need to be more specific We understand that there are conversations going on that some of those funds may be allocated to the legal services that are described so I think I'm Comfortable with the recommendation as it stands understanding that there are Discussions in progress And and thank you councilmember out here for clarifying when I said set aside. I that was a a flip of the tongue. I meant the on out the Unrestricted funds that are there and I again I wasn't suggesting we include that now in our and motion But just to put it out there that this is definitely on the radar and I would like to see it move forward I just want to thank the Program committee for going to work on these. Those are always really tough And I also appreciate the context around the request. Unfortunately. I wasn't able to connect with that editor before so I That's very helpful information And if there is any kind of outcome that does come of that in conversation I would I mean to be great to have a report back to understand What kind of is what's the sort of the fruits of that? Potential partnership that would just be sort of my request informally I'll second that and Looking back to a previous Action that we took on the menstrual equity thing. We talked about reaching out to partners I think anytime the staff can just shoot us a just an info Doesn't have to be an agenda item, but just an information Update on on how things are going that you know, we're interested in that answers questions. It's helpful Yeah, I just wanted to thank the staff and Also all the organizations It is a lot of work to put the these these budgets together so that we can award the funds for Projects that will benefit the community. So I just want to recognize the work on both ends And I'm glad to hear also that we have some some flexibility with the with the services coordination I I I think that work is very important And I will echo All of the tenant outreach we've gotten some reporting back But that's something we really need to get a handle on and understand more about so the more that we can receive any Information reports about that the the more helpful. I think so. Thank you for all your work All right, if there's no further comment One of our council members is currently out of the room But I think that we can probably move forward with this item so, um, there's a motion made by Council member Matthews seconded by mayor Cummings to accept the staff recommendations and again Thank you staff for all the work that you've done and thank you all the community partners on this item And so seeing no further discussion. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye Any opposed? So that passes with council members Glover Watkins Matthews brown vice mayor Myers mayor Cummings Present and with ayes and council member crone absent That will conclude our afternoon agenda city council will recess until the 7 p.m. Session Overflow seating set up in the tony hill room For the 730 agenda items All right, good evening and welcome to our 7 p.m. Session the march 10 2020 meeting of the city council Before we begin I'd like to announce that the city of count the city of santa cruz is continuously monitoring the spread of the coronavirus disease With the centers of for disease control and prevention Encouraging the public to stay home if they're currently sick Showing symptoms have knowingly been exposed to the novel coronavirus COVID-19 or have recently traveled to an infected area And consistent with the county's interim guidance for social distancing The city of santa cruz is taking precautionary steps to ensure the public Access to today's city council meeting while limiting opportunities for COVID-19 to spread The city is encouraging those who are unable to attend to view the city council meeting on the city of santa cruz's website cityofsanta cruz.com slash government slash city dash council slash council dash meetings Or on community tv.org slash watch slash government dash demand or on channel 25 The public is also invited to submit their comments via email to the city clerk At city clerk at city of santa cruz.com The sender must include the agenda item number and title in the email subject line All emails will be shared with the council members and we consider part of the public record And I would like to ask the clerk to please call the roll All communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not listed on today's agenda Are there any members of the public who would like to address the council? If so, please line up to the left You will each have two minutes to speak and we request that you sign in to ensure correct spelling of your name in the meeting minutes However, it is not required Out of respect to other members of the public many of whom are not accustomed to speaking in public I'm going to ask the members of the public. Please refrain from clapping cheering booing Hissing or other similar types of behavior that might discourage all members of the public from stepping up to the microphone to have their views heard Oral communications will take place for 30 minutes At which point we will move on to our evening item And I'll ask a surge cagano to come up first who had requested four minutes of time for stepping up santa cruz I'd also like to mention that Councilmember brown is not feeling well and is in the back room, but we'll be participating in tonight's meeting And so with that I'll ask surge cagano from stepping up santa cruz. You'll have four minutes I wasn't able to do it on usb Sure.  Uh, you'll be our last speaker then Okay All right, so uh, we'll start with our first speaker and you can step up to the mic. You'll have two minutes Hey everybody, I'm sure you know who I am, but I'll tell you if you don't I'm paced gun cannon the program coordinator for the california homeless union We are uh Our primary mission right now is to educate our community on the complicity of becoming homeless and being homeless Organizing our community towards finding solutions to address homelessness Empower people at risk of homelessness and currently experience homelessness We the california homeless union believe that doing these things in a civil manner And within the confounds of the law will give will gain the respect of the community small business Taxpayers and elected officials. Thank you. Thank you I'm lucero luna and i'm just asking uh to reopen phoenix camp uh for a single women and a women who have young children Because women are dying on the streets Okay, and I was arrested uh number 15 for trespassing and we weren't trespassing and we wanted to open again Thank you As we move beyond the march third primary. I think we Can see by anybody who's doing serious investigations That the level of corruption and absolute absolute unethical Campaign tactics and strategy by the far right here in santa cruz has reached really You could almost say Deathly proportions The annihilation of the characters of council members groan groan and glover is is so Deleterious to their professional careers their family lives their personal lives That I think we really do have to start looking in terms of property damage and personal damage to their lives in real Profound concrete ways as well as the psychological ways. So what I'm going to ask for tonight is The product of what I have witnessed I have witnessed synthia matthew's Agent Robert singleton. I believe he's the perpetrator putting up The flyers he put up on campus that have a young woman gagged By duct tape her midriff showing and it said clearly in big letters That council members groan and glover were convicted sexual assault criminals So I found that many of the other agents of synthia matthew's donna meyers and unfortunately martin in tandem with them actually don't know that this kind of Absolutely ruthless scandalous Immoral conduct is being perpetrated on their behalf They do know many of these agents however that the believe the women campaign is disingenuous It is heinous people like me who suffered long-term life damage from not being believed Can only say we know you're doing this because otherwise you would have no leg to stand on to win your campaign Hi everyone Hello, yeah, okay um Just wanted to read a guardian article not to take away from the gravity of this issue But I would like to just make a public service announcement It is a global emergency that is already killed on a mass scale and threatens to send millions more to early graves As effect spread it could destabilize entire economies and overwhelm poorer countries lacking resources and infrastructure But this is the climate crisis not the coronavirus Governments are not assembling You shouldn't see national plans and you're not getting push notifications Transmitted to your phone breathlessly alerting you to dramatic twists and developments from south korea to italy With that in mind since we are acting how we should be acting with the coronavirus and not the climate crisis Though arguably and undeniably it is a big crisis We're left only to consider what we can do when our systems fail us And that is a problem when you have issues with communities trust Because this right here this this back and forth that has been going on This is broken trust and this is broken the ability to connect and in times of crisis. That's all you've got So I would encourage you to focus on healing Where you can because this is not normal and it is not going to last that much longer. Thank you Thank you members of the community and council members We need bathrooms and hand washing stations for those outside Earlier the city's avoid the obvious machine spun into action council member Glover asked will close and lock bathrooms be reopened will facilities be placed at the coral street and post office and encampments You know to slow the spread of the coronavirus you may have heard about that city manager bernel ducked Reassuring but avoiding specifics Cummings whose vote closed down loudon elson bathrooms last year Said nothing and is looking at his own work right now apparently I thought you were public relations massage master susie o'hara slid around the issue No timeline for restoring 24-hour bathroom access. It's a county matter. She reassured Bernal interjected we have to wait for state and federal funding before addressing the obvious In the midst of a declared city and county emergency city attorney kandadi Close the things down saying the whole discussion was off topic The out of county real estate speculators have all but won the recall to remove two questioning voices Any challenge to the well-oiled muzzle the poor machine will be smeared and spent out of power When not evaded and dodged at city council Whatever the cost to the health of the community to renters students and those being priced and driven out of town On monday cops directed the post office encampment to disappear or face jail and property seizure This violates state and federal court decisions Cops threatened more than 20 people there. Some of them already have been denied armory shelter access Only six to 12 spaces were offered anyway Police are not waiting for kandadi slum dance a slum dunk reinstitution of the camping band next council meeting Mills police with his expanded force of rangers threatens to destroy homeless property. We must document these attacks Stop watch video share post.  Thank you I'd like to thank the mayor for not bowing to the bullying of the m&m's about having the resolution of censor on the agenda So I will speak to that I needed to kind of get up for tonight So I was watching some television before I got here Ladies and gentlemen For the return grudge match tonight we have in this corner The m&m's and in this corner the honorable drew glover for a return grudge match Hell is going on with you people Particularly the may the vice mayor who must think that this will endear her to the rest of this community For the balance of her term The california league League of california city says every effort should be made to be cooperative and show mutual respect for Contributions made by each individual for the good of the community Former mayor Watkins is guilty of violating this council member Watkins for her perception speech Gave conduct that has damaged the public's trust in the institution of mission of the municipal Municipal government under which the members of the community elect and govern themselves now Therefore be it resolved by the city council Of santa cruz that a formal censor be issued By the city council in the name of Watkins and mire My name is kyle davenport. I've been collecting positive solutions for homelessness I found one that was really good and I was going to try to bring it to you guys But before I do that I need to realize that I need to be a part of the solution Um, so for me that means coming here to the city and this is kind of weird but I need to tell you guys this city. I love this city. I've wronged the city and I'm sorry and I'm going to do better So I love the city because I I've suffered traumatic things in my life and there are many people in this city and people in this room Who have helped me through it and who have guided me and given me comfort and welcome throughout my whole life How I have wronged the city is not giving that back. I've been a teenager for too long myself This is about me. I want to make that very clear Um, I've been a narcissistic jaded angry teenager for years. I'm 35 years old um So what I've done is I've not brought to the city a sort of manliness or an adultness an adulthood a response taking responsibility for my wounds my hurts my grief and my um My problems, so I'm here to say that Um I'm sorry and I'm going to do better and I'm committing to Really really processing my deep my it's about me. By the way, I don't want to look at anyone So no one thinks I'm talking about them I need to process my wounds and my grief so I can be a better person to contribute a better attitude To this city. So that's what I'm here for as a token of my appreciation to the city And maybe as a solution to homelessness or part of it And as a token of my commitment to being a man and to being a supplier and a giver and a helper and an encourager Instead of a taker and a and a complainer because that's what I've been and a hurt person to be A productive person. I would like to give the city $200 and I don't want any attention for it I just want to give it and walk away. So who can I give it to? And defer to the city manager on this one I'll take it Next speaker Sure, we'll find the appropriate place to donate those funds. So thank you very much for your contribution to our city Good evening. I'm Jane Doyle And I've been here before speaking about public health issues. It was not what I intended to speak about I'll try to get two things in quickly. Um, I was just reading the The information about hand washing and bathrooms and since I really don't want the virus to spread around in this community more than you do I hope that there will be real effort on the part of everybody here to get things open as quickly as possible I mean I walk into the house and I wash my hands if I remember and then if I don't remember I feel terrible and I run Over and wash them and I think Everybody's hearing the same message. I am Please please if you want to keep And besides think of all the flu will prevent if people can wash their hands The other reason I wanted to speak tonight is I didn't know I hadn't seen The information about the ballots until after I'd prepared to speak and Essentially, I wanted to thank chris crone and drew glover glover for the courage that you have shown Sandy has done it. I'm sorry that she's still sick and justin you have to some extent But essentially the two of you in particular to make votes that are often You know are going to be turned against you by the recall people I'm thinking