non-agenda items.  I apologize. And I am not seeing any hands lifted, so we'll go on to approval of the minutes. We have the minutes here from our March 11th long-term finance meeting. Tom or John, did either of you have any amendments to the minutes? No, red and no changes. Nothing. Great. Then we'll show those adopted as presented and move on to item 4.1. And Jan, if you want to go ahead and take us away. Good afternoon, Chair Rogers and committee members Shrenda and Sawyer. Well, all things today deal with, you know, financial matters, the budget policies, and, but in general, sort of longer term sustainability and vibrancy. This presentation touches briefly on what may be coming budgetarily, not with any numbers, but sort of the thoughts behind the budget and, you know, and the very and some common causes, I think of budgetary stress of which, you know, we all need to be alert and to be mindful. Next slide, please. So there are really a couple of thoughts that shaped the solicitation when we did the original, you know, call for budget. And so one was sort of a message as to where to meet the organization where I think it is in terms of the 21-22 budget and the near and medium term commitments that we collectively made during the goal setting meetings that we had. So one of the things I think a high priority is as we think about one time resources, which I'm not going to talk about, but Alan will later in the presentation or later today, is how do we prioritize capital investment and infrastructure repair with one time revenue sources? It's a perfect match. And, you know, I think that also with resilience in mind as a thought, you know, we try, we attempted to do that in the budget as well. To begin to moderate a consumptive spending, and by that I mean we've got to be mindful of what are, what is our cost structure, what are costs, operating costs, and what is that beginning to look like if we should try to make those reductions over a two-year horizon. And then leverage resilience-oriented revenues. Again, Alan will talk about that in his presentation, but the real care behind that means that even in using those revenues, we've got to be mindful not to create ongoing costs as a result. Next slide please. So what we did was asked departments to sort of to reorient their budget with baseline actuals, meaning the prior year's actuals as opposed to taking a budget and then, you know, trying to stretch it, if you will, for in the new year. We requested that appropriations that exceed if we were going to receive proposals that were in excess of those costs, you know, that they would be prioritized within the needs of the overall organization. Now our expenditure goals required that we really take all vacancies within the budget. There is no way really to do that to get to a reduced cost structure without beginning with vacancies. It wouldn't, you know, there wouldn't be any other budget or personnel cuts, but we needed to take vacancies to get us there. Of course, if we take all vacancies this year, it would be that much harder next year to have another means of balancing the budget, which I think it will also, this was a two-year process that we talked about during the goal setting meetings. Deferred maintenance certainly seems to be a topic by everyone, and we tried to find the resources to address those within the budget, keeping in mind that, you know, we would need to allocate the personnel to do that within existing resources. And then preservation of one-time monies for capital investment. So one of the council's decisions was to repatriate the $40 million to the general fund, and, you know, notwithstanding that you also asked a question that was raised last week with the management partner's presentation, you know, how do we go about setting priorities for how we use reserves. Timely management and information reporting from the finance organization is another high priority for the budget year, and then ensure that 22 financial outcomes are validated with supporting structures, such as cash management and timely financial closes. So it represents sort of a modification of our overall budgetary practices, implementation of supporting financial structures, carrying out financial closes each month, what I call soft closes, and then increase reporting frequency to the city council, city manager, and departments. Next slide, please. So factor assessment, I don't know if this is new for you or the committee or not, but it's one of the things, ooh, I'm sorry council member Sawyer. No problem. I just had a quick question and clarification. I haven't seen the term financial closes, so I can guess at it, but what does it mean to you to have a financial close? Yeah, and please, everybody, feel free to stop me as we go along. So as it stands right now, the city largely closes its books once a year officially. But one of the things I think, first of all, that's very tedious to do it once a year. And so one of the things that I think would be helpful if we get into measuring budget to actual, budget to actual performance every month, and then the next step would be, can we do soft accounting closes? I think those are the two things that I meant by soft closes each month. And so it sort of expedites the process for the entire year, and then you're not sort of all left to figure out sort of all these moving pieces just a year and then you have a better idea throughout the year what financial position really looks like. So it also gives us an opportunity to make corrections before we wait for a mid-year correction. Yeah, so one of the things I think we proposed to do was to come back to the city council with a mid-year report. And that really should be the opportunity to make an active decision about whether to correct core course correct or to proceed on with the budget as we adopted it. Thank you. Committee members, Shredholm? Yeah. Kelly, just Mayor Rogers, did you want us to save our questions towards the end or just take them as we're having them? No, by all means, stop me. I'd prefer to have it be a very interactive discussion. It works for me. Okay, two things. Can you go back one slide? So first, I haven't seen when it says fiscal year 22 and the baseline began with fiscal year 20. Is that 1920 or 2021? I asked them to go back to FY 1920 just because it was more of a normal year. Yeah, I think we've forgotten what a normal year looks like. And then with bullet point number three, if that's a proposal, but the expenditure reduction goals would require elimination in most vacant positions. As I mentioned during the last council meeting, we created vacant, or a vacant position is in a point in time, may not be the most, if we're all fully staffed, you asked the department head, where would you propose cuts that are going to have the least impact to the community? It might be different than what happened to be vacant at the point they became vacant. What are your thoughts on that and when do discussions start coming with department heads? Or another way of framing that, are department heads comfortable with eliminating the current vacant positions versus other more strategic eliminations to get the reduction goals? And I apologize for jumping in, but really fast, Alisa, if you could, I see that we have our city manager as an attendee raising his hand. Yes, I just promoted him. Perfect. Thank you. Now continue, please. So I think I'm going to step in here a little bit. We're in a revolving process, as in an evolving process. I think ideally councilmember Schwedhelm, that's what we would be coming to, but we may need to take this iteratively through the budget cycle, because these changes are coming fast and furious with other changes and other resources as we're managing our way through it. So I think in a way, we need to fresh start this conversation to get to where you're talking about, where we're more, we're confusing ourselves by holding vacancies and not getting to a strategic conversation about addressing needs. So we're going to, that's going to be iterative through the budget process. I'm not sure if you pulled everybody, or they're going to be completely satisfied, but we've got to in a way tear the Band-Aid off a little bit so that we can get to the strategy conversation. So I appreciate it. It's just the timing of it, because again, you're responsible for the city, every department's responsible for themselves, and when the direction came down from council, the city manager put freezes there, that may not be the most efficient way or effective way of doing it. It's clearly the easiest way to do it, but I'm more about being more strategic. So with what you just said, will we be having those discussions between now and when we adopt the budget in June of this year? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Next slide, please. I don't know if the committee members have seen a factor assessment, but it's one that we use a lot in consulting. And if you think about where sort of challenges reside within the organization or where they're emanate, actually, they typically are sourced in three areas, environmental, organizational, and financial. And the environmental, I think, we all recognize, you know, the risks in Santa Rosa, perhaps, you know, it's fires, it's external economic conditions, community needs, resources, and other calls and demands on resources of the city. Internally, the ones, there are two places where we have greater control over. Those are the organizational and financial areas. And under the organizational section, a lot of it is management policies. We're going to talk about that a little bit later, you know, policies, choices, and decisions. Because, you know, sort of what we do in each of those areas ultimately will show up in financial impacts. And on the financial side, these I think are the ones we all recognize, you know, how are revenues relative to expenditures? You know, what's our operating position? Structural deficits, you know, when we can't seem to solve them. I don't think debt burden is specifically one for the city of Santa Rosa, but in large cities, you know, we see a lot of debt burden issues. Unfunded liabilities, we certainly know what those are. And then inadequate capital investment, the ability to sort of repair things when they need to be repaired or to build new structures when they may be warranted. Next slide, please. So I actually did one for Santa Rosa when I first got here, just, you know, over time, as I encountered certain matters. And so, you know, our own risk assessment certainly suggests moderating, altering, whatever the words are, certain practices as the choices and the decisions we're collectively making certainly have the potential to impact community vibrancy and our balance sheet outcomes alike. So I think I've mentioned this before, I may have touched on this before. When I first came, I sort of spent a lot of time in the financial statements, prior year budget, and, you know, made some observations. I, you know, I can't say that beyond that one time deep look, I've just been really trying to sort of keep up with everything else. But, you know, how we use outside services, consulting services, and what that means to the organization. You know, there are certain policies and recruitment policies and practices that, you know, may inhibit, prevent or slow or organizational agility if we can't respond quickly and timely. And actually, you know, given the one with upcoming bargaining units, so what prompted this statement was, I would ask certain questions about positions to be filled and qualifications and, you know, educational standards and those questions.  And so I just raised that in and of itself as a question, whether that may be impacting how quickly we hire, who we hire, the quality of what we, of the individuals we hire. I think the financial ones, we recognize, you know, budget balance and challenges, high fixed costs, which we have, and revenues being stagnant or, you know, not growing, or perhaps even declining in some instances, limited resources to, you know, finance our future needs. Service level alterations, I, you know, that's the first one that usually comes to mind when we're beginning to talk about budget reductions. Again, unfunded liabilities, which we are not really in control of, but they're reflective of, you know, not only the organization, but, you know, things outside of our control. So it's such as CalPERS returns. Internal services and risk management cost structures, they're expensive. And so they're very, they're very expensive. And, you know, perhaps some of them may be, you know, unsupportable. And then lack of capital reinvestment, as I call, you know, our ability to build new things as needed.  And then, of course, we've just all still coming out of the pandemic. So those are some things to think about that really impact the overall budget.  Next slide, please. So the genesis, I would say a financial challenge. I'm sorry, Jan. I had myself muted. I apologize. Could you go back to the prior slide? I have one question under the organizational. Okay. And the recruitment policies, is are you suggesting there that we may be needing to bring some employees on board that have skills that are currently being provided by consultants? And that's keeping us from being nimble. I'm just a little confused by that bullet. That's a third bullet. Yeah, a third bullet. Yes. Yeah. Well, I think what Jan's identified is when you go outside an organization, it's Councilmember Sawyer, when you go outside the organization and you employ somebody to do something and you don't do it in-house, I think one of the things that happens is you diminish capacity. Sometimes you diminish capacity to achieve that. So you have to look at those things in balance. And I think what she's saying is, what is our threshold as an organization to make that determination? Sometimes you can fall into the pattern of always going outside when it's sometimes better to come inside to build capacity, right? So how are you making a decision to go outside versus inside? And what is the long-term implication of that for the organization and its health? And I think that's what we're talking about. It's not saying you can't do either. What Jan's raising is what are the questions we need to answer as an organization as we make these decisions? Right now, what we tend to do is be reactionary to the set of circumstances in front of us, as opposed to thoughtful and what's our policy to drive decision-making and value judgment, right? Those are the things that I think she's stressing as you look through this sheet. How do you become more prepared and how do you have a way of working that informs instead of patching a situation, this is the way we evaluate whether we stay inside or go outside. And there may be some conversation about exactly what you're talking about. Sometimes it does provide nimbleness, but the cost is maybe you don't have that expertise in house, right? How are you going to evaluate that and make that judgment call? Thank you. I appreciate that because it is an important conversation to have. Yeah. I thought, yeah, can we go back to that just for a minute, please? Yeah, I was actually focusing on bullet three. But look, you know, so a couple of times, just as an example, and I mean, obviously, I love consultants, I'm a former consultant, but you know, it's the other thing that I found happened certainly in finance is that I was reliant on the convenience of others to be available when I wanted an urgent answer. And that comment, but it really had to do with I was trying to get an answer to a particular revenue performance. And then the answer was, oh, we have to call so and so. Well, I never heard back from the person for like three days.  So I think that's also part of them. And I think Sean explained, you know, the thinking behind it also very, very well. So I think those are some of the things to think about. Next slide, please. So when I think, you know, I think of finance as an enterprise that is built with a variety of supporting structure structures, meaning the ability to go one place and then go another place and sort of have verification of what you're doing or, you know, something that aligns with if I get a number here, does it make sense if I look at something else over here? And, and one of the challenges that I've had here is that we rely a lot on the budget. And I personally just think of the budget as a plan. You know, I know what's in the plan. And I know what, you know, we need to execute from a planning perspective. That's about, that's what I think about it, you know. But when it actually comes down to financial performance, I think of the supporting structure as cash management. And so if I wanted to know really if I give you a budget, I want to know what is my real affordability. And so that's that supporting structure that I would then go to because it would be a cash flow that says, here's what came in all year, here's what went out.  And so, for instance, we don't have that mechanism internally. It's one we're working on and we will hope to have it up and running in the coming fiscal year, but it's actually one. And so that's, you know, the budget, I think we'll do a much better job with budgeting, you know, when we sort of put that supporting structure in place.  I think we'll talk about that a little bit later. Monitoring a financial activity, you know, it's fine to say, all right, here's a budget and here's what, but we have to go back and measure it month by month consistently, you know, not once a year, but we got to do it every month.  And so external factors are also at play, natural disasters, you aren't really able to budget for them, given their magnitude. And so that, though, you know, that obviously presents a lot of financial stress, negative environmental trends. And, you know, we talked about what those look like, and then timing-related transactions that may or may not, you know, get accounted for appropriately. But there is also cash flow challenges that probably doesn't get talked about at this level. But, you know, it's something that I would be looking at, you know, what are our cash flows really doing, and how does that impact overall financial performance? Under the section of inadequate planning, you know, I put it under planning, but, you know, it's also partly budgetary. We've got to be able to address deteriorating infrastructure consistently. You know, we need to have a plan. How are we going to do deferred maintenance? Multi-year obligations, such as labor contracts, they, you know, they're increasingly sort of impacting us budgetarily. For some persons, it's, you know, debt service. I don't think that's an issue. But the other one is our inability to adjust non-recurring revenues or limited one-time grants. And here's one that typically causes a big problem. You get one bulk of revenue, and the timing of those events may or may not be taken out of the budget. So, you know, we have to remember to do that. And then there's the other category of just overall, I would say overall capacity, which is, you know, are there key positions that may need staffing that aren't staffed or even aren't present in the organization?  