of... Oh, I see. Yeah, Lee, that one says low and moderate income housing. I'm not sure which one that is. That's not our fund that I look at. Yeah, those are funds under economic development. Yeah. Just, is that a special grant? Sorry, I just am trying to figure out what it's for and, you know, how it works. Yeah, so the low, moderate income housing fund is actually a holdover from redevelopment and how we, how those are categorized and described. Thank you. And then I have a few, just a few questions related to revenues and how they're kind of accounted for more generally. And I'm sorry to announce this during the subcommittee. We did talk a lot about not planning in the paid funding, a stimulus funding, or CARES Act or anything like that. Who knows what's going to happen in Washington. But I am wondering is how we're accounting for, and I know back in, and so I'm not questioning any of that, but how we're accounting for FEMA reimbursements. Are they, are they in here? Or is there, you know, what would that mean for some of the areas that maybe are going to need some, some additional resources as a result of the emergency that we've been, that have been hitting us hard? I can try to answer that. And then Kim or Chief Haiduk wants to ask if they can do that. So basically the FEMA reimbursement process is not an immediate reimbursement process. So there's a lot of people work in forms and applications that have to be submitted. And then it takes a while to receive the funds. So since we don't know, and also they have to approve what's, what we get reimbursed. So we don't budget at this point, don't have enough information to specifically budget a precise amount or to even know when we're going to get those funds. But we are preparing, like many agencies are right now, preparing for reimbursements to submit those that we may have already done some, but we're close to doing that. And then we'll expect to hear in coming weeks or months. And I'll turn it over to Chief Haiduk if we can add more to that. Brown, so the FEMA reimbursement process is not immediate. And what they do for different disasters that are declared, they set out criteria by agency or by state depending on the disaster. And so at the beginning of the COVID response, we opened up the EOC and we made sure that we are tracking all of our expenditures as it relates to COVID. We're working with the FEMA consultant and we will be applying our cost. And then there'll be a process for which ones are actually approved and when those funds are dispersed. And so we're not able to give you an exact number of what that is going to be, but we are in the process of trying to make sure that we can recapture all the expenditures as they relate to COVID to the greatest extent possible. Thank you. And so I think, and yeah, I kind of knew that, but I just was wondering if there was any way to kind of capture what that is going to look like or not the exact amount, but how much we're looking at, I mean, the city had an unanticipated cost as a result, but I'll wait till that becomes more clear. I think that was all. I have comments on the city manager's budget, but I'll save those for later. You put back up into the slide. Didn't have to short present it again. Do you want, Mayor, are you talking about the updated forecast slide? I think that's the right one. There's one slide of the presentation where it shows the shortfalls, which was $665,271. Oh, the table that had the different categories of cuts and then the shortfalls. Oh, okay. Got you. Made note that there was economic development on the order forward. I just wanted to get a sense of what are the actual shortfalls because does this number include that $400,000, or is the $400,000 by adding in that $400,000, then it brings that shortfall down even further? The latter, in that this does not include the $400,000 transfer. So the actual shortfall would be more like $265,000. And Kim, you can correct me if I got that wrong. So that's correct. There was the other slide with the additions. I was wondering if you could just put that slide up to them. The, the, can you say that again? We have the city manager slide. Yeah, the economic hardship program. So I was also curious, because I was going through this, and I didn't see the tenant sanctuary program, which I know we were also talking about maintaining that funding as well. And so I was just wondering where the funding falls out for tenant sanctuary. That is actually included in the budget already. I had netted that against some of the other reductions. So that is included in the detailed spreadsheet. If you look at the attachment four, you'll find tenant sanctuary is listed in there as funded. And that's, that's against Council. How direct that, that that be included in the budget in previous? Correct. Just a couple of quick comments. Sandy asked about the SAA LAH merge. I think that's Salvation Army, low income housing, which was a big chunk of money came in at the time of the earthquake and has carried forward and we whittled away at different projects. I'm sure that's what the SAA is. And just in reference to Catherine's question about transferring TOT percentage into economic development. That, that followed when the governor did away with redevelopment. You know, previously it was the redevelopment department. And then at some point it became redevelopment and economic development both. We did away with the redevelopment. It's now solely economic development and housing. So that was the way to sustain the economic development department. So it was, it was about that same time. Okay, Vice Mayor Myers. Staff for the presentation and also Mayor Cummings and Councilmember Brown. I think we work together well as a budget committee. I have a couple of questions, actually just one for public works mark if you're still available. Just want to understand, I know we're doing the flood work right now, the pre-vegetation management. Do we, are we ready for a flood? If one comes this year, I'm just curious about how we're looking at that in terms of managing that through this winter and whether or not you have, you feel you have the resources to sustain something if, if something does happen. Yeah, that's a really good question. There's a lot of uncertainty with the fires and the impacts of the potential debris flow that we may see depending on the rains that we get this year. What we're doing with the, after we do the vegetation management, we're going to go in and rip the channel, like we usually do, but we're going to rip it deeper than we normally do. So if we get some high flows, we'll move even more material out of there to allow capacity, maximum capacity for flows. The biggest concern is debris and really the biggest area for us is the Highway 1 bridge. It's the last bridge with a center span and that is what wiped out our Soquel bridge when we lost that bridge. The debris, the logs that can come down to get lodged against that center span, build up a dam and that water pressure will push that bridge over. So we've been working with Caltrans to alert them of this condition. The county has a task force that they've set up that meets weekly on Zoom to talk about these debris flows because it's really, that's a major concern for us and depending on what the winter is going to be. Caltrans is participating in that call so they have, I have put them on notice of that issue and as it starts the rainy season, we may have to close that area down to if they need to get mobilize equipment on the bridge to move that debris. So we'll be working closely with them, but that is a real concern for us during this winter. And is there anything, Mark, I know that's a, I know the channel, the channel is essentially the operations and maintenance of the system now is basically, we own the car now, right? We do. Keys. So the feds have given us the keys. Are we eligible for any pre kind of, pre disaster kinds of things that we could get through our federal reps, or is there anything that the core is available to us at all in terms of, possibly going in and making adjustments throughout the, as storms come through?  But I'm just curious if there's any, any need for that kind of advocacy or if there's additional funding that may be needed to sort of get us through the entirety of the winter. Yeah. I'm not sure about the funding, but we definitely have a good working relationship now. And I'll reach out to their emergency services representative just to put them on notice. They have had a change in personnel and it's a new person that starts next week, but we'll make those contacts. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. And I appreciate just moving ahead. If we can, you know, anytime use fields appropriate getting updates in terms of, you know, you know, the potential that we're looking at would be really helpful. I think that's my main question when I was looking through all the detail work. I thought, I just want to make sure that we had, we had some plan around that. So that's my, that's my question. Thank you, Mayor. Okay. Thank you. Still, I don't know if there's someone or staff here who can really point out which item on the technical is related to the tenant sanctuary because I've gone over a number of times and can't seem to identify the next thing. I just want to make sure that it's clear because I know that this is an item of concern. I think it would be just good that we can. It's labeled road number seven under, if you look under, there's a blue bar that says city manager's office target, 388,000. And, and then just below that road number seven. Okay. I was looking at that phrase in there says, fund tenant legal services per chemical direction on July 2nd. I'm going to Mr. Mayor, do you know who's looking at the patent? Norse. Thank you. Looks like the police sheet's on. So I wonder if there's any questions that are police related that are not related to the Rangers? We can start with those questions. If the council members have any questions for the police. I have a question around the victim's advocate position and I was wondering what would, what would be the plan for helping victims of crime navigate the criminal justice system if this position were to be eliminated? Good evening. Council member Golder, that's a good question. So we've already spoke with the district attorney's office and the district attorney's office believes that they can handle additional workload. And should that actually be the case? We have also had the provision that that could consume one of the vacated or one of the CSO positions if that became a priority for the department and the community. In addition to that, we have a volunteer working over there, but that will certainly not replace that the quality of the work that has been done by that individual. Thank