are a lot of drug inflicted people which we shouldn't treat as criminals. Some of them singly could be and I think we should talk to them about that. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. And then I'll just remind those that are in the audience that we are concluding our oral communications. I see that you came in last. We have closed it after the woman before you and we'll reconvene at 7pm. You're always welcome to reach out to the council by email. Go ahead and you'll have 90 seconds. Yes, hi. My name is Linda Kover and I'm also a resident of the Tannery Art Center. I want to say quickly, we also had the River Street camp last year and there were absolutely no complaints about that camp. I volunteered over there. I consider that a really successful camp. I know it was a lot of money. You don't need to spend that much money. You didn't need to do all those services but showers and bathrooms are important. Now I want to address the Ross camp. Immediately before you get ready for that River Street camp that I want you to do, immediately you need to address that there's a huge overflow of people on the levee that make it unsafe for our families to go by. They need to be off the levee. And you can do that simply just like they did in San Lorenzo Park by having a fence that goes from Ross to the highway. And people would be behind that fence and people will be able to access the levee. The bathrooms are still there. You needed to go to the bathrooms at San Lorenzo Park by going up on the walkway. So that would not change. The bathrooms are available. That's not a humanitarian place for people to be for a long term. Right now I'm trying to address both communities, the tannery and the Ross community. Thank you. I want to also just remind those that have walked in that oral communications will be closing after the person who is in the stripes. And we will reconvene our session at 7pm and you can always reach out to the council by email. So we are no longer accepting folks to line up for oral communications. Yes, that's right. And you'll be given 90 seconds. My name is Elise Kasby. I'm going to talk fast. I think the public comment is one of the most important, if not the most important time on the agenda. As much time as possible should be given free to hear from the public. To restrict to a half an hour, which I believe you all just voted for when you just voted for the oral communications on the agenda previously. My understanding is that you limited it to 30 minutes. I think that's dangerous for democracy. I also want to say that I think it's time that we got a new city manager. My understanding is that Martine Bernal has fulfilled this position for an extraordinarily long period of time. We are going to have anything like a new paradigm with input from the citizens and actually have decisions being made by the council and by citizens informed committees and bodies. I think we need to recognize that we have a city staff that is extremely accustomed to running the city. I would like to talk about the library at this time. The public voted for Measure S. It was fun to build a new library. After that, the city staff said about stacking a hand-picked library committee to go along with their recommendation to combine a library garage with the public library. This is not what the public voted for. Also, I'd like to say that thousands upon thousands of books are being dumpstered and the public needs to know that. They are donating their books thinking that they're going to be preserved, at least the ones that are reasonably worth preserving and they're being dumpstered. That's our cultural heritage. Thank you very much. Next speaker. You'll have 90 seconds as well. Hi, my name is Gary Ingram. I'm a tannery resident also. Until I wasn't aware of this kind of problem until I moved into the tannery and we found that there was so much in the way of homeless people and on the camp. So I've been accosted myself a few times to the point where people were, I thought, going to hit me and I just kind of walked away. But it's a problem for everybody at the tannery who lives there. We have people, one person showed up three weeks ago, slumped over his cart, overdosed on heroin in our parking lot. We need to do something better. We need to get them into the other camps or do something because we're having to run the gauntlet now. We need people at the tannery to go to town. That's the way we go to get our groceries. And it's difficult. It's difficult for the kids. It's difficult for all of us. Thank you. And you will be our last speaker. Thank you. Hi, I'm Cynthia Berger with Santa Cruz Tenth Association and I'd just like to talk to you about the nine plus million dollars that's coming into the city that will be fed through the HAP. It's probably homelessness and probably homelessness prevention. And I often hear people at this podium make a lot of claims that are unsubstantiated. And I think that we need to start collecting much better data about renters and that includes people living in their RVs so that I would like to rep to, I don't know if the people in the HAP are just going to keep doing what they've been doing, but I think that you should take a look at these groups, as they do. For example, rental assistance has been extremely low compared to what people actually need. And it's been very difficult to access, to get access to. And I think you might need to get some new people into, you should talk to Stephen McKay, who is a sociologist and they know how to collect data. I'm sure you have staff that do as well. I also think that, you know, the city sold land in Scotts Valley for eight million dollars. And I think some of that money should go towards homelessness prevention as well. I know that the economic development department has their idea for what that should be spent on. But I would like for you to consider using some of that to help out the renters here.  A renter is just someone who can be replaced by someone else. Thank you. Okay. So that will now conclude our portion of oral communications. And we'll return back to our consent agenda item for the last item that was pulled, which is item number nine. And I'm not, was that you, Councillor? Can we ask staff to get back to us on a few of these items that people brought up? Is there really no intake spot? There's a continuing lack of bathrooms. There's no bathroom open at night anywhere in the city. Could we please hear about that? If that is in fact true. And then also it seems like I hope staff is in contact or could be in contact with the tannery arts people because it seems like there's a big problem going on. I know Council Member Glover visited. And I can tell from the head now that staff is definitely going to be in contact with tannery and that item will be forthcoming to the council. Okay. So item number nine, did you want to, did you pull item number nine? I did not. I'm sorry. Council Member Brown. Okay. Council Member Brown, apologies. So my intention in pulling this when I did, I wasn't anticipating it coming up this late, is not to pose this or to belabor it. But what I do want to do is make another try at getting some information about the parking deficiency program.  So I don't have a lot of questions. Thank you, Claire, for being here. But what I would like to see is the, a little bit more information on the, you know, the impact. So, you know, so here's some questions that I like to get answered. And if I could, I mean, I don't know if I need to move this because since I have asked the questions and have not had them answered in the past, I feel like I need to formalize it. So I'm going to move the item with a request that staff get back to us with the following information. And hopefully somebody will second it. We can have the discussion and move through this quickly.  So, you know, I mean, essentially I'm trying to get at, you know, income and expenditures from the parking, parking deficiency fees. How the change impacts specifically downtown employees who are now absorbing what I consider to be an absorption of the cost because they're now going to be needing to pay for permits rather than the businesses. So if businesses are no longer paying for that parking, then who will? It seems to me that's being covered through metering and the increase in the hourly rates. But I'd like a little bit more information on the overall, the parking deficiency fee, reductions, impacts. So where the money is coming from overall, and I mean, I know that the money is intended to pay off bonds and for a new garage and ostensibly for enforcement, but I just would like to get an overall financial picture. And so if I'm hearing you correct. So does that, does that make sense? Yeah, and I can answer all that. And you know, I just would like to see that in writing. We just haven't received it and I've asked and so it doesn't have to happen tonight. Okay. So if I can, if I may, what I'm hearing is interest in moving the item and then having the staff respond and writing to the questions that you pose. Is that correct? Just, you know, if we could agendize it and have that. I would like to second it, but do we need the information before the item is passed? I don't think so. Okay.  I just want some information. And can we also add to that, what can the money be used for? Is there, is there within a, you know, what is the, what are the parameters? So yeah, I will move that. So, okay. I will second it rather. There is a motion by Council Member Brown, second by Council Member Crone, Council Member Matthews. Just briefly, the parking deficiency fees are only a part of the overall budget of the parking district. And so I don't know if you want a bigger picture. Okay. And that, that might be suitable for a one on one or a smaller group meeting with some staff who want to see the big picture of the parking district finances, income and expenditure. Well, you know, I'm, I'm real okay with doing it one on one, but I actually think that this, because the council is asked to make these decisions, you know, I think it is worth the entire council and for the general public to have that overview. So I'd like it to come back to the full council. Okay. So we have a motion and a second. Any additional comments? I'd like to see if any members of the public are here or interested in speaking to item number nine on our consent agenda. Okay. Seeing none, I will, did you have a comment? Just to echo council member Brown's statement about public involvement. While it's fantastic that we as council members have the ability to reach out to staff and have one on one and get the information that we need when we need it potentially, but it sounds like council member Brown's been having some trouble there. I think that it does the greater community a disservice by making it non transparent and making it more difficult for them to be able to understand all of the diverse applications of the parking funds and how the parking district operates. So I support making as much information public as possible. Okay. Are there any additional comments at this time? Okay. Seeing none. We'll go ahead and call the vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Seeing none, that passes unanimously. At this time, we will be recessing for our 7 p.m. evening session. Oh, do we have something? Am I missing something? The item 11, which is the calendar. Just a note, there are no changes to the calendar. Thank you. Okay. Item 11, there's no changes to the calendar. Okay, so we will now recess and reconvene here at 7 p.m. for our evening session. Great. Time to go on, coach. City council meeting. I just want to let folks know that we are over capacity. And so we're going to have to ask that if some of you could please either move outside or to the overflow room in the Tony Hill room at the Civic Center, it would be very much appreciated. Mr. Vice Mayor, could we get the TV on out there for folks? And maybe some chairs too would be really good to have out there. We don't have time for chairs. And it's cold. Thanks. Is there any ability to move to the Civic Auditorium? No, but can the council meeting move to the Civic Auditorium? We've heard this a lot in the past, and I hope that we do this in the future. We make amends. I did mention to the city manager, he's not here, but a couple of days ago, and he was going to look into it. But maybe something's scheduled over there tonight. We appreciate your compliance with that, knowing that we cannot have the chambers two full. And we'll go ahead and postpone beginning until we're able to meet the safety standards necessary to continue. They could sit there. Yeah. On this wall, we're going to have to go outside, please. We're not against the wall. It was 10 out of 7. Everyone on standing currently needs to be on the floor. Each one of those pews holds 10. Any more than that? Any more than that? It wasn't a very contentious decision. Lynn Renshaw. Can you hear me outside? He's got a scale jacket outside. As they called your name. You're going to jump in here. I gave you one. Oh, I got you. All right, I think we're good to go. I'm going to go ahead and call to order at this time. It's the prior. Our 7 p.m. session. So good evening, everybody. I appreciate your understanding. We do have, as mentioned, overflow capacity at the Tony Hill room. So if you're interested in going there, as you can see, our chambers are full. I want to welcome you to our 7 p.m. session of the January 8th, 2019 City Council. And I would like to ask the clerk to now please call roll. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member, it's Crone. Here. Clever. Here. Myers. Here. Brown. Here. Matthews. Here. Vice Mayor Cummings. Here. And Mayor Watkins. Here. And the next agenda is general business. And just want to remind the community that the order of the the order of this evening is we will hear a staff presentation. And that will be followed by questions from four staff from the Council. And then we will have an opportunity for public comment at which time we will return to the Council for action and deliberation. And the rules of decorum are on the left, my left, in terms of how my job is to maintain order and consistency and flow within this evening's proceedings. I want to also let you know that generally if there is disruption to the meeting that the mayor will give a warning, which I will. And if there is continual disruption by individual that I am able to acknowledge, then I will ask our Sergeant of Arms to please remove that individual. So it goes by warning and then removal. And the level of decorum and expectation of decorum is that to be consistent with those who are observing in our outside area as well as those in the Tony Hill room. So we will ask that you maintain the same level of decorum as if participating in the meeting as if in chambers as you would if you were here and we could see you. So I will consistently ask that you and respectfully ask that you adhere to those decorum policies. So at this time, I will go ahead and ask our staff to present the item. Thank you, Mayor and Council Members. I'm Lee Butler. I'm the Planning and Community Development Director. And I'll be presenting jointly today with Assistant City Manager Tina Schull and also with our city attorney, Tony Cundadi. You're all well aware of the many efforts that the city has been undertaking to address the city's housing crisis. We had 99 recommendations that came from a outreach effort. Maybe you just hold just one second while we get the sound figured out. Thank you. I think we're good. Okay. So we had 99 recommendations that came out of a very extensive outreach effort that were presented to the Council in December of 2017. And then prioritization effort was undertaken by three Council Members as the Housing Blueprint Subcommittee that included a check-in with Council, multiple meetings of that group, community outreach meeting, and then a set of prioritized recommendations that came forward on the June 12, 2018 agenda for the Council. That we are currently just really at the beginning of implementing because there are so many different recommendations. But this is one of the things that has been addressed as part of the city's efforts. One of the many things that the city is doing to address the housing crisis is looking at the potential for just cause eviction criteria. So a little bit of the history of that here in our city. Back in February, the city adopted the February of last year. The city adopted the interim just cause eviction ordinance. And that timeline was tied to Measure M. And as you know, Measure M contained its own just cause eviction provisions. And the interim ordinance was set to expire either upon the effective date of the Measure M provisions or upon the Council certification that Measure M had failed. And so on December 11th, the Council certified the results that Measure M failed and the interim just cause eviction ordinance expired at that point in time. As part of the December 11th Council direction, the Council voted to have staff come back with two items on tonight's agenda. And that's what we're here to talk about. The first is a community process to discuss just cause eviction. And that was couched at the time as a process to evaluate the procedures for implementing a task force. And Assistant City Manager Tina Shaw will talk about that as one of the options that the Council can pursue. But really we're looking for some direction in terms of the outcomes and goals. And then the second part of that Council direction was to come back with an interim ordinance. And our city attorney, Tony Condati, will brief you on that ordinance. But essentially it mirrors what was in place as the interim just cause eviction ordinance with a couple of exceptions that we'll talk about. Because there wasn't an opportunity to discuss the items at the December 11th meeting, this is now the Council's opportunity to have that discussion. It wasn't on the agenda at that point in time. And so Council now has the opportunity to provide direction and to undertake the first reading of an interim ordinance should the Council choose to do so. So at this point I'll turn it over to Tina Shaw. Good evening Mayor Watkins, Council members, community members. I hope our audio settles down. I apologize for that. Yeah, yeah. And we are working on it. Thank you. But you can hear us okay. It's just the feedback sound. Thank you. Thank you. So thanks for that set up, Lee. I'm here to talk about the community portion or community process portion of the agenda item. They're presented jointly for you this evening because they influence one another. So your decisions on one may influence the other. So that's why they're jointly presented. So we were directed, as Lee mentioned, the Council didn't have a chance to discuss this amongst yourselves because it wasn't agendized. So you weren't able to provide a lot of in-depth discussion at that time. So we came back with what we had met as staff before the winter closure of City Hall and talked through what are various processes, task forces, et cetera. What are we trying to accomplish in this? And we realized that we wanted to come back to you to get some clarity around some key issues. And as you may have seen in the staff report, there are a few areas and they're here on the slide in particular where we would like Council to discuss and provide guidance because what you'd like to get out of these areas will help us develop the best tailored process for you. The first is goals, is discussing what would you hope to achieve from this process. Having a very clear goal statement really helps with the scope of whatever process you come up with, be it a task force or something else. But it also helps the participants be very clear about what you're asking them to do and it helps us in the design process and to know was it, was something, was the goal accomplished at the end. So here's some possibilities we came up with just to kind of throw ideas out there. The first is you could ask this task force or process to develop consensus around specific tenant protection policies or an ordinance even. So you could have them go and do the actual work of trying to craft a policy or discrete specific recommendations that could come from some consensus basis represent a wide array of viewpoints that that could be presented to you as a policy action to take. Another goal could be coming up with a set of values and priorities that you can consider in any sort of future housing policy discussion. A third goal could be improving communication around opposing viewpoints. This has been a very charged issue and that could be an objective as well is to find a place to mediate between interests and have an opportunity to have not only that conversation but ongoing conversations. And another goal could be just gathering more information and stories. I think you've heard a lot through the voices in housing in 2017 but there's many more, there's so much learning to still to be done. So this could be a goal as well. So those are presented just as potential ideas you could explore but we look forward to hearing what you would like to achieve through this process. The next is what outcomes do you want to see from this process and specifically what sort of work product. Are you hoping again to have information so you get as the slide says just a collection of information to help you in the future as you work through things. Do you want specific policy recommendations? Are you looking for some data driven report? There's many different ways that a process can include and typically there is some product backed back to the governing body. And so any specificity around that is very helpful. As you saw in the examples that were appended to this report there were reports back to the city council with the public safety task force. There is a report with recommendations with the housing report. There is a report with the 99 recommendations that Lee referenced. But again it's tied to your goals. If you don't want a product, if you don't want recommendations that will influence what sort of information or report you want to see back to you. Then my apologies. A third element where we see council input is on the level of community involvement. There are a variety of different community processes and mechanisms and they've got varying levels of community involvement. Do you want community members involved in every aspect of this? Do you want a smaller subset of people to work through this? Really it can influence what this looks like in a profound way. And also this process, I didn't get to this yet, but this process also drives timeline and cost. And so we need all those basic foundational ingredients to be able to come up with here's a recommended process and here's the cost of doing that and the timeline of doing that. So I will say that what was contemplated in December was think about a task force for three months. And our experience of task forces is that that's a very aggressive timeline and I know that was presented just the urgency of the issue and wanting to be responsive and responsive to all the community members here in the audience who really want some action on this. And there's been a lot of discussion and policy communication and outreach ideas you saw in the beginning of this report, but three months is very aggressive. If you think about the steps of a task force I can walk through that very quickly.  Then you have the application and selection process. So do you put out an application and that is published and there's some application period of time, I would say at least two weeks in order for people to be able to respond and applications come flooding in I think. And then who selects that? Do you have the mayor make those appointments? Does it come back to the city council? So just that piece of it can take some time. And then once you get going you have conversations of is this a facilitated process? What's the work plan for the process? So to fit in with the three month that was originally suggested again I think responding to the urgency of the matter that would have something coming back to you at your request. So I think that a lot can be done with there's a will. And if that was the case you would need to have your task force if that's the way you go in place I would say by early February. And that might allow if scheduling aligns perfectly and people are willing to meet on a pretty aggressive timeline and thinking about just time to prepare information in between meetings maybe two meetings each in February and March to bring back a proposal. So that was a request to bring back a proposal and that was the best kind of back of the envelope just working backwards through time what that might look like again not having a sense of the scale and the scope and etc. But in thinking through that there's also other mechanisms that the council could think about again driven by your goals. And I'll go through this quickly as well I know you're eager to hear from the community. So a few that we came up with to present are on this next slide. I'm going to start with the staff report. These are three different ideas we wanted to present this is what something else might look like that the council may wish to consider you could have mediation where you have a smaller focus group of individuals get together professionally facilitated and negotiations and they really work through some interest and then you have a sort of negotiated settlement at the end of that. Typically that can take four to that fits within that timeline that was discussed. You can see the cons of it is that it's typically closed to the public. It's hard to have a mediation between groups with hundreds of people there in the room with you. So that's one possibility. Another one is public survey. And this could be the benefits of this is just gathering broad base of data and information, getting a sense where the community is and how maybe people respond to different policy ideas. So that could be a mechanism and it would help you in a very clear and transparent way identify possibilities and areas of agreement and disagreement in the community. Then you have the typical drawbacks, the survey instruments, how is it administered? What's the survey bias? Are we actually paying a professional surveyor to do it? In which case we're talking at least tens of thousands of dollars to do this as opposed to a survey monkey. But that has lots of survey bias involved in that. So I know there are statisticians up there, so you understand that's even better than I. But that's a possibility as well. And then there's a discussion circle idea, and this is something that I haven't seen done in the city. But this is another technique where the product of this is to make sure a lot of voices are heard. And there's a sense of coming to understanding between opposing interests when you might have a time of low trust. And you don't have a facilitator, it's really community facilitated. It's literally a large circle of people. Everyone gets to go to the center and speak their mind. And people just take turns throughout the entire evening until everyone has a chance to speak. And that doesn't necessarily come up with a policy agreement. I guess I suppose it could if everyone has a chance to keep talking and talking and talking. But it's really a chance that's a very community led effort. So I wanted to present those, and I won't go through all the details. You can see them here and there in the report. Just to say that depending on what the council wishes to do, we can tailor a lot of things for you. And the way tonight can go, if you have something in mind, you can direct us to go do it tonight. If you wanted us to take your input and come up with alternatives at your next meeting, we can do that as well. So I want to present that. So with that, that concludes the part I wanted to outline. Again, I know there'll be more discussion after public comment, so I wanted to get through this quickly. And I'll turn it over to the city attorney to talk through the interim ordinance. So I'm going to go briefly through the substantive provisions of the ordinance. And just as a preface, they are substantively virtually identical to the emergency just cause eviction ordinance that the city council adopted on February 13th of 2018. With a couple of exceptions, including one inadvertent omission that I will go over. The first thing that I'd like to say about the ordinance, however, is that it's not being brought forward as an emergency measure. It's contemplated that this would be subject to a first reading, second reading, and have an effective date, 30 days after the second reading. Assuming that it gets majority approval of the council. Secondly, the ordinance has an expiration date of 90 days from the date of its enactment. And lastly, to address the concern that tenants might be preemptively terminated and evicted from their residences while this ordinance is being contemplated or before its effective date, section seven of the ordinance has a provision stating that it will take effect 30 days following its final adoption. However, it shall apply retroactively to any notice of termination of tenancy with an effective date on or after December 11th, 2018. And any unlawful detainer action brought pursuant to a notice of termination with an effective date on or after December 11th, 2018 that is still pending as of the effective date of the ordinance. In other words, it's conceivable that an eviction proceeding could be commenced and an unlawful detainer action could be brought, tried, and a judgment entered during that pending period and this ordinance would not capture that circumstance. So there may be a handful of cases that this ordinance does not cover that are adjudicated before this ordinance fully takes effect. So I will briefly go over the ordinance that the city council adopted in February. As I said, there was an inadvertent omission and I'm going to point that out. And council member Brown had us requested that the council consider reinserting that provision into this ordinance for your consideration tonight. The essential provisions of the ordinance are that it prohibits a landlord from taking any action to terminate a lawful tenancy, including making a demand for possession of a rental unit, threatening to terminate a tenancy orally or in writing, or serving a notice to quit, or a notice to terminate or bringing an action to recover possession except for specified grounds. So unless one of these grounds are present then it prohibits a tenancy from being terminated by the landlord. First, failure to pay rent would be a ground for terminating a tenancy under this ordinance. Secondly, the breach of a material term of a rental housing agreement would constitute the basis. So if a tenant is violating some provision of a rental agreement, then that would be the basis for termination. There's an exception to that rule, however, if the breach is solely the obligation to surrender possession of the unit on proper notice as required by law. So essentially, the expiration of a rental agreement would not be the valid basis for terminating a tenancy under this ordinance. That is typically associated, is a creature that's typically associated with a rent control ordinance that's designed to protect tenants from having their tenancies preemptively terminated at the end of a lease, merely for the pretext of increasing the rent. This ordinance does not contain a rent control provision, but it does nevertheless carry forward that same provision. The ordinance goes on to say that notwithstanding any contrary provision in the ordinance, a landlord shall not take action