specifically of the night when the vote was do we or do we not ask people or make people leave the beach And drew you said I was concerned. I know this will be used against me But we don't have a place for them yet And we can't do that And I think that's the kind of courage that the two of you have exhibited Sandy also and justin you sometimes all of you show courage But I think that's a special kind of courage knowing that you are under severe attack By a lot of people in this community many of whom don't even know what they're talking about Thank you My name is titanka bricca I'm here to Thank drew glover and chris crone if the votes go the way they go For your service and I know you can leave here with your heads high As someone who lives in ben loman not in the city but in the county I've observed What I think correctly is It was posed as can this city be bought and it seems that large amounts of money together with Frankly a pretty sleazy and dishonest campaign Has resulted in a undemocratic process You know several states have outlawed this recall because of how it's been used this way So I would challenge the potential to incoming council members to consider If they avail themselves of all the facts Refusing to accept their seats in the name of transparency and honesty I don't think that will happen But in the long run, um, I hope we can all Take responsibility for our lives in the best way possible and as the young gentleman said earlier We're going to need cohesiveness to face the real problems that that we do face so Thank you for your service And um, I don't know everything. Thank you for all of you for your service and um at night we all face You know our higher power and Hopefully do what is right and um I think historically this will be looked upon as a as a time of civic disgrace And um, but it's not the end I'm very confident that drew and chris have much good work to do in this community and around the country and I'm willing to talk to any of you and all of you about this. Thank you Mr. Norris before we get going to the next speaker mr. Norris I'm going to ask that you please not walk up while other people are speaking out of respect. Thank you My name is Roxanne Burdick and I'm here to talk about the recall as well And why I voted the way I did and this is mostly towards Glover And it I think Santa Cruz united Focus a lot at the end about how women were treated and that's not why I voted the way I did It was the irresponsibility of people like Glover and this woman here thinking that Ross camp was a safe place to be you said under oath Which was untruth that there was no imminent danger To humans women men there was five deaths. There were many overdoses And also I believe this one was trespassing when she was arrested because there were bolt cutters That cut down offense Then people were trespassing at the time I voted yes for the recall because I felt like it was unsafe for our community To have to have such an unsafe environment right in the middle of the community. So That's how I feel on top of the disrespect I think we all as a community need to need to show each other respect men or women alike. Thank you. Thank you Speaker hi, um I just want to mention August 24th 21st 2019 the rose report Mentioned as part of their summary of recommendations that council members should avoid making public accusations of misconduct or bad faith against one another And against city staff without first privately and internally addressing those concerns and attempting conflict resolution and retrofect Retrification when possible So please tell me about this that uh need to go on uh, we all need to sort of realize that There was things revealed that should have been confidential There shouldn't have been predetermined for facebook posts about the outcomes of the investigation You should never Recall someone a racist press release upset at you, but do not defame me In this community, let's get these motions done. I'm tired. Let's go. I know dog. Okay. Let's stick to this Let's maybe take a let's let's maybe take a three minute The thing is what I want to say is was anything done about that was that public Um, is is donna meyers going to be vice vice mayor donna meyers going to be censored And is that workplace conduct policy? Did she fail that? Thank you Courage members of the community as I mentioned earlier to please hold your applause Okay, we all are trying to express our opinions members of this community have mentioned Wanting us to heal and to move forward on things and that means that if we can hold our applause Allow people to speak allow people to have an opinion Then we can start working on that process Thank you. I hardly know what to say I'm so hurt so many of us are so hurt The night of the election It it felt as bad as the night trump was elected You spent $18,000 on the rose report of our money $40,000 on Dave seppo's report from the Sacramento State Our money And I don't think That the three drivers of this horrible Ever had any intention of doing what they Said they recommended Or following their findings which were talk to each other Do mediation Look in the mirror That's what mr. Seppo said take your own responsibility You've done some really horrible things And like mr. Seppo said you put this town On a war footing for the next Two years Current council members to stay on the dais Louis sancras. Good evening The performance of this council all over the past year as a whole Has been a disgrace especially towards the public health Regarding the hygiene of those whom have no place to live We are now facing a global epidemic that is near certain to have significant impact upon this community The state The country and the world at large It is upon the localities To take immediate action To address this situation. I am calling for an agenda item at the next council meeting to Create a commission on the spread of the virus that will be Accountable to the community to report on a monthly basis with the input of public health community members emergency services and academic experts in Viral spread that will have input into your response We can no longer continue with these petty squabbles between you that are absolutely Detrimental to the health not just to the people that do not have a place to live But to all of us including those whom have vested equity interest in this community. Thank you here This is more of a public service announcement So so happens tomorrow our state coastal commission happens to be meeting in scott's valley at the hilton For the one of their monthly meetings on the agenda is a topic an agenda item regarding the beach camping That the city of santa cruz has on there So for anybody that might be interested in having some input on beach camping per their coastal commission Obviously a very and as you know a very powerful organization here in the state Suggests to show up tomorrow. Thank you scott's valley hilton And you look on look online for the details of the agenda Any other members of the public who would like to address this on at oral communications? Okay Oh, and oh, yeah, we do we have one more presentation Surge cagno representing stepping up santa cruz Have four minutes. Oh The lady mentioning the luxury of washing her hands when she gets home Uh, we don't have hot water. We have freezing nasus blowing So we don't have towels. We don't have seat covers We have women boasting how they're peeing all over your seat and yep They sure are and on and on and ripping down those Elaminated signs about the fecal matter and certainly the health department Said that that would be the origination of where to begin But if we're not going to bother to discomfort ourselves further in those lacking with no seat covers No hot water. So what if we're ripping off the handheld? What can you do? What's that going to cost you? It's an epidemic Sorry um And then as far as a cooper who was the person that everybody was Were misled to believe that she was in charge of that thing Is is just disturbing and when I saw written up by um of his old girlfriend Cooper, I believe Robert Norris talking about the place as cooper's camp um She is totally incapacitated to do anything and what she could have allowed to take place as somebody else to like me Even though we're we're handling the mystery of the way the police are going about it We could have still managed to with the food coming in if they hoarded and and uh Decided the best method is because we don't they don't want everybody touching the food Is just to put it in their tent and hide out to sneak off the stuff that's Wasted and and I the the stuff that was coming in and Her totally responsible cooper for the for the insane grab ass excuse me She has a profession and she does not want to offend men and and uh What she encouraged there and the endangerment to other women and her jealousy and how she's handling this place and people bringing food in And what they're hiding it away and gifts and her story is about $400 gifts and she really found out her and russ over christmas I imagine and misrepresenting herself and profiteering and exploiting and threatening me when I started to recognize releasing this the last two weeks and staying there instead of where I used to Thank you for your comments. Thank you Hey, we have our final speaker Serge cagno on behalf of stepping up santa cruz. You'll have four minutes Um, hi, I like power points now. Can you see it? okay Okay, um, I I hope that this is not um taken personally This is uh, I'd like to point out a distinction between Judgment and analyzing or analyzing is still talking about specifics, but not judging anybody specifically I think something that santa cruz has right now with the homeless thing with the politics with the recall is There's different facts being heard in different places and there's nothing in santa cruz a place where people can go to actually like See a verification like something I mentioned to you Like maybe the city could have a website that just goes through the things So i'm gonna go through and I admit that i've been wrong on things And I think we all just have to be humble enough to accept that when we're wrong and just move on For the coronavirus, um, like even board of supervisors today One of the board of supervisors said something in response that was just not correct about it So I think that also plays towards homelessness and stuff like that just trying to be So for fact-checking well the mystery spot and you could have some conversation about the truth or not truth of that That's my only joke in the Thing so on next door in facebook. There's uh criminalization as a way to mitigate a social crisis That's not true. It's blaming the group that is the victim of the situation um Housing first is a as a thing that doesn't work Santa Cruz doesn't have housing first because housing first implies that you're doing housing stabilization to keep people there Um, and there's something about the guy marbet who says who suggests free meals should only be given with case management Well, there's not enough free meals that have case management. It would just lessen meals in Santa Cruz And low barrier as navigation center mean people think that means more risk That's not what low barrier means low barrier means getting rid of the rules that don't talk about safety To get more people to have them be more welcomed and more comfortable to go to shelter At the last meeting there were a couple things. Um City councilmember meyers mentioned that I just wanted to wanted to point out the governor's report the state of the state of the state address Shows they are against that you spoke and you mentioned that they're against encampments That's not as I read it. The governor's advisory committee actually said sweeps and criminalizations have been shown not to work in the effort Strategies that explicitly or implicitly encourage these actions will not be acceptable will be unacceptable um And the other thing was um, if we do any strategic plan that would be in conflict with focused strategies That's not true. I'm on a couple work groups and I I know the focus strategies people The strategic plan I was talking about is just looking at all of our ordinances and all the things that affect homelessness Just try to get like make that a clear Proactive kind of thing rather than just popping on new ordinances and stuff like that and having departments do the best they can So that could that would not be in conflict chief mills um on a post Both on the scpd website and on his own page which used to be called chief mills, but now it's just andy mills There was a post Talking about the catch and it says that we were talking about a moratorium on towing and it just left it like that to people That's not what we were talking about We were talking about giving people information about the churches that would help pay for the registrations And that was just we got lots and lots of emails about that and that wasn't what we were talking about It was on the scpd website. It was also on his personal website Homelessness criminalization ordinances Not reaching out and connecting with the catch or the county public health or county homeless services coordination office It just leads people apart and we just need to try to solve these things together And When the 1220 closed there were just a couple things that city manager burnall mentioned that also were not quite true Thank you, and I Let's move forward and work together. Thanks appreciate it That concludes oral communications We'll move on now to our first item of general business for this evening, uh, which is councilmember Glover violation of city administrative procedure order This is a presentation by lisa murphy human resources director But before we begin, I just kind of want to say something Regarding this item, you know, this is something that is coming on the heels Of what has been not only a divisive year in our community that followed on the heels of a divisive election But it's also following on the heels of a divisive recall election that we've had in our community Many of the people who have been here tonight have spoken about how we need to come together How we need to work as a community How we need to listen to each other And I want to read our rules of procedure For conduct for this evening because I think it's really critical That we began moving forward with what we're saying in terms of how we want to treat each other And how we're going to be respectful towards one another's opinions The two this item in particular Is as I mentioned another item that is fairly controversial that people have a lot of feelings around on both sides And I think that it's really in our best interest as council members as members of the community To be able to listen to one another and to be able to respect everyone's opinion And so with that the first item on here is saying be respectful to treat each other with respect Even when especially when there's a disagreement Engage in open and honest communication Be direct straightforward and transparent with one another Be honest and truthful act with integrity and authenticity be ethical Address difficult issues Confront challenging topics directly avoid talking around them or not talking about them at all Find areas of common ground Seek areas of agreement identify shared interest values positions Be open to different perspectives Keep an open mind be willing to change your views with new information data, etc Give the benefit of the doubt Freely give credit for good intention Avoid describing bad intention Role model good leadership Be professional adhere to standards of civility Demonstrate effective leadership for the community Be considerate of each other's time Manage expectations about responsiveness and availability Recognize the time limitations and constraints of your