you. Any other questions with police chief regarding? You talked about how the county does have that facility or that capability to do that. Is it complicated? I mean, somebody within the city, are they located easy access because some of these things are quite dreadful and you want some advocate fast or help out? Sure. You know much about their department. Yeah, they have a few victim advocates that work with mostly pre-trial and trial systems. And so they are able to help people walk through the cases. Now, there are some things that they don't do that we currently are doing in all frankness that I think that is sort of a valuable position. That could also be transferred to one of the CSO positions should that become available. We are the only police agency not in the county that has a victim advocate. So that CSO, should you find the need, would need some training, I assume? Well, this person could be transferred over to one of those positions. Oh, okay. Okay, thank you. Chief Mills, you said there's some services that are different. Can you speak to those just a little bit? The victim advocate here, for instance, does use you visas? Those are people who have been victims of domestic violence or violent crime that we apply on their behalf, if they're immigrants or to our country on behalf of them to the federal government for access to citizenship. There's a great little bit greater level of follow up that we do here in terms of working with them before issuing case issuing and finding resources for them afterward. So our victim advocate does a phenomenal job and that again can continue as part of the CSO program. I think that was just some of the letters that we received were so heartbreaking and touching. And it's really hard to imagine that position not being there for people in their time of need. So it's really a difficult decision. Totally understand that. Good evening, Chief Mills. I just stayed a little bit of clarification tracking all these numbers here. Is there a cost savings that will be realized by eliminating this position, but then it sounds like the duties of the victim services advocate could be done under a CSO position? I'm just trying to get a sense of why the cost savings aspect to it. I guess that's my main question at this point. Yeah, no, I totally understand your question. And so if this person would go over it would consume one of the CSO positions that we are increasing over there. Does that be a net decrease for then for potentially one of the Rangers coming over? And this would be a competitive process where we would interview all of those that are interested in those positions. Okay, thank you. So just a quick follow-up. Hi, Chief Mills. We've had a couple of conversations about this one-on-one in the Budget Committee. And so my only other question I guess since Councilmember Golder brought it up is in that process, it's hard to talk about cutting positions when there are real people attached to them and you know them and they're doing an amazing job. So I'm just wondering in terms of how you see that process working, if the reclassifications happen, would there be like an interruption in the services one and this particular person's employment? What are you anticipating that might look like? Thank you for acknowledging that this is extraordinarily difficult to think about people that are in live positions and it has been difficult and very cathartic. For our employees and that's my main concern. So I spoke with our Human Resource Director about this and our full goal is to be able to transition people without a break in service or without a break in services. And so we want to make sure that if this is done as seamlessly as possible and we think that that can be accomplished. Thank you. That's really important. Thank you. Any other Councilmembers who have questions regarding Police Department or other departments but anything that's not related to the Park Rangers? I have a question for Director Elliott from Parks. Are you there, Tony? Yep, I'm here. Hi, Tony. I had a question regarding the surf museum. I've gotten quite a few questions about that, some concerns from some of the longtime folks who work, you know, work to put that together. It's a temporary, but it is through June of 2021. So it'll be basically, you know, for the entirety of the rest of the fiscal year. It says the museum temporary staffing. Is that staffing people sitting in the museum or is that people taking care of the museum and its contents or what is that staffing? Yeah, that's our temporary staffing that essentially opens the museum and runs the museum operations so that it's accessible for the public. Mary is our staff member over there, if you know, Mary. So that value is, or the cost is about $27,000 per year. So part of our reduction proposal includes a one-time reduction. So it would be this fiscal year of $27,000, which would keep the surfing museum closed because we don't have that staffing person there to unlock it and run the operations of the museum. We have, I know, historically worked with the community, the Surfing Preservation Society, the Longboard Union, both I think on a fundraising standpoint and a volunteer standpoint. So our hope is that that would be something that we don't keep closed. Obviously, it's on our logo, on our shirts, the lighthouse. So it's something that we know is near and dear to our community and iconic for Surf City USA. So we want to keep that open and we may be able to find alternative service delivery through volunteerism or donations. And I know that the Natural History Museum, which is now not under city, any city support, I know that they've had a long history there too. And in fact, they actually, I believe, continue to help, there's a relationship there with some of the gift shops, I believe. Have you reached out to them at all to see if there's any way that or any interest in them potentially keeping that staffing open in terms of having the facility accessible? Yeah, we haven't yet. I think that's a great suggestion though, and you're right, they've got a partnership with us in the Surfing Museum through the retail component. I've not talked with their Executive Director in the past couple weeks to talk about that, but I think that's a great suggestion. Okay, great.  It's certainly a place that, you know, people want to see when they come and if there's any way that our community partners can be reached out to to try to see if there's a way to keep that open, that would be great. Thank you. Yep, thank you. I was just going to piggyback on what Vice Mayor Meyer said and suggest, is there a possibility that we could open more or have other retail opportunities or maybe just reduce the hours to, you know, weekends and one or two afternoons a week or something like that just so that it's not entirely closed, because I think if nobody's there, then it's just going to collect dust and then eventually fall into a state of disrepair and that would be a huge loss to our Yeah, I totally agree. And yeah, I think all of those are options. We could stay open on weekends, we could, you know, reduce hours. I think there are a lot of opportunities there that we'll look at in coordination with the surfing community, Natural History Museum and so forth. So yeah, hear your point and appreciate that and we'll work on it. Thank you. I just want to second the interest in the surfing museum so iconic and it has been really significantly supported by community volunteers, community fundraising, etc. So that seems to me that's almost worth a chapter. That's of all the problems facing us. That one seems almost solvable. So it's just an effort to keep that open. There's so much affection and interest. I just want to say, generally, I appreciate the work of the committee that went into this and all the staff reading through the staff report. I think we all had the feeling, oh no, not that, not that, but here we are. And I mentioned a couple, the front page of the New York Times today is the impact of COVID on state and local government and how we are just beginning to reel from the effects of this. So one of my thoughts going through this is, you know, just not to be blaming people. Everyone is so stressed, upset, and I think, you know, historically, we have done our best in Santa Cruz and we will do our best. And none of this is going to be easy. There will be some compromising services and some things we love we have to let go. But we all know we were elected to be grown-ups, you know. I think this as much as any kind calls on us to have a feeling of generosity kind of across the board. Because it's going to be so tough going through this as a community and take a good long while. That's just an editorial comment. I put it in here. And just specifically not about the Rangers in general, but it overlaps with parks and so many other departments that overlap with economic development. It's not a matter of the details of how it's provided, but my concern in a lot of these budget decisions is the reality and the perception of public facing. And we are pretty mean already. And I think that is going to be a challenge ahead of us. So there are a lot of ways to resolve it. But that touches on so much of the different departments and different services that we offer. Thank you. I'm just going to go back to the Lighthouse Museum really quickly to ditto, echo the comments that have been made. And also say, you know, having been involved when in long, long ago, not as a member of the City Council, I've seen this. We've been at this moment before where it was going to close entirely and we've been able to find creative ways to, you know, keep it open. And so I'm really glad to hear that those are all being considered. And I, having just recently been involved in the establishment of an adoptive park program over on the West Side, you know, I'm really, I'm becoming a serious fan. And I'm, you know, I'm hoping that we maybe we can use some of the energy around that. There's, you know, a lot of people over on the West Side who I think want to be, you know, what would like to be involved if we reach out to them. So, and all over town. So I definitely want to, you know, do whatever I can to help with that. Stay in touch. Are there any further comments on any item that's not related to park rangers and council members? The council member Matthews, if you could step away and then we'll try to get in touch with you when we go to public comment. Yeah. And maybe I should just say now, again, for people who are just tuning in that because my son is a park ranger, I've been advised and I agree that this in the to be cautious about the appearance of conflict. I'm going to recuse myself from this part of the discussion. Any council members have related to park rangers or received a significant