ction so a few bonnie would put up the slides i know i gave you an eye chart there on the uh slides i handed out um the slides will be up on the board this is item this is an item that um i'm bringing forward to that item 18 what's that Steve yeah i think they're high-fiving high-fiving or sewer replacements better if they did it right here it's great that matched up with the wastewater treatment plan yeah that's true okay thank you okay agenda item 18 is a consideration of the direct elect mayor and election by district and there's i don't have a i don't have a just tell you you can just i'll go like this next slide um there's eight slides and this is just brief and it coincides with the agenda report as all of you know you know we have a city charter that governs our our municipal affairs it's kind of like our city constitution and established the roles and responsibility of not only the the council the city manager but also the process for our elections we can establish new procedures through the charter for selecting the officers such as a directly elected mayor we can also direct changes to recommend at large or district elections we currently have an at large election in the state we've seen a series of bills that have made it easier for local governments to transition from at large to district-based elections there was just a recent article in today's paper what was going on in Santa Clara we've seen that also in states up on our cities up on the peninsula as well where there's been challenges to the voting systems this is an opportunity really to have a discussion with the council about our current system we had at our last budget meeting a pretty lengthy discussion about the role of the mayor and the council members as well as the salary that is assigned in this role in terms of the changes in the demographics of people that are serving in office we've had a lot more working folks that have been serving on council than in the past I think we've seen more people that that do hold a full-time job many of us already have family and so it does create these work life balances in terms of those that want to serve in our community currently the mayor selected by a majority of the city council from among currently serving council members and oftentimes when I speak with people in the public they they're not aware of the process in terms of how the mayor so this is also a part to kind of share that when we do have rotations it takes place over each year we have a change over the takes place each year and really in the near in the most recent time we've moved to a two-year work plan where we've actually set up a process where we have council priorities they're identified and over the two-year work plan we are as council members manage those priorities we have now a process where we have the mayor will change mid-year and though it doesn't really have the opportunity to have a continuity in terms of oversight of the priorities that have been identified by the current council and an opportunity to directly engage in terms of making sure that there's some accountability in terms of the results that take place and so the this is kind of taking that into account of recent changes we've we've had as a council to have more of a kind of a two-year work plan that looks at prioritization of outcomes and having someone that's directly responsible for kind of managing those implementation and nurturing kind of good results so when you are put in the mayor's shade there is really a there's limited direct allocation of resources or staff time you don't have any new resources that are really provided to you or staff and so it does result in different challenges in terms of one meeting constituents expectations in regard to some of the external roles you play in terms of meetings but also in terms of directly kind of influencing some of the work that's taking place and ensuring that we're getting the results that the community has requested and also the council has directed in terms of policy actions so again there is no staff no budget that's technically aside in the mayor's position and there's also as I mentioned an increased need to really retain and attract people to serve in public office and I think this is really something with a nod to that there's a need to kind of look at maybe the current structure with a mindset of moving forward perhaps those that have served in the past that might have been retired or you know might have independent wealth to serve it excludes some that that may need to work or have families and are unable to balance kind of some of the time commitments that are required to serve in office another piece of the of the agenda report talks about the selection of the council members in the city charger it discusses the process where there's an at-large election and again all the council members are voted from the city at large and for those of us that are up here know that you know even though we're about which we mentioned earlier population about 68 000 there are so there's so much diversity in our city and walking the neighborhoods when you go door-to-door canvassing during the election you you see first town you know the scope and issues that community members have in each of our neighborhoods you're seeing also at the state level there's been a kind of a movement towards look at these district elections back in 2003 the california voters rock voting rights act became law making fundamental changes to voting rights in the state and then more recently in january 1st 2017 there was some changes at the state legislature to encourage processes to move from at large to district elections there is one in particular the safe harbor provision is when there is kind of a challenge to the current election process like we've seen in other cities nearby recently to say that it provides a process so you can avoid any sort of litigation costs when you are challenged in the current election process so that leads to this discussion about consideration of our current system of at large some will say advocates of at large argue that it's governance improved when elected officials answer to the entire community and they also contend that officials elected by districts tend to have too much influence over decisions affecting a smaller neighborhood or district and that districts and district elections encourage deal making across different groups and then others say that districts are unnecessary in small cities like ours where it's relatively easy and inexpensive to reach out to the entire electorate I know in the past we've seen questions about the cost of elections here in the city by some and knowing that there is a certain but even though it may seem small there is nonetheless a cost for people that run for office to serve here that that should be taken into account you know from district elections there's two different types of you know elections that could be looked at when you look at how you can move from an at large one is from district election where you have each can't council member elected by voters from the entire city but the city is divided into districts and each council member must reside within that particular district for office it's kind of a heart hybrid system that provides assurances of geographical representation and also promotes some city-wide decision making looking at the best interests of the city and then the by district election is where you have similar to what's exists right now for the county board of supervisors where you have a city divided into districts and one council member is elected from each district by the registered voters residing in that particular district you know advocates will argue that the officials elected by district are more responsive to the constituents in the in their district and also that they voting makes it easier for members of protected classes to elect candidates of their choice within those particular parts of the city so when we think about the composition of the council I mean you see in some areas that you know there are fewer council members in certain cities where you have elected representation and I know when we talked about during the budget hearing about the idea of that current level of compensation in council members you know one it might be that if you look to movement in terms of the size or if there's budgetary concerns or representational issues you could look at having a five-member council with a direct elected mayor that helps to kind of mitigate what the what any sort of financial impacts there may be and then also when you think about this there could be a public evaluation of proposed revisions to the charter where you could look at not just the the idea of a direct elected mayor or some sort of by-district election but the idea of you know what are some of the authority that comes with that in terms of staffing or other support that might be granted to the mayor or how the council approaches its job so I laid out in the agenda report some you know recommendations it's really the question is whether the city of Santa Cruz should have a directly elected mayor including the term and any applicable term limits or whether the city of Santa Cruz should transition from its at-large elections by district elections and really this is a request for an advisory measure it's not even looking at kind of direct changes it's really to kind of spur a discussion about how we're currently operate as a council you know how we can kind of encourage greater accountability for the work we're doing in our policy and where we might look to seek changes to address some of the expressed issues that we've heard even during our last budget meeting about the job of the council member in this day and age and how we can maybe have you know some resources available to make sure that those of us that you know that work and have families can make sure that we're being effective in our job and also able to meet the needs of the public in getting the types of desired outcomes so I suggested in the agenda report some possible motion language in regards to the preparation of an advisory ballot measure and associate resolutions for the June 26 council meeting and a recommendation to call for the election to let city voters make the recommendation of whether the city of Santa Cruz should have a directly elected mayor including the term and any applicable term limits and also whether or not the city of Santa Cruz should transition from its out large elections to a by district election with an estimate of the cost associated with placing a measure like these on the ballot so that concludes the presentation and I'll take any questions if people have them at this time any questions we're all thinking yeah one how would you transition say you had a five member district elections and you have seven council members and say that you shift there's three people up for real action three seats would you would you then how would that shift occur does that contemplate that I just yeah yeah I thought about you would you would do it during like the when you have the presidential election where we have four council members that are elected you might reduce that to two on on that particular year so that it does reduce by two on a particular election and then you'd have the rotation where they would just continue to elect based on the normal schedule yes it would be helpful for me to better understand what an advisory ballot measure how that works exactly because I appreciate that you're wanting to spur discussion about this and I think that for me is the biggest part of this is I know that when I was mayor people talked about this all the time they were confused about how the mayor process works how elections work some of us thought we had just or some of them thought we had districts there's a lot of misinformation and confusion about it and a lot of ideas about it but not a lot of I think accurate information and one of the things that would be really important to me about any changes we made to this is that we have a very engaged discussion with the community so that they know kind of what we're talking about and how it would impact them and how they would be involved in it so how does that how does the engagement with the community factor into this proposal because if it's going to be on the June ballot I'm sorry oh the November ballot rather but it needs to needs to happen next meeting right in order for that to happen yeah in order for it to be on for November that's right yeah go please yeah I can say I can give you some examples I mean when this this actually kind of provides a framework for the discussion we're going to update our two-year work plan next year so in 2019 we'll now reset the work plan to add discussion about you know what that is we will the council will prioritize and one of the things I think that we've discussed and I've heard this even from prior council members that are no longer with us about the idea of kind of restructuring the office a little bit to be more effective and accountable in the role as a council member and as the sitting mayor so what would this would do is allow a framework assuming the council supports putting on an advisory ballot measure and it's supported by the community you would then have a community process to discern what the scope of that role is and changes it would then be something that would require charter amendment by the people and that would be having a charter committee that would look at the changes and come back with those recommendations and putting at the putting on the ballot at a later date so between June and November then the city would have the role of being of advising the community or initiating the conversations and supporting the conversations happening around that in terms of education and outreach and all that yeah absolutely and I'm thinking of um three well recent actions that were taken I mean we just had measure you that was put on the ballot that was an advisory measure that was put on the ballot by the city we also had changes to the charter under measure t that was the the the changes to the charter actual changes to the measure k ordinance and then we also had measure s which I think that you had individual council members kind of led the charge on bringing that forward with support from staff in regards to information so yeah this is also about kind of kind of informing the public about the current system and looking at ways that we can demonstrate accountability for the results of some of the council priorities we have and have a stronger role in terms of not only the policy but making sure that you know one we as the elected officials oversee these uh these council priorities and we want to make sure that you know what we are making certain that we're getting the results of the community wants to see having changes to the process for directly elected mayor I think creates an increased level of accountability for that because you have someone who perhaps runs on a on a um campaign or a platform and we say these are the things that they're working on and these are the how you inform the uh council work plan and you're able to kind of one see through those results could be a two or could be four year I tend to support more of a two year plan but at least it kind of syncs up the accountability with the work plan one more follow-up question and that is is the our council council members individually just like in measure s is an example I know I could support this but is the city council is a whole prohibited from doing any it's probably a question for the city attorney so could council be involved in in a formal way in engaging with the community or would it only have to be individual council members as community members I'm not quite sure I understand your question so like measure