colleagues and I'm going to mention again before we become this discussion that we In agreement with these procedures for conduct We should also not be hissing booing clapping stomping our feats after people give comments Out of respect for ourselves out of respect for the community Um, I would like to ask that we be very respectful when we're having this discussion tonight And so with that I'll turn the presentation over to lisa murphy Our human resources director Good evening mayor council members lisa murphy human resources director Uh at the city the city council requested at their february 11th 2020 council meeting that the staff prepare a report regarding a sustained finding of a violation by council member glover To this meeting for a report and I will give a brief report on that With regards to the respectful workplace conduct policy We have a city administrative procedure as you're all aware of the respectful workplace conduct policy And that's what we are discussing in terms of what was Found to be sustained violation There was a complaint from three members of the cap fah The commission on the prevention on violence against women that was submitted to The city on november 7th 2019 Regarding a complaint of the violation on a facebook posting by council member Glover In response we the city obtained the firm of berk williams and sorenson Who specifically assigned tim davis to review the complaint And I asked him to also make a determination whether the conduct violated the city policy or not He began to he completed his investigation in december And the investigation included included Two items one council member glover statements on social media regarding the cap fah Members violated the policy and the second one was that council member Glover statements on social media referencing former cap fah commissioner grossman Were retaliatory in its involvement in a previous investigation, which was the rose report and that report that Makes those findings is attached in your council binder And with that that is actually the the essence of my report The As I say did the report is attached to your binder and if you should have any questions Feel free. I'm available to respond Okay, thank you for the report Are there any questions or comments from city council members at this point in time? Seeing none, I'll open it up to public comment. If anyone would like to comment on this item Which is the to receive information regarding Termination of violation of the city's respectful workplace conic policy by council member If you could please line up to my left You'll be given two minutes to comment on this item I have been my name is lice casby community organizer. I have been scrutinizing the events here all the events to do with the mayor's claims of bullying to do with the Santa Cruz together strategy for the recall etc On through the commission the misuse of the commission for prevention of violence against women A much deeper investigation needs to happen This is the same stuff that we've been seeing the same City staff driven smear campaign do not allow the political assault upon Council member drew tonight that is being spearheaded by city staff departments City department had certain real estate and developer interests and council members Cynthia Matthews Donna Myers and martin walkins to continue this campaign of defamation upon drew clever Is a counterfeit campaign that is being used to cover and hide the real issue Which is also the goal of these people and their cohorts, which is to discredit our progressive leaders in this case drew Drew is the most progressive council members And they also want to get rid of our progressive majority on council these far-right business interests call themselves democrats here in Santa Cruz yet you can be sure as I have done the research I have been attending city council in many other meetings for six years and done a lot before that in Santa Cruz And the invest and my own investigation that these people are ruthless business profiteers Who are themselves willing to use extreme conduct in order to attain their goal of sufficiently Unregulated rental markets and other measures to promote their goals For power status and profit It is an immoral onslaught against a fairly elected person of african american dissent And these people are the political far-right here in Santa Cruz the total defamation of character of an innocent city council member In order to continue to be able to make maximum profits and attain maximum power and rule over our city Must be stridently opposed I'm shila korea And i'm here wondering what is going on Today's agendizing of yet another center of dru glever marks a full year and a third since the harassment of council member glever was launched In essence the entire time he has held office The crucifixion began on next door immediately when the november 2018 election results showed a progressive majority on the council Next door recall rants began by attacking dru's humane concern for the homeless community at ross camp And his strong voice for renter protections But a month later the focus of the recall attack shifted when newly elected mayor Watkins inappropriately used her pulpit to publicly accuse dru as well as council member crone of bullying her The issue in reality was their insistence and her resistance to quickly agendizing and addressing our community's homeless crisis But this was never brought out because martin allowed no opportunity for chris and dru to respond to her allegations Not only was martin not censured for this misconduct in office and misuse of power But what was a staff conflict and should have been addressed internally as an hr issue Became an $18,000 investigation of charges that essentially could not be substantiated Again no censure of the city manager for this waste of time and money Now the recall tribe had an excuse to switch their attacks from the issues of rental protection and homeless advocacy To sexual harassment and bullying for the duration of a year long well-funded smear campaign At that point the commission for the prevention of violence against women stepped outside their role And mandate to blatantly censure and condemn dru and here today instead of the commission being censured for being out of line Once again dru is a target for speaking truth to power Does the council have nothing more pressing to address at this time of coronavirus crisis and lack of accommodations for our homeless? I ask our community and electeds what and who are behind this insidious drive to remove an elected official For the next member of the public comes up. I just want to defer to the city attorney I know that some people are going pretty far Back away from what is before us today and I just want to understand Within what context people should be commenting on this item Some comments on recall seem like they could have gone with Oral communications versus with this item. So I'm wondering if you could speak to that I think it's fair enough to ask members of the public to stick to the topic that's in front of you. Um Obviously the obviously the The context of the recall Is is sort of looming over the discussion. I get that but the topic before you is A validated finding of a violation of their respectful workplace policy. So comments really should be directed towards that So i'm going to ask members of the public to please make sure that you're directing your comments towards the items on our agenda Which is the violation of the workplace policy Okay, I submit that you have mixed all this up together Um I'm not on next door or facebook or any other social media for good reason But for me, this began the night of february 12 2019 when I sat in front of my television and watched horrified When while the former mayor Watkins Read this passive aggressive vague Accusatory for a second because What's before us today is Yeah, the city's workplace policy. Excuse me. Let me finish Let me finish please. Okay, and What we're discussing is the center the comments that have been made. It's not the center. It's the comments that have been made It is the complaints that were filed against the commissioners As it relates to a post that was on facebook and that specifically is what's before us today. Okay. Thank you Point of order mayor There's a letter in our packet that has the talks about a resolution of the santa criss city council censuring councilmember glover for violations of the city council policy 25.2 discrimination harassment retaliation and respectful workplace conduct policy I'm not I'm not sure why these If this is the motion that's going to be brought forward tonight people certainly have Reason to believe that because it's in our it's it's it's in the packet. It's it's online So I don't understand why they can't be talking about this. Yeah, I read that Excuse me, I'm gonna give you a warning at least okay if you speak out of line again, I'm gonna have to ask you to leave I think what I said is that it's fair to ask members of the public to address the topic at hand. Um, I don't think it would be appropriate to Excuse someone from attending the meeting or or to to Refuse to allow them to continue speaking if they veer off topic which frankly happens all the time at council meetings. So My recommendation for getting through the meeting as quickly as possible Is to try to keep the speakers on track but when the you know, if they want to go off topic for a minute or two then Probably just best to keep it moving I'm just going to mention too to Comment on what my colleague said Oftentimes members of the public submit items Or submit comments that are included within our agenda packets when this item went to When the direction was given on this item Center wasn't included in the recommendations of what was to come back And so that's why it was included in our comments, but even if we had had comments from members of the community Um, we wouldn't be speaking directly to those comments that were made We'd be speaking to what is on the agenda And so that is why I'm saying that what we should focus on is what's on the agenda Oftentimes council members make motions that aren't Aren't included with our packets and we discuss those as a council after public comment And right now what we need to be focusing on is what's on our agenda, which is what council directed staff to bring back to us this evening Thank you. Um, in light of the more stringent Speaking rules, which I didn't know what's going to be the case is I'd noticed it in the agenda packet my response to mr. Davis was not included And that was going to be a follow-up question But since we're going to be really restrictive on what people can say I'd like to request to be able to read my response to mr. Davis before we move forward with further public comment So that I can provide some context and maybe give them something else to speak on since it was not included in the packet I don't see a problem that if that's the That so be up to this discretion of the mayor, but I don't see One of the things that I think we need to move I think that we should bring that up afterwards unfortunately because there are a number of items that probably could have been included with this That if we start going down that route, it's going to become very problematic for example the uh to Respect for discrimination harassment retaliation policy was also not included And that is something that could have been included with this item as well And I don't want to get us going too far off topic for too long I think we should go through or public comment We can you know make statements around what should have and should not have been included with this And we can continue on and I think it's an opportunity from you to make a case for yourself After this, but I feel that this is something we need to continue moving forward with absolutely And I'm not trying to make a case for myself I'm trying to provide them with context on things that they can speak on since you have Kind of tightened down their ability to speak on things that they feel are associated with like the recall and other things But we don't need to talk about all the other things I'd like to just be able to provide context for people that weren't able to read the response so that they can Stay on topic as you requested I think that that will be most appropriate afterwards But they can't it's I'm going to say that now because because many members of the public weren't able to Read the report wasn't included. I'm I'm I wish that that would have been made apparent to our Our human resources director so that could have been included with this packet But there are a number of different items that people wanted included here that haven't been included And I think and to be fair with everyone I think we need to stay on topic at this time and I'll allow you to make your comments afterwards So if you want to please continue your public comments Okay Excuse me, excuse me hold on hold on Excuse me members. I'm going to ask the members of the public to please Be respectful to one another and please hold off on comments if you're not at the podium I want the public shaming and punishments Of these two men to stop I just think it's just abominable What you have been doing I hope everybody will go to community tv to the playlist And watch the night of February 12th 2019 and see how Not only did the mayor blast These two men Completely blindsided them But then wouldn't even let chris say anything You are not recognized council member You have not been recognized. I mean the authoritarian dictatorial way this council Was managed for a year Was just hideous and we had to listen to it We had to listen To subjects being talked around around and around Not even half the time knowing what they were talking about Because nothing was done Nothing really was said Except by these two Thank you and sandy Anyway, Garrett philip, uh, this is about the facebook page in general. I hope that's close enough The facebook page knows Santa Cruz city council member drew glever has a history of inappropriate posts for a site Representing a city council member Perhaps the name itself will be inappropriate soon For instance, the post was urges students to strike or engage in a no work No class boycott of ucsc on march 5th wearing all black has no place there It is encouraging behavior which attempts to willfully deprive students and faculty of their peaceful education process And generates extremely high negative emotions on campus directed at the university The wear all black is very similar too similar Uh, directive to the dress of the domestic terrorist organization known as antifa This is also worthy of a violation of the council's purpose, which is to provide excellent city services Further posts including pictures of chris crone declare election night time to party organized by eiu or there The constant special interest partnership with unions expressed by several progressive council members Including member glover are troubling to protect everyone's individual rights Including the right not to join a union the council must remain neutral And in the matter of a city public union to represent all the people Acting much as a union organizer on his website Which is not in the job description favoring exclusive union city contracts isn't either Other posts clearly show disdain for quite ordinary people who he describes as wealthy including mere merely being retired Why he considers very productive value producing people outside the totality He should represent while insulting them writing values exaggeration lies misinformation This is an issue of classing ox privilege and equity should be a mystery But it's not he thinks his job is to be an extreme leftist political advocate instead of a city council member Providing commonly accepted city services He is a