All right welcome everyone to today's city council meeting will be we recently had a closed session Which we'll talk about later. We're going to have a stay session At first though I'd also like to introduce Magali Teyes Who is the executive director of low Cn and she'll be doing the council sit along with us all the way to the end tonight, correct? She's smiling now Mr. McGlynn you want to introduce this item Yes, item 3.1 amendment to memorandum of understanding MOU between the city of Santa Rosa and the Santa Rosa City schools to allow Alternatives to construction of affordable housing or school facilities on fur ridge drive lot f apn 173 dash 6 to 0 dashes 0 3 0 assistant city manager David Gouin presenting Thank you, and good afternoon the mayor Schwedhelman members of the council So as the city manager just mentioned We're here as a study session to discuss a piece of property. It's a six-acre site up on fur ridge drive that is Subject of an MOU between the city of Santa Rosa and the Santa Rosa school district There's a lot of long history on this project. It dates back to a subdivision that went into place in 1987 called fur ridge north at Fountain Grove was the subdivision that went in that started this process and put this piece of Property in the mix for use for school sites So I have a little bit of history here on this slide I'm also in the staff reports as an attachment that has a much more detailed history that goes along with this But just to highlight a few of the items that have happened over the past few years since 1988 Was an agreement between the city and the subdivision developer was established for that property The thought that the site was to be held for construction of school or low and our moderate income housing There was a negotiation period between the school district and this the site There were a number of timelines outlined in that holding agreement And then the thought would be that if nothing did happen the the city could bring that back into the city If the school district was not able to move forward with it some key points on that history between 1988 and 2015 Just as a note it wasn't mended 12 times So it's been in front of the council a number of times over the years the two two main pieces are two main Important dates that happened in this timeline was in 2003 Which changed the agreement and which allowed for the site to be developed as affordable housing for its employees Or the city could develop that site and then develop low and moderate housing with preferential use for at least 50% of the district employees in 2016 it was modified again and essentially what happened was that they extended that for three years extended the agreement for three years Authorize the city manager to extend the agreement if progress was happening The intent there was assuming that things started to move forward a developer was chosen in the site was starting to be developed that We wanted to make sure we extend that MOU and had a flexibility with the city manager be able to do that the other thing that MOU did was a formalized agreement Partnership between the city and the district and that was an important piece to make sure that the city and the district were working together To try to figure out how to make sure this site was used to its best value so a little bit of location The site we're talking about is in the northeast part of Santa Rosa and Falungrove area It's right off of for forage drive is a little blow-up of that It's six point three acres. There is about an acre size parcel that came with this back in the 1980s That's just north of this parcel that was converted into a park. That's for forage park On that site. So the site we're talking about is Identified here in red. It's again. It's about a six acre site in the Falungrove area So where we are today and why we're back in front of the city council The current MOU and the extension of the three-year agreement is coming due pretty In the early next year So the city and the district have been working together over the past Basically a year looking at what we could do how we can help this project move forward We've met with multiple developers for the site to try to figure out if there's a way that that site could be developed as originally intended Per the agreement addition to that obviously we had the fires that happened that had a big impact of this area and that did change how That site was looked at viewed and also on the developer the developing this ability of that site in terms of cost as This is council is well aware. There's a number of lots up there that are being rebuilt this site is Basically, it doesn't have any infrastructure to it. It doesn't have any water sewer The tentative map that was approved for this site has since expired so that would have to be redone as well So a lot of work would have to go into developing this site So one of the things that the city and the county did or I'm sorry the city in the school district did was look at what options What do we want to put into an amended MOU if the council wants to extend this to try to give as much flexibility as possible To to realize the intent of this site to support the city county city district The center was a district's employees So we came up with three three main options with a couple subsets One was to extend the terms the existing terms and those existing terms and we'll talk about each one of these one by one Essentially means to develop that site as was originally intended Second option was if this district found that they couldn't do anything with that property It didn't have a band with their capability. They could have revert that back to the city Third option the district tend to sell the site and then use those proceeds for a couple different options Potentially one is to build housing on another site or potentially partner with another developer That's building housing for instance near transit in the downtown area to try to leverage those funds to go further And then a new option that has been discussed was Creating a revolving fund down payment assistance program for district employees so that the money would continue to provide benefit over over the life of of that fund So I'm just gonna go through each one of these real quick And again the the intent is to get to have a discussion here at the at the council level to Hear from the council if you'd like to include all these in a revised MOU if there's ones that you specifically want removed Have that conversation and then we will take that feedback and then bring that back at the joint meeting So walking through these items the first one that we talked about is extension of the existing terms Which again that existing terms really solidified the Partition between the district and the city Towards utilizing this site Basically what that means is the district would need to establish a new subdivision map for this site the original map is expired And then internet and contract with a developer to develop that site So we have language in their existing agreement about timelines when that would have to happen When the notice would have to be I didn't send to the city to make sure that progress was being made on that option So this option again is essentially developing the site giving more time and allowing that to happen The second option again if the district decided that they did not want to do anything with that site Or there's they ran into some issues in terms of the potentially selling it or developing it that it could revert back to the City to transfer the title back to the city For load of moderate income housing on the site So that's the thought and then the city could either build on that site or potentially sell that site for doing other creating creating housing Option three is has two parts to it. The first part is selling the site And then using those proceeds proceeds as I mentioned before either partnership with the developer on another property create creating housing on another property or potentially working on a downtown property and a transit-oriented development project and Option 3b would be to sell the property use those funds to establish a down payment assistance program the thought again would be it would be a revolving fund to Allow for ongoing payments to help with district employees get into home ownership The other thing this would do would allow the district to leverage and potentially additional other grant funds to increase the size of that Funding to make that funding go further than what the just the sale price of that home or that property would do one of the things that we found when we started talking about this option is that the As part of the MOU the council has the ability to put in some provisions or boundaries on a Program like this a loan program and then the the boundaries that we came up with where it was essentially the eligibility threshold so does the council want to provide Some guidance in terms of who's eligible to participate in a loan program such as this And so we have a couple options here that we threw out One is not don't provide a threshold you know let the district come up with that program and Implement that program based on what they feel is appropriate through a public process or we set some Some thresholds so to load a moderate threshold from 80 to 20 150 AMI or look at a district schedule and actually look at what two teachers make on a certain at a certain See senior seniority in the school district And so we took these three options in the district ransom analysis And there's a letter attached to the packet that does Review of these different analysis to show the potential impact to district employees to give some sense of scale in terms Who would be affected if some of these were picked obviously the no threshold? We don't have any data on that because that would have to be formed that the program would have to be formed by the district the traditional low Low to moderate 80 to 120 There's an anticipation about 382 employees potentially would be eligible 150 AMI look looked like about 748 And then the other approach which again was looking at what a typical to teacher household I believe that is has a 10-year experience Would would make and that opens up the door a little bit more to a broader subset of of employees And so again, there's an attachment to this There's more detail in the letter from the district and the district is here in there We'd be willing to answer questions. We have district staff and president close and superintendent Konemara here in the audience as well So that gets us to the the discussion points So the the big question is one do we want to extend this? Amin the MOU to allow more time and options if the city council wants to do that then there's The question about what options do we want to include in that MOU? Do we want to provide a number of options or do we want to have a very specific options as we move forward in the last Question that I'm going to ask is how well how long do we want that term to be to allow those options to happen? So those are the three main questions that we have today that we want to walk through But the slide up here so we go just to make sure that we address all these items These are the items that we just went through extend the terms Transfer allow the transfer allow the district to sell the site to create housing off site or Create a down payment assistance program If that's an option that the council is interested in do you want to have an income threshold? So if we don't mind it like to just stop there and get some feedback on these options before we talk about the term of the Agreement and if we want to move forward on extending this agreement Great, so before we get the feedback. Let's first see if there's any questions about the presentation. Mr. Vice Mayor Thank you, Mr. Mayor So with number two that'd be just a regular RFP process once the city takes on the Correct if it was transferred back to the city we would have to go through a surplus process Thank you Miss Gomes Thank you. I have a couple of questions Do we have access to hazard mitigation dollars to purchase the property so that we don't have people sleeping in a high-fire hazard area? At this point at this time. No, we don't have those funds Do we anticipate in the future applying for funds for hazard mitigation for purchasing property? That area Did the state has not released a program that would afford us the opportunity to do that? Can we legally create? Something else on that site such as RV parking safe parking any campment under the concept of Ownership can we put? Can we use that for some of our homeless folks? Again right now. It's there are no improvements on that site So prior to utilizing that site improvements would have to be made I'm not sure what the cost of that would be to make those improvements I guess I'm trying to figure out if it's an agreement for construction or an agreement that the person's house There have income levels I'm sorry. I don't think I understand that question I'm trying to understand and The agreement was established that the site be held for construction of school low and or moderate income housing And I guess I'm trying to ask Exactly So I think what we're we're showing here is that the council has ability to give additional Guidance on how that property is used so as we showed here Here's options that we came up with so if it's additional options or interest of interest that you want to include in this we could do that if we were interested in Using percentages of units based on income level is that an option? I'm not it look as if the choices we had involved This level or this level or this level if we wanted to specify percentages Based upon for example the percentage in the district of persons who needed housing in those levels First specifically for the down payment assistance program. No specifically for the units Like would we could we specify? 