to terminate a tenancy based on the tenant's sub-lease of the rental unit if the following requirements were met. One, the unit continues to constitute the tenant's primary residence. Two, the sub-lessee replaces one or more departed tenants under the rental housing agreement on a one for one basis. Or three, the landlord has unreasonably withheld the right to sub-lease following written request by the tenant. And then if the landlord fails to respond within 14 days of receipt of the tenant's written request, the tenant's request shall be deemed approved by the landlord. The ordinance goes on to say a reasonable refusal of the tenant's written request may be based on, but is not limited to the grounds that the tenant has replaced one or more departed tenants with short-term sub-lessores. The grounds that the total number of occupants in a rental unit exceeds the maximum number of occupants permissible in under Section 503B of the Uniform Housing Code, which I believe is one tenant per 50 square feet of square footage of the rental unit. There are additional grounds that are prohibited for being the basis for a termination. The landlord may not terminate a tenancy as the result of the addition to the rental unit of a family member such as a child, foster child, stepchild, ward, parent, grandparent, et cetera. Another ground for termination is that the tenant has continued after being provided notice by the landlord to cease to permit a nuisance in or about the unit or to cause substantial damage to the rental unit or the unit's appurtenances or the common areas of the property. Number four, if the tenant's conduct is so disorderly as to constitute violations of state and federal criminal law that destroy the peace, quiet comfort or safety of the landlord or other tenants of the property. Number five, the failure to give access after the tenant has been provided with notice to provide access by the landlord and if the tenant refuses to grant reasonable access as required by state or local law, then that would be grounds for termination. Number six would be necessary and substantial repairs requiring a temporary vacancy where the landlord has obtained all necessary permits from the city and provided written notice to the tenant that it needs to make repairs and that the repairs are such that they necessitate a vacancy of the unit for a period of at least 30 days. Number seven, that the owner seeks to move into the unit and use the unit in good faith for use in occupancy as a primary residence by the landlord or the landlord's close relative such as a child, foster child, stepchild, ward parent, et cetera. However, no eviction may take place under the landlord move-in provision if the same landlord or the enumerated relative already occupies a unit on the property or there's another vacancy on the property. Another provision, the landlord may not evict a tenant for the owner move-in purposes if the tenant has resided in the unit for at least five years or the tenant is at least 62 years old or is disabled or certified as being terminally ill by the tenant's treating physician. However, those would not be the basis to prohibit the landlord from moving into the unit if the landlord has those same conditions, i.e. is either 62 years old or has a disability or is or a terminal illness. Lastly is an exception under the Ellis Act which is a provision of state law that basically prohibits the city from restricting a landlord's ability to cease using the entire property as a rental. So if there is a duplex that the landlord intends to have occupied by owners exclusively then that would be a provision that would enable the termination. There are other provisions regarding retaliatory evictions and I will talk about the exemption. On the February 2018 ordinance the council at the meeting added an additional exemption which is set forth on the screen above you. The reason why I said that this omission was inadvertent in the version that went into the packet is that for that meeting the version that was in the agenda packet did not have the exemption. It was added by the council by motion at the time of the hearing. So the exemption was a rental unit which constitutes the landlord's sole rental property and the following categories of rental units if the landlord lives on site in either the same residence a duplex or a single family residence with an accessory dwelling unit. So that is language that's proposed to be included back into the ordinance for your consideration at the time that it's introduced this evening. Again, this is not an emergency ordinance so it would not take immediate effect this evening. It would come back for a second reading and go into effect 30 days after it's finally adopted. And the ordinance also has a provision that calls for its expiration after 90 days from the effective date. I'm happy to answer any questions or respond to any council member comments and that concludes my report. Thank you for your report and thank you staff for your report. At this time I'd like to ask the council if they have any questions of staff before we open it up to public comment. There's no relocation assistance in this ordinance, right? That is correct. That is the next item on your agenda. Okay, that's what I thought. Additional questions for staff? Vice Mayor Cummings? I have a question regarding nuisance and number three of the ordinance. And was wondering if nuisance would be able to be extended to neighbors and adjacent properties? The council certainly could add language to that effect this evening prior to its introduction. And then it would be incorporated into the ordinance to be brought back for the second reading at the next meeting. That's the pleasure of the council. That's member Glover. I was having a conversation earlier today with someone and we were talking about the ability for people or landlords to remove tenants and the validity of a lease. And so here under the breach of lease under number two, when it says that it's a violation of any material terms in the rental housing agreement, can you specify the spectrum of what those material agreements could include? That landlord could specify in their lease that, is there like a limit or an example? Well, it really varies depending on the tenant, but the landlord could include specific restrictions on, for instance, modifying the interior of the building to puncture walls or to change paint or carpeting, damaging the unit. Those sorts of things or routinely, assuming that it's included in the lease, routinely parking in a space that's not designated to exclude others that would have the right to use that space. Those sorts of things. And would something like the express concern that they brought up was if they had moved the tenant and they turned out to be someone that kept terrible care of the property and they used the term whether they were a hoarder. So what if they were filling the space up so that it damaged the interior and also their kind of stuff. So could there be a provision in the lease that says you have to keep the property up to a certain standard? Yeah, and I think that there certainly can. And then the question is under this ordinance whether or not the tenant that is messy or brings a lot of miscellaneous material onto the property. Whether or not it's substantial enough to constitute a nuisance. And the standard there is not really entirely clear. It's basically whether or not it's objectively unreasonable to a reasonable person. So it's not entirely clear and it's not clear how that would play out in the courts, but that's the standard. And there are a lot of cases that have addressed different conditions that constitute a nuisance. Hoarding would certainly be one. Thank you. Senator Myers. I just have a question about second four, the enforcement procedures. So my understanding of how this is written is that the city really, this would be a discretionary action by the city at this, the way it's drafted here. Yes, it does not compel the city to take affirmative action to enforce the ordinance. For this interim period, it's contemplated that a tenant would basically have the ability to hold up the requirements of this ordinance where a landlord seek to evict that tenant under circumstances that are not allowed by the ordinance. And then a court in adjudicating that matter would have the ordinance and would be required to make a determination as to whether or not the eviction is permitted under the ordinance. That's the same way that a just cause eviction ordinance that's accompanied in a rent control matter is utilized. I would also point out that a tenant who raises a violation of the ordinance either by bringing a civil action, an affirmative civil action against the landlord or in a defense to an unlawful detainer provision and prevails would be entitled to recover reasonable attorneys fees and costs. And that is to basically incent attorneys that take cases on a contingency fee basis to take a case from a tenant. Whereas in the absence of a potential attorney's fees recovery, a lot of attorneys that don't specifically represent tenants in residential unlawful detainer matters. Just wouldn't take it on because tenants typically have trouble paying for lawyer's fees. Thank you. It's Mayor Cummings. I had a question around the timeline. So if this is retroactively implemented for, let's say, December 11th, within that 90 day period be up around the beginning of March? No. The expiration measures from the effective date and the effective date is a defined term in the ordinance as being 30 days from final adoption. So it gives you 30 days, assuming that you adopted at your January 22nd meeting. It gives you 90 days from that date. Thank you. And Mayor, if I could just point out that the 90 days stemmed from the direction from the council to come up with a solution within 90 days. So it is within the purview of the council to modify that interim period should you choose to do so. Are there any additional questions from council members at this time? Okay. Seeing none, this would be when, this is the portion when we'll be opening up the item to public comment. And before we do, I just prepared a few comments and then Vice Mayor Cummings and I will read over some of the council adopted policy protocol around decorum. I will just briefly state that I have been on council throughout numerous meetings and have witnessed the divisiveness of this item. And one thing I do know that everybody here really does share a common value and commitment and love of Santa Cruz and have earnestly disagreed on how the best pathway is in terms of moving forward, in terms of policy action, but do share a love of our community, a love of our city. And we're each other's neighbors, we see each other on the streets in the grocery stores. And I just want to remind you all and us that we are in this together. And it is our job to hear from you and then to do the best we can in deciding the best course of action at this time. And we can disagree, we may not agree with what each other has to say. But everybody has a right to be here without threat or experience of discomfort. And we have a right to listen to them and we don't have to agree. So that is what I will aspire to as I preside over this meeting this evening and respectfully ask the community to also rise to that as well. And I do want to just also say that the council has previously adopted rules of procedure for conduct for city council business and not often do we read those before these types of divisive meetings. But I'd like to take an opportunity to do that right now. And I'll start with the first, which is to be respectful and that is to treat each other with respect. Even when, and especially when there is a disagreement. And last question here. I also encourage people to engage in open and honest communication. So be direct, straightforward and transparent with each other. To be honest and truthful, to act with integrity and authenticity and to be ethical. To address difficult issues, confront challenging topics directly, avoid talking around them or not talking about them at all. To find areas of common ground, to seek areas of agreement, identify shared interests, values and positions. Be open to different perspectives, keep an open mind, be willing to change your views with new information, data, etc. To give benefit of the doubt, freely give credit for good intentions and avoid ascribing bad intentions. Roll model good leadership, be professional, adhere to standards of civility, and demonstrate effective leadership for the community. Be considerate of each other's time. Manage expectations about responsiveness and availability. Recognizing the time limitations and constraints of our colleagues and our community. So I appreciate you listening to that. So I'll just remind the community that this time is now the time for public comment on this item. I'd like to get a sense of how many people here are interested in speaking to the item. If you can help me count. There's ten additional. I've got at least 35. Okay, okay. What I'll do is I will allow for a minute and a half so that everyone has an opportunity to speak up to a minute and a half. I know that there's going to be likely over potentially hundreds of 100 or so who want to speak to and want to make sure everybody has a chance to have their voice heard. And then I'll just remind you to please refrain from disrupting the speaker at their time to speak and address the council, you will have your time as well. If there is a disruption and I am able to observe who made that disruption, I will give a verbal warning and then ask our Sergeant of Arms to please remove that individual if the disruptions continue. And if there is a type of disruption that's happening, we will take a recess and pause in order for us to reconvene and do business. Okay, I had heard from, and I think I include everybody, but I heard from Lynn Rinshaw from Santa Cruz Together requesting additional time in advance. Gail Jack, affordable housing now, also requesting additional time in advance. And Fawze, I'm sorry, I don't have your last name. Remind me your last name. It's Fizula. Okay, excuse me. Okay, and you're representing movement for housing justice, correct? And I believe those are the three folks who contacted me in advance requesting four minutes. And I have acknowledged their request and we'll start by asking Lynn Rinshaw to come forward. And she'll have four minutes as she represents Santa Cruz Together. Okay, so Lynn Rinshaw, SantaCruiseTogether.com. As you are well aware, Measure M was overwhelmingly defeated by city voters 62% to 38%, basically two to one. 70% of the votes for city council members went to candidates opposed to Measure M. The interim just cause eviction ordinance includes the worst part of Measure M. Passing Measure M provisions is an insult to the vast majority of voters that opposed it. This new city council is losing public confidence before the very first meeting. Santa Cruz Together conducted professional polling that found very high awareness and the following objections to Measure M. 78% of voters objected to allowing renters to move in other renters without the owner's permission, even beyond the number on a lease agreement. 74% were opposed to making it difficult to evict problem renters. 