amount of correspondence regarding this item. And I think that the main questions that I have was if we don't eliminate the ranger program, what would the impact to the police department look like? Was there other alternatives? I know the main cost of the police department is personnel, so I'm sure it's other people, but maybe you could just speak a little more to that for us. I have if I understand your question correctly is that are there other things that could be eliminated instead of personnel and the answer is no. We are already eliminating as much as we possibly can. We've already reduced several positions in our patrol force because of the first round and now this is the second round in which which is more could be sought through the organization so that it becomes more of a CSO, which expands their duties. The reality for us is is about 80 some percent of our budget is personnel, but the rest of the budget that can't be eliminated is the support of personnel. So for instance, Netcom is over $2 million. Well, I can't touch our liability insurance for the police because this is a high risk profession is a lot of money that can't be reduced. We still have to have fuel for our vehicles. We looked at every online item in our budget to figure out what could possibly be reduced and this is the best we could come up with. It is impossible for us to meet our target and goal of $1.7 million without touching real positions in our police department. If I might add, we also eliminated as part of this a couple of sworn positions. We also eliminated our positions from the POA. I should say we also eliminated crime analyst position that we were really looking forward to that could give information to our community a lot quicker. We eliminated 10 positions including one of our homicide investigators who does cold cases. This was a very tough process, but it's not just the range of program. There's a lot of positions that are affected. I just have one other question. You might not know the answer. Maybe somebody else would, but maybe not. Maybe somebody get back to me. Is there a minimum standard for public safety across the country and like cities and towns where it's like a certain number of officers or personnel with the police department per, you know, 1,000 or for a population? So when many police departments use the figure of two officers per 1,000 residents, we do not come close to that right now as a city. And I think we're probably at about 1.5. I'd have to do the math real quickly, but so we're below that number. Now, that is a number that many people use. However, it depends on the environment that you're in, certainly with us being the center of our universe here in Santa Cruz County. This is the hub as well as the tourist attraction. Well, that adds to it the amount of people that we're replacing in the university, but there are other things to take away from it. So I think that we're managing in terms of our ability to provide service, but I honestly don't believe that I can go lower in our sworn ranks than what we currently have. Yeah, I'm thinking in my head because I know the population fluctuates here during, you know, holiday weekends and the summertime. It sometimes seems like there's double the amount of people in town. So I was just curious. Thank you. Yeah, my question I think is more for Martine. I was wondering if maybe you wanted to share a little bit about the history and context of where the parks rangers were in the parks department, then the movement to police and why, and so we're thinking about the kind of the impact or the results we want to see in regards to their service specificity. Sure, I'd be happy to and Dr. Elliott can also add to the conversation of the information. So, you know, it's it's been, you know, a bit of a challenge with respect to rangers because the rangers historically and traditionally do work that's more related to habitat conservation, you know, doing tours. It's a level of maintenance and sure they also provide public safety related functions. But historically rangers when people think of them, they do, they're not essentially a primary public safety function. That's not generally their principal duties. And so that's why historically you see them in parks because they're part of the complement of park personnel that provide some of those educational, you know, ecological resource preservation services and functions. And but unfortunately in our city, one of the things that we that we've faced and have faced and it's only gotten more challenging over the last few years is having to deal with more public safety related needs in our parks as the our staff have just faced more challenging situations, unfortunately. And so because of that, there's been this sort of tension and back and forth because when they were in the parks, many of the rangers didn't feel like they had the appropriate training or a level of support that they needed to deal with the situations that we're confronting in the parks department or in the downtown, for example. So there's always been the sort of attempt to try to balance both things. And so that's principally why they were then transferred over to the police department a few years ago, because that was just turning up to be more and more of a need. And the thought was that in the police department, they would be able to have the level of training and support that they need to be able to function well. But it has created a tension because, you know, many individuals that are in the parks and rec field, I'm sorry, in the ranger field, it's not quite a fit for them. We do actually have that function. A water department has rangers that are within the department that they're able to do more basically function is rangers traditionally and do because of the there are open spaces out at lock moment, for example, principally, but they don't have to face the same level of issues that are we just doing in the more urban environment. And so because of that, again, they were moved over to the police department. And I think what the police farm is now faces is that an anti can also add to this as well. Chief Nils is that in the police department, there are two there also being challenged with having the property appropriate level of skill sets and training and background also to deal with situations, even under the purview of the police department. And I think one of the things that chief Nils wants to try to accomplish is to in many ways broaden and provide also that balance because even though they're more public safety skills, a lot of it too is also the fact that they need many times we don't also don't need police officers to be the first ones to respond to particularly cases where it's really a mental health or it's really a social services human service or health care need. And so I think one of the things that chief Nils is trying to achieve is to provide some level of support for that. And I think in providing training to CSOs, you might be able to have the first responders be more be able to provide more of that level of support and again, that have police officers should be the first to go out and address a situation that really is more of a of a human service related type issue. And so that's part of I think what we're trying to also try to evolve into. Ideally, what many communities have done and we actually and their coming came on a tour with us when we went over to a San Mateo County where there they actually have what are called hot teams, which are the county has teams comprised of case workers, mental health workers, outreach workers who are the first responders to say there's an encampment. The police actually can call upon the hot team if they're contacted or individual or business will actually call the hot team first and they'll go out and reach out to the homeless individuals in the encampments, office services, shelter, assessments, and so forth. And then only if needed, our police actually called upon to assist. And so I think that's something that we're showing working towards or trying to work towards with the county. The larger focus strategies, strategic plan is being worked on. I think looks to trying to create that model in our city where there is that first level support and encase management and diversion within the system to get the individuals into a better position as opposed to sort of warehousing the homeless or having a public safety response, which is not necessarily a good long term solution. And I think with respect to what we're trying to do as a city, I think Chief Mills wants to have a greater flexibility and ability to kind of respond to those situations and see if those are what we can do within the context of what's available and the tool that we have as a city. But obviously it's not the full scope of what we need to do. And we do have some level of we do have contracts with mental health workers, outreach workers that we also collaborate with and work with, but it's not the ideal model. But to get around to answering your question, I think that's really been the tension and struggle with respect to particularly the park rangers who think many times feel like they're doing public safety work, and they are doing public safety work and really don't have the appropriate public safety or the human services related skill sets or training. And I'll ask Chief Mills or Director Elliott want to add to that. A bit of that timeline. But Martin, please jump in here if I'm incorrect on this. So I think prior to 2006 or seven, I think former deputy chief Rick Martinez was a park ranger going back. And then I think around 2007, Measure H was passed and provided funding for additional rangers through Parks Recreation. And then I believe the ranger program under Parks and Recreation really grew around 2016 or 2017. And my understanding is that time it was focused, the growth of the ranger program was focused on needs downtown in particular. And again, Martin or Chief, please chime in if that's incorrect. And then. Yeah, just clarify a little bit. Yeah, Measure H, which provided the funding for roads and for public safety and parks, public safety. Ironically, actually, that money was initially used to create a park unit in the police department, which had a sergeant and CSOs. And then then we actually went to the ranger model and then we're sort of kind of coming back to it. But yeah, and then the other item that came up after that was the need to have more of the presence downtown. And the thought was that the rangers would be a less sort of police oriented presence than would a ranger. And then I believe 2017 or 2018 Parks and Recreation had about 13 rangers, I believe nine of those, then went to the police department in 2018. And then by 2019, three of the four remaining rangers that were in Parks and