But, you know, employees like everybody else need, you know, to expand their skills, particularly when they've been in the organization for a long time. How we make decisions or communicate or, you know, is our communication clear when communicating with our decision makers, such as yourselves. And the other one being inadequate, weak financial infrastructure and systems. So, these are typically where our budgetary challenges tend to surface, you know, as a result of all of these things, we may not think about them that way, but they're just symptoms for us to be alert for. Next slide, please. So, you know, some of this I've really touched on before. I think important, I think reporting, timely, consistent reporting is really a must for an organization. If you're not demanding it, and I don't mean necessarily the word demand, but if you're not expecting demanding it, the reality is, you know, it's probably not likely getting done. And, yeah, it's important to get it done because there are too many things that come up and it would be easy enough for us to do. And so, I think that's one of the things you'll see us change this year. We're going to come back in January and tell you how the organization has done between July and December. And, you know, as we talked about a little bit earlier, yes, that either we affirm what we're doing or making a course correction at that point. I just want to add to that, that decision, those information touch points will be this committee's regular work. So, there will not be a surprise in January to the exercise. So, the idea is that we're working month to month with this committee to give an accurate assessment so that as we're moving into that decision-making point, it's not a surprise for council. It'll be, it'll be, you will be prepared for the conversations come the mid-year. That, that is one, that's the significant differentiation from where we sit today. And I think that tracks back to John's statement. You're not going to want to make adjustments every month, right? But you're going to make, you're going to want to be prepared for what you need to do in mid-year to put the organization in the proper place to finish the year. And the commitment is to bring it back to this committee on a monthly basis to do that review. And I would just add to that, you know, I, I, I also believe that we have room and actually, I think it's important for us to do a little bit different type of analyses or add to the analyses we're currently doing. So, like, I'm a big proponent of doing trend analyses. You know, if you look at a budget year over year, it really doesn't tell me anything. It just tells me a point in time. You know, last year versus this year. But what I really care about is what I call directional performance or trajectory. Are we going in the right direction? Are we not? You'll see an answer if you look back five, seven years. We're probably not going to go back and do seven, but for sure, we'll go back and do five, you know, because that really begins to tell the story.  Oh, it's about the same as it was last year.  You know, and then you really get to address more comprehensively the issues that should be addressed. Next slide, please. And so with that, I will wrap up this presentation. I would love for you to keep in mind these two thoughts. You'll get a chance to think about, I think it's a great opportunity to think about capital investment. You know, when Alan does his presentation and also the topic of resilience, which is covered under one section of those one-time revenues. So thank you for your time and attention and your questions. Thank you, Jan. Do we have any other questions, Tom or John? Okay, we'll go ahead and go to public comment on this item. If there's anybody who's interested in speaking on item 4.1, go ahead and hit the raise hand feature on your Zoom. I'm not seeing any. And Alisa, did we have any pre-recorded voicemail public comments? No, there were no email. No, there were no email public comments. I apologize. Great. We'll move on then to item 4.2. Give us just a moment here. We're bringing up that presentation, Alan. Thank you. Hi, Chairman Rogers and members of the committee. Well, actually, we can just hop on to the next slide, please. So as we've mentioned in different presentations, there's a significant amount of one-time money coming to the city. However, they all have different uses and purposes as we go through. So what we wanted to do was to kind of give you an overview of the different types of funding that's coming in and hit on some of the different restrictions and that that goes along with them. So as you can see, we have about $244 million of what we would consider one-time dollars coming in. All of these are, well, all except for the PG&E settlement funds. Those are the only ones that legally have no restrictions to them. And I want to be clear that I'm saying that there are no legal restrictions to those funds. Obviously, the folks that were affected by the fire think that there's absolutely strings attached to those. But just from a legal settlement standpoint, those dollars are there. They're assigned in our general fund reserves. And the council can use that as they see fit. We also have money coming in. And in the upcoming slides, I'll go through the, actually, let's just move forward to the next slide, because what we'll do is go through a little bit of a description of each of those sources that are coming in. So again, I mentioned the PG&E funds. That's from a court settlement. It's about $95 million. And we have all of that. Again, it's assigned in the general fund reserves. And as such, they can only be used under council approval. There has been some consensus from prior council meetings, the goal setting, and kind of how some of those funds have been or could be directed. The only item that I believe is I think coming up on the 13th, I want to say, are the ones dealing with the vegetation management and the wildfire resiliency. So those are, again, would come up as a council item. And the council would approve the use of those. The Coronavirus Relief Fund. So this is the CARES Act money, the initial CARES Act money flowed through the state. And then to the cities, we all received different allocations of that. Ours was about $2.4 million. And what we were able to do with that is apply it to prior year emergency response costs. So that's what we did. And in doing so, we were able to free up some general fund because the response costs that we had from March to June more than exceeded the Coronavirus allotment. But it was also, they were unbudgeted amounts. So we used the general fund reserves in order to pay for those. So what we did was now this money comes in and it goes in and back fills that. And what that allowed us to do was to then use reserves that we were knowing that we're going to come in, backfill that, and use that toward another program. And I believe there was a child care program that we put those monies to toward. And then the next one that's coming out, we haven't received the funds for this yet, is the American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA. These funds will come directly from the Treasury. So there's no pass through the state. And we will get two tranches. So the first one should be around mid-May of this year, half of the 36.4 that we're currently being allocated. So about 18.2 should come to us in mid-May. And then the following May, we should get the other 18.2 million. There are some restrictions with that and some that we'll go over with in more detail in a future slide. So just kind of foreshadowing that slide. It's about two ahead. Next slide, please. So now we're getting into the more reimbursable sources that are coming in. So first we have the FEMA public assistance funds. And I've broken those out between those that are general fund projects and those funded out of the water fund. So and I make a distinction between the city's cost estimate, which is about those two combined is about 71.2 million dollars versus the obligated amount. And the obligated amount, that is what FEMA has estimated early on that should be the cost of returning a project to its original condition. So we had something destroyed to return it to it. Prefire condition with cost and amount that they obligated. The thing, the way that public assistance money from FEMA works is that if at the end of the project there are allowable costs, in other words, we meet their cost or definitions and they're more than the obligated amount, they will pay that true cost. So that's why it's important to talk about what we have as a city cost estimate versus an obligated amount. And obviously what we hope is that at the end of the year or at the end of these projects being completed, that the city will recover the full 71 million dollars worth of those projects. However, the timeframe and how we will recover that, that is a little bit murky. So it's going to be a closeout and closing out of projects can take several years. We are still closing out some of our emergency response that happened three years ago. So, and I see Sean popping up if he has something to add. Well, no, I was just saying murky is a generous word. I tried to be diplomatic. Alan, I do have a question. You lost me on the obligated, would define obligated again? Yeah. So that is the amount that FEMA initially agrees to pay the city to complete these projects. But what they say is that we're going to initially give you this amount. However, if it costs a higher amount, we will pay up to that as long as those costs are allowable. Okay. So that's the difference between the two. So they've obligated themselves. They have told us they've obligated to us that they are going to renew number 19.2 and we say it's going to cost 51 and the future may hold how much closer to that 51 FEMA is willing to go. And that is essentially where the risk lies for communities is that you have to go through this process to advance your project and you're dependent upon an evaluation that sometimes I believe happens in Denton, Texas to argue why your cost centers are higher than the initial project. So there are vulnerabilities built into the reimbursement structure. It is folks think you're going to get you have to take care of yourself and advance a project and then you get reimbursement and you can see built into the scenario where there's risk for the city. We believe that our risk will be met, but there is risk built into this scenario because it's a differentiation between what they think the project should cost and what we know it is likely to cost. Okay. Thank you. And for all of these FEMA projects that are that are going on in order for us to move forward with them, let contracts to have