s well we voted to put it on the ballot um or we couldn't as a body add you know campaign for that but individual council members would and did so how what would our role be for this because I think that's really important the main restriction is that the city as a whole is prohibited by law from um using public resources to to advocate for the passage of of a ballot measure so council members could or the council could um provide educational materials but the the law would prohibit the council from using city resources and support including staff support and things like that that's right and I think that that's more of what my question is who would be educating the community if we couldn't do that well just the city could present factual information about how would play out people who felt strongly one way or the other would be on one or other campaign committees and those would be separately funded well for now thank you council member crown just a follow-up your example of measure u it seems to me this is even much less aggressive if you will by placing this before the voters if we would have gone the same approach with measure you would have said you know do you think we should put a ballot initiative on that says no growth or or growth so I mean this is even less so than that this is just taking a temperature check really of the public to see you know is there interest there it seems to me I'm I I'd agree with that that perspective council vice mayor walkins I just have a quick question and I and I was slow to respond because it's a bit it's a big topic and I know we sort of started the conversation at our last meeting in terms of how to best sort of evaluate and look at this one of my question is around um sort of the second component of the recommendation which is the at large to buy district and then the reference in the agenda report of the various kind of in-between which is the from district by district at large but then also the group that came up with ranked choice voting I think are we um what was your thoughts I guess in terms of going straight to by district as opposed to looking at some of the alternatives or well this this is not going to direct um by district this is about whether or not the community supports looking at a by district voting process so I would say that if you had support by the community let's say support by the council to put it on the ballot and support by the community to have the council direct us to look at this you would have again a charter committee to look at the election process in terms of how it places its council members and seats them I guess my my follow-up question would be if it's not offering the in-between of other it seems like you either have one or the other but there's it seems to me that there are also other alternatives which is like ranked choice or from district that could be so I think you're presenting maybe I see it as being presenting kind of maybe only two options when there could be potentially four well there's numerous options right um I personally don't support um you know the the ranked choice voting and I kind of spoke to that I know that there was a a measure that was put forward by um you know a group and I don't I don't know what the status is whether that was dropped but I understood it was something that they didn't have the level of support in the community to to uh to bring it forward but um I'll ask I'm to return that ballot or the petitions for that has passed and and they did not garner enough signatures I don't even know how much effort if any was put into circulating that petition but but the deadline for submitting it has passed but certainly I mean there's a variety different methods and as a charter city we can consider any one of them I guess if I sorry just one last follow-up if I may I think my hesitation is I don't know enough about the various potential solutions so it's hard to say that that would maybe be it or that we want them to weigh on that's just my kind of without having a full kind of understanding of all the different options would be my hesitation the direct layer I like to mayor seems relatively straightforward yeah council member and ryan I see these as two different questions and think that if this were going to go um to the ballot it would need to be two different measures because um district elections versus the direct election of a mayor to me are two completely different um topics so I think it would need to be split because I can't imagine there are people who support both and people who support one and not the other and and vice versa um I would be very interested before pursuing this how much it would cost the city to put these on this year's ballot they um again it's broken down so that you would have either or so it would be two measures is how right that's that's how it's framed up um either or either and or so if you know if there's not support for one there's one support for other I mean it could be that that would need to be like almost two measures like a measure a and a measure b understood okay and then the direction is um to have the um staff come back with an estimate of what the cost would be we are going to have other items on the ballot this year that will um influence the cost reduce it because we are putting things on the ballot and so that would be something that there there wasn't an opportunity to get an estimate at this time based on what other costs will be so process wise we would hear this again because I wouldn't feel right making a decision on this until I knew the cost yeah again the recommendation is to direct the city attorney to prepare the advisory measures and then it comes back with the cost so you'll know at that time I think that's premature though to prepare the advisory measures um I would want to know the cost before directing the city attorney to prepare them so that would well let me let me say this that I checked in and it's going to be less than a couple hours to do the advisory measures so it's within the eight hours that we have as individual council members the reason why I'm presenting that this way is because so that there is some advance notice on it and also that the cost associated with that would come forward at the same time so obviously if it's something that's that you individually or the rest of council feels cost prohibitive that could be the question um on on June 26 but at least have the opportunity to present um an advisory ballot measure for consideration at that time so that we can at least determine whether or not you want to individually or as a council put it to the voters to on June 26 we expect the city attorney to already have proposed ballot measures yeah that's the recommended motion language language yeah okay recommended language as well as uh we'll also have a separate cost of what it would be to put it on the ballot okay councilmember crown I wanted to respond to um vice mayor Watkins um it seems to me there's just the apples and oranges of it um that the that rank choice voting is distinct from what these these two issues I know Berkeley uh does directly elected mayor directly and they have eight districts and now they also have rank choice voting they put in place after they did those other two um interesting the New York Times Sunday came out in favor of rank choice voting um and was explaining how well it worked in San Francisco I was like really um that was it could be a game changer this last election in San Francisco for rank choice voting as a you know I think it's a move in the evolutionary political you know the way we elect our our representatives any other questions okay I'll I'd like to ask any members of the public that would like to speak to this item this is um item number 18 thank you just let them there and council members Glenn Schaller from the Monterey Bay Central Labor Council AFL CIO um we have 80 affiliated unions about 37,000 folks you know and we have had almost no time to consider this um in front of you know I noticed that many of the letters were received yesterday in support and many of them are form levers so I would first suggest that this is premature and a rush to judgment to ask the city attorney to bring you back some ballot measures I think advisory measures are wonderful and they play a role and measure you is a perfect example but I think I've my observation has been over the my over 40 years here that advisory measures follow a community discussion not create one and the ballot measures are the very worst way of having an education campaign or a discussion or a community conversation I think we deserve that conversation before anything's put on the ballot you know and I'm glad to hear some folks saying that so my overall suggestion is that these are solutions in search of problems and problems that we don't have in our city you know I work in both counties Monterey and Santa Cruz and the Labor Council 12 cities in Monterey County 11 of them have a separate elected mayor one has district elections now we of course only have one city with district elections in this county of Watsonville now I take it back King City now has district elections or two in Monterey County but in all three of those cases they were to solve problems that existed of um large um a large number of the population that could not elect folks to the City Council and I would argue we do not have that here we have renters we have homeowners we have landlords we have a majority of women we have people of color we have um folks from throughout the city people on the east side used to feel unrepresented they certainly don't feel that way now also um the having a separate elected mayor means that we don't get to have that wonderful rotation that um happens and the diversity of leadership and the diversity of issues that are addressed um the way to solve the problems that may exist would be to start having some discussions not um head straight up all right thank you thank you thank you next speaker please my name is Steve Bosworth I live in north uh uh north pacific avenue uh I want to propose something which will seem maybe outlandish at the beginning because it's a relating to a different kind of electoral system which would have the claim uh which it will seem strange at first and I apologize to the council for not my not giving you time to enough time in the email that I sent to you last night with supporting materials for what I'm going to propose so you could think it through in advance so I only want to plead for your uh patience and consideration after probably I speak looking at the materials to see whether the claims that I'm proposing are valid and attractive the uh what I want to do is would propose a third type of electoral system that is third beyond the two that the mayor has mentioned this uh electoral system uh would ask would elect the council members at large so that doesn't change that part but instead of the current way of electing the council members uh citizens would be asked to judge the suitability of each candidate for the for the office they would grade each candidate as either excellent very good good acceptable poor or reject on the basis of that information it is possible to uh to elect a council that would be supported by 100 percent of the voters because each uh citizen would be able to uh have his or her one vote contributing to the uh one member of the council who they had valued most highly um I appreciated meeting also yesterday in your email so um your time is up but thank you so much for being here and for your perspective on this matter thank you for your time thank you next speaker please as was said this is a solution in the looking for a problem to be solved uh personally I think the way the elections are set up right here right now it's just fine we don't need to change it and I think we're only looking for more problems to be created if we do change any of it around from the way it is right now um so in other words I don't support this at all one bit thank you thank you next speaker please anybody who would like to sir sir sir please thank you next speaker hi I'm Brett Garrett um I just want to say if we go to a mayor election or a district election third the devil is in the the details a little bit about how we do it is it a an election in June and then a runoff in November is it a plurality kind of system is it ranked choice um I'm I'm a huge supporter of ranked choice also known as instant runoff um I think it's worked working well in Berkeley Oakland San Leandro San Francisco and I'll speak a little bit to the the little committee that formed the yes on ranked choice committee um that was oriented around a ranked choice for the single transferable single transferable vote for the at-large system and I I think I speak for myself and other people who were on that that uh group that we really strongly favor ranked choice in the context of a single electing a single person like a district representative or a mayor um I think the single transferable vote is also a very good system but it's very confusing to people and it's kind of it's hard to explain and we kind of everybody on the committee had other priorities and a dozen other things that we were focusing on and we kind of um disbanded um but I still I support the cause I support ranked choice voting and I think it's good if to specify the method being used along with if we're voting for a mayor etc um yeah I think that's what I wanted to thank you very much I thank you thank you for your perspective next speaker actually in council um I'll keep my comments brief since I sent you an email kind of outlining my concerns as well as what I kind of see as positives about these proposals again I think they're definitely two separate proposals full-time directly elected mayor versus district district elections in terms of the fully elected mayor I actually think that'd be a really good thing um I think uh one of the the biggest barriers for uh people wanting to contribute and play a part of public service in our city is the fact that um the time commitment is so stark and the compensation for that time is so low um I imagine David on a given week as mayor you probably serve at least 25 hours if not more just doing city-based work or you know talking with constituents and and helping to set the agenda and so forth so and I'm sure your salary compensation on hourly level is nowhere near what you could get on the open market for the same set of skills um so I think the the direct election of mayor would serve to help the city and help serve create more accountability for the citizens at large to be able to have a full-time civil servant working on their behalf in terms of district elections um my biggest concern with district elections is that you set the stage for a collective action problem whereby individual districts are having to kind of posture against each other for various location specific policies so whether or not we're locating housing in certain areas whether certain districts get more access to parks or capital improvements or whether you know for instance where are we going to put the temporary homeless encampment these are all problems that you might find a little harder to solve if you had district by district loyalties and I think um having uh council members be uh responsive to at-large elections and therefore the whole city um might still be important for making those kinds of tough decisions so that's kind of all I have to say on that also ranked choice voting is pretty cool you should look at it thanks all right next speaker please hi uh Kurt Grutzmacher parent and local businessman um I fully support the by district elections and we talk about uh the cost to the city or the community is just the cdra alone um is a big consideration as a risk manager um most of my career it seems silly that uh uh