Recreation, those positions moved over to the police department ranger program. So at the time, three of the four positions in Parks and Rec were vacant. So we moved those vacancies over to the police department. The one position that remained in Parks and Recreation, we repurposed or reclassed as a park's maintenance up position, a field crew leader in particular. So I think that's roughly that evolution. Dave, the other thing to add with that is what the city manager mentioned is that in order for us to expand the capabilities of what the rangers are currently assigned to do is to class them as a CSO. And that is helpful in the standpoint of if we're going to have them in more of a cahoots type model that's a precursor to what we can ultimately advance to or combining a mental health worker working with the ranger out in the field, contacting people in a non law enforcement manner. This is a perfect vehicle to do that. And so that was kind of some of the thinking for the evolution to the CSO model and the restructuring of how we currently view the ranger position. And I think it's important for historical context to understand the impact and sort of the results we hope to achieve with some of these decisions. And as we move forward, I think we have the opportunity to really revisit ultimately what's the impact that we want to see and what's the appropriate response in that regard. So thank you. Council Member Brown. In that vein, I guess I do want to ask a question. First, I'll say I'm really concerned about this and I don't want to say that that doesn't mean to say that others are not. I just want to say it because the feedback that we're getting from the public is really, really, you know, I think there's legitimate concerns that we need to be able to address and we need to be able to demonstrate that we're being handled. So when I didn't really support the move in the first place because I really was concerned that the ranger's traditional focus on environmental management would be diluted. And it certainly has. I don't think it was necessarily just because of the switch, but because of the need in the city and limited resources. But yeah, I'm just concerned that we now don't have and we won't have any personnel who are explicitly, you know, responsible for our park lands or open space. And it's a lot of space. I mean, we do have in the water department, but we so I just I just wanted to make that comment that, you know, this is I was worried that this was kind of, you know, potentially happen and, you know, the kind of dilution of the environmental focus, but also the potential loss of those positions because we kind of are the most vulnerable, let's just say for cuts. And so that being said, I'm just wondering if if we could get and I, you know, I don't want to put a I want to have a return date, but I don't want to make it rigid because I would I would like for us to be able to get an update on from from you, Chief Mills and perhaps others about what the impact has been and, you know, some kind of tracking of what we see happening as a result of this shift. I think it's really important that we not just say this is what's going to happen because that's not necessarily what the public sees. You know, I think we want to be able to to be really clear about that. And I'd like for and so I'm wondering if I could just request getting a report back and agendizing that for some point in the future that seems like a reasonable amount of time to see how this is going. Is that Of course, Council Member Brown, we'd be happy to and I think it'd be important to have parks in recreations and put on that as well because they're the ones that see that a lot. I might just add two things to your concerns to maybe assuage them a little bit. One is there are still park maintenance workers. My understanding and and Tony, Dr. Elliott could probably refer to that. The second thing is we really are intent is to keep the Rangers that we retain and now as CSOs in the parks because we think that's an important place for them to be as part of the nature of this community. It's really a part of the vibrant lifestyle of this community to really cherish our parks. And so we really want to see that. If I might add, one of our employees just did a project in Arana Gulch where they cleared out a lot of people who were residing in Arana Gulch, went door to door, knocked on the doors, talked to the community members, and now they're discussing putting in a walkway so that there's natural surveillance for people. That is what we want to do. That's neighborhood policing, where we're working with the community rather than just responding to, you know, one call after another. We really want our CSOs and those folks that are working in the parks to be able to really take on some of these challenges, solve the problems for a little bit longer than what we have been doing. Right now we've just been in crisis mode responding to things. So we're now, neighborhood policing is expanding. They're doing a phenomenal job. They're having accountability briefings. I think that's the way to go so that we can actually solve some of these problems. We've also expanded the number of off patrol officers in neighborhood policing so that they, too, can provide assistance to the CSOs in those parks as problems arise. Their duties are much more expansive, obviously. But we want to make sure that they have the support they need in those locations. Thank you. Yeah. And I don't know, Tony, if you want to say anything more on that. But I recognize that they're parks maintenance workers. I mean, it's not like we're abandoning the whole system or anything. So I don't want to suggest that. I'm just, you know, I'm worried that, you know, there could be gaps, you know, and so, and, you know, and in some respects, this is, this is a matter of, you know, perception as Council Member Matthews mentioned before she signed off. People are really, you know, rightfully concerned. And so, and so I just want to kind of make sure that we're really not, we're not, we're not taking this decision lightly. We think that's been clear, but that it's, you know, it's not something that we are going to just do. And then, well, you know, check that off the list. It's done. And so yeah, so thank you for the follow up. And I'll look forward to hearing how it's going. I guess another concern I have, I'll just say this really quickly, because now I'm looking in the bottom corner.  And I would, I would, you know, I would hope that we can, you know, keep this in, you know, in our, in the forefront of our minds that that's an important place to begin restoring services when the time comes to be able to do that. So, Tony, if you want to, I don't know if you're going to say something. Yeah, I wanted to chime in and acknowledge and echo the chief's comments. I think when Parks and Recreation and the Police Department work really closely together and meet virtually every week with our teams, I think where we work really collaboratively, we can develop specific plans. So the chief mentioned Arana Gulch and having success there. And that's a great example. Riverside Gardens is another example where the Police Department has been able to sort of coach parks, coach our park staff on what we can do differently or what we can do better. We learn from them. We can do things differently in terms of environmental design and whatnot. So I think regardless of CSOs or Rangers or whatever that structure looks like, I think that the key is that continued collaboration. And we've seen a lot of success with that with the Police Department. And so again, whatever the council decides, I think, related to the Ranger proposal, again, that collaboration is going to be right at the top of the priority list. And what I would say just quickly, open space, we do have an open space team as well. It's a small but mighty crew. We've got a fuel crew leader, park maintenance worker and some temp staff. And then really about half, about 50% of one of our park supervisors spends his time in the open spaces as well. So we've got a small crew there, but again, a strong crew. Overall, in terms of park maintenance though, where we are currently, and we talked a little bit about the early retirements and vacancies and so forth, park maintenance as a whole 10 of our 35 positions are currently vacant. So that's where, again, I think as we talk about working with the Police Department, we're just going to have to be really strategic and really, really thoughtful about how our limited staff works with the Police Department most effectively. But yeah, we've got almost a 30% vacancy among our park maintenance crew at the moment. Around question and kind of this discussion around the roles of Rangers versus maintenance workers. And so, I mean, it sounds like maybe traditionally decades ago, the Rangers played a role of, you know, environmental interpretation and leading tours and things like that. And over time, that's shifted to more of a public safety role on summer guard because they're in these spaces. And then you have maintenance workers who are kind of doing trails. Is that correct kind of interpretation of the role of the Ranger, you know, now and kind of the difference between maintenance workers versus Rangers?   