72% opposed making leased end dates unenforceable. Homeowners should be aware that this ordinance says if their home has been rented for more than five years, they may not be able to move back into it again. Excuse me, Lynn, I'm sorry to interrupt you. Bonnie, are we okay? This is obviously impatently unjust and possibly illegal. Do not force just cause eviction provisions, essentially Measure M, on the city voters who rejected them. Ignoring the majority vote while discussing a community input process is disingenuous. If the council is willing to ignore the city majority, why should we believe that you care about community input? Rent increases can be limited without overreaching eviction laws. For example, Los Gatos successfully uses a mediation service to limit rent increases. Passing Measure M will lead to further loss of rental housing, which will cause rent increases to accelerate since rents are unlimited on 75% of the rental housing stock. Remember, California state law, Costa Hawkins mandates that rent and rent increases are always unlimited on houses, condos, and newer apartments. Also, rents are unlimited on apartments for every future renter. You are not going to be able to hide these facts from the electorate. If you pass the equivalent of Measure M, you are willfully ignoring the sound research and evidence that shows this policy will make the affordable housing shortage worse. A few of you express interest in adopting evidence-based policies, but unwillingness to study how this policy will impact the number of rentals and rent is telling. Policies like Measure M ultimately displace hundreds and thousands of renters, a sustainable solution is one that doesn't drive people away from renting their property. You will continue to hear more and more stories about people losing their rental houses. If the city council passes the Measure M equivalent, then you will be responsible for the evictions that occur as houses are sold to owner occupants. And remember, the California Ellis Act is the superseding state law that lets homeowners evict renters when withdrawing from the rental market. The local city council cannot prevent such Ellis Act rental withdrawals. The council should honor the majority vote and reconsider passing Measure M provisions tonight. No moaners that want to be able to choose what to do with their houses should join our newsletter at SantaCruiseTogether.com. Thank you. Excuse me. Okay, I'd like to now ask Fawz to come up and you'll be given four minutes as well. Thank you, council members. Just to kind of address the statistics that were just mentioned, I think it would be helpful to see the survey and make that publicly available so we can check the credibility of that survey. I'd be very interested in seeing that. Anyways, hello council members. My name is Faisal. I go by Fawz and I want to thank the council for agreeing to put this incredibly crucial item on the agenda tonight. I wanted to start by addressing some of the things that have been said against this item. For starters, Measure M's defeat is not a mandate against tenant protections. Voters in the city of Santa Cruz voted by a majority of 53% for Proposition 10 in 2018. The statewide initiative to strengthen and create more effective rent control in cities that have it. The fact that city voters supported Prop 10 and voted against Measure M means that voters actually support some form of rent control and tenant protections, but were hesitant about M. This is actually a mandate for not against enacting some form of rent control and just cause eviction policies. But it is also a mandate for the council and the community to go back to the drawing board and do it differently. This is, oh, sorry, Measure M's defeat also does not imply that the council is going against the will of the voters. The ordinance does not measure M, the ordinance does not include rent control, it does not include a rent control board, and the just cause eviction protections are written differently than in Measure M. This vote tonight does not defy the will of the voters. In fact, during our time in the 2018 campaign, as we were knocking on doors and talking with voters, many people that we spoke to who were against Measure M personally told us that they support some of form of rent control and tenant protections. This ordinance is a temporary and very necessary placeholder for a permanent ordinance in the future that we can all be happy with as we begin creating the community conversation on this issue. Tonight, the movement for housing justice urges members of this council to pass a temporary just cause eviction protections. Since the certification of the elections last November, already many tenants are facing evictions, either directly or through skyrocketing rent increases. We all know we are living in a housing dystopia in Santa Cruz and it will only get worse. While the intentions of the council were good in enacting an exorbitant rent increase ordinance, sadly the loopholes and lack of teeth in the ordinance have done little to nothing to actually protect renters in this community. Let's not forget who these people are. Renters are your friends, your families, your neighbors.  These are the people who make the city the lovable and beautiful place that we all cherish. They are taking care of us, but we are not taking care of them. During my time as a temporary city employee, I discovered that over half of our city workforce cannot afford to live in the same city it serves. That is incredibly, incredibly disappointing. As city workers are entering negotiations, a pay increase will mean absolutely nothing without equally providing protections from price gouging rents and unfair evictions. If we don't act soon, we could be living in a town completely barren of all those people who make Santa Cruz the place we know and love. It is unfortunate that many of our local well-intentioned homeowners and mom and pop landlords have bought into the vicious and misleading propaganda from the California Appartments Association and the Association Realtors. Two of the biggest multi-billion dollar wealthy special interests trying to rig our local government in favor of their pocketbooks. These special interests have advanced the division or a community for their own personal gain. This is why I hope that tonight the City Council, in addition to bringing back temporary just cause eviction protections, will also consider the formation of a tenants protections task force so that we can create the community conversation and education that we so desperately need. This is not just something that's supported by the movement for housing justice. This is also supported by the many homeowners and mom and pop landlords who are sympathetic to tenants rights but are disappointed that the former city council did not take initiative on the issue and create that community conversation. But in the meantime, we're going to need something to in place to protect renters. After all, if we lose our renters, then who are we creating tenant protections for? And for all those who are against this, who are in our community, who are against measure M. Thank you very much. I'm sorry, your time is up. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, now I invite up Gail, and Gail, thank you. Okay, thank you. Gail will be representing affordable housing now. And Gail, you'll be given four minutes. Thank you. Thank you very much, and I'd like to welcome the new members on the council. I'm speaking tonight on behalf of affordable housing now. We're a coalition of organizations and community members who have been working together for now over three years to increase affordable housing options for people who live and work in the city and throughout Santa Cruz County. In August of 2015, we encouraged the city council to make some real changes to housing policy in order to help residents who are being priced out of their homes. Two of the ten suggestions we made at that time are being addressed today. I quote, implement a rent stabilization measure similar to Bay Area communities such as Richmond, Redwood City, San Francisco, etc. And secondly, expand tenant eviction protection through the implementation of a rent review task force made up of community members and city staff. Again, last November, we urged the council to make changes in the proposed ordinance by lowering the trigger rent increase rate, and increasing the amount of tenants relocation assistance in the event of eviction. We believe that the temporary ordinance your council is considering tonight is fair and balanced and can be acceptable for all parties concerned. It is an ordinance that we can support. Affordable Housing now also supports the suggestion to convene some sort of community outreach process on rent stabilization and tenant protections. However, some of the techniques suggested by staff seem lacking in innovation. If you are really committed to community participation in this process, the task force kind of committee with the facilitator should be convened principally with tenant, landlord, and others from the community with a small number of staff. It should be made clear by the council as well what their goals and missions are for this group and exactly how the outcomes of the group's deliberations will be utilized. And I just had a thought about how you find members of the task force. You could have a nomination process from the community.  Thank you so much. Thank you. We'll now move on, that is the end of all of the requested additional time. So each member of the community will have 90 seconds to speak before the council. And just a reminder, we have a right to hear everybody's perspective, agree with them or not, we will listen and then we will move on to the next speaker.  Welcome, City Council. And you have lots of decisions to make, obviously, on just cause evictions. What do you call it? Sub-leasing that isn't approved by the landlords and stuff. And what I want to bring up, when you're making the rules for these decisions, I just remember that we're in a severe housing shortage. The problem is we don't have enough rentals. So in my opinion, I think we should preserve the existing rentals, encourage conversions to rentals like ADU units, encourage building new rental housing. So when you make these decisions, think about what you're doing to the supply. And when we talk about the supply of housing, also remember Chris Cronin mentioned at the last meeting that UC Santa Cruz has 20,000 students, the only house half of them on campus, the other half are taking up a lot of rentals in Santa Cruz. And I believe you said they're planning on going up to 30,000. So what is this doing to the availability of housing? I don't know what the city council can do about that, hopefully you can do something about that. Also, I heard that there's 8,000 single family homes that are being rentals. The more you lean on the landlords, you're going to force them or put them in the position of they're going to sell them to the homeowners. So that would pull those units off the market. You can only pull half of them off the market. That's 4,000 less rentals. And then there's 20,000 rentals, I believe total, and there's 5,000 for the pre-1996 rentals. So anyway, my message is think about the rental supply and how your decisions are going to affect landlords and whether they keep them or sell them. Thank you. Okay, next speaker here. Can we take more from that side and more from this side? There's, we will line up on that side. Yeah, okay, let me go ahead and clarify. If you're interested in speaking, please line up to my left and we will have each person have 90 seconds to speak. Speak, okay. You just speed that line around. Okay, so they should- This is the line. This is the line, apologies. Okay, so you are in line. I'm sorry, I didn't realize it wrapped around this way. We will get to you as we get through everybody, okay? Okay, so at this time, we'll allow for you to have your 90 seconds. Linda Robinson, I'm a landlord and I just wanted to say that I have worked 33 years in this community. Overtime, double time, just got off a 12 hour shift in order to purchase a home. And I'm a great landlord and I don't see any problem with rent control being a monetary amount every month. But I can't fathom you telling me that I can't move back into my home that I'm planning on retiring in. Or that my renter can go ahead and ask any of his friends to come in when there's only one parking, one bathroom, one everything. So I wasn't going to speak, but I just thought I'd tell you that I'm one of those nice landlords who I do think you should have rent control with monetary rent control. We shouldn't be gouging renters and we should have a place for them to come and everything. But not, I mean, I have 600 square feet. That means I can have 12 people in that place with one parking and one bathroom. And I mean, that I- Sorry to pause you. I just want to let you know that you are unable to please do not bang on the windows or disrupt the speaker when they're speaking. Thank you. Okay, go ahead and continue. That's pretty much all I have to say. I just, there's a few things in this whole measure and that I don't understand. And I've just worked my whole entire life really hard to be a homeowner and to give a tenant a great place to live and I don't think that I should not be able to get rid of somebody if they're, I just, anyway, I'm done. I'm good, thank you. Thank you, thank you. Hi, my name is Mara Alverson. I wanted to let you know that I'm a supporter of the homeless shelter and support all efforts to build more affordable housing in our community. And to enforce the law with regard to affordable units being included in new apartment complexes, which I understand is not being done very strictly. I voted in support of measure H. I also support reasonable rent increase control measures. I feel that our housing crisis is serious. I'm writing to let you know how my life would be impacted by the adoption of just cause eviction measures. I was only able to afford to buy my home because it has an ADU in the backyard, which I've been renting. This unit is six feet from my bedroom window. So noise, smoke, et cetera, has a big impact on me. If I were to lease it to someone who on first evaluation seemed to be a very responsible, considerate tenant, but who turned out not to be considerate, my living situation would be severely impacted. Having to pay two months rent to a victim would be a severe hardship on me. The addition of additional occupants without my consent or the sub-leasing of the unit would be very disruptive for me. My daughter will be back from grad school in a couple of years. Oops, thank you. Thank you. Next speaker please. Hi, council. My name is William Robb, and I just want to put my two cents in, meaning I think the measure M wasn't in, and it is still a very angry bill. And I think it was written in anger, written by a group of people trying to solve a very serious problem. I believe both sides probably should have gotten together first to identify the problem and then come up with a fair and reasonable solutions that would have benefited all and not completely distress one side of the issue. Thank goodness the good people of Santa Cruz saw through that badly written bill and voted against measure M and again in overwhelming numbers. The passage of measure M would have been devastating I think to landlords, renters, homeowners, investors, probably broken up many families, and added to the city budget all while helping in my opinion a limited amount of people. More important, and I think it would limit the choices we all hold so deeply. I can't understand why the city of Santa Cruz has decided to take it upon itself to solve our community's housing crisis. By assuming that any part of measure M would help, I just don't understand it. I'm not right, it doesn't work, and against the will of Santa Cruz voters, as we'd be urged. So I urge the board to recognize the need for further public discussions and possibly help form a new citizens committee discuss the issue in an amicable manner to all. So don't limit the choices, we still- Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker please. Good evening, council. My name is Patty Rob. I am a landlord. Please respectively encourage the city council not to adopt any new rent control ordinance or just cause eviction