The hour of one o'clock having arrived, we'll call to order the August 8th, 2023 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council following our summer recess. Clerk will call the roll. Thank you, Mayor, Council Member Newsom. Present. Brown, here. Watkins, here. Gruner. Present. Calentari-Johnson. Present. Vice Mayor Golder is currently absent and Mayor Culey. Here, quorum having been established, we will, excuse me, we will move a pace here. This would be the opportunity for anyone to comment on the closed session agenda packet and agenda which is publicly shared with you. We will be going into that closed session in a few minutes following any public comment that we may have. So let me first invite anyone who is with us in chambers this afternoon who wishes to comment on the Consent Agenda closed session. Please do so at this time. Seeing and hearing none, let me ask the city clerk, do we have anyone online who would like to comment on our closed session? No one with their hand raised. Thank you very much. Seeing and hearing no one for either of these, either either person or online regarding our closed session agenda, Madam. Thank you, a quick thing. City Attorney Condati, did you have to make an announcement before one of them? Very good. We're good? Very good, thank you. At this point, we will adjourn into closed session. We'll be in there for a while and we will return to open session at three o'clock, but not before that time in so far as it is a notice time to begin our afternoon agenda. Do we stand adjourned into closed session? Recording stopped. The hour of three o'clock having arrived and the city council having completed its working closed session, we are returning to our regular session and the clerk will call the roll to establish. Thank you, Mayor. Council members Newsome. Present. Brown. Here. Watkins. Here. Brunner. Present. Calentari Johnson. Present. Vice Mayor Golder. Here. And Mayor Keely. Here. Having established a quorum, we will move on to item six. This is a presentation by the Central Coast Community Energy Operation and an annual update and we have a couple of good folks. Hi, Catherine Steadman who is with us and the Executive Director CEO is also here. Good afternoon and welcome to the council's meeting. I will offer an unsolicited comment and that is that from my point of view, I think we will maybe as early as 10 or 15 years from now look back at the establishment of the Central Coast Community Energy Project as one of the two or three most significant things that the Monterey Bay Area has done with regard to climate change and to reducing emissions. I think that a thought is that if we did everything else in the climate change space and we did it really well, if we don't change the fuel type for generating electricity and transportation, we will fail and so the CCCE is an important component. No, I take that back. It is a necessary component part to success in climate change and Catherine, thanks to you, thanks to the other officials who are here today and the colleagues who are on the board. This is one of those ideas that was very good, very hard to bring about because it's so compound and complex and yet now the growth and expansion is I think both remarkable and wonderful. So Catherine, welcome. So nice to see you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mayor. And I really appreciate those kind and thoughtful words. I'm Catherine Steadman. I am the Chief Communications Officer for Central Coast Community Energy and I'm also joined today by our Chief Executive Officer Robert Shum. So to begin, just a brief background on community choice aggregation. This type of agency started in the early 2000s when legislation passed that allowed cities and counties to aggregate their resources and together procure generation. So these agencies called community choice aggregators still rely on investor owned utilities to do the transmission and distribution, the poles and the wires. But it brings the advantage of allowing communities to make greater progress toward renewable energy and also to reinvest revenues back into the communities that we serve. Our agency formed in 2017 and at that time we were the counties of Santa Cruz, San Benito and Monterey. Then in 2020, we expanded our service to include all of the cities in San Luis Obispo County. And in 2021, we brought on the unincorporated areas of the County of Santa Barbara and many of the cities. Just this year, we actually, the unincorporated parts of San Luis Obispo County voted to join. So we're now really covering that entire five county area. We are currently with the County, 35 member agencies. We serve well over 400,000 customers. That's meters, so it's over a million people. And we've invested more than a billion dollars in new build renewable energy. Our enrollment in the communities we serve because our customers have a choice to have their generation service provided by us or the investor owned utility. We're at 94% across those five counties. We serve 5,000 gigawatt hours of electricity a year. And when we brought on that unincorporated part of Santa Barbara, that was another 45,000 customers increasing our load. So I just wanna go over some of the original commitments that were made to our communities in 2017 when we formed and let you know how we're doing on them. So the first concept was that of local control. We are governed by two boards, a policy board and also an operations board. The policy board is made up of mayors and members of the board of supervisors, our operation board, our county administrators and city managers, and here in Santa Cruz you are represented by Mayor Fred Keely and city manager Matt Huffacre on our boards. Our next promise was that we would provide competitive rates. And this slide shows you how our rates compared to PG and E in 2022. We were 18% less for the average residential customer. That actually grew in 2023. So even additional savings have been seen since that time. Next slide. Third promise was progress toward renewable energy. Today we are at 50% clean and renewable and on track to be at 60% by 2025, which is five years earlier than the goals set by the state of California. Our strategy commits our agency to meet 100% of its demand with clean and renewable resources by the year 2030 with balancing on a monthly basis. And that is a full 15 years ahead of the goals set by the state of California. This shows you the mix of resources that we've procured through long-term power purchase agreements. We have both solar and storage, standalone storage, geothermal power, and wind. Five of the projects that we've entered into these agreements with came online in 2022. So they are currently serving 22% of our load, although just last month we had another solar and storage project come online. So we now have 27% of our load being served by these renewable projects that our board of directors entered into contracts with. So as individuals, the biggest impact that we can make to cut greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality is to replace fossil fuel vehicles with EVs and replace the gas appliances in our homes and businesses. As 3CE works to clean the grid, electric cars and appliances will be emissions-free in their operation, and the electricity that powers them will be 100% clean and renewable. So on to community reinvestment. Over the past three years, 3CE has helped put more than 1,000 new and used vehicles, electric vehicles, on Central Coast roads by distributing more than 2 million in cash rebates paid directly to our customers. By electrifying our transportation sector, these EVs have spared more than 6,000 metric tons of regional CO2 emissions. Additionally, in collaboration with funding partners like the California Energy Commission, 3CE has delivered rebates that will help build more than 1,000 new electric vehicle charging stations for our region. We've also paid to make more than 2,000 new affordable housing units all electric, and that supports our communities. This just shows you briefly some of the programs that we offer to incentivize our residential customers to electrify vehicles and also home appliances. We have special programs for our member agencies, like the City of Santa Cruz, and this includes electrify your fleet, charge your fleet. There's another dimension which is plan your fleet, and then we also have a program to help with reach code adoption. For our non-residential customers, we offer incentives to electrify ag equipment. We offer incentives for developers of affordable housing and farm worker housing, and we also offer incentives to electrify vehicles in the non-residential sector. We have an emphasis as well on making sure that we are serving our underserved communities and reaching disadvantaged communities. This includes workforce development, which we see through a broadband initiative our agency adopted, and also support for helping contractors learn how to install electric equipment. Last month, our board also adopted a new project selection criteria that really emphasizes workforce engagement and fair labor practices. We support farm worker housing and transportation, and then we also provide additional incentives for customers that qualify for the CARE and FERA program or are otherwise deemed to be economically disadvantaged. So specifically looking at the support that we have provided to the City of Santa Cruz through our programs, you can see that it has been well over $3 million, and this is through 2022 or through our last fiscal year, so continuing to grow. But some significant investment in programs for your city, and I really do wanna thank the staff of the city that has been so great to work with and really taken advantage of this opportunity to partner and reach our goals. So for anyone watching that wants to also take advantage of the programs, please just visit our website, it's 3Cenergy.org, and you'll find links to applications and more information about the energy programs. So with the continued support of the City of Santa Cruz staff and community and with the rest of our communities, 3CE will continue to deliver innovative solutions and impactful programs and exemplary service along with clean and renewable energy. And that concludes my presentation. Thank you so much for your time. Captain, thank you very much. Let me see if members would like to ask a question. The Vice Mayor is recognized. Thank you. Thank you, I do appreciate the goals of 3CE, and I think those are pretty common goals amongst our community and those of us on council here. I do have several questions. So some of them have come to me from community members that I'd like to ask. So can you let us know, what's the demand on the grid right now between like six and eight PM in the evenings, approximately? Yeah, I guess I would say I'm more familiar with the stress that's on the grid between the hours of four and nine PM. Okay, that works. Yeah, and the issue is really just that we have, we've been successful as a state in getting solar energy projects online. The problem is when the sun goes down, how do you continue to service the demand during the hours when people are still using energy, but the sun isn't shining? And so that's why when you've seen these flex alerts come out from the Kaizo or from your utility provider, it's really emphasizing reducing usage during those hours. The solution is energy storage. So you might have noticed we've done a lot of investment in battery projects and other technologies to help store that solar energy so that it can be discharged during those evening hours. Yeah, thank you. And so a question I would have if everyone decided today to go out and buy electric cars in Santa Cruz, do you think the grid could handle people charging at night? I really am not so concerned with the grid being able to handle the additional load of electric vehicles. We definitely need more generation. We need more capacity in terms of our distribution network. I think the major challenge is really the infrastructure that is needed in terms of more EV chargers. So EV adoption is up. We're almost at the tipping point, which is really positive. But I think for a lot of people, it's still a matter of is there a charger near my work or my home? And that's an issue that we're continuing to work on. And I think another question that I have kind of to that is how much of the energy that we have here in town that's on our grid is from solar and how much, and like, and how much I saw you that you said like 50% how much of the energy that we're getting here is from the Moss landing power plant. And I know that you're talking about the whole region as a whole, but specifically here locally. Do you have any indication of what that looks like? Yeah, it's, you know, the electrons don't not really, they just travel through the distribution system. And so it's kind of hard to say this area is getting its energy from this source, sort of like water in that way, it's all gonna mix, but we are at 50% renewable now. And so that's gonna be a combination of solar and small hydro and wind and geothermal. The exact percentage of that 50 that comes from solar, I don't know, it is significant though, maybe I'm guessing around 35, but I can get back to you with that information. Do you think that with the new changes with de-incentivizing rooftop solar, that number will go down? Well, no, because that's more about customers powering their individual homes. I think the way the new rules that have come out of the public utilities commission for rooftop solar are really trying to incentivize batteries with individual rooftop solar, because again, that gets to that issue of the hours when the solar energy isn't available. Okay, I'm not trying to be like a super talker, but I do have three more questions. Sure. I think that thinking about moss landing, I know there was a fire in the battery banks down there recently, and I'm just wondering for these, and this is maybe a question for Chief Odie, what kind of hazards would those particular type of fires create, and are there special skills that our firefighters would need to put them out, like what kind of chemicals are released, and what are the current best practices for mitigating fires in batteries if people were gonna put them in their homes or in places like schools or things like that, I think it's something that we should talk about. Absolutely. Good afternoon, Chief. How are you? Mayor, council, great question. Rob Odie, fire chief. In terms of the dangers, I think similar to any emerging technology, there is a lot of catch-up we have to do as an industry. For fire service specifically, we're constantly following the guidance of in the state of California, state fire marshals office, NFPA specifically. The NFPA are federal guidelines. There is a specific code reference, and it's 855, an NFPA that talks about the appropriate installation of these systems to make sure that they're safe, not only for the public, but for the responders. And so what I think you have found, and again with this technology, is that making sure that you maintain the battery storage systems themselves, you prevent thermal runaway, where these things aren't properly releasing heat to their environment, they get really hot, and then of course, if they're installed in series, you have the heat transferred to multiple batteries, and that's when you have those failures. So again, battery monitoring, gas monitoring of these systems, and of course, the appropriate suppression system. And again, that's all gonna be dictated by this NFPA 855. Locally here, we are challenged. I think every fire department's challenged, but while the moss landing incident obviously garnered a lot of attention, and rightfully so, I will say that it's important to note that it was no different when moss landing was utilized as another source of energy, and we had a fire that burned down there for weeks in the actual petroleum tank that stored the fuel for that. And so you're sort of trading one hazard for another in that instance. And so I think again, that required a tremendous amount of manpower. We were actually, not we specifically, but there was a request through Mutual Aid for the state for foam to address that particular hazard. And so we're sort of seeing the same thing now with this electrification, and that comes by way of water, and that's obviously a finite resource that we're finding.  