Um, well, thanks everybody for coming.

We'll we'll see if we can figure that out.

Um listening sessions before, and um this is really an opportunity for you all to share with the council what you're thinking, what's important to you right now, and what you think that the city as it prepares its next budget should be thinking about and prioritizing over the next year plus.

Um couple of things that you should know.

Uh, the council will not be talking tonight, they will not be we will not be responding, and part of that is the Brown Act that we follow.

Um there's no item agendized tonight other than hearing from you, so we can't have discussions.

So, really, this is a chance for the council to listen and to take note of what they're hearing, and um and our staff are here taking notes, and all of this will be collected along with some other things that I'll share tonight into a report that will inform and be part of our priority setting session in March.

So, okay.

Um, a little bit of housekeeping here.

Uh, here's today's agenda.

So I've I've shared a little bit about the priority and setting process, I'll share a little bit more.

We'll talk about other ways you can provide feedback, and we would hope you'd be ambassadors to your neighbors and friends to make sure they know how they can also participate if they're not here tonight.

Uh we'll just introduce our council, talk about some of the goals of this evening.

Uh, we'll very quickly cover some guidelines for a productive and respectful session and uh and then we'll jump into your comments.

So uh we are we have scheduled two priority setting sessions.

That doesn't mean we can't add more if if need be.

And um, and then, of course, that all culminates in our priority setting session.

So tonight's session is the first of the listening sessions, and then on Sunday, we have a listening session here at 2 p.m.

And that will be provided in Spanish.

Anyone is welcome, and we will provide translation and interpretation into English, but it's an opportunity for our monolingual Spanish speaking community and those that are just more comfortable speaking Spanish to share their thoughts and feelings as well.

And then on Saturday, March 14th, we will hold our priority setting session with the council.

There will be opportunities to provide additional feedback, but that's really the working session where the council really digs in and talks about the issues and um starts planning our priorities for the next uh fiscal year.

Another way that people can provide feedback is through our online uh survey.

If you go to our website at happenbay.gov slash listening sessions, uh you can submit your feedback there, or you can also send an email to communications at happenbay.gov.

And all of those will be collected through Tuesday, March 10th, which just gives us enough time to compile this into the report and ready for our priority setting session.

All right, very quickly.

I want to introduce our city council.

Um to my right is councilmember Robert Brownstone, and then we have Mayor Debbie Reddock, Vice Mayor Deborah Penrose, Councilmember Patrick Johnson, and Councilmember Paul Nagingast.

And I'd encourage you to go to our website.

If you don't know what district you're in, we we have uh district based elections, and so each of these council members represents a district of the city.

And if you go to our website and uh on the main page, there's a a little box that says which district am I in, and you can click on it and put in your address and look at the map, or you can go to the city council web page and you can look at it there.

And uh if you have concerns or ideas you want to share outside of this process, uh these are very engaged council members and they want to hear from you and you can contact them directly.

So our goals for tonight uh we want to hear what matters most to you and our community.

We want to learn about the needs, challenges, and ideas that the city should be thinking about for improvement, whether it's services or programs, or or ways to better serve the community, and we really want to gather your input, which will guide the city council priorities for the fiscal year 2627 budget.

Um some examples, and and by no means is this an exhaustive list, but things that have been prioritized in the past include housing, public safety, transportation and mobility, circulation, and community services.

That might be social services, libraries, recreation services, though types, those types of things but again if you have other things that don't fit into these categories you're welcome to share them and uh we're we're happy to hear anything from you tonight uh as far as guidelines for a productive session uh the most important thing is just be respectful and kind of each other um you know we we might have different opinions and it's okay and it's good to listen to those other opinions please speak from your own experiences not from hearsay or or things that are you know buzzing in the communities talk about what you know and what you've experienced um I have next door to tell me what's buzzing in the community so um and then please if you can keep your comments brief unlike a normal city council meeting there's no speaker cards um and there's no timer but we do want to make sure everybody who wants to speak has the opportunity to speak and that nobody's kind of hoarding the time and so I may cut you off if you're if you're going long but looking at this group I think we'll we'll have a good respectful um evening I would ask when it's your turn to speak or when you want to speak just raise your hand and these uh handsome gentlemen in the back are gonna be running the mics and they'll bring a microphone to you before you make your comment if you wouldn't mind just sharing your name so we can include it in the minutes for this meeting that would be greatly appreciated.

Madam Mayor I don't know if you have anything else you want to add before we get started.

If you feel you haven't had enough time tonight go online and submit your comments or or email one or more of us.

We're really interested in what you have to say.

Hi.

Alright well with that we're gonna open up this listening session.

So anybody that's interested in speaking please raise your hand and we'll we'll send a mic your way I want to talk about housing it's really important to me and the community I hesitate to call it affordable housing because housing is no longer affordable in this area unfortunately.

Okay there's a lot of sentiment that says measure D is outdated.

I disagree I think we should keep it I think it's original purpose of making sure that our infrastructure did not was not overwhelmed with single family housing is a good thing.

If you wanted to change that that's okay but for the most part I don't think we should mess with measure D.

I think it's really important that we encourage as much affordable housing as possible starting with 555 Kelly that is a project that we have advocated for for a long time we need to get our retired and senior farm workers the respect and housing that they need this project has gone on long enough and uh we need to get it done the project uh the affordable housing project on on Metzger I think it's nominally on Main Street but it's uh basically on Metzger that uh that you just approved the um measured the allocations uh for the next two years.

I think that should be encouraged.

That sounds like a something that it's in the right place and it will give uh an opportunity for lower income people to to stay in the city.

Uh so that that's also useful.

Um there was I was personally disappointed that rent stabilization was not approved.

But the one part of that program that really makes sense to keep is to have uh legal aid society still available to people who are being unjustly treated either because of the rents are too high or they're unjustly evicted.

Um that doesn't cost us much and um we we should keep that part uh of the uh uh tenant protections in place um what else uh oh uh there was some talk about how well if we're not gonna have rent control we can at least uh help tenants with uh uh subsidies and uh I guess as a secondary thing it's okay but if you're really serious about that you should give a million dollars to Coast Side Hope.

They're the ones who distribute the money who know when uh people are in need of rental assistance and just uh you know give them the 20 grand or whatever is a drop in the bucket and it's not gonna make much of a difference um yeah I I think those is some of my concerns about housing and I I hope we uh uh take them seriously thank you.

Thank you.

I think um right here in the green sweater.

And again please state your name when you make your comments so we can record that.

I'm Anne Morrie and I'm here to talk about swimming.

Um we had to cancel the swimming program last summer because the district had impossible insurance requirements they've revised the insurance requirements so the swimming lessons are a go.

So that's great news.

The next pro uh focus is to get the pool open for the community.