that we would continue uh in um process that allows uh a cdra challenge at any point and you know looking at some of the data here I mean someone one sitting $900,000 to defend it another one four and a half million dollars to unsuccessfully uh defend it that alone uh I think should be a big consideration and the other um deal making and compromise is I think with this you know our country's built on and uh just because I disagree with you that doesn't mean that I'm right um and it's not what uh any one particular voting bloc um uh wants it's what is best for the city and I think having a directly elected mayor will increase continuity I mean I don't know how anyone can do the job for a year I think it probably takes at least three months just get up to speed um and it creates accountability I also think that the by district elections will represent the voting community um more accurately because theoretically all seven of the council members could live on the same block and you know you how do you know what's going on on these side other than you know spending time and going there and if you don't do this full time um you know how do you have the time and resources that if you're in uh that area that particular district you know what's going on so I fully support it thank you thank you for your comments um sir next speaker Mayor Trazos and council how you do my name is William Kingsley I would like to express my support for both of these A and B measures uh I think uh as a member of a protected class also known as the east side I think it really is going to help people out that have homes and and uh businesses in the community if they have the opportunity to work closely with council members that are part of their community and neighbors thank you thank you Mr. Kingsley next speaker hi everybody I'm page concanon sea bright beach neighborhood I totally love this idea two reasons one we don't know what they're doing on the west side the east side doesn't know what the west side's doing we're so spread apart but yet it's a small community and I think when the police cut up cut up Santa Cruz that kind of gave me an idea of just this since we since they've already started that here's your section here's this section here's that section and maybe we can get council members who live in that section who live on the east side who live on the west side who live you know midtown and that with the elections at least we know that somebody from our neighborhood is representing us so thank you for doing this and thinking about it but I would like to see it become a thing thank you thank you next speaker please Mr. Mayor council members uh Damon brooder concerned citizen um I'm in full support of the directly elected mayor um the district uh council members district district elected council members it would be awesome to know that the council someone on the council lives in our neighborhood or that neighborhood or that neighborhood and knows firsthand what's going on what happened in the middle of the night there I would love to see that representation as far as directly elected mayor if anybody's a sports fan you know that a sports team doesn't height doesn't fire their coach because they have one bad season they let the coach work out the problems for a little bit as a mayor unfortunately when you're on your last year it's like a game of planco you get to point the whatever you want to happen in the general direction and then just hope it lands where you want with a directly elected mayor with some terms you'd be able to have a little something a little a little hand in guiding what you're trying to have the community achieve and I think that's a really big thing being able to follow through on the things that you're trying to do um I think a directly elected mayor would allow us to voice who we want to help guide our city to where we need it to be I think this is a really great thing I would love to see it come to fruition and at least be explored in depth as as big as possible thank you all right thank you are there any members of the public that would like to speak to this item please my name is kender baker and I wasn't planning to speak on this I'm actually here to for the next agenda item but um I am moved to say that I'm interested in learning more about this and I think this is the the process for doing that and I think it would be really interesting to hear what the community um has to say about it and to learn more about the different possibilities thank you thank you okay is there any member of the public that would like to speak to this item it's item 18 this is regarding consideration directly elected mayor or election by district seeing none I'll bring it back to the council and let me just say that I appreciate the conversation we've had in terms of just even exploring this and discussing what available options there are we did receive many emails and some of them discussed the interest in this I wouldn't describe them as form emails they were all individual and we'll leave them out there they're part of the public record so you can decide for yourself you know the nature of the content and what they are they'll be in our public record but really this is as council member chrome mentioned it's like a almost an initial toe dip in the idea of looking at different methods of not only electing the mayor but also the current process we have in terms of electing our council members and even just initiating this discussion is one where we want we want to make sure that as we enter into 2019 and have our new work plan that we can at least have some benchmarks to see whether or not the community would like us to pursue these measures over the next year to help better not only provide the resources for the council council to do their job but also to have greater accountability for the mayor and the the council members in terms of the implementation of council priorities and constituent priorities for our city so on that I'll I'll ask if there's any further discussion or action you know you mentioned in your presentation the remuneration that is kind of lacking in this job and I'm wondering if you would put that on as a as a c if there's an a b and c you know something like asking voters whether the city of Santa Cruz should pay a living wage to council members and the mayor I mean I would I would be interested in looking at as part of that kind of review as far as a direct lick to mayor to look at the compensation what type of you know hours or what the the system would look like so absolutely that would be something that I would that I would support something that we could put before the voters and see if they would support it as well and looking at it and it's again not they're not making nobody's making any decisions we're going forward with the process and it seems to me would we have to have um if there was a yes vote put together a committee um and do we have to outline that committee uh that that's going to look into you know the future ballot the future charter amendment yeah I think that's what it would be who's directing you know the formation of a charter committee that might look at council council um compensation council member constant compensation mayors compensation as well as the um authority of those those positions we would have to consider that though at another time and agenda is that because that's not no we wouldn't I mean this is this is directing the city attorney to prepare an advisory measure so it's um right now and that would come back at our at our um June June uh 26 meeting I don't think it's a bad way of getting a discussion going and I mean I I'd like to hear from other council members what what more of their thoughts because I just just um putting it on the ballot as an advisory measure really does not have any teeth to be really clear but it does stimulate the thought of oh okay they're they're it could clarify in the minds of a lot of people that we don't already elect our mayor because if you've been mayor of Santa Cruz people think they voted for you for mayor many times and that's not our process council member noyan so I think you know the question before us right now is do we ask first to pursue this idea via the ballot or do we hold a community conversation first that leads to a ballot initiative and so I think that's kind of the the choice we have before us or and then the next choice is you know do we feel we need a different governance system than we have now so you know I think those are the questions that are before us right now and I know that right now I don't think I'm prepared to direct the city attorney to prepare an advisory ballot measure but I would be prepared to support a process to have the conversation um and to see if there really is community support to get something proposed normally we don't have a discussion before we have a motion and that's a situation we're in right now I'm sorry I know but just to say um there is a great deal here it's true that there's been a lot of discussion on every side of this I have my own very strong feelings favoring at large elections but I'm not even going to get into that right now also not here is the whole question of council member compensation having a directly elected mayor does not necessarily equate to a full-time mayor and bear in mind that if we give direction right now we have to have something submitted to our agenda report on June 21st I think this is all right for a lot of discussion but I have to agree it's very 11th hour um let's have that discussion um I also agree it's a solution in search of a problem um I agree with virtually everything that Glenn Schaller put forward um but let's have that discussion we can give direction at a future council meeting to initiate um a process for examining these issues it doesn't have to go to the voters so um that's just where I stand on this I think it's way too complicated last minute and premature to put on the ballot council member chase and I would agree with both council members Matthews and Naroyan on that point too I think we should absolutely have a community conversation um and these things should be a part of it but I think there's also any number of other options that the community might be interested in that we are not even considering as part of this and wouldn't even go to the community to consider as part of the proposed motion for the advisory ballot measure so I would like to support a community conversation about what they want to see I think absolutely we should be doing that council member crown um I was thinking about what but uh it all due respect to Glenn Schaller Schaller um five out of the seven us live within two or three blocks of each other you know that I mean the east side has been historically underrepresented on this council on the west side has been over represented for many many years I don't see that east side representation uh happening uh or happened in the past um I it just seems to me that if you have when and where the the community conversations going to happen around this without first like measure you we got a conversation about university growth amongst people in town we put measure uh s we got a sales tax discussion going on um it seemed to me that that's happens a lot of times around elections that you start these conversations um where are we going with measure you I think now people are it's on their radar screen in a big way and I'm hearing from people about what they'd like to do or what maybe vis-a-vis the university what the city how the city should be acting and in negotiations with them so I just see this as as a way of beginning that conversation because I'm not sure how the other conversations going to happen um but if you if you have ideas I'm all ears too about starting a community conversation around um directly elected mayor and district collections and vice mayor walk-ins and compensation yes I appreciate the input of the council I am it's very complicated and I think um that is is for sure clear for me um and I also appreciate the initiative by the mayor to really bring up the conversation of looking at our current structure understanding our our potential solutions and checking in with our community about that um for me just sort of with my kind of background and training I my hesitation is not having a full understanding of the problem having a full understanding of the potential solutions and what the outcomes could be in terms of how we would want to frame you know recommendations so I really appreciate the um also the concept of having a more in-depth subcommittee or group looking at it with community input um to really vet all of that to entertain what's before us today I think the directly elected mayor to me seems relatively straightforward I I can kind of understand that I think I you know we could get a pulse on the community in terms of that or or prepare the language and then to have that conversation later if we want to in terms of that but I'm hesitant for the second part because I think that's a much more in-depth kind of analysis that needs to take place as as the directly elected mayor but I mean to entertain potentially what you're hoping to have us move on today I think number one we could look at having that language created would you support adding a second part of that um to uh whether the city council or the city of Santa Cruz voters would um pay a living wage to council members I think that if I may I think that I think that for me feels like more of that broader conversation which we brought up at the last meeting and I really appreciated your you know leadership and actually talking about that I think we need to look at it I for me just for I think what where my hesitation is is really fully understanding the issues the current the current um structure the potential solutions the you know what I mean really doing the time and the work into researching it um and then also you know checking in with the community I I feel somewhat hesitant at this time to have that right now um but I do agree that we should start that process and that conversation should take place and that research should happen and we should vet that with the community and look at what could work that's going to be sustainable and best for our city and the residents of our city and how we can represent them and so I'm all for that um I think just my hesitation is uh the proposal and how to do this with the ballot in the not subcommittee meeting quite yet well this is you know one suggestion might be to look at that that sole issue of the direct or elected mayor and again this would have to come back to the council as a um you know a proposed um you know advisory measure but included in the resolution could be in consideration of the salary because that would be something that would then be if there is a community support for that the council would still have to meet um to kind of review that if they were to prepare a ballot measure so I mean that would kind of address I think both of your issues as part of that question about and consider the the salary consideration of the salary and that would be either a yes you know yes or no vote you're looking at those those those issues um in their entirety council member norion I'd like to put forth a potential motion uh for us to at least focus our conversation on um I'd like to move um that a council subcommittee be created to explore the possibility of district elections and the direct election of a mayor excuse me I'm going on with a run on sentence right now and explore compensation options for council members community engagement would be a part of this exploration and that's clunky I just wrote it in the last 10 seconds so I'll second for the purpose of the conversation thank you um so as a seconder would I mean I think an important part of this is