Looks like we're on, we'll go ahead and get started. Good morning everybody, welcome to the 9.30 AM, public portion of the closed session litigation of our December 10th, 2019 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council. In this part of the meeting, the council will receive public testimony. Thereafter, the council members will move to the courtyard conference room for our closed session. I'd like to ask our clerk to please call the roll. Thank you, Mayor. Council member is Cron. Here. Glover. Here. Myers. Here. Brown. Here. Matthews. Here. Vice Mayor Cummings. Here. And Mayor Watkins. Here. Are there any members of the public who would like to speak to us on any closed session items? I see none. So at this time, we'll go ahead and adjourn our council meeting to our courtyard conference room where the city council will go into our closed session. Hey, shall we get started? Oh, that's good. So I'm just going to go there for a little bit. Okay. Well, let's go ahead and get started. If I could get your attention. Good morning, everybody. Thank you. We'll go ahead and get started. So welcome to our now 10, 25 session of our December 10th, 2019 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council. I'd like to ask our clerk to please call the roll. Thank you, Mayor. Council member is Cron. Here. Glover. Here. Myers. Here. Brown. Here. Matthews. Here. Vice Mayor Cummings. Here. And Mayor Watkins. Here. And if you could clerk, please lead us in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. So we'll go ahead and be introduced to some of our new city employees. And we'll go ahead and start with our Assistant Director of Libraries, Eric Howard, to introduce our new library employees. Good afternoon. I am very pleased to introduce Rachel McKay, who's been actually with the library part time since 2016. She's one of our outreach LA twos. You'll see her often working downtown, but she also wears an outreach hat, which means she supports us in our jail services. Which has been wonderful, and we're getting lots of praise for all the work that we're doing there. So we are very pleased to introduce Rachel today. Wonderful. Well, thank you and welcome. I'd like to now invite up our Park Superintendent Travis Speck to introduce the new employee with the Parks and Rec Department. Good morning, Mayor, Council. Very pleased to introduce Sean Sled, Parks Maintenance Worker. Sean is a longtime resident of Santa Cruz. He graduated from high school here and he's raising his own son here in the city. He worked for many years in the construction trades as an independent contractor and brings a very strong skill set to us in that area. He started with the city this summer as a temporary Parks Maintenance Worker working at Neary Lagoon. And we were all impressed with his work ethic, his problem solving skills, and really his positive teamwork. So we're very excited to be able to offer him a position as Parks Maintenance Worker. He's working with the Central Zone staff, so covering Harvey West Park, Pogonip, and downtown. So if you see him out on his beat, please say hello. Really, welcome. All right, welcome, Sean. And I'd like to now invite up our Acting Recreation Superintendent Jill Bates to introduce the new employee. Hi, Jill. Good morning, Mayor, City Council. It is my honor and pleasure to introduce Shannon Cotton, Recreation Assistant for Special Events and Special Classes in the Recreation Division at the Parks and Recreation Department. Shannon was born and raised, or born in Santa Clara, lived in Las Gadas, Monterey, San Diego, but was raised in Aptos. And she attended and graduated Aptos High School. She participated in high school volleyball and soccer, and she went on to Chico State with a volleyball scholarship. She majored in Recreation Administration. She had two internships, one at Pinnacles National Park and one at Glacier National Park. And her job experience, she worked with the City of Watsonville Parks and Recreation Department prior to coming on board here at the City of Santa Cruz. And she has a lot of hobbies. She loves to run the trails. She's anxious to get out and run the trails at Poganip. She loves to hike and camp and anything outdoors. She has a very supportive, close family. She has a supportive mother and father who she deeply respects and two older sisters that she looks up to. Shannon has a faithful pet, Doxin, named Ollie, who she rescued in Chico two years ago. And they have been best friends ever since. Shannon has hit the ground running since she came on board and took over an event down at the Santa Cruz Cal Beach Surf Club plaque dedication. And she did that all on her own with the help of some staff. So we have been very, very happy. And it is my pleasure to welcome Shannon Cotton to the City of Santa Cruz. Welcome Shannon. And last but certainly not least, we'll go ahead and invite up our water director, Rosemary Minard, to introduce her to me. Good morning, Mayor and Council. It's my pleasure today to introduce to you two new employees of the Water Resources Group. These are two new water resources analysts that's a new position we created last spring. And these are the first two people hired into this position. These folks do all of our natural resources, planning and monitoring. Sometimes you'll see them in the lagoon on the San Lorenzo River doing fish counts. They also do a lot of other work related to watershed management and environmental compliance. So we're really lucky to have both of them. The first I'm going to introduce is Randy Holloway. Randy brings to us a master's in watershed science from Cal State University at Monterey Bay. And he is a BA in philosophy from UCSC. So those two things should go together somehow. I'm not sure exactly, but. And he's been a staff scientist at several local environmental engineering companies. He's done water treatment equipment sales and installation and a previous internship and part-time technical assistant before with our water resources group. He lives in Santa Cruz since 1986. He's drummed in many different bands around town and enjoys all of the outdoor activities we have here. So please welcome Randy. And next I want to introduce to you Marina Sadorik. And she's also brings a graduate degree. She's a graduate of UCSC in environmental studies and biology. She's got a lot of good experience as a fishery scientist. So that's really a big help for us and a lot of the work that we're doing. She was a scientific aide at Cal Fish and Wildlife, completing stream monitoring work related to salmon and steelhead populations in Santa Cruz and San Mateo County. And then she also worked as a fisheries biologist for Pacific State Marines Fisheries Commission, managing coho and steelhead population monitoring projects in Santa Cruz and San Mateo County. She grew up in Monterey. She's got water in her blood. I think she's volunteered at the Monterey Bay Aquarium since high school, so 12 years of that. She enjoys backpacking and gardening. So please help us welcome Marina. Welcome, welcome all the new city employees. Thank you for choosing to work for the city of Santa Cruz. So we'll go ahead and move right along to our presentations, which I think many of you in the room are here for. And it's a real treat and honor to be able to present the 2019 Officer Jim House Community Service Award. And I'll just say a few remarks about the award. So the Officer Jim House Community Service Award is an annual award given to community members and city employees for outstanding service to the Santa Cruz community. The award was created in honor of Officer House, who retired in 2007. And after serving as a Santa Cruz police officer for 26 years, and I had an opportunity actually to work with him briefly as he worked at the county office of education after that. He was known throughout the city for his positive approach and partnership building between the city and the Santa Cruz community. Officer House Community Service Award honors his legacy of positive collaboration, problem solving, and recipients of the award are found to exhibit extraordinary dedication and efforts through improving the quality of life in Santa Cruz through constructive solution oriented work. Work in collaboration with the city or city departments and other community stakeholders. And embody a spirit of cooperation between the city and the community. And set a positive tone that inspires and motivates others. And those who knew Jim know he really did embody those characteristics. So this year's nominees included so very many impressive and worthy community members and city employees who were nominated and being part of the committee for selecting it, very, very difficult. And so at this time, I'd like to really acknowledge all those who were nominated and provide certificates to the nominees and then we'll go ahead and provide the certificates to the recipients of the awards. So if you could come and accept your certificate as nominees when I read your name. And I'd like to just read a little brief sort of paragraph about the characteristics you displayed. So first I have Amanda Rotella as a 2019 City Employee nominee. I'd like to just acknowledge her demonstration of extraordinary dedication and effectiveness to improve the quality of life for the Santa Cruz community through a positive collaborative solution oriented approach. As well as Mike Hopper as a nominee. And we have Claire Fleisler as a nominee. Is she here, Claire? And Sergeant John Bush who was unable to make it. So we'll go ahead and hand out these certificates and thank you for being here and for your extraordinary work. Right, so congratulations. Your colleagues and supervisors all recognize the amazing contributions that you all provide to our city. And I want to thank you so much for your service. So this year our selection committee met and we chose the following recipients for the 2019 Jim House Award, one recipient from the community and the other a city employee. And I'll start with our community recipient of the 2019 Jim House Award and that's Dr. David Ravel and go ahead and come on up. David Ravel is a PhD as a principal of Ravel Coastal and is a well known and respected member of the community who is dedicated to improving the sustainable quality of life for our community through his professional and volunteer efforts. To collaboratively and thoughtfully protect our local coastal resources and watershed from sea level rise both now and in the future. He has been an incredible advocate asset and partner for the city of Santa Cruz. His coastal resources and by extension the community at large. In the course of his efforts, he has worked collaboratively with countless local stakeholders. Thank you for your service, David. And so this year's city employee recipient of the 2019 Jim House Award is Jill Bates. She has served as a member of the Parks and Recreation Department for over 35 years. Her collaboration with the Santa Cruz Fire Department and the Junior Life Guards Program. And the engagement with youth and families have led to hundreds of youths going through that program. Learning about water safety, but most importantly learning about what it means to be a leader. She has also been the city's leader with all aspects of Little League, youth sports, adult league sports and is well known for her organization and energy among the local sports community. Her dedication to providing quality services and outstanding programs to Santa Cruz is virtually unparalleled. So thank you for your service, Jill, and congratulations. Just saying, this has actually been an honor and a pleasure to be a part of the city of Santa Cruz and work for our community and all of you and I am in great company. So congratulations to the recipients of the award, to the nominees, and I want to thank all of you who are here to support this recognition. Thank you for being here and for your service to the community and also the recognition of those who you work alongside. So at this moment, we'll go ahead and conclude this part of the ceremony and we'll move into the next presentation. You're welcome to, if you'd like to transition how you'd like, if you're not here for the next portion. So our next presentation is the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History. And we have Felicia Van Stolk, who is the new Executive Director of the Museum of Natural History, and welcome. Thank you. Thank you for this opportunity to introduce myself as the new Director of the Museum of Natural History. I'd like to thank you for your time and your support of the museum. And just wanted to share a little update about the museum. We are going to be closing our doors very soon for just a brief closure and so I hope you're able to join us for the holiday or before the holidays. And if not, join us in the new year on January 10th for our grand reopening. We will have a new exhibit focusing on mushrooms. And there will also be some exciting renovations in our historic building that we're looking forward to sharing with all of you. Well, I've also brought some annual reports here to share some of our recent successes. If I can, in particular, I would like to, I'm particularly proud of how many local students we've been able to serve through the museum's programs. Last year, we spent 250 hours outside in city parks with over 7,000 students and parents. And I'd like to add that many of those students and parents are super thrilled with the recent TLC that the whale got in our park. So thank you for that. As soon as the whale was open, it was covered in children, it's lovely. I just love how much love the parks have been getting today and in general how the emphasis on loving our trails and the nature we have here. It makes our mission so achievable, the connecting people to nature and science and promoting stewardship. I consider the city of Santa Cruz an essential partner with us in that mission. And some of you might know that the city ran the museum for over 100 years before we became an independent nonprofit. So I'm also here to thank you for your support and especially another shout out to the Parks and Rec Department for their support as we have become our own independent nonprofit while maintaining that strong partnership with the city. And to that end, as a gesture of our gratitude, I have brought a present. This painting here is by a local artist, Mika Nikau, who has hung her art in our Art of Nature science illustration exhibit for many years. And it shows a mandala of a food web that supports sea otters and kelp forests, things that make our bay very special. And I love that this mandala also emphasizes the importance of interconnectedness and relationships. It reminds us of important relationships like the one between the museum and the city. Those are things that make our community strong and special, just like our kelp forests. So thank you for your support and I hope to see you all at the museum soon. Thank you so much for the presentation and naturally just that beautiful piece of art and the symbolism behind that. And as a student who just went through your program, I can really attest to the incredible services you're providing to our children. So thank you very much. Councilor Myers. And I just want to recognize Felicia and welcome her as our new executive director. Felicia is born and raised here. She's also the first woman executive director at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History. And so we're very pleased to have her here. And she's going to continue to educate our children county wide on nature and science into the future. Okay, thank you. Okay, so our next presentation is for Rick Martinez. And it's bittersweet because it's 30 years of service, but it's a retirement moment in proclamation. So I'm honored to be in this position to be able to sign this proclamation to mark this moment in your career. If I can, maybe I'll just read a few of the where as's and then let you have the mic. You are the mayor. We're a little bit longer, so I'll go ahead and do that. So whereas on June 1st, 1989, Richard Martinez was hired as a beach ranger, a park ranger by the city of Santa Cruz Parks and Rec Department. And I'll skip a good portion because I want you to be able to say your words. But whereas Richard Martinez currently serves on or has served on numerous boards and committees, and on December 19th, 2019, Rick Martinez will be retiring and will be honored for being an outstanding example of loyalty and a tremendous asset to the city of Santa Cruz. This community, our community, and its police department, and long remembered and appreciated for both his friendship and for his 30 years of commendable service. And he will be sorely missed, so it's my pleasure as mayor for a little bit longer to hereby proclaim today, or to hereby proclaim, excuse me, December 19th, 2019 as Richard Martinez retirement day in the city of Santa Cruz. And I encourage our entire city, the co-workers and others to join me in expressing our heartfelt appreciation for your 30 years of service and dedicated exemplary service and numerous contributions that I've been able to observe, particularly in education. And for the Santa Cruz Police Department and the city of Santa Cruz, we really wish you well in your retirement, so congratulations. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, this is definitely a bittersweet moment for me, I think as the mayor mentioned. I spent my entire adult life as an employee of the city of Santa Cruz. So it's really become my home, and I wanted to really share some comments about my journey and kind of how I got here today, especially since this will probably be the last time I'll be talking to you as an employee of the city of Santa Cruz and as your deputy chief of police. So let me start, took some notes because I want to make sure I didn't miss anything. Still from the heart, it's just concise from the heart. That's for your timeline today. Like my grandparents and parents, I was raised here in Santa Cruz. Despite having a multi-generational community ties, I spent my youth living in several low-income Section 8 housing units throughout the city and county with my mother and my younger sister. That is when we could find housing. So I have first-hand lived experience with many of the core issues our community continues to struggle with, which is why I wanted to take this opportunity to implore you to continue to collaborate and advocate for an increase in affordable housing and bed space for those suffering with behavioral health issues and those struggling with addiction. Also, striving to change the nimby-led narrative and political self-interest that has kept us as a community from getting those most vulnerable into a safer, more humane place, simply preserving life. That's my parting plea to you and to our community. Over 30 years ago, I began my employment with the city of Santa Cruz. He has a beach ranger working on the beach under the Parks and Recreation Department and Lifeguard Service while I was attending college. I actually intended on getting into hospitality, you know, a career running a hotel or resort management, actually, but the Loma Prieta 1989 earthquake changed that intended path. As a first responder deployed into the downtown the evening of the earthquake, I quickly realized what being a public servant truly meant and I never left. Despite the adversity I've overcome throughout my career and adversity is probably being a bit of an understatement, I'm more than appreciative of the opportunities and life the city of Santa Cruz and its citizens have given me. I've had the honor to work and serve with some of the most dedicated and courageous people internally at the police department, across city departments, and externally with community stakeholders, many of which have become close as family. I know you're here to acknowledge my contribution, but still in my mind I've always been that struggling, seasonally employed kid that is still to this day thankful. I've had year-round work in the small tourist town I was fortunate enough to have been raised. For that, I thank Santa Cruz. Thank you. Thank you for your 30 years of service and we wish you the best of luck in your retirement. It's very well deserved and we'll be seeing you around Santa Cruz, we know it. Okay, so that then concludes our presentations for this afternoon or this morning session, so we'll go ahead and jump right into a few announcements and then we'll move on to our regular meeting and I'll maybe wait just a sec while we transition here. So today is a unique kind of day in that we have this as our last meeting before we take a bit of a break over the holidays and is a transition meeting in ceremonial in many ways and so we'll be concluding our afternoon session at a firm time around 5.15 and any items that still remain if need be will be heard in the evening. So today's meeting is being broadcast live on Community Television channel 25 and is streaming on the city's website at CityofSantaCruise.com. Our rules of decorum are on the window ledge to my left and it's my job to keep our meeting running without disruption and we ask that you respect your fellow citizens when you are inside and outside of our city council chambers. So I'd like to ask now if there are any council members who have any statements of disqualification today. Seeing none, I'll go ahead and see if there are any additions or deletions to our agenda today. Brief announcement about oral communications. Oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to address the council on items that are not on our agenda and oral communications will occur at or as closely around 7 p.m. this evening as possible. I'll go ahead and turn it to our city attorney to report on closed session. Mr. Kandani. Good afternoon. Good morning. Thank you Mayor Watkins. Members of the city council. City council convened in closed session this morning at 9 30 in the courtyard conference room. There were four categories of matter discussed in this morning's closed session. The first was liability claims. Item A was the claims of James Giannopoulos, David Bruce Press, Denise Elizabeth Byron, Janice Ann Saria, Damian J. Ramirez. Those are also listed as item 10 on your agenda this morning. Item B was pending litigation. There were two pending litigation items in which the council received a report from and gave direction to legal council. First is the 1930 ocean street extension case pending in the Santa Cruz County Superior Court. That is 1930 ocean street extension neighbors versus the city of Santa Cruz. Second is the matter entitled save our big trees versus the city of Santa Cruz. Item C was a conference with legal council pertaining to anticipated litigation. Considering initiation of litigation council received a report from legal council and gave direction. There was no reportable action on that item. Lastly, the council received a report from its negotiator concerning the city owned property in the city of Scotts Valley, commonly known as Sky Park. Council received a report and gave direction but no reportable action was taken. Okay. Thank you for that. Okay. I'll go ahead and see if our city council meeting calendar is going to be revised or if there are any changes to the calendar, City Clerk. Okay. Go ahead and move on. So that takes this right up to our consent agenda. And those are items 5 through 18 on our agenda. All items will be acted upon in one motion unless an item is pulled by a council member for further discussion. Are there any council members who would like to pull any items on our consent agenda? Council member Myers. I just have a question on number eight but I don't want to pull it. Okay. Question number eight. Council member Brown. I have a question on number seven and question e-comment on number 15. Okay. Vice Mayor Cummings. Question on number five. Okay. Any other questions or items to be pulled? Council member Cron. Yeah, I would like to pull item seven and eight. Okay. All right. Any other items to be pulled or comments to be taken? I'll just pull five. And pull five. Okay. Okay. Let's see. If there's any members of the public who would like to speak to items on our consent agenda, we'll go ahead and have that after we have now just one question of item 15 because the other items were pulled. So item 15. Council member Brown, a question? Well, it's a question e-comment. It's really a comment. I guess the, so the item 15 is the Citywide Pedestrian Crossing Improvement Project, which I totally support. I'm really glad to see the map and see the locations where these improvements are going to be made. I think they will improve health and safety or safety, excuse me, for pedestrians along some of our more dangerous corridor routes, especially. And I just wanted to, because I've had, we've talked about the SoCal Frederick Intersection at the Regional Transportation Commission and I understand the delay in making the broader improvements to that intersection, but I just am interested in why that intersection wasn't included for pedestrian improvements, at least for now in the interim, and just again express my interest in moving that project forward. Do you want to come speak to that? Good morning. Chris Schneider, Assistant Director of Public Works. SoCal Frederick is a fully signalized intersection, already has pedestrian warnings and push buttons. The other H-SIP grants are all associated with unprotected crosswalks. Any other questions for item 15 or any other items on consent aside from item 5, 7, or 8? Question? Just comment on this. I'm 15. I'm 15. So earlier this year, a member of the public reached out to me about the intersection of Fern and Lime Kiln and then Lime Kiln and Ensemble and I was just wondering, because those intersections, the folks who live in that area said that it's been very dangerous with cars speeding through, kind of going towards the Costco area and I was just wondering if there's any update on what might be happening with those intersections as well and Schneider again. We are in traffic engineering staff is looking at those intersections or those crosswalks. The ones that are in the project currently are based on collision histories and data and that's how we got the grant. The ones over in the Harvey West area that you're referring to don't have that level of collisions or anything like that. But we are taking a look at and evaluating them and I believe Jim Burr responded to your email to that effect. Thank you. Seeing no other questions, we'll go ahead and see if there's any members of the community who would like to address the Council on our consent agenda. This is for any of the items on consent aside from item five, seven and eight which have been pulled and will have an opportunity for public comment at that time. So is there any other members of the community wanting to address the Council on consent? Okay seeing none we'll go ahead and return back to the Council for action. I'll move to consent. I'll second. So we have a motion by Vice Mayor coming seconded by myself. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay that passes unanimously. We'll go ahead and start with item number five, five which was pulled and I think there was also a question on item number five and was it? That was me. I just had a question because it came up when speaking with some members of the public around the final motion that was made when we were discussing the camping ordinance and sending it to the catch and when it was returned to return in at the end of January. I just wanted some clarification because I wasn't sure if that specific date of January was actually in the motion or if it was suggested afterwards. I did respond to your email and upon rewatching the video it was part of the motion because I actually had it up on the screen and I was adding to it and it was part of the motion then so it would be our understanding that that was the intent because nobody said anything at that time. Thank you. Any other questions? Councilor McCrone? Maybe you got back to me also but just a question about directing council when someone speaks. You guys have a copy of a red line at your Epidias right now and we will edit it to add that direction. Thank you. Okay. Oh yeah, okay. Any other comments on this item? Item number five of our consent agenda. Is there any member of the community who would like to address the council on item number five in our consent agenda? Okay, seeing none, we'll go ahead and return back for action. I move item number five. Okay, we have a motion. With the amended. With the amended language. We have a motion by Vice Mayor coming seconded by Councilor McCrone. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that passes unanimously. We'll go ahead and move right along to item number seven in consent agenda and I believe that was pulled by Councilor McCrone. Yeah, I just wanted to get more of an update on what we're talking about. Are we only paying the taxes on these properties should we ever acquire them? And has somebody I'm assuming done the math and like which properties exactly and why just 200,000? Yes, so the state law puts forward the sort of general process for the sale of tax-defaulted properties. The owners currently have up until the date that the city or any other agency would close on them to pay off that debt. But under the state law, public agencies can acquire those properties for just the outstanding debt and any other like transfer taxes and things that would go on it. So the prices that you see listed on the property profiles page, that's the outstanding debt and those fees estimated by the county that we would pay for each of those properties. The amount requested in the budget adjustment is enough to cover those total costs plus some ancillary unforeseen costs that might be related to quieting title or other actions. So you've actually worked with the county and they've told you this is what it's going to cost for the properties? That's when they published their list out to all the public agencies that's the amount that they expect to get from us. Thank you Mayor. Customer Ben. Yeah, so I see that the auction is scheduled to be held in March 2020. I'm just wondering if we could get a report back on the outcome to the council so we know what happened with these properties and the action the city took. Absolutely. I can't say exactly when the city would wrap up its process supposing that the properties aren't redeemed by the owner. But as soon as we do get a determination from the county I would be happy to put a report back together. Great and it could just be a FYI memo or something. Thank you. Any other questions from the council on this item? All right. Is there any member of the community who would like to address the council? This is item number seven on our consent agenda. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay we'll go ahead and return back for council action. I'll move approval. Okay, council member Matthews, a motion by councilor Matthews, seconded by council member Myers. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay that passes unanimously. And then last item on consent that was pulled is item number eight and I believe there was a question or comment on that by council member Myers and then it was pulled by council member Kern. Do you want to ask your question? Yeah I just had a question. I'm not sure if it's for finance or I just had a question regarding really the city attorney costs and from what I can tell it looks like the top two things Cheryl would be adding up to those services and is that specific to us? I guess I'm kind of looking at Tony and Cheryl both at the same time. Could you speak to a little bit of that overrun so far through the mid-year budget? I think I could do that. It's specific or I'm not quite sure. And Cheryl's more familiar with the numbers but I'm more familiar with the work so I think that would be appropriate. Can we refer to the thing that you sent us? The itemization? In general I will refer to that. Okay. So beginning with the 2017-2018 year the contract was amended to provide for up to 260 hours of general legal services per month for a flat rate and a blended hourly rate above that of $210 per hour which is very well below even what a junior associate would charge from an outside council firm so the blended hourly rate means management partner junior associate are all charged that same amount. The workload has increased significantly over the past few years and in the 2018-2019 fiscal year we modified the agreement to increase the number provided at the initial flat rate to 275 hours. That was done in recognition of some of the budget concessions that were being made citywide due to a lot of increased mostly pension and healthcare costs. However the amount of legal services provided to the city over the same period of time has continued to increase significantly. I would say the most significant user of city attorney resources in the city is by far the city council so it's both many actions responding to changes in state law that have necessitated a lot of work putting ordinances together a lot of work developing those working with staff working with the council. One of those is on your agenda this afternoon the small cell wireless facilities ordinance that has just required a lot more time and frankly also one factor is the meetings are going longer so it just takes more hours out of the month and so that's that's in general what I would say also I think the same impacts on public works on planning with regard to many changes in state law that have had a major impact on the way the city does business. Also the water department has been gearing up for several hundred million dollars in infrastructure upgrades and we've been working extensively with them in developing the contract templates and documents necessary to move forward with a very aggressive capital improvements program so in general there's just been a lot more work. Thank you. Did you have additional questions? Just wondering so that on the attachment you gave us there was 1.2 million is that what we approved for the budget for the year? Like Cheryl answered budget question. All right the budget was lower than it should have been what we discovered was it should have it's increasing each year and for some reason this was lowered from the previous year so we needed to put more appropriations in it but it's increasing each year as we go we did an analysis of it and also legal services is needed so we're having to put more and more in the budget. The 2020 budget reflects an amount that's more equal to what the services are being provided. The differences between 1.2 and 1.7 what is that 1.2 is general fund and 1.7 is overall from enterprise and general fund these are all general fund so it's basically it's 1.775 million that changes hands from the general fund to the city attorney's office. Tony sent that schedule is that the one you're talking about that's a summary of total billing over the course of the fiscal year for general legal services special legal services and litigation and what was the amount budgeted for this year for the city attorney I have to look that up I'm not sure what it was but it's the difference between what the the difference is the 300 something on it so I can get that information for you but I don't have it readily available it's it's increasing each year by about two to three hundred thousand dollars and maybe a question for the city manager how do we where do we get this money from uh where do we find it in the general fund how do we deal with that right so it's not first of all it's not unusual that when you adopt a budget then as the course of the year progresses that the you know changes occur not everything is exactly as estimated and so there's always variations and so typically what we do is we look at what are their offsets are in the budget they can adjust for that and in this case that's a lot of that some of the other adjustments were where there was less spent in the appropriated budget so that offsets that if that's not available then we come to council to do a budget adjustment in which case it would come from fund balance so we always have to balance our budget so it's pretty typical that you know throughout the course of the the fiscal year we make adjustments based on the you know what's actually happening versus what was actually estimated so this is a we do it now we kind of combine everything into one supposed to doing a piecemeal so we have changed that in the past we used to do it you know every time something happened now we combine it to either mid-year adjustment or end of the year sort of adjustment I'm just trying to understand how unusual it is for it looks like a 35 percent increase in the city attorney's budget for the 2019-2020 year is that sound right yes and I think it just reflected as a city attorney pointed out the fact that the services have just gone up and they've continued to go up and so it's it's basically just reflected on that we've had just a lot more legal issues even if you look at just the just this year this calendar year the the increase in legal issues has been pretty significant and for the reasons that the state attorney noted so that's just reflected in and what the budget is and so how much should we be worrying about that I mean and just putting out some concern that's all I mean if you can remember another 35 percent increase in a department's budget in the past five years has that ever occurred in one calendar year I can't recall off the top of my head however and certainly what we do is you know there's a difference between things that we have the ability to control and other things that we don't so we you know we definitely monitor it and if it becomes an overall issue in the budget we would you know alert the city council or make the adjustment at the appropriate time but I think we have enough flexibility in the budget at least we felt at this time to be able to to make that adjustment but certainly I think you know if you'd like us to look at you know we do work with the city attorney pretty regularly on monitoring the budget and we meet on a regular basis to go over issues and track it so that if there are significant deviations or issues that are sort of inconsistent that we would alert the council to do that so again I think we were just we were pretty aware of the changing issues and the needs some of the costs do get allocated to the enterprise funds as well like for example the water work is really the enterprise funds it's not all general fund so the increases are not all in the general fund they're they're both in general fund and in the enterprise fund so it just gets allocated so the overall impact of the general fund while it's an increase it's not to the point where it's having a detrimental effect in terms of increasing our ongoing budget deficit moving forward sorry I thought you said all 1.775 million is from the general fund because I had asked I believe so and that's where the 35 percent increases so well the problem is the appropriations were much lower than they needed to be for fiscal year 2019 they were I believe they were somewhere around 200 to 300 thousand dollars less than 2019 so we weren't following the trend and the hours and I'm not I haven't done enough research to see why that that appropriation was too low but that was part of the problem yeah and Tony is that all the money that changes hands from the city to the city attorney's office 1.775 or is there enterprise funds as well to my knowledge that's the total sum so I'm confused because you just said about enterprise does the enterprise fund reverse the general fund yeah so we do in this case and share you can correct me if I'm wrong but the city attorney's department is in the general fund sort of and then we have a cost allocation system that then goes and looks at how much was allocate was spent on the various funds and then there is an adjustment that happens and that this is the total budget is this does not reflect the the adjustments that happen we can provide that for you yes so this isn't the the actual net cost to the general fund it's the total cost of the department which is in the general fund just like the city manager's office just like the city council you're in the general fund the way you're structured in the budget but obviously some of the the costs are out of the city council of the city manager of the HR department of the administrative functions of the finance department are allocated to the through the the enterprise fund so the net cost is lower so I don't have that number in front of me but it is a net lower than this this is not the the total cost of the general fund it's the last question I don't mean to be a nudge but people have brought this to my attention because this is the only thing we had we got in our packet about the overtime it looks like about seven almost eight hundred thousand dollars in overtime where is that coming from the overtime this is fire and it's actually reimbursed if you can you know a lot of this is it's the overtime is they do let's see they they go out on strike teams they have they we have a revenue offset to this so it's just that it because of the fires it exceeded yeah so exceeded what we we had originally budgeted right it's just responding to the wildfire season and typically the we have mutual aid agreements and so the state reimburses municipalities for when they need to have firefighters go out and help with fires and we've had you know pretty significant fire seasons the last a few years and so that's reflected here but it doesn't have a fiscal impact on the city a direct fiscal impact thank you mayor customer brown just a quick comment and thank you for the additional information because i i too had questions about both of these and you know we speculated a bit but it would just be helpful i think in when we get these especially when they're or in the case where there are significant overruns just a like a brief explanation of what that's about in our agenda report could kind of help clarify so knowing that in advance we could probably move through okay thank you see no further questions at this time we'll go ahead and see if there's any member of the community who would like to address us on this item this is item number eight in our consent agenda packet and go ahead and see if there's anybody here wanting to speak to us okay seeing none we'll go ahead and return back for council action councilor matthews second so we have a motion by councilor matthews uh seconded near tithe but i think vice mayor comings um all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed no okay so that passes with councilor brown matthews vice mayor comings myself councilor meyers glover voting in support councilor crone voting against councilor matthews i just want to know that we did get some um information after the published agenda that specified the city attorney um breakdown of hours and also something from finance um explaining some of the adjustments so for members of the public who are curious there is later arriving information available okay thank you for that specification and it seems appropriate if there are interested members of the community who would like that could maybe potentially reach out to our city manager's office or something like that to be able to find access to that okay councilor it seems like we might consider at some point an item on the agenda that would discuss you know where we're going with city attorney budget and are the council are we on board do we want to temper ourselves in what we ask for it's a pretty significant 35 percent it's pretty significant so i just bringing that to the council at some time in the future putting it on our agenda and i think if i could my understanding is sort of there is an interest in kind of understanding a little bit more about when we're going in this direction some of the costs and so i think that maybe some open communication could help that as well i think it is also reviewed annually as part of your budget process okay and i'm happy to have that discussion at the appropriate time okay as well as mid-year so the mid-year and the budget process is are the two also opportune times to discuss that okay thank you okay well that concludes our consent agenda portion of today's meetings agenda so we'll go ahead and move right along to our general business portion of the meeting and for those in the audience the general order is there will be a presentation by our city staff and or and or by the council members who may have brought forward an item council will then have an opportunity to ask questions for clarification we'll go ahead and hear public comment and then return back for council action and deliberation so our first item in our general business portion is our admissions tax ordinance and we have economic development team here welcome good evening or actually good morning council and mayor and members of the council my name is Bonnie Lipscomb director of economic development and the item before you today is some clarifying amendments to our admissions tax ordinance this is something that we've been working on in collaboration with the city attorney's office and the finance department and it really is clarifying just some challenges that we had working with the business community to make sure that there weren't unintended just challenges as far as making sure that people were paying their admissions tax and we didn't have others unintended being billed inappropriately so with that i'll turn it over to rebecca unit our business liaison good morning mayor and city council to provide you with a little bit of background on the admissions tax it was first adopted in 1986 as a five percent tax on the price of admission charged including a season ticket or subscription for the privilege of admission to any event or in or out of facility the taxes charged to the patron or attendee of an event and collected by the operator to be paid to the city the tax defines an event as any entertainment amusement or recreational activity for which an admission charge is made and includes a long list of event samples examples in 2013 the city council considered the first substantive amendments to the ordinance since its adoption which exempted charges for membership or participation in or use of health clubs athletic gyms martial arts studios yoga studios and physical fitness facilities which advance active bodily health and and fitness and for which payment is made on an annual quarterly periodic or advanced basis this amendment was intended to clarify terms to improve compliance and enforcement and support activities advanced bodily health and wellness based on recent enforcement efforts by our finance department as well as some trends in new business operations economic development and finance staff as well as the city council have received a number of inquiries from businesses and individuals based on the application of the tax the tax currently has six exemptions that can be requested by operators and must be approved by the finance director the item we're presenting today is intended to clarify these exemptions to provide definitive answers to businesses and individuals who have made inquiries about whether or not the tax applies there are three proposed amendments to exemptions for council consideration today first the proposed amendment would explicitly reference meditation studios