divider not the only one and the city's political divide is going wider for his presence Please take this into consideration And this is what was on his website Thank you All right next speaker Feel like I need to take a bath Council member glover's single facebook post did not violate the respectful workplace policy In mr. Davis's Letter it was based entirely his investigation was based entirely on the single facebook post And the policy states that it must be a repeated Not a single act It says even in mr. Davis's own words a single act shall not constitute Disrespectful conduct unless especially severe or egregious A single act shall not count i'm reading from his letter a single act shall not constitute abusive conduct unless It is especially severe or egregious The policy also says that that's uh, mr. Davis also says it was retaliatory However, the policy clearly defines retaliation as conduct in retaliatory Action retaliation in the policy Is a mere statement cannot be a violation of the policies prohibit prohibition on retaliation Why the city manager hired a law firm that specializes in land use builders developers And property owners instead of going back to the rose law firm who had already been here already knew the personalities and could have dispensed with this nonsense With with an afternoon Why we went to somebody who represents the property owners and the people who are behind The recall to have them do this investigation is beyond me and it makes me think the city is not well managed I guess i'm i'm glad i'm not wearing black, but the police officer's in the room are wearing black Um I just don't know what's going to happen in santa cruz. I just don't know what's going to happen in santa cruz's future for the most part i'm More frustrated than not with the city council, but i still show up I still have hope here i'm daniel spells As children my brother and I Sometimes approached our mother with complaints about the other Wisely she coached us saying it takes two to tango you better go and work it out I recommend those of you finding difficulty working with uh councilmember glover Accept your halves of the relationship And figure out how to make a peace with him Over the weekend. I returned from my second trip to selma alabama Led by the selma cultural exchange led by councilmember glover I've uh, I've both experienced his leadership Uh on that trip Working with the 16 of us over those two trips who traveled And I saw him interact with a wide variety of people In the community of selma This would be people from children to elders In the community It would include Impoverished people as well as affluent and influential people In in that community Drew is not only respected. He's welcomed and appreciated None of the kind of innuendo and You know really I find it cruel The kind of conduct that's being directed towards him and none of that appears In this other community and and he has You know interacted widely with many people So, you know take to heart and Life is a rich learning opportunity And we can make it better and each of you have a part in making it better Thank you My name is john hall and um, I want to speak to what I see as A litmus test for the city council in terms of how you act In terms of how you act in relation to This this issue It is uh, I think quite striking that the lawyer's report Cannot make a prima facie a case for Grounding its approval of the accusation because drew Glover Made a statement about People who were no longer on a city commission They were not on a city commission at the time that he exercised his free speech If you think that you can censure somebody for saying something at a time like that I think that you're you know quite sadly mistaken What we've seen here is a weaponization of the respectful workplace Policy by certain members of city staff who I I feel quite honestly have an axe to grind against Mr. Glover And mr. Cron and I think that it's sad to see that occur And the other part of it of course is that the commissioner and the vice commissioner of the uh commission For the respect of a prevention of violence against women Weaponized the commission politicized the commission to carry out an agenda against in violation of the brown act Again against someone who they quite clearly regard as a political opponent If you're going to sanction that you're taking a very sad step in the city I would suggest that we invoke the words of jesus of nazareth Please cast the moat out of your own eyes first. Thank you This comment is specifically about the facebook post and it is um dedicated to the first amendment I don't know if you can hear me, but um It is uh many many many apologies to melvin and remel's I don't know if I can do this because i'm too nervous isn't I can't do it Nice to block the doorway isn't nice to go to jail. They're nicer ways to do it Nice ways always fail. It isn't nice. It isn't nice. You told us once you told us twice That that is freedom's price. I don't mind. Nice to carry banners. I can't do it because I'm too nervous, but I'm just gonna go Nice to post on facebook even when you tell the truth or to name unconscious bias especially in the voting booth Now our new ways aren't nice. We when we Deal with folks of ice But if that is freedom's price, we don't mind Colleagues public lies. Did you say it wasn't proper? Did you apologize? You were quiet just like mice. Now you say we aren't nice And if that is freedom's price, we don't mind Block the doorway isn't nice to go to jail There are nicer ways to do it, but the nice ways always fail. It isn't nice. It isn't nice Because my nerves totally erased the melody, but thank you for putting up with me anyways The bottom line is it's not always necessary to be nice and if you're not nice It there's a reason for it. So I I counsel Drew good to see you, you know, um I don't know specifically, uh, how to speak to this. I definitely Uh Think we should consider Maybe the authenticity of this commission And the the strong hand that the city Manager's office plays in this commission Um, I know that personally because I was called out not my by name, but uh hearsay and uh I was told that somebody in the homeless services has some sexual Abuse history and it was they were referring to me And they called a signed a document Saying we believe first victims remain silent. We don't need a victim. So they and they pass it unanimously. We don't need a victim um Drew I think you're a beautiful person. I've known you for a long time. We've had a lot of disagreements I've seen such amazing poise and in professionalism. I don't know about back of the house This is all this should be again, you know handled by hr.  You took some really strong Impassioned things you took you put a stake in the ground and you stood tall And you're you're green. You're really green and you didn't do it right And perfectly, but you did it and I applaud you my friend Next speaker Thank you. Sajio Ryan Um What I want to say is that you know me that I'm not a person that gets into figuring out who said what and what's the Judging and blaming and figuring it out. I don't want to do that But what I want to talk to is this process I feel extremely troubled that we are once again censuring someone Even though we're not using those words the criticism of the critical tone of it There have been two studies Done and all the recommendations were that we talk together that you all talk together and have mediation and These are to me that that I know that's the next agenda. That's what I really want to hear about How that gets done. It doesn't really to me matter. We're all imperfect. We all get mad. We say things we shouldn't I've done it. I'm a quiet person. I've yelled at people I've said things in a tone of voice that weren't appropriate But the thing that really counts at the end of the day is can we sit down? Can we own our own stuff? Can we Can we hear each other? I keep asking for that. Can we hear each other? We're all human beings here in this room We're imperfect human beings. We all are doing the best we can given what we have Learned in our life and I like to look at life that way and that's what I hope that will be the future path of the council Whatever happens. I personally hope that both of you will still be here I was feeling tremendously sad that you might not be here tonight Might not even ever see you again. Although I know you'll both be working in the community no matter what happens. So Um, I just so I say a prayer in my heart that that's what happens that we work together We find ways in the community even the way we share here and as us of coming forward how we share Because that's really the only thing that matters We're all different in our own unique special way, but we're all stuck together. So thank you Good evening council. Um, I'm here to speak I'm hoping that our community can move forward and I specifically would like to speak to the commission for the prevention of violence against women because I think there's a lot of misinformation out there about What happened in relation to this post that was on facebook? There were many people present in this room who attended a meeting as well who shot down anyone who had a varying Difference of opinion in standing with women who come forward with complaints And I want to make it clear that it's really unfortunate that Commissions are volunteer work by members of your community Professionals and they give of your time to move forward items that maybe are not being pushed forward enough And I think it's really really unfortunate that we lost two commissioners who could have brought a lot of value to our community And I hear a lot of people on this city council talk about progressive values We didn't have start nursing here sexual assault response team nursing here for years. It went to santa clara Okay, that is huge That is what the commission is supposed to work on with the city and the county because this affects our community And instead that was politicized by both sides Jillian greensight had no idea that victims were driving over the hill to santa clara when she wrote that letter Ann simonton voted for everybody on the commission voted To send the letter to the city council against mr. Glover Chris crone was president the meeting. He was filming in the back I thought that was highly inappropriate and when people were screaming and yelling it was very I'm going to stop you for a second and ask members of the public to please respect everybody's opinion and time to speak during public comment Thank you The same people that are yelling at me now are the same group of people that don't read the packet Don't understand what's going on to move the issue. Don't help people. Thank god We have a start nursing back, but work together, you know, this is important Yep Good evening again, uh, marv lewis Um, this item violation of the workplace policy Act is insignificant. It's inconsequential by way of analogy.  You have climate change. You're on the precipice of severe economic upset And i'm going to pause for one second. I'm going to ask members of the public Excuse me. Can we please be respectful when people at the microphone? More than welcome if you want to have side comments to go outside But while we're here and while people are speaking, let's respect their opportunity to speak Thank you and what the response is on behalf of Well vested members of the community both inside and outside is to recall the battalion chiefs and let the fire burn out of control And so I submit to you that the people who put this agenda item on This evening's agenda Are the ones that need to stay on topic. It's not the public So I ask that you refuse this nonsensical charge against drug lover And that you instead focus on your mandate, which is the well-being of this community at large And granted that's a high bar for you at this time. I Hope that you can aspire to it in the coming months. Thank you Good evening again I'm inspired to speak because I was really disturbed when Justin Cummings Interrupted a speaker and said that she was not talking to the topic The topic is very narrowly defined as something for right now But in fact everything occurs in a context and she was addressing the context That drew and many of other people all of us really Have lived in over this past year Um, I have observed an incredible amount of disrespectful behavior I don't get to all the meetings. I often watch them on television And the only person I've seen signaled out over and over has been drug lover And I feel that without the context Yeah, if he said some things I didn't agree with either and he knows that and we know but that's not the point The point is that all that other disrespect especially what the other speaker was speaking about wasn't said Um in this context, I have spoken about housed privilege Where people who have a place to sleep every night make decisions about people who don't And I guess I'm feeling right now that this and what's going on here is an example of white privilege Where a lot of white people are making a decision about a person of color And I feel it's absolutely inappropriate He's an outspoken man of color and I am happy to have outspoken people even when I don't always agree with what they have to say Good evening council members. My name is ed porter and I'm actually puzzled by this particular agenda item because I wonder when I was on the city council The city staff never came to me and said you need to waive your first amendment You're constitutionally protected first amendment rights because we're going to dictate when you can exercise them and when you may not But in fact, I did read Drew's facebook post several times And I did find a word that I Was not pleased with the very last sentence had the word hypocrisy in it And I thought well That would be better if that word wasn't there and if I remember right The facebook post disappeared the next day Only drew could have taken it down So I think maybe he rethought what he had posted also I posted something about six days ago About the coronavirus. I thought I really knew a lot and I posted a rather extensive post And I got some comments back from some of my friends the next morning. I took it down It was a sensible thing to do because I was wrong But the point is I had the freedom Which is guaranteed to me by the constitution of the united states And I think the constitution of the state of california, which all of you swore an oath to uphold That I have that freedom of speech now. I don't remember when I was on the city council ever Being asked to check my first amendment rights in favor of staff interpretation of what should be said and what should not be said Never and I don't think that has evolved since I left I think drew glover still has that right and so do every one of you And so this agenda item simply should not be happening. Hi, I'm abby I won't show that again, even though I was thinking of showing the same video again um The reason is is because if this is a reason to censor someone Or whatever the thing that you're going to try to do whatever this topic's about this agenda item Then we should look at other people in this room to be censored also So what's the real reason for trying to censor councilmember glover? Perhaps it's the same reason Why the city also reprimanded recently last week councilmember crown By city manager martin burnall in sending out an email The email was reprimanding him for sending a newspaper post to a few city staff people What was interesting that was also not Spoke to him. Well, it was spoken to him. I heard in private But it went to everywhere and it made sure that it got on to next door On to facebook four to five days before the election That is retaliation retaliation You should not be the city manager. This is your fault You should be able to be able to