10 of the units are for moderate income 20 of the units are for Low income and 12 of the units are some percentage of the units are for Workforce housing level like up to a hundred percent a.m. I sure so that would fall into Option number one which is essentially construction of extending the existing terms which has elements and the existing agreement about what the Affordability level is so if there's interest in changing that that would be something we would look to adjust in Revision for option number one in terms of if units are built here's the expectation of the city of how those units are built I guess I thought it might also involve option 3b Well three 3b would be more towards who's eligible for down payment assistance program Okay So so let's ask answered that piece also which is can we do it as a percentage or do we have to go all our So couple couple options here the the right now the district Isn't set on any of these they need to go through a public process to determine what they want to do If if a down payment assistance program is something the district is interested in the way We looked at that is that they would need to create a program that tried to address How what the need is and so we could we could provide that guidance or we could leave that up to the district come up with That program and present that to the council Thank you Thank you this questions up for our city attorney Is there any impediment to us transferring the property to this at the school board and With the request that they use it for housing and letting them figure it out the current agreement under the current agreement the property is in the hands of the school district and Under that agreement they can develop for Either school facility or low and moderate income household Are you is your question my question has to do with you know, is it possible for the city to To No longer be a party to this MOU and say to this school board you guys are elected officials and adults and Go forth and figure this out and so that way it doesn't continue to revert back to the city And we don't continue to go through this process and use your creativity and Abilities to make this happen and leave us to you know manage some of the other things that are more typical of a city The this agreement was a condition of the subdivision of that particular portion of Fountain Grove and These conditions Again are part of that original approval It sounds like you're asking if we could just simply relieve them of all those obligations and hand them the property it would be our recommendation that that To be consistent with that original approval and the original conditions of approval that this property or the proceeds from the property be used for Housing you know some sort of affordable housing and or for school Facility purposes And the options that are laid out here all do that through one mechanism or another and As we you know, we've been working closely with school district staff in developing these So there has not at this point been a request that we simply Relieve them of that obligation. There would be some findings that you would need to make in order to Undo those original conditions of approval, but again, it's our recommendation that it stay in the general Theme of the original conditions of approval. Okay. Thank you for that Given that and given You know the 3a 3b and all of the conditions That have been proposed does the do those conditions? Put any responsibility on the city in terms of enforcement. Do we have to sign off on a contract or that sort of thing? if the schools are successful in In one of those options We would be signing an MOU With the city and the school district and the the discussions we have a preliminary draft I do have some triggers in the process where the school district would be making some decisions within certain period of time and If they Failed to do that the property would again revert back to the city. So there's some mechanism built in but that's all still subject to negotiation As we go forward But last question We take a recess Sure, let's take a five-minute recess. We're good Okay, we will reconvene mr. Sawyer is there some an introduction you'd like to make before we continue Yes, I would I'd like to introduce Amy Ricard.  So welcome Amy And just clarifying mr. Sawyer your class what Mike I was class 13. So This is not it's a treble Fond me three times that Okay, miss Fleming. I think we you saw the floor So I wanted to follow up if the city puts all of the conditions On the school board. Do we have the capacity to monitor that you were mentioning that it there were certain triggering events that would Perhaps precipitate our participation and wanted to make sure that we had the bandwidth Internally to deal with them a really detailed Conditions of sale. Yeah, and I'll answer that one very quickly and then I'll go back to your prior question regarding okay the The triggering effects are not complicated and I think we do have the capacity to address those should those occur but going back to the the more general concept of Releasing the property from these restrictions at all and and allowing the The district to proceed on kind of unencumbered by the holding agreement or by any of the mo use the original holding agreement did also Involved the developer and the original holding agreement provides that if the district Fails to perform The property can revert back to the city if the city then fails to form perform The property can then revert back to the developer and be free and clear of any of these obligations that was again back in 1988 we would have to track down where the developer or their successor is But it does put a cloud on any any proposal to Simply walk away from the holding agreement it would not be it would not end with the city walking away from that and How would we measure a failure in this situation? If it's not developed in accordance with you know the original Plan had some deadline the original holding agreement had deadlines by which the the district was to either build School facility or housing that those deadlines have been extended by the series of mo use that director Ewan mentioned earlier So so the the timing has The the deadlines have just been extended again and again again And what we're looking at now is some other options to move forward Maintaining the spirit of the original holding agreement and the mo use it followed. Okay. Thank you Mr. Davis, thank you mayor that that's helpful I was actually my question was going to be around the history and you helped explain What our obligations are to perform so this doesn't revert into the hands of that that developer from that agreement But what how did the property actually come about did it come into the school districts possession? Did it come into ours a gift to both? I'm trying to get to the root of the history here because it's going to shape some of my comments Going into the comment period But I think it's fantastic that we're working together with the school district and getting to kind of you know Figure out what the best pathway for it is for teachers getting to live here, but I also don't want to overstep our grounds as far as What rights and claims do we actually have to this property because my understanding is this was essentially a school district property? So put this the history because this is a short version of it But again, it was originally between the city and the sub subdivision developer and so that was to be held and then then it was Negotiated there was a negotiation period for the school district To take that on and then there was an agreement later on. I don't believe it's listed here But in the history there's agreement when it did officially get transferred to the school districts The district has possession of the site to do those elements and I can I can clarify that actually the original 1988 agreement did include both the development company and the city of Santa Rosa and It did provide for Transfer of the property to the school district upon Recordation of the final map with the final map. That was the specific. Yeah, thank you And then my second and final question is actually either for the superintendent or the board president But what is your preferred use of this going forward? I want to make sure we ask you that question before we So we have president close who's up at the top Hi, I was planning to do this in public comment, but I can I can Just give you my comments now and answer to your question So first of all mr. Mayor and council members Thank you for having us here and for engaging in this conversation And I really appreciate the work your staff has done with our staff to come to some Good resolution here and figure out kind of the highest and best use of this property that serves our district in a way that Ultimately serves our city because that's what we do as a district is serve the citizens of our city We you know this property is hard to develop for us It's expensive to it was despite expensive for us to develop before the fires and now it's even harder and more expensive after the fires But we have a need to make housing easier and more accessible for our staff We have a teacher shortage and we have basically a hiring crisis in our district because we have a limited pie that we get from the state as you know to pay our employees and we have expensive housing and Housing that is not super available in our community. And so we need to make that easier So there are other ways and we appreciate again your staff's creative problem-solving around this and talking to us And some of the ways that would help is either to sell the property and use that money in order to piggyback on another development that's possible and the school board will have to discuss that or We did a survey of our all of our staff members and said what would be the most helpful for you With respect to housing and 67% of them said down payment assistance because even if you're at the top of our pay scale It took you 25 years to get there and you didn't get to save a lot along the way because it's expensive to live here And so they said down payment assistance and so for the best thing for the district would be the flexibility to do One of those things sell the property and use that money to get on to another development or sell the property and use that money to Create a down payment assistance fund that would benefit the district in perpetuity because it would be a revolving fund And so that's what we would ask this council for is basically to give the district the most flexibility to serve Our staff so that they can better serve our community. Thank you for the question council member Tibbets welcome One one more follow-up question, and we may not be able to talk about this outside of closed session But what was the most recent appraised value of that property? I? Don't have that number and anything we did actually I don't think there was an appraisal before even before the fires that we have So I at this point we don't know we'd have to go through that process. Okay. Thank you And if I may I'm sorry. I did miss speak a little earlier At close with the recordation of the final map the property did come to the city And it was a couple of years later that then it was transferred to the district in accordance with the terms of the holding agreement That was recorded in 1988. Okay. Thanks Any additional questions from council? All right, mr. Green. I know there's several other slides But I'm interested in maybe taking a public comment now because aren't all the other slides just in response to what council direction Yeah, and I could I could finish the slides real quick before we go there if that's okay Because I think the one other element so again input on this in terms of what if we want to extend this MOU and Do we want to include these options? The other important piece of this is the time of the MOU So this is the situation where how much time does the district have to satisfy any of the requirements in that MOU? In terms of notifying us what direction they're going or some other trigger threshold So that's something that we've had the current one is three years We've you know, we're we've looked at three four five years in terms of what what's possible But again, we want to see something happen I think the district wants to see something happen and we're all motivated to see something move forward on this site But again, we also we're also here and we don't want to keep coming back to council over and over again If we can't get something to happen and so the final slide here really was to just let you and the public know What the next steps are so we're our goal here is to receive feedback from from you and the public Get some guidance on what you would like to see we will take that feedback Craft modified do whatever we have to do to get some document in place that has the input that you have Given us and the intention is that we to bring that back to the joint City Council school board meeting on October 14th And ideally we would take action there on that night with the school board and this The city council to to get this project moving forward Great. Thanks for additional information a couple cards George Uberti followed by Anne Sealy Thank you council members. I think What's very clear here is that very clearly what we need in Sonoma County is more affordable housing I mean period that's what we need And affordable housing housing is by definition not profitable I think that we're profitable it probably wouldn't be affordable So it's something this city needs to do particularly if the school district is going to pay people low income wages If we're going to pay them a rate that they can't possibly afford housing at we're gonna need to do something about that I mean we have a responsibility that much is clear Now what is also I think incredibly clear Is that these three options are a very very flawed way of examining what our options are The first one is to extend the terms now I'm looking at this memorandum of understanding and it's saying that between 1988 and the present This memorandum of understanding has been extended 12 times now. That's 30 years We've been doing something with no results. I count for bullet points Over a period of 30 years one of which is to issue a request for proposals to obtain a developer But we've just heard city staff say that a developer was part of the initial Holding agreement in 1988, right? So What's that bring us down to three actions that have been taken over the last 30 years. That's one action a decade now this says that The district has acted in good faith in attempting to I don't think one action every ten years is good faith. I Think that we need to make take a real look at why we have consistently done zero things All right, we can't just have done nothing for 30 years. I mean literally not I mean Show me what's happened a request for proposals To request for proposals for something that the we already had. I mean this is nonsense All right now I think what we can do right and an option that we haven't explored is Taking a real look at what we're trying to do is make sure that people who work for the city have a place to live and Not just that they have a place to live But that they have a way to eventually raise themselves out of a social position where they're required to live in affordable housing, right? Let's get a plan together along those lines clearly. We need to build affordable housing But that's a component in a larger plan of Elevating people out of poverty of giving people the tools to work their way to a better social position. All right That's what we need. We need social mobility for low-income people, right? Not just 30 years of pretending to sort of kind of do something that results in nothing And then we're just going to sell it to somebody who's going to turn a profit off it That's not an option. Okay. What is an option is that we take a meaningful look at how to fulfill our responsibilities Get a get a meaningful MOU. I mean Thank you, thank you and Sealy followed by Dwayne DeWitt and Sealy speaking for concerned citizens for Santa Rosa The bottom line on your decision today is This property must not be lost for low and or moderate income housing Any of you long termers there on the council and the staff know how difficult it's been for us to address Placing affordable housing all around the city and the loss of this parcel would be a tragedy So please keep that in mind whatever option you choose. Thank you. Thank you. Dwayne DeWitt Hello, my name is Dwayne DeWitt. I'm from Roseland and I'm a part of the Sonoma County Housing Advocacy Group Which was formed over 22 years ago because we have a lack of affordable housing in Sonoma County I Remember in the 90s when this matter came up and it was pointed out that it was very important to make sure and have affordable housing I Think it's really important to not use the term low income anymore that bothers people They don't want to hear that they want to hear housing. That is perhaps of Modest means for people of modest means Something that's more temperate so they don't feel bad up in Fountain Grove by having somebody who might not be in the same social strata The school district is actually the people who should be deciding this without losing that property That is an asset that they have and if it goes back to anyone else the housing will never be built I can tell you that right now from just watching over 30 years and I bring it to a point with Bellevue Ranch 1994 95 96 they said they were going to put in 64 Affordable multi-family housing units and broker to deal with the city saying that yes This is how we'll get it done if you'll give