pilates studios massage facilities health spas and other physical fitness facilities which advance active bodily health and fitness in addition to the currently referenced health clubs athletic gyms martial arts studios and yoga studios it would eliminate the requirement that the health and fitness exemption only applies when payment for use of the facilities is made on annual quarterly periodic or other advanced basis as referenced in the staff report this provision is unnecessary because all health and fitness facility users ultimately pay for the use of these facilities in advance and this adds to the confusion for businesses and organizations and should be removed the second proposed amendment seeks to clarify that the ordinance does not apply to businesses or individuals who offer academic tutoring music lessons art lessons dance lessons and craft lessons as defined in the ordinance the tax applies only to costs for admission to an event and an event is defined as any entertainment amusement or recreational activity for which an admission charge is made lessons of this type do not fall within this definition meaning the admission sex ordinance does not apply and this proposed amendment will similarly serve to clarify this point for these businesses and individuals and the final third amendment is proposed to clarify that when an operator obtains a certificate of exemption which absolves the operator of tax collection this that certificate of exemption also applies to the operator subcontractors and employees so the recommendation before you today on our staff report is to introduce for publication and ordinance amending so as to clarify section 3.36.040 of the Santa Cruz municipal code entitled exemptions and pertaining to the admissions tax and we're happy to answer any questions about the site thank you for your presentation do any of the council members have questions on this item councilmember crown thank you I'm pretty okay with the changes that are being made here but I guess it'd be nice to get some background on one and two on our report 19.3 the following charges shall be exempt the charge to play or operate an amusement ride amusement device or amusement game where the total cost to play or operate is less than 30 cents I'm not sure what year that's from and number two the charge to play or operate any coin or token operated pinball machine or electronic game how I know these aren't how do these get in there I guess it's my question and what does it mean so like I can answer that because I looked into it over the weekend the item one the charge for amusement rides that are less than 30 cents was part of the original ordinance adopted by the council in 1986 I'm not sure what the policy basis for that was but given that the seaside company is such a large contributor to the admission tax revenue stream and my guess is that in 1986 most amusement ride tickets were more than 30 cents each so so I speculate that that was intended to get at the kind of thing that when I was a little kid they used to have out in front of supermarkets and that sort of thing like the little rocking horses and stuff like that but that's my speculation the second item with respect to coin operated pinball machines and arcade games was adopted by the council in 1997 I think in January and I've not been able to dig up any reliable information on what the impetus was for that modification but as I looked at the ordinance over the weekend I think an argument could be made that it merely clarified what was already the intent of the ordinance if you look at the definitions of admission and event in the beginning of the chapter it seems to imply that the charge is intended to apply to entrance to a facility or entrance to an event and and so I think the question is does putting a coin in a coin operated arcade game constitute participating in an event in an event and so that's my speculation but but again how what initiated that discussion and why the change was made in 1997 I haven't been able to track down any reliable information do we know if the boardwalk is paying admissions tax on number one now they on all the the rides that they generally pay that the boardwalk is certainly paying admission tax for the tickets that it sells for admission to the boardwalk yes and you see where I'm going with this is because it just seems like we're doing apples and oranges like we're talking about meditation studios pilates health spa after school tutoring and then we have this electronic games it just doesn't seem to be in the same category that's that's why I just raise it to your attention I mean I can comment on that too it seems to me like the admission tax initially as drafted was very broadly worded to encompass things like movie theaters boardwalk tickets certainly entrances to concerts that sort of thing and over the years if you apply it literally it it it just goes well beyond what I think anyone ever envisioned when the when the tax was adopted such as admission to a health spa or admission to a yoga studio for a yoga class and so the exceptions have been carved out over time this this wasn't something that started out as I mean it started out as a revenue mechanism and the exceptions were carved out because of what was perceived as the redeeming social values of these different activities for which exceptions were were written sure thank you any other questions from the council at this time so any member of the community who would like to address the council on this item this is item number 19 in our general business portion of our agenda please see them we'll go ahead and return back for council action council member or vice mayor coming so I just want to thank the city staff for taking this up because I know a number of people in the community who reached out to us with concerns who were music teachers and tutors and how it was starting to impact their business and so I just want to thank you for for helping to clarify these exemptions and I'm more than happy to move the item okay so we have a motion by vice mayor coming seconded by councilor Matthews any further discussion uh councilor crone I mean councilor glover thank you there was some correspondence that came in yesterday I believe from a institute called the seven directions institute addressing concerns their stem institute apparently the focus is on teaching art biology astronomy physics engineering and many other valuable subjects to children and they were their plea essentially is to take pity on small education facilities like our own and please amend the tax not to include businesses that offer educational or teaching services I was wondering if there's any staff member that could speak to that or if there's been any communication with the seven directions institute of art and science we haven't to my knowledge we haven't specifically contacted them but we will do so after this meeting and the exemption that's being considered by you today would cover that great thank you councilor Matthews I also just want to express appreciation this is something I'm asked about periodically in response to questions that have come from the community a whole range of generally small locally owned businesses so I'm really pleased that this is a common sense and contemporary update of the ordinance here here okay um seeing no other comments at this time we'll go ahead and take the vote so we had a motion by vice mayor coming seconded by councilor Matthews all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed okay that passes unanimously thank you all right we'll go ahead and take maybe a short recess and then we'll return at 11 35 okay we'll go ahead and come back now to our next item um this is item number 20 in our general business uh council meeting for the afternoon session and this item was brought forward by three council members so we'll go ahead and have the presentation by the council members who brought this item forward to bring context we'll then go ahead and see if there's any council questions at which time we'll open it up to public comment and then return back to the council for action and deliberation so I will look to any of my colleagues who brought this item forward to introduce the item let's council member uh crone, glever or brown council member brown and then council member glever and then crone and then council member Matthews I just to have a question if I could ask it at this point is it before the presentation about the presentation it's relevant because we've had a request for continuance so at what point do we continue do we consider that we have a procedural question by council member Matthews before the presentation with the question for continuance if that were to be brought forward the matter could be continued by the city council at any point in the proceedings okay so we'll go ahead and maybe have the presentation and I'm just asking the question procedurally okay thank you okay council member brown I just have a very brief comment by way of introduction so this is a consideration of a referral to the historic preservation commission consideration of and recommendation on the properties designation as a local historical landmark and that involves uh the historical preservation commission historic preservation commission reviewing the historic report that has been conducted and so I just wanted to say by way of introduction that this came based upon uh requests from the community members they have been uh from what I understand trying to uh get the historic preservation commission to review this for some time now I believe members of the historic preservation commission have also uh made that request that they look at the historic report officially and that because that has not happened through other channels they have come to us asking that we make that referral and so that's why it's before us today um and it was it was a request that came from the community thank you yeah so this was a result of many statements over a period of probably a couple of months of community members coming to public comment or oral communications in the evening sessions to express their desire and as well as providing petitions and letters signed by litanies of surrounding neighbors to address the issue of sending the decision as to whether or not to mark the building as a historical site to the preservation commission something that was troubling was their communication to myself specifically about the difficulty that commission members have had in getting the agenda on the item to be able to address in general saying that they've been obstructed by the process and some of those uh by by the process in general specifically of the representatives that have been overseeing that commission so that was really problematic to me for a lot of reasons especially the whole point of the commission is to be able to analyze and look at potential historic sites uh also it's important to have that opportunity for democratic process in these development projects so um in bringing it to the you know and with regards to the request for continuance uh these representatives from the neighborhood that want to see it go to the historic preservation society have come continuously to ask us uh to prioritize it now if there was a concern from any individuals that may have been observing or seeing that they were more than welcome to write and or come to city council meetings in opposition to it being referred to the historic preservation commission and in us uh referring it to the historic preservation commission that no way precludes those that are interested in expressing their perspectives especially those that are asking for the continuance to participate in the historic preservation's meat commission's meeting and express their perspectives and it's important to acknowledge also that the recommendation from the historic preservation commission in no way binds the city council from taking any action it only acts as a reference point for us to make more informed and democratically inclusive decisions so this in my opinion is an item that could just have gone on the consent agenda but since it's here for us to be able to discuss I think it's really important for us to be able to provide that opportunity for as many people to participate in the discussion as possible and especially take action uh in order to make the conversation happen before there's any potential issuance of demolition permits or they're able to move forward with the destruction of this historic site or potentially historic site thank you um i'm gonna repeat what councilmember browning and councilmember glover said um it just seems to me that we're the city council we are approached by a group of people consistently over time and this is sort of our job the items coming back to us uh regardless folks want their day in court and i think that's what's what's being asked from the council today um i believe councilmember mires had a question then i have a question yeah i just have a question i think for the planning director my understanding is um once the applicants would have um would would complete their application with regards to planning department process this project would then make its way through our planning commission and ultimately to the city council is that correct that's correct thank you mayor and council members leave out there i'm the planning director and um the application um as proposed um requires a planning commission uh recommendation and then a council final action and so the so once so and at planning commission or city council either of those bodies could refer refer the question of the the historic significance to the preservation to the historic preservation commission which could then uh make a recommendation or review the materials is that correct the council can certainly do that i believe the code also specifies that the planning commission uh can make a rec a referral uh to designate a historic site and i'm going to land spec i'm getting a head nod yes the planning commission is also listed the municipal code spec specifies which um individuals and bodies have the ability to do that and so with this step we're doing today this step would still would have would would happen as we go through our approval reviews with the two uh approval bodies being the planning commission and and uh city council ultimately so this step could happen as part of that yes um we uh as staff would not be including that as part of the agenda um for those items that would not preclude the planning commission or the city council from doing so as part of their deliberations the historic reports that have been prepared um that and the peer review have concluded that it is not an eligible site and so that wouldn't be um a recommendation that we would include as part of the um the recommendations to planning commission or to council however it is completely within the purview of the planning commission or council to um make that referral to the hpc okay yeah i'm just trying to understand a little bit um i guess i'm also just curious with regards to my colleagues did you meet with any of the applicants regarding their the property or the project at all thank you so uh none of the applicants have contacted us with their perspective or their um concern except for the letter that came in asking for a continuance which those concerns and questions can be addressed either at the historic preservation commission when they're making their recommendation or uh when it comes back to council for the discussion i think also to be pointed out here with regards to the process and you know lee i might have a question for you here is if this is not done up in the forefront then is there potential for let's say that later down the line after it goes to the process that you delineated or laid out that