Who plays that role now and is there, but is there an opportunity maybe to consider moving forward for those kind of traditional Ranger roles to come back and watch some rec if they're not there currently? I think I can answer the first half of it. And I think maybe Director Elliott can handle the second half of that. And we still currently do some interpretive walks and environmental discussions with people who go with Rangers on walks. In addition to that, that can and will still continue with the Rangers that are turned into CSOs so they can still handle those duties and items. In addition to that, those services can be augmented by a phenomenal staff that we have of volunteers. And I, you know, made note when Councilmember Brown talked earlier about there's a whole lot of people who are interested in helping in the parks. And this is a great opportunity for people to engage and be part of our community-oriented policing and neighborhood-oriented policing efforts to work with our CSOs and the parks and to do those kind of things that are vital to the health of a community. And the second half of that, in terms of trail maintenance, our staff, our park maintenance staff get to trail maintenance project as best we can. Really a lot of our trail maintenance is done through partnerships with local non-profits like mountain bikers of Santa Cruz who do a lot of obviously maintenance on not just mountain biking trails, but hiking trails as well. So we work with a lot of non-profits to support trail work that Rangers used to do. And again, a lot of staff, as much staff time as we can allocate toward that with our park maintenance staff. In terms of interpretation, again, a lot of partnerships there. So we work with Coastal Watershed. We work with the Museum of Natural History under contract to do environmental education and interpretation. So a lot of that is through partnerships with organizations in the community. Thank you Councilmember Watkins. You asked the historic question. And I'm rather historic on this subject because I've Pogonip, from the founding of Pogonip, that's not going to ticket on Pogonip. They used to have a ranger on a horse, the private security that the Cal Foundation hired. So I really have watched the rangers there or not there or private security or there or not there. And I think, of course, I did talk to Chief Mills about this. And I've always liked the title, Community Service Officer. It seems there's so much more flexibility there. And I think you might have used that word when I talked to you about it because I first thought, oh my gosh, we can't use the park ranger. But I like the title and I think it gives the department a lot of flexibility and what they'll do. And as you said, some of the park rangers will become that. So the training will be important for sure as you hire new people. But I think you've so thought this out that you know exactly what you're going to be looking for because you're going to have an opportunity to hire new people too, I hope. So I'm very concerned. I use the parks all the time. Thank you, Director Elliott, for all these people you have on West Cliff. We don't agree when they took Supreme Court Ginsburg robe offer. They only left it on the statue for about 15 minutes. And then they had to take it down. And so again, I had quite a discussion about that. I wanted to leave it up at least an hour, but you wouldn't do it. I'm so familiar with our parks and the work the rangers do, but I think I'm willing to go something else. Let's try something else and see how it works. I like the Council Member Brown idea. Let's follow this up with reports. I think it's something fairly new, not entirely new, but we should track it. And that's a really good suggestion. So whoever makes the motion, soon they'll put that in the motion because I think it'll be really, the community is concerned. All the letters were alike. It was, I called a couple of friends I knew that find some of them.  There's going to be other people there and some of them will be rangers. So I think of it as we, I don't want to use the word experiment, but as we go forward with this, we'll, we'll, we'll check it. We'll keep track of it and hopefully if it goes well, so that's all. If I could just make a quick, quick comment. I'm sorry to interrupt. Just one thing, just to kind of point out just in general, just because I think for the general public, I think it's good to understand that in parks we have, I think like a 14% vacancy rate. We have all the other departments that have pretty much vacancy rates, as well as the, the, the furloughs that have been implemented. So we are, you know, and I think the public should just be aware we are at a point where we've got multiple factors that are really not allowing us to perform in the way that we are used to and that we actually expect. It's very hard for us internally to accept this. I can say the department had struggled with this all the time. It's very difficult for them because they feel like they're not doing as good of a job as they really should be doing and, and take it very, very personally. And the public also expects it, but it is very difficult just quite frankly from a, just a realistic perspective of the reality is that we simply, even with these cuts, don't have the staffing levels that we've had because of vacancies and in some ways the vacancies have helped us avoid more layoffs than we have to. So the way that I guess it's been good. But, and of course we started this right away when we, we knew that we were going to be facing these cuts when the pandemic started back in March. But also the, again, the furloughs, you know, where people are working less and have the ability to do that. So it is a real impact. And it does, you know, make it makes it real hard for us to be able to be as responsive as we really want to be. How much we can follow with that and move on to public comment. Yeah, I think I just, I just thought I'd kind of pile on to this discussion. And, and I just recently also was in touch with the chair of the parks commission. They took an action on Monday night that really points to the complexity of what's facing some of our park staff currently. And I've talked with director Elliott about this. I think I think the community service, I almost see us having almost two different cases of need. And so this might be something to think about as maybe we do a little bit more of a deep dive in really looking at the right combination. Certainly our urban parks have a certain set of needs, but, but the folks who could serve as our open space parcels, you know, I think about people, I mean, I managed 8500 acres working for a land trust, you know, and, and the people that are hired to do that, you know, they look at the landscape of a slightly different eye than, you know, maybe that's someone that's not trained in resource management or other things. So, you know, we have about, I don't know, almost 2000 acres of open space. We also have Loch Lomond. I think increasingly we're understanding more and more with the fires this year and some of the impacts on the watersheds and on the, the habitat that sort of this concept of more of a resource, now for resource manager, a ranger type of situation may be appropriate in parts of the city. I think about Loch Lomond and the work that the rangers do there. Certainly they're focused on protecting the watershed resources, but they also do an excellent job of interpretation. They have wonderful tours that people can go out on the lake on their interpreting nature for folks, their interpreting the ecosystem and sensitive species. We have all of that happening in our open space lands as well, and we have incredibly delicate and endangered species located on those properties. So I see a little bit of, you know, a separation of need and, you know, in the work moving forward and potentially in this potentially maybe in the motion made, we can sort of direct staff to do a little bit of deeper dive and even really explore the differences of, of really the needs in versus our urban, our urban parks versus our open space lands. And maybe there's a, there's a spot there that we can start to grow towards. I think it's also important and there was, there was an article in the Sentinel on this the other day, but you know, I would hope and I see Chief Mills that there's some training going to be cut for potentially your staffing. But what really struck me in the work that the Parks Commission did, which was pretty extensive and they came out with some very interesting recommendations that I hope we can visit at some point. But this training about de-escalation, this training about how to really how to handle some of the folks that are, you know, that our park staff come in contact with. And I guess question for the Chief is make sure that those kinds of things are still available would be made available through the CSOs. And then I'm just curious about Director Elliott's thoughts on whether or not we sort of start to see a slightly different need for something that is more related to resource management type of ranger or staffing versus urban parks. Just very brief if you guys have any comments on these ideas. And thank you. I'll go ahead and go first Vice Mayor Myers. The, of course, the same things that we have addressed with them in the past, de-escalation, how to intervene. Our CSOs, for instance, have also been trained in crime prevention through environmental design. Those are some of the things that we can do with now them being classified as rangers, give them additional training where they can go and help take a look at parks, as you mentioned with a different kind of eye. Now that they already have the parks experience, hopefully now giving the crime prevention experience, including situational crime prevention and SEPTED and some of those other things that we can absolutely bring that to the parks to make that environment safer for the park staff. And that certainly is an enormous concern for us. And to bathe it a little bit because of COVID-19, a lot of the structures have been closed, like Loudon Nelson. However, it's still very important and right now will be a great time to ramp that up, to give that training, to make sure that people have the opportunity to de-escalate the situations that may or may not rise in those locations. Yeah, Vice Mayor Myers, this is Tony Elliott. Just following up on the chief, yeah, would agree with his comments. And we have done de-escalation training quite a bit and continue to be open to those opportunities and we really need those opportunities. And we've even talked with the Parks and Recreation Commission and have talked with Santa Cruz County as well about even partnering up with mental health experts and folks that we could pair with in the field to be better equipped in engaging a number of individuals that we interact with really on a daily basis. So constantly seeking that training and partnerships and anything we can do. So I would just echo the chief's comments there. As it relates to the park system overall, I would say that, as I mentioned, we've got a small but mighty open space team. But as it relates to resource management and conservation, we really were not able to do a lot in that area.  So we've done some really good work at De La Viega this past year in terms of mitigating some of the fire risk with shaded fuel breaks and so forth. We need to do more of that. But we've got a strong partnership there with the fire department and some funding to do some of that. And then to some degree we work with the water department as well, especially up near Pogenev and Sycamore Grove and so forth along the river, of course. But that's an area where we could certainly do a lot more in terms of resource management, in terms of conservation. Just don't have the resources necessarily to invest in that area necessarily. So I hope that answers your question, but I'm happy to provide you more details. Okay, thank you. No, that's just good follow-up and thank you. Appreciate it. I have a couple of questions. And I'm not sure who can answer this one, but one of them is who does the physical removal of the trash from, say, Pogenev? Who does that? And so that's your department and it's not rangers that do that. That's maintenance workers? Correct. Okay. And then how many rangers were there? There's 12 now. How many were there when they were in the parks department? In parks and recreation we, I believe the max number we had was 13 rangers.  