ordinance. Please respect the Santa Cruz city citizens vote in November 2018, which resulted in measure M not passing. I would also like you to please consider the cap on the rent increase. You've got a three and a half percent increase. Excuse me, I'm going to pause your time. That will be an agenda item that will come up after, so you can speak to that item after. Okay, it's just this item that you can address. Yes, okay. Thank you. Go ahead and start. And so then, I'll speak on that later. My other comment is, when you're adopting and considering ordinance like this, it seems like these, I feel my tenants and I are on the same team. I respect my tenants, my residents, I, you know, I can't, I hear these stories about these landlords, these minority of landlords that are raising astronomical rents. I can't fathom it because I'm on the same team with my residents. I've had my residents for many, many years. So I would urge you to consider a penalty. Why can't there be an ordinance with a penalty for the minority of landlords out there that are gouging and excessive rent increases and taking advantage of residents? To urge you to come up with some kind of a penalty for the minority. Because the majority of the landlords out there value their residents and we shouldn't be penalized. We shouldn't be put in a basket and be subject to this severe proposal of an ordinance. The minority that's causing all this should be penalized, but the majority of the landlords do not act. Thank you very much. My name is Mickey Larson and I would like to thank the city council for saving me about $100,000. That would be the approximate cost of constructing an ADU. I have a large lot behind my house and I was considering building an ADU. The city has encouraged these dwellings by loosening restrictions on permit fees, setbacks, parking, etc. But with the push for extreme rental restrictions and council's shim sham slide dance to resurrect defeated measure M conditions, an ADU is out of the question for me. The city needs housing. It's encouraging ADUs. At the same time, it is promoting restrictive rent control. From my perspective, the city is operating at cross purposes to defuse the housing crunch. No intelligent person will build an ADU and be held hostage to the council's proposed rental restrictions. The council needs to reform its act and consider the unintended consequences of its decisions. Some members of the council may view their role as progressive towards rental reform. This is naive and dangerous without studying the unintended consequences of decision making. Case in point, an initiative to keep seniors or five year residents uncontested in their rentals. This is virtually a guarantee that landlords will not rent to seniors. It may be discrimination, but try and prove it. In the end, the rich stay rich. Thank you, thank you very much. Your time is over. Thank you, your time is over. Thank you. Excuse me, your time is now over. Your time is now over. The middle class gets screwed and housing and seniors lose under the misguide. Guided politics of a just cause. I'm going to go ahead and turn off your time. Each person is a lot at the same amount of time, so I appreciate you in hearing and respecting that. We have our next speaker, please go ahead. It would be disrespectful to the democratic process and to the majority of Santa Cruz residents to approve an eviction ordinance that contains objectionable rules from overwhelmingly defeated measure M. The tenant sublease rule and the family member addition rule in this ordinance violate common sense leasing standards and are as objectionable now as they were in measure M. There is no need for new temporary eviction ordinance and the justifications for putting it in place are hearsay and not supported by any hard data. The right way to move forward to heal the city from the divisiveness and bad feelings around measure M is to convene a task force with a cross section of stakeholders, support them and build consensus. The proposed eviction ordinance is exactly the wrong approach. It is not appropriate why is it fiscally responsible for this council to attempt to override all the active leases in the city, especially without buying from the majority of Santa Cruz residents. This temporary eviction ordinance will taint the task force process by indicating that the outcome is already a done deal. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, council. I'm Linda Hodge and I'm a landlord. I would like to say that process is important and democracy is important. I'd like to see changes like this, since we just had measure M. I'd like to see changes made on the ballot. And I would like to see this lady, she was describing how you get groups together to negotiate and figure out what the issues are and I'd like to see that happen. And I'd like to see the council work on supply. I'd like the state to force UC to build some dormitories. And finally, the last thing is the ordinance, it hurts the landlords because it kind of assumes that most landlords are bad. I have to deal with people, I haven't evicted anybody. But I do use the perspective of eviction when two tenants are knocking on the walls and fighting with each other, got a 67 year old man and I'm 65, so I don't give him any slack. He's drunk and falling down and disorderly on the property. And when, after the ordinance expired, after measure M was defeated, he's step two. He's behaving himself now because he knows he could get evicted. We need to manage our units where 26 people or 50 people live in proximity. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, next speaker please. Hi everybody, my name is Alice Terrell. I'm a renter here in Santa Cruz for 20 some years. And I support rent control in this town, I think we need it. But the just cause eviction proposal and the emergency measure and measure M is unfair to landlords. Completely unfair to landlords. Because people who have owned property in this town, many of them live on site and they have a right, in my opinion anyway, they have a right to say who lives on their property that they are good tenants. And that to my understanding is that the 50 square feet per person, less kitchens and bathrooms is overcrowding and overpopulate over parking issues and that it'll be detrimental to the neighborhoods if you pass this like this. I think we need something, but this is not it. And I also think I am like one of the previous speakers. I think that if you- Okay, thank you, thank you. Hello, my name is Josh Perhinsky. I'm also a landlord and I'm a part of a group of landlords who supported measure M.  But there were dozens of other landlords who came to me throughout this process and said, I really support rent control. I really think there needs to be some kind of eviction protections. But there's a couple of details in measure M that just get my goat and I'm having a hard time with that. And that was person after person after person after person. And they said, that's why. I mean, we all know that the campaign against measure M, right? Was not don't do rent control. It was it's too expensive and it's too extreme.  And but we also know that there are all these small time landlords here who really, really care about the people who they rent to. And they wanna build a community that's kind and a community that's stable and they bought that rhetoric, right? They believed it, they're like, yes, this is too expensive and too extreme. So right now is the time to bring those people and the renters together and build a community process where we can figure out what's not too expensive and too extreme but actually protects people. That takes care of people in this town. Because everybody we talked to agreed, I don't think I talked to a single person out of the hundreds and hundreds in the last year that didn't agree that we have a massive crisis. That people are being kicked out of this town at an incredible rate and we need to fix it. Hi council members, my name is Melissa Freebarron and I am your local nurse. I grew up in this town, I've been a renter for over 20 years and the voters have spoken with no on measure M for a reason. Because not all of the landlords in this town are slum lords. Many of them are local moms who were single moms who worked over 30 years to own a property who now this council can come and adopt an ordinance and tell them what to do with their property. If they had a tenant for over 13 years that decided, you know what, I like my rental. You won't sell it to me, I'm not going to move out. I'm going to do everything possible to make it impossible to move out. We are your working unseen people, your nurses, your firemen, your law enforcement, your city workers. I worked at the jail, juvenile hall. I know I can't afford a place to live here unless I go to work every day and I earn it. I'm a single mother, I work every day. I know that these things will not be handed to me living in a coastal town. I grew up in this town and I can't even afford to live here and I serve this town. So I want you to be aware, I'm speaking out for all those mom and pop landlords who are not slum lords. They're your local people, generations of people who fought to own a home here and they don't deserve you to just adopt an ordinance and I voted for all of you. So I'm paying attention. We're paying attention. I am your constituent. Thank you. Hello, my name is Alayna Kohn and I'd like to start out by thanking you for your statements at the beginning about rules of civility and respect. I think it's a really important first step to try to heal some of the problems that existed so deeply with the last election. And so towards that end, I actually encourage, I think that the options suggested about community input in the agenda report were very helpful. I actually would like to suggest support for the mediation approach. I'm concerned that the task force in terms of how it's going to be selected may create problems. I'm concerned about the quality of the surveys. I had participated in programs in the summer where Santa Cruz together representatives met with the city representatives and I wish that the yes on M people had participated too. And I really encourage that approach as a way to try to resolve this problem respectfully. I'm glad to hear about the ADU exemption continues. I'd like to see that continue. And then lastly, I just think it's really important that we all try to improve building affordable housing and I'm concerned that this interim measure will actually discourage that. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Deborah Wallace and I am a housing provider as well as a property manager. Since last February, our housing supply has been significantly reduced as a direct result of the emergency rental provisions adopted by the previous council prior to the voters defeating Measure M. Many owners either sold their properties or withdrew them from the supply of rentals. It is my hope that the new council does not further reduce our existing housing supply by passing this counterproductive ordinance, which reads very much like Measure M. What you are currently proposing will cause even more owners to remove their rentals from the market. Your homes will be sold or left vacant. This is permitted under state law and nothing compels owners to continue to offer their properties for rent. You should be doing everything you can to encourage mom and pop housing providers to stay in the market, not withdraw from it. Investors and developers should be encouraged not to scourge from owning rental properties. We need more rentals, not fewer. Fewer rentals equals higher rents. The laws of supply and demand apply here just like everywhere else. A large majority of people have spoken loudly and clearly on this issue, and it is time for you to listen. Thank you. Good evening, my name's Mike Marcus. I was born in Santa Cruz. I've lived here all my life. I'm a homeowner in a landlord. We have talked about loving Santa Cruz. I don't love it so much anymore. This has been really, really bad on our family, the stress that's caused. When no one am means no one am. I just don't understand it. The democracy is not working. So to get to the point, I wanted to retire, worked here all my life. I'm gonna sell my home. And move somewhere else. Thank you. Okay, excuse me. We have a chance to hear from every person one by one, and now it's your turn to speak. Thank you. My name's Paul Coonsy. I'm a rental property owner. I kind of have to echo the same assessment I want out.  It's hard enough to be a good landlord. This just makes it impossible. I recommend you guys look at the New York City Rand Institute study. The MIT of 1970, the 1995 study of MIT from MIT of rent control in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the 2017 study in a Sanford Graduate School of Business. They all basically say the same thing. You can get two economists, economists are wildly opinionated. You can put two of them in a room, ask them the same question, and get six different answers, but most economists agree rent control is bad. I would like to suggest a solution. One of the problems we have is, or micro homes would be sustainable. I would like to suggest that we put a college program together where the students get to build their own home, where they actually get to live in it while they're at going to school. I think it'd be a phenomenal program. The second part to this is I work in a construction type industry. We have an impossible time to get anyone who knows left from right of a hammer. I mean, these aren't skills that are taught anymore. To get a handyman around here is near impossible because there's just so few of them out there.  But I hope my points come across. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your time. Hello, council. My name is Julian Prino Stoll, and I am the co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, Santa Cruz. Today, this council has an opportunity to initiate a democratic and expert-informed process to enact long-overdue tenant protections. You could do this by creating an advisory committee that would provide recommendations for effective rent stabilization and just cause protections and to protect tenants in the long term. Meeting times should be advertised and accessible for working people. Its composition should include representation for students, proportional representation for tenants, and reflect the racial diversity of Santa Cruz. As an organizer, I know how essential good facilitation is to running a good meeting. That's why it is so important that this committee makes use of a professional facilitator to keep this urgent work moving and to craft the best policy recommendations possible. Additionally, I would like to say that strong just cause eviction is necessary for preventing evictions in the meantime, and removing the exemption proposed by former council member Naroyan would make just cause much better. All of this, of course, assumes that the opponents of Measure M were serious when they said that they want to wipe away the battle lines that have been drawn in our community. So demands to recall council members or to run a referendum on any policy which has been passed by this council would be done in bad faith, and it would be a shame to see such hypocrisy. Let's remember that no community process will let us hear from all those who have been displaced in the city. Although they are not here tonight, I ask you to do your best to hear them. Greetings council and staff, thank you for all of your input on this. I'm Marvin Christie, I was born and raised in Santa Cruz. I am involved in the housing industry and I'm very passionate about this subject. I'm also very saddened by the divisive nature of this current dialogue. I think you guys have a big task ahead of you and I'm looking forward to seeing how it all comes out. I'd like to be a part of the solution. Unfortunately, I'm seeing firsthand the tenants that are being hurt, the great landlords who are being hurt. This just cause is not helpful for anyone. It's not helpful for either side. It helps a few, very few tenants and it hurts everybody else. I really hope you take that seriously. I hope you put back in the exemptions for owners who live on site. It's a huge thing. ADUs are a great asset to this community and you just don't hear about them anymore. No one's building them. Why would you? It's crazy. You have to do something about it. The statistics, I'd love to know the statistics. I'd love it if someone could come up with those statistics. How many were built before this proposition and how many are being proposed now? How many permits are being pulled? I'd love to know that. That's something you guys need to know. Need to know what the effects are of the current conversation. I do look forward to finding and expanding common ground. I hope that this works and I think you guys have a huge task ahead of you and I hope you can bring both sides together. Thank you. My name is Gerhard John Phillip and you might not like what I have to say. I don't get any part of the just cause of eviction. And the reason I don't like it is in my opinion it's unconstitutional. I think you should talk to your city attorney. I think the ex post facto criminal law is banned in all legislatures everywhere in the United States and the fact that you may not prosecute people makes it just sort of a threat that you're issuing, but you're not going to go through it because you know you'll lose. And the other unconstitutional part of the ex post facto nature is the contract clause which says you cannot interfere with a contract. So if a landlord gives notice in that retroactive period, that becomes an obligation of the tenant to move on that date. And if you're dangling money in front of the tenant saying sue the landlord, sue the landlord, well if they do it, they're going to turn around and sue the city. And you have no idea what you're doing. You don't know what's in those contracts. You don't know how many people will bring suit.  Okay, that's one thing I don't like about it. I also don't like the whole idea that landlords. Thank you for your time. That time? Yeah, it's time. They're Watkins, city council members, members of the community. My name is Tom Powers. I am a homeowner. My wife and I also own a duplex in Santa Cruz. Like many people I've been on both sides have come up through the ranks going from moving out from home to renting a house with four of my friends right off of Ocean Street. Working hard to many different jobs, going to school. Working really, really hard just to achieve the dream of home ownership with zero help from family. And just doing it just on my own, so me and my wife on our own. So anyway, so it's really, really disconcerting and it's been so polarizing. It's turned into an us versus them where the supporters at Measure M have pretty much categorized all landlords as greedy, scum-sucking, scum of the earth. Basically looking to raise rents at every opportunity. I think that's really an unfair portrayal of landlords. I think most landlords are mom and pop landlords and care about the community and basically as most tenants are good. So it's a symbiotic relationship. As a landlord, we need good tenants and as a renter, you need a nice place to live. So I think what we need to do is come together and come up with reasonable solutions other than just trying to ram down our throat, just cause eviction, which the voters resoundingly rejected. Thank you. Hey, Tony. My name is Randy Strong and I've lived here over 30 years, raised my kids here in this community. And we've worked really hard to build our home in Santa Cruz. I started out as a carpenter at $18 an hour, built our first home, and we tore it apart from scratch and raised our kids in this home for 20-some-odd years. That then became a rental to provide for another beautiful family. They were there for seven years and we treated them fairly. And unfortunately for us, the house took on a totally different shape during that seven years. The house was completely changed on the inside, the exterior was totally demolished. And changed from what we had, which was the nicest home in the block, became what was not the nicest home in the block. And so anyway, with that in mind, we opposed to wanting to be a landlord again. Because of course, the big expense of restoring this property. So I now have moved my kids into this house, which is now off the market. I apologize for that, but it is. We have other rental properties and we are very, all our rental properties outside the community, outside this community are below market value. We rent to an elderly, we rent to another business, and those costs are well below. The problem with that now is to fix up that home and to keep it looking good. Thank you. My name is Dave and I live near the university. And I want to state that if you want to address the issue of rent increases, you need to build more houses, specifically for the students. What I'm saying is- Okay, go ahead. I don't want to distract from your time. You can go ahead and speak now, go ahead. You need to address housing by building more houses, specifically for the students. And the only renters or landlords that I've seen abusing renters are actually students that are renting houses from a landlord and then subletting to other students. Those are the ones gouging for prices. They got 12 people living in a house, three people in a garage and charging outrageous prices and profiting from it. Thank you, council. My name is Rob. I'm a lifelong Santa Cruz resident. My wife's born and raised and we have three units in Santa Cruz and we are on the teetering point right now with two bad experiences we just went through. I don't like the dialogue of villainizing landlords. We are what would be considered a mom and pop landlord that are proactively involved. Our tenants like us, we take care of issues that come up. But we just went through two nightmare evictions. One for non-payment, convicted felon after she moved in. It took us four months to get her out, cost us $14,000. I mean, it's economics 101. Where does that money come from to pay for that lost rent? So, shortly thereafter, we had another tenant that moved two dogs into the property, tore the place apart. It was a cooperative eviction. It wasn't fun, but it cost us $4,000 to put new carpet in this place after 11 months putting it in there. So I just don't like the dialogue of villainizing landlords. We're mom and pop people that have worked here. I've been gainfully employed since I was 13 years old and Santa Cruz, my wife's worked here. We've worked hard to save money, to have a couple rentals to help us in our retirement. And I think it's wrong to villainize landlords in this whole process and you need to bring people together to work together. So that's what I encourage you guys to do and not throw the baby out of the bath water and just assume all landlords are bad. Thank you. My name is Elizabeth Walsh and I'm a 25 year resident of Santa Cruz County. And I've been managing multi-family housing for 32 years in Mountain View. And we have rent control and it's destroyed the community. And it started just like this, with an emergency just cause eviction ordinance. And it was a slippery slope and it didn't work. And my tenants, who I love, who I've had for 20, 30, I've had tenants who have been there for 35 years because I treat them well and they've turned on me because pro bono attorneys have taken them over and promised them no rent increases. And I can't pay the bills because my buildings are older and I can no longer do the things that need to be done in my buildings. I built a little multi-family housing unit over here hoping I wouldn't be around Mountain View. Even though I had to keep managing over there and now it's followed me. It is a Trojan horse. It will ruin your community. It will become divisive between tenants and landlords. It's not the way to solve the problem. Supply and demand is the only solution to this. We have a housing shortage and we cannot fix it on the backs of landlords. It's a community problem. The landlord should not be required to fix it. And please take that into consideration. This will not work. Thank you. Hello, my name is Matt. I'm a homeowner here in Santa Cruz, relatively new homeowner. My wife, born and raised in the Seabright area. I'm here today to encourage you not to implement the just cause ordinance. I took the time today to tediously read through the 510 pages of public correspondence published on the city's website in response to this matter. I counted all 489 emails sent to the council and of those emails, 474 emails specifically urged the council not to enact the just cause ordinance. That's 96% of the 13 emails calling for rent control protections. Few of them actually identified. You can go ahead and start. I just want to let you know when, please just allow him to speak so that his time is his time and every individual who wants to speak will have their time as well. So please go ahead. The 13 emails calling for rent control protections. Few of them actually identified just cause evictions ordinances, which is what we're reviewing today. Instead focusing on the high cost of rent and rent increases, which is a separate matter. Are you listening to the community that you represent? Renters and landlords all want a stable environment, but how can this happen when the rules keep changing? Council previously instituted a mandatory rent freeze that was supposed to expire after the election if Measure M didn't pass. It didn't and now we're here reviewing the same language that was opposed placing controls on one's property. I believe that some limit on rent increase is something that we can work together and work through and be agreed upon. But the just cause eviction language copied and pasted verbatim for Measure M is some of the most divisive for the community by hastily invoking major controls over one's property. Retroactively denying a homeowner move in if a tenant has rented for five years is ludicrous. The end date. Thank you. Hello, my name is Robert Corvors. I'm a tenant here in Santa Cruz and I want to applaud the council for starting this session by proposing a community process to protect tenants and to protect the community and stabilize the community from the kinds of effects that we get when there's high tenant turnover and when tenants don't feel like they can even be a part of this community. So I applaud you for that. I don't have that much faith that a consensus will be easily reached and there are two reasons for that. One, because we're talking about a consensus that would naturally include tenants, but I don't see a lot of tenants in the room and I suspect that's because tenants don't currently feel protected enough to even engage in a process like this. I don't think you can have a process like the one that's proposed without an interim ordinance that protects tenants. Two, I hear a lot of landlords as well as other people saying time and time again throughout the election season. Well, I would support tenant protections. I would support rent control, but not this. I would tweak it like this. I would change it like that. And yet every time the same people come up here and try out the same talking points, regardless of what's actually under consideration by the way, and oppose every effort to protect tenants. So I don't think some of the people who are participating are participating in good faith, but I do believe in the council that was elected. I do think I know what your values are. If not, everyone shares those values in this community. And so I hope you will do what you were elected to do. Next speaker. Thank you. And my name is Mark Agnello. And I grew up here. I went to Santa Cruz High School. Lifeguard with Tom who was just up here on the main beach 16 years and went through the nursing program, Gabriel. And I was able to get a rental. And I just wanted to reiterate is my understanding that the council is poised to adopt almost all the extreme provisions and measure in the voters rejected by over 60% just last fall. As a constituent, I expect the council to remember and respect the majority's vote and not force through new rent control or just cause eviction measures without having public discussions with, you know, we're doing. However, it's my understanding that the city council, council plans December 4th established to require the landlords to give tenants 90 days warning before evicting them due to litigation. And, you know, I only donated 20 bucks to, you know, the measure against them. But I have a pretty good feeling that almost everyone that's come up here is willing to donate like I'm willing to donate 200 bucks right now for litigation. And I just hate to see it go that way. But you know what? I feel, you know, there's no doubt it will that we voted. We can vote again. But if we vote and you guys turn it over, you know, what are we going to do, right? I'm, yeah, I'm complete. All right, our next speaker please. Hi there, my name is Stacy Falls. I'm a renter in the city of Santa Cruz. It's a little hard for me to be up here right now to talk about rental issues because less than a week ago I was served a notice to vacate my home of 12 years. And, man, 12 years, you know, we've planted gardens, we've planted fruit trees five days before I got the notice I buried my cat in the backyard. So, you know, like I would love to buy a house and set down roots and know that a 30-year mortgage is going to protect me and allow me the luxury of being able to have a stable life. But I, who can afford, who can afford 20% down when the average housing price is $900,000? I can't, I'm a teacher. I can't afford that. So the best I can do is rent and rent from a good landlord. My landlord probably would have told you that she's a good landlord and she takes care of her tenants. Less than a year ago she told me she had no intention of evicting me and that she cares about having stable responsible renters and that she cares about having stable community members and that, you know, having good teachers is important to her. And here I am, I'm out of a house. What do I do? You know, what are we going to do? What are you going to do for me? So, you know, please pass this so that we can have a community conversation without people like me being in fear of retaliation for speaking out. And please get rid of the, like, sole rental property exemption. My landlord only owns one property, but she is not struggling. She owns two properties worth over $2 million in this town. She can handle it. Thank you. Excuse me. I want to just again remind everybody that each person has their time to speak. And we will hear from everybody who wants to speak here this evening and to allow the person to speak without any disruption. I sincerely ask you to please do that. So, go ahead. My name is Dave Willis. And what I've been hearing is like a lot of words. Like, it's obvious to me that some people do not know or understand how serious this problem is, like talking about hiring somebody as a consultant.  