it does eventually get found out to be a or decided that it's a historical relevance then is there the potential that the applicants could have spent a considerable amount of money in the preparation and the application process fees and permitting to get to that point only to find out that there would be a historic preservation kind of roadblock if it was found to be a historic preservation commission site that's the case either way i mean where they're at in their application process is very much towards the end they are close to being ready for planning commission if not if not ready they were working through some last stormwater issues and so what uh what ultimately could happen um just to um let the council know about the the process and the public understand the process is if the um if the item is referred to the hpc for potential designation on our historic register um and then the count it comes back to the council the council decides whether or not it is um it should be identified as a historic resource if the council says yes it should be identified as a historic resource then that would mean that the proposed project and which includes demolition of that structure would represent a significant impact under sequa and so then an environmental impact report a focused environmental impact report would need to be prepared that would um that would involve a fair amount of time just procedurally there's a fair amount of time that's required even though some of those technical reports are already available the the process does take a good chunk of time and then when it comes back having been listed it would then go to the historic preservation commission for a recommendation on the project then to the planning commission for a recommendation on the project then to the council and the council would have to adopt a statement of overriding considerations recognizing that there would be a significant environmental effect as a result of the project and yet there are overriding considerations that still um warrant its approval should the council want to approve it if it is listed thanks yeah because one of the things that i've noticed uh that's kind of a pattern is that the the argument that things are so far along in the process and planning applications that it's hard to change direction or change the course which is why i'm dismayed that this hasn't gone to the historic preservation commission prior to this point because you know uh it gives us the opportunity it gives us the opportunity to make an informed and inclusive decision hearing from the neighbors in the process not just on who has the most amount of money to be able to purchase the property and move forward with plans but also to be able to give the voice to the surrounding neighborhood that are going to be impacted by the project not in the resistance of the development of housing because i've spoken to the people that have requested for this to be on the agenda and they are in no way in opposition to the development of affordable housing in some way or shape you know on the site or in the area but it is uh i mean there's multiple things to this not only and we're not we can't talk about the proposed development in question because that's not what we're talking about today but uh that we could make a more informed and holistic conversation or decision with more community input if we had moved forward with this sooner so if we were to wait even longer and draw this out and wait through all the planning departments and recommendations and it's not even guaranteed that it will go to the historic preservation commission through that process as was uh mentioned by director butler uh now is an opportunity for us to take a second and pause address what's going on with the community that we're hearing from which is something that's very consistent over and in different neighborhoods but especially in the dufort neighborhood in the uh now in the arid circle neighborhood where they have come out with a litany of signatures on petitions and letters that have said from the surrounding neighbors hey we need to hold off and reassess the situation and i think it's our responsibility as council members to act on that request from our community so we had a few more questions uh council member mires wasn't finished and we'll go to council member brown and vice mayor Cummings i kind of wanted to answer council member mires last question okay i can wait till and answer them all in turn that's fine okay i'm sorry director butler i'm so i just want to again clarify this referral could occur during our approval process as the application moves forward correct it could it could go through the process now it could be continued it could happen as part of the future approval process that's the the purview of the council and is i understand that the applicant has prepared i think i know at least one i may i think possibly two of the reviews the dpr process and those are on file as part of the that that would be distributed to planning commission and and moving forward through our process correct that's correct there um there was an earlier report um that was prepared and a subsequent report that was um prepared by a different firm that second report was um peer reviewed the the three uh the two reports and the peer review concluded that the site is not eligible for designation locally at the state level or at the national level and those are available on our website for review and so when you say that when you would bring this forward to planning commission first and then city council based on planning commission's um process the staff report would say based on the the materials presented that this would not be referred to hpc um but planning commission or council could direct that correct that's correct that's the process just want to make sure thank you this and this is an alternative you know the council does have the purview to to do it through this manner or it typically it would go through that standard process and and usually when there's a report like this you know it it wouldn't um it wouldn't necessarily wouldn't get referred um you know there's nothing in the code that specifies that we need to refer this action at this time it would be an action by the planning commission or the council that um would refer it and that could be now or through that review process so thank you for the time and I am um I would be I would do want to put forward a motion to continue the item we received a letter from the uh applicants yesterday um I don't believe they sort of really understood what was happening except that they were going through the process and I have met with everyone on every side of this question and um I think we have to honor our process there will be opportunities for referrals and these questions that come up but I think um with respect to the applicants uh I will put forward a motion to continue the item there's a motion to continue the item public comment item um would you like to reserve that until after public comment okay so we have council member brown brice mayor Cummings and then council member crown so to answer your question council member mires know um I did not meet with the developers before bringing this forward the developers have never contacted me I wouldn't even know how to reach them without you know moving that through our city planning staff I um uh move forward with my colleagues to bring this to the agenda in response to community members who have contacted us um I did not reach out to them they reached out to us um as well as members of our historic preservation commission um and I believe that they had a significant enough interest that it was our responsibility to consider that request so I so that's a response quickly to your question I believe we that we here are here to represent the public interest and in the case of community concerns um that are seem to be significant bring that to this body for consideration I have a question related to the um the timeline and the process I um I just want to be clear because I thank you for clarifying the process for making that referral I don't know why making a referral later on in the process is it would benefit and I'm not sure what benefit that would be if we're going to do it we ought to do it and then keep move down that road um and then the question I have related to this process because I I do have concerns about the potential for a demolition permit being issued in the interim so that's another concern I think a sense of urgency was coming from the community so can you clarify um where that is at what at what point um and how that um would would occur and would that be um potentially happen before getting to the process where we might make make a referral down the road so they would need to come in for the uh the project approval and um that would come through the council in advance of issuance of building permits and associated demolition permits I will verify from a commercial building perspective that's the same yeah we I'm aware of provisions that specifically relate to residential and I'm getting confirmation that the same provisions are in place for commercial um and and so the project needs to come through the approval process before even demolition permits could be issued um and uh that would then trigger building permits and demolition permits at the same time following those council approvals so just just to confirm council approval would be required before the zoning administrator can issue any a demolition permit before the building official can issue a demolition yes building official sorry it's okay staff yes yes vice mayor Cummings and councillor Crosby I just have some questions for my colleagues so my understanding is that the intention is for the reports that were created by the developers to go to the historic preservation commission correct that's that as well as any other pertinent information analysis research or data that would associate the potential need to registered as a historical site um my other question is when is the next is does anyone know in the next historical preservation commission meeting is taking place they're held on the third Wednesday of each month so with this item potentially it's be able to go on this month's agenda it can't go on this month's uh you know so it requires public hearing so there is um roughly three weeks lead time in advance of uh any historic preservation commission actual meeting date roughly three weeks in advance would be the the soonest okay thank you and I'd just like to say that you know one of my concerns because I met with the developers I've met with um the folks who are from the west side who want to protect the circle church um and one of the big concerns I have that came out of the meeting I had last night with some of the developers was that they didn't feel like they had enough time in advance to actually um have some of their um legal team and and other people come out because they found out on Friday and this uh came on this week's agenda and so many of them worked during the day and didn't have enough advance notice the issue that I have with continuing this item is that if we continue this into January that means that if it's going to go to the historic preservation committee that wouldn't happen until February and then it would have to go through all the steps of going to the planning commission and coming back to the city council and I actually think that if the intention is to have this these reports reviewed which it seemed like um folks were pretty okay with the reports going to the historic preservation committee um I think that it would make the most sense to have this go to the historic preservation committee so that we can actually reduce the amount of time that it's going to take for this process to unfold um I do understand concerns from from the folks who have been working really hard at trying to meet all the goals and deadlines for applications and the development but part of our job is to um meet the needs and the concerns of the city and um a lot of folks have been coming out over the past couple weeks if not months wanting this to go to the historic preservation committee and if we further delay it's going to substantially delay this project let's remember code um I would since I didn't hear a second for council member Myers uh and our rules do say that you can make a motion before after it goes to the public I will make a motion to direct staff to refer to the historic report for the 111 errant circle property to the historic preservation commission for review and to make a formal recommendation to the council as to whether the site should be listed as a local historic landmark okay well we have mr condom you will need to hear from the public before the council can take that action okay okay all right so why don't we just go ahead and do that this at this time and we'll see I'll second that motion just so that it's seconded okay okay well then I'll just as kind of for process acknowledge that council member Myers was prepared to make a motion after public comment but given that a colleague here now has made the motion before public comment we'll go ahead and revisit that motion when we return from public comment so all those who are interested in speaking on this item please line up to my left and you'll have up to two minutes to come forward and share your perspective with the council hello my name is Janet Brier I live two blocks from Circle Church and have lived there for over 35 years and I'm hearing lots of different sort of planning and sort of political kinds of things batted back and forth and I'm just coming forward as a neighbor as a as a person living in the in the neighborhood itself and want to really impart to all of you how important it is to keep neighborhoods cohesive and together and that our Garfield Park library is a historic site and I imagine that the little Baptist church that's in our neighborhood is also a historic site and so it seems to me logical that our church and that then that whole property would also be a part of that and to demolish it is to take away a long long history there long long history before even our houses were were there and that we need to keep neighborhoods intact and so I'm you know making a plea to please you know prioritize getting these reports to the historic society what are the preservation commission so that we can have your time your time is up next speaker thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you today on this subject again and I wanted to follow that woman because I actually reached out to another company that's on the list of the planning commission that's authorized to do the historic resource analysis they're called interactive resources they're located in Richmond California and I talked to a historian Charlie Duncan to ask tell him what we were trying to do I sent him some information about the history of the circle church and it just so happens his daughter lives here in Santa Cruz and so he came down for Thanksgiving actually drove around the circle areas and when he we talked on the phone again he goes I think this can qualify as an historic district what he cited is he cited the original grid from the 1800s the streets with the original names of the pastors with the tabernacle he cited the original Garfield library the original stores and post office are still there they're on Eric's circle then we have these these uh also the historical market on California Avenue as she mentioned the historic Baptist church but he said most significantly are these the little tiny shoebox houses that represent the original tent lots from the tabernacle so to me it's even more imperative that we get this in front of the HPC and try to preserve the culture of this neighborhood because what's in the