us the approvals City gave them the approvals and lo and behold they said they couldn't make it pencil out So guess who paid for the housing the taxpayers? And it was built by Burbank housing and everybody applauds that because wow a low income Development got put together But it was the taxpayers that paid for it And then they were sold on the open market and those people were allowed to make profit when they resold them So the taxpayers didn't even get a return in a sense upon that investment Now the dilemma here is that the school district is not necessarily in business to make a profit But they are in business to educate all these kids that keep wandering in here right now and Making sure that they have a place to live here in Santa Rosa in the future So I think the best way to handle this is to look to the school district and say like Miss Fleming said hey You guys got the knowledge the skills and the talent now step on up and give us that affordable housing for the instructors and the school district employees and some interns and some Teachers and training people at Sonoma State heck maybe even a really good senior in high school Somebody that might have had to be out of their house living in a garage Let them be up there on the hill and fountain Grove They can see what the future might hold having a really nice place up on the high hill instead of part way down Anyway, you get the major drift school district. It's on you. Thank you Thanks one. Do we have any other cards on this item? Yeah, Jenny you said what you wanted to say right? Great back to counsel any additional questions based on any of that feedback Okay, mr. Sorry, would you like to start and give your feedback to staff? I'm looking for the flexibility as well, but I'm also looking for that a Kind of three years is probably and there's been enough time I know that there there's always something new on your plate And you notice the school districts have lots of challenges and so all of a sudden the three years is gone Which we know how fast three years can go But I would like this to come to fruition. I'd like this to be the last Extension, but I think offering as much There's many possibilities as much flexibility as as is necessary for you to do what you feel is best for the district This comes I think my answer is none of the above I Continue to say about the high-fire district in Fountain Grove that we should not add sleeping facilities Into the high-fire area and I appreciate that we very much need housing and we very much need affordable housing That said if there is any mechanism we can use to transfer the property directly to the school district with Conditions I think that we should let them make the decision about how they configure the affordable housing on the site And that it we should not be involved in the conversation once we've given them the housing for teachers I appreciate we need teacher housing I am disappointed that we do not have available hazard mitigation money so that we can buy property so that We can Eliminate the property from housing availability and put their housing in a much safer place for teachers. So, thank you It's funny Okay, go ahead. I'm gonna jump in All right, I wanted to just express my deep support for with the district requested and that's option two or three I think if we go forward and we focus on those two options both through an MOU Expressing that I want to stay in partnership with the district on this and continue to work with them I think that's the best pathway for it I understand that it might be easier just to say hey, you know, let's walk away and hand it to them But the reason why I'm really concerned is I think there's a real underlying opportunity here that the school district Is tapped into and that is this concept of doing silent second down payment mortgages to help people Build equity in a home and I think in this came about during the housing bond conversations We were having but to construct usually our skin in the game as a city for a new affordable housing unit today is between 120,000 and 150,000 per unit that gets leveraged between four and seven times and then you get a unit But when you do the silent second down payment assistance programs The cost of the city is actually closer to 50 to $80,000 per unit to get somebody into a home and not just into a home but into a true power or a true Empowered position where they're now building equity and a stake in physical property in this community and I think when we talk about social equity and social justice That's the real I think key that the city has to drive for and if this the school district is leading us on that Then we need to join them in that if we put the proceeds of this property To help achieve that goal Then I really think that that we need to also work with them to do that from the city side because God knows We're with all this development that we're doing specific area planning We're gonna have anti or we're going to have gentrification and we need to have anti gentrification Methodologies in place to counteract that and I think this concept of the silent second is a great way to do that In the best bang for our dollars, so I I would say I hope this council can embrace that I hope that the school district can embrace that and we can work in partnership to bring that together in the next year That's funny. Thank you. I First of all, I want to make sure there are there are three things that you wanted to know about timeframe Options and there was a third one. Can you reiterate so I make sure that I get I think the third one was if if there's Interest in a down payment assistance program are there eligible or income thresholds that we want to include or leave it open to the district to Come up with the program. Okay, so I'd like to Again give empower the school district as much as possible and take the feedback that we heard today from president close In as much as possible and crafting what will come back before all of us in two weeks time I'm certainly not a fan of Options one or two I would like this to be something that the school board handles and then I would like to not see this again if possible But I would like to extend the timeframe to five years for both for two reasons one is to give the school as much time To execute an agreement and also to save staff time I think that that extending the timeframe will give everybody the greatest chance of success here and then I do echo what councilmember tidbit says around the down payment assistance in the the second The silent second. I just want to be really clear that the The final question around the the limits. I would again defer to the school board this is something that is supposed to be for them to use to support their teachers and if that's the spirit of it we expect them to Carry that out and I can't see any reason why they wouldn't want to Mr. Tibbets you had some other comment. Yeah, I just wanted to add David that I forgot to give you direction on the thresholds. That's something I'd want to work together on with the school district as I mean, I think the next step is going to be we hear what the school board wants whether that's option 2 or option 3 If it's option 2 then let's discuss 2 if it's option 3 let's discuss 3 But I very much want to have a conversation about income threshold limits. Maybe maybe not pertaining to their staff That's probably best determined by them, but if this morphs into something larger I want us to be actively involved in our own conversations around that okay And can I clarify when you say option 2 and option 3 or do you mean option 3 a and b just to yes, thank you Go ahead Following on what mr. Tibbets said I'm trying to understand is there is it possible that the school board would be able to use this for anything other than housing for affordable housing for their employees So the way the agreement is would be set up would it would be for these elements So if it was something other than these or they would have to come back the council would have to come back to council to get that direction Okay, thank you mr. Rogers Thank you mr. Mayor You know I was joking with John when we came down here that when the school board first started working on this I was nine months old, and I don't think it's because they've been sitting on their hands I think it's I think I'm willing to believe them when they say that this is an extremely difficult property to actually develop I think we've seen that from other projects in the area in particular Normally my inclination would be To go with option 2 and try to assist them in that But I do think providing them the flexibility that option 3 has is actually in the best interest for everybody It's not just a school board problem to not have teachers able to live in the community It's also a city council and a community problem as well And if giving them that flexibility to determine for themselves how they're going to use the funds from that property Actually ends up seeing some form of units come to fruition I'm happy to to support that as it comes to the income threshold question For for subsection b on 3 You know I know that a lot of the times the funding that's coming to them and the wages that they're able to pay their Employees is more tied towards what the state is doing and how they're tying their hands And so I don't know I'll need a little bit more information when we go to our joint meeting with the school board on What that looks like because what I would hate to do is tie their hands on the housing in a way to where the state then reacts And hopefully Hopefully the state reacts in a way where everybody would become income ineligible because they'd make too much money But I don't want to hold my breath on that. I definitely don't want to tie the school district's hands until I have more information And can I do a follow-up on the the length of the agreement? So do you have any input on that? Well, I mean I'd certainly say less than the 30 years that it's been so far But hopefully, uh, you know if you're proposing a three-year and if they think that that's feasible that seems fine for me I didn't hear your comment to mr. Sorry, but I was thinking that we're even alive when we started this discussion. So for me my Preference is the maximum flexibility. So I guess it'd be option 3b And I'm not not really interested in the threshold. You know, I appreciate the reach Reach out that the school district did to its employees to find out. What is that need? And I would just I'm comfortable there and continue that process So I would you know if I said a threshold is be very arbitrary Let the data drive, you know, I get the intent. We need the housing For their employees. So whatever that make makes that work. And I do think three years Should be an efficient timeline to get this thing done So with that, do you have any other questions? Did you get the information that you needed? I believe I got the information I needed and I think we could take that and We'll we'll we'll work with the district and bring back an item on the 14th for you and just to To let the council know the district is also going to be having an open public meeting on this topic at their october 9th School board meeting to discuss this prior to the joint meeting And for those that don't know that's an open invitation. It's in this very chamber october 9th correct And what time does the meeting start? At 6 o'clock p.m. This chamber october 9 school board meeting. All right. Thank you Okay, we will now transition to a regular council meeting Mr. McGlynn, do you need some setup time for item seven? Yeah, we're gonna go item. We'll go out of order. So Let's start first with announcement of the roll call madam city clerk Thank you. Mayor Schwedhelm let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of council member oliveris Great. Thank you. And mr. Vice mayor would you like to introduce your guest? Yeah, absolutely. Mr. Mayor. So I also have a ride along today. I believe also From our esteemed program that's having government affairs day the other in like two weeks Yeah for lsr my guest is melissa stewart with chops teen club and She'll be sitting back here for the entirety of the meeting as well I think until about what nine o'clock when we think we'll be done Consciously optimistic. Okay, we are going to go out of order here Okay, so as soon as they're ready one of the reasons item seven we're going to get a Update from the city manager and it may require a different presentation. So we wanted to try to do time specific on that So let's go to item five then Madam city attorney, would you like to report on closed session items? Yes uh, yes Council met on item close in closed session on items two point one two point two and two point three And on each of the three they gave direction to staff and to council members. Great. Thank you Are we ready to roll on item seven? item 7.1 Fire recovery and rebuild update I'm going to have adrian martins and introduce her to colleagues for this update Good afternoon.  Um, we're excited tonight to introduce two things One is the public release of our evacuation planning Phase one of our evacuation planning. We'll get into what phase one and phase two are and also our high low sirens Following the tubs fire. Obviously we like many other agencies across the The area learned a lot from what did and did not work that night There's been a lot of improvements to our system and our ability to Provide early notification detection and alerts to our community But with that it's always been our goal to increase our public's awareness on evacuations locally we saw Most recently the county Roll out one of their evacuation exercises In the cave dale area and they're working on a second evacuation Program and project for the heelsburg area Originally, we looked at that as a potential concept here locally to focus on an individual neighborhood We decided that we would take a different approach and ultimately roll out evacuation planning and education As well as a comprehensive checklist for our entire community of santa rosa There's been a significant amount of work that has gone into this Program from both the police department fire department city manager's office GIS support from it as well as transportation public works it's been a Pretty impressive project. It's really good to see all the different departments come together With the intention of really providing a good evacuation program For our community so phase one Ultimately will be the release the public release, which is what occurred today of the evacuation Um Mapping and checklist phase two will eventually be an early 2020 actual exercises for our community All right, so yeah, we're good. Thank you Sorry Give us just one sec here to pull up the website um, but building off of what the process that uh, paul just described staff have put together An evacuation toolkit that has a number of resources That are available for residents to help them better prepare In the event of an emergency evacuation all of those resources have been made available on a new public website Which we'll hopefully load in just a moment Um, the url for that website is srcity.org Forward slash know your ways out kno w know your ways out We're having it issues one moment, please Um, and while we're waiting for the website to load I'll just say that while all of the resources are housed in the website This is really day one of pushing out all of this information to our community Um, we have released a press release this morning announcing the campaign We put it in our citywide newsletter, which goes to over 60 000 residents Additionally, we did a visit with a couple hundred oakmont residents just this afternoon to share the information and the new tools that are available And we'll continue to meet with residents in different neighborhood