folks come in and do the work or even if we're doing the work in-house, it requires us to budget funds for that. So we are budgeting based on the cost estimate that we have for a particular project. So essentially what happens is that in the case of the general fund and the same for the water fund, those funding those fund reserves will low or will basically front the cost of the project. And then we look for the reimbursements to come in to help pay that back, pay those reserves back. So so far all of the emergency response category projects have been paid back by FEMA that we've gone through the close out process. Although as I say that we are getting questioned on one of those, but we think that we'll be able to meet their request for information. So beyond that, we are looking at projects that are permanent projects that are such things as repairing parks, repairing those types of things, repairing reservoirs and those items. On those, they're going to be treated exactly like we do grants in that we, there's a pot of funds waiting for us, we get through a certain milestone, we request reimbursements for that, and that's what helps pay things back. We're now getting to where we are on a pretty routine schedule for the projects are all moving forward at different paces, but they are moving forward. And we are doing a much better job at making sure that we are getting regular reimbursements back as we cross certain milestones. So and with that, I would say that when we put in a request for reimbursement, we are getting paid back relatively quickly, usually within about a month. You know, I heard in the beginning when we were first talking about FEMA reimbursement that we were, we'd be lucky to get, really lucky to get 80%. Almost impossible to get 90%. Do you, what is our, what can you give me a sense of what our current reimbursement rate that we're getting so far? Well, for, so for all of these projects, these are, these are projects that I think, I think I understand if I, if what you're saying is that the, the, the, the percent of us being able to recover the full 51 million, is that, is that where you're going? Yes, like we're getting eight cents on, or eight dollars on, on, we, we spend 10, we get back eight. Yes. I'm going to ask Allen to look at that because I think, I think I'm not sure we have looked at what our percentage return is right now, but we, we are happy to do that unless you do have the answer, Allen. I don't want you to, to. No, I do. I just, I, I'm sorry, I wasn't understanding John's question. So, or the council member's question, excuse me. John's fine. Okay. The, the city's share of, of the cost is 6.25%. So for all of these, it's FEMA pays 75% and the state will pay 75% of the remaining 25%. So those are the amounts that will come in and, and, and the city, and what they do is when they write a check, they, they deduct the city's share right out of it. So they kind of net those things out to us. Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you. Okay. Next slide. Okay. So these are, are similar yet different and they're, they're similar in that they, we established projects and we use federal funds to go in and reimburse the city for cost of these projects. The, the main difference is, is that whatever the city is allocated for each of these projects, that is the amount that we will get. So if there is any additional cost above that allegation, that allocation, that's the city's responsibility. So that's the main difference between the CDBG DR and MIT, which is, which are relatively, we just got our allocations for that, or at least we're announced, we haven't received any funds yet. And the same thing with the hazard mitigation. And in that, we have several projects that have been approved. And we are actively working through those projects, and have started to receive some money back as we go through our requests for reimbursement. So the way that they function is very much the same as public assistance, just a little bit different in terms of, of, of the types of projects that they can be used on, and, and the city's responsibility for any amounts that are over the allocated amount. Next slide please. So this is the, the American Rescue Plan Act funds. Now, a lot of, we are still waiting for a lot of guidance on this. We don't have, we still, there's a lot of reporting requirements and stuff like that, that, that we simply don't know yet. But we do know some things. And so we're trying to, to point that out here. So as I mentioned before, 36.4 million looks to be the allocated amount to us. Ultimately, it's going to be allocated based on census. But I believe that the 36.4 is a, is a, is a good amount. So 18.2 coming in May, and then another 18.2 a year after that. The funds must be spent by December 31st of 2024. They, they can be used to replace lost revenue. And we use, we will use the fiscal year 19. So that means the, the 18, 19 fiscal year as a baseline, that is the first full year pre, or the last full year pre pandemic. So we'll do that and compare with the end of this fiscal year.  And that could be used for to the best of my knowledge can be used for, for any funding source. So like the general fund or parking fund or things like that. They, it cannot be used for pension costs. It, they specified projects relating to water or sewer or broadband. They specifically called those out. I'm still looking for further guidance on any other types of projects or what we're just, what the certainty is on those. So those are the, you know, it's as we get more information we'll be able to provide more to both this committee and to the full council and as a study session or some sort of a communication. We're, we're preparing to have a full presentation to council. The tentative dates for that are the week of the 18th. Our understanding from the information we've been able to glean from DC is that the treasury will take all the way up to their deadline, which is May 11th to actually issue the guidelines. I will say that although there's a deadline to issue the guidelines on May 11th, our past experience granted it was a prior administration was the deadlines would sometimes come and go without the guidelines being published. But the last we heard is that we were expecting that the guidelines should be published, but should be published at the time of the deadline, which is the 11th. So Alan, just a quick clarification. So the limited to amount of revenue reduction as a direct result of COVID-19 in fiscal year 1920, is it safe to assume that our revenue reduction was larger than the amount that we got back here and that we're going to be able to utilize all of this? I wouldn't want to hazard a guess right now. I really would like to do the calculation on it and kind of go from there. I appreciate that. We have that information. That'd be great. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Next slide, please. All right. So one of the things that we need to look at and Jan touched on this and it'll be parts of other things is how do we look strategically when we're investing in the city's budget, city's future, and looking at how we can use these types of one-time dollars, how we can go and leverage use moving forward. So obviously the rule of thumb generally is, or not generally, the rule of thumb should be that if you have a one-time source of money, you're putting that into one-time projects, single-use projects, and to treat those toward areas that improve the city, their infrastructure investment, or things like that. Those are usually not ongoing expenses. Using one-time dollars for ongoing expenses is just not something that we would want to do. However, there are temporary shortfalls that one-time sources of money can be used as kind of a stock gap measure in order to sort of normalize the budget, right? So you can maybe use it for a year or two to allow you to realign the organization and be more structurally balanced. That would be probably the only way that we would really want to look at using one-time dollars toward operating expenses. Obviously we need to try to be able to pull resources. I think we're looking at that in terms of, say, the red is an example of that, right? There's the request to match the county's amount of $10 million in there that helps for housing development. That's an investment that we're able to do regionally. Other regional partnerships are things that maybe we need to look at moving forward with that. As long as we, you know, finding those pots of dollars that come in that have the least amount of restrictions to them are the ones that are, those are the ones that we look for, right? So obviously the PG&E money is a great source of that. Hopefully that we're able to use the ARPA funds in a similar manner. You know, that said, we do have a spending deadline on that and so we need to be very strategic in how we use those types of funds. So clearly creativity and are things that we're going to need to do. Management partners did mention this, that the amount of funds that we have in here are pretty much unprecedented and it is a lot. I've never seen this much coming in at one particular time in my career and so it provides us some opportunity. Obviously it's going to help us rebuild from the disasters that we've had. Hopefully it'll help us grow from the current pandemic that we're, that we're hopefully getting over and put us in a better stretch to go forward and put in critical long-term investments in getting those started. So with that, I think that is, that is all I have for this. If there's any further questions or comments, I'm here to answer. Tom, John. Chris, I have a question. Just the question you have there, how do we strategically invest in the city's future? So what is that next step? Is this going to be an entire study session with the entire city council or how is that going to be structured? Because I personally, it goes into, I know I've heard from the city manager, we established our two-year set of