Do you think that they would be in the same situation like it would be a possibility they would been, this would be having to be eliminated right now? I know it's speculative, but... Yeah, I think generally, yeah, I mean our mandate across the city is to cover these deficits and we've got a couple years of that. So I think regardless of where the rangers sat in terms of the department, the challenge would be the same. It would be to find those reductions and I think we'd be facing the same, the same conversation or situation as we are now. Thank you. This is time to invite back Council Member Matthews. The public would like to comment on any of the items that have been in our budget presentation for today. Now is the time to call in using the numbers on your screen. Once you've called into meeting, to the meeting, you'll need to press star nine on your phone. And once you've been asked to unmute, you'll have two minutes to comment. Casby calling in. I just want to point out that we have now been listening to you all talk for 125 minutes. So it's a long time and if you are technological enough to have the tools to tune in, and if you are still interested in long and very difficult to understand public processes, maybe you're still with it. But to open up our City Council meetings to public participation in the Civic Auditorium. These departments across the country in relation to Black Lives Matter look as much mute on your phone. Unmuted. See what you said. I accidentally pressed the button. I'm sorry. Can I continue on or what? What should I do? Yeah, didn't go at 31 seconds. Okay. Anyway, I really believe that the public input and the public voice and presence is incredibly important here. We are also living in the time of the screen new deal when many people who are in the tech and computer industries, many of our robber barons of today, the CEOs and entrepreneurs would be more than happy to be controlling our government process and having us all getting on screens and being reduced to very few minutes of actual public. And Simonton from the Commission for the Prevention of Violence Against Women, I'm very happy that you're going to continue with the victim advocate of position of really looking forward to it not being interrupted with the CSO position. So I just wanted to thank you for making that accommodation. Thank you all for your service. Good evening. My name is Sarah Schofield. I am a licensed clinical social worker. And I'd like to provide you a little bit of history on your victim advocate position. 32 years ago in 1988, I worked for the Santa Cruz County DA's Office Victim Witness Program and we received a grant to place a 24 hour emergency response victim advocate at Santa Cruz PD. I was that advocate. This led to the development of the current victim advocate position. I have continued to work with victims of violent crime ever since mostly in the public sector. The Santa Cruz PD program advanced victim services to really state of art over 30 years ago. And I'm respectfully asking you to reconsider taking these groundbreaking advancements backwards to an era where victims of violent crime, especially victims of domestic violence, were lost in the system. Please also consider the unintended consequence of actually creating more expense and more cost to the city. I know from direct experience that what outside agencies can provide does not approach the in-house services. Without this position, victims will resurface for additional calls for service and crises requiring police intervention that could otherwise be diverted. This position diverts events that are high risk for leaveality outcome, which would require extensive law enforcement resources. It's a life-saving position. I would like to respectfully suggest that you consider preserving this position and eliminating the CSO position that the duties would go to instead. I thank you for your consideration. Welcome. Oh, good evening. My name's Olivia Martinez. I'm the Region 2 Director for SEA Local 521. And I'm a little bit concerned of what I'm hearing that it sounds like you guys are going to go ahead and approve the budget that the city is proposing. And that means that you will be eliminating the rangers program. This is something that we've been moving a petition and emailed to you guys. And as you know, we've received over a thousand people reviewing that Facebook and petition. And I'm concerned that the city council is not listening to its residents of the elimination of the rangers program and the impacts that it will have in the community. Chief Mills was the one that wanted the rangers program two years ago to be moved from the parks to his department. I know he's eliminating this program with creating community and police officers that's actually more expensive than the rangers program. My true concern is that you are not listening to the public and you're making a decision based that you want to do an experiment to see if it works. And the livelihoods of 12 people is going to be impacted. I'm wondering what do we need to do as community members because I also live in the city of Santa Cruz for city council to listen. If you've had so many people email to you, your constituents talk to you about what they want to see. And you are refusing to look at that and say we're going to do this as an experiment when we have real issues in our parks and our levees that are happening that the rangers have so much experience. The community officers do not have this experience or training that the rangers have or the relationship that communities that they have with the city. So I'm truly disappointed. Okay. Thank you and police to intervene in situations where really there's more of a mental health or a social work ongoing plans to to hold a study session on that on sort of adapting the cahoots program model here in Santa Cruz. This idea and I'm eagerly awaiting the scheduling information from city council. Thank you. Honorable mayor and council members, I thank you for your time. My name is Caitlin Blusky and I'm a ranger with the city of Santa Cruz under the police department. And I've been here through the transition from parks and recreation. It's been mentioned that the majority of the rangers do not fit the typical ranger ideals. However, my background is in plant pathology and family therapy with my family development credential. We have another ranger who has a master's in marine biology, a tour guide from state parks, another with 15 years experience as a park ranger in separate municipalities, two EMTs who were who worked under Cal Fire and rural areas. The notion of replacing 13 positions, 12 rangers and one victim advocate with CSO's, whose focus is taking cold reports such as vandalism would have direct impacts to the services that are provided to our community. Although the term community service officer sounds generic enough to be able to be utilized for a multitude of different items, in reality, they serve as assistants to police officers to do work that they either don't feel they have the time to do or don't feel like executing. CSOs currently do not have the same input, in-depth training of our parks and open spaces or the opportunity to gain that knowledge after they are off training due to being an in-date of a cold paper. A CSO could additionally not be currently relied on to provide the same services as a victim advocate to victims in a fragile state after some of them have experienced unimaginable. Currently we have been informed there's already a hiring list in place that wouldn't include 10 of our employees in the next hiring process. The quote transition process would in reality be a full hiring process, including interviews open to the public, not ensuring any jobs to the current employees slated to be eliminated. CSOs get paid approximately three dollars more an hour starting this proposal that was branded as cost saving, although its true impacts would be getting less for more. And although you have been ensured that they will be in the parks, you have already heard testimony that one has already planned to be moved to a victim advocate position that they are not prepared for. I urge you to vote against this proposal and further encourage you to explore the potential of moving park rangers back under Parks and Recreation and further allow us to continue to support the safety, security and environmental preservation of the areas that make Santa Cruz unique. Thank you. Hi, this is Charmaine Bueno de Vivo and I want to discuss the victim advocate program. I want to express my grief regarding this matter as I faced some of, I know this program very intimately from Santa Clara County, even though it's a different county. This program is important as it transcends monetary borders. My sister was murdered in San Jose in 1999 and it was very difficult for my family. Her body was burned beyond recognition so it was very hard for my parents to help to identify her remains. Being an advocate means having someone professionally who knows how to help them with the roller coaster of emotions that occur in this time of desperation and desperation it was for my family. My mother's connection to the advocate helped anticipate the family's needs. She was able to communicate all the information that our family needed and allow the detectives to continue to focus on the case. I feel that mental health programs are especially important at this time and this program is for mental health support. Our world is suffering emotionally with the lack of the ability to have physical connection with each other. The more love and support and compassion that we can offer the less we face, we suffer and this program has just offered a temporary rock when the core of our family unit had dissipated. We're moving a program like this I believe with is experimental to the families and ultimately to our community. Thank you Mr. Mayor Vice Mayor. My name is Anna Henderson and I'm calling in well partially because I'm still confused after listening to you all talk about it for half an hour as to what the difference in job expectations and in training is between a park ranger under the police department and a community service officer under the police department and why one cost half of us as much as the other one but is presumably going to do just as much work. That was not made clear by the meeting at all and I would appreciate it if you guys could define community service officer a little more clearly and then I also wanted to support the investigation of a cuckoots model as a way to divert emergency response from police to a lower cost model that doesn't