center of this potentially historic district is important and what's being proposed is kind of this um many country club that's very exclusive completely incongruent with the neighborhood so and again it's just like some of you had said we're just getting their input it doesn't hold you to any decision it's just doing due diligence just really being very careful about making this decision all right thank you so much good morning my name is Andrea from the law I live on 230 walk circle I inherited my home in 2005 when I heard the history of the neighborhood I was so moved and it seems that that property the circle the center of the circle is the heart of the west side and um from my perspective I would hope that the city of Santa Cruz would take a hold of that property and designate it as a permanent community center like you have Loudon Nelson in the center of town from the center of town all the way through the west side there's nothing there's no community center and what we need more than anything is to to build community to be more connected with one another and that is a perfect place for it that's all I have thank you I like that Bruce Thomas I live on due 4th street I'm across the street from a building that is considered historic so I want to point out well first of all I want to say I'm really sad to see this progress to a state um I really wish the planning department and maybe Lee could listen to this Eric as well could really engage the community more thoroughly and not let things get so far along when there's really serious concerns that's an endemic problem in the city of Santa Cruz that I really think should be addressed but this this place is the heart I live across the street from a former bank building that's deemed historic and we're still having delivery trucks with no loading zone in the middle of the streets so why is that a historic building and yet this other one there's a double standard going on and I really um think there could be a legal challenge since um this building is by all observations is of historic nature and it's it's older actually than the one that was across the street from my house so I really think out of respect for the community and due diligence really this should go to the historic preservation commission for further public comment and consideration hi I'm here on behalf of uh soup um Powell from the friends of the circle who couldn't attend today she asked me to read this letter so I have uh distributed it but it's important to get this on the record my name is Candice Brown and I'm from East Morrissey um the Historical Preservation Commission has repeatedly asked staff to allow the commission to review that the Eric Circle Project historic report at regular public meetings because they believe that the Circle Church and Eric Circle property could be eligible for historical designation the role of the Historical Preservation Commission is to advocate for the cultural and the historical heritage of our city to listen to community concerns and to advise the City Council about sites that merit preservation the Historical Preservation Commission wants to review the Everett Circle Historical Report so both parties want to do this and they want to hear from the community so that they can at assess the historical significance and cultural importance of the Circle Church and the Eric Circle site more than 1000 petition signatures neighbors and friends believe it is imperative for the City Council to respect the role of Historical Preservation Commission in preserving her city's historical and cultural heritage and to respect requests by the commissioners to review the historical report at a public meeting with input from the community we fully support this agenda item and we urge the City Council to refer the Everett Circle Project Historical Report to the Historical Preservation Commission for review which is before you today and I just want to say that this does feel like it is the part the heart of a community and I think it's really important to give it special deference we lost during the earthquake the um the Cooper House and for some people it's really never been the same and we're still searching for the heart of downtown so really consider the heart of the west side thank you hello my name is Freya Sands I live on Wilkes Circle and I just am here to thank you for your service and implore you to refer this matter to the HPC the property has been a spiritual and community center for over 130 years and we need the the opportunity to have an independent review of its historic significance please thank you very much I want to thank you for your service too my name is Ellen Bass I have a really deep investment in Santa Cruz County and the community and our culture here um I'm this year's artist of the year I was last year's poet laureate I started poetry workshops in the jails we now have six weekly poetry workshops in the jails and decades ago I started two non-profit organizations in Santa Cruz County Survivors Healing Center and Kid Power Inc for self-protection of children I've lived in Santa Cruz County since 1974 and I've lived on Young Love Avenue for over 30 years it's only reasonable for the Historic Preservation Commission to be able to assess Garfield Park I know how important it is to me we had our wedding reception there I think everybody in the area has had some really significant experience there and when I walk by Garfield Church I think about that I love Garfield Library I'm crazy about it I go in there all the time I love walking by the little church this is the heart and soul of our community and when I walk down Walnut Avenue when I walk a lot and those of you who walk down there when you see those houses that have been preserved it does your heart good you know that we are we don't want to just look like every other city in the world and we don't want McMansions where those Walnut Avenue houses are and Garfield Church is really important to all of us I didn't know about the history until we thought we'd lose it and I am astounded if you haven't read the history stuff you will just be knocked off your feet it's 130 years old and it has served us so many things after World War one maybe you know it was barracks for black soldiers it's amazing Good morning Mayor and Council I'm Ron Pomerance I'm here in full support of the staff report recommendation to refer the property of the Old Circle Church to the Historic Preservation Commission whether the site is a local historic landmark this is a very very reasonable request given the entire neighborhood was built around the church 130 odd years ago when my children were growing up in the area we spent a lot of time enjoying the open space of the church and the activities that took place there even though I no longer live near there this property has a personal and historic importance to me and my family I don't understand why this property hasn't already been evaluated and designated as a local historic landmark what's taken so long I would recommend taking this process a step further and establish a list of all potential historic Santa Cruz properties with this list the Historic Preservation Commission can review and determine if these properties should be designated historic landmarks this would help avoid this kind of confusion and delays in the future additionally once this historic landmark evaluation is completed for the Circle Church I hope you'll assure that an environmental impact report is done for innumerable reasons and I don't have time to go through it right now I want to recommend in a very small way that story polls are a small way to physically see and get a feel for the heightened massing of any proposed projects I hope that you will require it for this project as well as future ones and as Vice Mayor Cummings has said that I don't understand why you'd want to continue it it's just going to delay this thing for months and months I hope you'll support the recommendation you have before you today thank you for your time and consideration hello everybody thank you mayor and council members for being here and for listening my name is Caitlin Wilde and I'm part of the Circle of Friends the folks that purchased the property two years ago and I'm feeling very blindsided by what's happening we have followed the letter of the law all of the plans that have been set forth before us we've spent two years hundreds of thousands of dollars we have gotten not one not two but three historical evaluations one by Page and Turnbull we have a representative here Christina and the second one by Dudek as Mr Butler says and we've had meetings all summer listen to the community we actually did send out emails to all of the council members on October 19th asking to meet we feel like we've done our due diligence and that this is a very last minute move to to really derail our project and just want to say we are not developers this is really scary for us this costs us a lot of money I'm an outdoor guide for example and we are trying to bring housing and affordable housing to the west side we are not building a fancy country club we're not building McMansions we are locals we are teachers and like I said I'm a guide local business owners we're not destroying the neighborhood and I really yeah I wish we could get off that narrative because we're not removing any tact of this neighborhood and what what gets really lost in this is we're building co-housing we're building a co-housing community different sizes of homes ad use a community gathering space and we feel like this is a really great part project that's representative of Santa Cruz and representative of the west side so yeah thank you hi my name is Brett Packer I'm a member of the Circle of Friends and thank you all for hearing us so yeah we received notice about this this hearing just by looking on the council website on Friday by accident found that this was coming up on the agenda and feel that that's not that we should have been notified feel that we should have been notified that this meeting was happening now so that we could get our consultants here and our supporters and it feels very unfair that no one took the time to let us know that this was happening we've been working really hard for two years on this project we've met with several of the council members we've reached out to the other council members and didn't get responses we've held community meetings for most of the summer for several weeks during the summer where the entire community was invited and including the people who would not like to see this circle change they were there often and we're trying to bring housing by locals for locals to the west side at what is affordable we're all working people teachers outdoor guides and this is our way of trying to get housing for ourselves here and we're maximizing the amount of housing that's possible on that site with 16 units and with the ad use that we're committing to build to be 30 units of housing on that site which is considerable that we don't have right now and this move to send this to HPC is just adding another couple of months a few months to this process and a lot of money thank you hello city council my name is Ginny Stone and sorry this is Ginny Stone and I was born and raised here in Santa Cruz and I'm a member of the Circle of Friends co-housing project really dismayed at the vilified nature that some of the locals around here are coming across and presenting us as developers I'm also dismayed that we got no notice to attend this meeting therefore a lot of us who actually support our project were not able to make it to this meeting today and these people do not want a loud and nilson they do not want a repeat of the checkered past that this property has had and we would request a continuance at this time thanks good afternoon thank you mayor and council for the opportunity to reconsider demolishing this property my name is jan chaff and I have lived in here at circle since one of those old original cottages 1890 across the street it is of course to the heart of the community it was the intention of the original creators of the property to always serve as a community center for ceremonies if you google the property you will find over 3000 references in the sentinel if this is not eligible for a significance under the criteria I can't imagine what would be I don't want to vilify anybody for trying to create more housing I I completely applaud and commend that that opportunity what I don't feel the community was given was an opportunity to respond to purchase that purchase was somewhat sudden and surprising not a lot of response and I'm not sure the community was actually listened to during some of these meetings please please please please please don't take this opportunity to reconsider once it's gone it's gone and if this church isn't worth saving what is thank you hello my name is jennifer smith I belong to the group called the circles women's coalition which developed from another group of people who have been involved with engaging the city council about this issue moving it forward to the historic preservation commission I've also been a person who's had numerous conversations with members of the friend of the circle of friends including before they went through their escrow process and I'll let them know that this this site was highly used and at the time of its purchase it may have been representatives being underutilized but I illustrated at that time that it was actually very well utilized it was the home of numerous sports events sports teams high schools and middle schools throughout the community that don't have places for their own basketball teams volleyball teams fencing teams there's AA meetings have been held there for years I taught Waldorf children on that site I keto I'm an I keto instructor by passion and trade I've also taught Ellen's children and I go back a lot or a child a long time I keto and I go back and my my investment in the community is also deep and what I see is something that I feel without with all due respect and please don't I know this can feel very personal it feels personal to us too but it feels like a greenwashing that what looks like a co-housing project is really something that can't be defined when we met with Ryan Bain and asked him well what's co-housing he says well it's not really defined and when we looked at the plans they were you know 10 or 12 separate parcels with such back set backs that they could each be sold separately they could be sold at any price they could be sold to anyone at any time and there's no plans in place for those buildings there are people in this community who are teachers who are teaching there one or two of the people in the circle of friends is you're telling but you get the idea thank you next speaker hello my name is robin stone and I have lived and worked in this community for many years I've raised my children in this community and one of my my daughter is part of the circle of friends and I'm really sad right now to just hear what some of the some of the things that are being said about this circle because I have taken time over the past couple years to really get to know some of the people and actually pretty much all of the people and I have seen a lot of people come together and work really hard to try and create a vision that looks does not look like a mini country club to me it looks like a community housing project that would really add a lot of benefit to the community where they're really taking environmental consideration considerations into how they proceed and I also am aware that there are some structural and code issues around the church and these people bought this property in good faith knowing that the way the church has been is not able to be sustained because it would cause probably too much to to be