areas And push this information through all of our channels For our residents that are watching at home and the people in the chambers The website works. We're just getting having trouble getting up on the screen, but really The website itself will allow residents to physically go in and map their individual locations We looked at our ability to Really like I said provide the comprehensive evacuation routes for all the different parts of santa rosa Originally what we looked at was the actual Areas within the wildland urban interface. So we broke those areas out into specific Zones not to be confused with evacuation zones. They're geographical areas that we designated to help with the mapping So ultimately a resident will be able to click on their specific zone They'll get a printable pdf that will show all the different ways out that we recommend Based on our evaluation of their specific locations that they could print out as well as that checklist We focused originally on the wildland urban interface areas and then the areas immediately Surrounding some of those wildland interfaces We ended up with approximately 25 different geographical areas And then anything that was essentially left over that wasn't in one of those areas was included in a larger geographical Zone that show the major travel routes that would be used during an actual evacuation All right, so um when you get to the landing page Uh There you can access the resources and the buttons at the top the evacuation checklist. We have preparedness tips There's also frequently asked questions on evacuations And then the searchable map itself you can type in your address To locate your neighborhood area or you can click into the map and that will bring up a link to your evacuation Planning area for your specific neighborhood which shows all the potential routes out of your neighborhood And this is a printable document And so there's a total of 29 different printable maps for different neighborhood areas or geographical locations So definitely a lot of effort went into this and thank you to Our it gis staff all of our communication staff that were involved as well as our public safety folks in traffic engineering And then finally uh on the evacuation alerting tools area and we do have public education To inform residents of all of the ways that we would Notify them in the event of an evacuation and with that i'll let paul add a couple words So one of the things we heard pretty frequently after the the fires was people not knowing the the need to evacuate Like we've talked about at previous council meetings Our ability to detect fires earlier is improved now with the addition of the fire cameras Those fire cameras allow us to activate the tools that we didn't necessarily have the access to back in 2017 That we do now that includes the wireless emergency alert system the emergency alert system Obviously still co-alert nixle all the way down to facebook twitter and our radio stations We're really excited now to Officially announce the new tool in our toolbox, which is the high-low sirens Yeah, the high-low sirens is one of the tools that we have added on the police department and we have Added a high-low siren to our marked patrol vehicles, which includes 52 patrol vehicles that now have access to the high-low siren And the high-low sirens a european style siren that produces a different pitch than most normal sirens And we're using that with our public education campaign Peace as a tool for evacuations um We've coupled out on the police department's end of providing internal training to our employees on the use of the high-low sirens What to expect when they're used as well as worked towards an external communication piece Towards educating the public on the use of the high-low sirens So with that I am now going to get up I'm going to walk over to the side of the council chambers and we'll activate the high-low sirens We currently have a police patrol car as well as a fire department sv We've outfitted our fire department staff vehicles with the high-low siren as well All right, that concludes the presentation any questions Thank you for that presentation. Tell me you're not sweating when you open that door, please babe So usually it's the fire department that comes to the rescue this time it was it so yes, I was worried that something was not going to work Thank you so much for this presentation. I know the hours Of work that went into that We'll just keep talking when we don't hear that But I really appreciate the effort there and I think you guys your whole team is on that cutting edge It's really going to help our community as was evidence on Sonoma ready day I think our community is ready to figure out that they need to be part of the plan I think this information totally Accentuates everyone's own responsibility to have a plan in the event of another disaster So council any questions on the presentation mr. Tibbets Thank you. I just have a quick question about your public education campaign What mediums are you using is this going out in mail? Yeah, so step one was just getting everything live and up today and making the big announcement through social media through our newsletter and to the press But we are talking about doing a water bill insert with the evacuation checklist letting people know about the resources that are available online And we'll be looking at some more targeted ways to reach residents as well. Thanks Any other questions or comments mr. Vice mayor? Thank you, mr. Mayor and just a huge thank you. I know right after the fire we talked a lot about Community siren and horns that I know we'll talk a lot more about that But one of the concerns that we had immediately was how do people know what those sirens mean and how do they know where to go? I do notice on the checklist, which I think is really good by the way that there is Recommendation on here about not taking shortcuts because you don't know if that is going to be blocked Is is it the intent that by providing These solid evacuation routes for folks that we can also begin to Plan our response around it as well that if we know more people are going to be on these streets We can put more resources towards it and try to make sure that those are proper evacuation routes Yeah, so one of the the common questions we get is what what is my actual designated evacuation route And the reason behind the the methodology that went into this is that there's potentially multiple ways out And until we actually have the condition that requires the evacuation We won't know which way we're actually going to take but we want people to become familiar with all the different routes the We actually just rolled this out shortly before it came here to oakmont residents knowing that that is one of the hot topics with evacuation routes as well as the the fear of Knowing when to evacuate and then obviously tying into your original question the siren issue We got through that conversation specifically around this evacuation planning With the way we would utilize those routes with flow of traffic coordinating with law enforcement All the way down to the high low sirens and actually had applause from that from that group there So it's it's effectively rolling out really well and Doing what we wanted to do and if and councilmember vice mayor Yes, the the the work that will now you will actually be entertaining an item Later this evening, which is about undergrounding of Utility work, but that's exactly right. This this becomes a framework under which we can have other conversations about where we need to make sure that those areas are clear of Potential hazards and get into the conversation about very directed with our partners about where they might need to underground utilities that Or build other types of resiliency measures to make sure that those paths are free and clear Yeah, and I appreciate that I hope going through this exercise has informed us a lot on those infrastructure improvements that we need to do And i'm sure the public will see that over the next couple of years as we move that ball forward as well So thank you for your work on this Any other questions or comments? Thank you. Um, mr. McGillen. Do you have any other items on this item? No, just a tremendous amount of thanks to the team They've spent many long hours Working on this particular toolkit for the community. So thank you guys I agree All right, let's move to item six proclamations Our first one up will be domestic violence awareness month. Ms. Combs. Could you handle this item? Thank you And i'm looking for Madeleine O'Connell Or jessica provost Are you coming on down good come on down? Hello So i'll read the proclamation Whereas the city of santa rosa recognizes that domestic violence affects one in four families in our local community And that the crime of domestic violence violates an individual's privacy dignity and security Based on the systemic use of emotional physical sexual psychological and economic control or abuse And whereas the y wca sonoma county is a community-based Not-for-profit organization affiliated with the y wca usa Y wca sonoma county embodies its mission to empower educate and advocate for domestic violence survivors and their children Who find they are unsafe in their own homes? Y wca sonoma county operates our community's only confidential safe house shelter The only 24 seven domestic violence crisis hotline the only therapeutic preschool Serving one of our most vulnerable populations children ages three to five years old As well as short and long-term trauma-informed therapy services And whereas domestic violence is a serious crime that affects people of all races sexes ages sexual orientation and income levels Stopping the the cycle of vicious criminal assault in the home Requires a coordinated effort between the criminal justice system and the agencies that provide services to victim Primarily reliant on the strong resolve and immense courage of survivors And whereas only an informed community effort will put an end to the cycle of domestic violence Members of our community are encouraged to participate in y wca's scheduled events And programs to support their mission to eliminate domestic violence in sonoma county through awareness education and empowerment Now therefore be it resolved that tom schwed hell mayor of the city of santa rosa On behalf of the entire council does hereby proclaim October 2019th as domestic violence awareness month Thank you Well, good afternoon everyone. I am madeline keegan o'Connell I'm so fortunate to be the ceo of ywca sonoma county honorable mayor and members of the city council We're so grateful to you that you would kick off the very first day of october as domestic violence awareness month And on behalf of our board of directors our staff our volunteers and especially the clients at ywca sonoma county Thank you so much for your proclamation We're grateful to be here again, and I certainly wanted to give our personal and professional Grateful sincere. Thanks for your financial support in the past year You've helped us expand our safe house shelter by five beds, and that is very significant. So thank you so much Members of our team are here today, and I want to pause and I want to ask them to stand They're a shy group, but they're right about there They are as you know the real heroes of the ywca and recently they voted us A best place to work according to the north bay business journal. So thank you. Thank you so much We're also so grateful. You know one of the things that you said in the proclamation. It's the coordination of effort, right? So we're so excited that chief ray navarro and his team would be here Representing our tremendous partnership. So chief ray and everyone at the santa rosa police department our heart felt Thanks. I understand we've been working with you almost daily this past past week, and we're very grateful for your partnership So big shout out You know regrettably earlier this year last march in fact our community experienced the loss of life When a wife at the hands of her husband in broad daylight was shot at a shopping center here in santa rosa And that was followed by the accused gunman taking his own life only blocks away As we know our community struggles with domestic violence and the ywca is here to answer their calls for help 24 7 365 At that crisis hotline that you mentioned five four six one two three four Um, I wanted you to know that in the past year or so ywca has also become highly engaged in providing housing solutions to families in our care And i'm so proud to share with you that we currently own and manage two single family homes and a duplex And we're working very hard to house families as they come out of our shelter Funding specifically earmarked for the community's sole domestic violence service provider ywca Has been directed to us by HUD and we are now actively involved in rapid rehousing right here in sonoma county As you can see ywca is on the move And i'm here to remind everyone that we've been here since 1975 And we're going to be here as long as you need us to keep santa rosa and sonoma county families safe from harm I want to call your attention to our awareness calendar I know that you have so many weighty and very crucial and important agenda items tonight I'm so grateful that you would take a moment for the proclamation for domestic violence awareness month We've partnered with a group called moves that's minimizing occurrences of violence in everyday society for their day of non-violence later this month And we're thrilled to have our friends at treasure house create an open house For us, um with proceeds coming back to the ywca I want to thank you so much for your gracious time and attention to my Comments tonight and of course for your proclamation and let's look forward to another successful year together Thank you so much Great our next proclamation is for active aging week. Mr. Tibbets. You have this item. Thank you, mr. Mayor Um, so I think we have this big bride. Yeah, come on down So whereas age friendly sonoma county and the council on aging would like to formally acknowledge international day of older persons on Tuesday October 1st 2019 and whereas international active aging week is recognized October 1st through 7th 2019 and whereas Monday, October 7th is recognized as active aging together day And whereas active aging week is recognized nationwide to celebrate positive aging and encourage health well-being and active participation and safe Age-friendly activities to share all that active aging encompasses And whereas the theme for this year's active aging week is redefining active And active aging is about a broad engagement of physical social cognitive spiritual professional and civic activities And whereas to commemorate active aging together day on Monday, October 7th 2019 There will be a 30-minute walk through downtown immediately followed by a rally in courthouse square for the community to support all persons aging in sonoma county Now therefore be a resolve that mayor tom schwedhelm of the city of santa rosa on behalf of the entire city council Does hereby proclaim the week of october 1st through 7th 2019 as active aging week Mayor schwedhelm councilmember tibbetz the rest of the council On behalf of council on aging and the 130,000 Seniors here in sonoma county. Thank you for recognizing this week of the 130,000 seniors the vast majority are healthy Active volunteering here in the community and basically supporting our community in so many other ways So it's great to highlight that contribution Um, we hope that you will come out and walk with us on monday morning leaving from the plaza Ending in courthouse square and we will celebrate the 41 population Represented by 50 year olds and more. I think a few of you join me in that category. Um, so thank you for your