goals and priorities and we don't have timelines for that either. But I'm just interested in what's that structure look like because this is helpful. But again, it's pretty wide open. So the plan is to come back in the next month. Hopefully we will have some more guidance on the rescue plan dollars so that you can start making some of those strategic considerations. But the plan is to be part of the overall budget process to start to ask the question how you want to make those decisions. We are getting some inquiries from outside and we want to lay those out in that presentation as well from folks that are looking for additional assistance. We want to list those requests for you. So far, several of those requests have come in for multi-city and county consideration. So we're going to be asking for that in the budget process. Is there direction? Is there consideration? Right now, one of the challenges is still the final determination on how some of the funds can be used. Some of the funds again have restrictions but we want to get into those conversations and the study sessions that are coming forward in May. Thank you. That's helpful. And as you know, Mr. City Manager, with the continuum of care, we potentially have upwards of 20 million dollars coming to Sonoma County but so many of the different funding streams have strings attached so you can't just not all dollars are equal. And those are the challenging conversations to see what it's limited to and what do we want to prioritize. And I think that's the thing that staff is trying to grasp as well is an influx, an incredible amount of influx of one-time dollars to help stimulate not just the city organization, I could argue, stimulate the community at large. And I think that's where some of these conversations, we're going to need some direction as to what is the criteria that we want to approach in that stimulus. And is it solely a one-off asking? Are we looking to build coalitions with other cities to address issues? Some of those things we need some guidance on in your strategic considerations. And an example of this is the continuum of care. I believe that there are strategic regional conversations that could benefit and make sure that we're addressing all of our needs but I think it'll take an unprecedented effort of collaboration, cross-jurisdictional collaboration to really make sure those impacts are felt within our county. Great, thank you. John, anything else? No, thanks Mayor and thanks Sean and Jan and whoever's listening. Thank you to your team for putting this together. I know that we have those strategic partnerships will be very interesting to see how we can benefit as a region as opposed to just a large city inside of that region. It will be a test of the other jurisdictions as well as to how willing they are to cooperate depending on the circumstances like a homelessness issue that is so patently regional. It'll be a good test and I don't think anyone could argue the importance of it but letting go of some control of some of these funds for some of the jurisdictions will be a challenge as it would be for anybody. So I'm optimistic that it will be an interesting test to see how well we get along given that everyone's getting a certain amount of money but we are clearly getting an unprecedented amount not that we don't deserve it and don't need it but it is a lot all at once and I fear that there will be a tendency to be overly optimistic as to how long it may last because I know how quickly these one-time funds can go away. All right let's go ahead and go to a public comment on this item. If you're interested in public comment go ahead and hit the raise hand feature. Seeing none Madam recording secretary were there any previously made voicemail public comments? There was no email public comments received. Okay then we'll go ahead go on to our next item. So the next item I believe is also mine it is the we wanted to there's no presentation for this particular one this is we mentioned in the or management partners mentioned in their presentation of the long-term or the long-range financial forecast of the public safety special tax that will sunset in fiscal year 25. So in 24-25 that goes away that generates anywhere from nine to ten million dollars a year to programs that enhance public safety both police fire and violence prevention types programs. So we need to begin the dialogue on how we want to move forward with this now there's been we have there's been some discussion about looking at different types of revenue and moving away from being sales tax dependent. So that is some analysis that we still need to do to try to figure out what how that would look and how you know can we you know what can we replace from a sales tax dependency to another form of revenue that's coming in and to be able to provide that to you. So that's something that in upcoming meeting we will have that on the agenda for sure. This is you know we have I think two more opportunities and just looking at November as that I guess there are special elections that can happen as well. These are all discussions but which is to be you know looking at just November elections we have 2022 and 2024. I would say that for the the election in 2024 we will have already set our budget by the time that one happened and so it'll be a little challenging there but we still have those two times at least to be able to take this out to the voters if the council so chooses to look at extending it either for another period of time or until the voters decide to end it. So that's anything that we do as you've seen with different tax measures or any type of revenue measure there is considerable amount of polling and education that needs to go into it being a special tax and having a higher vote threshold you know thinking back to when the original measure was approved by the voters I think that the education process began probably I want to say a couple years before it even got on the the ballot I mean there was there was a there was there was a lot of groundwork and there's only so much that can be done that can be done from a city standpoint and there's stuff that's done outside the city but the stuff that we can do we can get started with either early or we can push off these are these are types of things that I'm just trying to get a sense from the committee of you know where we want to go with this do do we want to go in and and look for opinion survey consultants or people like that to help us with that or you know how we want to go so sorry this isn't as structured as the other presentations are but basically we're you know we wanted to get kind of a sense of where we want to go with this and we can absolutely be way more provide more options of different revenue types you know in future meetings but we wanted to at least start getting the question out to the committee and get the deliberation going if at all possible all right and I I guess my question to Alan is what role does the measure oversight committee play in this as well as some of our community partners that we've been working with for a number of a number of years it obviously once this becomes if this becomes a a campaign of sorts the city takes a step back and somebody else is going to have to to lead that charge but in if we are going to seek an extension or craft an extension what would the process look like for gathering input into what that might look like so the the measure oversight committee their purview is to really review the budget for the different programs to make sure that they are meeting with the the permissible uses of the funds and then to approve the annual report that that reports out how those funds were used in the prior year so their their purview sort of ends in that type of an oversight thing I how what they do with their partners outside of that is probably where they would have more of a role but it wouldn't be an official committee role I would think so I think that answers your question but it was kind of a two-parter there right so I think I got the first part there and can you remind me of that second I mean yeah I mean I think you you pretty much hit it on the head I guess I'm mostly just musing Alan about if we're going to choose to move forward on this I know that there'd be interest from folks in the community and talking about what we've done well with it and and what has quite frankly what what limitations has it had that potentially would need to be changed but I'll let other other council members weigh in on this as well you know I have a question and it might be helpful to have a timeline if we were to move forward at the earliest opportunity when would we have to have our campaign in place how soon would we have to have a consultant in place to give us to do the polling necessary I'm kind of in 25 is is not that far off and so and we only have a couple of large that would have to be during a general election for a sales tax is that the case do you know Chris or Alan because I think that there are some limitations there I I know that there are some things that we can only vote on at certain times and I don't know if sales tax is one of them John I don't believe so just given the county's recent exposure with their unsuccessful attempts to do just what measure is about oh it's true so I know no having deadlines would be I mean we're going to have to go before the council and and look at what they're what they're you know what the how they're feeling about the re-upping and it is a new it's not a new tax that's a good thing that may be one of the biggest pluses is that it's if we were to have it reinstated it wouldn't change anything it would just continue what's already in place but it would it would be helpful to know some some deadlines so that we have a sense of how urgent how urgently we would need to come up with these decisions and I'm I don't have a sense of those deadlines at this point so the the the one's right off the bat of let's let's just say for for