And I think you also asked about some of the gases that are released. And again, I think they're very similar to those in hydrocarbons. You're seeing carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, methane, ethan, and of course, those mixed produced hazards to the environment around these areas where these facilities are, but also to the firefighters that respond. And that comes by way of lower explosive limits. And of course, we have to be very mindful when we enter these atmospheres, just like we have to in any fire situation. And so I think, I don't know if I'm answering your question, but that's really what we focus on. And we will take a much more methodical and slow approach to these incidents for both public safety and responder safety. I thank you. I think about it because I know a lot of people are getting, we have the two Tesla power walls at our house, and we just electrified the school that Bayview and put in, I don't think, actually I don't know if there's battery storage, but there's a bunch of new solar panels were supposedly going net zero. And so I just think about that as something that to consider when planning for public safety. Thank you. And I will say, our fire prevention division works with the building department and we're making sure that we keep up locally. But again, I think as an industry, it's again, like any emerging technology, we're trying to keep up with the rapid development and growth. And I think in this case, we've learned a lot of lessons from the past and we'll apply them now in the present and the future. Thank you. Absolutely. I want to make sure you guys are safe. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. For the questions and comments on this. Thank you very much for this. Again, I think that California's over the years experimented with various ways of dealing with the energy sector and specifically the electricity component of our economy and of our energy economy. Certainly in the late 90s, the misadventure with deregulation, which was done in a way that created a fundamental change in how California thinks about the generation transmission distribution of electricity. And I do think that in the wake of the deregulation, when it was clear that the errors in deregulation had nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not we had built enough power plants, it had to do exclusively with market manipulation that in the ensuing 20 years, a lesson learned, I think were two things. One, don't go backwards to the old system of the investor owned utilities being the only ones that could provide any portion of those three activities. Not because it wasn't a viable method, it is, it simply isn't the best method. And if I was PG&E or Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas and Electric, I wouldn't be thrilled being in the pipes and pole business and not in the generation business, but that's a fact of life for them. I think the fact that many places in California have availed themselves of the opportunity on the generation side to get in and pick and choose there as a smart informed consumer and exercising market power in that process was a very, very positive outcome and a continuing positive outcome of that energy crisis in the early 2000s and community choice aggregation is I think one of those very positive outcomes of that crisis. And now we have other challenges with that as we're going to have. If you're in the electricity business in any way, it's a constant challenge going forward, whether that's what do you source with regard to the generation, the electricity, et cetera. I want to thank you again. The person in this community, I think who if you see him walking around, you should thank him and his office where it really got started and that's with Supervisor Bruce McPherson and his staff and specifically with Jenny Johnson there who were like a bulldog and would not let go of this idea. And I think we're very fortunate that they didn't and that other informed enlightened elected officials and staff and so on avail themselves of the very creative notion of community choice aggregation. So thank you both of you very, very much for your fine work and we'll see you at the next board meeting. Thank you. I actually have one question if I may. We do have one question. Here we go. I'm sorry, I have one. No, no, you don't have to be sorry for the question. You asked it and I passed and now I thought of one. It's all good. Oh good, well I'm not alone. Thank you for the presentation. It's nice to see you. I was just, I know you've talked a lot about the uses and the sources, but I'm wondering as we're experiencing more extreme weather and heightened heat and serious winds and et cetera, how are you planning for the infrastructure to be able to evolve with that essentially? Or is that a factor in your planning? Well, you know in terms of the wildfire safety, that is really on the transmission and distribution side. So it's the risk with the power lines, which is going to, for our area, going to be Pacific gas and electric. But I think that the changes that we're seeing in terms of wildfires, extreme temperatures, all of this just underscores how important it is that we do make this switch to renewable energy. So in that way we feel like the work that we're doing is really part of the larger solution. Okay, more on that, and thank you. Thank you. Ms. Brown. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you so much for the presentation. And as a member of the first policy board, when it was Monterey Bay Community Power, I was very privileged to be on that board and I'm thrilled to see how things have been going. The expansion, the great work of the staff and you all as you navigate the, pretty challenging waters of electrification and really navigating PG&E. I just want to say that because we know that's a big part of this. And I remember our first trip to the first meeting and I was with Ginny Johnson and Supervisor McPherson and we were talking about mini-grids and storage and some of the things that you're talking about now being able to really work towards building out as part of this. But we also talked about distributed energy and the ability to have more control over how we use the grid. And there are a lot of impediments to that. And so I just was hoping you could speak to where you see that going, what works happening now. It seems to be the way of the future if we can in the regulatory framework make that happen. So just anything that is on the table that you might be able to speak about there would be great. Yeah, it's a great question and I think it's a very complex issue. But definitely distributed resources are part of the solution. It's all of the above I think solution right now in terms of large-scale, utility-scale renewable resources but also distributed resources, especially in areas where you really need that resiliency and there's vulnerability with the grid challenges. So I think as an agency, we're kind of exploring our opportunities now. We're trying to find where is really our best place to support that type of work because it's an emerging area but one that's very exciting and I think holds a lot of promise. Thank you. Captain, thank you very much. Good to see you. Thank you so much. Yes, thank you. Thank you. We're on item six, presiding officers' announcements. I have none. Statements of disqualification. This would be the opportunity for any council member stated conflict of interest thus disqualifying you from a vote. Any none seen here, none. All right. Additions and deletions. Are there additions and deletions? No, there are not. There are none. City Attorney report on closed session. Mr. Ghandati, good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, Mayor Keely and council members. This afternoon the council met in closed session at 1 p.m. in the courtyard conference room to discuss the following items. Item one was a conference with labor negotiators involving the council met with its chief negotiator, Sarah DeLeon, to discuss the following bargaining groups, SEIU temporary employees, SEIU service employees, mid managers, OE3, supervisors, OE3, and executives. Item two was a conference with legal council involving liability claims, the claims of mercury, insurance, Brent, Michael Campagnolo, Anthony Joseph Tosti, Maricela Hernandez-Ramos, and Elaine Rodriguez. Those are also listed for action on your consent agenda this afternoon. Item three was a conference with legal council concerning existing litigation. First, the matter pending in the Santa Cruz County Superior Court entitled City of Santa Cruz versus the Regents of the University of California et al. Second item, matter pending in the Sixth Appellate District Court of Appeal entitled Regents of the University of California et al. versus City of Santa Cruz. Item four was an item of anticipated litigation. Council received a report from the city attorney's office on one item of significant exposure to litigation. Item five was also an anticipated litigation item. Council received a report from city attorney's office on one item of potential initiation of litigation. And there was no reportable action taken during the closing session. Thank you very much, sir. We are on item seven, the council meeting calendar. I would ask city clerk, would you like to draw our attention to any item? No changes, but a reminder, we have a special meeting next week on Tuesday from 1.30 to 3.30. Thank you. We are on the consent agenda. This is for those of you unfamiliar with it, we will be taking up items eight through 24 on one vote on the consent agenda. This all of these actions, all of these items will be taken up at one time. What we will do is give an opportunity for council members to either comment upon or pull an item from consent. We'll then give you an opportunity if you would like to do the same. So let me start with council members and I'll start with Ms. Brunner. Do you have any items you would like to either comment on or pull? Just a comment on item nine. No pull. Please make your comment. Go ahead. I just wanted to say this is, I've had a couple members of the public reach out and try to understand that this is a new process for the city in our district elections and this is part of what we voted on as is in the agenda report for this item. So there will be a March runoff election and March primary election before the November election. So that's what this item's about. And if anybody would like to comment on that, we welcome your comments. Thank you. Ms. Calendar Johnson, any items? Madam Vice Mayor. I just have a comment on the 14th. Please go ahead. Well, I do appreciate the spirit of the intent on this item. I have to say I'm kind of fundamentally opposed in that you can't tip the mailman against the law. You can't give them more than $20 as a gift even. You can't tip the bus drivers. You don't tip the teachers. There's a lot of people that don't get tips. I think that in terms of like Amazon and other big corporations, I'd rather see us work in advocating that they pay a fair living wage to their employees. I'd like to see us working to make sure they pay their fair share of taxes as well. And so for me, like, I don't want to, I appreciate what they're doing day in and day out. I don't want to have to subsidize a large corporation by offering them tips. And so is it possible to register a no vote for this item without pulling it? Of course it does. And I'd like to register a no vote on item 14. Thank you. You will be so recorded. Ms. Watkins. I'll make a brief comment on item 14. And of course, I, you know, I just talked. I know, I've heard your opinion about it in the past. One of the things that I would say is, you know, Amazon doesn't employ these individuals. Usually they're third party contractors and often they're paid low wages from out of this community. And so one way to support them and to support the work is to allow this as an option. And in many cases, you're provided this option, right? And you can choose not to tip if you don't want to. Whereas if you don't provide the option you're not allowed to. I think some of the other things that I have noted in my notes is that, you know, for example, UPS drivers, they make a higher salary and there are part of a bargaining unit in terms of unions and these drivers are not often with a high turnover rate, often low income minority population. So it's just something to explore. And that's what the ask is at this time is looking into what could be possible. Council Member Brown. Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to pull item 19. Item 19 will be pulled. And I have a question about item 20. This is the wastewater treatment plant fencing. Let me ask you a question now. Just wondering, we did get some communications about this item. And so I'm hoping you can talk a little bit more about the new fencing, the replacement fencing that's gonna be installed. It sounds like we're looking at fencing that is vulnerable to disruption. And so just kind of wondering how you anticipate that working and how it might play in with the fencing related to the trail, because I think people are worried about camping and the potential conflict there. Yeah, afternoon. Kevin Crossley, City Engineer. I can speak to this item. I think the communication we're referring to is regarding the fence type. Okay, so in the staff report you can see there's about 600 feet of fencing being replaced. A small section of it runs behind the gas digesters at the wastewater facility. So that creates a couple of challenges for us. For starters, you can't weld in the vicinity of the digesters. So that limits the types of fence you can install there. Usually high security fences are welded. So that limits our options. Secondly, the existing fence in the area, it's steep terrain. The fence is mounted on a retaining wall that's of variable heights. So that again limits the types of fencing you can install in that type of location. So the best choice we believe and what we're recommending is for a short section, roughly 80 feet that we go with a mini mesh type, which is harder to vandalize and cut in addition to the replacement of the barbed wire at the top of the fence. Thank you. Any other questions? Thanks. Thank you. I'll do some. Let me make a comment. Let me ask Ms. Nguyen if you could come up for a quick second on item 11, the civil grand jury response. I'm wondering if on page 11.15, that's in our, that's in how we count it in our packet. Let me see what it is in yours. It's a page three of eight in yours. Good go. You're referring to the cyber threat. Say it again. Are you referring to the cyber threat report? Yes, I am referring to item F1 on findings. On page three of eight for you, page 11.15 in our agenda packet. I'm wondering if what could be done here is in response, in the response explanation, if you could add a comment about our recent designation as a pro housing jurisdiction. Last week, the governor's office and the department of housing community development named Santa Cruz, one of 30 jurisdictions out of 450 cities and 58 counties which achieved all of their goals in the current cycle. In fact, exceeding the goals by 1,000 units and hitting every one of the goals in terms of affordable housing in each of the categories established by the state. If you could add that, that would be much appreciated with regard to five