laim November as Native American Heritage Month. And whereas, as stated by former President Barack Obama, we must acknowledge the unfortunate chapters of violence, discrimination, and deprivation against American Indians, as well as the effects and injustices that continue to be felt. And whereas the city of Santa Rosa recognizes the city is built upon Pomo, Miwak, and Wapo homelands, and that indigenous nations have lived upon this land since time immemorial, that the land itself carries historical trauma, and that racist policies and dominant cultural norms have aimed to strip tribes not only of land, but of culture, language, and family systems. And whereas many local tribes survived and banded together with other tribes from the region, such as the Dry Creek Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians, the Kashi'a Band of Pomo Indians of the Stewards Point Rancheria, the Federated Indians of Green Rancheria, and the Linn Band of Pomo Indians, and whereas, the non-profit organization Yakaama, which means our land, in the Pomo language was founded in 1971, and is situated on 125 acres of prime agricultural land in Western Sonoma County. And whereas, the mission of Yakaama is to support traditional native culture and values, to give native people the tools to become contributing members of their communities, and to improve educational opportunities and resources for American Indians, Hawaiian natives, and Alaska natives. And whereas, Yakaama is open to all tribes, members of Sonoma County, and the five surrounding counties in the region, offering a safe space for educational classes, cultural ceremonies, and events, and celebration of life. Now, therefore, it be resolved, our mayor of the city of Santa Rosa, Chris Rogers, and the city council, to hereby proclaim November, as the National Native American Heritage Month. Oh! Thank you, council member. We'll do a public comment on item 6.1 if there's anybody who would like to say a couple of words. Please go ahead and line up at the podium. Well, I'd like to thank you and the rest of the board for today. This is a big honor for our people. And so, and I like Eddie, I kind of ditto and really like what Eddie presented there because that is what we try to do for our community because sometimes we don't get to do much, but every little bit does help. So I really appreciate that, Eddie. And on behalf of our board, it is truly an honor to receive this award today because we've been putting in some work, you know? And sometimes it doesn't go over well. But it is truly our heart and our passion to do more for the native community. So again, I wanna thank you for giving us this award today. And even the founders that have laid their time and sweat and blood of 50 years ago, you know? I don't remember all their names, but there were several of them, about 12 or so, 12, 13. But I just wanna give them recognition as well today. And I'm gonna allow our former chair to come up and share some things with you again. My name's Bill Marbilli and I'm the former chair right now. Hi guys, my name is Maria Cardenas. I know most of you in this room, I actually have forced my way into some of your guys' lives via email and in person. And I'm so grateful for this proclamation today. It was a hard, hard way just to get here 50 years. And I just wanna say how thankful we are and how much our community has come together and recognizing us has given us motivation to keep fighting and moving forward. And we're still not done. And I wanna thank you guys. And I wanna thank everybody who's here, board members and former board members, our caretaker, Adrienne, who's been our caretaker for so long. And I'm really just grateful. Thank you. Wopila mayor, vice mayor, city council members. My Lakota name is Wechapi Lutawid, which means many stars woman. My American name is Madonna Rose Feather Cruz. And I just wanna say Wopila on behalf of all of our people. This is a long time coming. And when I hear equity, equity, equity, and when I hear equity, I wanna see someone hiring a native, hiring a native, hiring a black, hiring a Mexican, that's what equity is. I just wanna say thank you to all of you guys. Anybody else who'd like to make a couple comments? All right, then what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna invite folks down. We'll actually take a photo with you with the proclamation if that works for everybody before we move on to 6.2, which is our second proclamation for the day. Thank you everybody for being here. So next we'll have item 6.2. It's our proclamation for a national apprenticeship week. We've got a couple of representatives here from some of our trades. We have the operating engineers. We have the carpenters. We have the electricians. If you guys wanna come on up and I'll have Council Member Fleming read the proclamation via Zoom, and then we'll present it to you and take some photos if you're interested as well. Actually, I'll let you make comments. If you wanna make comments first, then we'll take photos. So if you wanna queue up at the podium, that works well. And Council Member Fleming, go ahead and take it away. Thank you, Mayor. And I do apologize that I couldn't be there in person today. This is a proclamation that is close to my heart. So whereas National Apprenticeship Week is celebrating its seventh anniversary of raising awareness of the vital role apprenticeships provide in creating a qualified and highly skilled workforce in diverse industries in Santa Rosa and across the nation. And whereas advancement and wellbeing of the United States of America depends upon the continued development of skilled workers in their chosen fields. And whereas an ever-growing number of job creators and career seekers are discovering the benefits of apprenticeships unique learn while you earn model. And whereas the city of Santa Rosa recognizes that robust apprenticeship programs provide tangible value to both job creators and apprentices with the potential to increase productivity, improve diversity and an inclusion and reduce recruitment and training costs while providing a pathway to prosperous careers for job seekers. Now, therefore be it resolved that Santa Rosa Mayor Chris Rogers and the city of Santa Rosa do hereby proclaim November 15th through November 21st, National Apprenticeship Week. All right, thank you. Mackin Taggart. Mayor, thank you very much. Council members, my name is John Mackin Taggart. I'm the business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 551. We are based here in Santa Rosa. Our apprenticeship program is based here in Santa Rosa. All of our apprentices are from the surrounding areas and a tremendous amount of our numbers are from the center of the city schools. The apprenticeship, we really appreciate you with this proclamation, recognizing the importance of apprenticeship. The apprenticeship lifts up those individuals who don't wanna go into the white-collar career.  All of us up here have apprenticeship programs and any apprentice that makes it into our program, they're given the golden ticket. Basically, there's nothing between them and retirement, but them. So what we say to high schools and colleges is you get them to 18 or 22, we will take them to 62. And that way, they get to stay in the neighborhoods, growing their communities, and their kids get to go to the same schools they went to. They get to come home, talking about their teachers, knowing their parents, and then communities are built. That's what we believe is how strong communities are built. We really appreciate the proclamation you're making here today. Thank you, sir. Dan? Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Miss Vice Mayor. Thanks for having us here today, and thank you for recognizing Apprenticeship Week and making it with this proclamation. And as my brothers-in-arms up here would probably agree with me, an apprenticeship isn't just a skills training device, it's also an opportunity for a better life, for a lot of the local residents here and surrounding counties as well. I know when I went through the apprenticeship, it's changed my life immensely for the better, and unions are also leading the way in diversifying the workforce. We've heard it for years from, we've probably heard it from financial planners left and right, diversify your portfolio, but we're taking that same vision and using it and directing it towards our workforce. What better way to have a stronger workforce out there than to diversify our workforce? Thank you. Mike? Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Vice Mayor, and fellow council members. Mike Pickens, operating engineers and district rep here for the runner park area in San Rosa. I would like to personally thank you on behalf of Mike Pickens as declared in this National Apprenticeship Week. Apprenticeships do a lot of things for people. You heard John talk about how it's a golden ticket, well, for me, it really was. Prior to walking into the Apprenticeers pre-apprenticeship program, I walked in there with the clothes on my back. I was living on the streets, doing a lot of very unscrupulous things. Really very rough life, very rough childhood, no future. I last on to the apprenticeship program and here I am 24 years later and I never looked back. Today, I own a house, I'm a tax-paying citizen. I have had medical for the last 24 years I never had to worry about. Thanks to a union apprenticeship program, a joint labor management apprenticeship program. So it really does offer the opportunity for our youth, whether they be disadvantaged, whether it be a kid who grew up on the farm or living up in another county where they don't have a whole lot of opportunity. It really is. What you get out of it, what you put into it is a great opportunity to shine light on the apprenticeships in the area and show the youth that there's another pathway, that if they don't feel college is right or school is right for them, then there is another path forward that can get you a great career to where you can retire with dignity and know that you're gonna have a steady paycheck for the rest of your life until you pass away It's a great opportunity and I really appreciate what you've done here. Thank you very much from the bottom of my heart. Thank you gentlemen. Go ahead and come on down. We'll take a photo with the proclamation. All right, before we move on, we'll see if we have any public comment on our Zoom for items 6.1 and 6.2. And Madam Deputy City Clerk, I'm gonna ask you to run public comment for a moment. Thank you for those wishing to make a public comment on items 6.1 or 6.2. Please raise your hand via Zoom. If you are participating by telephone, please dial star nine. Mayor, I'm not seeing any hands being raised via Zoom and no one has approached the podium to make additional public comment. Okay, we'll go ahead and keep moving through the meeting. We'll move on to item number seven. That's our staff briefings. Mayor Rogers and members of the City Council, we have a COVID-19 update this afternoon. Sonoma County opens COVID-19 booster shots to all adults, 18 years and older to help avoid the winter surge, especially as people travel and gather indoors for the holidays. The broad expansion of booster eligibility aligns Sonoma County with the California Department of Public Health guidance released this week, which allows all adults seeking to strengthen their immune systems to get a booster in advance of the holiday season. Anyone in a high risk or higher risk group, including seniors 65 and older, people with underlying medical conditions, people who work in high risk settings and all Johnson and Johnson recipients are urged to get a booster shot as soon as possible. People seeking booster vaccination appointments should check first with their primary care providers and at pharmacies as vaccine supplies will be limited at the county's fixed and pop-up clinics. For information on about vaccine clinics and how to make appointments through the county's vaccine clinic webpage, visit socoemergency.org, forward slash vaccine or visit myturn.ca.gov. Children age five to 11 are now eligible to receive the Pfizer pediatric vaccine providing families with another tool to protect loved ones over the holidays. This week, the County of Sonoma in collaboration with the Sonoma County Office of Education and local health experts are offering a webinar focusing on questions and answers about the COVID-19 pediatric vaccines for children's ages five to 11. Tonight's webinar will be presented in English from five to 6 p.m. And again tomorrow night from four to 5 p.m. in Spanish. For webinar information, visit socoemergency.org, forward slash vaccine. As of yesterday, the County had 1,379 active COVID-19 cases and a total of 410 deaths since the start of the pandemic. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. City Manager. Are there any questions on the COVID-19 update? Let's move on then. Go to our City Manager and City Attorney reports. Excuse me, Mayor, did you wanna take any public comment on the staff briefings? Good point, so I did not see any hands. I don't see anybody moving towards the podium here in the chambers. If you are interested, hit the raise hand feature on Zoom. Seeing none, did we have any voicemail public comments? We did not, Mayor. Right, we'll keep moving. Mr. City Manager, do you wanna start with your report? No report this evening. Okay, Madam City Attorney. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I actually have two items I'd like to report on. The first is our monthly now report on settlements and active litigation. Again, we are giving this report monthly under the open government ordinance that will formally go into effect on January 1st. So in terms of litigation, in terms of settlements, we had no new settlements to report out this month. We, in terms of litigation, we have 29 cases still in our office, five receiverships, three of which rehabilitation of the properties are well underway and getting close to being finalized. We have 10 general litigation, three of which have been either resolved or are close to being resolved. We have six cases of personal injury or dangerous conditions, one of which has been resolved. Four police action cases, four rits of mandate. And of course, this is also all in addition to our other legal proceedings, weapons cases, pitches, code enforcement, dangerous animal cases and others. At this point, we have six of our pending litigation matters set for trial in the coming year. So we'll be looking forward to that trial, those trials. We have 10 new claims filed last month, two of which were personal injury claims, the remainder of which were filed in connection with the city's short-term rental ordinance that the council adopted a few weeks ago and we have those claims. So that is my report on litigation and settlements. The second item that I would like to report on, I want to let the council and the public know that tomorrow evening will be the first meeting of the city charter review committee. The committee is now fully appointed, everyone's in place. First meeting takes place tomorrow via Zoom, starting at 5 p.m. We'll be getting together for the first time, providing for some introductions and we have three scheduled items. We'll give an overview of the charter and of the charter review process. We'll give a very brief introduction to the Brown Act and the Public Records Act and then finally, the committee will start to work on discussing its work plan, how it's gonna move forward. So we wanna welcome the public to join that meeting. I think it's gonna be very interesting and exciting and we do look forward to this very important and engaging work that's ahead of us. Thank you, happy to answer any questions. All right, thank you so much. Are there any questions for the city attorney? Seeing none, we'll go to public comment. I see no hands on Zoom. I see no one moving towards the podium. Do we have any pre-recorded voice mails? We do not, Mayor. Okay, let's go on to item number nine then that is statements of abstention from council members. Does anybody have to abstain from any items tonight? Council member Schwedel. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll be abstaining from item 11.4, the special meeting as I was not present for that meeting. Okay, council member Tibbetts. I abstain from item 12.1. My organization is one of the applicants. If we have any public comment on item number nine, statements of abstention, seeing no hands and nobody moving to the podium. Did we have any voice mails? We did not, Mayor. All right, let's go on to mayors and council members' reports. Does anybody have anything to report out on at tonight's meeting? Vice Mayor? I would like to make an appointment to the board of community service and that will be Mr. Guido. Okay, good, I said that right. And then the second thing is I wanted to give a shout out to, and I hope I'm saying it to the right officer, but I wanted to give a shout out to one of our own, Anthony Scholarcio. Maybe badge number will be better, 585, number 585. If you can hear me, I want to give a shout out just for the way you are seen in the community interacting with our community. This is something that is very well done. And if I'm getting feedback, then I just want to pass it on and give it to you. Like we are so trying to build that relationship. And I just want to thank you for making it easier and we're getting one step closer. So thank you so much, Officer Anthony, for your time, your commitment to our community. Thank you. All right, council member Alvarez. And I heard he's a great dancer, by the way. Just throwing it out there. I also want to report out that last night we did have a Spanish session in regards to the Sideshow Epidemic, I almost say, that we're having here in the nation, not just in San Rosa, of course. And I wanted to thank the Hispanic community, the Latino community for really engaging and coming forward to share their ideas, their concerns with us. And if I could in Spanish, and I'll repeat in English, how important it is for our community to really speak up so they can be heard. Quiero agradecerle la comunidad hispana, Latina, por arrimarse a nosotros para dar sus ideas, sus pesares, sus inquietudes, porque es muy importante que ustedes se arrimen hacia nosotros para nosotros poder escucharlos, para poder entendirlos y poder salir con soluciones para que podamos resolver el problema que nos afecta como una comunidad. Gracias. Thank you. Council Member Svettel. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just want to report out that we did have a Groundwater Sustainability Agency meeting on the 10th. In essence, as we heard, I think it was our last council meeting, the public comment period had opened and closed. And so Sonoma Water gave us some input as to what the community was saying and how it's going to be incorporated into that report. So I was very appreciative of their efforts, their outreach efforts, and also how this was not a state mandated thing to even respond back, but the Sonoma Water really is showing some transparency and everyone has been involved with that is very, very helpful. And I was able to last Thursday on Veterans Day, attend the Veterans Day flag ceremony at City Hall here. And I want to thank the Vietnam Veterans of America, Chapter 223 for their efforts on Thursday. And lastly, last Sunday was the second of the two mayor awards. Again, just want to recognize some awesome contributors that are making Santa Rosa a better place to live, work, and play. And I really do want to recognize that mayor awards committee because over the two day period, they did an awesome job about making it COVID appropriate. And also how challenging and difficult it was to select those winners because there's a lot of great people in Santa Rosa doing great efforts and they did a wonderful job with recognizing those that received the awards. Thanks. All right, we'll go to public comment on council member reports. I see no hands. Do we have any voicemails? We did not, Mayor. Okay, let's go on then to item 11. We have four sets of minutes from October 6th, October 19th, October 20th, and October 29th. Were there any amendments to those minutes from council? Okay, let's go to public comment and see if the public had any changes to those minutes. And I see no hands. Do we receive any voicemails? We did not, Mayor. Great, we will show those four items approved as submitted without any objection. Mr. City Manager, let's go to the consent calendar. Mayor Rogers and members of the city council, we have four items on the consent calendar this afternoon, beginning with item 14, I'm sorry, 12.1, a resolution authorizing the submittal of two applications to the State of California Department of Housing and Community Development's Home Key Grant Program for the city to be a co-applicant in two projects. The first is Caritas in the amount not to exceed 11.36 million. And second is the St. Vincent de Paul Commons in an amount not to exceed 7.6 million. Item 12.2 is a resolution amending the fiscal year 2021-22 adopted budget to appropriate fund balance to establish a flexible spending account reserve. Item 12.3, a resolution for termination of a proclamation of local emergency due to the 2020 glass fire. Item 12.4 is an ordinance adoption, an ordinance of the council of the city of Santa Rosa to amend the city zoning code, chapter 20-31, density bonus and other development incentives to be consistent with state government code section 65915, density bonuses and other incentives. File number REZ 21-003. Looking to see if we have any questions or comments from council members. Seeing no hands, let's take public comment on these items. You have a comment for any of our consent calendar items. Go ahead and hit the raise hand feature on your Zoom or make your way towards the podium here in the chamber. Our first public comment will be from Erin. Hi council members, good evening. I just wanted to ask a clarifying question. I don't know if that's possible, but if they change the zoning code ordinance, is that to make it easier for projects to be moved through or what's the purpose of that? It's really important that zoning's upheld to protect the environment. So I just have concerns about changing zoning and giving away these density bonuses and seeing Sonoma County just be overrun with project after project after project, especially in Santa Rosa. So I do want to bring that to your attention and make sure that we are acting appropriately. I know that the state has their vision, but when we look at the state as a whole, there's lots of different areas to take into account. And if we're thinking Southern California, Orange County, Los Angeles compared to, let's say Santa Rosa, density bonuses could be detrimental to preserving our agricultural areas, our rural characteristics and our quality of life here. So I just would like some more clarification if possible on what that actually means. And then for item 12.1, what is the outcome of these things? Is this going to help the homeless problem in the area? Are we going to see any changes to all the encampments everywhere? How does that actually address the homeless issue? It says a lot of dollars coming to these things. I'm assuming these are tax dollars going towards these things. And it's great that we can provide additional supports and resources, but what's the actual timeline for that? What does that look like? Where are we going to go to get the people off the creeks, people off the streets? How is that really going to help the immediate need for the homeless issue? So I don't know if the council's allowed to give further clarification on what these will mean and how that works, but I'd appreciate some additional information from anybody on the floor. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else is interested in providing comment? Go ahead, hit the raise hand feature. And Erin will get you some answers in just a moment here when we finish up public comment. Let's check and see if we had any voicemail public comments on the consent calendar. We do not mayor. Okay. So as it pertains to item 12.4, that's the second reading of an ordinance that the council has previously seen. Those are largely technical to make sure that we are still in compliance with state law changes. As for item 12.1, if we have Megan, Megan, do you want to give a brief overview of those projects? Not going too far into it since this is the consent calendar and there's a lot of documentation with it as well, but I want to make sure that we are able to answer for Erin, sort of the top line questions that we're being asked. Good evening, Mayor Rogers and members of council. I'm happy to address the questions that were being asked. So these funds are being made available by the state of California's Department of Housing and Community Development. These are grant funds that if awarded would go towards these two projects. Keratoc Center is currently under construction and this is the site of the former family support center in downtown Santa Rosa. So if awarded funds, they would go towards the project that is already under construction and anticipated to begin serving homeless individuals in the next year. And the second project, St. Vincent's Commons, which is formerly the Goldcoin Motel is owned by St. Vincent de Paul. And if awarded the funds, they would be able to proceed rapidly with rehabbing the facility and turning that into 54 units that would provide permanent housing for homeless individuals. All parties that benefit from home key projects need to be referred through coordinated entry, which is a component of Dysenoma County Continuum of Care. If there's any additional questions, I'm happy to answer those. Okay, council, is there anything else? Great. So council member Tibbets has recused himself from 12.1, that's why his camera's gone. Vice Mayor, if you'd like to put a motion in. I actually had a point of clarification. 12.4 due because Tibbets wasn't here. Does he have to recuse from that one or no? Because he wasn't here for the first reading. I'm sorry, which council member was not here? Tibbets. The general rule is that if you were not here for the prior hearing, you should read the materials and listen to the tape so that you have all of the information regarding the proposed ordinance in order to vote on this final adoption. Okay. Okay, well, he didn't recuse, so. All right, so I would like to move 12.1 and waive for the reading of the text. I'll second. We have a motion from the vice mayor and a second from council member Alvarez. Would you please call the vote? Thank you. Council member Schwedhelm. Aye. Council member Sawyer. Aye. Council member Fleming. Council member Alvarez. Aye. Vice Mayor Rogers. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. Okay, that motion passes with five ayes with council member Fleming absent and council member Tibbets recusing. We have another motion. Yeah, does someone tell Jack to come back? I'd keep moving. Okay. I move items 12.2 through 12.4 and waive for the reading of the text. Second. We have a motion from the vice mayor and a second from council member Schwedhelm. I did wanna just call out all the great work that staff has been doing as we terminate the proclamation for a local emergency due to the 2020 glass fire. I know we have touched on it here from the desk briefly but it really is another milestone in terms of recovery and in terms of response. So I just wanna give a huge shout out to everybody who's been working so hard to bring people home from that disaster. And with that, let's call the vote. Council member Tibbets. Aye. Council member Schwedhelm. Aye. Council member Sawyer. Aye. Council member Fleming. Council member Alvarez. Aye. Vice mayor Rogers. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. That motion passes with six ayes with council member Fleming absent. Okay. 445 will move on to item 14.1 just so that folks know sort of how the run of show is gonna be tonight. We're gonna take 14.1 and I assume that that will put us past five o'clock. That means that we will then come back and take our public hearings at that point. That'll be items 15.1 through 15.3 and then we'll come back after those with item 14.2. Since 14.2 is not an urgent public meeting along with it. We also will take a dinner break at some point in there. Item 13 is the non-agenda items matter that will be taken at five o'clock as well. Mr. City Manager, item 14.1 please. Mayor Rogers and members of the City Council, item 14.1 is a report item declaring racism, a public and human rights crisis in Santa Rosa. Magali Telus, our Deputy Director of Community Engagement, will present the staff report on this item. Good afternoon, Mayor Rogers, Vice Mayor Rogers and members of the Council. Thank you for the opportunity to come before you all and the community to present the resolution to declare racism, a public health and human rights crisis in Santa Rosa. I'd also like to take a moment to especially thank the community members representing Yakama who are a critical part of this resolution and to receive, they were here to receive today's proclamation. So today, Danielle Gardunio and myself will walk you all through the process of how we arrived here and how this resolution came about. And before we get started, I'd like to thank all the community members and groups who gifted us their time, energy and comments during the summer of 2020. When we began the community empowerment plan, we wanna recognize that community members were painfully triggered, trauma came to light and we began to have uncomfortable but necessary conversations in community about systemic racism. In the work that the Office of Community Engagement is committed to, we are invested in educating ourselves and the community about adverse community experiences as they pertain to race-based traumatic stress and using methodologies and strategies that are proven trauma and community-informed. We hope that this resolution is the beginning of galvanizing the importance of the ongoing work that we need to do to help our, as Beatriz Guerrero and I mentioned earlier, our equity-party populations feel seen, heard and validated. We also want to recognize those whose shoulders that we stand on and have come before us so that we're able to arrive at this point today. We wanna thank the NAACP, 100 Blackman, Sonoma County Lowrider Council. Thank you to the board members of YACA-AMA, the Kashiaban, Pomo Indians, Lakota Nation, RosenCBI, South Park CBI, Lampas, United Black Voices, the youth from Latino service providers and the countless individuals who took the time to meet with us. Antes de empezar, la oficina de participación comunitaria de la Ciudad de Santa Rosa quisiera darles las gracias por su tiempo, energía y comentarios durante el verano el año pasado cuando empezamos el plan comunitario de empodamiento. Estamos sumamente agradecidos por su participación y esperamos poder hacer los cambios que se necesitan para tener una ciudad que refleja toda la comunidad. Next slide please. So just some background on where we are and how we got here. On May 5th, the Office of Community Engagement staff presented the Community Empowerment Plan Report, which was formulated in response to the murder of George Floyd and the community outcry to recognize systemic racism. The city of Santa Rosa developed the Community Empowerment Plan with the vision of building a trusting and open relationship of respect between SRPD and the community. We held 18 listening sessions and with community groups and members, the community groups and members that were previously mentioned, a number of themes arose from the report, three of which I'd like to highlight very quickly. So one of the themes was community would like us to invest in community programs, in community programming and services, particularly for our black indigenous people of color communities. Some examples noted were supporting the Juneteenth celebration, Day Under the Oaks, Ya de los Muertos, et cetera. Secondly was asked was to address institutional racism, systemic racism and the culture of white supremacy. Thirdly, to uplift and celebrate Santa Rosa's black indigenous people of color community and the Office of Community Engagement has begun that process with the launch of Multicultural Roots Project, the Mary Lou Laurel Patrol Car and a few of the projects that we have in the works. In addition to the themes that were presented, there were seven recommendations that came directly from the community. And one of those was to declare racism as a public health crisis in Santa Rosa. During the May 5th presentation, council asked us to bring forward this declaration. Next slide, please. And so some further background on this, on the birth of the resolution was that on December 7th, 2020, the state legislature introduced Senate Bill 17. The proposed bill allows California to acknowledge the longstanding impacts of systemic racism and to declare racism as a public health crisis. The bill also states that California will approach laws and regulations with an anti-racist health and equity in all policies focused that seeks whether policies play a role in creating, maintaining or dismantling racist systems and secure adequate resources to address the crisis. So as you can see with some of the organizations mentioned here, if this is a local and national, you know, aligned resolution and some of the collective efforts that we see across agencies, across fields and across governmental systems coming together. So next I'd like to introduce Danielle Ganglino. Danielle. Thank you, Magali. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Madam Vice Mayor and council members. So next slide, please. So we are going to go into how we came up with the process for the resolution. Our amazing team of AmeriCorps VISTAs did a lot of research on existing resolutions from other jurisdictions here in California and also from around the United States. We specifically focused in on the jurisdictions here in California and found examples from San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, Napa, Long Beach, Indio, Oxnard, Palm Springs and others as well as counties including Alameda County, Contra Costa County, Sacramento County, Santa Barbara County, San Bernardino County and San Diego County among others. So in total, we reviewed 28 examples from California cities and counties while we were developing this resolution. In addition to that, we conducted research on national state and local data regarding how exposure to systemic racism impacts the health of people of color and communities of color. This data not only includes the number and percentages from multiple studies but it also includes the quantitative data or the stories from our own community members who participated in the listening session last summer. Next slide, please. So staff that participated, we formed an internal working group to review and make updates to the resolution once it was drafted from the research we did. And that includes our own community, engagement staff, our diversity, equity and equal employment officer, supervising planner from our advanced planning team and our equity and public health planner as well as again our AmeriCorps VISTAs and an intern which I will talk about in just a little bit. The working group again reviewed the draft provided updates on the additional data which took a couple of months to do. It was a lot of work. And then the C collaborative provided input and guidance to us as staff on the resolution particularly around the recommendation that action items that we have provided to you today. C collaborative will provide additional action items to the city to consider as they continue to work around diversity, inclusion and equity. Next slide, please. And just to provide you with a little bit of information about our next steps after we present this resolution to you, we are working with a graduate intern from the University of San Francisco whose name is also Magali, not to confuse all of us. But she is working with our department to develop an evaluation plan and tools to measure organizational changes made as a result of the adoption of this resolution as well as working with some of the recommendations that C collaborative will be coming up with and including working with their equity task force to conduct research on best practices around recommendations from the resolution and recommendations developed by the task force. In addition to that, she will be helping us develop a work plan and logic model and should hopefully have all of that done when her internship ends in May of 2022. So next slide, please. And with that, it is recommended by the Office of Community Engagement and the city council by resolution declare racism as a public health and human rights crisis in Santa Rosa. We will take any questions that you might have now. Questions, council. Council member Alvarez. Thank you, Mayor. Question for Magali and then Neil. What do you foresee continuing to be the greatest obstacles that you face in regards to addressing racism in Santa Rosa? I would just, I'll just jump in, Danielle. I would definitely start out as we definitely need a lot of community education. When Dr. Sharon Washington gave us a presentation, I think the community felt and this was back in January essentially the tipping point of systemic racism. There was a great conversation that was happening in community about recognizing. So I think first we just really have to name things as they are. We have to acknowledge before we can move on to healing. So I think number one is really acknowledging where we stand and how we got here is going to be definitely number one. I think that's the biggest obstacle is getting the community education out to everyone. Danielle, I don't know if you wanna add to that. I would just say that as an organization, we have a lot of work to do internally around educating our own staff on how our organization has historically played a role in some of these system instructors that have impacted our communities of color. And how do we make that bridge between our staff and the community in a really meaningful and authentic way that addresses that as Magali was saying. And then moving forward, how do we move forward? We have a lot of work to do around figuring out how to move forward with our community given where we're currently at right now. And also an understanding that this takes a long time to make changes. It's not easy, it's not pretty sometimes and that it is a slow process that we will get there. And I just wanna quickly add that to Danielle's points. I think it's really important that we bring the community with us in this process. That is I think by far going to be the largest obstacle is and I'm so grateful that SEED Collaborative really holds a framework that brings community members in instead of calling people out because I think there are a lot of community members that wanna participate in these conversations and are having the difficult process of being vulnerable enough to say that they wanna participate. So there's kind of sort of a number of different things happening in community but there is definitely great movement and a lot of energy towards going in this direction. I've yet to find the magic wand but I continue to look for it. Should you happen to find such a thing? What would you fix and how would you go about fixing it? I appreciate that question and we have a lot of answers for that because we dream big here in the Office of Community Engagement and one of those dreams, many of those dreams is actually manifested through the one time monies, right? We put that ask out there in the universe and definitely translation. Translation is a huge step in the direction that we need to step into making sure that each department has an adequate budget for translation and also if we're talking magic wands, getting more bilingual, bicultural members to join the staff, right? And another one of those pieces is through internships. I remember being a young first generation student at Sonoma State and somebody came and talked to me about a city planners at the city of Santa Rosa and I had no idea that that was a position that what the role was and what a crucial role it is, right? So I think internships is another piece of it. The largest dream that we have is to be able to support community and culturally in events that celebrate culture and bring people in and make everyone, even if you're not part of that designated culture but you're part of a celebration, you're part of the conversation, bringing people in that way. I think it's important for government to take some space in that. And then definitely the accessibility to city staff. I know everyone is super crunched. Departments are doing above and beyond on a daily basis but I think if there are any opportunities to expand capacity in any way, shape, or form, I think and really bring into Madonna's point earlier folks from our more representative population, I should say, Daniel. Yeah, I was just gonna say the same thing echoing what Madonna further cruise said earlier. We need to hire more people of color. We need to hire more Indigenous community members, more Latino community members, more Black community members, more Asian Pacific Islander community members. We need to have a staff that's representative of our community. We heard that repeatedly throughout the listening sessions last year and I think that is crucial to moving the needle here at the organization as we're moving forward on addressing systemic racism and institutional racism here. And then I just wanna add one more thing because opportunity came and I will take it. I think we really need to look at our systems on how we elevate the people of color that are currently here and working within government. I think we've seen unfortunately in other jurisdictions, what can come about when those systems are not, policies and practices are not in place. We have a lot of wonderful talent and how do we continue elevating folks like Beatriz is absolutely brilliant. I just, I can't say enough good things about her. That y'all is one of the hardest working people here and how do we elevate the folks in people of color, especially women of color and create pathways for leadership and growth and so I'll stop there because I have a lot. Well, I can't describe what the magic wand looks like but it sounds like it's gonna look like a unity and working together. I appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Spadault. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thanks for this presentation. I just have a question for clarification and some of the stems from one of the sessions I attended in Sacramento at the League of California Cities where they talked about some of the jurisdictions that did make a similar resolution and then it ended there and I never wanted to be on that list. So on slide six, we talked about Office of Communicational Development and Evaluation Planning and Tools to Measure Organizational Changes. Where do action plans or implementation plans fit within this? That's what I'll go ahead, Diane. Sorry, great question. That is the work that Steve Collaborative is currently doing with the city, working on with several, I believe it's three equity task force, forces to develop those recommendations and those action plans. Magali, I don't know if I want to do anything out there but I do know for sure that that's the work that they're currently doing. And to the points that we've kind of mentioned, that's where we want to elevate Magali Lapke as the name of our intern. She is a local. She loves Santa Rosa. She's a grad student. And how do we integrate her in the process to, and this is something we've talked a seat about and they're definitely on board is bringing Magali Lapke into the process of evaluation and really holding us accountable for the things that we proposed. So if I'm clear, there will be a list of steps. Here's the actual action items that city council, city staff will be doing to try to move this conversation forward. Is that what I'm hearing? Yes, that's our understanding from our conversation with Steve Collaborative and the equity work groups that they'd like to create who will then also be giving recommendations. So I for one would also, I know it'll be developed by May of 2022. I'd love to receive updates on a more regular basis because I don't think it's, let's just sail until we get May of 22nd. We're going to start. I think there's an ongoing, I think the office of community engagement is doing this but I would like more and more involvement with city council to any opportunity even just for updates so we can track this because this is very important for, I know this council, so thank you. Any other questions from council? Okay, let's go to public comment on this item. If you're interested in providing comment on item 14.1, go ahead and hit the raise hand feature on your zoom. We'll start with Evan and then we'll go to Shelby. Can you hear me? Go ahead. All right. Good, I guess eating out this point, council members, city staff, which if I'm not mistaken, I think this might be our most diverse council, which I would just like to point out comes with its inherent opportunities. My name's Evan Phillips.  I'm also born and raised Santa Rosen who has come with the additional privileges of a life that has put me in very diverse circles across the community. I would never pretend to speak for the whole community anyway, but I do feel very comfortable voicing the sentiments of a large and broadly represented swath of this city and neighboring areas. As I've been lucky enough to spend a lot of time as a member and a guest of many sub communities, which are often heavily concentrated and focused, at least in terms of like census type demographics. And as a 30 year plus resident in totality, having moved and come back a few times, my time in Santa Rosa has been out of two entirely different experiences based on where I've been or who I've been with. The way I've been treated is starkly different based on these things. And what I've been most easily able to identify as a factor to associate with the difference in how I've been treated is the ethnic and racial backgrounds of the company I keep. I mean, I have countless stories to make this sentiment feel a lot more than just anecdotal, which obviously don't have time for. But that said, I want to very actively voice my support and favor of this resolution. Racism is not unique to Santa Rosa by any means as it's interwoven to the fabric of a genocidal land built on the backs of slavery and exploitation, but it most certainly is a health crisis here in Santa Rosa. And we can't tackle that institutional racism overall. It's a massive undertaking. It has to be more than just a public talking point, but it does begin with communities like ours being very proactive in understanding the nuances and prevalence of racism and truly grasping how pervasive it is in ways that affect power. And I hope taking a step of this resolution leads to substantive changes beyond the performative steps, albeit many of those are being necessary, but also by letting the formal groundwork to create more legal structure for better equality, equity, and diverse inclusion is a real practice beyond just the concepts. And I know Santa Rosa can be a leader in making the world in the future better. The adoption of this resolution is merely an acknowledgement of how reality is. And I think it's a key step in order of moving things forward on how they should be. So I urge the council to please not adopt this resolution. And as was pointed out in some of the council questions, actually take the steps to make these things real life practicing. So thank you very much. Everybody have a good evening. Thank you, Evan. We'll go to Shelby. Hello, good evening council. Can you hear me? Hello. Please speak closer into your microphone, but we can hear you. Okay, perfect. Can you hear me now? Yes, go ahead. All right, very well. Thank you for your time this evening. I am new to the Santa Rosa area. I'm a Vallejo native who moved to Santa Rosa. Since I've been here, I've noticed a couple different things going on in our community that have to do with race. Being someone of black nationality, I can tell you that we only represent 2.6% of the actual environment here. I've been watching segregation happen in live time due to vaccinations, due to lack of vaccinations, and thereof. I'm continually perplexed at the idea that a couple words are gonna change the world. You've wanted us to act like Martin Luther King for so long and hold aside our Malcolm X feelings. This is the truth. The truth is that there is no equity to be found here because you have no real understanding of what equity means. You use that word consistently, but don't go ahead and actually understand it. It sounds good when you say it. It falls on us, the community, to look in the mirror at ourselves every single day and figure out what kind of person we're gonna be. The 66 point some odd percent of white individuals who live in this community are not to blame for their racism. The other individuals who are here are not to blame for this racism. The racism starts at us. You wanna start giving people things to work on and things to do.  