recognition council or sonoma county is a age-friendly community And um, this recognition also demonstrates santa rosa's Belief in in having an age-friendly city as well. So thank you Where's our iti? Thank you. But wait, there's one more proclamation fire prevention leak Mr. Sorry. You have this item. Thank you mayor Mr. Lowenthal Assistant fire marshal low and fall actually and group Thanks for taking the time to be here this afternoon I read the proclamation Whereas the city santa rosa is committed to ensuring the safety and security of all those living in and visiting santa rosa And whereas fire is a serious public safety concern both locally and nationally And whereas the home is the location where people are at the greatest risk of fire And whereas house fires killed 2,630 people in the united states in 2017 According to the national fire protection association and fire departments in the united states responded to 357,000 house fires And whereas the majority of fire related deaths in the united states four out of five occur at home each year And whereas when the smoke alarm sounds residents may have less than two minutes to escape to safety And whereas santa rosa residents who have planned and practiced a home fire escape plan are more prepared to Prepared and will therefore be more likely to survive a fire And whereas all residents of santa rosa should practice different escape routes And whereas the community has been responsive to public education measures and are taking action to increase fire safety Especially in their homes And whereas the 2019 fire prevention week theme Which reads not every hero wears a cape plan and practice your escape Effectively serves as a reminder that we all need to take personal steps to increase our safety from fire Now therefore be resolved that tom schwedhelm near the city santa rosa on behalf of the entire city council Urge everyone to be aware of their surroundings look for available ways out in an in the event of a fire or other emergency Respond when the fire when the smoke alarm sounds by exiting the building immediately and to support the many public safety activities And efforts of santa rosa fire and emergency services during fire prevention week and do hereby proclaim october 6 through 12 2019 as fire prevention week signed by the mayor on this date Thank you very much mayor members of council for recognizing this proclamation for us in the fire department A very important week obviously the theme has a little humor to it, which is great But the message is very important as well We focus primarily our education where we get out into the community With the elementary schools to drive that message home at that level And we know that that's going to have a ripple effect to the families and that's going to reach the adults as well So for us, it's a very fun time to engage our younger members of the community Through the assemblies that we perform during this next week So from the 7th through the 11th we'll be visiting 11 different schools and we'll conduct 21 different assemblies So reaching a large number of our population at that elementary level But again, the focus is really to help them understand what we're trying to build in our community Is safety and awareness and if you begin at your home and you can share that message that gets passed on to many other people So for us, we're very excited to have this read in front of our community and have it shared with you as well So we thank you and greatly appreciate your time Tony, where's the staff photographer? Thank you guys. I have nothing to report I was waiting for the chief to uh On your time Okay, no city manager report. Uh, madam city attorney. Do you have a report? I have no reports this afternoon. Thank you Do we have any statements of abstention by council members? Seeing none mayors and council members reports who would like to start Ms. Fleming I uh had the pleasure of attending the hispanic chamber of commerce Mixer that was put on here at city hall organized by rafael Herrera And I wanted to thank our economic development team for organizing that it was a pleasure to get to meet Some of the many business owners in our downtown and in our city and more broadly in sonoma county And also it was a great use of our space here our courtyard Transformed into a really charming space And I think that we sometimes take for granted that it can be a really pleasant Place to entertain and to spend time together Additionally, um short of getting a picture up for you guys. I wanted to hold this up today We made contact with space just a couple of blocks from here It was really fantastic the sonoma county libraries entered into Competitive process that they were successful in in being awarded a ham radio or amateur radio On the international space station Which meant that 10 students from santa rosa middle school got to ask multiple questions and We were up next to answer some questions And you got to see the space station just float out of range and hear the But at any rate it was a fantastic opportunity You could see how much care and thought the students put into the questions Far more than most of the adults who asked me if they could tag along with their Very basic potty humor questions. So these students are to be commended as is our sonoma county library Great. Thank you for that report any other reports? Go ahead mr. Tillis. I actually have a quick question relating to the use of generators I I should have probably asked this in advance in this meeting But mr. McGlynn at the next fire recovery and rebuild update Can we include what we're doing vis-a-vis generators in the decibel ordinances? I'm getting a lot of questions in the community about that Um, I'll probably need some more specifics from you to council member But I'll follow up with you about about that question, but absolutely. Okay. Thank you I just have a couple things report out on on wednesday september 25th We had a special meeting of the economic development subcommittee The subcommittee received information on the public-private partnership feasibility analysis update And we provided feedback to the consultant on that and we also had a brief discussion on the minimum wage ordinance Additionally on thursday september 26th, we had a home sonoma county strategic planning session We pretty much heard from the consultants about what the process would be and how they'd be gathering feedback to hopefully Provide back to the leadership count council for a more efficient and effective team I also attended the Thursday September 26th Hispanic chamber congress mixer. It was a wonderful use of our courtyard I'd never seen it like that before I do appreciate the efforts of rafael And rise del Rosa and the other city staff including our city attorney who appeared there really appreciate your attendance there wonderful event Okay, with that we'll go to item 10.2.1 This is direction from the council To the mayor regarding letters of interest received for appointment to the following vacancies and Basically, I think there's just one position. It's the north bay division league of california city's executive board Term expires two years from the appointment We had a letter received from susan harvey city catati and she withdrew that letter on september 25th And then we received a letter from mike healy from the city of petalema So I would entertain any motions mr. Vice mayor Thank you, mr. Mayor and just as a little bit of background information because I see a lot of new people in the audience The league of california city's is a representative body of many of the cities around the state who get together periodically and talk about Issues of concerns that we're all seeing Sharing ideas and figuring out how to move forward on that We do have a north bay division that has every city in the county that has representatives to it And so with that I will make a motion for councilmember healy from the city of petaluma To fill out that position for a two-year term And I'll second that Okay, we have a motion to second any additional comments Your votes, please And that passes unanimously. Thank you Item 10.3.1. Ms. combs, I believe this is your item Thank you, mayor. This is a part of our process Tell members of the public so that they understand we have a three-part process for handling items that are not typically on the agenda Last week I requested that we agendize An item considering the revision of council policy 23 Which is how to fill council vacancies In this meeting we vote on whether to have the discussion In the next two next meeting or the meeting after that So what I am asking is that we have the full discussion Of how to revise council policy for filling council vacancies Part of my reasoning in asking for this To come up now is that We now have a number of members who are in districts And Our current policy Requires that the seat actually be vacant And That prevents the person who is from that district from voting on Their replacement Which means that a district representative is selected by no one who lives in their district The reason I'm asking for it now though is that it is possible that I will be vacating my seat And because of that, um, I would like to have a voice to In the in the vote For who replaces me Specifically because I have a strong base and I would like the seat to continue to represent that specific base Um and would like to have a voice in that I also think it's a problem for the council that the seat must be vacant and then a fairly lengthy process begun And that leaves a considerable gap in having a full council So I think for a variety of reasons it makes sense for us to have a conversation Regarding changing the policy for filling council vacancies Does anyone have any questions of miss combs? We do have one card on this item before I ask for specific motion in a second any questions See none. I do have one card duane duit Thank you, sir Duane duit from the unrepresented district of roseland Currently in the city, but not allowed to have representation until the 2020 election And that was a deliberate move on the part of a number of council members It has essentially handicapped the district of roseland and south park also During activities that are Affecting them in a negative manner So i'm hoping that you'll put this on the agenda That you'll have a robust discussion as you'd like to say or in the words of the city manager That's a conversation we need to have with the community So let the community participate in this also I do believe in the past miss combs was one of the highest vote getters at times And I think it's really important that what she said about having her base represented should be Also respected by the sitting council members I don't know how it would actually affect my district But it's really important for the future as you set this precedent that you perhaps allow The leaving person if they don't die if it's someone that says i'm resigning because of health That they get to pick who might replace them and that if someone does die in office or as Has to leave for malfeasance perhaps something trumpy and like that That maybe what we could do is actually have an election so that the district gets their person To be representative instead of somebody that comes from the chamber of commerce and the good old boys sector that we've always had before Thank you for your time Thank you for that Um, so miss combs, would you like to make a motion? Let's get a second and then we can have a discussion Thank you, mayor, I move that we Agendize an item to consider the revision of council policy 000-23 procedure for filling council vacancies That we agendize that sometime within the next two council meetings And I I hope you will consider having that conversation. Thank you And is there a second for that motion? I'll second that motion. Okay, we have motion to second anyone like to make any comments Mr. Vice mayor Thank you, mr. Mayor You know and for me this has been an interesting discussion I've been lobbied pretty hard by a number of folks on it on whether or not we should make those change Make these changes I do think that we're going to have to make a number of elections changes relative to when we're in districts I think we're going to have a conversation about an out-large mayor I think we're going to have a conversation Certainly about the vacancies, but also about Whether or not cab members and planning commission members should come from a district as well We're going to have to have that conversation holistically And I will tell you by way of background one of the first policy areas that I worked on when I was in sacramento Was on election reform. It was my favorite topic. It's something that's very interesting to me And I've always had this belief that you don't make your election processes based on Understanding what the outcome is going to be and trying to force the outcome that you want And that's where I struggle a little bit is because councilmember combs. You have been a great colleague And I hope you don't leave But and I know that your perspective would be valuable, but at the same time there's so many questions about Creating this opportunity for somebody to announce that they're going to be leaving and then backing out if they don't like who's Actually the person who comes in I think we need to have those conversations I'm just not willing to put it Above some of the other things that we have coming in the next couple of weeks Whether it's the all-electric or the evergreen conversation or Even our inclusionary housing policy or excuse me our rental inspection program Conversation, so I will not be supporting the motion tonight Any other comments mr. Shore? Thank you, mayor. Well, I agree with the vice mayor The the process that we have in place. I have gone through We do have a very robust Experience with the community coming forward lots of different people apply they are interviewed And it is a combined decision by the entire council as opposed to any one council member And I think because of the the the various changes that are coming on the horizon That there will be a number of conversations about how to how to respond to the new district election Model and I'm not interested in in this time at Changing the this particular policy, which also mirrors state law Any other mr. Tillis Thank you, mr. Mayor This is actually a question a question for you councilmember combs because I just heard John bring up an interesting point. They have a process that processes has worked in the past But the term that you used councilmember Sawyer was was full body And I think and while I support that too, I'm I just want to make sure we're all Talking about the same process that I think you have in mind I am not suggesting that I appoint My replacement I am suggesting that I can take part in the conversation So you would be one of seven I would still be one of seven votes And I would also question whether or not We have had success in our past appointments, but Because sometimes it has swayed the council one way or the other significantly Okay, well, I thanks. I just wanted to make sure I was understanding where this could go and I appreciate the clarification Mr. Sloney Yeah, this the issue around districts is of significance in that it is our First stop gap toward making sure that we have a representative democracy Well, I appreciate the vice mayor's comments about needing to appreciate to approach this holistically I don't believe that we can wait to do these things and to that end I have appointed everybody To my boards and commissions from my district in hopes that if we don't get to it in time because things come up That we don't overlook the opportunities to increase representation And if we go by the assertion that this process works in the last 10 years the last female mayor we had was