that there's more than just these two options so I would want that committee is going to get together I think we should look at any number of other options that have been mentioned some by various council members and it looks like we're talking about changing the structure of our council in any number of ways so if the committee is getting together we shouldn't just limit it to these two things because otherwise we should just vote on that today but we should really look from my perspective at what else is out there including compensation so we're you're talking about expanding the scope to look at our overall system of governance I mean yeah I mean that's because I think that's where we're sort of getting caught is that we're not as familiar with the details on these things and that there are other options that the community might be more interested in or might be a better fit for our community and so I wouldn't want the committee to just be looking at these two things council member Matthews um that's I was prepared to second as well just to head in this general direction I think that makes a whole lot more sense there's so many issues wrapped up in this and I think if maybe you could tweak the language to say to explore issues of governance including but not limited to I would be happy to do that and I think the the process of really open study of what's happening in other communities and engaging different sectors of the community is is important that we we have some sense of context for when a recommendation comes back for us you did have compensation in there yeah she did yeah and I'm and I'm also taking the suggested language that we say that include but are not limited to yeah that's some overcrown well it's interesting there's a lot that exists to somebody sent me the uh fremont they they've transitioned to district elections and in fact is a there's a glossary that has all these different cities and stuff um in it I'm wondering if we could include members of the public on this I mean totally yeah because this is just another you know council is already from my perspective from being here pretty overburdened right now on committees subcommittees and commissions so I would really I think um be a great thing to bring in that wealth of of outside um help maybe kind of clarify what what type of committee did you refer to it as explore issues of governance that include but are not limited to district elections the direct election of no just the type of community because one of one of the one of the one of the one of the one of the ways you might approach this and I'd you know suggest that maybe you look at it as a direct the council to create a charter amendment committee so that you're looking at these things and coming back with a recommendation and that would be something I feel would kind of get at the heart of this issue so that if you want to have that community discussion it's through a charter amendment committee so that you're looking at what those specific recommendations are after significant public input in regards to any proposed changes that might be made so instead of calling it a subcommittee you're suggesting we call it a council charter committee charter amendment committee without the word council only because if we're not that doesn't we're not going to sit on it I think it should have council members on it you could yeah I think having two would be great I mean definitely I mean it's we could look I know it's been discussed in the past but yes it's on this returning this into something that was much more focused to something much larger are we that you know acknowledging that yeah okay yeah yeah I I mean I can support that as far as a charter amendment committee to looking at those issues and I just want to restate the the motion if you would in terms of what are the kind of areas that will be focused on I could restate so to create a council charter amendment committee to explore issues of governance that include but are not limited to district elections the direct election of the mayor and compensation for council members including the term and applicable term limits right for well that's I could make I mean this could go on forever I have include but not limited to I don't I just we could sit here that's good like 20 all right I could support that so there's a motion on the floor from council member Naroyan second by council member chase is there any further discussion and this is a resolution and does it need any like the three council members want to volunteer to put together some sort of you know charter how this group's gonna start out and you know function kind of that should come back to us so that's why I think we need the word subcommittee in there because the subcommittee implies and actually it's it's legal that three council members can up to three can participate and be happy to serve on that all right I think that um one when we talk about creating a charter subcommittee I think we'll come back in terms of what that would look like I don't you know I we'll come back with a recommendation this is not the first time there's been one okay is any further discussion okay thanks again for the time and and and you know I appreciate you review and discussion on this item all those in favor any opposed okay that passes unanimously with council member brown absent okay we'll next move on to item number 19 which is the revolving line of credit for agreement and the presenter is um rosemary rinard our director of water um good afternoon mayor and council um this hopefully should be fairly quick for you I know you have a lot of folks here here for the next thing we have this item uh that we are asking for your action on today for a um a revolving line of credit for um 25 million dollars with the bank of america it was uh they were selected based on a number of dozens of agencies were solicited to um give us proposals we received I believe four proposals and we did reach out directly to local financial institutions and didn't receive anything from anybody locally lighthouse bank or a bay federal credit union or santa cruz county bank although we talked to them all individually um I'm going to introduce you uh to Jeremy becker who is our finance manager relatively new but in his first time presenting to you but he has a just a few brief slides to give you the details uh yes good afternoon mayor and council members uh it was just a short month ago rosemary was kind enough to introduce me to you all so it's it's nice to be up here working with you and it's nice to see so much public participation I moved here from the state and I was in a lot of legislative hearings and there was not nearly this amount of attendance um for discussions that were affecting a lot more people so it's refreshing uh I just yeah I just want to give you a quick background and just sort of the purpose behind what we're doing to in uh acquiring this line of credit uh basically this this is not the first time that we've really uh brought this topic before you um uh just kind of a short history on on how this is developed we we have brought the capital improvement plan or investment program before you and that's been passed uh what kind of started that was our long-range financial plan that was passed by the council back in june of 2016 um basically kind of set for setting forth a 300 million dollar capital improvements over the next decade and instead of what we have done up to that point which is mostly doing uh paying out of operating revenue kind of we're we also wanted to work into uh acquiring debt uh so that only 25 percent of those expenses of our in our capital program would be um paid for through pago funding and the rest would be through debt financed um and basically the next step in that was we uh the council passed our our policy 34.4 which which kind of just put everything into uh just put forth all the um requirements that were laid out in the in the long-range financial plan as far as um just establishing a framework of funds from what was our existing funds but also adding to those funds and then kind of um adding uh requirements on reserve levels for a couple of funds and uh where we had a lower reserve level we set forth a higher requirement and i'm happy to say this year we're going to be uh meeting one of those requirements by the end of the year um in our emergency reserve fund um and all this was kind of set forth in order to increase our keep us strong credit rating when we so when we do go to market for debt issuance uh we will get a credit rating and lower issuance costs lower issuance costs as a result of that uh and then um since that point kind of in between that and the final bullet point is that um we also had another resolution before this one asking for reimbursement and um that precipitated a loan that we've gotten from the iBank which basically uh we by the point that we acquired that loan from iBank we drew it down immediately for all the past um spending that we had done that really uh that was a result of just hard work of staff members and Nicole Dennis and Melissa capping um just getting that loan in place and helping us revert a negative balance in our primary operating fund um and now we have our final resolution uh before you um or that's we introduced our re reimbursement resolution back in march which you passed and that was basically uh precipitating this um all of this is to uh basically what we are trying to achieve is just to uh diversify our loan options and this is all in an attempt to just um get the cheapest financing that we can uh before this point we really had basically paid for all our capital improvements through just operating revenue and now we can no longer really do that so our objective at this point is instead of just always reaching into our operating funds uh to see other sources and what we've kind of come up with up to this point is um we're putting forth applications to the uh to the water board the california water board for a drinking water state revolving fund grant we're doing that for our concrete tanks which is one of our projects and then we're also submitting an application for a newel creek which is another project um and then we're also going to uh reach out to uh the epa for a with the alone which is also a lower method of financing and the final thing is kind of a final choice will be revenue bonds um and again all this is just kind of um the reason we're we're um having alternatives to just go going straight to market for revenue bonds is basically for to give us some flexibility uh it's really um allows us to kind of go for the most efficient option in terms of you know we we have a lot of we're kind of bouncing keeping a lot of balls in the air trying to bounce as far as loan sources and with that and the fact that we have a capital improvement program which you know things we have uh i'm not quite sure the amount of the number of projects but it's it's a lot of projects so it can possibly you know a lot of those some of the expenses can come in sooner some later so this it's in itself is this line of credit allows us some flexibility in terms of being able to kind of wait if we have to wait some time in order to get the uh the revolving fund financing or epa financing or if the time is not right for the market right now um and really this was all kind of this is all pretty common too is to kind of use go for a variable rate financing which is what this option allows us it's only a two-year line of credit and what we hope to do is at the end of this basically issue debt pay off this loan and we also have the option of we're really not going to get tricky with our debt financing but our financial financial advisors also said instead of typically doing a 30-year loan term we could also or bond term we could do a 28-year to to encapsulate what we pay off here instead of sort of extending our debt into the future kind of capture what we've already used through this line of credit and then lastly as far as the way the whole process has worked we did put out some rfps like rosemary had mentioned uh to local banks the only local that really responded or gave us a proposal was county Santa Cruz bank it really didn't allow us enough um we wanted a higher uh credit um they only were able to give us i think seven and a half million um so that rolled them out and finally who we ended up choosing was bank of america it was really the lowest interest rate that they offered us and it is like i mentioned a variable rate of interest where um the turn that we're going to choose is the libor this is one month libor and we take that times 80 percent and then add 45 basis points um and just general terms that's about two percent right now two percent and they basically compounded daily but then it's also divided daily so that rate um i could always get into more details if you're more interested so i just want to make one comment um that bond council has worked with us on this indicate that because we're borrowing more than a hundred thousand dollars and need to be a general business item and so otherwise you know we probably would have put this on consent for you but it does require um action in the general business part of the agenda thank you and thank you for the presentation i remember when you were introduced right is there any count or any council members do you have questions at this time just quick could you go through the just say a little bit about the process of trying to get a local bank and or community credit union and having to um settle on bank of america sure the um recognizing the potential interest in our local community of investing in our infrastructure improvements we reached out to um several of the local institutions lighthouse bank um santa cruz county bank bank of santa cruz county and also uh bay federal credit union a lot of them don't have the quantity of money that we're talking about here this is 25 million which means that when we call for money on this loan they pretty much have to give it to us it's a short term and so it has to do with their inability their lack of the um enough money available in their assets that is liquid for them to be able to meet our needs and so we did sit down with them and we gave them a little perspective and had a little conversation with each one of them because we wanted to make sure that there was an opportunity for local investment in what we're doing if that was feasible they give you a sense of a 10 million they could do 15 million five um the santa cruz county bank um had an indication that they could provide seven and a half million and at the time that we were talking to them in march um we were thinking that we would need seven and a half million for this just for the end of this fiscal year and that that wouldn't help us this is really bridge funding right so that the idea is to spend this money and then repay it out of long term financing that gets established once we have things more solidly defined about how much and so it really wasn't enough um for us to make that work for us we couldn't mix and match no it it's more our financial advisor really advises against that it makes things very complicated and it's already a complicated enough thing so we um we didn't go there any other questions okay see then we'll put it to the public are there any members of the public that would like to speak to the side and please step forward and you have two minutes you have two okay thank you my name is Elise casby and i'm an activist here in santa cruz i'm extremely opposed to the council passing this measure today i think it's very interesting that today just after we've managed to pass um a community opinion about the university and growth and so forth which is an issue that's extremely tied to water it couldn't be more that's one of the main factors is water bank of