talk to these people councilmember Glover and crone asked numerous times To please have conflict resolution This is nothing more Nothing more than trying to get them off because they don't agree with your politics, which Obviously you speak very well You speak extremely well, but underneath it. Obviously you do not care about the homeless people in our country You don't do not carry about the poor and that's what it's really about Yeah, so the this item just so I don't I stay on topic here and not get reprimanded Is a violation of the city administrative procedure termination of violation of city's respectful workplace conduct by councilmember Glover The context as various previous speakers have said is important Uh martin burnall our city manager who I have recently been petitioning for the firing of Not I think personal martin. I just don't think you've done a good job and it's Egregious the behavior that has has racked up similarly city attorney kandadi has assisted in this whole affair and of course Chief mills. I'm particularly concerned about homeless people on this issue But the context is important And it what the context is it's a it's a very controlled forum at city council We see this happening today where justin has repeatedly and I understand that's his feeling He wants to run a good meeting. That's how he sees it But in fact The reason I do applaud Every time he suggests people not is because I think it is an important first amendment right For the the audience to be able to do that And I think it's important even more for council members to be able to take that action Whether it's on facebook as former councilmember porter has pointed out Or that there'd be a specific following of the An understanding of the commission that did this And the report that did this I should say the individuals who did it and and the the comments made by another previous speaker on this are relevant There are divisions in this community and on this council That are very important. They cannot be resolved by mediation by being nice to each other They are the old guard versus people who want to make fundamental changes And we have seen this where it happened last year We thought we had a progressive majority, but then councilman our comings changed and went with the minority My time is up, but I think that is the key point Evening council members Just because you can Doesn't mean you should We all have the right to freedom of speech. We can say what we want. We can have any opinion we want If we say it out loud in a public setting Well, there's possibly going to be consequences. We have to be able to be willing to accept the responsibility of what we say and what we do in a public setting Just like we have the freedom of choice to do what we want, you know, we can go kick over a trash can but that doesn't mean that Officer there's not going to come over and make me pick it up and put everything back in it So we do have the freedom of speech. We can say what we want But we have to be willing to take the consequences of what we say or what we do you know and Tonight well take responsibility take the consequences Whether they're big little Just man up take them to Tonka again I just want to remind us all that the last two years of dr. Martin Luther king's life Um, we're the most difficult I believe for him um Because he stopped he started talking about economic rights. He started talking about Economic justice and this was very difficult for people to hear he even he even um Was despairing that all the civil rights gained would be lost if we didn't have economic justice And in connecting the dots anywhere, I found following the money to be a really good indication I just want to suggest that all the talk that we're having could be simplified if we follow the money we want to have a A city council that has divergence of opinion because we have divergence of opinion in our community But we want it with respect We don't want it bought and sold like citizens united so I just want us to reflect on the fact that not just in this council chambers But in our country and in our nation unless we solve this disparity between the very wealthy and the very poor We won't get the cohesion Or even the you know the values that we want that all of us want in this council I think it's a serious problem. And I think we have to call it for what it is and connect the dots. That's why the woman was Bringing up the issue that happened last year Connecting the dots the context is really important to understand where we are and how to navigate ourselves through it Thank you As the next speaker comes up. I'm going to remind us to please try to stay on topic There's a lot of really great advice and I appreciate a lot of the Respectful, you know comments that are coming forward, but we have an agenda item And I just want to make sure that we stay on topic. So go ahead. I'll try. Okay I I think that we all make mistakes and we all I think we all make mistakes and we all say a lot of stuff. I think that How we respond to them Is whether we get to move forward or not? I think we all we want to move forward and to get things done for our city The it confused me Damon your comment because didn't you call a county staff member a retard recently? Please. Yeah, so it's I'm just saying that that that it's city staff City council members people say things And if we're not going to respond the same way to everybody it gets it gets a little confusing I think we do need to figure out some way to move forward from this kind of stuff. That's my point Next speaker Hold on before you speak Excuse me I'm just going to ask If there are members of the public who have who need to Have an aside conversation Please do so outside Please be respectful to one another And when coming up for public comment, please address the council on the topic that we're focusing on Thank you Good evening a number of people mentioned context as pertains to this um I just Thought back as they said this about when I was here as a young story in 1978 and we had a recall at that point of three members of the board of supervisors Which in the case of two of them was successful and The consequence was that a conservative makes already took over the board of supervisors for the next two years and helped implement changes in line with proposition 13 Which contributed to our slide from having the best public transit system in california to One of the worst in a very few years So when when you consider A recall consider the full context consider who's behind it Who's targeted and why the targeting might be going on Don't just accept anything on face value because there's always a hidden agenda Thank you Good evening scott ram You know the u.s. Constitution its first amendment is freedom of speech and No regulation by the state or the city Can supersede that Your all your regulations have to conform to the the cost they can't be unconstitutional They have to conform to the constitution just recently There was a case in nevada where Somebody posted some stuff online. He was part of a animals right wild animals rights group Against a forest ranger in nevada The forest ranger took him to court and finally made it to the supreme court in nevada And they decided that the person that had put this post on facebook had every right to under the constitution So whatever drew did on facebook was okay Because it's constitutional he says that right This law law firm that was picked to look into this matter Has no History of ever doing this kind of work. They are a Real estate law firm. They do You know real estate law, so I don't understand why they were picked Unless there's some kind of back, you know money Laundering kind of deal going here where there's a kickback Anyway As far as this Workplace conduct thing goes These people were no longer on a commission So given that fact that he can't true can't be held to This conduct of the worst plate place thing When the people he was talking about weren't part of the workplace The other members of the public who would like to address us on this item I'm gonna ask the same way you can line up to the left And step forward The name is Roland sear and uh No matter how much uh lipstick You put on a pig and no matter how sophisticated to Apply the lipstick The pig is still a pig Uh If somebody speaks truth to power He better be prepared to be attacked The attacks can come in many different ways And there can be One or a prolonged kind of an affair And in this case it looks very clear Do has spoken truth to power And he has been attacked and this is just another instance in this Attempt to silence him and the opinions that he proposed So That's all I have to say Other members of the public who would like to speak to us on this item who haven't already spoken All right, saying none. I'll bring it back to council for action councilmember Glover Thank you. Uh, so I I just have some questions. Um I guess it'll be directed towards the HR director for now um What was So how do you define a reasonable person because this is something that I I still I spoke with mr. Davis about but can can you You can't this is can you hear me now? Okay. The plastic is weird Uh How do you define a reasonable person because when I spoke to mr. Davis he said that in his report It says that a reasonable person would would find that post problematic. Can you describe to people how what that means? It is weird Just take it off At least I don't think that I am Well, quite frankly, I'm not the one to define at this moment What is a reasonable person in that particular case? I asked that mr. Davis be that individual to make that distinction Okay, um, that that's strange as you be an HR director. Um, the The the explanation I got from mr. Davis was that it would be found to be unreasonable by a Jury of 12 of my peers which is but he was the only one that made the The finding correct. So it was a single person that made that judgment citing Reasonable people even though his definition of reasonable people is 12 people of my peers Can you explain that that may have been an anecdotal? I wasn't a part of the definition that he gave to you but there is a the The need and the definition, you know within this policy That is tasked an individual to be that Reasonable person to make that determination and in this case that reasonable person that I tasked For that was a professional with over 20 years of labor law experience with a firm of berksaw and some william Who practices solely labor law? Okay, thank you How does the A policy apply to people that are no longer employees or appointed representatives of the city So although those commissioners may have not been At the moment Sitting commissioners. I think that they were in within the performance of their duties as a commissioner that you were citing them under So therefore there's a reasonable connection that this would be reasonably attributed to them Okay, can you explain why? My response to mr. Davis wasn't included in the agenda packet for the community to Observe sure typically I do not include email correspondence letter correspondence in a final report Even as you look in the rose report that was there were no attachments of email communications of respondents So I did not include it for that reason Okay, it was just kind of disappointing because it provides context for people to be able to understand the reasoning behind my post And my response as to why I disagree Uh, categorically I get essentially with mr. Davis's findings um, and you mentioned that the law firm has a A history of working on these issues So does mr. Davis have a background in analyzing and coming to determinations around respectful workplace conduct policies We're actually one of the first, um Really that I know of besides I think in washington But it's newer to have an actual respectful workplace policy Although the state has just implemented I believe last year an anti bullying policy, which this reflects So yes, he does have experience in making these types of Determinations of violation of any type of labor related Administrative policies or investigations harassment. What have you okay? Well just since it's not in the Uh, since it's not in the packet. I'd like to just read this response to mr. Davis to provide context for my colleagues And to the public who may not have had a chance to read it Uh Dear mr. Davis I'm writing a response to the letter. I see received from your office on november 18th 2019 and to share my perspective about your analysis of the statements posted on facebook After reviewing your analysis, I would like to express my strong opposition to your quote Unequivocal determination that it pertains to the respectful workplace conduct policy The post in question is undoubtedly critical of the decision of mr. Grossman and miss kramer's actions to resign from The commission for the prevention of violence against women, but I do not believe that it rises to the level of quote disrespect or quote retaliation First I will address the issue of mr. Grossman The language in the post was not intended to quote insult mr. Grossman But to criticize his behavior that was inconsistent and hypocritical This is specifically pertaining to the occurrence that took place at the past at a past cp va or commission meeting While I was a commissioner where I requested that members of the body not interrupt each other And to be sure to acknowledge and take consideration of race and gender power dynamics on the body I noticed that mr. Grossman consistently interrupted other female commission members while they were talking This can be found in the recordings of the commission meetings leading up to my election to the city council Subsequent to that request mr. Grossman became offended Which promptly which prompted a following phone conversation between him and I where I apologized if my statements made him feel uncomfortable My claim that quote hypocrisy runs deep with kevin grossman And quote was based on the fact that at one of the last meetings before he prematurely resigned He made a request that commissioners not interrupt each other This request came from a white man to a group of women Some of whom were women of color this in my opinion is hypocritical Not only because he did the exact same thing that he criticized me about But also that the request was coming from someone who habitually interrupted women during my time working with him on that body I would also point out that referencing the fact that someone is a white male in context of critical race analysis and power dynamics Is not disrespectful The reference to the report where he went on record to criticize me about the request for people not to interrupt each other Was not in quote retaliation But to provide context as to the observed hypocrisy It was also my understanding that he was a named contributor on the rose report So it would not be an issue to reference the document Now with regards to your analysis about my quote insinuated ulterior motives that you suggest I quote led the public to believe I assert that you misread that portion of the post In the post I state that there were quote many implications Surrounding the resignation of mr. Grossman and miss kramer The implication I was referring to had to do with the impact on the effectiveness of the body of cpva w or the commission From the sudden resignation of both chair and vice chair The meeting in november of 2019 had to be canceled due to a lack of a quorum This was in effect caused by the premature resignations Along with resigning prematurely for whatever reason replacements were not provided essentially crippling the commission cpva w This should be a big issue considering the next meeting was not scheduled to take place for months and inhibited any action or work To accomplish the mission of the body This was and continues to be incredibly