able to do the repairs that are needed so I just want to make a plea to honor the request for a continuance so that the circle can have enough time to just gather what they need to do to make their case and I really just I really hope that somehow this community because what really saddens me is that there seems to be a lot of divisiveness so my name is Joseph comes and part of the circle of friends I just want to point out a few things that in addition to the two non-biased historical reviews that we had and the third party review of one of those the last historical survey was completed in 2013 for the general plan of the 2030 by leslie dill historic art tech and local historians including jessica coose who is on the historical commission or presbyterian commission and this survey was defined the historical properties in here and they did not list error 111 error circle the historical status of 111 circle has been thoroughly researched and defined as not historical so I feel like this is a direct attempt to block our project and doesn't really have to do with the facts I we're definitely not there to make a country club we're trying to build the community I grew up here in sanikers it's hard to have these kind of community hubs and with the time that we've been owning the circle we've had maybe one or two events over the two years of the community coming in any doing or even requesting anything to be done there it's basically been using more as a dog walking park right now besides people who rent it from us and we want to in addition to create the center circle with us we want to open that up to the community at least four times a year there'll be more events happening there than are happening now I just wanted to say that I'd like to request a no vote on this for our continuance thank you Marilyn Garrett I have friends who live in that neighborhood and the historic preservation really needs to be a top priority I think I the history is fascinating and I often wish I could step back in time and see what it looked like then and before all this huge contamination we have of chemicals and radiation and car pollution and I appreciate and applaud all those who spoke up for the character of their neighborhood and maybe having it like a park or community meeting space I also think of sea rise going on and how this more projects near the ocean I think they're going to go under I was here in 2006 when we were talking about another historic site the Palomar Inn and the incongruent nature of having cell towers on top of that building and it never it was going to go to the historic commission but somehow it didn't but I think it's very important to do that and any neighborhood anywhere throughout the city and county is going to be facing this 5g microwave on slot which is on utility poles and light standards everywhere every few houses that isn't with the historic nature or the natural attraction of Santa Cruz and that's the next item I hope people stay your time is up and we'll have public comment on that topic after this item next speaker please hello my name is leis casby and I'm here to speak as a community organizer and activist there's two parts to what I want to say today the first is about access on a private piece of land which the church is and the second is about justice and the process that we go through in our system whether we get justice in the end there's a process that helps us all feel that we had a voice so okay so the first thing that I want to just start with is we are as beings historical beings when somebody loses an arm or a leg they often have a phantom arm and like for a long time somebody talked about the loss of the cooper house that's a phantom that hasn't gone away yet and part part of the reason that we still feel is because there's nothing quite like it that we've found yet in downtown so here in the circle area um we have a space that actually has public access as the neighbors are talking about who are not the circle of friends who want to build a private enterprise there largely about housing in their homes still private while it's a church it affords access I want to say that during the civil rights movement it was the free spaces in the churches that provided the space for people to be able to come together to organize that was the public space the churches because it was free they could freely organize in there so a church that brings in soccer teams and games and has open space for children to play is different than a bunch of private properties that maybe they'll open up their space a couple times a year if you send this to the historical preservation commission they're going to go through a process as a communicable organizer i've seen the process before it may not get designated but the problem but the point is it will go through that process in the neighbors and all of us will be able to collectively heal and so far thank you my name is uh john sears and um um so the way i understand this motion this is a motion just to have you refer to the historical preservation commission to get and they work at your pleasure um to come up with the determination and i understand yes uh maybe uh someone could help me hear when was the last time a developer paid for a report that didn't support what they wanted to do is a something julian green site brought up in a her blog in the end of october so i think it's i can guarantee you that if this goes forward and you decide in the end because you're going to be the ones that decide it to approve the demolition this neighborhood is going to be in grief it's going to be devastated so early intervention sending it to the historical preservation commission getting some their question getting questions answered is going to be part of that process of healing farther on down the road so i don't see any reason to delay it i think it's it's going to uh need to get done and a lot of the things that were brought up here today are things that are right correctly addressed uh by the planning commission it's they're not a question in terms of this motion the uh appropriateness of the property and the proposed development for the neighborhood that's plenty planning commission makes those decisions this has to do with history uh our neighbors have been uh i've spent almost a year on this trying to get it this analysis done by a board that we have charged with doing that and serves at your pleasure so i don't know if any of you are aware of this you can get it at the library thank you your time is up all right please come forward are there any other members of the committee wanting to address this on this item okay you'll be our last speaker hey um as a member of the catch i really appreciate uh that you are listening to everyone's views and making sure people get heard that for us is sort of the same kind of thing um i just came from the board of supervisors and i had to speak about our intake site being uh at the jail and i'm going to go ahead and pause are you here to speak to us on item um 111 errant circle and the reference i'll come right back to it in a second okay um and i had to speak and i you know i've known naysayers of people not wanting things in their community and that's something that you definitely have to analyze in this conversation about whether you're talking you know it's a it's a historic thing or it's just a naysayer thing or what that's actually used for like that's something that you have to decide i just had to speak because i just thought naysayers was about the housing well it's about staff too who they all the staff over there didn't want it in that jail because they didn't want to deal with the people the homeless people around like it would be dangerous to staff or they'd lose their parking so just trying to separate that of getting people's needs met making sure people are heard it's people definitely want to be heard and that's something we need to move forward with santa cruz and that's a nice tie next speaker hi everyone i live at um 1139 walk circle i'm one of the in one of the oldest houses in fact it's the um first house that was built at the corner of pendigast and walk circle um my husband and i bought the house in 94 all of our kids went to santa cruz high school one of our daughters was married in the circle church but the circle church is everything that these people that want to say it is it really is the heart of our neighborhood and it does draw each other to one another and that's really important to me and i think it it could be improved but that's what we need to do we need to stand behind it and make it pump like a heart for this part of santa cruz it's unique it's the center of a cake what do you put in the center of a cake you put the cherry in the center of the cake okay and i'm not against affordable housing whatsoever it's very difficult to find housing here but not in that historical site and if there's a purpose for the santa cruz historical preservation commission then it will address this there shouldn't be any delay and if it doesn't meet the criteria so be it but if it does then that's why we have a preservation commission you see this is what it's for we need to look at this and i really believe that it meets 130 years of history uh Amy Semple McPherson a fiery woman was in that place you can look at the history there our house was part of those small tracks you know we're in the circle so please no continuance let's have this let's not delay thank you everyone okay thank you so it seems that will conclude a public comment on this item thank you for being here and sharing your thoughts i have a question for you um uh lee in regards to process because um although there was a indication of a motion and then there was a subsequent motion made um had that process ensued i i would have likely seconded because i feel that it would be fair to have um notice if an applicant was to go to have their specific pro project go to be um referred to the historic preservation commission would that be general process although this item was brought forward by council members with the planning department notice the the applicants as well as the sort of surrounding area if this was the direction it was going to go in or how does that process work this referral itself is not a public hearing however the um typical process i guess around if this were to be your your your approach to wanting to move in this direction would there be a notice to the applicants as well as others or how would you so i guess usually something like this um would come about with an individual requesting it um you know a property owner could request it or you know when we did our historic building survey for example there were a whole series of properties um so the latest version was uh 2014 or so 2013 and um there was a large um you know community conversation because there were um you know many properties that were proposed to be added um so the uh this this doesn't require public noticing um there was an indication that um it could um occur um i understand that confirmation didn't occur until the the agenda was published for this item so it wouldn't necessarily require public noticing but you wouldn't likely notice the person or the owners of the property or the the potential designation or no not at all right i mean if there if if something's involving their property yes there would be a conversation with them surrounding it okay that's i guess i thank you because that's sort of where i am hearing kind of um that process not necessarily ensuing and if they're not in a rush to have it go through then i wouldn't i wouldn't mind continuing it for the reasons that they could actually have notice of it and i did hear from certain folks that were teachers and otherwise that couldn't make it so absent that it seems um it doesn't seem to hurt to not necessarily have them weigh in at a certain time in my perspective um councilmember Glover and then thank you yeah so uh wonderful i really appreciate all of the perspective shared both from those that are uh in support of it going to the historic preservation society as well as those members from the circle of friends that came to speak um i was going just did a quick search in my uh emails and i couldn't find any correspondence on october 18th so um would love to connect with you after this so that we can chat more about what's going on also uh i do want to just express my um apologies for if you felt blindsided which is of course not the goal with this because with this process it would allow for y'all to be a part of the conversation throughout the process of it going to the historic preservation society uh not necessarily you know which i would hope it would go through anyway through the process regardless of third party or outside uh consultants that were brought in from whichever party to do the analysis we have the historic preservation commission specifically for us to be able to refer these kinds of issues to them uh so the goal would be to what was in my opinion to open it up so that y'all would have the opportunity to participate as wholeheartedly as possible and prepare all of your arguments for the historic preservation society or commission rather as well as if it comes back to the council based on their um suggestion also for those on the dais here that are expressing concern about the notice that was given um seems a little strange uh personally because of how the agenda setting process is created um the three council members myself council member brown and council member crone submitted this agenda report on or before thanksgiving which means that those who build the agenda specifically the mayor who decides on what goes on the agenda itself um knew that this was an issue that we wanted them to see happen uh also and associated with that the agenda setting process is very secret so we as council members have absolutely no idea to know when or if an agenda item is actually going to come on the agenda so when that is decided i believe it's on the Tuesday or Wednesday before the city council meeting that would have been a fantastic opportunity for those on the council especially those involved in the agenda setting process to reach out to the applicants to let them know that you were planning to put it on the agenda so i don't think that is a viable or logical argument as for us to delay it um any further uh on top i just want to just mention with the timeline and the request for continuance one of the arguments or issues that was brought up was a feeling it would delay the project i think what we heard from the planning director as well as uh was expressed by vice mayor Cummings was that if we are to delay it or do a continuance if we come back in January and then decide after listening to the arguments to send it to the Historic Preservation Commission it will delay it at least another month if not longer so if we can do it now throughout the you know get it set up throughout the holidays to be heard uh in the January meeting then that could expedite the process assuming that your reports are correct and there is no need for historical preservation so it could work in your favor in general just to be able to have those kinds of things going on i can't talk about the merits of the project because that's not on the agenda but i'd love to meet with uh y'all from the circle of friends so that we can talk about your vision because we haven't had a chance to meet on that project in general um also just uh want to acknowledge the importance of the site and uh to the community you know i i'm not i'm not different i grew up in Santa Cruz i was born and raised here did some things there uh over time but i didn't hold as deeply of a meaning to me as some of the people that have spoken so i want to acknowledge that um so i have no personal agenda in the preservation aspect of it