And if you don't already have that information, after all of these years, look outside the window. The problem is here, it's now. You want to pay somebody, you've got activists, pay them. This is how I see it. You get seven people, one from each category or three. And you, let's say like you have three homeless advocates, three from the other side and one person in the neutral. Get them in the room. Let them come up with some writings because I'm figuring that we can all get along and we can be smart enough to figure something out. And we need action now. Yesterday, people are hurting. They're hurting. Now, we walk around with worries. We don't need those worries. Let us put something else positive in here without emotion. People going to the moon, et cetera. People should be smart enough. We don't need nobody be talking about consulting two weeks, three weeks or three months. We need action now. Thank you. Thank you. A preschool teacher and a renter for over a year and a half since I moved to Santa Cruz, I have lived in fear. Fear that kept me from speaking up till now. My old landlord, who I lived with, had mental issues. Something I never knew until recently. So I never knew who I was going home to. Yeah, I did know who I had to go home to harassment and his messes, which he demanded my roommates and I to clean up after him. I am here to urge you to support just cause of eviction so others don't have to live with that kind of living situation due to current renting laws or even face eviction threats because one does not have good vibes to the house. Welcome new council members and congratulations to our new mayor and vice mayor. My name is Carol Paul Hamas and I also was a single parent who worked two jobs to buy my house and was lucky enough to build an EDU for my parents for the end of their lives, which I now run out as a single rental to a UCSC professor. I also worked for the County Office of Education developing career training programs for at-risk youth. We made tons of decisions about changing programs. We never made any decision in the absence of data. The city does not have any data on actual rent increases. I'm not talking about Zillow. I'm talking about real data on actual current tendencies as well as new ones. There is also no data on evictions. City council previously voted against conducting a study of the potential impacts of the passage of measure M and when discussing rent stabilization just prior to the election council's decision was to wait and let the voters decide. Well, the voters did decide. And now in spite of election results that rejected measure M2 to 1 you're still considering just cause evictions, which in my opinion was the primary reason M failed in the first place. Making laws in the absence of data results in bad legislation with unintended consequences and will set up the city for expensive litigation. The overarching goal is to increase the availability and affordability of housing. Don't lose sight of that. If you continue to alienate housing providers Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Next speaker. So Bula Bula, which is a Pacific Islander ceremonial term for the Kava ceremony, which I've now been a part of this week. Well, I do enjoy smoking camels in the pinch. I'm definitely a Marlboro man. Marlboro headquarters now has $4 discounts. Every Sunday it is. I think it is every week on your phone. PayPal, Apple, e-pal, whatever. You can get $4 and Marlboro discounts. The word exemptions really in my experience with government service brings back memories of you have no idea how big a meeting can be with the FAA. None. A very impressive picture would be to go like Google Images FAA meeting and you will be stunned at the machinery that is represented in a FAA meeting. Anyway, that goes back to my years of Colonel Comer right after Y2K. Really what I want to talk about in my 17 seconds is that it's so great working for a lawyer as a boss. Debutant status really is not the issue. The issue is what was done in law school. When your boss is a great lawyer, everything gets so much easier. My name is Henry Lopez. I have a friend named Greg Nielsen. I have a friend named Greg Nielsen in Oregon. I never knew the guy. I never met the guy in my life, but one time I had money in my parking and stuff, but my friend broke his wrist working for him. I decided to help him because I felt bad for his wrist.  It doesn't matter what kind of job it is. Then this guy was actually getting evicted at a 30-day notice. He had lived there for 30 years. His whole lifestyle was just totally natural straight from Hawaii, which was cool. When I first seen him and met him, he was just so pleased to have someone actually there to help him move his stuff. And some people don't have money here to move their stuff. And I watched his body. I don't know if you've ever seen someone's chest plate break and their heart stick out of it from the actual pain that they feel from losing everything their love and that energy just being ripped away from them at one moment. When I visualized that, I gave him a hug and I felt his chest click. I felt his heart heal. And honestly, if all these people are going to be gone and lost, that's what they're feeling. Thank you. Hello, my name is Tom Donahue. When I urged the city council to pass the ordinance, but in order to ensure that tenants have equal protection under the law, the single property exemption must be removed. The purpose of this ordinance is to protect tenants, not their landlords, who already hold all the power in that relationship. This exemption would give those landlords free license to upend their tenants' lives, most often for no other reason than to take in even greater profits. And there's been a lot of talk about the supply problem. Well, if you really want to address that, then the city needs to address the fact that too much of the housing supply is being artificially restricted by rampant speculation in the housing market, which is consuming what little available supply there is to be used for something other than its intended purpose, as a shelter for human beings. Far too many homes and rental units are being kept off the market because that restricted supply drives prices higher.  Essentially, housing providers are threatening to exacerbate this crisis if they don't get their way so they can keep their renters on a puppet string. I agree that we need more respect. Respect for tenants' rights, including the right to live in a stable, affordable environment, as well as their property rights to not be built out of their last dollar every month. And if you want statistics, my rent increased 30% in four years. I have now been forced to move and pay $200 a month more than that in order to avoid another $560 rent increase, which my landlord is putting the unit up for rent for now. Evening, Councilmembers, my name is Rick Longinati. I was named to the Water Supply Advisory Committee at a time when it was a really contentious issue around desalination in this city. And those 14 members were stakeholders from pro, desal, anti-desal, business community, environmental community, and other residents of our city. A lot of people didn't think that there was much hope from that committee of reaching any kind of agreement. My group included, we were the Alternates to Desalination Group. There was a lot of skepticism as to what could come out of it. We were unanimous in our conclusion out of that committee and our recommendations to the City Council, which were then adopted. Something kind of magical happened and it needed professional facilitation in order to do that. That's a really important ingredient for success and what you're considering tonight. It needed expert staffing. I would suggest to you that if you're going to do a task force to protect tenants, that you get expertise in how to do that. And be able to inform that committee and the public about what is done elsewhere, what different kinds of innovative things can be done so that we can have a homegrown version of a tenant protection sale of recommendations to come back to you. Thank you very much. Hello, my name is Michael Levy and I have lived in Santa Cruz since 1979. Most of that time as a renter I recently was able to buy a mobile home but I understand the vulnerability of being a renter, especially now in this market. And it's clear that something needs to be done to protect renters. And it's, I would like to address one point that's been raised, which is that the thing that can help renters is has something to do with supply and demand. I wish that were the case but I don't think it's true. Housing gets built very slowly in this community. There are many, many people that need housing and cannot afford it here. And the idea that housing, especially because most housing that gets built is not affordable and we have not been able to change that yet, it's never going to correct the problem purely by supply and demand. So we need some kind of regulation to protect renters. I think that in this situation that we find ourselves in, which is extremely complex, there's no way to have, there's no simple solution to this. We need an intelligent body such as a task force to study this and to take input from landlords as well as tenants and other stakeholders into consideration. I support what the last speaker said about something similar to the water supply advisory committee with professional facilitation. Thank you. Members of the community and city council, we've heard about the need for data and I think that's certainly clear. How many evictions, how many, the real issue for me is how high have our good mom and Poc landlords raised their rent in the last few years? Surely the people in this audience who honestly have that information can give it to us and yet not one landlord has been specific about that. Now this committee needs to find out just what's going on around that issue. What are the real costs that landlords claim justify eviction raises? I'm sure there are real costs, but we haven't heard any specific stats given about the reasons justifying the rent raises in the last few years. So if there is such a huge hardship here, it needs to be documented. And I think that this commission, if that's what you're doing, needs to do that. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Steve Snar. I've been a renter in Santa Cruz since 2001. I was served with an eviction notice last week. It is definitely an immediate need for lots of renters as it has been for years to have eviction protections and just cause eviction. Just saying the words doesn't make it the same if you formulate it in a different way than Measure M. So I hope that you pass these temporary ones and work with a task force bringing a lot of diverse people together to have a long-term solution. I also wanted to comment. I appreciate, Mayor and Vice Mayor, your opening to this and calling for civility and all that. I understand and hosting a public meeting.  But it also struck me to hear about that we all need to have respect for each other. And we all need to be able to feel safe and part of the community because I don't feel like that as a renter. And I think thousands of other people who are renters don't feel that. And Measure M, I was a part of that. Nobody said all landlords are bad. No one said that. No one said this was an attack on landlords. It was about protecting tenants because they need protection. And mom and pop landlords are not the victim here. They have much more power and money. We need to bring all the sides together. We also need to be realistic that there's some fundamentally different interests there. And I hope that at the end of the day some form of protection that both keeps costs down and protects people like me against arbitrary evictions is passed. Hi. Good evening, council. My name is Clayton. I am a renter in Santa Cruz. And so Prop 10 passed within the city by a majority and Measure M failed. What does this mean? This means that people support rent control, but just every person had some specific reason that they didn't like Measure M. So how do we fix that? We go in with the pieces of Measure M one at a time on a temporary basis just like this. We pass and we, you know, see how they work, see what people actually do, see how people react. And then we can figure out like, okay, how does it actually affect the supply, the market, etc. So we do pieces one at a time until we get something that doesn't work, then we repeal that. We don't just reject the idea of rent control. Another thing I wanted to point out is about this issue of reducing the housing stock. We don't really care about the housing stock because we want a certain number of units. If we remove everybody who currently lives in them, right, if we sacrifice the people who live here now by letting them be evicted for no reason, then there's really no point in keeping that rental on the market for some new person. It's exactly as damaging as if we took it off the market and sold it to somebody. So it's important we keep that in mind. The people who actually live in those units now are being evicted. They're being replaced by someone else. That would be the same no matter whether it was removed from the market or whether they just got evicted normally. So we'll have making it so they aren't evicted. Thank you. Sorry, we had a we had a thing, but your time is up now. Thank you. Hi, my name is Abby Samuels. I would like to give you respect. You mentioned that in your when you were put your openings speech or acceptance, whatever you want to call it. You mentioned it twice. So I know this is important for you. So I'm wondering if you could let people finish their sentences or their paragraphs when their pair buzzer goes off. That would be very respectful, especially since our time has been reduced to one and a half minutes. I would love to be respectful. I'm wondering since this is a known heated topic and a lot of people would show up, I believe it would be more respectful to have to have been prepared. And instead of kicking almost everyone out and separating us into the inside outside in the civic that maybe we could all be in the same room and prepare that would be extremely respectful. And there's a lot of people who aren't in this room that are outside as you can hear that are renters that are more poor because they have jobs or they can't they don't have time to sit around and get here at 6 p.m. So they can get here early. I'm a renter and I'm not poor. I tried buying a house though and was priced out by cash offers selling over the offer price. So I'm for the just cause eviction. I just have one issue that you brought up Justin about the nuisance complaint. My neighbor has been bringing up a lot of he's been trying to get me evicted and now I can't finish my paragraph. Thank you. Okay. Next speaker please. Hi, my name is Neil Langholz. Excuse me. Can you pause the time? Yes please. If you if you don't mind adjusting the microphone. My name is Neil Langholz. Voters opposed draconian measure M by nearly two to one. Just cause evictions are the most problematic and objectionable part of measure M by passing just cause evictions. The city council is abusing its power and ignoring the will of the people. This reckless action will create more uncertainty in the rental housing market and will accelerate the loss of rental housing already underway. And the correspondence to the council and mhj proponent describes losing her rental house. An owner who rented her house for years now chooses to exit the rental business and the home will likely be sold to an owner occupant. Had it not been for measure M, she may not be in this predicament. California state law permits people to exit the rental business by selling rentals. The city council cannot do anything to change that. Those behind the extreme rental laws are in fact going to hurt more renters than they help. According to the city of Santa Cruz housing element, renters depend on 8,000 rental houses. These can be converted to owner occupied use. The city has no ability to stop the evictions for the purpose of withdrawing from the rental market. Passing measure M will cause more of these evictions and the city council will be responsible. Thank you. Next speaker please. Good evening, Mayor Watkins and members of the new council. My name is Brennan and I'm here tonight in strong support of the temporary just cause ordinance before you. And that is enough. In the last few months we've seen far too many people thrown out of their homes in this city. I know tenants who have been evicted as obvious retaliation for their work for measure M as well as tenants of all political persuasions who have been confronted with crushing rent increases or eviction notices since the expiration of the temporary rent freeze back in December. While we work on long-term measures to address the housing crisis, keeping the status quo is simply not an acceptable option. The status quo is not working for tenants who every day are waiting for an eviction notice on their door in their mailbox. It's not working for students who plunge themselves into debt just to literally live in a room in this city until graduation hurting our mental health and academics. It's not working for seniors and people on fixed incomes who have no place else to go when evicted and can't just get a job or move away from their support services. The list goes on. This temporary just cause ordinance while it's obviously not a permanent fix will change that status quo enough to actually afford some meaningful protection to myself and all the tenants who are speaking to you tonight. Enough is enough. Let's pass this ordinance. And please think twice before you propose or adopt any weakening amendments that will leave tenants vulnerable. Please vote yes. Thank you. Hello, my name is Robert McNeil, homeowner here in Santa Cruz with an ADU that is currently not rented. So with all due respect, I really have to say that I feel it's really unconscionable that City Council is trying to go against the will of Santa Cruz community that's overwhelmingly expressed their opinion. Feel like it's something that basically makes me question the overall intention of what's going on. So I feel personally, you know, uncomfortable about that. And despite, you know, any moral ethical comments I could make, I mean, really realistically what it comes down to is economics at this level.  