america is a uh a completely discredited bank it is one of the banks that went a long way to destroying our nation and thousands upon thousands of people lost their homes and never recovered a home at all drove up rental prices and more i think we all know about that it was also related that horrible situation to debt and debt acquisition i just think this is interesting that it's coming forward today and since i'm not a politician who needs to be elected to office i will also say that the insider political group that is behind the council oftentimes is largely university and as somebody said before west side santa cruz it's a really tightly held power block it couldn't be more important that this extremely delicate and sensitive issue that involves our water safety and security banks that we're trusting with our public resources in the most important way it has to be local bank there's a bank that was not considered it's the one on front what's it called the credit union at the end of front i don't hear that being mentioned as a bank i think this needs to be in fact something that's done with public bonds and not such a political maneuver as the bank of america and i urge the public to speak up right now and not to sit in your seats this is a very political move please do not pass this measure do not hear any excuses about it this is a power block move to tie up our water and resources thank you very much thank you lice is there any member of the public any other members of the public who would like to speak please line up now if you if you're here to speak on this item now's the time to stand up and line up on my left and you will have your opportunity any other members of the public that would like to speak okay sir please go ahead right garret just a one liner please support public banking thank you okay next no public bank was available for lending here next speaker please my name is gene brocklebank i would like to reiterate what the previous speaker said to you when i was listening to the conversation um lighthouse bank is our bank and um i was wondering too why we have to do 25 million dollars with bank of america that maybe we could ask for um x million from lighthouse x million from bay federal x millions of dollars from the others i know that that's complicated but it does support our local banks and i in addition to that i think her point about this should be public bond money and not money um from a private bank bank of america does have some uh bad history is well taken and i encourage this council to rethink um voting on the the loan line of credit from bank of america and let's see if we can do a little bit better thank you very much thank you again uh any members of the public that haven't already spoken that would like to speak to the side and please stand up and ma'am just step right up they could speak up to the mic please any other members of the public this is a final call any members okay please just a quick question um was bank of the west considered okay we'll answer once you're done with your public comment okay okay is there any other member of the public that would like to speak to this item okay c and none will bring it back to the council was was bank bank of the west consulted regarding this i'm um i can't tell you for sure but i will tell you that the list of um entities that was solicited received solicitation the rp were dozens of national international local banks so everybody that if anybody got the solicitation we got four responses thank you thanks and i can provide the list if you'd like that afterwards i just i wasn't part of the solicitation but i'd be happy to provide that it'd be great to send that to the council thank you okay council member matthews well i'm going to go ahead and acknowledge the um very well grounded sentiments that people have about bank of america i acknowledge that but i also want to respect the serious efforts made to reach out to a whole spectrum of financial institutions behind all this is the financial plan for progressing on the overall master plan for the city's water system both for maintenance and treatment and developing future supply and that has been that has come before the council on many many occasions we know it's a very ambitious capital plan for all this and it really set the stage for the issue that we have before us here and i certainly respect that um we are going on the advice of a financial advisor how to most effectively ensure that we have the resources to go forward um most cost effectively to deliver the system that the community will need for the long haul so having said all that i'm going to move the um adoption of the resolution before us here i'll second that okay thank you and i appreciate those comments i'll say that um you know i think this is something where we have repeatedly said how can we engage local banks in our process and i think this is an opportunity also to look how we can kind of help nurture these lending agreements so we can not only reduce our costs but do business here locally so hopefully moving forward will it be able to kind of explore new opportunities to see where they can provide us with these financing tools to help us here in our town councilmember crone what were the four banks that responded yeah it was uh bank of america jb morgan bbva and then the county santa cruz was the only local county santa cruz county bank santa cruz county okay all right no problem any other discussion discussion on this side no see none okay we'll ask the council for a vote all those in favor please say aye those opposed okay that passes with councilmember crone voting no um all other council members voted yes with councilmember brown absent okay um the next item on the agenda is item number 20 which is our downtown study session and i'd like to invite up have amanda ritello no okay bonnie ellipscomb can you also claire okay should i make an announcement now um yeah you know at this point at the beginning of the meeting um we have uh noticed when there's any conflicts so i'd like to maybe ask councilmember math used to repeat the notice she provided at the beginning of our council meeting um i do have a conflict of interest due to proximity of some property um in which i'm a co-owner uh which is in very close proximity to the um parking lot on which the farmers market currently um uh does its business and so by virtue of that proximity i won't be able to participate in the discussion and decision about a permanent home for the farmers market however i have talked with the city attorney and the mayor um that it would be appropriate for me to listen to the presentation of the overall spectrum of issues related to downtown um the mayor has agreed to hold questions and discussions until after that presentation at which point i will leave yeah so i'll turn it after the presentation i'll turn it over to public comment and then and then at that point bring it back to the council and councilmember matthews will leave okay so we'll turn it over to you great good afternoon mayor and members of the council um bonnie libsum director of economic development with me today is claire fleece or our transportation planner for the city and so we have a presentation today and we've titled it changing downtown um but first just to introduce the item um wanted to mention sort of why we're here today and um to because it has been some time we did have a direction from council in december 6 of 2016 um to form a downtown library advisory commission to develop a community process to explore a downtown library branch also to explore a permanent home for the farmers market and to develop a parking rate strategy to support new mixed-use supply project in the downtown so we have a council direction that is um that is from some time ago and um this is part of the process um in providing some new information to you um when we were looking at sort of framing uh the presentation today and we were talking about a lot of the changes um that have recently been happening in the downtown as well as a lot of the opportunities so that really is sort of framing the presentation today is to go through some of the changes recent changes and then some of the opportunities and then ending today with a focus um on the farmers market as well as a recommendation so to kick it off um just showing a few historic photographs um to talk about how our downtown is always changing and obviously this is the has labeled a photograph from 1888 and then after the devastating fire of 1894 and what that did to our downtown um but we're very resilient and we rebuilt um here's a photo in 1926 1930 1940 you can see um continuing to change downtown and downtown has always been vibrant and is continuing to be to be vibrant so despite the natural disasters there have been periods of rebuilding and development in the downtown and of course um we had the devastating earthquake of 1989 um here's what it looked like um after that um in 1990 you can see it as well and then here we are today um with the last remaining hole after the earthquake is being developed um by 1547 pacific um in recent years though um there has been a period of some stalled um physical development in the downtown and part of that has been um due to a number of economic conditions actually we've had tightening markets increasing land prices um and then some outdated policies that we've had at the city that don't um respond directly to the market that have sort of culminated in um development particularly downtown development where the cost of development is higher due to land values and dense development which requires a higher construction type and higher construction prices so for these sort of combined reasons we haven't seen a lot of projects going forward in the last number of years in fact the project um that you're looking at right now 1547 was actually stalled three times over the last decade before it's finally going forward and some of you may recall that um so one of the things that's really enabled some of the change that we're going to talk about today is actually the downtown plan amendments and so I want to take just a minute to talk about um the effort led by our planning department um in 2017 and that was an amendment to the original downtown plan um that was approved by council after the earthquake in then 1991 and so there were some amendments to the plan um last year that updated land use development standards and design guidelines um specifically um development standards for the river walk so after many years of sort of turning our back um from the river the levee we've embraced the river walk and we have a number of of sort of fun things and changes that I are exciting that we'll talk about briefly today um also updates to circulation and parking plan streetscape and and open space as well so the big picture of what we're going to talk about today we're going to talk about community spaces parking and housing and incorporated with some of the parking will also talk about some transportation and I think it's important is just sort of framing the big picture um as our goal here is really a long term downtown sustainability and there's a lot of important components um and elements that make that happen it's no just one thing they all work together and so we're going to focus on community spaces parking and housing today um and then we'll come back next week and talk a little bit more about uh the the library and library recommendations and we'll we'll overview that in a minute um but today we're going to be focused on recent changes and future opportunities in housing parking and community spaces with an emphasis um on the farmers market towards the end of the of the presentation um so first off um to talk about housing and as it specifically relates to the to the downtown it's important as a context to really talk about how Santa Cruz is largely built out we're in a housing crisis um the greatest opportunity for substantial housing creation is in our downtown core where zoning and land use support a denser urban core in fact in downtown specifically the denser the development the more housing we can create and the more sustainable our downtown will be the more economically stable it will be for our businesses and merchants and the more vibrant it will be for our community and residents and I think that's an important element to go into some of the things we'll be talking about um both this afternoon and this evening as we look at some of the um blueprint council subcommittee recommendations as well we also have the um council strategic plan to create five to six hundred units in the downtown so we'll touch on that briefly as well so this actually is an excerpt from the downtown plan amendments and it's just important to highlight here without going into a lot of detail that one of the important changes was the increased height in the downtown of plan amendments which allow um denser development residential development primarily in the downtown as well as the zones for the increased height um go out further from pacific than they did previously which will really enable some residential development particularly on front street as well as lower pacific and so that's key to some of the projects that you'll hear about today going forward again recent changes so moving into some of the recent changes 555 pacific as I mentioned earlier this project was delayed for a considerable period due to financing it has gone forward it's a beautiful project it does include 14 inclusionary units seven during the rental period and then they're also paying a substantial in luffy actually so this was negotiated on this project in addition to a contribution towards future parking so there are quite a bit of concessions that the developer made in moving this project forward that's not always sustainable for developments this one is actually was able to make it work another recent change is 1547 pacific I showed a slide of that earlier this one's under construction right now this is 79 units with 12 inclusionary units so these two projects one the previous slide for 94 units and the 79 units are already going to greatly impact sort of physically what it feels like from a residential perspective to be downtown and we have a lot more coming we're on such a cusp of tremendous change right now in our downtown council has a two-year work plan that you all are very familiar with and as part of that direction to staff that is for us to move forward with approving five to six hundred housing units in the downtown we have the that number in the pipeline right now in either under construction or in the proposed projects including the city supported pacific station project which is a hundred hundred unit affordable housing project just to orient you to that right now included in the circle is the actually the metro bus center as well as the small in the lower part of that circle city owned parking lot of roughly 26 units and then the recently acquired nyak national alliance of nonprofit insurance providers that's in the building the larger building in the lower right hand side so the city now owns those two pieces we're looking at assembling additional land adjacent to that to be able to create a hundred percent affordable hopefully 80 to 100 units depending on what the final land assembly but we're also working with metro metro bus center right now we have two scopes underway to analyze the current bus center operations to see if we can more efficiently lay out the bus center to allow for the opportunity to potentially develop the street fundage the pedestrian frontage along pacific avenue with a mixed-use project with affordable housing on top just to give us the greatest options and opportunity and so when those scopes are completed we'll bring that back to council for your for your consideration and