send law enforcement out but instead send non-law enforcement mental health and medical professionals out directly and could potentially save the city money while also giving people what they need and it sounds like from what Martin Bernal said this might be in the works with the county and I just encourage the city to move forward with that at all speed and let us know soon when you'll be talking about that next. Thank you. On the budget now is the time to call in on this item and once you have called in please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand. You'll be given a cue to unmute your phone but when you've been unmuted you will be given two minutes to speak. So again if you would like to come on this item and you need to call in please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand and you'll be given two minutes to unmute your phone to speak. Thank you. This is Kimberly Johnson. I'm an internal organizer with SCI U521. I just want to repeat and voice our really deep concerns with the police department's proposal to eliminate the park services ranger program. Our rangers provide really incredibly crucial support to the Santa Cruz community and like others have voiced I don't believe that the establishing unique relationships that the rangers have with the community can be replaced by community services service officers but you know during a time when our country is really searching for creative ways to move away from policing as a means to keep us safe I think it would be a real mistake for the city for the county to lay off rangers and in turn hire more officers. As Caitlin mentioned our 11 rangers have incredibly valuable backgrounds and play a really special role in maintaining our parks and open spaces. I'd really like to urge um city council members not to approve the elimination of the park services ranger program. Thank you. My name is Daniel Hedman. I'm a recent homeowner here in Tendonkers just bought a town home here after 15 years of living in an apartment downtown. I'm on the edge of the city next to big open space. This is a critical concern for me. I can tell you that the CSOs are part of a different union they're not part of the SEIU they have a bigger uh liability in terms of retirement benefits etc etc so I think in long term we're going to want to cost a lot more money that CSOs replace rangers. Second of all the rangers within the parks and recreation department were dealing with things of resource management and park infrastructure function. CSOs are not geared to handle those type of nature management duties uh typically they don't even send up that kind of service. They also don't wear uniforms and identify themselves as rangers or open space enforcers. California appeal code says that the park ranger in a city recreation department or water department is considered a peace officer when they're under parks and rec they have a law enforcement arm of their own now they're gone they went to the police department now there's no enforcement structure for the recreation director to utilize to deal with park issues and we know there are plenty of them open space issues whether they be shop shops drug use debris everywhere whatever it is I mean the land the space acreage is much larger outside the city limit you know incorporate sorry the open spaces are much larger than the central uh concentrated city areas that we know and use every day so I'm going to be very sparse with people um enforcing those areas and I'm a little concerned that uh right here where I live you have the entire watershed of the San Lorenzo River just being infiltrated with debris and ecological devastation when it comes to the natural habitat I'm opposed to this good evening um my name is Candice Brown um I'm a commissioner with the transportation and public works um I in the middle of the pandemic and when public health and safety are of ultimate concern to our community we introduced the idea of the slow street program at the commission level uh we proposed a working with a community partner to offload the staff time and also to tap into a large volunteer pool we received resistance from staff who decided to do this internally without any further involvement of the commission the signs that they chose were too big for the a frames they did not even mention the word slow or slow street um there was no outreach to the neighbors or even the streets that these signs and a frames were on so people were confused that they could even get to their own homes so naturally there was a lot of um confusion so there was a discussion about that at this last commission and they said they would step back and and look at this further at this meeting today basically the director said he would like to eliminate the slow street program community partner that we worked with by Santa Cruz has taken the proposal that we work with them on that we the city proposed through the commission and they now gone on to implement this through the county and through Watsonville using um RTC funds which is a reallocation from open streets which has been a very clever allocation we could have done the same and instead we have lost out um there's almost 50 applications of which 11 were part of phase one we fully expected this to go to fuller implementation I invite you to reconsider the idea that Mike the bike Santa Cruz is willing to step up they have a small allocation that could take over at least the administration the existing program you'll find that their signage and other information through an infographic that they are proposing for the county Watsonville is very inventive they've also in Watsonville are sponsoring through endorsement through business and community the cost of the program so please reconsider and fully embrace the slow street program especially in the pandemic thank you greetings my name is Emily and I want to the victim's advocate position I would like to stress on why it is so important especially in a small local community like ours so my sister in law Morgana doubt was murdered by her husband in a family home with children present Labor Day 2007 I don't know what the family would have done without Julie Schneider and Butch Baker's endless work on this case this was a high profile case with a huge media onslaught in my hometown of Santa Cruz the perpetrator happened to be the harbor high lacrosse coach would add you to the public interest growing up in a small community like Santa Cruz has many wonderful benefits but the public attention this case gained was unbearable for the family Julie Schneider's role is to comfort and get information to the family as a victim's advocate and to keep them current of all proceedings and developments to make sure they know that they do not have to navigate this alone in an unfamiliar arena this extends way beyond the trial Julie immediately made us comfortable that we could ask for anything and we did at first it was the standard case information and case development the perpetrator had committed the crime intercepts just 13 year old son that was checking on mom and left for two days not to be found for a while he never admitted to the crime forcing his young time son to take stand and testify against dad the court case took over a year complete with graphic descriptions post-mortem pictures and having to look at the murder had this case been more straightforward with a confession on site this would have been easier and a quicker process Julie was there the entire time at every hearing coming to the home available at any hour for a phone call and we are still friends to this day I do not know what we would have done without her her knowledge of its cases in Santa Cruz having been having lived here for so long and being such a wonderful person made all the difference chief mills this is very important that you have a local person doing this my ex-husband whose sister this was myself no police fire chief hi duke we went to school with him he can tell you how much of a tight-knit community this is I thank you for your time thank you very much yeah hi this is good so hey I didn't really prepare anything for this but you know I would just indicate that I'd spend a lot of time in the parks and you know like say let's just say grant park with at the dog park and I see ranges there all the time I mean almost every time I go there seems like they show up and there's a lot of homeless people there that hang out and I can't really say that you know had any untoward encounters with them but it's a little sketchy there and you know you always got the bathrooms closed and locked up and got the water turned off and got the dog water turned off and they have encounters with the homeless they talk to them and I don't know it just seems like if the rangers sort of disappeared you know I don't know if that situation wouldn't somehow you know get worse so I just concerned about that and I know this is out of left field but I still think you can eliminate the climate action manager position and any associated positions and it would make no difference at this time I mean climate is going to do what's going to do and it seems like that position is reacting to climate and we can react when it changes you know as effectively as what they're doing which is just waiting for it to change you know so that's all I have to say bye so this is your last opportunity if you'd like to comment on this item now's the time to call in once you've called in please press star nine on your phone to raise your hand and when you are at even after unmute you will have two minutes speak to council on items related to the budget it seems like the first department is playing the show game with the rangers positions and it's really clear if they're saving any money and then the victim's advocate they're pulling off to the district attorney's office and without any like inferences to whether or not this is going to be an actual victim's advocate or just a advocate for people that are actually within the court system I think you need to retain that victim's advocate position because not everything's going to go to court some things just fall between the cracks and don't end up being prosecuted or whatever and people still need advocacy and help being guided to where they need to find help it seems like there's a number of other instances within this budget where there's the show being being played I would suggest that the city hire a forensic accountant to go through the budget of every department and find every hidden diamond nickel that there is so that we can have a real look at where we stand um in the meantime maybe we should adopt the budget for 1972 or something to hold us through until we know exactly what's going on here there seems to be a an instance here where each department wants to like you