of eight. Your response on F13, page five of eight for you, page 11.17 in our agenda packet. This would be a response on F13. I think it may be helpful in here to add a notation. It seems to suggest that somehow transportation and transit is other than when in fact the RTC and Metro are in effect local government entities governed by local government officials. So we do in fact integrate our housing and our transportation and transit work if you could add that without objection. Thank you. Okay, with that, any objection, seeing near and none, such will be the order. Let me ask if there is any member of the public who wishes to make a comment on any item on the consent agenda or have an item on the consent agenda pulled. Good afternoon, sir. Yeah, still after. Good afternoon, my name is James Ewing Whitman. So on the consent agenda, number nine, you guys do not get paid near enough for what you do. The stuff I agree with and the stuff I don't use on the, as far as the elections and how much the city council members get paid, it's not enough by like at least a factor of seven. Really, I mean, oh my goodness. So I don't know the grand jury response about the cybersecurity. We could look at the Patriot Act. I don't know what's really secure. You know, five of you, 11 might laugh when I say that I applied for the civil grand jury. Course they didn't take me. So that's all I have to say. I really wanted to comment on number six and I'm annoyed that I couldn't. Nice to see all of you, thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Hello, council members of Mayor Keely. My name is Laura Booth-Noble. I live in district one with my partner and three-year-old son. I'm here today to comment on the city's five-year strategic plan, which is item number 10 on today's consent agenda. Last month, Lookout Santa Cruz reported on the local early childcare shortage, which was no surprise to any parent of a child under six. Lookout reported that infant and toddler care specifically is a big problem in the county with only 26% of demand being met for children under the age of two. This figure is 78% for three to five-year-olds and 55% for school-age children. To put it another way, only one in four families of kids under the age of two are getting the childcare support they need. Anecdotally, I do believe the issue is even worse within the city of Santa Cruz. When I polled 150 moms, 60% of those who are city residents actually leave our jurisdiction to drop off their kid's childcare. Obviously, the lack of affordable workforce housing is a challenge, leading more teachers to leave childcare for more lucrative careers or to leave the area entirely. While we should get some relief when the new housing needs to become available, it will be many years for that to make a dent in the need. I believe a patchwork of additional solutions and strategies needs to be deployed in the short term to help keep our current childcare centers afloat and create additional capacity for more kids. While many believe that childcare is an individual family's problem, I will remind everyone that reliable childcare is central to economic growth in building vibrant communities. When both parents are able to work if they so choose and they're able to earn more money to afford a high cost of living town and use their own specialized skills to feel wanted and needed by the community. My request today is for item 10 to be pulled off the consent agenda and aligned to be added to the five-year strategic plan to acknowledge and address the childcare shortage in the city of Santa Cruz. Having worked exclusively for organizations that never had enough resources to do everything it wishes to do, I've seen strategic plans be used at the litmus test to determine which issues get staff and resources in which do not. If there is no mention of the childcare shortage in the strategic plan, the council is effectively saying that this is not a policy priority until at least 2029. The three out of four families whose childcare needs are not currently being met cannot wait five more years for help. My suggestion is to add under the strong business communities and a vibrant downtown focus on a new strategy of investment in and support early childhood education centers to create more supply. Thank you for considering this addition. Copy of these comments are in Mayor Keely's inbox and Mrs. Bush's inbox for easy reference. I'm also happy to help offline anyway, I can't. Thank you very much. So I'm going to acknowledge Council Member Watkins. I leaned over and asked if she may want to add language to that effect, is that what you would like to do? I don't think we need to pull it to add that, do we? No, we can go ahead and just, I know youth came up and it's sort of, this is sort of the higher level. First I just, if I may. Please, please. I just want to thank you and I acknowledge where you're coming from. Childcare has been a key priority of the Council's and of mine working in education. And although it's not reflected in this document, there are a lot of things that are happening in terms of a childcare developer impact fee, the children's fund that's looking at early childhood development and other ways that the city is trying to contribute to the issue that's bigger than just the city as you know, statewide and nationally. So youth are a priority population and calling out how to support childcare is absolutely something I know that this Council cares about. And if our community is not seeing that reflected in the strategic plan, it's definitely something we want to make sure that it's seen. So thank you for bringing that to our attention and for speaking today. Let's see if what we can do, I'm gonna check with the city attorney. Am I right? We could add a sentence in here without objection and then adopt as the recommendation. Is that correct? Yes, what I would suggest is that in the motion to approve the consent calendar language be added to reflect the comments made by the speaker. All right. Okay, we'll do that in just a moment. Let me see if there's anyone else. Thank you again. Anyone else who is with us who wishes to make comment on the consent agenda, anyone online? We do. Two people, let's take the first one. Good afternoon. Person online, good afternoon. Three, two, one, we'll go to the second person. Good afternoon. Hi, this is Garrett Phillips. Hey, that took a while to turn on there. Regarding item 21, I have spoken ad nauseam before about how regular numerous and eye-popping fee increases litter this agenda every meeting. The problem, of course, is the longstanding deteriorating city financial structure and what to do about it. I applaud doing something to address this, but the first step is evaluating what's really wrong. To date, the only narrative we are supposed to swallow is the city just hasn't charged enough for service and not overspending or over hiring. Never mind the city sits on a huge revenue mountain that is at least partially inflation protected by both inflationary increases in sales and property tax and surely priority services are covered by that. The voters have been clear. They don't want increases in taxation rates within the feet of measure F and this means the money pie is not unlimited and you must choose spending priorities. This has tended not to happen as structural deficit spending is more so the rule. Of course, you don't need voter approval to jack monopoly utility rates and fees and wow, aren't you always doing that every meeting? In item 21, we see the proposition that labor fees for water services will increase dramatically from around 71 an hour to between 125 and 132 an hour for nearly every service for an estimated total increased jack job of 64%. However, reported inflation in general since 2018 was high but a lot lower at 21%. Most all coming from a few Biden inflation years and the CPI is a little sticky, but it is declining. I'm not sure what math you use to get to a 64% raise jack but my simple take is that though we undercharge or inflation narrative reasons or such an increase are questionable. It suggests either the possibility past city management was so haplessly awful they had no clue what their actual costs were or maybe the public is now being milked like a cash cow in excess of actual costs by a spend happy new monopoly unconsciously raising prices to raise revenue anywhere to allow for more spending. Among many theories I can entertain about the second reason is the many, many grant programs you apply for which may or may not cover administrative expenses such as item 12, which doesn't appear to cover those is money spent on a study which for practical purposes accomplishes low nothing but do set the city down a path committing to projects that have no known funding but I suppose merely hope the grant ferry will come along and fund it. Consider many grants benefit very few people and some are applied for for political reasons like the defective equity concepts of high up. One example of this high up politics at work as well as probably underfunded grant staff time is item number 13 which contemplates installing EV chargers and low income locations for that equity reason ignoring the fact low income people probably aren't gonna buy EV cars. Maybe the socialist equity grant ferry will buy them EV cars but probably not and it's only slightly less likely that you're thinking EV prices will someday be less than gas cars but they sure aren't now. The cost and expenses of grants are hidden by the lure of free money whether the public really wants them or not and sinkhole expenses sure. Or in your strategic five year plan is lean efficient spending a goal or measuring productivity. Thanks. Thank you sir. Anyone, did the other person come back on? Okay, let me see if the person who is online is now available to make comment. Welcome. Hello mayor, I actually had raised my hand for the three C presentation. I never got called on. Could I make some comments on that now? Couldn't hear from what? He wanted to comment on the three C presentation. Go ahead and take a minute and make a comment on that. Go ahead. Thank you, I appreciate the presentation and I'm a definitely supporter of renewable energy and I've received a few rebates from three C so I appreciate all that. I think the speaker did leave out a few important things. First of all, three C doesn't have any generation or storage facilities in Santa Cruz County. So the idea that as a three C customer, we're using electricity generated by three C just isn't accurate. We're just using whatever's on the grid and the grid is actually powered by in California 40% of it is on natural gas. Natural gas conversion rate, the efficiency is only 30 to 35%. So about 70 or 65% of the power embedded natural gas is lost just at the generation and then more is lost in transmission and distribution. So at the present time, because our grid isn't anywhere near renewable and it relies on natural gas, we're really gonna be burning more natural gas if we take out efficient natural gas furnaces and water heaters, which are up to 95% efficient. I know your staff claimed that they were 80% efficient. That is a 30, 40 year old technology. Modern FAU is 95% efficient and it exhausts off the sidewall with PVC because it's so efficient. So while I support the move to renewable energy, I think you really need to examine the facts as they are and not as you wish them to be. And so we don't have renewable grid right now and we should make decisions based on critically examining the reality of what we have now, which means don't grip out or don't mandate ripping out a bunch of very efficient gas appliances because it's gonna have a perverse effect of burning more natural gas at the power plant because it's about loss of efficiency. And these are all numbers that they're not crackpot numbers. They're California Energy Commission, Federal Energy Information Agency. I can provide documentation. It's all there. So just please go a little deeper when you're making your policy because I share the goal of eliminating greenhouse gas emissions. It's very important. It's critical and we can't just do field things. So thank you very much. Thank you very much. Appreciate you calling in. Anyone else? Anyone else online? Right. We are going to take the item in the following order. As to item 10, I believe that council member Watkins has language if you would read that into the record on item 10. Sure. Yes. I think it fits under public safety and community wellbeing and that we also reference youth supports there. And the suggested language and Bonnie, I can send this to you as well, is to identify and create opportunities to support and expand child care and expand child care. That's it. That's it. Good. All right. Without objection, that will be added that will be added on item 10. With regard to what we are going to do is we are going to vote on items eight through 24 with the exception of item 19, which has been pulled. We have added language on item 10 and the vice mayor, when we take this vote on the consent agenda will be recorded as a no vote on item 14. Clerk will call the roll on the consent agenda. I'll move the consent agenda with the... I'll second. Second by Ms. Contarja. Say it again. No? Round seconded. Whoever today is going to be council member Contarja. Okay. Seconding everybody. However today. There we go. Clerk will call the roll. Council member Newsom. Aye. Brown. Aye. Watkins. Aye. Brunner. Aye. Calentary Johnson. Aye. Vice mayor Golder. Aye. And mayor Cooley. Aye. Consent agenda passes as proposed and amended. We are an item 19. I will refer to Ms. Brown. You are up and acknowledged on item 19. Thank you mayor. So I pulled this item recognizing that members of the community have been writing in and following this item pretty closely. They've been lovingly stewarding our river and serving as activists and the voice of our river. And so I wanted to respond to that and pull this item. It is an item related to the process by which we are going to conduct future work around flood control, vegetation management and flood control on the river for those who are here. I wanna make sure everybody knows what we're talking about. And this item is related to some changes that I think are gonna make the process, really improve the process and prevent some of the very unfortunate challenges that we've had in the past, most recently. And so I don't have a lot, I don't have a lot of questions at the moment on the particulars of the item, but I did wanna give members of the public an opportunity to speak. They have some requests for us, some of which go beyond the scope of this item, but I wanna give them an opportunity to speak about it. And then I have a couple of points that I'd like to make about how we proceed. So, but Mr. Nguyen, if you do wanna come up and say anything about the process thus far, your thoughts, I'd give you an opportunity to do that as well. Thanks. Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, Councilor Mayer, members of the public. Nathan Nguyen, Director of Public Works.  It's something that we perform. And the San Lorenzo River Levy is a part of our operations and maintenance agreement with the Army Corps. We have to perform this work in a time restraint with regards to the California Fish and Wildlife Permit. So, as I occur between September 1st and October 15th, which is a very short window, but we have to get that done before the vegetation clearing before winter starts. Essentially, the staff report today is to change the process from a low bid procurement for a contractor to an RFP process. So, adding qualifications as a part of our reason for choosing a contractor going forward. And then to also try to do this as a multi-year contract. We'll only be issuing a PO every year for it, but we wanna be able to get in partnership with the contractor, have that agreement in place so we can, again, this is an annual work that we always perform. So, we wanna be able to streamline that process going forward. So, that is essentially the motion that we're asking as we proceed for a request for an RFP process. Thank you, sir. This would be the opportunity for anyone who's with us wish to comment on this item. Please do so. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, council members. Barbara. My name is Barbara River Woman. And the limited time, I'd like to bring up what might seem like a very small detail, but sometimes I believe the small details illuminate the bigger situations and also show up the underlying problems with the current approach to vegetation management. I'd like to read you just three lines from a two-page report, very small, from MBK engineers. They're the consulting engineers that served as the liaison between FEMA and our city. And basically, they called the shots on everything that's been happening out there. They're the ones I'm most concerned about and are carrying that out. So, I'm reading the following quote regarding ground squirrel activity because despite of the grandiosity of the issue, it's all about ground squirrels. And I've been thinking a lot about ground squirrels all summer. And here's the quote, initial observations were made in areas where vegetation is not present. This is the quote from MBK engineers.  It's two pages. That's all. And it is expected that holes may be present in the reaches that have dense understory or ground cover where inspection is difficult to conduct, unquote. This is the full extent, that's it. That's the information that our city was given about the presence of ground squirrels on that levee. The engineer looked at disturbed soil only, soil that does not, that does attract ground squirrels. And he expects from that observation that there are some holes, that the squirrels may, he says, may be located in the dense understory and ground cover. And he didn't wanna look at the dense cover and ground cover, the dense understory and ground cover because that was difficult for him. The truth is that squirrels are deterred by vegetation like manzanita and are attracted to and concentrate in areas of disturbed soil. That's the smoking gun, in my opinion. We did all this because of a really poor naturalistic observation, a conjecture by an engineer about what's out there. I hardly need to point out that this is extremely unscientific. There should have been, the city should have conducted a scientific study of the ground squirrel population, number one. Number two, they should have studied the scientific work of Gary Griggs, explaining the unique hydrology of our river, our river rises quickly, subsides quickly, and giving less possibility of water penetrating into the structure. And thirdly, explore the possibility of using electronic imaging of the inside of the levee, which technology is available. None of these suggestions and others were considered by public works. Our small group begged them to look at these alternatives to seek variances with FEMA and to seek variances with the Army Corps of Engineers. They didn't ever respond with anything except two words. I'm so tired of those words, I'm not gonna say them. We are facing more of the same, exactly the same devastation that happened out there on September 1st, if the city approves the proposal before you. Better solutions are possible if we draw on nature-based solutions, not just in engineers' un-based conjectures. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. Hello, Mayor Kearley and members of the council. My name's Baccia Kagan, I'm very happy to be here, and thank you for your service. We, as members of this group that are concerned, and I live right next to the river, so this is directly applicable to my life. I hear and know all about what's going on there. I walk it often. So we have come up with a future flood control policy that we've submitted. I believe you should have it in your packets, or if not in your emails. The following five requests, we may not get through all of it in my two minutes, but our priority requests of the Protect Our River Group, they emphasize increased attention to protecting the city's natural environment based on federal nature-based solutions, improved communication between the community and the city, and increased equity in our relationship with non-English-speaking employees of the city. So number one, the city will incorporate into its general plan the commitment to move rapidly towards nature-based solutions in all of its projects. This is a federal guideline that we hope to be in line with. Number two, the city will require the transportation and public works department offer to meet with a wide range of local environmental groups as a group in the early stages of development of all new projects that could possibly have a negative impact on the environment in order to assure that projects are seeking alignment with nature-based solutions. Are seeking alternatives to additional gray solutions and are aware of the special strength of each advocacy group, such as indigenous perspectives, native plants, birds, wildlife habitat, restoration, animal behavior, and climate change. Groups should include but are not limited to the Alma Mutsun California Native Plant Society, Santa Cruz Bird Club, Groundswell, the Sierra Clubs, Coastal Rutter Shed Council, and the Valley Women's Club. Meetings with individual members of these groups would be in addition to this requirement. So number three, we are asking that the city will seek funding for an in-house environmental specialist to work closely with the city's staff and environmental groups to evaluate all city projects in terms of its alignment with nature-based solutions. The environment specialist will cultivate close relationships with independent environmental groups to draw on their knowledge of local conditions to keep them informed of the developments within the city government related to environmental protection. I know this is wordy, but I'm sure you have it somewhere. Number four, the city will establish an easily accessible website, ideally managed by the environmental specialist to keep city council members as well as the community members informed of all projects being evaluated for alignment, again, with nature-based solutions. Number five, regarding the specifics of the RFP, we suggest the following changes. That the TPWD will seriously evaluate the feasibility of obtaining an electronic image of the inside of the levee to determine the extent of the ground squirrel tunneling, as Barbara was talking about, ground squirrels, it's all about ground squirrels, before implementing EP1110 and the visibility and accessibility criteria. This will establish a basis for a more informed decision about the necessity of vegetation removal and cementing of ground squirrel tunnels, which has been done this year. The TPWD will consult with a specialist on ground squirrel behavior to determine when and how and where ground squirrels build tunnels. They will explore the relationship between ground squirrel tunnels and the unique hydrology of the San Lorenzo River, which rises and subsides quickly, lessening the penetration of water into the earth and levee and into possible sewage pathways, because all of this is also being concerned about the breach of the levee. The TPWD will consult with a chemist or other specialists to determine possible toxic consequences of using grout on the ground squirrel tunnels. The TPWD will provide a translator for all trainings of workers on the levee. The TPWD will develop a short, reader-friendly streambed alterations agreement, highlighting the key information with clear dos and don'ts. This will also be translated. Mitigation and habitat loss due to vegetation management and rodent control will be enacted and factored in the cost of a project. The TPWD will work cooperatively with concerned local environmentalists in monitoring the removal of native plants and the cementing of ground squirrel tunnels and former vegetation management specifications on the inboard slope will be continued unless it's direct contradiction with the new FEMA regulations. And I managed to read the whole thing. Thank you for your attention and your time. Thank you. Good luck with that. Kind enough. I suspect you have a copy, but if you would give that to the clerk, that'll keep our record very clear. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Van Allen, good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, Mayor Kaley and City Council. Bruce Van Allen, some of you know I've worked on the river for quite a while. And I won't show my age, but I want to just illustrate a point that the last two speakers made about the nature of the flows in the river, because before you locked down a 10-year maintenance plan for the river, I think that we need to have something that we did successfully work out with the Corps of Engineers, and it needs to be applied now with FEMA. And that was the concept of adaptive management, where we didn't say this is the way it's gonna be forever. We said this is the way we think we're gonna try for now, and we're gonna do science and engineering research along the way involving the public for input and adjust what we're doing and how we're doing it over time. And so I made some slides to illustrate the nature of the flow in the San Lorenzo River. So this first slide, this is the Pajaro River at Chittenden, which is about eight to 10 miles upstream from where the breach was in March. This is the period between January 1st and April 1st, and you see those peak flows. Now lower down on that page, if you could scroll down. This is our San Lorenzo River at the gauging station just at the city limits. And I want you to notice how much narrower those spikes of the peak flows are. This is the way the San Lorenzo River behaves in Santa Cruz. It goes up really fast and it comes down really fast. The watershed of the San Lorenzo is 115 square miles. The watershed of the Pajaro River is 1,186 square miles of much larger area in San Benito and Santa Clara and even part of Fresno County. So it's a whole different flow regime. And now if we could turn to the next page with two slides. This is the next slides show those same flows but over just the period from March 8th through March 14th. This is the peak flow when the breach happened. It levels off at the top there right at the time of the breach just in a couple of days. Now lower on that page, you see the exact same time period of the San Lorenzo. Those peak flows are far narrower. It was only above the danger zone for a few minutes as opposed to a few days. The nature of the flows in this river is that we do not have sustained pressure on our levy during our highest flows. It goes up and it comes down really fast. Therefore the danger of a breach is far smaller. I'm not gonna say this is science and engineering. This is just some readouts from some graphs from the USGS. But we need to be monitoring and paying attention to that and adapt our maintenance to that actual reality of the way our river really behaves. That's the only point I wanna make. I want you to move ahead with this. Flood protection is very important, but for the last 40 years this city has had as its policy that habitat for wildlife and integration into the surrounding urban design, urban landscape are equally important with flood protection. And I think we need to remind ourselves of that when we think about this. Thank you very much. Bruce, don't go away. I wanna ask you a question. So when I came to town in 1977, you were already working on this. And I know you were mayor and city council member, you worked on it a lot and you've never not worked on it. So I consider you one of my North stars on what the heck do you do, at least on the lower reaches of the river. When you look at this agenda item, did I understand you correctly to say, go ahead with this, but did you suggest that we do this item as is or was there more to a recommendation from you? Well personally, I would like you to hold off and give us a little time to talk and perhaps council member Brown has some ideas more concretely, but to build into the maintenance plan of ability to review, to do science along the way so that we really know what's actually happening out there and to involve the public and the concerned environmental groups and indigenous groups in thinking about that. So I don't have a specific modification in mind.  I'm in concurrence with the previous speakers, both of them. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Bruce. Good afternoon. Mr. Bosner, good afternoon. Hi, my name is Michael Bosner. I'm representing the Sierra Club today. I'm on the executive committee. The Sierra Club is the oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization in the United States and in the city of Santa Cruz. Members of our conservation committee did site visits. They read all of the documentation about both the road and control measures and the vegetation management work, and we wrote a letter to you that had suggestions for modifications of the RFP, as well as suggestions with how to direct the management as the RFP goes forward. So the letters here, if anyone hasn't seen it yet, I have a paper copy. I'm not gonna review all the changes. They're pretty careful and technical and there's no reason to say I'm on TV, but I have that. Thank you. We'd be glad to accept that. I believe it may already be in the record because you sent it to us, but thank you for the other copy. Would you wish to make any other comments, Mr. Bosner? Good to go. Thank you. Thanks for your care and concern, and we understand the basic issues and the framework you have to deal with. Thank you and thank the Sierra Club. Good afternoon. Good morning, council and mayor. My name's Jane Orvuck. I'm a longtime resident of Santa Cruz and an educator at San Lorenzo Valley High School where we started the Watershed Academy. I'm also a conservation officer with Bird Club and a member of the Sierra Club committee that looked at the river recently and have worked with Bruce Van Allen and others for years and Barbara. And I just wanna mention a couple of things. One, as we all know, the river is the lifeblood of our community and we can't just pass resolutions. We really have to examine what we're doing and why we're doing it. So I advocate a couple solutions that have already been mentioned. I was a member of the San Lorenzo River Caretakers, which was sponsored by the RCD Resource Conservation District and we were a stakeholder group that met at the Trout Farm Inn for years with John Ricker on issues with the San Lorenzo River. And I really advocate that the city in conjunction with the county advocate a stakeholder group again that meets regularly. It can be annually, semi-annually, involving all the groups that have been previously mentioned so that we have a watchdog on the river, we have community input on the river, and we don't have these kinds of problems in the future. And I wanna appreciate the city for dealing with the problems that happened with this first run of the management on the levees because I think you realize a lot of your errors and are now undertaking to solve them. But I think having a stakeholder group meeting regularly would really overcome a lot of the issues you've dealt with. They could also institute citizen monitoring. I was a long time, had a monitoring program where I had high school students monitoring the river. It's, there is very little baseline data on the lower river. We really need to institute studies to look at long-term data gathering so we don't have these problems in the future. We know what we're doing. The Natural History Museum does bioblitzes. We could do those on the river. And finally, I want to advocate, somebody mentioned an environmental manager. I think the city and the county need a biodiversity manager. We