direction and then while you can't see all the detail of this part of this is a direction from council to look more specifically at our downtown properties that we own those as well as projects that are in the pipeline so this sort of a combination map of a number of the projects in the downtown right now two of which I've already mentioned 555 pacific and 1547 pacific pacific station is is listed there as well and then two that are proposed that are in early stages in planning review and that is the pacific front project at laurel and pacific between pacific front and laurel and the project that's referred to on this is riverfront apartments both will be really lead towards that five to 600 units in the downtown and housing creation we'll be considering some of policies related to this including inclusionary housing and parking at tonight's study session as well and with that I would like to turn it over to claire to talk a little bit more about parking good afternoon again claire fleece lair transportation planner I'm gonna briefly go through parking with a goal to prepare you for both next week's meeting and the 26th to reiterate what bonnie mentioned earlier council gave us direction on December 6th 2016 to develop a parking rate strategy which we're in order mr. mayor um there's a there's two different meetings could you explain the bifurcation of the meeting tonight and the meeting next week so people are clear what's being discussed tonight and what's being discussed because I was under the impression the library was next week but I do see it on the agenda this week thank you council member crown I'd like to ask the city manager to kind of let go over like what the structure is in terms of the meetings that have been scheduled so today is a more of a broad view of the downtown and the various components of downtown and then the farmers market so those are the two two two subject areas today the next week the study session will focus on the recommendations from the downtown library advisory committee so they'll be presenting the recommendations to you and the report that they completed in january and in addition we'll be presenting the uh the uh parking rate strategy that the council directed does that answer your question it does say receiver presentation discuss initiatives in downtown santa criss for improved community spaces including the downtown library so I'm just saying that's that's confusing as um I was under the impression the library and parking were next week study session this was about the housing downtown are you looking at the recommendation that's included in the action agenda okay yeah no so the to reiterate the the focus today is to present you know those those areas and then focus on the library and the parking rates and and the parking strategy next week okay the public's include into what we're doing here I appreciate it thank you for the question and clarification okay yes yes so to reiterate on december 6 2016 council gave us direction and the parking component of that was to come back with a parking rate strategy which would support a new supply project as part of a mixed use development today what we're going to go through with regard to parking is our current efforts um where we stand with parking in our current efforts to reduce single occupant vehicle travel and parking demand as well as our upcoming opportunities so what we'll start with is our current transportation demand management strategies we've been investing in tdm for decades in the city of santa criss and we've seen this play out in having a remarkably low single occupant vehicle mode split mode splits the term that we use for how people travel to work um our mode split in the city of santa criss is 56.5 which I'll cover on the next slide but is about 20 percent below the national average through our investments in education encouragement and infrastructure projects and programs we've been able to increase our biking and walking mode split to just under 20 percent which is astronomical we've done this through targeted investments in expanding our bike lane network as well as our off street facilities and we have the rail trail coming soon which we're really proud of specifically in downtown we've expanded the number of bike lockers which are available we've sponsored encouragement programs including open streets and bike to work day we've recently launched our bike share program which I'll cover in more detail in a sec and we've made sure to complete our sidewalk network to make getting to downtown by biking and walking as easy as possible and we'll continue on those investments uh specific in parking we have a shared parking model which allows us to have a 30 to 70 percent lower parking requirement in the downtown and more effectively utilize a lesser number of parking spaces for a greater parking demand we also use paid parking which is shown to have an effective transportation demand management strategy in encouraging people to use alternative modes and we have demand based meter rates which change an increase in parking rates the longer people stay to encourage turnover additionally we have zip cars located in downtown to encourage and enable car sharing we have the transit center pacific station in downtown we offer traveler information in partnership with the rtc through the cruise 511 program and we have the downtown trolley operating summer weekends and holidays specific to our mode split and how we're doing as you can see from this graph the city Santa Cruz is in purple and this compares us to the nation the state the county and then you can see ourselves our single occupant vehicle mode split as I mentioned is 20 below the national average which you all should feel very very proud about and that's a statistic that I like to repeat as often as possible as you can see from this our transit mode split is fairly high at 6.8 percent our walking mode split is seven and a half percent above the state of california but is you know 4x the state or 4x the nation and then our bike ridership is the second highest in the state of california at 9.5 percent and rising this is the direct result of our decades long investment in non-auto programs specific to this since 2011 we've been successful in gaining over 21 million dollars in outside grant funding to build continued improvements to our bike and pedestrian network and we'll be investing in those those are programmed between now and 2021 we're also continuing to seek outside grant funding specifically to construct the rail trail and to fund continued non-auto investments as well some of the recent changes and things we have upcoming wayfinding will be one of the programs we'll be rolling out specific as it relates to parking we'll be expanding the amount of parking wayfinding in downtown and making it more informative for users the goal of this will be to direct people quickly to where our parking facilities are to minimize the amount of circling and congestion within our downtown as you know we've also rolled out bike share to date as I mentioned in an earlier item we've had over 5200 rides yeah 5200 rides since may 10th a month ago averaging over six trips a day very very successful and we're looking forward to continuing to expand this program and continuing to increase those numbers in terms of future opportunities we want to continue to utilize our shared parking system so to expand on this because it's a rather technical term that we use a lot in in transportation shared parking is when you can utilize an existing supply of parking by a larger number of users than you could if they were to provide it individually everywhere outside of downtown each business or residence has to provide their own parking an example of this would be a restaurant that has to provide all of the parking that's required that's next door to an office that has to provide all of their own parking which is next door to a residence which has to provide all of their own parking this results in the graph on the left as you can see in a large number of parking spaces that are only utilized by single uses we have a higher quantity of parking required outside of downtown within the downtown parking district we utilize a shared parking model where the public supply of parking is provided by the city we utilize a shared parking model in a few ways we have businesses and residences and other uses downtown which operate for different purposes for different times of day and can utilize the much less quantity of parking to get an increased demand we have about a 30 to 70 percent lower parking requirement in the downtown than we do elsewhere in the city and it's utilized at a much higher rate one of the things that I want to make very clear this evening is that we are projecting to have a loss of parking supply over time to orient you to this map here the blue boxes that are on here are existing parking structures we have four of them and the orange are our existing surface public parking lots we looked at a 10-year and a 20-year planning horizon and we have projected out which of our existing surface parking lots we will be losing over that time period and I'll go through those quickly now lot two we've lost 30 spaces and that goes to the 1547 project that Bonnie had just mentioned so we're taking that offline and we're putting it in the bank on the right here a loss of 30 spaces they're not building any parking at all they're building parking as part of their project but this is a loss of existing shared parking in our public supply a net loss right a net loss of 30 spaces these spaces are they building as part of the project you know I don't have that off the top of my head you know Bonnie you know I don't know exactly but they're they're building you know for the residential for the new residential units they're creating so at least 79 at what it most likely at 79 I don't know if we gave them some concessions for the inclusionary units they're building so we'll have to get back to you with that exact number but they're not providing any public parking next I'll first start with lot 23 projecting loss of 24 spaces there that's a parking lot that we dedicated to an upcoming development so that will be coming off another important one is the Calvary church lot the red church lot there that's an existing lease that we have it was a two-year lease with a two-year option that lease will be done in October of 2019 and we're currently in the option period one of the elements of that option period is that if the Calvary church is to enter into a development agreement they could then exit our lease immediately so a projection that will lose 106 spaces from there yeah I was just going to make a comment I know we were kind of having questions but councilmember Matthews is going to leave after questions I'm going to have it go to the council beforehand council member crone so if we could hold questions until after public comment next we have lot 12 which is adjacent to metro now that's a lot that council has had a previous action to dedicate towards the future affordable housing project there that will be adjacent or with the metro project additionally lot 22 which we it was with the nyack and will be incorporated into a future development there so more spaces coming offline finally lot 27 is another lease that we have that we would be projecting that would come offline in 2025 this results in a net loss of 233 spaces by 2025 which represents approximately 10 percent of our overall parking supply that we have a key point to realize here in this visual is that our existing parking supply is by and large in the northern half of our downtown the southern portion of our downtown is vastly underserved by the shared parking supply two notes the potential library mixed use project which will be discussing in the future is on lot four there which could result in additional loss of parking and the potential farmers market lot which we're discussing this evening this afternoon right now in this item is on the existing lot seven there as with right now when the market operates on lot four on wednesday afternoons that's parking that's not available on wednesday afternoons similarly in operating on lot seven that's parking that would not be available on wednesday afternoons we do not include that in our net loss of parking looking at our future demand side so parking is a function of supply and demand and we just discussed supply looking at demand the purple shows where we're reasonably certain there will be future increases in mixed use housing projects which drive demand many of these will include parking as part of their projects but there's also the potential to link parking policy to being able to create additional units in downtown specifically with some of our affordable projects a key piece to notice here is that while the shared public supply is in the northern half of downtown the increase in demand will be in the southern half of downtown so as we talk about supply and demand and think about what is full as we go through our parking model for our garages and surface lots our off-strait facilities general uh academic and state of the practice accepts that 80 to 90 percent of capacity is your effective capacity what this does is allow for a cushion for people to be able to get to a parking facility and have a reasonable certainty that there will be a space available this minimizes the amount of circling and congestion in downtown and overall traffic in downtown it's estimated about 30 percent of congestion in downtown is from people driving and circling for parking the other thing that this does is allows for fluctuations for special events good examples that we have in Santa Cruz are the wednesday farmers market warriors home games first fridays or other events that cause a temporary increase in parking demand but are not functions that we would suggest that you build additional parking capacity for similarly on street effective parking capacity is considered to be 85 percent this allows for one to two spaces to be open per block face and really encourages those short trips to our retail establishments so we took the supply and demand that we just showed you the decrease in overall supply and the increase in parking demand that we will see and we utilized the 90 percent off street effective capacity rate to be as progressive as possible and the 85 percent on street occupancy rate to model out what a 10-year and a 20-year horizon would be the graph in front of you shows with no new parking supply so just a lot said i showed you that are coming offline and the increase in demand that we're reasonably foreseeing what our surplus or deficit ratio will be what this shows you is that in 2026 we are anticipating having a parking deficit of 657 spaces and in 2036 a deficit of 1210 spaces we also modeled this looking at the assumption of adding 600 spaces in supply this actually results in a net increase of 230 spaces because it accounts for the net loss that we had discussed earlier with those lots coming offline with this addition of 600 spaces we are projecting out we are projecting out in 10 years to see a parking deficit of just under 200 spaces and in 2036 to see a deficit of 745 spaces what both of these graphs inform us of is that we will with a new supply project or without we will have a parking crunch they both also inform us that we need to continue to invest in our transportation demand management programs to continue to move the needle on reducing our parking demand and increasing the amount of non-auto trips that come to downtown they also speak to in not adding new supply it really creates a limit on the amount of new development that you can target towards downtown and with that i'd like to take a few minutes to talk about some recent changes and future opportunities around community spaces