Let's see in 2012 she left office So it's been seven years If you look on the board up there, it's almost all white men in Sonoma county There has never been an african-american woman elected to office. This process does not work and And if we want to pretend that it does we're fooling ourselves The lat in the last 10 years. I'm not sure that we've had we've had one female vice mayor I mean this Councilmember combs has been one of the highest vote getters, but has never been permitted to be the vice mayor If we think that there is not sexism racism and classism at play Then we're diluting ourselves and i'm not willing to be a party to that Any other comments? My only comments because I would disagree it In my recent memory. We have had to our process has been a place and they have been in my opinion too very effective Council persons and also This position if you were to vacate it is an at-large. It's not districts I agree that once we do become all districts after november of 2020 that this is something that we'll discuss And right now given the competing interest in priorities because staff is going to have to be involved I don't want I don't see anything that we'll be discussing wanting to be dropped to a lower rung because we need to Further develop this so I won't be supporting that this motion And so we have a motion in second your votes, please And that motion fails three ayes three noes with myself vice mayor rogers and Mr. Sawyer voting no, thank you for the opportunity to have the conversation This week, but not next week Okay approval minutes Uh, we have the minutes from september 10th any adjustments to those from anyone See none. We will accept those Mr. McGlynn consent calendar Yes, item 12.1 resolution professional services agreement for investment advisory services with pfm asset management llc item 12.2 resolution contract award design build for audiovisual system at utilities field operations building item 12.3 resolution amendment to the city classification and salary plan creating the classification of stormwater and creeks manager and Reclassifying one vacant supervising engineer position to stormwater and creeks manager Item 12.4 ordinance adoption second reading ordinance of the council the city of san rosa pre-zoning the properties located at 4200 and 4224 sonoma highway also identified as assessor's parcels numbers 032-010-023 And 032-010-005 Respectively to the cg general commercial zoning district file number prj 18-050 Item 12.5 ordinance adoption Second reading ordinance of this council the city of san rosa amending the san rosa city code adding a new chapter 1 0-4 6 housing anti discrimination code Thank you council any questions I do have a question on item 12.2 The audiovisual system at ufo could you introduce your friend kill kenny city it. Thank you. Um It's my understanding the source of funds for this improvement are the peg funds That's correct. And could you just explain what those are? Uh, yes, they come from the uh cable subscriber franchise tax fees And they're presented to the are given to the city for providing a government meeting spaces Broadcasting our meetings in section I attend a lot of meetings at the ufo in that first screen It always seems to be um some visual challenges and i'm wondering would a fix to that Screen be included in this upgrade Yes, the screens are going to be replaced the projectors are also going to be replaced We're moving from 6,000 lumens to 18,000 lumens. So it'll be considerably brighter I'll trust that it'll be considerably by our weekend or my desired outcome is that we can all read it when we're At one of those meetings. So thank you. That was the only question I had Any additional questions? Okay, we have one card on this item. Mr. Dwayne do it You're good Hello, my name is doing to it. I'm from rosen. I'd like to thank you for 12.5 in which you be helping veterans This is very important right now because hud bash veterans are frequently not being allowed into units This is really uh the time when it's necessary because the rains are almost here With the rains coming i'm also concerned about 12.3 And I'd ask that you would explain better what this storm water and creeks manager might be doing Specifically because in 2004 there was a rosalind creek concept plan that was done with the neighbors in rosalind We talked about it for years. It was finally approved in 2007 and we see nothing go forward upon it We'd like to be able to know if this will be the person that we can work with to get the rosalind creek concept plan Put into some sort of action It was a hundred thousand dollar plan that was paid for by the taxpayers that now sits on a shelf We need to help you find the funds that will get the actions undertaken The community can do that. We've been talking to the sonoma county water agency We've talked to the laguna foundation and there are funds available We just need to have you as the lead agency give us one employee who will be that person I'm hoping it's going to be the storm water and creeks manager And last but not least if there's any money left over from 12.2 Please put that money into putting back the overhead projector here So that the public can give you evidence that everybody sees at the same time That would be the ultimate in democracy and participatory approaches That's community engagement at its best instead. You've taken it out You've had years to repair it and you're not putting it back in apparently So take that time it wouldn't take that much extra money on such a big contract to get the overhead projector back in here You've got all this other stuff. You could get it going. I think it's one of those things that's about Having a conversation with the community. Please do that as soon as possible Thank you John All right, mr. Rogers. You have this item Thank mr. Mayor I'm actually going to take this in two motions out of respect for councilmember Sawyer I'll do item 12.1 through 12.4 and wave further reading of the text He voted no on it So we have a motion in a second I'm concerned because we only have four people here. Do we need four votes for Passing this item or use the majority sufficient Looks like we've got another councilmember. I I'm delaying till we get another councilmember All right, we have a motion to second for items 12.1 through 12.4 your votes, please That passes with five Yes votes And then I will move item 12.5 and wave further reading of the text Do I have a second for that second We have a motion in a second on 12.5 your votes, please Modern technology we're working through it Maybe we should use some peg funds on this We're oh so close And that passes with four eyes one no by mr. Sawyer and mr. Tibbets abstaining. Thank you We are going to take a one minute recess before we take public Five minute recess. Okay, we're gonna take a five minute recess. We'll take public comment and move on to item 14.1 Okay, let's reconvene our meeting we'll Start with item 13 public comment on non agenda items. Mr. Dwayne do it followed by cathleen miller Thank you Dwayne I wanted to come and talk with you today Wait a minute Hey folks All right Do I get my three minutes up here? Keep talking Dwayne. It's your three minutes. It's not on the clock, sir. There you go Thank you, sir. My name is Dwayne DeWitt and I'm from rosin and I came today to talk with you About environmental justice and social equity Those are going to be components upon the upcoming general plan and I don't believe santa rosa has ever Addressed either of those topics in any way shape or form that has been realistic or authentic There's something called authentic community engagement and I ask you to do that But before that I'd like to go into the way back machine and today I brought you a report from 1993 Called the final report of the southwest area plan financing plan At that time the city of santa rosa was preparing to annex roseland which took them All these years just finished two years ago In this it points out the city had a park standard of providing six acres of park For every 1,000 residents according to the park standard This would be to the general plan the total can include five acres of parkland and one acre credit for open space After this was put into place Different folks came forward and said, you know, that's too much And what we're going to do is we're going to make it so that we'll count schoolyards We'll call we'll call plazas and cement areas open space also essentially taking away a bit of social equity for the southwest and South park also because they didn't have enough green space already And as a matter of fact you just turned in a grant application to the status And you asked the state department of parks to help you because my area of roseland Only has less than one acre of park for 1,000 residents So we're in a deep deficit for those social amenities that we need for true social equity And yet we won't get them unless you folks make the decisions to work with the community on what we'd like to have We'd like to have a roseland open space system in which we can actually call out the spots along the roseland creek corridor Where there is still a chance for nature to exist Actually, what we hear is when the city or the county talks about park development They're interested in spending money to put down Hardscape to actually sometimes kill the nature that we would like to have our children see We're in a real dilemma here because that's also environmental justice Roseland is the most polluted area in the county The roseland brownfields area along sabastopol road hasn't even been addressed by the city yet Even though the county went and got a grant for 392 thousand dollars from the us EPA Come to find out the city and the county haven't really been working together on it So i'm asking you here and now to step up to it and get ready for environmental justice and social equity And the next general plan. Thank you. Thank you. Kathleen miller followed by pat nitchell Thank um, can everybody hear me i'm a little uh nervous. I don't usually do this sort of thing, but um The reason i'm here tonight and by the way, I do support the 15 dollar an hour wage increase I had to throw that in there Is because i'm a new citizen to santa rosa even though i've lived in the county a long time And when i moved here, I wanted to become an educated voter and an informed citizen I reached out to my councilman member and um, I wasn't able to connect And i'm feeling a little frustrated and isolated. I realize i'm not wealthy Or politically connected or powerful But I would like one hour of time to ask my questions and learn his views So i'm hoping that my council member can respond to my request to meet And also another council member who represents smart train I have some questions about that before that comes up for the vote as well. So That's why i'm here. I tried my approach. It didn't work. So i'm here tonight trying a new approach. Thank you Thank you pat nitchell Okay, so let's begin. Um My problem seems trivial in the face of all these enormous issues that you're faced with today Um, so I almost feel like I should apologize for being here But I handed these out. Hopefully you all have a copy of this This is um 40 90 walker avenue, which the city of santa rosa owns that property And uh, there are damaged rotting leaning trees threatening my home 40 60 walker avenue There are fire hazard. There are real danger The neighboring house is shaded. That's my house in fall all fall in all winter Even at four in the afternoon and it in the morning And there's a picture on the other page of that in the um, this costs us homeowners my husband and I High gas bills to heat our house these trees need to come down. They're rotten. They're dangerous if there was a fire We would have no chance. They're right next to us And um, this is my fourth request. My first two requests were two employees of santa rosa city My last request was to you the council and now this is the fourth request I'm asking again That you eliminate these trees that are a fire hazard and a danger to me and my family. Thank you Thank you. Those are all the cards we have for item 13. We're now going to move to item 15.1 Oh, do you forgive me? I just Go ahead thomas Um, I was going to address this issue the last council meeting at the end, but uh, Well, there there was no one here, but but I would have preferred to to address it at that time Uh, but now the chambers full Maybe this is a benefit So a few weeks ago the council was looking at, uh, affordable housing There was a conversion of housing existing housing with, uh, a tax credit financing and the affordable housing contractor owned the housing and wanted to Essentially refinance that housing So I just want to point out this is really really costly It's not costly to us There was no cost to the city But the cost is with the tax credit So in the financing the the developer the owner Stood here and said they wanted to get the most return from the federal government that was possible Meaning that they refinanced the most that was possible on the housing. It was 88 million dollars and the total expected valuation 22 million dollars probably would be the equity portion of that which would be the tax credit financing So the 22 million dollars nine percent tax credit would be about two million dollars a year in tax That would not go so they would they would Shelter that would be the tax credit and it goes immediately to their taxes that does not go in for 55 years That's 110 million dollars. It's very straightforward 110 million dollars does not go to the federal government For that 22 million dollars of financing over five times as much as the as what was financed So it makes it very expensive It does shelter income that 110 million dollars of tax would shelter over a billion dollars of income So it's extremely expensive. That's at the federal level Again, so it's not at the state level. There might have been state tax on it depends on how they actually do it But the point is is that kind of financing? This is a wrong way to finance Existing housing that is already affordable. We need to use those credits Very uh diligently. Yes, maybe that housing Affordable housing contractor or owner would then invest another housing they might not do it here Okay, so there's no guarantee that they're going to do it here. They're just Making our housing more costly Right, so that's going to be the actual price and sale price and everything about that would Would be up there at 88 million dollars to be refinanced at that And can potentially make our housing more expensive and yet not benefit us So it's it's critically important that you Act on those things that are local and produce housing for us not not necessarily refinancing somebody else's housing Thank you very much. Thank you All righty Move to public hearings item 15.1. Mr. McGlynn item 15.1 public hearing ordinance adding chapter 10-45 to the Santa Rosa city code to establish Minimum wages to be in played but to be paid by employers Raya Sadella rosa economic development manager presenting Good afternoon. Mayor Schwethelm and members of the council At its core this item before you calls the question of expediting within Santa Rosa the $15 Minimum wage state timeline by two years for small businesses in 18 months for large businesses So by way of background and to recap what was presented at the july study session SB 3 was signed into law in 2016 Setting the stage to raise the state minimum wage by set amounts each year Over the course of six years for large businesses and seven years Excuse me and seven years for small businesses starting in 2017 Come 2023 under this formula both large and small businesses will be at $15 plus cpi w For the purposes of the labor code I'd just like to point out that the state defines a small business as 25 fewer employees and a