troubling to me as the prevention of violence against women is something that I'm passionate about In addition to the implications of the premature resignations and the impact that it had on the body It was also immediately following an inappropriate and in my opinion unethical use of the commission for partisan goals The slander and defamation posted on his blog, which can be found here and I include a link Illustrates how mr. Grossman attempted to use his position to spread lies and misinformation about myself and calcimber crone In this blog, mr. Grossman not only identifies himself as the chair of cpva But references the rose report stating that quote earlier this year a sacramento-based law firm was hired to conduct an independent investigation Into allegations of sexism bullying and harassment The scope of the investigation included complaints made by five individuals all women against santa cruz city councilmember gleber and quote Going on he states his issues with the public comment at the city council meeting surrounding the attempt to censure myself and councilmember crone Using language like quote the voices of the victims and public were silenced to end quote suggesting that and i'm i'm even hesitant to say her name Yeah, suggesting that blank was in some way a victim of harassment or abuse None of the complaints lodged against me or councilmember crone Include claims of harassment or abuse to my knowledge In addition to the blog mr. Grossman and miss kramer participated in coercive and manipulative behavior with their fellow commission members I believe there may have been a violation of the brown act with the meeting They scheduled to quote endorse the call to censure myself and councilmember crone In addition to the potential violation of the brown act their behavior with regards to the newest commissioners was severely unethical for multiple reasons First they did not provide the information necessary for commissioners to make an informed and knowledgeable decision prior to the meeting Even during the meeting when commissioners requested additional information or expressed concern that they did not have all the facts They were coerced to vote in favor of the censure attempt with pressure to make the vote quote unanimous Additionally there was discussion about how about figuring out a process to censure themselves Or their fellow commissioners who failed to quote start by believing even though the report found no substantiated claims of abuse or harassment This was using the commission for an unintended purpose and for partisan goal These unintended purposes and inappropriate actions are outlined in the writings of ann simonton One of the new commissioners who felt pressured to vote a certain way. I've included her article in the good times I include a quote and now i'm just going to read an excerpt out of that Peace she writes quote as a member of cp va and a lifelong activist working to end sexual violence I want to apologize for our commission's involvement in this divisive partisan battle The rose report an independent investigation into allegations by city employees and other council members Found no substantiated instances of sexual harassment or gender-based discrimination Even so sexually inflammatory language was repeated by cp va city staff and those promoting the recall I move on back onto my piece There are many implications associated with both mr. Grossman and mrs. Kramer's actions during their time on the body and in their Resignation, I believe they should be addressed However, I do not believe that pointing them out or criticizing their behavior in any way Is in any way disrespectful or in any way retaliatory for any partition in any ongoing or concluded conflict Thank you for your consideration drew Glover. So Uh, I think that's incredibly pertinent because the analysis of mr. Davis Is flawed in many many ways, especially when taking into consideration the context And I think we've heard multiple times from people tonight the importance of context In the inappropriate use of the commission and the coercive tactics used by the commission members, so I just wanted to read that into the record so people could have that context And I I will say that it's been a fascinating experience dealing with these complaints and findings The use of policies that are designed to protect workers are being misused and abused to silence political opposition, which Is hard to believe they're also being used to defame elected officials and it's been an eye-opening experience I think for all of us in the community. So, uh, you know I'll stop there for a moment. I have some some things I want to thank people about but also, um, I do want to take responsibility Um, I want to take responsibility for any discomfort or hurt that I may have caused People with interactions and I want to stress that I am in no way suggesting that I am without blame in any of the conflicts that have occurred And I apologize, which I did already uh on yam kapoor But I also want to point out and which someone else brought up also is that conflict is a two-way street neither my colleagues From the rose report or the now resigned members of the commission for the prevention of violence against women Uh, neither of them are without their own contributions to tension yet. They place all the responsibility on me Which I think is very troubling and as members of the public have mentioned It seems to be a pattern both with this body and with members of the commission for the prevention of violence against women so Uh, we can move into whatever elder discussion But I just think that those are some very important points that needed to be stressed before we enter into the discussion I just want to I there's a couple things that I think I want to say here First is although this item isn't in regards to me Or any violation that I um am found to have Had occurred um a lot of the comments from the community are addressed to me And have been addressed to me frankly for the past year and I um I I have been at my heart a little bit breaks every time because I think if we think as leaders Who we want to be and how our community wants to treat each other Or how are we setting the tone for our community and how are we setting the tone for our children? I have been called by many of those in this room so many names that I don't care to repeat um, and I've also been called, uh White fragility to set the record straight. I'm a biracial woman and frankly last year I think shows that I'm actually not that fragile So I I want to just say that I think the community wants more from us. I want more from us I think that we have had this divisive Tone in our community that has led to This degradation of our civility and our ability to do the people's business and work It's not the tone. I want to condone or Set for our city workforce For our city residents and it's sure not the tone that I want to set for our children And so I think that we can agree with people's politics or their policies And still not approve of their behaviors And I think we see that at the national level and we need to take a good look at what's happening here locally We really do and so I'll take responsibility for my actions I made one comment that I felt as a leader at that time I needed to make And sometimes that's a really hard place to be to say yes, of course under certain circumstances Ideally you want to have these individual conversations Sure, sometimes it takes us as leaders to speak up because our silence can sometimes be seen as condoning or avoiding And that's what this conversation is about. We received this report as a council. It was brought to our attention to discuss Um count member mires and myself and others have been wanting to discuss it because we need to talk about this It's hard. It's uncomfortable clearly. I would prefer discussing things that are not About these types of behaviors But it's important that we do because if we don't then our silence by default condones And I'm not okay with that. I'm just not and so you know, one of the things about Healing is personal accountability I appreciate that folks didn't appreciate the comments that I had I recognize that I made one comment That's it. I don't go online and harass folks I don't ask my supporters to to do that either and I'll take responsibility for my behaviors I'm happy to do that. But a year later. This is not about me This really isn't I this is about the actions that occurred that led to this report and investigation that is now before us And it's our responsibility to address that it just is So before us is that discussion and how we as a community and how we as a governing body want to set the tone as leaders of our community Council member mires and myself have wanted to have this conversation around whether we feel Personal accountability and censure is appropriate given that we don't have any other tool available I know the next item is trying to assess the various tools happy to go there and discuss that But absent any other tools. This is the only tool we have And so if we don't agendize it for discussion or we don't even talk about it as a potential action Then we're not doing our jobs And so that's why we're here this evening Um, so I'll leave it with that we can discuss whether or not we want to take action There was a addition to the meeting and to the minutes of the meeting or to the public correspondence of the meeting As we weren't able to get that added to the agenda for discussion And so we hope to have that discussion as a potential outcome And i'm happy to have that discussion with my my colleagues up here today I'm just going to pause us for one sec. Excuse me, sir. I would like to ask that you I don't know what you're holding up there But if it's a mirror then and that's being used to Harass my moves with the city council. I'm going to give you a warning to please not do that Because that's disrupting our ability to conduct our business Thank you So that was really interesting customer walk-ins For a variety of reasons I I did didn't get I you know, I was reading through my notes here And I I wanted to take a second and thank all the people that came out to speak tonight Both those that were in support of me and also those that were not Really great to see the The weight of it though on where it falls Many may not know But I was the council member that advocated for the information of the Davis report to be released to the public I did this to provide transparency despite the fact that I heavily disagree with his analysis Just as importantly though, I would like to thank the members of this council For once again showing the public where their priorities lie I'm sure As they've demonstrated by their crusade to try and publicly crucify me that the Problems we face in the community pale in comparison to the threat my facebook post and their deep desire for administrative discipline With their constant demands for my accountability while both council member walk-ins and donna mires have conducted themselves in ways That many may be perceived to be abusive and bullying ranging from refusing to acknowledge council members Making public accusations and defamation without providing opportunities to respond and even slamming their fists on the table While screaming at colleagues Again illustrates what some might call hypocrisy And an abuse of the complaint process for partisan gain, which yields back to what I said originally I'm going to pause you for one second because I just want to make sure that I I know that this is and this is part of the reason why coming into this that this is a very Sensitive topic for all of us and I get that and I'm just going to remind us that Um, we need to not make things personal All here. Oh, I understand that this is I understand I understand so I understand I understand that I understand that um, that you know, this is something that's coming out of the HR department And I know this is coming directly after you. I'm just asking that um Absolutely that rather than making personal attacks against or you know comments that are being directed Towards people that we direct them towards, you know things that have happened in the past or sure So certain council members have thank you put little to no energy in defining a path to reconciliation And instead have continued to deepen the divide on this body Uh, for example, I've had one conversation with one other council member on this body with regards to reconciliation The other one hasn't even made themselves available to have those conversations and they're pushing these these issues of Uh censure which is So disappointing on so many levels that instead of trying and you know, especially when we're giving grand speeches About wanting to come together and rebuild the community and all this other kind of stuff And yet a complete failure and refusal to try to do anything even regarding that when it comes to the body here I don't understand What the goal is outside of political repression Especially around the use of these tactics to try and publicly defame me or attack my character or Bring me down, which by the way is not working, but but uh Without even trying to attempt for there to be any kind of reconciliation I think it's really telling and disappointing and I hope that you know What if and I eventually leave this body I really hope that there is a change in that demeanor because there will be consistent problems No matter who sits in this seat if they disagree with certain members of this body if they're going to Take the roundabout way of dealing with conflict instead of dealing with it directly. So I'll just say a couple of words. Um, you know, I I um, I do want uh Drew for you to know that this is not something that I took lightly and trying to think my way through of whether or not This should be brought forward and um, please refer to me as council member Glover Sorry council member Glover Um and You know, I think that um We have you know Collaboratively you know collectively, you know caused harm to Santa Cruz in the last year Um We have done a lot of talking We've done a lot of um A lot of you know back and forth We've charged, you know called each other various things I'm not sure that I've ever you know Taking it to the extreme that for some of the things that I've read on various social media and um, I've taken to just basically stop reading that place because Unfortunately, I don't think it it does a lot for our for our community um But I I do um truly want you to know this this I've had a lot of conflict about doing this and and you remark that you know Some one person, you know did not was not willing to um To engage in in the uh mediation Um that was canceled. Um for some reason. I don't know why Um and so I'm just going to leave that there, but um I I I brought this forward to us because This is the only tool we have as a body to have a conversation about um, how we will um Not only treat each other, but actually serve our community And positive for one second Sure I just want to also remind us because it's come up a couple times now during when You've been speaking and also councilmember glower the next item on our agenda is related to the conflict resolution So any further comments? I would just ask that we not have comments on that agenda item and that we stay focused on the one That's in front of us right now. So I just want to point that out So a center really is it's a symbolic action Um, if any of my colleagues feel like they need to bring a center forward on anything that I've done on this dais Please do Please do and I will take your request To for myself to really think about how I've acted up here the things that I've said I'm happy to evaluate that and have that conversation with any of you anytime If you think that I've done something that needs to be