so first up is Abbott Square i'm sure many of you have been there many times this has been an amazing project in our downtown it's a quasi public it's owned by the county but operated by the maw and it really has been a great example of downtown revitalization we need more of this this is looking towards the future of projects like these that will sustain our downtown so we're pretty excited by this project the success of this project and really grateful to the maw we also participate in a lot of the community programming performance art programming on this going forward another recent change is been our activated river walk and obviously this is a part of the parade related to past year's ebb and flow event which has become very popular with the arts arts council the coastal watershed council arts commission and the city council support and this just shows sort of how we're re embracing the river walk from the tannery to the boardwalk with renewed activities and we're going to see even more of that with two of the projects including some proposed changes in that are changes in the downtown plan amendments that really help to activate the river walk including some proposed development that we have that take those connections from downtown and connect them to through to the river walk which we'll see in some of our proposed development we're really going to have more activities and we're seeing some development now that really do embrace the river so we're pretty excited by that and then we have some other future opportunities and community spaces and just to touch on them very briefly I mean we have considerable amenities and resources in our downtown and so first just want to acknowledge that not every downtown has all these things we have a professional sports team anchoring the lower part of our downtown and arena we have our civic auditorium and while yes it's definitely need of some refurbishment it is a major draw for our community and if we can reinvest in that for the future it can really help be an anchor in our downtown we have our opportunity with the library you'll hear more about that next week and then finally we have the farmers market if we can invest in these now we'll be investing in the future sustainability of our downtown this is just a visionary slide as an artist rendering of what the downtown library could look like this is needs to be subject to community extensive community outreach this is just sort of a concept drawing at this point so I'm going to take the last few minutes just to talk about our future opportunity of the farmers market this is just to orient you this is what is our lot seven which is at Cathcart front and it's just south of the new leaf new seasons parking parking area so these are on a combination of city owned lots and council had directed us in years past to look at the site as a potential two things potential affordable housing site as well as a potential site to move the metro bus station center so we analyzed it from both perspectives and what we found out is it's actually not a good site that's suitable for any type of vertical development and you'll see that in a minute but part of the reason why is that it's wider at the northern end and it tapers down significantly when you get to Cathcart street and so any scenario where we were building anything above a single story we just we couldn't make it efficient and when it wasn't efficient the cost the cost was high and so building affordable housing if we were to include any parking on it the cost per space was about 15 to 20 thousand dollars higher per space than it would be on a more regularly larger shaped lot as well as vertical development just became inefficient for layout and the cost of construction as a result went up so we took this off the off the sort of drawing board as far as a site that had a lot of potential for vertical development but that's why we think it's ideally ideally suited for a permanent home for the farmers market so what you're seeing here again is just an artist rendering and we have a series of conceptual drawings this is about a 25 foot clear the idea is that you would be able to drive in the farmers market vendor trucks as well as have clear to some of the retail from the back so you can see the yoga studio through here we wanted to have that visibility both for the existing businesses as well as for the farmers market sizes key a couple of the elements that were important we have been talking with the farmers market since last summer a couple of the elements that were important for them was year-round seasonality and that is why you see a structure versus just moving as straight from the existing site to the new site as you'll see in the next few drawings there's different options and and ideas floating out there including one that would have the ability of a very sort of temporary roof structure instead of a permanent one like this so that during the summertime it could be open so you know very early on in sort of the concepts that we felt like it was important to actually have some visuals so that people could start to visualize what it could look like some other important elements to the farmers market we're having the amenities of public restrooms as well as some of the things that could be available to have those as permanent that they don't currently have at the existing site so this is and I'll just toggle toggle back and forth for a second so you can see so when it's not being used by the farmers market or potentially another public event it could still be used as parking so we feel like this is a really good use sort of the highest and best use for this site at this time here you see another version or style of what the farmers market could look like this one's oriented a little bit more towards Front Street and the proposed future development and here again is seeing it during the market and then when it's being used as a parking lot and I will point your attention to the front facing Cathcart you'll see that we created a plaza area towards the front of that we did that intentionally because in the downtown plan they envisioned having that Cathcart connection which currently terminates on Front Street to be continued through to the riverwalk and so we thought it would be really good to have a plaza area and as it so happens with one of the proposed developments that we're reviewing today at the city it connects really nicely to a great public plaza and I'll show you a view of that and in a second and here it is so here again is a third version of what the farmers market could look like and this one's not particularly detailed but you see that connection across Cathcart and across the crosswalk into a public plaza area that's actually wider than Abbott Square goes up a grand staircase and then connects into the riverwalk so the potential there is pretty exciting for some of the synergies that could be between the farmers market and our riverwalk not to show you too much detail here but here's just a comparison between the two sites so you can see the site on the left is the proposed new site and it is it is narrower than the existing site but we were able to efficiently lay out all of the stalls we have a couple different configurations that we've been talking about with the farmers market it is a smaller area so one of the things we're looking into and this is is kind of where we're at this point coming to you now is looking at if we were able to expand into part of the lot that is not owned by the city and that's the new season's new leaf parking lot we could actually accommodate the full market plus room for growth in the future which is really important to the farmers market board understandably additionally at the city we could also consider other things of temporary street closures if we wanted to expand any further or for special events but that's an element that's really important to the farmers market and important to us as well so this one shows sort of an aerial view as you can see it has solar on it again and in numerous conversations with the farmers market they really also want to pursue a canvas like or a temporary type roof structure that potentially could be rolled back or open air during the summer so as I said these are very preliminary just for the purposes of of moving the discussion on so that's where we are today we definitely are at the point where we feel like we need some council direction to move forward we'd like to explore the parking lot and seeing if we could come into an arrangement with new seasons new leaf and the owners of that lot so that we could circle back with the farmers market and see if we could reach an agreement with them to move forward with further exploring the site for a permanent home so that's where we are today initial analysis is promising but more work is really needed before we can fully address all of their long-term needs and so that's where we are today and leads us to our recommendation which is to pursue an agreement with the Santa Cruz community farmers market for development of a permanent downtown farmers market on our parking lot seven so just to recap we've talked about a lot today and our brief presentation and again it's really all these elements together community spaces parking housing transportation we didn't touch on a lot of the individual things that are under each of those categories but our hope is that over the next few weeks we will touch on all of those and give you a bigger picture of recent changes future opportunities how they all work together for long-term downtown sustainability so with that said next week's study session is going to focus on a presentation from the downtown library advisory committee and all the work that they did that led to the recommendations that they made in December of 2017 and so they'll focus on that next week as well as a presentation on a sort of parking fee structure proposed sort of parking strategy for your consideration and community feedback thank you okay at this point council member matthews is going to leave and then we're going to go what we actually you wanted to stay for the comments right from the public you're going to hear the public comment okay okay bye bye all right we're going to um well actually let's do this um since she's leaving now are there any questions that council member have before we hear from public comment yeah i just want to um go ahead do you have a question council member chase okay so um i'm i'm glad that you're coordinating well with the farmers market and you've been working with them have you also been connecting with the adjacent businesses around the proposed site and heard from them what their concerns or ideas are we've had some preliminary conversations we have had some conversations obviously with the owners very preliminary with the owners of the new leaf new seasons lot and with the lease holder and they've had some conversations directly with new leaf new seasons about that we've had some and that's also part of why we're looking at the 25 foot clear as well and so that you can have that continued visibility and we also believe and i didn't mention this but we in some of our early discussions that there's a lot of synergy between the farmers market and new seasons and often you go to the farmers market and you get all your fresh fruits and vegetables and then you go into your grocery store and get your other other items that go with that so we think there's going to be it's a really exciting combination that's very supportive we also think with the parking structure the soquel garage that we have right there that there are opportunities for parking so even though we're displacing that parking during during the farmers market that they'll be parking in the structure both for the new leaf new seasons as well as the patrons of the farmers market and i think you mentioned it but i might have i might have missed it that the intention is also that it would be a real gathering space not just for the farmers market but we have dance week downtown we have other things that are kind of regular performance opportunities and gathering and cultural festivals and things this is also intended to be a space that could support that as well absolutely and i think that's one of the exciting elements about it is creating a new community space having the ability to have that four seasons seasonality and being able to have cover if needed during the winter events having the ability to be open air and as far as the other surrounding businesses there is a developer to developers that have submitted some preliminary plans one is in pre-app review at the city right now for a majority of the property that's on the other side of the street and they're pretty excited about this and that connection and that is the proposed river riverfront project that with that connection with the farmers market and how that connects to their proposed public plaza and the riverwalk yeah um i want to go back well first the 1547 pacific could you put that slide up you said there was 14 inclusionaries i believe it's 12 yeah and um what i was under the impression that these are market rate rentals for the next 10 years after their build is that correct yeah if it um i believe that is a math project this that probably is is the arrangement um similar to if we toggle whoops to thank you 555 um and we can give you the exact breakdown of this tonight since we are having a very specific housing focus study session tonight and i know that we were going to briefly touch on a couple of these projects so we can we can recap some of this information um for your questions fully talking about your questions but on 555 um in addition for the 14 inclusionary units we have seven which are section eight units right now and then a 2.2 million inclusionary fee on top of that and then on top of that we also have a 500 000 parking fee to the city um that's a lot um on this project um and this is 15 percent so on both projects we do have 15 percent on those projects um an important thing to mention and i need to confirm that it is a map project but under our current um under our current inclusionary if it's mapped um we're not able to enforce uh the 15 percent so we've negotiated um to include that um downtown um and um this is something i think there's a it is mapped it is mapped so this is something that we're proposing as one of the recommendations tonight that will come back um in the fall um which is to address that so that all the projects that are mapped during the rental period will also be subject to inclusionary so we were able to negotiate for that for this project but that we don't actually have an ordinance on the books that enforces that right now and i just wanted to point this out as some of the tension around this issue is you say inclusionary but that's not for 10 years right i have to look at the exact agreement on it's 15 on 555 i need to look at what the actual time period is for 1547 building housing but we're not um building it for folks who live here now who can't pay these exorbitant rents and we heard from the developers of this building that the rents are going to be you know in excess of three thousand dollars 3800 up to 3800 for a two bedroom unit i think lee butler is going to provide clarity thank you mayor and council members lee butler i'm the planning director and uh there is no specific time frame that uh is uh placed on the 1547 pacific in terms of the time frame in which they need to rent it once one unit is sold then they need to provide those inclusionary units so all of the inclusionary units would need to be provided concurrent with any unit being sold what you're referring to is the 10-year time frame is a distinct possibility there is the construction defects time frame of 10 years and so that is something that developers