The Santa Rosa City Council met on October 24, 2023, in a regular session that began with a closed session at 1:32 PM and reconvened in open session at 4:02 PM. The meeting included a proclamation, staff briefing, consent agenda, public comments, a public hearing, and a report item. The council adopted all consent items and introduced an ordinance updating water waste regulations, and accepted the Water Supply Alternatives Plan, all by 5-0 votes (with two members absent). The meeting adjourned at 6:06 PM.
Attendees: Mayor Natalie Rogers, Council Members Eddie Alvarez, Jeff Okrepkie, Chris Rogers, Mark Stapp present; Vice Mayor Dianna MacDonald and Council Member Victoria Fleming absent.
Good afternoon. I'd like to ask the interpreter currently on the Spanish channel to commence translation of the meeting. For those just joining the meeting, live translation in Spanish is available, and members of the public or staff wishing to listen in Spanish can join the Spanish channel by clicking on the interpretation icon in the Zoom toolbar. It looks like a globe. Once you join the Spanish channel, we recommend you shut off the main audio so you only hear the Spanish translation. Pablo, will you please restate this in Spanish? Thank you. Councilmember Stepp. Councilmember Rogers. Councilmember O'Krepke. Councilmember Fleming. Councilmember Alvarez. Present. Vice Mayor McDonald. Mayor Rogers. Present. Let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of Vice Mayor McDonald, Councilmember Fleming, and Councilmember Rogers. Thank you. We will now proceed to item two, which is our announcement of closed session. We have three items 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3. 2.1 is our conference with labor negotiators. 2.2 is our conference with legal counsel for existing litigation. And 2.3 is conference with legal counsel also for existing litigation. Madam City Clerk, can you please facilitate public comment on these items? We are now taking public comment on item two. If you're in the chamber and would like to make a comment, please make your way to the podium. This is a very important thing to have occur to get this at grade crossing finally. We've been waiting for many, many years. And it really is a situation that'll help you on your sustainability goals, getting people to use less car traffic right now because the distance is so long to go around to get to the other side because of the way this is blocked off. People don't walk or ride their bikes, they drive. And as you do your deliberations with them, I would ask you to keep in mind the people at the bottom of the pay grades in the other departments of the city. The people that take care of our parks, the people that are out there on a daily basis making sure that the roads are working okay. Sometimes this is called pothole politics. But this is what we really need to get taken care of around here. We got plenty of management people. So please keep that in mind and help those folks get raises and make the rest of these folks stay right where they're at. They're doing real fine right now. Thank you for your time and we'll see you later today. Thank you. Mayor, I see no additional people approaching the podium for public comment on closed session items. With no additional uh public comment, we will now recess into closed session. Thank you. Councilmember Rogers. Thank you. All right. And welcome back, everyone, to our October twenty-fourth, Santa Rosa City Council meeting. It is now four oh three, and we will begin our meeting seeing a quorum. Madam City Clerk, can you please call the roll? Thank you. Councilmember Stepp.