have a 30 by 30, we have a climate change manager, but we don't have a biodiversity manager. So we don't have anyone looking at the issues of conserving our county's biodiversity in line with the 30 by 30 policies that the federal government and the state government have looked at. And I don't think we have to have a position that's funded by the city or the county. I think these people, I've worked with people in education who have been grant funded. And if we have someone on staff, we don't have to have an emergency call to find a biologist to get something done. We can avoid these problems and we can have a much more sustainable city and a city that protects and enhances our life through your time. Thank you very much. Good afternoon. Here for it. Council, Brad Snyder. I've done a lot of interesting stuff down along that river. I've worked through cab, I've worked taking out beech trees and just getting sweaty and dirty down there and seeing all kinds of salamanders and snakes, various squirrels. A lot of vegetation, of course, which nature certainly appreciates. No snags along the river because of course it's real sandy, there's no beech trees that grow to any appreciable size. In fact, it's kind of like just giving a haircut because it just grows back before you know it. And I don't really understand you're not really getting rid of much volume. So you're not preventing flooding in any way. I just don't really understand why you even bothered to get rid of vegetation down there. It was a really wet winter. We had a lot of rain, of course, duh. And I don't think it's gonna, it's in a normal dry year at the end of summer, the Thalweg, the deepest part of the stream, comes down to the beach and forms just kind of an endorheic pool, which you know, the rangers get really annoyed when you draw a little line with your finger and create a giant torrent. But it's fun, done that before. And yeah, it's funny because not a lot of people know, I took a meteorology class and meteorology is a lot different than climatology. Meteorology is like, here's what happens, here's how and why it happens. And so when you look at those sort of nitty gritty details, you kind of understand the climatology of the central coast, Hadley cells, pressure, the position of the sun in the summer months in the Northern Hemisphere, the lack of a topography that breaks off subpolar lows across the Pacific. So there's lots of factors that make our summers very dry. And it's hard to describe to people in other parts of the country. But anyway, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of life down there. There's a lot of amazing animals that of course rely on the river. I mean, I think there should be signage. Nature needs this water. Please keep this area natural. And yeah, managing it, that sounds a little bit like a Starbucks, I don't know. Thank you. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Councilor Mayer. I just wanted to add a little information so people can do some homework on the history of the floods in the San Lorenzo River. I'm going to be talking during the San Lorenzo Park issue, but flood control and riparian system destruction on the lower San Lorenzo River by Gary Griggs, 1981, I believe is when that paper was produced. It's only about 10 pages, but it's quite detailed in the way that the whole river alteration and flood control was handled and the results of the inadequate sediment removal that the city was struggling with. And it's got numbers and charts in that and you'll understand it much better and understand what things are going to be useful and what things are going to be useless. And I'd love to see those charts that Bruce Van Allen put up about the flows. That's really important too. And then the other documents, it comes through the library. I got both of these going to Santa Cruz Library. History of floods in the San Lorenzo River in the city. And that goes all the way back to the 1800s and even further back, describing each flood and its effect and give citations of where the information came from and what happened in the city and that. I think it's about 30, 40 pages or something like that. It's well worth looking at if you want to do your homework on the river. Thank you. Thank you very much. We have one person online. Is that correct, Ms. Bush? Thank you. We'll go to that person online now. Good afternoon. Hi, my name is Lori Egan. I'm the executive director of the Coastal Watershed Council. Apologies, I could not make it in person today but I'm calling in to support this item number 19. The Coastal Watershed Council is a local nonprofit organization working to revitalize the lower San Lorenzo River. We work in partnership with the city of Santa Cruz to improve the quality of the river and the Riverwalk Park, to invite youth and families to discover and enjoy their river, as well as educate the community about how the river is our primary drinking water source and home to endangered species. Having a functioning levee is important to protect the thousands of people from being flooded in winter storms, particularly so as we see the increased impacts of climate change. It is equally as important to care for the plants, insects, pollinators, fish and other species that rely on the river. This not only helps our threatened and endangered species but also provides a more beautiful and vibrant riverwalk for all Santa Cruzans to enjoy. We are encouraged to see the city switch from a bid process to a request for proposals process. As we believe this will allow city staff to hire more environmentally responsible contractors to complete the vegetation management work along the levee this fall. And we commend city staff on increasing their communications with environmental groups like CWC and members of the public. Opportunities remain for this project to increase biodiversity along the river by installing mowable native plants, by including a qualified ecologist in the RFP Evaluation Committee and by increasing oversight when the hired contractor begins their work. By working together we can balance the diverse needs of this important river ecosystem. Thank you very much. Ms. Egan, thank you and thanks to the Coastal Watershed Council for all the good work that you do. Let me ask if there's anyone else with us. Do we have anyone else in line? Nobody else. Matters back before the council. Ms. Brown is recognized. Thank you, Mayor. I wanna thank the folks who wrote in and spoke up today about this item and the broader set of issues around our river management. We have a real challenge here. There are a lot of issues that are in play and it is very complex. And so I don't wanna... I'm gonna try to make a motion here to help us keep moving forward but also engage kind of direct engagement with members of the community who are really involved in this in a more formal way I think because going through all of the elements I think would not serve us. But I think they're very important and I think that the people who've raised them shot to, they've recognized the challenges and they've said they wanna be involved in this process so I wanna see that. We have a river that is a river. It's a riparian corridor. It's a habitat. It's also a flood control project that comes with a whole bunch of regulatory burdens really that can seem to contradict our values around the environment. And so I wanna try to find a way forward that allows for this work to get done in the time-sensitive timeframe we have but also include some of the suggestions that were made. So, and this does not include a lot of the things that were raised here today. I wanna say before we go through this, one, the bigger questions around nature-based solutions which we gestured to in a previous item, grant to the Coastal Conservancy that we all supported on our consent agenda. We're not using them here. We're not talking about them here and they have been established as a priority for the Biden administration. They're gonna be moving through the process of rulemaking and they'll be coming to us at the local level at a later date once this RFP is already in place. So given that, I feel that I'd like to, anyway, I'd like to see if this will work. So I wanna ask Mr. Nguyen, my first inclination was to ask that this be continued to our next council meeting. That would get us very close to the September 1st date. So I worry that that is not gonna be feasible. Can you just speak to the timing on this? Yes, we do want to proceed as quickly as possible with procuring a contractor. The goal is to take it out to bid and allow for a three to four week timeframe for advertisement. The goal of having a contractor on board and actually doing the work starting in September. And so if we push it out in there two weeks, we're just getting closer to that timeline of our October 15th requirement to have this work performed. Got it. Okay, so in terms of the issuance of that RFP, would you be amenable to working with members of the community and its development to try to incorporate some of the elements that they have brought up to really move us towards the nature-based solutions, alternative adaptive management principles that we've really used for the river for many years now. I just wanna see how that would work because the reason I ask here is when this initially came up before us, I asked about members of the community being able to meet with public work staff to look at the river, be involved in the conversation and that occurred. And I thought that that might lead to a little bit better outcome. And it didn't, in this last case, I don't wanna go into that, what happened here. But I would like to see some real commitment and some accountability about the folks who are really expressing an interest in being involved, being able to participate, give their feedback and have that taken seriously. It will help us. And your answer is? Yes, we can work on forming a working group around the San Lorenzo River. Okay. And they could be involved in an RFP development to get that RFP out. You could meet with them quickly in order to do that. I would also just, and I don't wanna go too far of a tangent, it is included in the staff report that staff has met with different working groups and lift and stakeholders to develop the RFP. There were comments that were incorporated into the RFP with desired qualifications for a certified ecologist practitioner, as well as a couple of other things. We got a certified artist as a minimum qualification. Those are added as well. So I don't wanna say that staff hasn't met with stakeholder groups. I think the outcome though of the RFP may be not as desirable for everybody, but we are trying to balance the requirements for the Army Corps O&M Operations Maintenance Agreement which we've been doing for part of a better part of a couple of decades now, but we are trying to balance those with the stakeholder group desires. Understood. And yet, if we've been doing it for decades now, but I'm hearing that people who have been following this very closely believe that this is a departure from what we have been doing. So I don't wanna try to adjudicate that or unravel that here, but that's what's going on. And so I guess I believe them that there's more that we could do. And I want to see that addressed in this upcoming project. So I'm just trying to figure out a way to make that happen. But I'm hearing that you're not gonna necessarily be willing to work with the folks who are here today and maybe some others before the RFP is issued. I believe city staff is happy to meet with stakeholder groups before the advertisement of the RFP. We can definitely do that. We of course wanna proceed as quickly as possible with getting it out to bid, but I don't see a reason why we cannot perform that. And I believe the language that is set, is that it allows or the agreement to be in a form acceptable to the city attorney for the city manager's side. So there can be some tweaks that are made prior to the execution of that actual agreement. And council member Brown, if I may just chime in. Nathan and I haven't had an opportunity to talk about the working group idea, but I do think there's a lot of merit to us reestablishing a stakeholder working group around all the work we're collectively doing along the San Lorenzo River. And in fact, as part of the budget hearings, we had also talked about the need for additional funding streams to really, at the standard I think we're all hoping for, put additional investment both into the river and the loving network and public access. And so as kind of a launching point, reforming, reestablishing a working group and in the near term providing an additional opportunity for folks to provide input into the RFP process, I think is reasonable. Thank you. So my motion is up folks have maybe been able to read it. I guess I didn't include working group in this, although I think it's a great idea. I don't wanna get too far afield from the item itself, but if that's something that people are willing to talk about, we can add that. There's a motion and a second, okay. And is that your motion that is on the? This is my motion. Given the interest in a working group, I would, I'd like to include it here if people think it's worth including, because I think that would be a really important step towards not having this happen in the future. What I wanna do as a presiding officer is give you the opportunity to make your motion. Okay, so. I would like to add a number four. Number four. Direct staff to return at, when's a reasonable return date? The 12th of September? Two weeks, I don't think it's gonna do it. By the second meeting in September? Second meeting in September is reasonable. And I think we're talking about two things here. One is an immediate follow-up meeting with the folks in the room here today to provide some additional input into the RFP. And then subsequent to that, we'll be moving forward with bringing back to the council a framework for a working group. Second meeting in September. So, yes, so this, the one through three is as is. And I'd like to see that meeting prior to the RFP being circulated. And then number four, return by the second meeting in September with a proposal for re-establishment of a river working group. Is it agreeable to the second? Is motion and a second under discussion? I imagine, Ms. Brown, you've made your statement about it, all right. Others on this? Excuse me, I'm sorry, Ms. Bruner. I have, thank you. I have, and thank you to everyone who brought up input and suggestions. It's always important to hear from everybody. I do have two questions. One item three, I'm trying to understand how that's different from what already exists on the city website. There's, and maybe you can, I don't know if someone can answer that question, but I did a lot of referring community members to the website and there's all the public works projects and the San Lorenzo River levy accreditation. There's all these links to the Bering rodent mitigation, the bid summaries, the work, the frequently asked questions. I'm just looking at it and I mean, there's so much in the project video that's up. That was really informational as well. And so I'm trying to understand if we can clarify what three is, if that's something different or can we take that out? If I could, I'll just say my purpose was to ensure that members of the community can be present, know when the work is happening, exactly when the work is happening, so they can be present on site to conduct monitoring. This is something that has come up over the years around both the river, the Jesse Street Marsh, when contractors occasionally break the rules. And we're not monitoring it closely. They want to, I'd like for them to be included, acknowledge that they are monitors. And they would need to know the exact timing in order to do that. It's a great website by the way, very informed. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for clarifying that intention. And I think for me reading that, that's so generic. I feel like it already exists, but maybe just a specific call out to the stakeholder groups to make sure that everyone's notified of work is the intention. I don't want to language Ward Smith here, but just understanding that. If I may with regards to having local environmental groups monitor the construction work, as we're doing construction, it is a bit of a challenge I would say with regarding exactly what, when the contractor is gonna be out there and notifying the groups to be out there for that specific timeframe, that happens regularly with all of our construction projects where there is latitude with different working groups or different functions that are happening. And that was part of the challenge that we recently went through this past spring. I do think that we'll have a better working group or monitoring of the work, inspection work on our end, but to be able to do that with also the public, all the different working groups to make sure that they're on top of our construction schedule, is like having them be working at the city daily monitoring the actual progress of the work. So I think that it's a big ask is kind of what I'm saying with regards to having them be involved in the everyday monitoring of the work that's progressing. Do you get a window? I mean, you generally know when the work is happening. Correct, and that's, we did inform the public and stakeholder groups this past spring when that happened. Sometimes the contractor didn't show up and then we would have a guy on our face saying, well, how come that didn't happen right there? They moved to a different location and or they didn't show up that day. And that happens in normal course of construction. So I just want to be cognizant of that. We'll do our best to inform the stakeholder groups and we have by generating that webpage, identifying all these different documents that go with the work, but the daily construction schedule is a task, I have to say, to keep everyone fully up to date. Thank you. Council Member Collin, Tori Johnson is recognized. Thank you for the presentation, turned into a presentation and the comments from the public. I do have concerns about the community members on-site monitoring, both safety concerns, as well as efficiency and effectiveness of how fast the project will move forward. I think as is written, looks fine, but maybe we can discuss that further when it's appropriate. I have major concerns around that. And then with number two, I'm fully in support in meeting with the groups that have spoken today, making sure that some of these key concepts are integrated in the RFP, but I want to make sure that we are able to move forward with the RFP so we can move forward with the important work. So I wonder if you could just comment on the feasibility of making both those things happen. I appreciate that Council Member Collin, Tori Johnson, with regards to the discussion about including adaptive management or nature-based solutions, that is going to be a much more significant lift when we talk about working with the Army Corps, FEMA, MBK, these other stakeholder groups to incorporate what is somewhat still in the, it's not quite defined as what I'm trying to say with regards to nature-based solutions. What are those exactly? How do those get incorporated into our LEVI or other projects that we're doing around the city? And so it is a steep request to assure that it includes adaptive management as well as nature-based solutions. That is the long goal, as we hear with the different funding sources that we want to incorporate those kind of things. We just haven't really put it into defining what those kind of features can be, especially in the San Lorenzo River. If I might, it does seem to me, I appreciate that what you just said, comma, but, and I don't mean it as a verbal eraser, comma, but. Some form of that answer has been around for decades. And so I do think that the council, if this motion passes, is saying something other than what we have always done. And I appreciate your willingness to look at that. I don't suggest for a moment that you haven't already. I imagine that you have. But I do think this is a moment. We're at a moment now. And I think this council is talking about a somewhat different approach to the management of our levy and hearing the other voices that we, that are now being incorporated into this motion. Others on this item. Council Member Golder. If I may, another kind of state older group, I don't know would be something in the parks department in that, and I don't know if we could include that because I've said, and I know where my father-in-law went, but talking about active recreation along the waterway the other day on one of those hot days we were driving by and saw a family actually playing in the river downtown and it was really sweet to see. And so if you're talking to people, maybe incorporating the parks, someone from parks or something as well. Thank you. And I'm sure you already thought of that. I appreciate the comment of Vice Mayor Golder and as I think through what the group could look like, I think it would involve multiple departments, right? From water to parks and rec, to public works, as well as the stakeholder partners that we work closely with. So we'll look forward to working through that and bringing back a proposal to the council. Further on the motion. Seeing it near, none clerk will, I'm sorry. Anyone clerk will call the roll. Council Member Newsom. Aye. Brown. Aye. Watkins. Aye. Brunner. Aye. Calentura-Johnson. Aye. Vice Mayor Golder. Aye. And Mariculio. Aye. Motion passes in this order. Thank you all very much for your participation. We are on item 25. This is Consent Agenda Public Hearing. This item relates to the 2223 Housing and Urban Development Annual Action Plan for substantial amendment for that plan and budget adjustments related there too. Let me ask if there is any comment by members of the council on this item. Seeing and hearing none. Is there anyone with us in chambers today who wishes to comment on this item? Seeing and hearing none. Ms. Bush, do we have anyone online? We do not. No. We do not. Thank you very much. A motion would be in order. I'll move the item. Council Member Brown moves the item. Council Member Brunner seconds the item under discussion. Seeing and hearing none. The clerk will call the roll. Council Member Newsom. Aye. Brown. Aye. Watkins. Aye. Brunner. Aye. Calentura-Johnson. Aye. Vice Mayor Golder. Not here. Mayor Keely. Aye. Passes in this order. We are on item 26. This is an item or a resolution establishing and proposed resource recovery collection rate and increases to begin September 1st, 2023. Let me ask if Mr. Nelson wishes to make a presentation on this or anyone else who is with us. You don't look a bit like Mr. Nelson. But I will acknowledge your presence here. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Pull the microphone nice and close to you. There we go. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council Members. My name is Bella Lopez Sanchez. I'm the Superintendent of Resource Recovery Disposal and Processing. I'll be doing the presentation today. This slide gives some examples of programs and services that are funded through the refuse rate.  This slide shows the funds, how the funds are allocated. About 20.8 million of this is operations cost and you can see how much goes to personnel cost. This is the budget for the entire refuse fund. The rate increase today is just, the rate increase that we're discussing today only covers collection activities. The refuse fund is a self-sustaining fund, meaning that all costs are covered through rates. It gets no funding from anywhere else in the city. All operations are done by city employees, totaling 103.5 full-time employees with several being temporary workers. So why do we need the increase? Last rate increase was July 1st, 2018. State mandated fleet electrification. State mandated Senate bill 1383, primarily for food scrap collections. Planned city-wide computer software upgrade in 2027. Collection expenses exceeding revenues. Unrealized revenues due to the pandemic, increased liability insurance costs, increased internal service costs, increased material costs for steel, for boxes and vehicles, and increased labor costs. Council last approved in 2015 with a five-tier schedule that last raised rates in 2018. Rates have not increased since July of 2018. You have this table in your report. A later slide will better illustrate the issue of continuing without rate increases. It is important to note that a healthy enterprise fund not only enough, excuse me, healthy enterprise fund needs not only enough revenue to meet annual expenses, but it also needs a fund balance or reserve to operate through an emergency or downturn in revenue. As you can see in the chart, current situation is not sustainable. Between 2015 and 2018, we're able to build an unrestricted fund balance, but with revenue stagnant, we began using the revenue funds to make up the difference between revenue and expenses. Additionally, this year, we finished a major landfill disposal cell project, which also hit our funds. Expenses versus revenues with no rate increase. This graph illustrates the first table showing what happens if we don't raise rates. The green represents the estimated revenue established or estimated out to 2028 using the current rate structure. The orange shows the fund balance and the yellow triangles indicate the estimated expenses. Starting out 2023 with the current fund balance at 12.7 million, we spent 16.5 million, but only took in 15.3 in revenue and spent down the fund balance by $2 million. That means that we start 2024 with the fund balance of 10 million and seven. You can see how this problem continues through the years with expenses rising and revenue stagnant, further eating into our funds at an increasing rate. Finally, in 2027, 2028, when there is a large hit to our fund for the city-wide computer software upgrade, the fund hits the negative territory at around 2.8 million. Without changing anything, we'll start 2029 at a deficit of 2.8 million. This is in your packet as attached table two, which shows the results of on the fund using the proposed five-year plan increase. If you look at the percentage increases, the difference in the commercial percentage is due primarily to the bundling of the state mandatory food scrap collection into a single commercial rate. Years two through five, both sectors rise 4% per year. This graph illustrates the effect of the rate increase. As you see the expenses, the yellow triangles are still at the same level, but the green bars, the revenues rise to meet the expenses. This also builds the fund balance to accommodate the four million city-wide computer software upgrade while allowing us to near our goal of 14 million fund balance to start fiscal year 2829. This unrestricted reserve is meant to keep the operation running in the event of any unforeseen events, either natural disasters, man-made like revenue or expense volatility, or unfunded capital projects. Although previously we targeted six million in revenues in accordance with the prior risk characteristic stress test, estimating the self-sustaining funds like the refuse funds unrestricted reserves should be, should have 26 to 40% of the expenses of their annual operating budget. While six million was 26% of our annual expenses at the time of the last rate increase in 2015, increasing construction, environmental cleanups costs, and the risk of revenue loss, which we saw in the pandemic, make the higher end more realistic for those unrestricted funds. Given those uncertainties of 14 million unrestricted reserve is much more fiscally conservative target and is about six months of our operating expenses. This shows the effect of residential part rates. On September 1st, the increase is 10% and a 4% increase. September 1st, 2024, and each year 4% to 2027. Here's an example of the commercial rates. You have a complete rate list in your package. This shows how the increase works over the next five years. It's 15% on September 1st and the increase is the same as the residential 4% each year from September 1st, 2024 through 27. One major change is that the new rate includes a state mandated Senate Bill 1383 food scrap collection service. The service was previously charged as a separate container charge and is now included in the commercial rates at whatever size container is most appropriate for the business. In comparing local jurisdiction rate structures, we are the only ones who include this service without an additional charge. In summary, without a rate increase, the refuse fund will experience a 2.8 million deficit by the end of 2027. The proposed rate will raise revenues to keep pace with the expenses. The rates are structured to accommodate the fleet electrification. By 2027, the rate will generate the additional funds for the refuse portions of the major city-wide computer software upgrade. And by 2028, we'll be close to our 14 million unrestricted fund balance. The city will be in full compliance with the state mandated SB 1383. The rate structure still encourages customers to reduce waste, helping the city towards the zero waste goal, increase landfill diversion, and thus life of the landfill. This rate, these rates, will only apply to collection. Thank you guys. Well, thank you very much. It was a very thorough presentation. Very much appreciated. Let me ask if there are questions from members of the city council first. Seen in here, let me see if there's anyone with us who, do we have anyone online? Let me check, but I do wanna say that we can still collect protest letters up until the closure of the public hearing. So if anybody has letters to turn in, they would come to me. Okay. So let me, you're going to check and see if there's anyone online. We do have hands raised, yes. Okay, so let me first go again to folks who are with us. Anyone wish to comment or register a protest on this item? This would be your opportunity to address the council, Mr. Posner. Good afternoon again. Hi, I own a triplex downtown and I generally think it's better to pay more for refuge rates because it just serves people from making trash. And I really appreciate the new steps with regard to the kitchen scraps that took a long time, but I'm glad the city's done it. It makes sense to cost a little bit of money. So I firmly support raising my rates. I'll never forget what you had to say. Good afternoon, sir. Yes, I just have a question. I just wanna know if the deficit, the operational deficit for this collection, if you see collections of trash in parks and other places in the city and not regular collections, it's part of that deficit or that's a whole separate financial issue. Be kind enough to provide an answer. Thank you. No, if parks pays their own refuse and so do the other departments. Thank you. We have someone online, Ms. Bush, let's go ahead and go to them. We have five people. Five people, we'll take them one at a time. Here we go. First person, good afternoon. Hey, how's it going? My name is Sean Williamson. I was the one that came in June when we were talking about it. No, if parks pays their own refuse and so do the other departments. Can you hear me? Sorry, I'm getting some feedback from the floor. We have someone online, Ms. Bush, let's go ahead and go to them. Five people, so. Five people, we'll take them one at a time. Here we go. First person, good afternoon. Hey, how's it going? My name is Sean Williamson. Are you guys there now? Yeah, we were here all along. I'm sorry, what's going on is I think we're getting feedback from you having something on that is giving you a delayed feedback on what's being said here. So turn that off and keep your microphone on and we're good to go. Fair enough, how are we doing now? This is Sean Williamson. I was the one that came in June and talked to you guys about resource collections rates increases. I think aside from, I had something written out but I think I wanna take a different tactic and I guess I would just like to make a public request and I'm hoping that I would like to know if it would be possible to put aside some of the revenue that's going to be generated from this rates increase to be put towards researching or implementing alternative strategies to deal with organic material. I think I, from the presentation that we just saw and obviously this SB 1383 is causing some issues. It's adding increased costs and my concern is that the strategy that we're implementing to abide by this SB 1383 is one of the costlier measures. And so I guess that would just be my public comment is hoping to find alternative strategies. Vice Mayor Golder has been super helpful in this regard and trying to work towards alternate solutions but I just foresee kind of unlimited rate increases and hoping to at least know that some funds are going towards researching strategies that might help mitigate those costs in the future and environmental impact. So that's what I'd like to say. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next person online. Welcome, good afternoon. Yes, hello, this is Garrett again. Hey, I really appreciate there's a law that requires you not to raise essential monopoly utility rates such as solid waste disposal beyond actual expenses. Too bad it doesn't also require expenses to be optimized. I see the staff forced many assumptions including inflation on this third party contractor you assigned to study this when estimating future costs which are just guesses given the current inflation environment and they got to all be on the high side because it's more even than 3.8% your future inflation guidance you gave them. Of course, in the end, you decided on jacking next year's rates by 10% than 4% every year they're after which compounded totals an increase of 28.7% of year five which is quite a bit more than the ordinary future of inflation targets so they're trying to get to 2% a year who are aggressively trying to do all they can to get there. The funny part to me was where the H&H consultants mentioned in the limitations report section which ought to be called the plausible deniability section how inaccurate almost all of these assumptions can be and how they relied on staff information that they did not independently verify. It does seem to include one time expenses like a multimillion dollar reserve building for a future one time expense like IT that's got to be some IT system that costs millions of dollars and really is that amount really just going to be used for reference refuse account processing or is it something somewhere else being inappropriately funded also I see costs for this organic waste and food which I for one have never asked for objected to and I composed all my food waste and you can have your can back and take it off my bill and you can tell the state what I think about their mandates while this doesn't specifically mention planned outrageous 2x times higher costs of EV garbage trucks in their infrastructure is reasonable to wonder if that political waste then is in there and since this topic is waste I find that most congruent. Clearly there's an attempt also here to build additional reserves so you can blow the money however you want in the future but lacking specific future projects with estimates one wonders why some of these increases aren't at most temporary in nature until the target reserve balance is reached then plan to reduce those charges. Your charges are supposed to average out normal variations and naturally return to some average fund balance without the need to overcharge to rebuild balances if it was done right. Even when specifics are mentioned like IT needs I don't see rate increases reduced after those scheduled needs are met. This is the balance is going up and up and up and up overcharging model similar to the parking rate increases. Everybody knows that it's a little editorial here everybody knows I should know and really should be really pissed about it that almost all inflation is manmade created by the immoral and corrupt the budget that's spending financed by the money printing unrepayable debt. Thanks. Thank you sir. Thank you sir. Third person online. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. My name is Michael. I work with hardcore compost or a local cooperative who collects compostable material in the city. I just want to say that it's frustrating that the city doesn't take compostable plastics or dirty paper and cardboard in the brown buckets. It seems like the city isn't really thinking it's waste policies through very consistently. They even require businesses to offer compostable takeout containers and cups for 25 cents more for customers. But all those containers get land filled at home. We have to put these materials in the trash but our landfill has a finite capacity. We should be keeping everything we can out of it. Santa Cruz should be composting food waste and cardboard and takeout containers locally instead of trucking waste to Santa Clara to be fed with pigs, two pigs. We could actually make good use of all those materials locally. The city says on its website that they're working on compost with local organizations but where is the evidence of that? Thank you all for your time. Thank you. Fourth person online. Good afternoon. ZH, I think that's you. Four, three, two, one. Next one. And this would be Nicola Moore. Good afternoon. Hello, good afternoon. I'm also part of Hardcore Compost, a local worker owned business which has been collecting and composting food scraps from Santa Cruz home since 2019. And before that, I was part of Santa Cruz Community composting company that was operating since 2015. We formed Hardcore Compost to provide well-paid jobs, a supportive work environment and meaningful employment that was good for people and the planet. However, since 2022, when the city started their own food scrap collection program, we have lost close to half of our customers. We have been trying to work with the city to fit composting in alongside their collection program but keep encountering barriers. City staff say they support us but the municipal code severely restricts the customers we can work with. This is especially frustrating because our model could produce huge economic and environmental benefits for the community. Research shows that worker cooperatives last longer and are more productive than conventional businesses. Co-ops also demonstrate better pay equity between higher and lower paid workers. We want the city to recognize our worth and actually work with us to provide and preserve decent jobs and local composting. Thank you. Thank you. One more. All right. And so, ZH again, welcome. Hi there, council. Can you folks hear me now? Here we go. Yes, we can. Great. Sorry about that. My headphones were working. It's all good. So my name is Zove Hirschfield. Some I've worked with. Some of you council members on various issues before but I'm speaking here in my capacity as a worker owner at Hardcore Compost as well. I echo everything my coworker just said and I wanted to speak just on the issue of greenhouse gas emissions, climate change and food waste. So obviously as you all know in 2022, California enacted a law requiring cities to prevent greenhouse gas emissions by keeping food out of landfills. And my position is that Santa Cruz's food scrap program does meet the letter of that law, but not its spirit. It does stop some landfill methane emissions by keeping food from decomposing in landfills but it also pumps carbon into the atmosphere from the trucks that sends to Santa Clara every week because the food and the food on those trucks is made into big feed. This isn't really a climate solution when according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization livestock are responsible for 14% of global greenhouse gas emissions. So I think the city could better manage food scraps through composting. This process produces minimal greenhouse gases. It can lock carbon away in the soil and we and other local composting organizations have been trying to collaborate with the city to expand composting here. But the city's laws do make it extremely difficult for anyone other than the public works department to manage food scraps. And we'd like to see the city more meaningfully engage with local composters so that we can reduce our emissions, we can actually store carbon in local soils and we can make useful compost from the waste that is produced here. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you very much for your participation. Thank you for your testimony this afternoon. Let me see, is anyone else online? We have now covered that. Anyone else who's here? Covered that, all right. Matters back before the council. Questions or comments by council members? Ms. Brunner. I have a question for staff. If there's a way that we could get some information regarding the municipal codes that were mentioned that are making it difficult for the composting issue that was brought up by three of the public comments. Council members and mayor, my name's Leslie O'Malley. I'm the waste reduction manager. I'm the staff that has been having conversations with those people who have spoken today over the last several years. We have access to the code. I've worked and walked through every line of the code with some of the callers and we're happy to provide to council that city attorney recently met with one of the callers and walked through some of that so we're happy to provide the language of the city ordinance that the city is the exclusive holler. That would be great. And maybe some information around what can be changed and not changed as required. Thank you. Thank you for the questions or comments. Ms. Brown. I will make a comment here on the folks who have called in and spoken. I support the item and so I'm gonna vote yes when the time comes. I do think that we can do better with composting and I recognize there are significant challenges and Ms. O'Malley, I know you are very committed to finding ways to bring sustainability into all of our work and sustainable methods and practices and so I don't doubt that you've been having those conversations and trying to be helpful but I do think that there's some things to be learned from the groups that are doing this in our community and are making compost rather than just managing food scraps in a different way and so I'd like to see us take that conversation up more seriously as we move forward with our efforts. This is very new, I recognize as well and there's all kinds of things that we could talk about there but I just wanted to say that because I would like to see this issue talked about more comprehensively so I'll reach out to you Leslie and see what we can come up with to try to bring it back but are we ready for motion now? You have a comment. Okay, I'll just hold off on the motion. No, I was just gonna say I would be very interested in that conversation as well so whenever that happens let's stay connected. Excellent. All right, so then with that I'll move the staff recommendation. If there's a motion to approve the recommendation including the resolution, Mr. Condati. This under Proposition 218 is technically a rate protest hearing and so I think it would be appropriate to hear from the city clerk if a majority of the members of the public who are subject to the rate increase submit a written protest in opposition then the city would be precluded by Prop 218 from imposing the increased rates. So I'm not sure. I'm not sure we receive that threshold number of protest. I'm not sure what the threshold number is but we received a total of 15. Okay. Suffice it to say that's less than 50% of the customers in the city. Okay, very good, all right. Thank you, thank you. There's a motion and a second under discussion is called to our Johnson. No, I just seconded it. Oh, all right, good. For the debate or discussion seen here, none of the clerk will call the roll. That was Ms. Brown made the motion, Ms. Calentari-Johnson on this. Thank you. Yes. Council member is Newsom. Aye. Brown. Aye. Watkins. Aye. Bruner. Aye. Calentari-Johnson. Aye. Vice Mayor Golder. Aye. And Mayor Cooley. Aye. Motion passes and so ordered. Council members, we need to check in a little time check here. We're at 525. We have an item, we have items 27, 28 and then oral communication. Typically at 505, we would have taken a break for a half an hour, grab a little bite to eat that's available for us. Item 27, I'm going to guess this will be fast. I'm going to guess on item 28 a bit longer. I wonder if what we might do is take a brief break. Let's go, let's take a break. We're at 525. Let's go until 545. Let's take a very brief break and we will come back at 545, take up items 27, 28 and oral communication. None of that having been on the record. We are back in session following the early evening break. The city council is now on item 27. This is a resolution of necessity for regional drought resiliency project and intertie, involving some lands outside boundaries of the city. Let me ask Ms. Thompson if you have any presentation to make on this item. Yes, I have a short presentation that I can make to council summarizing the staff report and the requested action by council today. All right, so this hearing is to discuss the city's adoption of a resolution of necessity that is required to acquire property necessary for construction of the city's regional drought resiliency project specifically in our time one. The water department developed this project and that will construct just under 10,000 lineal feet of water pipeline that connects the water systems of the city and the Scots Valley water district as well as constructing an associated water pump station. And this will increase the emergency and drought resiliency of the city and district by augmenting water supplies, while creating water storage and fire flow. Capacities. This will be used in both emergency and non-emergency water transfers and exchanges. And the pipeline will be built primarily on public right of ways that includes Sims Road and La Madrona Drive, but does require the acquisition of a handful of permanent easements in the acquisition of one property in fee. And this hearing concerns that in fee acquisition. The at-issue property is an undeveloped, unused private dirt road. It's a fairly steep road. It has three owners, a partnership, Robert and Edith Ann Rittenhouse and Mr. and Mrs. O'Loughlin. And the property is required for the project to connect the pipeline from Sims Road to the water district's existing Kite Hill tanks. The city had the property appraised earlier this year and sent a formal offer letter to the owners in March for the full appraised value, which was just over $28,000. The parties have not reached an agreement on the terms of the acquisition because two of the owners, the O'Loughlins, are deceased and their descendants legally cannot accept the city's offer to purchase the property without either probate action or quiet title action by the court, by the civil court. And the owners are amenable to the acquisition, all the owners, but can't do so without this further action by the O'Loughlin descendants. And currently the O'Loughlin descendants have refused to transfer the property via the probate option because the probate costs will likely exceed their share of the purchase price. Again, it's just over $28,000. The parents owned roughly 2% of this property. So because no agreement can be reached here and without either probate direction through the O'Loughlin children or with civil court direction through an eminent domain proceeding and the city can't complete the probate action itself and the descendants refuse