take into consideration when they are choosing the point in time in which they want to sell the units there's a liability period of 10 years for construction defects so that's okay a potential but it isn't linked they could rent it for shorter or longer or 20 years and i just want to make clear that this there's no affordable housing here um and the seven units at the other is um through the housing authority which i'm happy that there's seven units but the fears when we go through this process is that there's not going to be much affordable many affordable units at the end of the day and i just want to put that out there for building you know hundreds of units i know we have one building that's going to be you know affordable um how many parking spaces will it be at the farmers market when the farmers market isn't there at the new farmers market i think we had um i'd have to defer to the parking and maybe claire knows the number off the top of our head for the existing number of spaces but i believe the net number of spaces we're losing is not more than six or seven um so it's pretty minimal and um what's the tension between or is there tension between the canvas roof versus the roof with solar can you clarify what you mean by tension uh well you said that some of the farmers market folks want a canvas roof and the the the beautiful picture we saw was a permanent roof which makes some sort of sense in the rain but solar is quite a uh a great thing i think a lot of people would be supporting yeah i i think it's just an area of discussion i mean i think we defaulted to putting solar on it because i think it meets our climate adaptation principles but i think we're open for discussion and i think um that's just something we can talk about in the future yeah and i saw a member of the farmers market board shaking his head he'll be here to speak perhaps but i mean i said i think there is support for the solar and covered parking so i i don't think that's an issue my last issue was just about the history of the river because we i don't know when when you said we stopped turning our back on the river but the river was worked on by bruce van allen and a whole river task force and a river commission and that started in like the nineties and right up until 2003 when we have the river plan so i mean the river has been something that folks have turned around for at least 20 years that not not turning our backs on it but you know wanting it to be part of our daily life in sanacris thank you chris council member crown so i think one of the things right now is we have had our council questions and we'll go to the public but before we do get public comment regarding this item item 20 generally our opportunity for public comment for items not on the agenda is at 530 and i just want to get a show of hands of who's here for public comment for items not on the agenda one two six i'll just ask the council do you want to do you want to take a pause on this and do the public comment we say 530 and no no i mean for continuity's sake it'd be kind of nice but i understand that people did arrive here for at 530 expecting to speak but it would be nice to not have this kind of weird truncated break okay so i'm going to ask then those that are here for public comment we'll just we're going to finish the item 20 and then we'll turn it over to for the public comment on items not on the agenda so um uh mr longinati you you uh contacted in advance for your group to to um uh have four minutes i would make a motion that we have public comment at the time we said we're going to have it on our on our you know and i know people are here for an item and that's part of the process that we've um okay i was playing with up here that it's 530 but you know it's not it's a thought of a time sort of a time certain but not a time certain so it's really one second um so i mean that's why i was putting out to see what the will of the council was there's a motion on the floor to immediately go right now to um public comment is there a second i i saw some people shaking their head that it was okay to continue and there wasn't an issue so i i'll just think right now thank you chris for pointing that out and uh we'll right now continue with this item um so this is item 20 and uh rick you have the floor for four minutes yeah actually lauren uh okay i'll advance the slides yes um good afternoon my name is lauren mcgloughlin and i'm a business owner in downtown santa cruz um my my uh business is salon on the square which is right up against um abbot square so i've been lucky to experience some of this new community space in town but i'm here because um a number of business owners have been gathering and we've been lucky enough to speak to a few of you um because i think uh we kind of felt like we weren't sure after voting in the funding for the library that all of a sudden it was going to be a part of a four-story parking lot and so people started gathering downtown with the concern around that and i think also people looking at open space open space that is welcoming to all and has an organic sense to it so it's not maybe always as organized with something that i think people were looking at you know what type of open space what type of downtown engagement are we talking about and so many of the business owners had different viewpoints so um i was asked to come here and just read the slides and be able to represent and have a little slice of what it's like to be a business owner downtown and what people are looking forward to um in this consideration so um from pure pleasure we have someone saying please don't take away our last downtown space for community events like the farmers market antique fair pride and replace it with another mega parking structure from bird elves we have um i think we need to be smarter about managing our current parking situation before we make a large financial commitment towards a new garage um with plazolane optometry we have when i think about santa cruz building a very large new parking structure it flies in the face of what we know about climate change it seems to be the um seems the obvious solution is to reduce the demand for employee parking downtown um go ask alice um is stating that with the savings from not building a garage let's do something about our homeless problem the homeless problem affects my business more than parking availability um from um meta vinyl it says i want to see a vibrant downtown with more pedestrian cyclists and transportation options not more cars more traffic and more emissions um from thrifty cuts barbershop we have building a new garage would be a big financial risk for downtown businesses if we hit a recession the debt on the garage would still need to be paid before taking that risk we need to pursue lower cost alternatives and i'm just going to say that was a big point was has the cost of putting in this garage really been examined against what what could happen in the future um i think also in addition to that just the feeling of a library being a gathering place and sort of a um this space that doesn't have a garage on top i mean i saw the picture of what you just showed and it didn't look like there was a garage on top of that so i think people are kind of waiting to see what does it look like and how does it feel like an inviting place for people to gather um then with gabriel cafe which says after 25 years downtown i've heard very few complaints about parking santa cruise needs more homeless services once again affordable apartments and event space and more events i'm not happy about moving our popular farmers market to an inferior location um from us the salon rare bird salon um which is right across from the um farmers market now we need to restructure the parking permit program so that permit holders pay by the day rather than buy the month when the employees pay by the month you create an incentive for them to drive every day from spokesman uh bicycles um we're at technological crossroads lift and uber um transportation concepts here and on the near horizon it doesn't make sense to choose a new garage from the acupuncture clinic um our focus should be lowering negative environmental impact since we have the green technology to create that type of city i'm going to go on because we're about out loop aloe the approach garage appears to us a dated and short-sighted concept and will not only create more congestion but also fragment and diminish the character of our downtown so i'll leave it at that thank you that actually thanks rick for advancing the slide but your time is up and i appreciate i appreciate it um so um those that are here to speak for item 20 now is your time so if you'd line up on this side and if you want to speak to this item um you can come up and you have two minutes the biggest problem these days is dirt is too expensive and what we need to do is utilize the space that people can use i would love to see us allow people allow constructions of uh say a 20-story building and the first three or four stories could be all parking you know then we'd have a lot more space for for uh commercial for residents and simply put the there is so much demand for housing in this town that it has caused rents to go sky high and not only are the rents sky high but even if you have the money it is very very difficult to find housing in this town or a business location and so on and i think the biggest problem i see is that too much of the land in this city in this county is one story you know i if i think in residential areas people should be able to build up to about four or five stories on a private house but i think what we should do for commercial areas let it go as high as like 20 i mean even then it's not a major uh skyscraper at that point but it's going in that direction and i think for us to be able to keep things together where we have enough places for people to live we have enough places for people to work we need to build bigger and taller and even in one of the uh the uh forums that we had for city council i remember i said that we need to be build bigger and taller and a bunch of the crowd uh give a gasp to it but you know are we going to stay this tiny little expensive nothing town forever or are we going to build up thank you next speaker please good evening council members remaining council members i am chip i'm the executive director of the downtown association we are our special board meeting this morning got a presentation of a lot of these related elements and we're very excited to continue the conversation i think there's a lot of very exciting projects here a lot of potential and and a lot of details to be worked out so we're very excited to continue the conversation about all of these and the the one direction we were able to come to fortunately today was that we do i'm keeping on on the agenda item you're talking about we would like to extend our support as a board of the downtown association sent to me as to extend their support for the farmers market and the proposal to consider moving to the front street location uh those of us who uh spend a lot of down time time downtown and um work in the public private realm understand the difficulties and challenges of managing public space and the farmers market has done an exemplary job of doing that over the years they're a wonderful partner for downtown a great number of many of many fabulous businesses downtown and we want to support them to stay downtown in creating a good uh and vibrant event space for not only the farmers market but for the community to use the downtown association produces a number of events and finding an appropriate location is always a struggle so looking for infrastructure investments that accommodate the antique fair the farmers market and other events for the community is really important so on behalf of the board of the downtown association i did send an email uh i don't know if you got it yet it was kind of late incoming because we just discussed this this today but we do want to support this proposal uh related to the farmers market thank you very much thank you next speaker please good evening my name is bob morgan i'm going to speak to parking alternate as i prepared some remarks on october 15th 2015 the planning commission and downtown commission inviting consultants nelson nygard to on a presentation of parking alternatives i highly recommend viewing this archived video among many strategies that they proposed in a holistic analysis of a system of parking alternatives in santa cruz was a utilization of shared remote parking sometimes called satellite parking opportunities within 1000 feet of pacific avenue there are hundreds of unused parking resources available at various times of day weekends and during various seasons these include holy cross santa cruz high mission hill the city council parking lot the civic lot and the county office all empty after five p.m and all day on weekends and in the holy cross and civic center case on weekdays and of course from september through may 5000 spaces one half mile away just about from where you're sitting we have 5000 unused parking spaces available nelson nygard recommended incentivizing satellite parking providing discounts restructuring downtown parking rates to reflect what they call core parking zone the most desirable spaces pay a premium peripheral peripheral and remote zones pay less wi-fi downtown congestion park at a remote lot connect the downtown and the remote lots with jump bikes provide lift discount vouchers even this downtown shuttle makes around some people walk some people use permanent bike lockers at the sites savvy entrepreneurs set up an app and advertise quick cheap lift to downtown soon and not very far away autonomous driving shuttles route through the various satellite lots let's all think creatively first and use the many resources we now have in place instead of leaving them empty while we build something new and expensive of this magnet magnitude which i think will be a very contentious issue for the city thank you sir thank you next speaker please good evening my name is judy grunstra and um the uh i have this uh picture of the downtown plan uh which shows the cedar street village corridor which um is characterized as a mixture uh sort of maintaining a village quality uh you know pacific af and um front street the heights are going to increase but uh along cedar street the plan is not to have tall buildings so to have a garage there just goes against this village corridor issue that was planned um and a question about the farmers market in this sentinel article of november mr mr burnall says that the um cost of this farmers market um could infrastructure could be five to six million dollars now in the staff report uh one point three million dollars is mentioned that that's kind of covered so where's this other money gonna come from for this revamped and improved farmers market not that i'm against it but where's the money gonna come from and so and you spoke about the space um it's gonna be a farmers market on wednesday it's gonna be a parking lot other times and yet we've heard a mention of it possibly being used for some other events so when would that lot be vacated for these other events so these are you know questions of this you know um everything you know sounds great in the you know vision but is it really feasible uh lastly um yeah nobody spoke in here about the importance of a cohesive civic center that's being left out of the whole downtown discussion you know um we have a civic auditorium of a library there we have city hall offices um no mention is made of what's gonna happen if the library is moved so that's a big gaping hole there so that i hope we'll to talk about that more next week and one more thing thank you nope that's it okay thank you okay so we have i was only a mem