I'm going to make sure that I extremely selective of who I do and only, you know, rent to people that are willing to pay the most amount of money. So, I mean, overwhelmingly, despite all the, you know, objective evidence around it, it's definitely affecting the bottom line, the bottom line community for Santa Cruz. And, you know, it's a cottage community here. It's not some big city, you know, that we're looking at and it is, you know, homeowners that represent the largest portion of these things. And so, thank you. Good evening. My name is Mary Hesketh. We recently moved here. We had hoped to do the same thing as we did on the east coast by a property that needed a bunch of work, do that work, then rent out part of the house to help pay our mortgage. But we really are less and less inclined to do this since the Santa Cruz City Council seems bent on a mission to subsidize renters by enacting ordinances which are absolutely punitive to landlords. We are just working people like many of the renters you claim to be trying to protect. My husband is an elevator mechanic and I work on our rental properties. We can't risk the possibility the lease would essentially have no expiration date if the tenant decided they didn't want to leave. What if that tenant is just a bad fit to live in an apartment that shares a common wall in our home? Too bad. We just can't wait until the end of the legal lease and no harm, no foul go our separate ways.  So it looks very much like your decisions are influencing at least one potential rental unit to never enter the market. And I'm sure that many other potential landlords all across the city are assessing the risk involved in making the same decision and passing these ordinances you're actually going to decrease the number of housing units on the market thereby hurting the renters you desire to protect. Hi, Council. My name is Kim Fleming. I'm also a local resident here and a landlord. I'm a teacher in the community as well and I also work part-time doing art and coaching because it is a very expensive place to live. I share a property with my brother and we are opposed to the ordinance. We have some wonderful tenants and we've also had some tenants that have given us quite a bit of trouble via pets, via noise, also doing things that are nuisance to other people in the adjoining building and the building next door. And I think it is a shame it does concern us as landlords that our rights are limited as far as evicting somebody that might be harmful to other tenants and neighbors. It is making us consider withdrawing that property as well and leaving the community. We don't want to do that. I have lots of friends that are fellow teachers and students and I know there's a housing shortage but it's a big concern for us and we're definitely opposed to it. Thank you. Leaving, Council. Well, there's something really kind of tragic going on tonight and its best emblem is just what's happening. Look at this. We're all sitting with our backs to each other and we're each telling you our own best story. My partner of 60-year-old was evicted from the west side by a nice landlord. She was homeless, 60-year-old working woman therapist. She lived with me for a year until she got subsidized housing. I have my story. It's a really bad story and we've heard them tonight. And I hear the mom and pops who work really hard. My dad was one of these people so I kind of know that perspective too. Why don't we just talk to each other? I think it's wonderful that you've presented to the community the opportunity at least to talk to each other, to have the kind of task force that DSAL had where it was a really strongly, clearly structured group where they had clear professional facilitation. At least they practically were locked in the room. They had to talk to each other and they were charged with reaching consensus. They couldn't just vote. We've got to get rid of this, win-lose model in our heads. Thank you and I have more to say. My name is Curtis Rolaford.<PHONE_NUMBER>,<PHONE_NUMBER>. My concern of being here, I'm hearing a lot of money, money, money. When we cut down all these trees, pollute the ocean like it is, what are we going to talk about then? I've been down the last few days. I know where all you rentals can get some free rent down on the riverfront, down by the levee. I've been working down there with the homeless people down there. They need all the help they can get. There's free rent down there and the people who are charging these folks for this high rent. Dude, bring it down a little bit. Have some love, compassion, empathy. I haven't heard any of that up in here. Anybody love anybody? Anybody thinking about anybody else outside of money? There's a way, if you pay me 3%, I can solve this problem. Right now, all I'm bringing up in here is my heart and soul. And I heard somebody talking about a handyman. I'm a handyman. I'm a landscaper. And I'm catching all kinds of blankety blank doing this. Even serving people and helping people. Hey, you guys, we got a long ways to go. Thank you. Hi, my name is Bill Welsh. And I just want to congratulate Drew Glover and Justin Cummings. I'm winning their election to get on the City Council. I also want to say that most of the people here are well-meaning, but they were deceived by all the propaganda from the opponents of Measure M. We're talking about the California Apartment Association and the California Realtors Association. They spent over a million dollars attacking Measure M and Measure H. And a lot of what they said was a fraud, was lies, was fear. And no, it's not against the landlords. I'm not against the landlords. You're not. And I just want to say that, you know, that we all need to work together. I've seen the homeless camp, you know, up by the river. I go there.  And what we need to do is that we need to stop these evictions. We need to have rent control and then closing. I just want to urge you to pass this resolution, and thank you very much for your time. So we're in a housing crisis. There's simply not enough rental stock, not enough rentals. And I hear a lot of people removing, you hear stories about landlords removing rentals. Landlords removing rentals from the market. Just the more somebody said earlier, the more restrictions you put on rentals, the less rentals you're going to have to put restrictions on. Hi, I'm Susan Caron. I just drove from over the hill in the dark and rain to be here and speak before you tonight after spending the afternoon with a four-year-old and a six-year-old granddaughter. So if I stop my foot and glitter comes out and I wind a little bit, please excuse me. So here we are again, and I'm really not sure why this debate is continuing. The vast majority of the electorate of voters in Santa Cruz voted Measure M down. The components of rent control which carried the most controversy and divided our city are the very ones you're still trying to push forward. Why is that? We put our trust in the process, and some of you seem to be ignoring that. This causes many voters great distrust. And if you don't stop, it'll take a very long time to win that trust back and to reunify our city. I know you're tired of hearing the same messages from opposing sides on this issue. I understand that. What I hope you decide is to show some respect for the process and for the voters and to use a collaborative process to determine what is right for this issue. You have available to you scores of people who are literally experts in rental housing, whether as owners or managers, some on a small scale and some as a business, on a slightly larger scale. None of us appearing at repeated city council meetings are greedy and heartless, as characterized and criticized. We do not unjustly evict tenants. We honor the conditions and the ends of leases as required by law. Hi, my name is Sasha, and I want to appreciate everyone who's come up here and talked about coming together and listening to each other and finding a way to have consensus around this issue, because we do have a housing crisis. And I think that this ordinance will give us more time while protecting tenants to come up with some solutions and hear from both landlords and from tenants. I myself am a tenant. I supported Measure M, but I couldn't vote in it because I was living in Capitola at the time. I didn't understand how important just cause eviction protection was till the end of October when I myself also received an eviction. And our landlord told us many times we were the most incredible tenants. When he evicted us, he said we were like family, which is funny. It was really stressful. It was really hard to move during the holidays as well. And another point is the market. We were there for five and a half years. The market then and now was so different. And so anytime people are getting evicted, it causes hardship. It causes a lot of stress. We're paying almost $700 more than we were paying a couple months ago. And so it's a real challenge. And I just want to say that I would love for this to pass just so that we have time to hear from everyone in this community and find solutions. Thank you. I'm Daryl Darling. I am fully conscious of the fact that this ordinance was passed because we were facing a housing crisis passed by the council that just concluded their terms. And it's carried over in order to stabilize until we are able to improve on the problems that Measure M had. I was a signer on the ballot measure. I'm proud to have signed that. I fully recognized difficulties that that measure had. But the crisis and the potential inaction really overtook my reluctance to sign Measure M. I'm confident that this council has heard what you need to hear. We'll move forward judiciously and fairly. And I'm confident of this city to likewise move forward with genuine care and creativity. Congratulations on your elections. The two of you were elected specifically on Measure M. That means the community really wanted action on the housing crisis. Thank you. If I can't, Bonnie, before we get going, I wanted to see who is still interested in speaking at this time. Okay. I just wanted to make sure I know that we have some folks in the Tony Hill room. If there's not a whole bunch there, please let them know they'd be welcome to come fill in. Okay. Okay, Bonnie, we'll go ahead and restart the time. Thank you. My name is Ben, and I would like to just thank you for the opportunity to talk. And I just had made some observations. And it seems like generally there's a lot of fear around this issue, because everyone just wants a nice place to live, somewhere to call home. And both for renters and landlords. And something that I did keep hearing for people who are against this ordinance. Where that they have had issues with evicting problem tenants. And I just wanted to remind everyone that this isn't going to make that more difficult. If there is just cause, you can evict a tenant. It's only trying to protect people who just want a home. That's all. Hi, everybody. My name is Danny. I grew up in Santa Cruz, born and raised, as they say. So I've been listening tonight. And again, like I say this every time I speak here, it's really jarring listening to a lot of people come up and speak with a lot of flowery language directly to protect their profits and protect their property.  Like there's just such a difference between those two kinds of public comment. And it's really tough to see that. So I obviously support this just cause eviction proposal, because we're about to engage in a mediation process, which I also support a process to create some kind of rent control measure. And we have to fix the deeply unequal power dynamics that are currently in play here if we want to have a real process to build something that works for everyone. If you look tonight, there's a lot of landlords here and probably a lot less tenants, because it's not safe for us. And if it's not safe for us to come speak somewhere like this, how are we going to engage in a process? How, when they have all of this leverage over our lives, I don't see how it's possible for that to be fair. And I think that's deeply related to the election we just had. No one's mentioning how the opposition to measure M put almost $800,000 down in a city of 35,000 voters. I have a lot of friends that do organizing in Illinois, and they don't, even in Chicago, the middle of Chicago, they don't deal with ratios like that, of that much money against that much voters. So I don't see how that is actually a democratic process that we should respect. Hello, council. My name's Owen. I obviously am also, I also live in San Cruz. I'm a tenant. I'm also an organizer. And my main political focus is in attempting to reduce harm in this community. So keeping that in mind, if I had to choose between policy that keeps somebody in their home, keeps them from being arbitrarily evicted, or protects someone from getting their flooring damaged, I would choose a policy that keeps someone in their home. Luckily, in the case of the ordinance in question tonight, those two things aren't mutually exclusive. There's an exemption in the case of material damage to the property, which would allow for that person to be evicted. And so keeping that in mind, I think we need to step into this decision-making process ethically. When it comes to mediating, competing interests, we need to keep in mind which party bears the greatest degree of harm. Tenants in this community are hurting. We know this. We know that there is an asymmetrical relationship that tenants are hurting generally more than homeowners. All right, so over mediating between those two competing interests, we need to side on the group that is hurting the most. So listen to tenants and make your decisions accordingly. Hi there, my name is Liv. I'm with Students United with Renters. We've heard a lot tonight, really sad stories from landowners, landlords who are sad because their right to profit and their income is be