large business as those with 26 or more employees This split in terms of size of business is consistent with the vast majority of input we received Both from a survey conducted in with the help of the Santa Rosa metro chamber as well as from meetings We've held with various business groups and labor and individuals So in at some point in 2018, I believe North Bay jobs with justice and the north bay labor council began working with cities Particularly in the north bay proposing local ordinances to expedite the state timeline In february of this year during council's goal setting session Addressing a local minimum wage ordinance was set as a tier two priority That could be addressed and put on the docket as soon as resources permitted As luck would have it resources eventually did permit and as mentioned a study session was held on july 27th At which the north bay jobs as justice proposal that you see on the right Of the screen Was introduced recommending the tiered implementation starting in january 2020 of an expedited timeline Then in 2021 Small businesses would match large businesses at $15 per hour plus cpi using unlike the state The bay area cpi index It's again a better understanding of the effects of labor's proposal Part of the study session included a presentation of analysis by one of the authors of the uc Berkeley labor center study And what we learned then was that of the county studied and that was uh, Sonoma marina napa and solano Only 36 percent of north bay workers would be directly affected by the expedited timeline Of that 36 percent it's estimated that santa rosa's portion of the affected workforce is about 13 percent Or around 25 to 30 000 workers Those workers then would see an average increase of in earnings of almost 16 percent Some of the other main takeaways that day I think contrary to popular belief are that mostly older workers with at least some college education Are the ones who are currently making less than 15 dollars per hour Also, uh, the most affected workers by industry are in retail food services and health services. So Knowing that this of course means that the businesses that will be most affected are retail restaurants and health care services The study pointed out that in order to offset the cost of business the most common response to increase response by businesses is to increase prices on goods and services And or to reduce staff and or reduce services That said the study found that while restaurant costs increased by two percent Prices increased only by about one percent Whereas for retail and the general economy the study found that there were minimal cost and price increases Well, uh, this study is not specific to santa rosa alone the data and research sources in this study were pulled from Many different areas and are available for further review We have put the study on our website as our city.org slash minimum wage And the sources included and these are some of the sources that I looked at when studying this issue Are the borough of labor statistics? public use micro data areas as well as Other studies from such places as american economic review the federal reserve Journal of human resources and the economic journal many more were sourced for that At the end of the july study session Direction was given to move forward with an expedited minimum wage ordinance using the bay area cpi w council also expressed a desire to remain as consistent as possible with other regional ordinances as well as with the state labor code And lastly based on questions asked during the study session I did dig dig deeper into the issue enforcement as well as data That staff can easily track and use that could provide indications Of the effectiveness of this proposed ordinance Because we knew where labor stands on the issue I spent most of my efforts post study session reaching out to and engaging as broad and inclusive as spectrum Of businesses as I could between july and actually to be honest with you until yesterday In addition to the dozen or so business group meetings that I attended and presented to and got feedback from the draft ordinance was also Discussed at public meetings via the economic development subcommittee and the downtown action organization board meeting And furthermore We created a policy document. I think you've seen this That has a number of policies, but we Tried to highlight the fact that minimum wage is coming up as a discussion and we Made this available to a broader spectrum of stakeholders in the community all of the policies on that document have a Specific website or contact information list available Also in collaboration with the center as a metro chamber we developed a survey That the chamber was very proactive about sending out As well as sharing with other groups to send out to their constituents Including the Sonoma county alliance and the downtown action organization That survey was open for almost two months and promoted throughout and ultimately received about 100 responses Lastly on engagement we the the city chamber and engaged stakeholder groups Were relentless in encouraging folks to weigh in either by writing or showing up to council And by last count we received I believe 49 written correspondences thus far and I have to say as a staff person who's worked in Government for quite a while I'm very enthused and invigorated to see people who haven't normally participated in government come and participate So getting into the meat of the ordinance elements or a little bit more into it First I'd like to start with key points on the state code that the city will continue to adhere to I call this out because in most of the meetings I had there were questions about Changing things locally that are actually under the state purview So it's important to note that in the case of labor and wages If there are conflicts between a state and local minimum wage policy the policy that is most Beneficial to the employee is the rule that must be followed that said It's really only the condensed timeline toward the $15 per hour minimum wage and the specific cost of Living adjustment index at Santa Rosa Santa Rosa ordinance addresses So the state already clearly lists and defines exemptions to the minimum wage requirements The Santa Rosa ordinance stays consistent with those so for example As listed on the slide learners are People who are new to an occupation To for which they have no previous experience they can Then they can be of any age They can be paid at 85 percent of minimum wage for up to 160 hours So those kinds of exist exemptions still exist disabled workers and non-profit organizations that hire disabled workers are exempt Assuming they have the proper license and approval from the state That's the same with apprentices And what does not need special approval from the state to pay less than minimum wage Are exemptions for immediate family members such as children spouses parents of the employer There were many questions and comments raised from restaurant tours in particular about the possibility of tip credits And i'd like to be clear on this This is a state level issue in that the state code expressly prohibits any wage reductions related to tips Or known as the tip credit for tipped employees in california And while it's not listed on the slide the question of health care credits was not raised by any in any of the meetings And we did not receive any comments on those and we did not address that at all in the ordinance So because council asks us also to consider regional efforts This chart shows what other jurisdictions have that have past ordinances have done And before i get into that i need to point out that I made an error on the chart on the slide and therefore an error in the staff report and the attachment three And that is that i fail to insert In under the city of santa rosa column, which is the orange ish column up there I failed to insert the that of course we would Be subject to the state minimum wage increase occurring on january 1st 2020 So the 13 dollars for large and 12 dollars for small Should be in the column right above the the circled portion up there so Let's see so if you approve the ordinance as is santa rosa's minimum wage would rise from a base of 13 dollars for large And 12 for small as opposed to the What's shown there is 11 and 12 dollars So getting back to the other cities Sonoma which came out of the gate first with their ordinance and the vato the most recent city to pass an ordinance Are uh more of the outliers to both state code and the north bay jobs with justice proposal in that Where sonoma expedites their 15 dollar Timeline to 2021 for large businesses in 2022 for small at this point They do not Sink large and small to a single rate. So that's the the first thing And then the second is that sonoma city council decided to continue to raise By a dollar per year the minimum wage by size classification Until 2023 when small businesses will be at 16 dollars per hour and large at 17 dollars At which time they'll revisit the issue and I understand decide on the cpi and I think can address The the parody issue with the size difference A novato on the other hand implemented a third size tier to their small business A third size tier to the size of the businesses so that small businesses remain 25 or less employees Large is now 26 to 99 And the category they added is very large, which is 100 employees or more Furthermore each tier reaches 15 dollars per hour a year With a Reach 15 dollars per hour a year apart starting in 2020 for very large businesses January 1st 2021 for large and January 1st 2022 for small So they do not reach parody with because with each year the bay area cpi w is added to that wage calculation So at this point it seems as I understand it they'll go forward with three different rates Most similar to us is pedaluma Though they implemented their ordinance the they will be implementing their ordinance starting on january 1st 2020 Whereas for us oops as noted We will have Uh Waited to implement ours or proposed to wait to implement ours starting on july 1st So due to feedback we received and uh in acknowledgement of The angst around the cost and preparation needed from businesses perspective to plan for an increase Our ordinance begins implementation starting july 1st 2020 allowing for nine months of preparation Starting july 1st 2020 minimum wage for small business would then rise 14 percent from 12 thousand hour to 14 dollars an hour and large businesses would go from 13 to 15 dollars an hour Which is about a 13 percent increase Six months later on january 1st 2022 both small and large businesses will be at 15 dollars an hour plus bay area cpi w Another thing to note is that uh like the state Santa Rosa's ordinance does propose a cpi cap at 3.5 percent Of course the state uses us cpi w and again we're proposing bay area cpi w This was done as another concession to help businesses with their budget planning And the original north bay jobs with justice model Ordinance does not propose a cpi cap. However, we also discussed this with them As well as the proposed six-month implementation delay Just to see if they had any issue with it at the time they did not So it became a talking point for us as we've been reaching out to To businesses and the community So about the consumer price index So during the study session and to a smaller degree during discussions with the community There were questions about the various consumer price Indices that could be used The consumer price index is a measure of the average change over time In the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services And indexes are available for both uh us and various geographic areas So firstly it's good to understand the difference between cpi you versus cpi w cpi u is a more general index that tracks retail prices as they affect all urban consumers And cpi w is a more Specialized index. It's a subset of the cpi u that tracks retail prices as they affect urban hourly wage earners and clerical workers Secondly, I want to point out that there is a difference between us cpi and bay area cpi Or more specifically when I say bay area According to the department of labor that means san francisco Oakland and hayward cpi And that is our region So this difference is because the average price for goods and services nationwide is of course Different than the average prices within specific geographic areas So you can see this difference in this chart where our region is relative with a our region has a relatively high Cost of living and so this is reflected in the average cost of goods and services tracked here Between 2009 and and 2018 Uh, oh before I go back. I want to just point out. There is an attachment in your packets that shows a more comprehensive look between 2001 and 2018 And I point this out why I don't have it on this Screen, I do want to point out that there are only two years on that attachment When the bay area cpi w was higher than 3.5 percent and those were in 2001 and 2018 So once again in listening to the broader community and with the support At the time of labor we added into the center of the ordinance a cpi cap of 3.5 So that the adjustment will always be the lesser of 3.5 percent And the bay area cpi w so Just to round out this discussion examples of policies that use very cpi's to adjust the cost of living Because I know this came up in the study session social security uses the uscpi w State labor code also uses the uscpi w and then of all the regional ordinances that I've reviewed They use the bay area cpi w And the last thing I just want to point out in the ordinance Under section 10 45 point 0 3 0 beginning on october 20 Beginning in october 2020 and then annually thereafter the city would publicize the cpi w and the adjusted minimum wage Affected for the year the next year so it would begin in october when we would notify businesses Enforcement was identified as a concern before and during the study session In doing some digging. I was very pleased to stumble across and read 2016 20 the ab970 which came into law in 2016 This bill amended the state labor code to authorize the labor commissioner to enforce local labor laws And to issue citations and penalties for violations when deemed necessary So it takes a lot of the burden off of us As the sole enforcement arm for a local minimum wage And we can now then partner with the state on this So while this codifies the state rule states rule in local labor policy To have an effective minimum wage ordinance the city should also plan to do its part and So in speaking with other jurisdictions who've had more experience or have had higher minimum wages for longer We know that the bulk of the Issues that come before them are in fact directed to the state And then Those cities that we talked to either have a defined program or they contract for services with a specialized vendor who can provide assistance to To address specific labor issues So our recommendation is a combination of all these options. So what isn't Referred to the state either automatically or by staff Which we understand again, it would be the majority of the complaints We believe that economic development staff can manage the remaining issues either by You know working with the business Or by if we need to bringing in a compliance consultant that we could contract with and we likely wouldn't do that Until the next fiscal year These next few slides are really just examples of the type of data or really data sources that we can track That can help indicate the influence Of the minimum wage ordinance over time The question of tracking and metrics came up during the study session and short of commissioning periodic studies specific to santa rosa I believe these should suffice as General indicators, so i'm just going to page through them The bureau of labor statistics puts out Santa Rosa