example we were looking at November of 22 so by August of 22 we would need to have we would need to have the ballot language and that information to the county so you kind of you kind of keep ticking back from there right so what what I've seen in the past is that you know we're usually that that's an early August deadline and then so we're we're usually down at the the last part of July getting to council that then you run the risk that if you know what if we want to make a change at that point then you don't have that extra counseling so the last few times that we've gone with this it's been very stressful to try knowing that you have such hard deadlines to just get into the county so I mean if it were up to me and you kind of have the luxury of time now a little bit is that you could you know you know not you know have this stuff ready to go uh to the county you know in in st. june instead of you know the last council date in in in July you know those types of things help you out um generally if you're going to do any type of of opinion uh survey polling anything like that that's going to take probably uh two months or so to go out and actually do the survey and then do the analysis and then to be and then you have to report back and the lead time to be able to report back especially if we are which we should is come to the committee first and then go to the council and you know you know what our lack or what our our lead times are for to have an item on the council agenda so as you can kind of move back I would say just off of those alone that we know that we need to be able to move that forward I I'm thinking that you're you know at least a year in advance is what you should be looking at and then that allows uh uh you know and then if you if there's education that goes there that's what I was saying I was trying to remember back and when we when we did the original measure of I really do think that it was probably at least a year but I think I think longer than that that we had where an education campaign was going out uh by groups outside of the city there was uh um you know there there was that type of an effort now that was a brand new tax it was a it was a special tax so that warranted that amount of of education at the time and I don't know that that would be the case although I will say the last few uh uh polls that we've done where we've looked at sales tax and when we start getting into special taxes we are not pulling at the amount that would be to pass it so I'm thinking that there does need to be some sort of education that goes there so you know in in general council member I would give yourself as much time as possible I know that that's kind of a that's weak but you know what that's kind of what it's the kind of the way I'm looking at it and I don't think we have enough time to dig into or change our taxing paradigm at this point I mean the the our the the odds of coming up with a new strategy as far as as far as property taxes etc before we you know before we need this this eight to nine million dollars um I don't think we have that kind of time I mean I I honestly think that we need to seriously consider the the reupting of measure o and giving ourselves enough time to to educate the community on its importance we basically reminding the community of its importance because they were very supportive the first time it was voted on and I'm hoping that we can garner that same kind of support there there will be questions around the police department um and uh and how that funding is used I'm sure that conversation will come up the the fire department could certainly use it for their for their next station and clearly crime prevention is something that is not too far away from most people's lips so I I agree that that we I think we if we're once we get the the green light from the council assuming we get a green light from council on moving forward with the reupping of measure o the sooner we get started I think the better off will be tom any other thoughts uh yeah I might have a few on this one um one of the things you're going back to when it did pass uh different times because there were some threshold events that led to this public safety tax right in the the challenge whether it's in 22 or 24 who knows what the voter sentiment's going to be on any of these issues right and and that's kind of wildcard so my overall impression we need to start like tomorrow and I would like to see it written out so I think council will need that information you know I appreciate Alan on the fly giving those tentative dates but I think for us on council all seven of us to know if we're going to need to start doing this start backing it up because at some point because last time I remember you're in our February goal setting um reupping measure o is not one of our priorities so it's going to get down to prioritizing what our expectations are of staff how high up on this goes and to have that actual you know map it out we need this by this state because not only you know it's it's unfortunate the way they name these different measures I think our public safety measure o we were first but now what there's like four different measure o's and how many different measure o's do we have just within the city so that public education is going to be huge and I think part of that public education is and that's not scare tactics but I eventually guess the majority of Santa Rosas don't understand all the benefits that measure o's brought us some of it they're just assuming you know it's great that now we have a downtown enforcement team or before we used to have one officer there can you imagine if we only had one downtown person who quite frankly has been mainly focused on homelessness right so there's that education aspect of it but also if we're not going to get two-thirds voters doesn't matter what we educate them about so there is that other aspect that we need to pull the community what resonates with you and that's a key component all that takes time in getting the right consultant to go out there and actually do the polling because you know unlike what happened when we first passed measure o I'm not sure there's such a strong political consultant as there was back then that could manage these waters right now and if you just look at the recent experiences the unsuccessful recent experiences with the county and not even this most recent special one but the countywide fire tax you know quite frankly I'm here and there's a lot of finger point because it wasn't a united front everyone working in the same direction I would not like us to repeat that mistake I would like us to be united that we're all in this thing together and here's the benefit that's going to come to our community so I think it's huge I think we need to start now Mr. Mayor how we're going to prioritize that because again it's we have staff capacity to also look at I'm not sure how we have that conversation the middle of this but I think the longer we wait the less chance of us being successful and continuing the efforts that measure always really provided this community we got to do it now thanks yeah just to piggyback on what you said Tom not only are there a number of measure O's but when we talk about measure O in the future nobody's going to know what we're even talking about because most people don't associate it with what it was what the measure was passed as particularly since there have been at least 10 since then I would suggest when we talk about how to move forward with this that one avenue that might save some staff time as well as get the ball rolling is to assign this to whatever we choose to do in terms of charter review for at least initial discussions and if if they choose to move forward in 2022 that would be their prerogative and if not the council would then have at least a couple of years to prioritize it to your point Tom to assign the staff time to it or to build a coalition around it so that might be that might be one thing for us to consider moving forward you know because just one thing since you are also on the smart board you know their strategy where they went eight years early right wasn't successful but I think part of the strategy is incorrect from wrong is that okay if it doesn't pass this time we at least have another opportunity to present more options about what we want to do in the future and that's I could see the same strategy because if we wait till 24 and it doesn't pass right row Tom I think you're being very generous referring to it as a strategy that the smart board had I will say one of the things that I am a huge advocate for as somebody who's been around Sonoma County politics for 15 years at this point is you have to pick the right election to go and I think that that is the main I think that that is the main driver that we saw from from 2020 is that those who went early uh every single one failed including school bond member school bond measures across the state which is a canary in the coal mine oftentimes about voter support but then you rolled around to November election and everything passed so I think that that needs to be a part of the discussion as well because to your point Tom 2022 provides you the opportunity to to float it if it doesn't pass you have another opportunity but I also think that it's completely unlikely to pass in a gubernatorial election depending on what the electric makeup looks like so and maybe we need to start one of the first things we need to do is when we talk about measure row is to put a subtitle on it measure row the something something something tax or the something the initiative whatever we want to call it and start very early on renaming and not we I guess we're stuck with the oh but we can have a subtitle to it that we use on a regular basis to start people getting people understand exactly what we're talking about because if they don't if they're confused about the the the title we're starting out in a hole well and with that John I know management