know save what little they can or as much as possible of what they're doing even though you know you go by and see people working and one guy'll be working and the eight guys standing around him and the consumer of the police um before a motion is made I wanted to maybe um who are interested in making an adjustment to the budget on recommendation for adjustment that we don't have any issues with so for example the HR public works that we can move the budgets that we um maybe don't have any issues or comments with and if there's a department where we want to make any changes or recommendations for changes that we um pull those departments out and we can have for the discussion about those budgets so I'm wondering if there's any feedback or people think that might be a good approach well I didn't seem like there's consensus around that being a good approach yeah good question how you want to procedurally to go through this we're Matthews at some at some point we'll have to recuse herself so I um I guess I'll just make a few comments should I appreciate the input from our staff and the call mention of violence against women I know um just how valuable our victim's advocate position is and so at this time I really don't feel comfortable eliminating that position I don't know if you want to have that as a stand alone as we go through the police budget but um in order to move things forward I'm happy to just sort of go through the various uh departments to try to get um where consensus is on their budgets and then we could set aside okay so I think then what we can do is um let's pull out a conflict of interest with Councilmember Matthews so I'll pull that one aside and then Councilmember Watkins if you have any other ones that you'd like to pull out then we can do that and I can just kind of go through um and uh if one hasn't been pulled then we can pull that one in but if there's alignment then similar to kind of how we do um commission appointments um we can move forward so are there any other departments that you have questions or suggestions for cuts or um changes not not at this time I I didn't know if we wanted to have any further discussion I know that Councilmember Brown mentioned she had comments in regards to the city managers um so we could pull that one up for the purposes of those discussions to ensue but other than that and the police um I'm happy to move the other department's uh budgets I'll come back to that just in case there's um any other departments that we pull City managers uh thank you Councilmember Watkins I understand that the motion's been made now to dock the budget with the exceptions of the department budget and pull City managers budget I think um am I correct on that I think my plan was to go through that that's where we're headed I think what I was going to go through first is seeing if we needed to roll any other departments and then once we um had which departments we wanted to discuss in detail um I think Councilmember Watkins was going to make a motion but I was going to wait until we okay I guess another approach would be to do first start with a blanket motion to adopt everything except for the food department budget and then suggest maybe amendments to that I don't know what others are thinking for City Manager my only interest in that budget is adding in the City County Task Force so if there are other things maybe that can be done um simply I think that was okay I wanted to talk about Parks and Rec about the museum I don't know if we need to pull that or not but we'll be able to comment or you know I don't know if we have it was the suggestion would be that not closing it City Clerk to do a roll call vote on this first item and then we'll return back thank you Mayor Councilmember Byers it's possible to take a five-minute break I really need yeah thank you I think it was Schmidt who mentioned that difference in perspective on what to do with the community programs budget which is in the City Manager you know I continue to say this but not all cuts are equal and you know I'm entirely thrilled about the decisions that we came to um I mean I think we did a really good job as the Budget Committee and so I want to thank Vice Mayor Myers and Mayor Cummings for that and staff for kind of helping us through that but I believe that there are other places in the budget that where we could find money to ensure that the community programs that really rely on the funding that were granted this funding and while it hasn't been distributed we're not asking for them to give it back it was part of the core uh funding allocations that were made those were multi-year agreements and uh for those uh community programs to be cut some of them I mean it's it's like you know a $500 cut or something you know and but it makes a tremendous difference to those programs and I think particularly during a time when uh we are in crisis and we are relying on uh you know a lot you know the these community programs are getting a lot they have a lot more pressure and a lot more need for those services um that I'm just not willing to support cutting those programs and so I'm um I'm going to ask uh my colleagues to consider restoring those uh cuts and directing the staff to find other uh places to um to cut the budget I mean we are and we have you know a 250 to $265,000 to go which still hasn't been um is not here before us today so I think that um you know that I'm just not going to support those cuts so I wanted to make that clear and when the time comes for motion making um I'll just um you know make that as a amendment you know amended motion or you know an amendment and see where it goes but I just wanted to be really clear about that before we uh continue the conversation I'm also very supportive of uh including the CSD advocate I think that was not um I think that the budget committee was was pretty uh aligned on that one um but we were not on uh community programs so um I just wanted to be clear about my position so yeah I would I would move that we adopt the city managers uh proposed budget uh with the addition of $20,000 for the UCSD advocate position extension and removing the $40,000 that or $45,000 of the $150 plus uh in that budget was for a satisfied fund and because those funds weren't allocated and we haven't had a process I'm I'm okay with um you know that cut but uh the other $118,000 I think um I'm I'm not gonna support so um the motion is to um add the UCSD advocate and to uh remove cuts to the core the community programs core funding I wasn't prepared to start making motions yet so I didn't have that line I didn't pull that but thank you yes that's that's my um well I'll let the city manager provide one clarification I think we uh didn't mention with respect to uh community programs one of the things that the the city uh is receiving uh this year because of the uh as part of the federal cares because of the pandemic and because of the federal cares funding is uh direct cdbg cares excuse me cdbg cares funding which is federal funding uh that is part of our cdbg program that's additional to what we normally receive we expect to receive about another half million uh in the next couple of months which can be allocated to community programs there are restrictions uh with respect to how it can be used because it does have to be used for corporate responses but what staff would be recommending and that'll be before you because you have to approve the allocation for that funding uh although it'll come to you next month or so but we would recommend that similarly to what the county did is uh to uh offset the eighth and a half percent uh recommended reduction in community programs by uh setting aside a portion of that funding towards community programs now to be clear it's not a one-for-one uh substitute um yeah because they have to meet certain criteria but it would provide for an opportunity for community programs organizations to try to offset the impact that is essentially what the county has done although they've implemented a 10 percent reduction for the community programs as I understand so I just wanted to clarify that and provide that additional information that the there is a recommendation to try to uh offset the impact to some extent by providing some of the federal care funding to community programs and I too kind of had concerns about cutting some of these critical especially for those that are most vulnerable right now and was thinking of a million alternative or maybe in kind of a component of this could be to um have some portion be set aside so that those essential services that may need additional funding that aren't um that are impacted by that potential uh decrease of core funding to be able to access that bridge amount so for example if there's a program that um you know food food food and security or child care or whatever it may be that they could potentially use a set aside funding to kind of bridge that potential decrease amount but maybe it could be a combination now learning that the care funding could be used to um backfill some of the core dollars that it could be a combination of an action that would include um drawing in some of the care dollars but also setting aside a portion of funding so that we're able to bridge the immediate needs and the essential safety and services or something to that extent I don't know if Martin you want to elaborate on what you're saying yeah yeah I think what what the what staff is recommending that a fund uh set aside essentially of the equivalent essentially the equivalent reduction be set aside um so that the community programs can access uh funding for the things that you mentioned uh food and security that's actually the this year's round uh we also received this year around of uh in the current budget around a cares act uh CDBG and that was principally allocated to food and security senior programs uh it could also go to child care programs uh those you just have to uh have to be focused on uh pandemic response which all of those things qualify for so that would be the idea again to try to focus uh essentially create our a separate set aside uh with those sort of conditions uh are restrictions compliant with the cares act requirements um which largely do fall in those categories this year we primarily primarily funded uh you may recall the food bank community bridges and their various programs for seniors and they care our examples so if I'm hearing you correctly I guess what I'm hearing you say is that you your recommendation is that we move forward with the proposal to have the eight and a half percent reduction but to then also at the same time create the separate funding for applicants that may have been impacted by that reduction or others I guess is to access those cares dollars to provide the essential services