area economic summary, which is where these graphs come from But they also give us a An occupational employment and wages overview, which is attachment seven in your agenda packet Unfortunately, we don't have the means as I said to restrict tracking to santa rosa specifically So I do want to point out that the B less data that you see on these slides is provided either By the metropolitan statistical area or by county Or by the western region as a whole So some of the charts I think would be helpful for example Our employment rates by sector Average weekly rates as tracked by county the annual spending graph by category Which is tracked for the whole of the western region actually and then The over-the-year changes in selling prices received by producers on select industries, but that's nationwide Lastly I think other indicators that I think will help track and of course, I don't have them on this slide But just to point out licensed child care slots and average fees we noted in reviewing this that It's a good indicator in that licensed child care the bulk of their Costs are related to labor And then also the number of santa rosa business tax certificates, which we year-over-year which we already track so Finally getting to the survey that was distributed fairly widely by the santa rosa metro chamber What you have in your agenda packet is an earlier pull of respondents showing 69 responses In total the chamber actually received 93 responses and we're kind enough to share the data with us I've only selected a few of the results to share in the slide, but it's an interesting read in the comments and Are interesting and the the generally it's a it's a very good document to sort of review and and See So 55 of the respondents Represent corporations 10 or so proprietors But we also received responses from nonprofits llc's partnerships and a couple of government agencies support for and against the minimum wage increase was Truly evenly split with just one vote separating or one, you know, I guess they're a vote separating the two of them Other things to note most employees of the respondents get paid above minimum wage There were 66 of the respondents said they paid their employees above minimum wage was only 34 Paid at the current minimum wage of those paying minimum wage on average 62 of the employees If i'm reading it correctly hold part-time positions 99 of survey respondents Target compensation at or above market rate Though the survey didn't really define Actually, what is market rate by industry sector? In reaction to what the impact might be on staff in terms of staff benefits nearly 60 percent said that there would be No impact, but when it came to potential reductions in staff 48 percent said That they expected some reduction in staff levels or hours Whereas 39 percent said there would be no change On a positive note 70 17 percent indicated they would That this minimum wage increase would provide staff greater stability or a higher quality of life So the while the survey was helpful in in gaining general understanding of the business community sentiment Regarding the expediting of the minimum wage I will say that the more in-depth discussions with business groups and individuals was Most helpful in understanding how we can help mitigate some of the identified issues within the ordinance So lastly, I'd like to spend a moment on compaction Compaction occurs when wages for jobs that carry less responsibility get too close or even overtake salaries for higher positions With more responsibility This issue was brought up most directly and most recently with meetings that I had with restaurant tours Who pay The example they gave me their front-of-house Who are tipped employees at or closer to minimum wage whereas a mostly non-tipped back-of-house employees earn more so An easy way to explain this is as it relates to the city during the study session I presented some information that that can compaction for the city is not an issue While this remains true for the permanent employees within the city We did find that we have compaction with our seasonal part-time workers with rec and park so the number that we presented did not factor into compaction as I just defined it and taking that into consideration We estimate for the city for example Compaction costs to the city would be closer to about 350 thousand dollars starting in fiscal year 2020 2021 That concludes my presentation And so it is recommended by the planning and economic development department That the council introduce an ordinance adding chapter 10 dash 45 at sec to the san rosa city Code to establish minimum wages to be paid by employers Great. Thank you for that presentation. I as in I also really want to compliment you and your team for the outreach As you've done both I know meeting with council members but out in the community getting all that feedback So this um very obvious is whatever decisions we make will we will not struggle with the lack of information So I really appreciate all those um outreach efforts Council questions on the presentation. Mr. Tibbets Thank you, mr. Mayor. Uh, I I want to echo what the mayor said that this was has been an incredible job that you've done to go out and get information and incorporating all the perspectives and And I definitely appreciate that I have a question and it was I was meeting with a group of students yesterday and he asked me to ask this So I'm asking on his behalf For employees who are working under the table Usually back of house What recourse and typically undocumented what recourse would they have in this environment? Um to kind of earn the minimum wage That's a tough one. I had a hard time answering because I thought well that kind of implicates a tax crime most likely Yeah, I was gonna say but a number one But I would say One of the first things I would like to point out that the state code expressly states that immigration status is not a consideration In the right to be paid minimum wage So that's Number one, um anybody regardless of immigration status and that um the way the code states it You're not supposed to ask that Anybody regardless of immigration status may wage a complaint with the state And they should okay great. Thank you. I'm hoping he's listening. Thanks, mayor Explaining Thank you, and I want to echo that I Cannot appreciate enough how much work went into both your work with Our local businesses and our labor community here. I do have a number of questions about the ordinance itself I'm curious to know Under a b9 70 What enforcement capacities? Does the state have that? Are the state enforcement capacities limited to the extent to which we set forth? Our our fines or our punishments No, I mean um basically Uh it a b a b9 70 authorizes a labor commissioner to investigate and upon Uh a request from the local entity to enforce local laws regarding overtime hours or minimum wage provisions And to issue citations and penalties for violations Except unless we have already done so so um they have um all the rights to enforce our local Requirements plus the um Plus those dictated by the state. Do they have the right to revoke a city issued business tax license? Yes And that is in the ordinance. Okay um I'm wondering why collective bargaining units were exempted from this ordinance That was taken uh from the north bay jubbless justice Model ordinance and we kept it in Okay, um, do you have a sense of who the workers are that are most affected by uh Who are union members who are making less than the proposed minimum wage? I don't have that but I have to say I don't I don't mean I don't anticipate you you'd have to uh If I if I recall correctly They'd have to be told and understand what they are agreeing to in order to accept less than minimum wage My sense is that it's hotel workers and women of color who are cleaning rooms who are going to bargain for better working conditions and or panic buttons to avoid sexual assault and by having this in there we uh, we are Attacitly making it harder for them to both be safe in our no living wage um I'm wondering why uh, we capped it at 3.5 percent of cpi w when um When it goes above 3.5. It's uh a good year for everybody. Additionally, um, we have Uh rent stabilization bill coming down from the state That's likely going to be signed if hasn't been signed already that does not cap at five percent increase per year plus 3.5 cpi And my additional concern embedded in that is that if we have a few good years We're going to be out of sync with pedaluma and cause greater challenges with enforcement that have been seen in san jose Well, uh 3.5 cap was um something that was recommended or uh I don't know how to say this like it was a um in recognition of um some degree of certainty That it could provide two businesses in planning for their budgets. Um, and so that was one of the core reasons That we that we went with that so sticking with that if i'm a business owner and i want to be able to plan Let's say it's october now and not in this kind of a year where we're looking at This ordinance but in a couple years from now and i want to know when i'm doing my pro forma a quarter out or six months out for january or You know How would i be able to track what the cpi is so that i could have the predictability in my business expenses regardless of Whether it's 3.5 plus or not right so um the bureau labor statistic well for one thing I i think you have to be a savvy business person because i have to say i don't think many people I should pay attention that much attention to but um the uh the bureau of labor statistics um Provides or keeps a running tally and it is uh available Again for the uh san joseco oakland hayward region So you can look uh at the averages as they're gaining through the i think they release the figures every other month and so you can Begin to get a good indicator of what the uh Year and annual percentage will be okay, so it's fairly easy to predict early on is what you're saying Or in advance well, it's easy to begin to understand what the uh percentage would be or the data is available Right the data is available. All right. Thank you It's going do you have a question? Okay Thank you I have appreciated the learning curve here and um The amount of information materials you have provided has been outstanding. Thank you. Thank you very much Uh, it concerns me to do something different from petaluma Um, what were the reasons why we would not coincide with what surrounding individuals in the county Are doing i just wonder what what how do we justify? Making it that confusing for businesses that may have like a site in petaluma and a site here Well, the only difference between as in petaluma is the is the potential cap to cpi otherwise There is no consistency either with sonoma But there is with that cpi cap that is uh, though they use Us cpi w it is consistent with the state. So the direction I received specific to that item is find consistency with sp3 and consistency with our regional Cities of the other cities and thus far we are most consistent with the exception of that 3.5 cap with petaluma and Help me because I may have misread Um, is the small business Uh timing different between us and petaluma also no that is consistent. So, uh centers a petaluma and the City of sonoma all recognize the sp3 or the state labor code definition of small and large business. Okay It I will just say it concerns me That rent can go up cpi plus five percent But that wages are limited to under To the lesser of cpi or three percent, which is not the same as adding We're talking about a significant difference in increase between rent and wages. It does not seem to me to be appropriate to Um Put our low-income workers in such advice Thank you Mr. Vice mayor Thank you, mr. Mayor I want to piggyback on councilmember tippitt's question a little bit and first if you could go back to that soon Also point out to him. I think it was about three years ago assemblymember mollin passed legislation Actually making it illegal to blackmail somebody based on their status. So that helps in some regards Raisa you and I have had a conversation multiple times actually about Wage theft type ordinances at the local level and understanding that that's an important component In making sure that everybody is playing on the same level playing field And in particular for folks who are undocumented or or uh minority status It's not always just the wage that We sometimes need to step in there's this ordinance and the tools that are built with the labor commissioner's office Also allow us to talk about overtime. For example trying to Not pay overtime in order to get under the per hour wage that we're putting in place here Yes Okay, and then the other types of complaints People can still come to you and get that assistance as well, right? That's correct. Okay. We've also talked a little bit about The ramp up to 2020 and one of the things that you mentioned to me is that the city would also be looking at ways to assist businesses that are Legitimately on that margin and just need a little bit more time Can you talk a little bit about what assistance there is out there from the city's perspective for those businesses? Yes, and I'm finding more You know as quickly as I can but the most common ones are looking at At the at the base level at the business plan And business conditions and so we work with the SBDC small business development corporation Which is a state agency as well as our partners with the economic development board centers of metro chamber We're working with hispanic chamber of commerce Loci and we've talked to a number of different people About what opportunities exist to reach out to businesses who? Who need assistance with business plans, but also we are looking at microloan possibilities and so I've just learned of a new one which i'm totally blanking on but it's a national organization That helps with microloans. We also have the Gosh, I can't remember any of them. I think it's working capital or something. It's Managed out of the economic development board Um From the from the county So we're and then of course spdc has a number of small And microloan possibilities on our website src.org slash business. We also have a number of Loan programs and lending resources and so we're trying to be more aggressive or we're planning on Being more proactive about what those resources are and how to get them to people again using our partner community organizations Great. Thank you so much Mr. Sorry Thank you, mayor I'm curious about a couple of things. Was there any conversation given to the impact on young workers like that are you know in school 16 years old And how this you know if you've got two two Individuals applying for a job when a 16 unskilled perhaps first job And then um an 18 year old who may have had may or may not have some experience. I would assume that 18 They probably have some experience under their belt Um, I would think that there's going to be a tendency To hire the older worker and to hire the perhaps the more experienced one because the only advantage might be for an employer To be able to pay less to a sick to an unskilled 16 year old as opposed to an 18 year old Is any any thought been given to being able to carve out that age group because I am concerned with what what may happen to their first jobs um You know, I don't remember I can I can look it up quickly. Um, if I have it within my bandwidth right now, but There was uh, the uh, UC Berkeley, um center for labor Did address that? To a degree in their presentation again, um, I think it was something like 96 of the people are Who are affected by minimum wage are actually 20 and above and the majority of that is actually 30 and above So it's a small segment of the minimum wage population that we're talking about who are You know 16 to uh to 20 I Actually did some research on som