but i do want to make sure that there is an open and transparent process both in the historic preservation analysis as well as the opportunity for people to come on the record and share their perspective so just to give you an idea and respond to some of the things that were brought up during the public comment i'll just briefly clarify and then i know councilmember mires and vice mayor Cummings and councilmember brown wanted to add as mayor you do look at different items that are being brought forward and the assumption is that those items have been vetted either by the staff or the council and based on what i heard is that the three council members who brought this item forward uh did not meet with those on the opposing side or the developer side so that it it wasn't necessarily holistically included with all input as designed so there's that councilmember mires just a quick question um lee when when would this project be coming to the planning commission i know we have a lot of work a lot of projects coming um are we this months away is it just trying to get a sense of the delay part of this and if i could related to that it's i think it's part of the timeline question okay um i don't know what i see is uh if this goes to hpc uh hpc considers it either finds it eligible in which case it goes on one path or finds it not eligible in which case does does it die there does it come back to us so those who just to council member mires so maybe if you want to describe the process i'm really sure i'm really trying to understand the process and i and i completely understand the emotion around this building and around that space i lived on woodrow avenue for many years um been in the building a lot this is an emotional thing neighborhood change is is is emotional and um but i want to just recognize and most importantly state that change is hard for all of us there's risk on each side and so i'm just trying to understand our process a lot of what i'm trying to do here is just make sure we understand timelines in process we should discuss that in relation to what's on our agenda sure so i i just confirmed they um have finished the last they had one outstanding item that they were still working through and um that's been completed um so they would be able to they would be ready to move forward to planning commission um in the very near future i would expect you know sometime early next year um if um and so uh then to address council member matthew's question if the hpc regardless of their recommendation um the the code says refer that back to the council so if if the hpc recommends yes it should be listed it comes back to the council if they say no it should not be listed that still comes back to the council and then it's council's decision thanks mayor cummings and council member brown and one question in particular if this comes if the recommendation comes back from the historic preservation committee can we then send it to the planning commission for their recommendation as well as to whether or not it should be historic site because of my understanding is that they also have the authority to designate buildings as historic sites that's something that came up earlier so the designation is solely within the purview of the council and the code does not specify that the planning commission provides recommendations on that so um the the code says hpc recommends on designations to the council the planning commission would be in and is mandated to provide comments on the other applications so the tentative map and the plan development permit uh the design permits for example those um are required to go through the planning commission for recommendation to the council but the designation itself is just a recommendation from hpc thanks and then one other question um i know that members of the community it sounds like members of the commission expressed on a number of occasions wanting this to come to the historic preservation commission and i'm not sure if you or someone from the planning department can just briefly speak as to why because i think that when that when these reports came out we could have just had this go to the historic preservation commission and this is kind of this feels like the public's last opportunity because they haven't been able to get it on the agenda which is why it's come to us at this point and so are you able to speak to that at all sure so the the reports um do not indicate that the project qualifies for listing and the both the planning commission and the city council have the opportunity to make that referral as part of their deliberations the code does not state that these projects go to the hpc when they are not listed structures and in this instance when we've got reports that further support the indication that it is not eligible that was something that we discussed with the applicant team and there isn't anything that mandates that we do that there is the ability for the planning commission or council through their deliberations to make that recommendation that's one of the decisions that's that is the decision that's here before you today i guess i i'd just like to say to the public that um it's and i want to thank the folks who've been kind of working on this project because i know that you all have been very responsive to us with more you know increased outreach to the community and i want to say that you know that's it's really great that you all have been taking the time and going through the steps to really try to get community input on this um it's what's difficult about this is that um you know this spot in particular is so um kind of it's a i wouldn't say it's controversial but for the community it's a it's a very important site and major shifts to this obviously there's a lot of people with a lot of emotions and we're trying to balance all these emotions and these decisions that we're making and for the community you know they've come to us and what they really want is the opportunity for these documents to be reviewed i understand that there is a desire to move forward with this as well from the folks who are interested in developing the site but just kind of looking at the calendar um moving this to the sending this to the historic preservation commission will it's it would likely come if it's the third wednesday of the month on january 15th and so that gives about four and a half weeks for folks to kind of work together to plan to show up to that meeting with um all the folks who they want involved in that conversation and from my perspective um it seems like if we were to further delay this it might not come back until potentially february and then if it's to go to the historic preservation after that and continue down this route it could be much longer and so from my personal perspective i think that sending this to the historic preservation will actually save us time here um yeah so i just wanted to make a couple of comments responding to some of the concerns that uh were raised during public comment and in post packet uh production communications and writing um so in terms of the the timing and being blindsided by this i completely understand that that would that's a feeling that you might have by only seeing this when it was published on our agenda but um i just want to be clear that that's when i found out it was going to be on our agenda that's when most people found out it was going to be on our agenda um so it's it's it wasn't that the um the circle of friends was excluded in some way from learning about this and that we all knew in advance we made the request um after the last council meeting and then it moved through the process so i just want to be clear about that there was no intention for exclusion in terms of previous attempts to communicate i'm sorry if you did reach out and i didn't respond i have searched my email inbox and i haven't archived anything since august so i looked everything through since august of 2019 and i did not see um uh a request to meet or reaching out from you all i'm apologize if you sent something and i did not receive it with the caveat that our search engines sometimes miss things but i just did a quick search and i i didn't find anything i'd be happy to talk with you about the project moving forward my um interest in moving through this step of historical historic preservation commission review in no way is intended to be a commentary on the project the merits of the project or um you know at any attempt to prevent the project from going forward i believe as somebody in a public commenter said you know once this is gone it's gone and so we we do need to do our due diligence and i wish that it happened sooner um it was uh you know i i believe that in my attempt to be responsive to the community i mean that those requests came uh pretty recently because of the um their inability to get it on the historic preservation commission agenda in another way as director buttler suggested it wasn't required so it didn't happen um so i'll leave it there and um look forward to hearing from my colleagues right i had councilman matthews and then councilmember crown um i'll say just very briefly i was um supportive of continuance it's pretty clear to me that the the votes are here to send it to hpc for review um i was um uh concerned that there hadn't been uh adequate um time for um pulling together um from the applicants um uh support i understand that everyone apparently learned about it at the same time um i do also understand that continuance would just kick this ball further down the road um and that um really the outcome of the hpc hearing comes back to the council sooner or later in either form um and uh as others have said uh still to be determined are the merits of the project um uh it's clear as others have said um there's a prospect of change of use um i i have to be really honest um i think the um the hope of um the city acquiring this for community center uh is remote um and um it's important to focus on that i also i've i've had years of experience with historic preservation um endeavors of various scale here in santa cruz there are lots of possible outcomes of historic uh designation um and those all remain to be determined in the future um i think i'll let my comments stay there thank you mayor um thank you vice mayor too for your for your words because i i i do think i actually thought this was going to be a consent agenda item because why not give the neighbors there a time to talk to the historic preservation commission um it always was going to come back to the council uh i i'm just not sure what the issue is here and it's very interesting being up here and trying to peel away this onion administratively i did have a question for lee um i see one of my old buddies from education graduate school in the audience and we used to talk about teachable moments and i think this is a teachable moment for me how does something land on the the historic preservation commission if the if the council isn't put it on have they asked the planning department to have it on there and what is the um nature of putting together an agenda um i'm assuming there's a commission chair gets together with a staff member and they talk about putting an agenda together the latter process is correct the commission has not requested that this be on their agenda and um i would just add that um if if this site were deemed eligible by a um historic report that also would not be referred to the process that we would go through likely would not refer that to the HPC the way that process would go is if it is deemed eligible then from a CEQA perspective then it has the same protections as if it is listed and so in that instance we would go through an environmental impact report assuming demolition would be proposed and we would then um proceed through the hearing process and the planning commission or the council could um have it listed there could be an instance where we believe hey this uh this really does need to be listed and um we could refer that but if it was an instance where um for whatever reason there was staff support for that proposal there wouldn't just just to design just a historic report saying that it is eligible would not necessarily um trigger referral what does trigger referral as if it is actually listed if it's listed the code says that there is a historic alteration permit that's required and so anything that's listed if you're making some of the specified changes that's required to go to the HPC i do understand that there have been that there was one individual um at the HPC um who um at a public meeting requested that um this be brought to them but it's my understanding that HPC has not voted and has not made a formal um request to have it come to them thank you ma'am i have one um legal question that i know the vice mayor has a question as well as well if the um prior reports indicate that it doesn't meet that designation criteria but the historic preservation commission finds that it does and they're in conflict with one another what does that reconciliation process look like in terms of the legal extent of it well i assume it would come to the city council but it would have to be done in accordance with the standards that are applicable for that designation so you would have to evaluate the evidence okay and make a determination okay thank you vice mayor my last question um even if this were to be considered a historic site would it still is there still a process whereby it could be demolished and turned into this housing project anyway yes so the process uh that would trigger then um an environmental impact report so there are thresholds of significance under the california environmental quality act and one of the local thresholds that we have is uh designation of a structure if it's designated and any action that would be taken that would cause that structure to no longer be eligible to be listed in the inventory and obviously demolition would cause it to no longer be eligible so because it would exceed that threshold of significance that would be a significant unavoidable impact under siqua and that triggers an environmental impact report and so that's the process it would be an environmental impact report and then in order for the council to ultimately approve a project where there's a significant unavoidable impact there would have to be a finding of uh overriding considerations so essentially the council would recognize that yes there is a significant impact but we're approving this project anyway for x y and z reasons all right so um before we go ahead and take the vote i'll just maybe clarify briefly about this process for the agendizing process um this was brought forward to my attention by the three council members that brought this forward really requesting it come to this meeting and um and it's assumed that the uh report is holistically complete at that time so that's why it's on this agenda and that's why um we're hearing it today so that said we'll go ahead and uh revisit the motion we have council member crone who made the motion to move the recommendation as presented seconded by council member gliver do you need a clarification no i just didn't know if we meant now i'm gonna i i also can can see that uh i think we're we're we've got the continuation is is not going to be supported so i won't make a motion okay so all those in favor can ask for a friendly amendment council vice mayor come in this go to the next possible historic preservation commission meeting sure that's that's great that's what we want is there any consider considerations that we need to have before we make that into the motion is that possible i was just checking with the workload of our staff member that uh is working on it and and from our perspective i think you know we're we're able to bring that um at during that timelin