That's one of their goals. Grow vegetables, this kind of stuff. We don't have land to grow it on. Let's talk about reparations. Let's talk about how every other race has been put in front of black people and we always come last. We don't have casinos. We don't have some talking point. We don't speak our own language. You want us to learn another European language to accommodate a group of individuals who that isn't even their natural language to speak Spanish but yet here we are. The European rule is taken over as usual. Let's see something actually happen besides a bunch of words. We can't keep singing we shall overcome from Washington to Abraham Lincoln. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Last hand that I see on Zoom. Is there anyone in the chamber who'd like to speak on this item? Okay. Do we have any voicemail public comments? We do not, mayor. Okay. I'll bring it back to the council. We have comments from council members on the item. Go ahead, vice mayor. I just wanted to thank the team for all your hard work. I know that it is not easy and it's definitely not easy to try to represent and encompass so many different people and viewpoints. But I think that you guys try really hard to do so and try not to forget any. And so for that I am very grateful. And although statistically I may be insignificant in Sonoma County because of my color, I know that your team does not forget black people. And so I definitely would like to thank you for that. And I do hear concerns. Many have thrown out the DEI equity inclusion all the words, but have not done very much to back it up. And I must say that I am very proud of this council and the leadership that we have. And this is one of the most diverse councils that we have had here. And with confidence, I really believe that we are willing and able to really back it up. So this is something that we really want and this is something that we're gonna go after in all the ways possible. And it's not just about race, but DEI is about so much more and we understand that. And I'm just very happy as a black woman to be sitting with some very incredible, well-rounded people and very knowledgeable staff. So that can make things happen. So thank you and your team and for the rest of the staff that are not on your team but that are listening and that are able to take our ideas, our passions and our hearts and manifest them into things that are oh so great in our community. Thank you, Vice Mayor. There are any other comments from council members? Okay, council member Alvarez, this is your item. Thank you, Mayor. Resolution of the Council of the City of Santa Rosa declaring racism of human rights and public health crisis in Santa Rosa. Whereas racism is a system made out of structure, institution, policies, practices, norms and culture that assign value and determine opportunity based on the way people look and or the color of their skin. Resulting in conditions that unfairly advantage those with lighter skin and disadvantage of people of color, including black African-Americans, Hispanic, Latino, Latinx, indigenous or Native Americans, Asians or Pacific Islanders and others. And I will wave further reading of the text. Second. So we have a motion to approve from council member Alvarez with a second from council member Schwedhelm. Let's go ahead and call the vote. Council member Tibbetts. Aye. Council member Schwedhelm. Aye. Council member Sawyer. Aye. Council member Fleming. Council member Alvarez. Aye. Thank you. Vice Mayor Rogers. Aye. Mayor Rogers. Aye. That motion passes with six ayes with council member Fleming absent. All right, thank you so much to our team who I know have been working really hard on this. And it is a good opportunity for us to both reflect on where we've been, how far we've come in the last year in particular and where we need to go and how much work we still have to do. So thank you so much. I know it's been a team effort. Thank you all. Can I just say one really quick thing? Of course. I just want to say that we fully recognize the frustration in the community. And at the same time, we hold that this is a very historic moment. Again, you have two women of color, you know, speaking openly about systemic racism. You have Vice Mayor Rogers as a woman of color standing in a position of leadership. So although yes, we have a long road to go, I also want us to celebrate the fact, you know, where we've like how far we've made it, you know? So, and that is very significant for me as an immigrant kid who grew up in Fresno and has been embraced by this community. So I just, I really want to recognize the importance of holding those two realities. Yes, we have a long way to go. And yes, let's celebrate how far we've come. So I know some people may not appreciate that viewpoint but again, as an immigrant, we are hopeful people. Please don't send me hate mail about tokenizing immigrant people. Thank you. Thank you so much. We'll take a step back to item 13, which is our public comment for non-agenda items. If you have an issue that you'd like to talk with the council about tonight that is not on our existing agenda, feel free to line up at the podium or hit the raise hand feature on Zoom. We'll start here in the chamber. Yes, good evening. My name is David Harris. I'm the resident here in San Rosa, 355 Gemma Circle. And I have spoken to this body before in the past and plan to keep doing so. But I've never found myself in this position where I rise to talk about really what I feel as a personal offense slight in the process that's gone on with the design of the 101 Overcrossing. You've heard me speak about this issue before. I have been since 2005 advocating for the building of that overcrossing. And to the point that came about when the JC was planning to build a parking structure that they priced at $22 million. In the end, it cost them 38 million according to the Bond Oversight Committee. And the alternative would have been to build an overcrossing and keep traffic off of Mendocino and on the west side for other uses, other parking. And so the economics of this or what gets my attention though. But in advocating for this, I came across a person in our community who said, I knew, I know from my days at Stanford, the architect to design the bridge at University in Berkeley over 80. And so I made contact back in 2005 with Stephen Grover, the architect, and had brought him up here and introduced him to the prospect of this. He has, however, in the last 10 years, had in his mind to produce a artistic one-of-a-kind bridge. And unfortunately, I would like to see us, that would be fine if fiscally it was a sound decision, but it is not fiscally sound to spend the money on designing a one-of-a-kind bridge when we have alternatives to do something that would be faster and less expensive. And the process that's gotten us to this point is that this overcrossing is the only project that the city of Santa Rosa has ever taken to design review.  All the projects of the city aren't required. So Finley Center, all these things don't go to design review. This went to design review because it's architects who aren't charged with any fiscal responsibility and who say, oh, I like that. Well, that's fine, but I want you to be fully aware that, yes, they like the design. I have no objection to a pretty design, but it is not cost-effective and it is not easy to construct. Over 101, building a cable suspended, you have to go section by section and it will disrupt, take longer time because trust bridges are a commodity in the transportation business. There are multiple prefab manufacturers can bring one, swing it over there in one night and be done with the disruption of 101. And it's a fiscal question. Millions of dollars difference in time also. Thank you, sir. I see nobody else rising in the chambers. So we will go to our Zoom. We'll start with Erin, followed by Shelby. Good evening again, Council. I have two issues for this. The first one is a potential Brown Act violation of this meeting. As a resident of Roseland, I received notice of this meeting regarding some items on the agenda tonight. However, the notice states that the meeting was to start at 430 PM. However, this meeting began at 4 o'clock PM. That is a grave disservice to people that do not have internet access to be able to get an updated agenda or to be aware of meeting time changes, which is a Brown Act violation and should not avoid this entire meeting this evening for not being properly noticed within the Brown Act requirements. So I do ask that the city attorney take a look at that and confirm that this meeting is permitted to continue, knowing that one notice says 430 and then online says 4 o'clock. My second issue is regarding homeless encampment along Roseland Creek and the city's refusal to do anything about it.  It's been brought to the city's attention numerous times. And again, nothing is being done about this. When the rains came, it became a safety issue for both those experiencing homelessness in the area being potentially washed into the creek and those in the surrounding neighborhood having to deal with the trash and human waste being washed into their yards. So again, it's a safety concern for both those encampments and for the residents. We hear gunshots every night and we're basically told by the police they can't do anything. The city council is choosing not to do anything. It's been brought up in planning meetings. So we are asking for a resolution on that issue as well. So those are my two public comments. Thank you very much. Thank you. And Erin, if you could forward me that public notice that you're talking about that says 430, that would be helpful. We always start at four o'clock with our regular council meeting and oftentimes start before that with study sessions and closed sessions. And that's all on the agenda. So I know the agenda that's been put out has said four o'clock consistently. But if you have a notice that says 430, if you can forward that to me, that'd be really helpful for us to take a look at. We'll go to Shelby, followed by Lorna. Hello, good evening again, council. Can you hear me? Yeah, if you could speak up just a little bit, it's a little faint to hear you. All right, is that better? That's great, thank you. Perfect. So I called in today to address the fact that we are in the middle of a pandemic. In the middle of this pandemic, we are having to face all kinds of obstacles and as colored people in this community where we don't trust our government and we don't support our government's decisions to utilize us as test subjects, many of us are being put in situations where we're losing our jobs, our homes, our livelihood to these terrible mandates that are racist. Now, we've already been over this tonight about racism, so we won't keep beating the horse that's already been beat to death. But any businesses that are practicing or participating in excluding members of our community based on their vaccination status should be held accountable and their doors should be shut. They're practicing segregation. They're practicing discrimination. Me as a Black person, I remember learning about different things in school, things that most people wouldn't learn about like we've had several Black presidents. We haven't had just one. I'm biracial. If I ran for president, I would be a Black president. I do plan on running for the city council, for district two, for Mr. Sawyer's position, and I'm going to make it my effort to work with individuals within the community to understand the difference of equity and equality. I come from a very proud family, one that worked their way up from nothing to get to the top. My aunt was the first Black CEO and woman of a major corporation. My uncle is the CEO of a major organization. My other uncle is the executive chef to Moscone Center in San Francisco. My last name is Pryor. I absolutely happen to be related to the former Mr. Richard Pryor. My family has a great heritage. With that heritage does come a lot, a lot of weight. I don't expect anyone to understand who's in a circumstance that doesn't make sense to them or they aren't a part of, but we're no longer asking for our freedoms. We will take them and we will utilize the declaration to do so. Thank you very much. Thank you. We'll go to Lorna. Thank you. I wanted to just underscore Ms. Rheinberg's comments about the homeless encampment that I can actually view from my windows in my home. A year ago, I sent two complaints to code enforcement indicating that there are tents going up and I did not hear back from anybody. I have called the police. I have sent photographs to the council. It went from two tents to five tents. There's probably now a hundred people back there and I'm not exaggerating. Walking along that creek, I've found needles. There's human defecation happening. Every night we do hear gunshots and I have called the police several times and they do say they can't do anything about it. It's very disconcerting to me. Two nights ago, there was a flash explosion. I'm thinking that they were a propane tank. There's many propane tanks out there, there's barbecues and domestic violence. And I wanna know why the city cannot enforce code violations for health and safety reasons. It's absurd to me that this is going on for over a year and nothing's been done. And I feel like there's a discrimination piece in this because it's in Southwest Santa Rosa. So I implore the council to take a stronger look at how we can enforce code to have these people vacate. Also, I wanted to just point out that I have in front of me the notice of public hearing postcard that was sent in the mail to me to my home last week. And it's clearly says, as Ms. Reinberg said, that Tuesday, November 16th at or after 4.30 p.m. Thank you, and I appreciate any comments that you might be able to make about the homeless encampment and where we are in the process. Okay, thank you, Lorna and Dina. Can you hear me okay? Yes, I can. Okay, greetings council. I am very happy to hear that my boyfriend was allowed in the council chamber to give a public comment this evening. We attempted to do so in Healdsburg yesterday. However, I'm sure you're already aware, unvaccinated individuals are not allowed into the council chambers. And in that regard, I am saddened and disheartened to hear that an amazing young woman, Ms. Skyler Palacios has been denied entrance to her own council chambers in which she sits on the council of Healdsburg. And then I wanted to mention, since you approved a resolution labeling racial discrimination as a public health crisis, I find it ironic since our current public health crisis, the pandemic is creating a racial divide within the county. The minorities in our county have the lowest vaccination rates and we are mistrustful of the government. We're being forced to do something we don't want to do. Well, no, everyone's telling us we have a choice, but do we really? We could be homeless. We can have no food to feed our families. There's a lot of things we could do. Apparently that's what choice means today. I also want to note, I've sent several emails to the council with no response. I have a lot of questions about COVID that I would like to have answered. I've been repeatedly told that I need to contact the health department. I did reach out to the California Department of Health. They informed me they have no answers for me. I have that in writing. Dr. Sundari Maze's office, they finally got back to me after two months. After we mentioned, we would be holding an in-person public forum where we will have questioned the answer with or without representation from the public health department. So anyways, I'm just a little frustrated about not being able to speak up and not being able to have questioned the answer and having the decisions made on our behalf. I will say, I'm ecstatic that the two minorities who sit on the council, Mr. Alvarez and Ms. Rogers have actually been willing to speak with us and have a discussion. I can't say the same for the rest of the council. Those are my comments this evening. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Adina. Seeing no other hands, we'll pull it back and see if we have any voicemail public comments. There were no voice message public comments received for item 13. Okay. Madam City Attorney, I think it sounds like with the postcards, it sounds to me, and let's see if we can confirm, was a notice of the public hearing which by city ordinance cannot start before five o'clock. So if it said at or after 4.30, is that adequate for our purposes of still hearing that item here today? Yes it is, and I would like to see a copy of the notice, but it did sound from the description that it was a notice of public hearing. Okay, thank you. I'll take a look, but you're exactly correct that if it does reference the public hearing that is coming a little bit later, that is adequate notice. Okay, let's go ahead and take a two minute recess and that you and I can take a look at it since apparently it's been emailed to us and then we'll come back. But it sounds like we should be ready to proceed unless something unexpected is in there. We'll be right back. Thank you. All right, let's bring it back. Madam City Clerk, can you please call the roll? Thank you, Council Member Tibbetz. Here. Council Member Schwedhelm. Here. Council Member Sawyer. Here. Council Member Fleming. Council Member Alvarez. Present. Vice Mayor Rogers. Present. Mayor Rogers. Here. Let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of Council Member Fleming. All right, I'll kick it over to the city attorney. Yes, thank you. We did take a look at the notice. It is a notice of public hearing regarding item 15.1, the public hearing on Stony Point Flats Apartments Appeal. And indeed that public hearing was scheduled under our ordinance as the mayor pointed out, could not begin before 5 p.m. So the public hearing notice that identifies the timing as 430 or thereafter is adequate under the Brown Act. Thank you. Thank you. And we have forwarded it over to our clerk who can work with staff to make sure that that language is a little bit more precise moving forward since we do now have our sunshine ordinance in place that says that public hearings will happen as close to five o'clock as we can get for maximum public participation. But that, Mr. City Manager, take us away. Mayor Rogers and members of the City Council, item 15.1 is a public hearing regarding the Stony Point Flats Apartments Appeal. This is an appeal of the design review boards, September 2nd, 2021 decision to adopt an addendum to the certified Roseland area, Sebastopol Road specific plan environmental impact report, and approve a minor design review for Stony Point Plats, Stony Point Flats Apartments, a 50 unit multi-family affordable housing project located at 2268 Stony Point Road. Connor McKay, our city planner, and Andrew Tripple, our acting supervising planner will be presenting this item this evening. Right, and before we launch into the presentation, let's go ahead and start with council members ex parte communication disclosures. Council Member Schwethelm, would you like to start? Yeah, I don't have any. Okay, Council Member Sawyer. Thank you, Mayor. I have received a number of emails, but no phone calls and nothing that is added to the information that was provided by staff. Okay, Council Member Tibbetts. I don't recall receiving any information or communications outside of what's in the staff report. All right, Council Member Alvarez. I have received emails and have made contact with residents as well as visited the site. Nothing further. And Vice Mayor? I don't recall getting anything added in emails. All right, and I received several emails from neighbors, walked the site and had a couple of phone calls with some of the neighbors who were concerned, but none of the information that was presented is not present within the available materials for the public. And with that, let's go ahead, get into the presentation. Thank you, Mayor Rogers and members of the council. Can everybody see me and hear me? Yes, loud and clear. Yep, we can see the presentation. Yes, I can see it. Thank you so much, appreciate it. Yeah, like the city manager said, my name is Connor McKay, city planner. I'm happy to be here this evening to present the Stony Point Flats Project Appeal located at 2268 Stony Point Road. Next slide, please. So the design review board approved this project and the project approval, the decision to approve this project was appealed. And this project description proposes to construct a new 50 unit affordable multifamily development on a 2.9 acre parcel with existing residential and agricultural development. The project includes the construction of bike storage, laundry facilities, tech center, fitness facilities and playground facilities. Solar panels will be installed on top of the two main residential structures, which will allow the project to operate at net zero energy in accordance with title 24. Next slide, please. So a bit of project history, concept design review was provided by the design review board in June of 2021. The Waterways Advisory Committee completed their review of this project in August. And finally, the design review board approved the project on September 2nd, 2021. I wanted to address one of the grounds for appeal here during this slide regarding alleged Brown Act violations related to noticing the agenda for each public hearing and public comments at the public hearings. So all project related noticing has been prepared in compliance with city code section 2066.02, notice of hearing. The project was also properly agendized prior to the design review board hearing and all public hearings were conducted in compliance with city code chapter 2066.040, hearing procedure. Staff has also complied with all Brown Act requirements throughout the review of this project. And next slide, please. So the project is located in the southwest quadrant of the city of Santa Rosa along Stony Point Road, a north to Rosalind Creek. Rosalind Creek is located adjacent to the project site to the south. Next slide, please. So to give some zoning code context for this project, the project is located in the R318 Zoning District, which allows for the operation or construction of multifamily residential development by right, meaning that no land use permit entitlement is required for the use. One of the grounds for appeal that was included with the appeal was that there are superior alternate building sites available. So the presence of superior alternate building sites does not affect staff's support for a project that complies with zoning code requirements and achieve city council goals related to housing and homelessness and affordable housing. Next slide, please. The slide shows the general plan land use designation. The site has a split general plan land use designation of low density residential and medium density residential, which allows for a maximum of 49 units at the project site. The project proposal includes the construction of 50 units, which requires a density bonus, which was approved by planning staff during the project review. Next slide, please. So because the proposal includes a unit that exceeds the density by one, it includes a residential density that exceeds the maximum residential density by one unit, an addendum to the Rosalind area, the basketball road specific plan EIR was prepared. And this addendum was supported by technical studies and reports, including traffic, which is a subject of the grounds for appeal for this project. The, excuse me, where am I? Here we go. The traffic analysis indicates that a significant, less than significant impact related to traffic would occur as a result of the proposed project with or without the construction of the U-turn that is mentioned at Parablasm Drive. However, the applicant, after further consultation with the public works department, has agreed to construct the U-turn as part of the proposed project. Further, traffic counts that support the technical preparation of the traffic study was, were conducted in 2019 prior to the coronavirus pandemic. So there was an accurate collection of traffic data at that time. And this methodology and analysis was reviewed and approved by the traffic division. Further, a grounds for appeal included in the appeal for this project asserts that city staff is relying on an inadequate and outdated EIR or environmental impact report. So the Rosalind area, Sebastopol Road specific plan EIR was adopted in 2016 and was prepared in accordance with California Environmental Quality Act or CEQA guidelines section 15132. The city prepared the Stony Point Flats addendum to analyze the impact of that one density bonus unit. This addendum was prepared pursuant to California Environmental Quality Act section 15164 addendum to EIR or negative declaration. Next slide, please. So the next few slides just show aerial rendering. So if the clerk could please just flip through the slides with a few seconds each, just so we can get a accurate description of what this building might look like. And then the slide will be the site plan. Yeah, so the site plan, here's what I wanted to discuss, the fencing that the applicant has agreed to construct as part of the project. As a result of conclusion with consultation with Sonoma Water, the applicant has agreed to install fencing along the Eastern and Southern property boundaries that are contiguous with Sonoma Water property. Part of this condition or another condition in addition to the construction of the fence would be to establish no trespassing signs at an appropriate spacing to increase site security. Next slide, please. So this slide shows the landscape plan. Here I will discuss the grounds for appeal related to inadequate protection of heritage trees. So the city's tree ordinance does establish a legal pathway for the removal of heritage trees. The applicant is proposing to mitigate the removal of 16 heritage trees by replanting 99 trees, including 29 oaks and two coast redwoods, which have a minimum of 24 inch box. Many of these trees will be planted along the Southern property boundary, which is near to Rose and Creek, as you can see on this slide. Next slide, please. Here we have a slide that demonstrates the existing FEMA floodplain designation at the project site. As you can see, the project is located within the 100 year floodplain. However, the applicant is in the process of consulting with FEMA to submit a modification to this designation that accounts for improvements that were made during the Stony Point Road improvements project that increase the site's ability to handle flood waters and stormwater. So, but regardless, if the FEMA change is not accepted, the project will introduce fill that will lift the project outside of the 100 year floodplain. Or alternatively, if FEMA does accept the modification, no fill would be required as part of the proposed project. One of the grounds for appeal is an inadequate or is an allegation of inadequate and false representations regarding the impact of building in a seasonal floodplain. I just wanna mention that city code chapter 1852, flood damage protection establishes a legal pathway for construction in the floodplain and the project has been conditioned to reduce such impacts. Next slide, please. So here is just a summary of all the grounds for appeal that I've touched on with the exception of that final one regarding inadequate time provided for public records requests to be processed and received prior to the DRB public hearing. And I wanted to respond to that by saying all requests for information filed pursuant to the Public Records Act have been complied with to the full extent of all applicable laws. Next slide, please. And with that, with the recommendation with planning and economic development department and the design review board recommended that the council by resolution by modified resolution which includes the addition of the two conditions that I mentioned early related to fencing and there's no trespassing signs on the fencing. I will read those conditions into the record when it is appropriate. So recommended the council by modified resolution deny the appeal and adopt the stony point flats addendum and approve minor design review to allow the construction of the stony point flats apartments project. And we have an experienced applicant team and city staff team that is available to answer any questions that the city council may have. Okay, let's go ahead and keep moving through the presentations and then we'll do questions from council at the end. We'll go with our chair of the design review board, Drew Waggle, Drew, if you wanna come up to the microphone and give your presentation. Can you hear me? Yep. Just make sure you eat the microphone so everybody can hear me. Yeah, it's been a while since we've been in the council chamber. So I don't remember that you do have to eat the microphone. So good evening, I'm Drew Waggle. I'm the chair of the city of Santa Rosa design review board and I'm an architect in town. So good evening, Mayor Rogers and members of the city council on September 2nd, 2021, the city of Santa Rosa design review board reviewed the Stony Point flats apartment project DR21023. The board generally liked the project as the applicant made changes between their concept design review presented on June 3rd, 2021 and the actual entitlement presentation. The changes made in brief summary were the removal of one building which included elements for the pool, a centrally located pool and other site elements to accommodate creating additional open space at the eastern edge of the parcel while not reducing the residential unit count is already proposed. During the DRB meeting, we went through a process to assist both the public and the board to understand what an EIR addendum is as it is an atypical item not usually seen by our board. The board reviewed the EIR addendum and passed the addendum unanimously. We also reviewed the design changes to the proposed project, provided comments and conditioned the project as we normally would