partners when they need their presentation they're calling it measure in which right yeah which is inaccurate but that's what many of us like with violence prevention partnership we're referred to a public safety measure oh yeah yeah all right let's see if we have any public comment on this item I'm not seeing any hands do we have any pre-recorded voicemail public comments no email public comments received all right then we definitely will continue to talk about this as we continue to move forward yeah I'll start developing a timeline give you something to react to with that yeah and any other things I can pick up along the way with that so we'll we'll I'll definitely have that for the next committee meeting okay thanks all right okay all right so item four four point four I think this is our final item on general fund policies um so a general fund policy um quite frankly is probably um you know very easy easily easy for us to create um and we can talk about what structure or substructures um that policy has usually um there's a typical overarching you know general fund policy which is you know really about that defines the strategic intent um along with a shared understanding um between the council and the organization as to how Santa Rosa is going to manage its resources to provide you know value and consistency I think within the community but really also to promote longer term planning and considerations for the future having said that what I would also say is that it's going to be more you hear me use the term supporting structure so underlying a general fund policy or any number of other policies um you're familiar for instance with um an investment policy but there I made a list actually there are probably about 10 other policies that sort of work in the organization um there's usually one about long-term planning how you know budget adoption frequency a capital improvement program balance budget um infrastructure funding and you know the list goes on and I will send this to you I jotted down my thoughts but um I would like to propose that um we can you know perhaps come back with a study session and talk about what you'd really like that to look like what are the subsets of it um you know I think some other really consequential ones are you know relate to you know just funding for a variety of things whether it be vehicle replacement whether it be how we deal with um we talked about how we deal with um deferred maintenance you know and establish just an overall framework um for reserves infrastructure um fees and charges and you know other subsidy thresholds um if so determined if that makes sense for the committee that makes sense to me how about you too yeah I'm saying dotting heads so um why don't um let's talk about it internally you're likely to see probably more than one policy from us um you know sort of what I think are the most consequential supporting policies um it helps if there's council adoption or the general fund policy of course has to be adopted at the city council level but you know there are a lot of other policies that get created um and then um you know probably over time um we'll sort of put those overall supporting policies in place but perhaps not at the next meeting but perhaps two months out um if we can bring something back we get it done sooner than that um by all means and um just some concepts for you to think about and determine how best to proceed okay okay mr. Mayer if I have a comment yep go for it so again for me especially when I saw this general fund reserve policy um I think just an education about why do we have that especially when we had you know those of us that lived through the recession and how some cities really uh didn't have a big impact and others were really struggling so I would really like to hear some of that information about why do we set it where we set it you know and I know I guess the cities is between 15 and 17 percent what are the pros and cons of that what are the consequences of that so you know if we are getting specifically into the reserve policy and uh because the item says uh on the need for changes to the general fund reserve policy it would be helpful to know with some of those things that we should be evaluating on making a decision so that's what I would like to hear yeah um I mean yes and it varies um you know the rating agencies first of all have some guidelines about policies um you know for a long time they were like at the 7 percent level I think sort of you know some of the things that you know we've had including the pandemic and challenges we're probably likely to see that at a higher level no not all of this I'm personally not likely to suggest that it all you're you're going to have a subset of policies even within the general general fund things like replacement um and so those will so together they're probably going to be larger than 15 but you know then but but with a rationale as to why they should be set where they're set if that makes sense okay all righty that's all I have let's see if we have any public comment on this last item and then we'll we'll adjourn not seeing any recording secretary did we have any pre-recorded uh no email public comments received okay uh so next meeting agenda items I'll just check in really fast to see if there's anything in particular that the members of this group want to discuss quite frankly after hearing all the information it's today's meeting and Jenny mentioned you know monthly I'm thinking do we have to meet every week holy smoke there's a tremendous amount of material that uh that staff and this subcommittee will be evaluating so I don't think I need to add anything to what we've already discussed this meeting in our previous meeting after hearing uh councilmember Sawyer earlier I kind of want to meet just that we can talk about how to spend the money as quickly as possible I'm just which which money yeah the one time funds John one time funds I'm just kidding uh but I I agree Tom I think that there's a lot on our plate and so let's piece through it as we can and I know that particularly the finance department I know is involved in every other aspect of the organization as well and I'm very cognizant of that yeah I think the this conversation around the general fund reserve policy is going to be really important because you know there's all sorts of obvious reasons but we've been kind of this has come up a number of times and how to um how we have used it how it gets rebuilt it's going to be it's going to be really important for our new council members to understand the the importance of the of a policy and the importance of holding of sticking to it um and the the reality maybe a little history on on how we have kind of at times invaded it um how how low it has dropped at times just uh it's it can be easily the importance of it can be easily lost um given how often it comes up in conversation and how often that we we have gone to that well and use those those those um uh those reserves so having a good understanding of why we have why we have the policy and you you spoke to this Jan and you know the the various buckets and explaining why it'll be important to have various funds uh that that education is going to be really important um for the whole council to understand the the value um and the seriousness of having a strong um um general fund or a reserve policy okay well with that seeing no other comments we'll go ahead and call our meeting adjourned thank you everybody thank you all thank you bye


In other health-related matters, this time concerning COVID-19, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Sharon Belmar George says the Ireland's 29th COVID patient is doing well at the respiratory hospital. The 48-year-old minibus driver has had COVID-19 tests repeated and validated and is confirmed positive. Since Saturday 10 October 2020, a total of 500 persons have been reviewed in relation to this new case. This includes close contacts, minibus drivers and commuters from the bus route and residents from the community. 283 tests have been done and the results received so far are negative. About 50 people have been placed in quarantine to date and the community and contacts of the patients will be monitored for a period of 14 days to assess the impact of this case. This past weekend, in response to this case, investigations and contact tracing commenced in communities and among key populations of concern and these activities are still ongoing. In addition, respiratory clinics were extended over this weekend to support contact tracing related to this case. The constituency council office in Larrish was set up as a community outpost to aid in accelerating assessments and testing. As part of the advanced planning for the possibility of a community outbreak, the present quarantine capacity and testing capacity has been reviewed and the capacity for increased cases which may... The CMO says interventions in the more affected communities included health education and the distribution of face masks at key locations and the strengthening of preventative and control measures with the support of community leaders. The scheduled social activities for affected communities are being reviewed to determine their adherence to protocols or the requirement for cancellation. This new confirmed case presents a high level of risk at the community level. We continue to appeal to the public to cooperate and share relevant information with the health team. We also remind the public that the Ministry of Health remains the official source of accurate information and should seek clarification at that level. The five community respiratory clinics remain open for persons with representative signs and symptoms and the 311 information hotline is available to help address COVID-19 related questions and concerns. The treatment and care for COVID-19 related conditions remain free of charge to the public. A total of 8,827 COVID-19 tests have been conducted in St. Lucia to date.