discussed publicly About why I did it what I was feeling when I did it Um, and how it's impacted our community. Please bring anything forward bring a center for me. Let's talk about it This center is about a debate and a deliberation for our community because um This is our only tool We have had documented Uh findings based on a policy That was put in place because of um People experiencing You know Things at work around the world Um, we've come a long way and we are realizing that various things do need to be addressed in the workplace And that is the intent that is why we have a policy that we do um And the center is is really our only tool as the city council to be able to understand and deliberate on why Why these findings have been made and um So I understand your frustration. I understand that um This has been frankly a big mess But I think that when people go to a place That they are to publicly debate and deliberate on what's best for our community that place should be Um civil it should be productive Um people should feel first of all and most importantly they should feel safe to come in here And be heard and and and not be criticized laughed at snapped at his stat Um none of that helps our democracy in this little tiny town that we're trying to serve None of that is going to help people economically None of that is going to help people find a home The only thing that helps people in those Places is if we get our app together And start working towards those things Saying that we're going to help people is not going to help people unless we actually do something Unless we actually move forward with sound policies Unless we're really thoughtful about what we're trying to do for our community So yes, this center is awkward And frankly, I wish we didn't have to bring it but we have something wrong in this room And we need to acknowledge and talk about how we can make this more a more productive place And how people can come here and talk to us about the things that are that are affecting them in this community So, um, I'm sorry that I said things that night. I'm sorry that I hit the table And um, so I apologize for that and I apologize actually for having to bring the center forward Um, I wish we could have had a discussion about this report when it was released Um, I've tried for many times to try to get this agendized Um, this is something we have to talk about and I agree with councilmember Watkins Um, if we don't talk about this then we essentially are Acknowledging and accepting that the behavior is okay to continue. So, um I do truly apologize that that we had to do this But, um, I, uh, I just think for the For the recovery of this entire community and of this council and future councils Um, we can't we can't keep treating people like this. We can't keep treating each other this way Uh, it's not it's not going to work. So, um, I will make a motion for us to consider the center Um, and I'd like to continue to debate on it second We have a motion to consider the center made by Vice mayor Myers seconded by councilmember Glover um I just would like to get some clarity around this Is this a motion to censure because My understanding and I'll just speak to um Some of the comments that were made as well And this is reflective of some things that I learned over the past year, but you know, um as mayor our role is to Put items on the agenda and When we made this report public I've had asked my colleagues for an opportunity to meet with councilmember Glover and go through a number of steps Before getting this on the agenda and we had a number of very packed agendas for example Last week, which would have been when this would have come on Except for the fact that we voted for it to come before us today We'd started at 10 45 in the morning and we got out around 9 30 p.m And had this been on the agenda. We probably had gone well into hours where we have all said that is not You know very conducive for us to conduct business and so We were able to vote and put it on and um most of us were willing although there was some opposition to put it on tonight and the recommendations and I'm getting to kind of my comment, but You know, we made the motion to put this on the agenda and because of the fact that What wasn't part of the emotion was an item to censure That wasn't put on with this item And I had reached out to the to the city attorney to understand whether or not a censure could be made Given how it relates to this item and I was informed that a censure could be made So I want to ask for clarification real quick as we move forward whether or not We can censure tonight or would this have to come back because my understanding is that we could censure tonight on this item And it wouldn't need to come back as a separate item Which is why we didn't put two items on in the first place Yes, so um This is a brown act question and the brown act has a rule about Uh, the posting of an agenda in the council's ability to take action on items that are not on the agenda So what the brown act requires is that the legislative body Post an agenda containing a brief general description of each item of business to be transacted or discussed at the meeting And it further states that no action or discussion shall be taken on any item not appearing on the posted agenda the item before you is a entitled council member glover violation of the city administrative procedure order And uh, the recommendation is to receive information regarding its termination of a violation of the city's respectful workplace conduct policy by council member glover now There are a number of cases that have dealt with actions that were taken that were not specifically described in the agenda in in my analysis the topic before you is Exactly as that the agenda is described council member glover violation of the city administrative procedure order A censure is essentially a collective Determination of the council of disapproval of the conduct of a council member In my opinion the council could take action to express its disapproval of the conduct described in the agenda By voting to censure and so I do not believe it's necessary to Agendize the censure for action at a future meeting if that's the direction of the council I believe you could take that action at this meeting I just thank you for that clarification And I just like to express because in part of the correspondence that came earlier Um, there was some mention that I would I was refusing to put a censure item on our agenda And I just want to make sure that it's clear that based on the conversations that I had with the city attorney And the item before us I did not think that it was appropriate to put two items on That would have been covering the same topic and then it made most sense to put one item on and to take action as appropriate And I expressed this um When questions arose around that so I just want to make sure that's clear That I was not inhibiting us to put this item on we went through a number of steps Which got us to the state of when this item is before us and now we have the opportunity to take action As a seen fit So I just want to get clarification from my colleagues whether whether this is a motion to censure Which has been or whether this is a consideration and so I'll just pose that question This is a motion to censure So there's been a motion to censure made by vice mayor meyers seconded by councilmember glover Is there any further discussion councilor matthews? I'll make a few comments um I I think the issue here is our respectful workplace conduct policy And to me a respectful workplace is extremely important It's important in terms of how we treat one another And how we interact with our staff And how we interact with our commissioners And similarly how our commissioners interact with the public and with one another and it's important On how we interact with the public at large I think As mentioned, this is a relatively new field in state law and I'm proud that we have dealt with Creating a respectful workplace here in santa cruz I think it reflects a growing awareness An evolving awareness of the importance of workplace dynamics beyond the the more traditional Sexual harassment or gender discrimination, but really A respectful workplace is essential to doing our best work in whatever our capacity is Some people mentioned that this should have been Directed to our hr department and in some sense it was but I think many of those uh here and and watching will Will realize that in terms of our staff There's a Set of procedures if there's a complaint about behavior of whatever nature There's a process for dealing with that complaint and the process and the accountability has to do With everything from a letter in their file a talk with the supervisor to being fired on the spot I mean that's That's the spectrum However, when we look over the kinds of Codes of conduct and ethics that are adopted by many other cities and we'll do with this talk We'll deal with this topic in our next agenda item It's often mentioned that the Accountability for council members rests with the council and the difficulty in this and other previous Incidents has been that we didn't have a clearly defined process for that. It's something we're trying to work on Um, but we haven't got a final product yet So, uh, we do need to be self governing And unfortunately, um, and I have seen in I'll I'll just say parenthetically The range in other communities policies is quite general also we can talk about that but We don't have a a range of consequences Or accountability presented to us now and so That's I getting back to the First statement. I do believe that it's important that we Make a commitment to a respectful workplace environment And that we follow through on that and I hope that we can work to a system that has um More nuance As we go forward Council member brown texts me that she wanted to make a comment So I'm gonna see if council member brown is there in order to make her comments Yes, thank you for Recognizing me back here in the back room. Um, so I Don't have a lot of comments Um, you know, I do agree with a lot of what's been said Um from members of the public Um, and at the dais I You know, I understand people's frustration all around this is um, you know, a very, uh, challenging time to be engaged in politics in the city and That's a shame. I think With that said, I would like to Make a substitute motion Which I have given to the city clerk that you can take a look at so Can you all see that you want to read the motion? Yeah, I just can't tell if you can see it on the screen from back here. Um, okay, great. Um, yeah, so so you know the motion is uh to as uh recommended The agenda report receive information regarding a determination of a violation of the city's respectful workplace conduct policy apo section two number number b by council member glover And to direct the mayor to send correspondence to council member glover indicating that the city council One accepts the finding regarding violation of the city's respectful workplace conduct policy apo Etc. Uh, two acknowledges that multiple findings have been made regarding violations of this policy Three expresses disapproval of these violations and four urges council member glover to adhere to this policy in all communications related to the city and its operations In order to ensure a respectful workplace for all city workers and representatives I'll second that motion. Um and I'll Leave it to other council members if they want to weigh in It does sound like there was a motion to censure already made and I don't know if that Oh, yeah, it's a substitute motion. So um, so we have a substitute motion on the floor You can debate the motion But the but the action would be to accept the substitute motion not to approve the substitute motion I have a friendly amendment. Um, that if we by expressing our disapproval of these violations Include the censure of council member glover that would reflect our appropriate reflection of disapproval of these violations Is that seconded? Is that approved by the maker of the motion that a censure would be the appropriate expression of our disapproval of these violations? Well, I think the appropriate the appropriate Reflection of that is saying that we disapprove. So I'd like to leave that as is I'm I'll say that I'm the reason why I'm open to this because I know that council member glover just seconded Um a censure of himself. So may So I'm just I'm just going to say that Um as you know why I would support that but That was just so we could have a conversation. I didn't see that I didn't know that this uh substitute motion was coming So I would I like I prefer this language personally, but It's up to the makers of the motion Well, I think I guess the question then goes back to Kind of what you council member walk-ins was made he's mentioning. I'll just withdraw my second of the first motion So council member glover withdrew his motion to send withdrew the second to the motion to censure So now there is only the motion on the floor Okay, so you may vote on the motion at this point um, so the motion on the floor is what's before us to Receive the information regarding a determination violation of the city's respect for workplace conduct policy apio section two Number b policy the council member glover Direct the mayor to send correspondence to council member glover indicating that the city council one accept the findings of Regarding the violation of the city's respectful workplace conduct policy apio section To be policy to acknowledge that multiple findings have been made Regarding violations of this policy three express our disapproval Of these violations and four urges council member glover to adhere to this policy and all communications related to the city And its operations in order to ensure a respectful workplace for all city workers the motion was seconded by myself the motion was made by council member Brown seconded by mayor Cummings and um I'll just say that Had there been interest in the Disapproval given the fact that council member glover seconded the censure to put this on there not being in favor and i'm still in favor of the of the motion on the floor But I just want to put that in there as well. So My own preference would be to switch out the word disapproval to censure In this motion if that would be agreeable I I think this is very close to this is very close to splitting the difference But I think what we want is a formal action or to express our formal disapproval of these violations I'll make of the motion. Yeah, i'm not comfortable making that change so council member brown is not okay with formal disapproval or Center so This is nonetheless on the record I mean I think that's implicit that if we're making the motion and sending a letter it's implicit that there's some level of formality Motion to call the question mayor second Yep, there's been a motion to call the question by Council member crone seconded by council member glover all those in favor. Please say aye. Bye. Bye To call the question. Yeah So So that's um council members Glover crone wackens matthews Brown and vice mayor meyers voting eyes Mayor Cummings voting no to call the question. So the question has been called all those in favor. Please say aye. Aye any opposed? No, so that's motion passes with uh council members glover crone brown and mayor Cummings voting in favor to accept the recommendations And the motion that was made and council members Wackens matthews and vice mayor meyers voting against Okay, so that concludes That item number one on our evening agenda related to council member glover's violation of the c administrative procedure order And we'll move on to our second evening item Which is an update on council ethics committee anticipated steps for training On respectful workplace policies and