including input from the public as applicable and board members. We then passed a unanimous resolution regarding the minor design review which included several conditions to improve the overall design of the project. All right, thank you. Are there any questions for the chair? I'm seeing no hands from council members on Zoom. Go ahead and go to the applicant presentation. We have Mr. Wood. You'll have 10 minutes followed by 10 minutes from the appellant. Mr. Wood has been promoted to panelist in order to make his presentation. The city clerk's office will advance slides at your direction, Mr. Wood. Thank you very much and thank you to the council for your time tonight and hearing about Stony Point Flats. Next slide please. Stony Point Flats is being brought to the city of Santa Rosa by the development team of Phoenix Development and Integrity Housing. We have previously partnered twice before on affordable housing projects in the Santa Rosa area. Most recently, having just recently last month moved the first residents into Dutton Flats apartments which is at the intersection of Dutton and Third. Next slide please. Joined tonight by our design team as well. Any technical questions for any of our team members will be directed towards them. I'm joined by Keith Labus of KTGY, our project architect. Dennis Dalby of Civil Design Consultants who is the civil engineer on the project. Justin Heacock of JJH Landscape Architects and our project environmental consultant, Dudek, joined with the members of Dudek, our Christine Bukisawa and Lori Menares. Next slide please. I will try not to retread over too much of Connor's presentation. I promise we did these in parallel. So there are some common lines of thinking here but I do wanna highlight the great community that we are looking to develop and bring to the city of Santa Rosa. The development site is 2.93 acres. I do wanna note that 0.9 acres of the land will continue to be unimproved and that will be towards the eastern edge of the property. We know that parking is always a concern whenever new development is being done. We are proposing to create 97 parking spaces which is nine more than the requirement. It's an effort that we've made from day one to over park this project. Really, it's just a way of showing hey, we're here for the entire community. We're looking to maximize the project here. The community will bring 50 new affordable homes to residents earning between 30 and 60% of the area median income and further enrichment will be brought to our residents through the offering of resident services programs which will be provided free of charge to our residents. Next slide please. As mentioned, the site is zoned for medium density, multifamily residential development. The project as presented is a permitted use given the current zoning standard. It's also been designed consistent with the general plan. The in place zoning does allow for 49 units. It actually is 49 and a fraction of a unit which under the zoning code rounds down to 49 units. The city does have a density bonus ordinance which allows affordable projects to apply for an increased density typically much greater than we are asking for. We are asking for one single additional unit and an interesting technicality of the ordinances here once the density bonus ordinance application has been filed, the fraction actually rounds up. So that gets us to our 50 units as proposed. The project has fallen under the Roseland Creek specific plan and specifically the environmental impact report associated with that specific plan. A study was conducted to determine the additional impact of the single additional unit which we are adding to the project via the density bonus. The study was memorialized as an addendum to the EIR and it was determined that the additional unit would have no detrimental environmental impact. Next slide please. On the site plan as we move from left to right Stony Point load is the left or the western boundary of the property. Building A will contain all of our indoor common area amenities that will have our leasing office, our clubhouse, a tech room, laundry facilities, fitness room, on the second floor of that building there will be two three bedroom apartments. As we move to the right coming out there will be a patio with barbecue grills and a gathering area for residents. We will then move into a playground and a sport court which we're currently looking at creating a little bit more of an inclusive play space out there more than just an athletic facility looking at ways that we can create some different types of outdoor activities in that space. As we continue down the property buildings B and C will be two identical three story walkup residential buildings. Each building will contain 24 apartment units. As we move past the edge of the improvements we will be leaving quite a bit of unimproved area and then as we move to the far eastern portion of the property we will be dedicating a strip of land to the city for the future North Point Parkway extension. Thank you. Along the way it was mentioned that we have made a number of changes. We've taken all of the input that we could from the design review board, the waterways advisory committee and our neighborhood comments as they have come in. The original project did span the entire parcel out of sensitivity for the neighbors lying to the east. We did bring the property back towards Sony Point Road to compress the design. Additionally, the edge of the property was further trimmed in order to preserve an additional wetland area. We are doing our best. We know that we are in an environmentally sensitive area. We wanna make every accommodation we can to that fact. The sites pervious versus impervious surface was continually brought up as a topic. The pervious surface or the amount of surface that will allow for the absorption of groundwater has been increased to nearly 60% of the parcel. This is in an effort to allow ground water absorption into the natural aquifers. The swimming pool was eliminated after the concern for the precious water resource was expressed. A landscape buffer has been added to the northern whereas we look the top property line in order to diffuse any headlight emissions transmitted from parked cars. The color palates of the buildings has been adjusted to create an aesthetic that is respectful both to the Santa Rosa community and the surrounding environment. And towards the eastern edge or away from Sony Point portion of the property, an interpretive garden has been added in order to incorporate part of our resident services program, program that will teach community members about the natural fauna in the area. Since our minor design review hearing as has been mentioned, a U-turn has been added at the intersection of Stony Point Road and Pear Blossom Drive. This has come at the suggestion of traffic of the design review board and the community and has been loudly heard. Fencing will also be added to the southern portion of the improvements for the property interfaces with Roseland Creek for the requirements coming from the Sonoma County Water Agency. I go through this list of changes and my hope is that it are feeling that we are here to be good neighbors and that we are here to create an asset for the community as heard. The design team has made every effort to incorporate comments made throughout the planning process. The culmination is the project seen today. As I thoroughly know, as you sit in your seats tonight, we cannot make every person happy, but we are certainly looking to create the best community we can for the city of Santa Rosa and for the Roseland neighborhood. Next slide, please. Elevations, this is coming off the Stony Point Road. I won't rehash to mention this because we did see it in Connor's presentation. One thing I will point out, and this is a rendering, but we're looking to divide the entrance here as a concern of traffic, making sure that cars pulling out on the Stony Point are not over the line or in the middle of the drive, creating a backup for cars looking to turn right into the property. Next slide, please. Elevations, as the property spans back. Next slide, please. More aerial elevations of the front portion of the property showing the community building, the outdoor recreation areas, and patios as they flow into the residential building. Next slide, please. Examples of our community space, we're looking to create a high quality community. I would hope that these examples here would show what we're looking to contribute. Next slide, please. Additional elevation of the residential building. Next slide, please. Our landscape plan, Justin Heacock, our landscape architect has incorporated a native plant pallet in all areas possible. The planting on the northern property line that we discussed as being a hedge in order to diffuse the headlight emissions will be planted with mature plants. These are not plants that we will be hoping in a year or two have reached sufficient height to diffuse headlights. These plants will be four feet in height at the time of their planting and planted at a spacing enough to knock down those headlight emissions. All right, thank you, sir. I'm gonna give you about 30 seconds to wrap up and then we do have to move on to the applicant's presentation. Sure, if we can move two slides forward, I'll hit on the floodplain real quick. We have found out the, one more slide forward, please. The floodplain, the 100-year floodplain level has been pulled down into the creek. We have already now filed a letter of map revision with FEMA in order to have that map revised. It will completely remove the property from the 100-year floodplain. And last slide I will touch on very briefly from a traffic standpoint, which is a hot topic. As I mentioned, we have the divided entrance coming, we have created an oversized parking space at the front of the property near the community office to accommodate any kind of delivery vehicles, whether it be Amazon, FedEx, USPS, UPS, in order to keep those vehicles from blocking traffic. And we have the, at the bottom there, we have the U-turn incorporated from Stony Point Road at Pear Blossom Drive. Thank you very much for the time. We're here to answer any questions that may come up. Great, thank you. Councilor, do you have any questions for the applicant? Council Member Alvarez. Thank you. In regards to the EIR, how recent was that EIR? I'm sorry. I would turn that question to city staff if Connor could help there. Thank you. Yeah, so the Roseland Areas Basketball Road specific plan EIR was adopted by council in 2016. And could you explain a little bit or elaborate on the legal U-turn and why it was implemented and if there's, and what safety measures are satisfied by implementing that U-turn? Phil, would you want to take that one? I would be happy to if Rob Sprinkle is on, he may be the most qualified. Promoting him now, one moment, please. Thank you. And council members, my name is Rob Sprinkle, traffic engineer at the City of Santa Rosa. Yeah, the U-turn does a couple of things for traffic. Where the driveway is located on Stony Point Road, there's only access to that driveway through northbound traffic. There was a suggestion at one point to install a median divide or a break in the median to provide for traffic to be able to turn left directly into that project. However, it's much too close to the intersection of North Point Parkway to allow for that and to continue to keep the existing northbound left in its existing location. So in consultation with our fire department and our traffic engineering division, we looked at the roadway and determined that providing a pocket for a southbound U-turn per blossom would be the most adequate way to address that, the entry for traffic that is heading in the southbound direction on Stony Point Road. This gives them a location to actually exit out of the stream of traffic so they can wait for a clearing in order to provide that U-turn operation. Thank you, sir. And we're projecting 50 units at this location and it's still the determination from our planning staff that the U-turn will be sufficient to allow the residents to use this U-turn while not increasing or drastically increasing the traffic on Stony Point Road. The daily traffic estimate estimated, I believe, is around 370 cars per day for the entire day. And typically what we do is we look at the A.M. and P.M. peak periods to see how many, how that will impact traffic. And it's far below our, it's, I believe it was in the 20s for the overall entry and exit out of that location. And I believe it was approximately 11 and maybe in the P.M. peak for the southbound U-turn movement. I have to check my notes, but not a substantial amount. But enough that we would want to not have them queue in Stony Point Road to make that U-turn. We want them to be in a turn pocket so they're not blocking traffic and in the way of flowing traffic. What is the normal number for a U-turn with the traffic number? And any given U-turn within the city? That's hard to, it's very much dependent upon the, what's in the area and what people are trying to access. We do have locations that prohibit U-turns throughout the city where we don't want people to make U-turns. So there isn't a specific number that there's X number of U-turns at a specific location. If I were to ask you in a residential area, would you have a better idea? And if you do, where exactly would that be? Again, it's kind of an ambiguous question and it depends on, I mean, in a residential neighborhood, you can have people making U-turns to access parking on their side of the street. They may go down the street making U-turns so they can park in front of their house. Other people may, you know, park in their driveway. So in a residential location, you're having different kind of traffic turning movements than you would on an arterial street such as Stony Point Road where we're proposing to have this U-turn pocket. Do you have, does any other residential area come to mind where there is a U-turn that traffic has to go through a U-turn to get to a multi-use family home? Or multi-use dwelling? I understand your question now. So we don't have a lot of location, well, further up Stony Point Road, I believe there are some locations. When we, and on Gernadale Road, we have locations as well where we have medians to have access control. And basically what we're doing when we're adding medians is we're trying to limit the number of locations that people are actually crossing the street and focusing those locations in more deliberate places so that those turning movements are focused and they're expected more than say another location like maybe on Hohen Avenue where you have driveways along the entire roadway where people are using that two-way left turn pocket to access every 40 to 50 feet, there's a driveway. So you have a lot less, you have a lot more un-predicted turning movements than you would add a location with a turning pocket. What is the approximate distance between Pearl Brossum and Hohen Avenue? Sorry to throw all these questions at you. And Hohen Avenue, I would say it's probably 250 feet and that's an estimate. Thank you, Rob, I do appreciate the amount of questions that you were able to answer, sir. I think my last question has to do with the flooding study. Could you elaborate a little bit more on the wetland designation that the property has and the explanation regarding FEMA? I didn't quite understand it in the presentation that if they did one thing or they didn't do another thing they were still a viable alternative. Yeah, so council member Alvarez, I'll take a first crack at it and fill if you'd like, you can follow up. So as the project was approved by the design review board the project proposes to introduce fill to the site to raise the elevation of the entire site out of that floodplain. And that would be accounting for no changes to the