Will the entities that you imagine will their actions be judged morally? Will they be capable of good and evil, or will those categories be retired once we get to doing these complicated operations? If I have to make a guess, those categories will probably be replaced by something subtler. I thought you would say that. But it's all a guess, isn't it, really? But I think those creatures will not have the sense of humor that vote on us. In Siegfried, where after Valkyrie, he becomes a very subtle, bitter, but very humorous figure. Or maybe this world is a joke created by one of these superhuman AIs. We don't know what their sense of humor will be like. But the burden of proof here is for you to prove that, not for me to deny it. I mean, I think that in terms of the proof of a technology that doesn't exist yet, I mean, that can't be offered. And until the moment the Wright brothers made airplanes fly, they were leading scientists saying it would never happen, literally the week before it happened. So, I mean, we're not going to prove that some new technology is going to come about to the satisfaction of skeptics. But one thing I do want to clarify, though, is my best guess of how the future will turn out is not that all humans will be annihilated and will not exist any further. And I think that there can be superhuman supermines that are far beyond anything we can conceive. And there can also be AIs of roughly human-level intelligence that exist in the human world and that help people. So, the way I conceive the opportunities that will be open to humans in the future is they're just very rich and diverse.  But let me finish because we keep getting caught up on this point. But I think there will also be an opportunity to continue living a human life in much the same form as now, except with a whole AI-driven infrastructure that will 3D print any physical object that you want, that will cure any disease that you may get and that will regulate things that people don't blow each other up and such. So, when the humans who remain humans continue to act like humans and do evil things, will the super-creatures, will they prevent them? I mean, will they invade Syria to stop Assad? So, nobody knows, but the way I think about it is humans will be sort of like the squirrels in the National Park, meaning we don't interfere with the love lives of the squirrels in the park. And if one squirrel bites the other's head off, we don't necessarily stop them because we view that as, like, that's what squirrels do, right? I think you need to find a better way to sell your ideas. No, no, I'm afraid of that way just to be annoying. It's very, it works quite well. But the point is if there's a plague in the park, then the ranger will come in and cure the plague, right? A four kilo of the squirrel. Or if there's a forest fire, we will put out the fire. So, I mean, if there's something extreme happening, then the more intelligent being overlooking the situation will intervene because we don't care that much about whether one squirrel lives or dies, but we do want that species and population to continue, right? So, that's my best guess. Why is it relevant to us in traditional monotheistic theology? In all three of them, there already were such beings. They were called angels. And if you study the history of angelology, which I don't recommend, but if you study the history of angelology, you see that this kind of religious imagination was obsessed with the increasing perfection of the angels, with the hierarchies of the angels, with the super angels, with the A plus one angels, with the angel intelligence angels and so on. But the thing about the angels was that they had nothing to do with the moral or spiritual life of human beings. They were simply a higher class of entities with more direct access to the Godhead. I can't describe it anymore because, frankly, I don't know what most of the time they're talking about. I read The City of God by St. Augustine at one point, which has many strange creatures in it. But as far as I know, if those ever actually existed in the human world, they're gone by now. Whereas the AIs I'm talking about, we could actually build in the same sense that we built this phone or built a subway car. So that's a significant difference, right?


So welcome to week seven of this vlog series that I'm doing. It's mating season here in Australia I was just doing a hill repeat on my heavy training bike and I just got absolutely Nailed by a swooping magpie about four or five times. I wasn't even hitting the helmet. It was getting the side of my head It really hurt, but the beauty of that is I found this view and Probably an even better hill without any of those bloody magpies Swooping on me. So let's get into it. So I think I'm buying a race bike today We're at a little town called Red Cliff, which is just out of Brisbane about an hour from my place and I've brought my bike with me my existing bike the LA because I think when you're buying you bike if you've got an existing one You can take it's good to look at them side by side just to ensure there's no anomalies and also you can measure your seat height and I think it's just going to give you a little bit more confidence if I'm going to walk out the door with this New race bike. So very excited. Let's go in So now I have two bikes behind me Because there's a window here, and it's good lighting and there's no where else in the house. It's like this Can you just give me five minutes? So as you can see both the girls are back from Melbourne And it was just a dog and I for almost a week things got a little bit crazy didn't they Rossie? Where's Rossie gone? Oh Boy here is so I think it's got a little bit weird didn't I while the girls are away. I did a 24-hour drive fast I know it was a bit of an extreme and slightly different thing to do but I lost about a kilo and a half in that process which I need to do for Well, I thought I needed to do for this road race coming up which I'll explain shortly and also My training week this week so it was a rest week last week this week my training has been really really good really strong now I am sort of Are you talking to me now? Are you? What are you saying? I know it's a bit more relaxing when I just you and I wasn't it Yeah So actually slept really well for about 48 hours after that process as well You thought I was a little bit strange didn't you the dry fast hard dry fast?  I know but I had a strict budget I can't wait to show you I purchased this bike for under $1,500 USD, so it's gonna be a video next week I'll show you at the end of this video, but I'm gonna do a full piece on it next week But then what happened after I sort of locked that bike in Alice. Can you explain to people? What's happened? So I secured a bike, but then right like literally two or three days later. We went to see a house, didn't we? I saw a house off the market on a Friday last Friday it took him to see it on the Saturday We bought it on the Saturday. We've signed contracts. We're just waiting on finance. We're doing things backwards Which is my way camera wouldn't come run. I would never choose to do that. Well, it was very unexpected I'm not very responsible These two are the most responsible members of this how did I look when we're signing contracts with the real estate agent? Actually, I actually said to him are you okay? It looks like it was gonna vomit. It was like gray and yellow Because what did I say about two or three weeks before you did this? I'm really looking forward to the next bit of routine better. You know we can just settle into this place. You go by This is why we're getting a giant Daddy So I've just popped downstairs to get away from the noise upstairs and the beauty of that as well as you can see behind me I've got the chapter 2 rare a and also the new giant TCR that I've purchased for a cracking price I can't wait to share all the details with you next week and the beauty of this is One it fell into my budget somehow. I was looking for a while and I did a fair bit of research And I'll explain the story to you next week A lot of people on the channel have been giving me some constructive feedback about all these top-end road bikes that I review 10 to $15,000 will have that reviewing some more affordable road bikes So that my friends is a very affordable road bike and a review and a whole bunch of things will be coming on the channel Surely in regarding to the giant TCR The reason why I purchased that is because I want to do some road races and the chapter 2 It's a great-looking bike. It's great for cruising around here awesome for crits same as the LA sprint But in terms of road races as an all-round race bike They don't tick a few boxes and the giant TCR by all accounts Certainly does now as you just heard we think we've bought a house now when I say we think We'll either find out today or maybe early next week And I debated whether I put this video up actually because I feel like we've already been on a bit of a roller coaster with This series but that is life and because I just want to say first and foremost how Grateful and fortunate we are to be able to buy a house being a position to buy house in a great country such as Australia But the fact of the matter is and I don't want to get too personal here But if we can buy this house, we're scraping the bottom of the barrel and really that changes the financial position Of where I'm at because as you all know the original end goal of this series Was to do the masters in Adelaide and I did my numbers While the girls were away and it's going to cost Roughly two grand to get their flights accommodation car hire and all that kind of stuff and to be honest That's just doesn't make financial sense anymore to go do that and the fact of the matter is I can do races up here That are going to cost less than five percent of that including the state champs next Sunday So I'm going to do the Queensland State road champs next Sunday And there's a big night crit up here hosted by the Australian Cycling Academy in October, which is going to be awesome. So The series will still run. I'm still gonna race and look this series isn't about The destination is about the journey and I'll catch you in the next video