conflict resolution and mediation efforts And so um Yep, so i'll turn that over to um director of human resources Lisa Murphy Good evening mayor and council members I'm here to report to you an update on the recommendations made out of the rose report in combination with recommendations that Uh, I had put forward as well as the council The first recommendation is to put together a subcommittee for the code of values ethics and conduct policy A the goal for this This policy was to create a document which will assure public confidence and integrity of our local government effective fair operation This policy is intended to provide a framework for day-to-day Actions and decision-making at least Lisa i'm gonna pause you I'm gonna give us a couple minutes to let the chamber's clear before we move on to this so we can have full attention So those members of the public if you'd like to leave right now Please make your way to the door Okay, and finally this policy is a commitment to uphold the standard of integrity and competence Beyond that required by law and the treatment of others So the subcommittees composed of three council members who volunteered for this assignment council member matthew's council member glover and council member crumb So far we've met on four occasions. I've put out a doodle poll for the next one. So please check your emails Right now the document is draft. We're not prepared to present it to you this evening But I would say I think we need one last meeting to be able of the the committee and we'll be ready to bring it forward to you It's in five sections basically The five sections are as follows. It is a code of values ethics conduct an accountability section and finally an implementation And the goal for us again is to complete this in april for the council consideration I would say this group has been very productive. We've worked really hard I think there's been a lot of amazing input and A lot of collaboration and I really appreciate the three members who have been participating We began with Utilizing the institute for local government's foundation for how to develop a code of conducts and ethics So it wasn't like we were reinventing the will but what is new and unique to this group is the value section so Moving on the next recommendation I'm going to skip the the conflict resolution recommendation I'm going to put that last as well as the onboarding process since I'm here and I'll just go through the items that I In charge of so The next recommendation was workplace conduct training and this had to do with our policies About sexual harassment and discrimination and our workplace a respectful workplace conduct policy Within the first day 60 days of taking office So this isn't a new state law and then of course every two years thereafter and part of that New law also includes the state's law on Bullying which then of course we have a respectful workplace policy So all council members are required to attend and they are required to attend within the first six Months, but you've asked for 60 days and we can certainly accommodate that because the city provides multiple live trainings throughout the year And we also the league of california city provides those trainings We provide notices to the council members when when it is available and when they are late and when they are Due to attend And we will make sure we also have a system called a training tracker system, which we will Continue to monitor and inform council members Within that time frame. I think one of the issues that was identified was that it wasn't soon enough within taking office And so our intention is to make that available Again within the first 60 days of taking office and not only that in the revised onboarding Which I believe the c-manager staff will go through is that those policy will will be included in their onboarding packets with An acknowledgement that they've received them and that when they will be signed up for their actual training In addition, there's in the city administrative policy review We have a committee of employees and a couple of members of the equal employment opportunity commission Who are reviewing the respectful workplace policy that is a Was developed within uh, it's been about four four years, I believe And given our experience with it now We have a lot of things that we can update revise change and it most definitely improve And so this committee has been working on that it again. We everybody's very busy. It's been a bit difficult to pull us together Uh, but we have made progress and I can anticipate that if we do another meeting Within this next month given the virus issues We'll be able to wrap that one up too And along with that there's actually two policies. There's the discrimination harassment retaliation policy as well as the respectful workplace conduct policy and this ties to the city council's policy of 25.2 the discrimination harassment retaliation respectful workplace because it ties those two policies that The staff have into your Your overall council handbook policy. So whatever changes that they make At the staff level then we will also bring those to you to Mirror, I do still have to take those two the unions as well. So there is still a little bit of work Before it will come before this body to for those revisions Please ask me any questions because actually for those pieces. I'm now going to turn it over To the city manager's office about the onboarding But if you have any questions, I can answer them now about the other ones where you can wait till the conclusion of the entire presentation What be the will of the mayor Is there any does that are there any questions currently at this point? Okay, so we'll just wait. Thank you Okay, so I'll just do a brief update on the onboarding process So Laura Schmidt our assistant city manager is the the lead Staff and she's been working with the departments as well as with the human resources department to put together a more formal structured onboarding process and That will involve having the The paperwork the the various Materials prepared in advance And then having a checklist essentially and a monitoring system Where we where we track all the various policies that will be provided to council members and ensure to ensure that they get them And that we can again keep track of those things and check off all the various pieces that need to be completed Again to ensure and assist the council members with completing all the various hr policies as well as the other Components of the onboarding process So that's the approach we're taking And we're getting that in place. And of course if we need to do this soon, we'll we'll be ready to do that I think at this time Leila You've ever And for in terms of conflict resolution Of course, we have conducted several sessions with that There was interviews coaching sessions of facilitated mediations and Leila from conflict resolution is here to give a brief report right, so there's a yeah, so the lajah bradavix from the The comfort resolution center Provided a report that's in your packet. She's here to uh, uh If the kaila wishes to present it and or answer questions, uh, to your pleasure I'm wondering and I'd like to get a sense of my other council members Given the fact that part of this is coming up with council policy versus A conflict resolution training that we had whether or not there's interest in Having questions on the policy first and then having a report on the conflict resolution training Finally it would be excited a few questions policy related and then Um, maybe like to get those out of the way first, but I'd like to hear what my colleagues are feeling I'm on the committee. So I know Ask away As it relates to the onboarding process just one possible comment or question is One do we have any type of like formal or informal Piece of like paperwork that's being designed for council members to sign Kind of agreeing and acknowledging that they've read they've not only taken the training because I think that the state training is one thing But having read the city's respectful workplace policy or whatever policy comes out of this The answer is yes. So the checklist includes An acknowledgement that they've received and we do that actually for employees as well So we'll follow the same procedure. Uh, and we do it with a variety of policies that are critical important for Uh, again to put on the record that they've received them So it'll get the policy and there's a form that is completed So that people acknowledge that they've received them and read the Information so we can do that. Yes the follow-up. I have to this. I know recently there's been some complaints about Um commissioners and I'm wondering if something similar Can is you know being designed or possibly in the works for commissioners in terms of that similar acknowledgement of reading over Whatever policy is going to be put in place and having um gone through and acknowledge Yes, I think it would make sense to to mirror, uh, the process for uh, you know Staff advisory body members and council members. Yes It's now a state law that all the commissioners have to participate in the sexual harassment training course that we we provide And ours is a dual one. It's the respectful workplace policy in the in the um sexual harassment policy as well But above and beyond that what we saw looking at the models of many other communities is that they do actually have a one page For the uh code of conduct and values whatever they're calling it. It's very simple and they sign it and indicate they've received the document and They understand the principles and in many of the policies that we see from other communities They apply equally to the commissions that is to anyone who represents the city in an elected or appointed position And is not answerable to the hr department so, um The examples that i've looked at I think we should include commissioners as well as elected officials and I personally like the idea of having a simple document on this issue particularly saying I've got it. I've read it. I understand it and one of the communities even has that um as a council member you don't even get any committee assignments until you've signed it and um anyway There are lots of options but your point is well taken Any other questions from council members on this item? I have a question about the commissioner um Kind of extension of accountability with this policy as you reference There's two additional substantiated cases workplace misconduct by two of our commissioners at this time What is the recourse for that and how do we intend to Maybe use these two pending kind of reports we've received to help inform that policy I could just respond to that again. Um, as I mentioned in my previous comments um What we have now uh has no nuance in it and what what we've seen in some of the model policies is Levels of seriousness And so I think that same thing would apply I mean I can think of Actually many occasions or the over the years when individual commissioners have behave badly towards the public and um, there has to be some way of and I don't think it's hitting over the head with the club but Calling attention to it and I think we just are more sensitive to it now That doesn't do any of us any good. Um, it doesn't represent the city well So, um, I think both in terms of How we expect council members to be accountable in a range of ways that same thing would Answer your question. It does but for clarification what I'm hearing you say is um, essentially you anticipate coming up with this framework and this policy Ideally having that adopted and then potentially applying it to the two Recent accountability kind of components of the violations we received. Is that accurate? Can I make a comment on that? So I do the the I don't necessarily have answer to but a suggestion is that the um, the accountability is Strictly at this point for Violating the code of ethics and conduct and values policy Not necessarily for violating the sexual harassment or the worker the respectful workplace conduct but We could tie that together in the revision of the respectful workplace policy and the sexual harassment that if A council member or commissioner were to violate those policy It could tie to the accountability portion of this policy So we could tie those two together In the respectful workplace conduct policy I think for sure I'm a little hesitant actually to suggest that for the sexual harassment policy to turn that over to this body When that's actually that's a legal issue versus The other one is administrative, but I think we could definitely tie it together and And and push it over to that side too. I guess maybe at the time we make motions we can discuss that I just have a couple questions about The the commit the subcommittee. Um, when was the last time that the committee met? Feb two weeks ago. We just I want to say was february Early february. I I'm not Recalling the exact date that we we met And are we so we're looking at concluding something Soon I'm just there's a doodle poll out right now to the council members that are on the members And I'm waiting for their response to find a common date We all are I know we're all busy when this is a priority too But there's four because it includes myself to try to to make sure we all have the schedules, but there is a Date requested out there waiting for a response and they're all within The smart month so I would expect we can wrap it up And uh move it forward in april And I guess the other question is What are some of the examples that uh other communities are doing with regards to You know a finding such that you know, there was a A finding against you know finding of some kind of um You know Conduct that was not at a commission level or or mission council. I'm just curious You mentioned that yeah the ones I remember are um I think the sequence is admonition reprimand and censure and uh and How that was administered went everywhere from A simple paragraph to a four page document Do we have a sense how many communities? Throughout the us have these now. I mean is this oh a lot I I could pull hundreds of them Very common it's a very common. It's not unusual at all and they're really actually fairly boilerplate in terms of Conduct and You know even the accountability is all over the place cross mine is quite intense. I probably should pare it down a little bit But the the values piece. So that's the unique piece to To this organization and not all of them make a value statement. You actually have something similar in your board or your Your handbook and so it's a takeoff from that and sort of maybe an update of of those values to reflect this council Uh, but yes, it's it's a lot of boilerplate things about, you know, accepting gifts and and how to Conduct yourself up meetings as well. You know how to work with staff. So there's a variety of covers it all And just in past councils have we ever we ever had an ethics committee or have we ever sort of looked at this policy? Sort of framework before there have been a couple of other one-off incidents For council members that I recall Not not a formal ethics committee Thank you Any other questions from council members? Seeing none, um, maybe we can move on into the Next phase or or if there's anything else I I don't have anything else to report on that other than again I want to thank the three council members who've committed a lot of time because I've pushed out a lot of reading to them and That's um, and I think they've they've been very responsive. So thank you At this time, I guess we can invite up label from the conflict resolution senate to provide a report on the conflict resolution You think well, um, you've received my report It is basically just the the overview of the process that we've completed have included some You know our our own