existing floodplain FEMA designation. However, the applicant is in the process of changing that designation. So if that designation was changed no fill would be required for the project to be located outside of the floodplain. But regardless, the project will be located outside of the floodplain, whether or not that FEMA designation has changed. Does that answer your question? It doesn't, thank you very much. Yes, ma'am. I did have a question about the U-turn. So to get to the property, if you were traveling south you would make the U-turn. There's gonna be a specific lane for the U-turn. Yeah, correct. Correct, that is what is being discussed is that the developer will be adding a U-turn pocket for that movement to take place. Okay, I travel that road all the time. And I'm just wondering, where is that room for that lane? And if there is room for that lane, then I wish there was room for another lane because 370 cars when you're actually traveling that road during real traffic time, it seems like a lot more than 370 cars. And I don't know when those cars were counted. And I think that's why people maybe are having some questions about traffic because if you travel that road, the 370 cars, maybe they're all traveling at the same time. Maybe that's what it is, I'm not sure. Maybe I misspoke, the 370 cars is the amount of cars per day that this project will add to Stony Point Road. Oh, and it will add, add, add. Stony Point Road currently has about between 25,000 and 30,000 cars a day. Okay, thank you. And then when people are coming out of the site, let's say if they want to go southbound, I'm going from the site to Petaluma. How do I make that maneuver? You'd have to turn right out of the site, go up to Giffen and make a U-turn or turn left onto North Point Parkway, go down North Point Parkway and make a U-turn. Okay, I think that was it. I'm just trying to see like how they're gonna, it seems like it's gonna create some traffic. It will create the necessity to make U-turns. However, there are no other access points from the site. Okay, thank you. Any other questions from council members? Council Member Alvarez? This is a general question for the City of Santa Rosa Planning Department. Are there any future plans to improve the Heron Avenue intersection with Stony Point? Would that, Rob, would that be you as well or perhaps Gabe? I'll answer that. Thank you. Sure. So the improvements that would be made at Stony Point and Heron would be further to the south. The plans are to have two northbound lanes entering the intersection. The north or in half of the intersection was improved with the Stony Point Lightning Project that was completed about two, three years ago. So there's some further improvement to the south of the intersection which will allow for a little bit more capacity through that intersection. However, the southbound direction and the westbound direction and eastbound direction are at their limits currently. Perfect. When is the most recent traffic study that was performed on this project? The traffic study that was for this project was completed, I believe, in August of this year. Thank you. Those are all my questions. Yep, let's go to the appellant's presentation. If you could try to keep it around 10 minutes, that'd be great, but I'm gonna give you equal time to the applicant. So we've got a little bit of a buffer there for you. Good evening, Mayor and Mayor Chris Rogers, Madam Vice Mayor Natalie Rogers, and City Council members. Tonight I am presenting on behalf of my wife, Erin Rheinberg, and the ad hoc community group, Friends of Roslyn Creek. There are several environmental and safety and legal concerns upon which this appeal is based, and my presentation will primarily focus on the latter two. Before we move forward to, I also want to put on the record that appellants are withdrawing the heritage tree appeal portion, seeing that the applicant has provided more than adequate remediation for the removal of the trees. Next slide. So the first issue that we have is the adequacy of the agenda, and we feel that it is a Brown Act violation because it does not properly identify the items that are being heard and adjudicated, and in accordance with the Brown Act. Next slide. If you look here, the notice, sorry, the agenda appears to show that only an addendum to the EIR is on the agenda. The Brown Act requires a description that is brief, but still adequate enough so that the public knows what is going on. Here, the design review minor designation that the city tries to state is an adequate representation of what is also going to be on the agenda isn't such. It's insufficient. It created such ambiguity even that members of the public primarily focused their comments on the EIR during the public comments because there was not even a designation prior to public comments that an EIR is not subject to public comments. It was stated after public comments had closed and therefore public comments were not adequately able to address all items that were supposedly listed. Even if you adopt and accept that items were properly noticed, I never mind, I already addressed that. Next slide, please. The traffic study seems to be inappropriate. We've got seven additional developments coming in at the same time as this one. Traffic is already pretty bad on Stony Point and while we appreciate that the design that the applicant is trying to address this with a turn pocket, the appellants are concerned that at any point in time, if cost prohibits it, the U-turn pocket will be removed and thus creating safety problems for people wanting to make illegal U-turns in order to access this properly. So we asked the city council and the design review board require and put a contingency on the approval of this project for the turn pocket to be implemented. It is our understanding that it is currently at the discretion of the applicant, whether or not this goes in and it is not a requirement. Next slide. As you can see, there is just no access from these pictures and you see traffic here in the morning. This is the intersection where the photographs are taken into the top left corner or top right corner. This is that giffin. This is when people are trying to get their kids to school. You can see how much traffic there is with people trying to get there. You see how backed up the U-turn lane already is. This is the same U-turn lane that staff and the applicant are suggesting people use in order to get southbound on Stony Point. You're talking another couple developments going in at the same time for people trying to go north or southbound and potentially clog up these lanes. Next slide, please. As you can see here, emails from the city staff are indicating that a pocket should be required and a U-turn at Pear Blossom suggested in order to alleviate any potential traffic issues and provide safe access for fire access and emergency responders to access this property. Currently, if the U-turn pocket is abandoned for any reason, your emergency personnel are gonna be required to go against traffic and travel at slower speeds, which is going to make it more difficult if emergency actions are needed to save residents of this place. Next slide. Additionally, city staff are concerned about overflow traffic affecting neighborhood roads, such as Burbank Avenue, which already has a high amount of traffic due to the location of several schools and several community parks that require access from this road. Next slide. So we just request that the U-turn be required in order for this project to move forward and that the developers required to fund the U-turn, if not entirely, at least in the majority, since it's going to be impacting the majority of the flow of traffic. Next slide. As stated previously and in our appeal, we believe that the EIR is inadequate. As five years old, many of the people who have conducted the EIR studies are no longer licensed. They have either lapsed or lost their license. And as shown at a recent city board council meeting for the park located off Burbank Avenue, there was an independent study that was conducted and it showed that the estimations and calculations for endangered species and other protected species was grossly and vastly undercounted in the city's plan. And we believe that it's possible that this is the same here and we request that a full comprehensive EIR be conducted, not simply just piggybacking off of a five-year-old study and an addendum that was just done ad hoc. Next slide, please. One more. We believe that there is an inadequate and false representations regarding the building in a seasonal wetland. Next slide, please. As you can see here, these are pictures that were taken around midday from the massive atmospheric river that occurred at the end of October. I see that this is about where the building will be built and you can see how flooded it is. And if you start putting in as much impermeable pavement that is going to be coming in, it's concerning that adjacent properties will be flooded as well as it'll impact the ability of Roseland Creek to actually handle the additional water that would have been absorbed by the ground instead of it's going into the river. Next slide, please. Again, here you see in the middle, here is around midday before the heaviest of the rain occurred in the end of October. The water is already pretty much at capacity for these culverts. So we request in order to ensure that these culverts are adequate that a proper sewer study is done. Our understanding is that a sewer study was completed but it was completed somewhat haphazardly. So we just would like a second look if possible for someone to conduct a more recent study that adequately accounts for the displacement of additional water from this location. Next slide, please. Additional, here are some additional pictures showing additional rain and just flooding that occurred over the last couple of rains we've had. Next slide. We appreciate that the city and the developers are going to be providing fencing around this location. It is a serious safety issue that could potentially lead to litigation not only for the developers, but for the city and the county as well. One thing that we request is that the city does require as recommended by Mr. McKay to require this as a condition of the approval today, but also that it is completely fenced around the entire border. Understanding right now is that the north border is still going to be open and it's still easy for someone to walk around the other side in order to bypass that and get into the creek and into the other flooded areas that are on the neighboring properties and on the undeveloped portion of this property itself. Furthermore, as the good neighbors that the developers claim they are, the shrubbery can die, walls cannot or fences cannot. And so in order to ensure the good neighbors and protection of the light, given the drought we are in, I think it's fair to request a fence be put up instead of shrubbery for borders in order to protect lighting and also to ensure and reduce liability for all parties involved. Next slide. Next slide. Sure. Sure. Next slide. Let's skip ahead a couple of times here. Skip ahead. Couple of slides. Skip ahead. I'll just keep going. The last thing I have to say is that we've provided multiple documents and even petitions to city council and to the board. And we, next slide. We were not, none of which were responded. Yet, here, special interest groups reach out to city council members and the mayor and they are received with meetings that we weren't afforded to at the same time all to move forward with this despite very valid concerns regarding safety, public safety, which are proven to be valid given the city's new requirements and the developer's own concessions in their own applications and the plan changes. I think that's it for me. Thank you for your time. Okay. The applicant has five minutes to respond to the presentation from the appellant. Thank you, and I will try to be brief as we go through this. In regards to traffic, we've pretty much dealt with the U-turn issue. We know that that is going to be a part of the project moving forward. I would note the traffic study did point out that traffic generated from the future community is consistent with the general plan. A lot of these claims are very unsubstantiated. There's no specifics offered. The EIR being outdated. The sewer study being haphazard. There's no specifics being offered here. What is wrong with any of these studies? Clearly, they have gone through planning. City staff has reviewed all of these studies. The city's internal studies are all up to date. We know that the city of Santa Rosa and the city staff does an outstanding job of staying on top of that stuff. I would touch on the flooding on the property that was standing groundwater. That water was gone by the next day per folks that we had out there walking the property. And we do have our civil engineer on the call if we want to talk about specifics with the box culvert. The box culvert, actually the rainfall recorded was adequate with a 50-year flood event. And actually looking at those pictures, it's proof that the box culverts in the additional capacity added to Rosalind Creek is performing just as it should. From the fencing standpoint, we have open space to the, mostly open space to the north of us, mostly open space to the east. We have Stony Point Road to the west. We are including the fencing on the southern portion of the property. At some point, I've been in affordable housing long enough at some point when we're getting drilled that we want the entire property fenced around, we start to ask the question, are we trying to keep people out or are we trying to keep people in? We have had a number of issues come up, public comments made over the course of the time that the real problem with this project is that it's affordable housing. We are doing our best to provide a safe community, a high quality community to the city of Santa Rosa and to folks that are in need of affordable housing. Thank you. Council, do we have any questions for the appellant or the response from the applicant? Okay, this is a public hearing. So go ahead and open the public hearing. If you're interested in speaking on the item, go ahead and either line up at the podium or hit the raise hand feature on your Zoom. We'll go ahead and start on Zoom with Annette followed by Lorna. Thank you. I would like to thank the council and ask that you consider when giving permits for new housing developments that they get spread throughout the community and not all in lower income neighborhoods like South Park and Roseland. I just pulled a list of the lowest income housing in Santa Rosa, the 13 projects that all have the lowest housing and highest capacity of people at each location. And all 13 of them are either in Roseland, South Park or over by Dutton. And I think if we talk about equity in this community, that's one way you keep people down by making projects in their neighborhoods. And we need to spread this around and so that everybody gets a fair chance to live in a nice neighborhood. I think right now there's big development happening in South Park, a four story, very, very big building compared to anything else in the neighborhood. And that's three blocks from one direction, three blocks in another direction they're considering putting in a homeless camp facility. And we want to help the homeless as much as everybody else, but it's not fair to dump all of that in our neighborhood. And if you look at the map of where this is happening, it's not happening everywhere. It's happening in Roseland, it's happening in South Park. And we pay our taxes too and we deserve as much as anybody else gets. And I don't see this happening in nicer neighborhoods. So I would just like you to consider that and have the planning department be aware of it because they can make a difference