to do so, the city unfortunately has to go through this eminent domain route to acquire the property interest. We, in our talks with the property owners, it doesn't appear that any of the owners will challenge the eminent domain proceeding. So this can be done relatively quickly and we have not received any opposition from the owners ahead of this hearing. But of course, city staff will continue to engage with the owners throughout the process to try and get this resolved out of court and more expediously than through the eminent domain legal process. So to go this route, we are requesting that council consider a resolution of necessity to determine that the public interest and necessity require the acquisition of the property by eminent domain. There are four findings that are required for that resolution. One is that necessity and public interest require the project itself, that the proposed project is planned and located in a manner most compatible with the greatest public good and least private injury, that the property itself at issue here is necessary for the project and whether the offer letter and notice have been made to the owner. And I should note that yes, we did send a notice to the property owners, all three property owners, that there would be this hearing today and we sent that early in July. And so happy to answer any questions that you have about those four findings that are required for the resolution. Thank you, Ms. Thompson. Appreciate your presentation. Let me ask if council members have questions of Ms. Thompson on this item. Seeing here, none, this would be the opportunity for any member of the public who wishes to comment on this item. Anyone who is with us in chambers this evening. Do we have anyone online, Ms. Bush? No one with their hands raised. The matter is back before the council. Entertain a motion. I'll move the recommendation. Recommendation is moved by council member Watkins. There is a second by council member Brunner under debated discussion. Seeing and hearing none, the clerk will call the roll. Council member Newsome. Aye. Brown. Aye. Watkins. Aye. Brunner. Aye. Pellentary Johnson. Aye. Vice mayor Golder. Aye. Mayor Achille. Carries and so order. Ms. Thompson, thank you. City Attorney's office, thank you for your good work on this. We are on item 28. Item 28 is San Lorenzo Park redesign process. We will have a staff presentation. Mr. Elliott, good afternoon or good evening, sir. How are you? Doing well. Thank you, mayor. Good evening, mayor and city council. Appreciate the opportunity to be here to present an update on the San Lorenzo Park redesign project. As Noah and Sarah are getting set over here at the staff computer, they'll give our presentation. Just wanted to quickly acknowledge, excuse me, that this project that we're working on at San Lorenzo Park is actually the city strategic plan in action already that the council just passed today. So as reflecting on a couple of those goals and strategies in the plan, including invest in public and green spaces to create a welcoming, safe and attractive place to spend time, activate city programs and other efforts to enhance and enliven downtown, including along the river, so on and so forth. So kind of a good connection today. I know the strategic plan moved quickly through consent, but already some good work in progress here at San Lorenzo in line with the strategic plan. So my piece of this is very brief. I mainly just want to introduce our parks planner. Noah Downing will run the presentation today. In addition to one of the leads from our consulting partner, Bionic Consulting, Sarah Most Thompson, who will co-lead this presentation. And we'll be happy to answer questions at the end. So thank you again for your time and I'll hand it over to Noah and Sarah. Mr. Elliott, thank you very much. Mr. Downing, Ms. Thompson, is that correct? Yes, thank you. Have that right? Good evening, both of you. Good evening. Please proceed. Good evening to you, Mayor and Council. Thank you. Let's begin with the agenda. We're gonna briefly go over the process, kind of the significance of the park within the city, as well as some characteristics to consider for the redesign, cover the community engagement, and then go over some of the opportunities we see with the park, as well as recommending guiding principles and design goals and some ideas for as well as next steps. In terms of the San Lorenzo Park redesign process, just wanted to talk a little bit about where we've been and where we're going. So if you look at the green, this is a phase one and we're about to conclude this phase. And before I get into it, I just wanna describe that the way we designed the process is that after when we reach certain milestones that we'll have check-ins with the council and or commission before we move on to the next step. And so for this outcome of the first step is we developed a needs assessment, identified opportunities and constraints as well as recommended goals and principles. And that's really from an evaluation of the existing conditions as well as the outreach. In terms of outreach, we engaged numerous stakeholders. We had 17 meetings with various groups. We identified just general themes from that outreach that led to very specific questions at the community meeting. And then that led to even more specific questions through an online survey. And we met with the Parks and Rec Commission. We're able to get some of their feedback. They made a recommendation to us, which we'll describe later. And then we're having the city council meeting. So in terms of the next steps, we move on, we would work with the community on different alternatives that would go into a ultimately a concept plan. We'd return to the Parks and Rec Commission to refine that concept plan. From there, we'd move through even more specific to develop a draft plan. And then we'd go before the commission and council again to review the draft plan. And that would get us through to a point where we could move on to environmental review, which is the next kind of phase beyond this project. And then we would look forward to more of construction drawings and fundraising and trying to implement the project. So this effort just, it really builds upon a lot of past efforts. In 1988, there was a San Lorenzo Park redesign process. It ultimately was not approved just from the minutes at that time in a review of them. It seems like there was concern that there wasn't funding available. There were also parts of the San Lorenzo Urban River Plan touch on kind of activating, providing access, natural restoration and there are some ideas for San Lorenzo Park that are still relevant or may be still relevant. In 2007, there was an ideas to activate the San Lorenzo River. Talks about education, types of events or opportunities. And so definitely that's relevant in San Lorenzo Park. You have the Ocean Street Area Plan, which talks about better connecting Ocean Street to the park through the government center, as well as the downtown plan, which was recently updated, calls for additional growth within downtown. There are some policies as well for San Lorenzo Park. And most recently, the City of Santa Cruz Parks Master Plan, which is adopted in 2020. And it has a recommendation to go through this process. Great, thank you, Noah. And good evening. As Noah mentioned, there have been a lot of previous efforts to reimagine San Lorenzo Park. And we've taken that into consideration as part of developing the needs assessment, as well as with researching and analyzing the existing features and conditions of the park, and then talking with many people in the community, as well as the city to understand what the needs are of the community for San Lorenzo Park in the future. And so we really started at the beginning to understand the significance and the transformation of the park over time. San Lorenzo Park is a neighborhood park located amongst multiple neighborhoods, but it's actually directly adjacent to your downtown. And we heard from people that that wasn't always very clear given the current configuration of the park, but we think it really has an opportunity to be a real asset for your growing and evolving downtown. It's also centrally located in Santa Cruz, halfway from the mountains to the ocean, and so could serve the larger population and needs of the city. Given its location within the region as well, and in the county, it could be a destination for many more people and a real offering for the Bay Area. The area around San Lorenzo Park has had a lot of significance to many people over time, including the native peoples and the indigenous tribes. They're one of the groups that we did meet with as part of the key stakeholder outreach. It served the neighborhood and the community since it was built in 1964, and it has also served the city in times of crisis and need. The park today has many existing features and assets, some of which the community cherish. San Lorenzo the Sea Serpent was recently repainted by the community. There are other assets that are in need of repair. To give a quick orientation to the park, it's located along the San Lorenzo River, Water Street to the north, River Street to the west, Soquel Avenue to the south, and then Dakota Avenue to the east. And the roughly 13 acre park is divided into two areas. For this project, we're using some new terminology. The uplands is the area adjacent to Dakota Street, and then the low lying area between the river and the uplands area in elevation. The low lying area, formerly referred to as the Benchlands, we're referring to that as the Riverlands now. And the Riverlands are quite extensive, and they have actually a really unique riparian habitat along the river edge with an overhanging mature tree canopy. And this area actually serves a much larger ecological purpose for flood management of the river, as you can see from the winter storms this past January. But it's part of this much larger ecosystem. And this reach of the river is actually very unique because it has this mature tree canopy overhanging the river. And so it offers a lot of wildlife potential that you don't see elsewhere along the reach because of these trees and the unique condition of the Riverlands. The mature tree canopy also extends within the park. It's a real asset to not only the park, but to the larger urban forest. And we think something really important to preserve to the greatest extent possible. So to understand how to preserve those trees, we did a mapping of the extent of the trees and where their drip line would be. So we can do improvements outside of the drip line once you get into that root zone, you potentially impact the tree. So the areas you see outlined in kind of a yellowish green, those areas we wanna avoid for major improvements. They can be light improvements there, but we need to protect those areas to protect those trees. So the areas identified in the purple, blue, pink and orange, that's where major transformation improvements can be made. And that starts to define some of the opportunities and constraints we have in thinking about a reimagined park. So along with evaluating the existing conditions and assets, in parallel, we asked the community and the city, what they need for the park and what should it be in the future? We looked at a lot of examples of both regional and national parks that are comparable in size to San Lorenzo Park. And these are serving as real assets for downtowns around the US. We looked at some of the programs and amenities that they have within these parks and asked the Santa Cruz community, what would they like to see? What would draw them to the park? What would be valuable for their city? As Noah mentioned, we met with over 1,500 individuals and part of the engagement, we included a full range of ways to provide input, everything from presentations to conversations one-on-one in small groups. We met with people of all ages and backgrounds. We had both online and in-person meetings and many different activities to engage and offer their ideas. And we actually heard a lot of different ideas, but we also heard a lot of overlapping priorities and interests for the park. So there's a brief summary, I'll go through here. You can see the rest of it in the needs assessment. But people are really interested in both active and passive experiences in the park. We heard their priorities for the park being safe and clean and usable and a real interest in environmental restoration along the river's edge. People want and are excited about having a whole range of amenities. They love the natural scenery and they want a park that they can bring their family to. We learned that most people get there by walking and bicycling and understand their circulation patterns a bit more, which will help to inform the design of the access and circulation for the alternatives. We asked about the riverlands to understand how that should be used. And people are really interested in restoration, but they also care about having events in the park. And so we wondered what kind of events they'd like to see. And they're very excited about events, everything from music and concerts to more specialized events like Earth Day and then even small groups for exercise. And then we wanted to understand what types of programs and uses they'd like to have. And they're interested in seeing a full range with a lot of priorities for playgrounds, areas for recreation, events and trails, but a whole offering that we're gonna assess what's feasible in the park. So we took all of that input to really identify what the opportunities are for the park and then to set the guiding principles and design goals that we'd like your approval on today. We think that the park really offers the city an opportunity to enhance the park to be an asset and a resource for your downtown and really an open space, not only for the neighborhoods, but for your downtown for the growing uses and people that will live there. It'll define the access and circulation and really making it a prominent space where you can promote everything that's unique and people love about Santa Cruz within the park and use that as a way to attract people both locally and regionally. Taking the assets that you currently have and enhancing those and then identifying which ones should be revitalized and which ones maybe should transform into new uses over time. Of course, prioritizing the river and the ecology and finding ways to enhance that and promote that, especially in the face of our climate is changing. Of course, designing a park that's inclusive for everyone, all ages, backgrounds and abilities in all aspects of the park. And then really thinking about strategies and measures that will keep the park safe over time and will allow the city to manage it and operate it on a long-term basis. And lastly, but maybe most importantly, is identifying partnerships and stewardship with community groups, with different agencies, with groups across the board, to help with future fundraising, for future design, for the construction, and then for the maintenance and operations of the park. And so that helped us to identify seven guiding principles that are all founded on an underlying principle that the park needs to be clean, safe, and secure. And so those are making the park uniquely Santa Cruz, reflecting the culture, activating the park, making it both sustainable and a green space, promoting biodiversity, creating a park with a lot of different programs and activities and events that attract the community and visitors, and then increasing the visibility and the access to the park and to the river and connecting it to downtown. As a subset to that, we've defined 12 specific design goals, and these will use these to measure if we're accomplishing the principles within the alternatives. I'm not gonna go through these in detail. You can read them in more specifics in