and make a change to help right the situation that's been wrong for a long time. And this can help with equity in our community, which is something that's given a lot of talk, but not a lot of action. So that's what I'd like to say. Thank you very much. Thank you, Annette. We'll go to Lorna followed by Ryan. I just wanted to applaud Annette. I feel the same way that a lot of the development whether it's affordable housing or not is being conducted and constructed in Southwest Santa Rosa, really impacting the quality of life for current residents. I'd like to take issue with Mr. Woods comment that we want a fence to keep people out. That is absolutely untrue. I am a resident on the Northern side and I've asked for fencing to mitigate the car headlights as well as any parking lot headlights. My bedroom faces that. And I don't know if anybody has had the experience of cars glaring into their bedroom at night, but it's very disturbing to sleep. And if the good neighbor claim is worthy, I would ask that we actually put a fence there. As Mr. Weinberg said, shrubbery could possibly die. It may not be thick enough. I really requested that fencing be surrounded on all sides. And also I take issue with Mr. Woods assertion that a day later that parcel was dry. I actually have photographs that I can share with council showing that it's a pond. And it is two weeks later that my photographs have been taken. It's a very, very densely water bogged parcel. So I wanna know by bringing in a lot more soil or infill how much higher that structure will be. And if that would require another waiver for height density. The final thing is that, thank you Vice Chair Rogers in calling out the fact that having to go north or yeah, having to go north to go south will entail people possibly going through the Stoney Ranch subdivision of which I'm a resident. It's already impacted. There's children playing in the streets. It's not meant to be a thoroughfare. This could possibly create more accidents and potential problems with accidents and children's safety. So please consider the fact that people would have to go through that subdivision in order to turn around and go south on Stoney Point. I don't think that's been considered at all. I hope that these concerns I hope that these considerations are truly looked at and advanced with more discussion and dialogue. Thank you. Thank you, Lorna. We'll go to Ryan followed by Steven. Yeah, hello everybody. My name is Ryan Schwab. First off, thank you city council for hearing the appeal today. I will say I made public record requests related to this project and I was amazed at what internal correspondence I uncovered. Fencing is now only on the south side even though the entire property should be fenced for recommendations from the Waterway Advisory Committee members of the design review board and city staff for traffic, even if the turn pocket is installed it still is just a bandaid backup plan to slightly increase access to the project. The solid median running through Stoney Point still will only allow right turns in and right turns out of the property unsafe for this dense project. The project was originally supposed to rely on the North Point Parkway extension for additional access but this was abandoned midway through the design of the project. An assistant fire marshal previously advised that there should be a break in the median to allow for increased access to the property. This fire marshal unfortunately left their job and instead of abiding by his valuable advice the signal of the city and the developers to no longer require this break in the median. This is a treacherous stretch of Stoney Point which there will be severe issues with property access. The developer knew about these safety concerns for months and hasn't until recently agreed to address some evidence in the late correspondence that was uploaded last night to the city's portal. These are crucial items that should have been ironed out six months ago but the developer and the city tried to rush this project through as quickly as possible with little regard for community safety and community input. The developer hoped that none of the safety improvements came to fruition but finally felt pressured to do some of the improvements. This is not a fully honest developer that we want working in our city and suggest until they begin operating in good faith that this project and future projects are not endorsed or approved. I only have time to hit on the major issues but the ones advocating for this project have not seen how big of a red flag this project is in the litany of issues that remain outstanding. The shortcuts allowed for this project are ludicrous that attempted to put developer profit over resident safety. I implore city council to carefully review this project further for shortcuts that put us all in jeopardy and make common sense conditions of approval that we can all get behind. Thank you. Thank you, Brian. We'll go to Stephen. Hello. Go ahead. Okay. Hello, everybody. I just wanted to say an opinion up front that I think that this project has been affected by the COVID virus and having to do these Zoom meetings instead of getting the full breadth of the public opinion, the public did get a petition with over 150 signatures and but I honestly think that things would be a lot easier if we just couldn't meet out in the field and walk the site. I've been working with Eddie Alvarez on that but I'd be happy to meet with any of the city council members and just walk the site so you can see exactly what we're talking about. My major concern is how people exit this parcel going north. You're going to make a right, you're forced to make a right hand turn on the Stony Point Road and then the traffic per the traffic study, they say that you're going to be able to swing a U-turn at Giffin. Well, Giffin is right at the intersection of the Robert L. Stephen school and I have photographic evidence and videotape of the left hand turn pocket there getting completely queued up every morning and during pickup, which means if you add a single extra car to that street and ask and expect them to use that left hand turn lane during those peak hour times, you're going to stop traffic on Stony Point Road and I've tried to express this but I really feel like that a site visit would settle this matter. What I would recommend is that city council ask the city engineers or whoever did the traffic study to do another traffic study, a peer review traffic study, which means a second party, somebody who's not biased at all to the project, conduct the traffic study and take into account not only this project but all of the other projects simultaneously that are being developed on this road. It's not accurate to use a traffic study from 2019 and I don't believe that it was accurately updated in 2021 either. My time is running out so I'm just going to try and scurry along. The hydraulic study should be confirmed. The land is moved up and down and up and down. It's on a building pad, now it's not on a building pad. Well, that totally changes the hydraulics. The hydraulics are different if it's low on grade. I was out there when it rained that the exit pipe that this developer wants to connect to was two feet, at least underwater. It's possible the hydraulics still work with an underwater pipe but I think that that needs to be confirmed. I'd like a wall instead of a fence. I don't want to hear the car sounds, cars starting every morning and like the other lady said, headlights. And then I've got a couple of the things. Oh, shoot. Thank you, Stephen. We'll move on to Jen. Hi, good evening, sorry, coming by surprise. Mr. Mayor Rogers, Vice Mayor Rogers, Council Member of the City staff. My name is Jen Close, Executive Director for Generation Housing where we advocate more and more diverse and more affordable housing. I want to start by following up on the early comments by neighbors who take issue with more affordable housing being built in South of Santa Rosa. The fact that we have such glaring inequities in neighborhoods that residents would define some as good neighborhoods and some as bad neighborhoods is a shameful truth. As an organization that brings a strong equity value to its work, we do want to acknowledge this truth and encourage this council to continue investing in our low resorts neighborhoods to begin to bridge these equity gaps. Now we encourage this council and all of our county's jurisdictions to enact policies that incentivize affordable, multifamily development in high resource areas. It is time that we reckon with the fact that housing policy not only created income and racial segregation, but continues to maintain it. That said, we desperately need housing, particularly affordable housing. The Stony Point Flats Affordable Housing Community must be built without further delay. It's designed, which offers one, two and three bedroom affordable multifamily rental units in addition to meaningful amenities such as a community center, half basketball court, playground, bike storage is exactly the type of housing your council has prioritized for Santa Rosa. It's noteworthy that the only tenant currently residing at the property that submitted a letter and support this project. In his remarks, he states that it's time for this property to be utilized for a higher and better use. These comments are not unique. The community by and large is incredibly supportive of building affordable housing, especially when it's well located, offering extended access to a bike pathway with easily accessible transit options, essential services and several parks. The project strongly aligns with council's housing and climate action goals. Generation housing's endorsement criteria is a robust rubric that flows from our guiding principles which include, among others, values of equity and environmental sustainability. The point system determines whether a project gets our endorsement and also at what level. Stony Point Flats gets our highest endorsement. Therefore, we strongly encourage the city council to deny this EIR appeal, especially given that your DRB unanimously approved the project with only minor project revisions. We urge the city staff to continue to partner with the project developers to ensure the fastest possible path to getting six in the ground. Thank you, and as always, thank you for your service. Thank you, Jen. I see no other hands on Zoom, so I'll go ahead and bring it to the chambers. We'll start with David Harris, followed by Chris. If mine's David Harris, I live at 355 Demos Circle and happy to speak on this topic of housing. Many of you know that I served on the Housing Authority of the City of Santa Rosa, actually, almost nine years. And so I want to support this project for constructing more affordable housing. But I have a, well, let me first comment about all this talk about traffic and Jen closely just mentioned the fact that there is alternative transportation available there and there's a bus route that comes out of Southwest Park and there is a bike path, but that infrastructure needs to be improved as fast as we can and it needs to be made known to the residents to move in there. So my request to the applicants for this project would be to be prepared to inform their potential occupants there about those alternatives. It is so close to the school that one would hope nobody is driving their children to school from a project that is that close. And I'm familiar with that area because I've been a member for more than 30 years at First United Methodist Church, the original location was on Montgomery Drive. In the late 1990s, the church purchased the eight acres at the corner there of Giffin and Stony Point. So I have been out there many, many times in this vicinity. And the other bit of lost history is the fact that when the church bought that property, it had a bunch of illegal units, chicken houses that had been converted to houses, which were destroyed. And the church is aware that they actually had a negative impact on available affordable housing, had made attempts through the city to have an encampment, attempt encampment there for the homeless, which did not get through the process here in the city. Homes for Sonoma made a proposal to put post fire housing there, which also did not make it through the city. So it's a bit frustrating for people who have tried to promote affordable housing there to have had these obstacles. And I don't know what the future holds, but we do need to keep working on alternative transportation alternatives so that this issue about cars doesn't remain so central to our discussions. However, it would be good if we did more of this affordable housing development as infill closer in. It is a long, that is not the best place for affordable housing, but I have made the observation in the 21, 22 capital improvement budget that what I understand to be, it's called in lieu development fees is being used in capital expenditures for sidewalks and light poles. And that does not seem to me to be appropriate use of the in lieu affordable housing fee. So I would like to get an answer on that question. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Hello, my name is Chris Stewart and I'm a nurse practitioner and the medical director of our Santa Rosa Community Health Brookwood campus. At Brookwood, we are dedicated to serving the health care needs of our homeless populations and our team does outreach clinics at three homeless shelter and service, homeless service sites. COVID has shown a light on the housing crisis in this region and while the county has done an absolutely remarkable job using creative solutions to meet the critical shelter needs that COVID unveiled, it is clear that in the interest of the greater health of our community, longer term affordable housing solutions like the Stony Point flats project are essential. Every day we care for folks whose health is negatively impacted by homelessness. We see folks staying intermittently in temporary shelters, couch surfing, living in vehicles or tragically staying on the streets. Many of our patients will frequent the emergency rooms due to illness and injury that result from homelessness. As we consider treatment options to improve their health, often the most impactful intervention is something we simply have no ability to provide. This project is one small but important step towards meeting the affordable housing needs of this community. Projects such as these can over time begin to improve the health of individuals and the health of the community. At Brookwood, the Brookwood team is strongly in support of the Stony Point flats project and hope you will move forward with it expeditiously. Thank you. All right, thank you so much. Is there anybody else in the chambers who would like to speak on this item? Let's see if there are any additional hands via Zoom. Again, this is a public hearing. So folks have an opportunity to speak. I see none. So let's go to our voicemail public comments. We gotta stop building. This is horrible. There cannot be no more buildings put in this area. What are you people thinking? There's no roads and there's way too much traffic. Please call me on the concerned citizen and all the neighbors are concerned. That concludes voice message public comments on this item. Okay, we will go ahead and close the public hearing. Bring it back to council. Council Member Sawyer, can you put a motion on the table for discussion? Sure. Just when you're asking for it, it my screen went dark, so just give me a second. I did that intentionally, John. I had it all queued up. Okay, introduce a resolution of the council of the city of Santa Rosa denying an appeal and upholding the design review board's adoption of an addendum to the certified Roseland area, Sebastopol Road specific plan, environmental impact report, state clearinghouse number<PHONE_NUMBER>, an approval of a minor desig