To commence interpretation of the meeting.

For those just joining the meeting, live interpretation in Spanish is available, and members of the public or staff with 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.

If you are on your cell phone or tablet, locate the three dots, tap them lightly, and put a check mark on your preferred language.

Click done to activate and begin the interpretation.

Once you join the Spanish channel, we recommend you shut off the main audio so you can only hear the Spanish interpretation.

Claudia, will you please restate this in Spanish?

Yes.

Councilmember O'Krupki?

Here.

Councilmember Ben Wells here.

Vice Mayor Alvarez.

Mayor Stepp.

Here.

Let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of Councilmember Fleming.

Thank you.

We have three closed session items to announce.

We have item 3.1, which is a public employee evaluation of performance, and then we have items 3.2 and 3.3, both of which, both of which are conferences with legal counsel regarding existing litigation.

And with that, we will go to public comment.

Thanks for your patience, everyone.

The time is three o'clock, and we will uh reconvene from closed session.

Madam City Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Rogers.

President Council Member O'Krepke?

Councilmember McDonald.

Here.

Councilmember Fleming.

Councilmember Ben Wellows.

Vice Mayor Alvarez.

President.

Mayor Step.

Here.

Let the record show that all council members are present.

Thank you.

We're going to move on to item 4.1, our interviews for housing authority.

We're going to interview applicants for the housing authority to fill one tenant commissioner at large position and one tenant commissioner senior position, each to have a two-year term expiring August 5th, 2027.

And I'm glad to see that we have a number of the applicants here today.

Is Doug here?

Doug is not here.

We will move on then.

Angela Conti?

Angela, wonderful.

If you could make your way to one of the microphones in the front.

We'll ask a few questions.

Thank you very much for applying for for these uh for this position and for taking the time to be here today.

Sure.

We've all received a copy of your application, and we have a few questions we want to we want to throw your way.

How do I see my your skills and experience assisting the residents?

Of the that are affected that are affected by the housing authority.

From that point of view of people with uh lived experience.

Wonderful, thank you.

Question number two.

What interests you about serving on the Housing Authority Commission?

Well, um again, I think because I've I've done it for two years, and I feel like I've just I'm just now getting comfortable and familiar familiar with um the system and getting comfortable with public speaking.

Um the system I I was previously familiar with was quite different than the system that we here have in Santa Rosa.

So uh that was interesting, but also there was the whole training component with the um training on the Brown Act and um equity and also um oh, I'm spacing on the the word for it, but um just learning the whole procedure of things was actually pretty um a great opportunity that I really liked.

And now that I feel like I've done all that I'm familiar with the system, it I'd like to spend another couple of years really kind of utilizing some of those experiences and knowledge that I that I have.

Thank you.

And the third question, can you give us your sense or can you give us a sense of your understanding about what the mission and responsibility of the of the housing authority is?

Well, we um represent HUD locally in Santa Rosa.

For the city, we represent the um primarily voucher holders, and we do have some funding that's available for uh supporting projects and to encourage more affordable housing, but the majority of it is just streamlining the experience of our local housing authority, uh voucher holders, um managing the experience of dealing with the housing authority.

I think that's primarily what we do is to try and uh expedite their experience and um make it as um painless as possible if that's even doable.

Thank you very much for that answer.

Uh I will look to my colleagues to see if they have any questions that they would like to ask.

Uh Ms.

Rogers.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I was just wondering what district is it that you live in?

Um I'm sorry.

What city council district do you live in?

Um I live in um I believe it's yours.

It's West County over College Avenue.

I'm Southwest.

South, okay.

It could be.

Okay, thank you.

What's funny?

I think we all know that um sitting through meetings is is um thankless, although all of us up here enjoy it over everything else we do.

But um, curious to know, that was supposed to be a joke, but that's okay.

I'm curious to know what it is about this work, um, you know, is the thing that has you willing to keep coming back, like what is it, you know, in your heart.

Um as much as I like um well-functioning, organized um public services, that's not really what I do it for.

I um I do it more for the the human connection.

I want to, I've been actively working towards affordable housing here for about um a couple of decades.

Um I was born and raised here, but I left and then I recently returned when I retired.

And so um affordable housing has been one of my interests, and um I see that in order to push the envelope, I guess, on affordable housing, uh, the housing authority is a good place to start.

And so with that, it's about making connections and communicating with people, seeing how the system works, so that I can go out and create what I'm working towards, which is um uh county-based village communities for affordable village communities for seniors primarily, and that's where a lot of my focus and work is.

And um I'm currently writing a book on the subject, but uh I'm also involved in multiple other uh local agencies and organizations, but the core thing that always brings me back is that human connection where we can we can work together to make changes happen in meaningful ways.

Um that's yeah, where the heart is.

There's all the brain stuff, but yeah, if I didn't have this, I wouldn't be doing it.

Thank you.

Great answer.

Any other questions from council?

Alright, Angela, thank you again for all of your all of your service and for applying once again.

We'll move on to the next interview.

Okay.

I just I wanted to thank you guys um very much for letting me do the last couple of years and for inviting me back.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Next is Teresa Daniel here.

Teresa, wonderful.

Come on down.

Hi, everybody.

Hello, and thank you also for your interest in this position.

We'll ask the same three questions.

How do you see your skills and experience assisting the residents of Santa Rosa's housing authority?

Well, I'm a former real estate agent, and also I just ended six years being a real estate agent, and I focused on new home sales, and I know how difficult it is.

And I said absolutely yes.

Thank you.

So what interests you about serving on the housing authority commission?

Well, I'm interested in everybody getting an equal chance, and I'm curious about keeping up on all the laws, both local and national, and also the communication that we have with builders.

They're not always the same as developers, and it's very, very important to have clear communication.

It's a good point.

Question number three.

What do you understand about the mission?

Or let me rephrase that.

Give us a sense of your understanding about the mission and responsibilities of the housing authority.

Well, having passed the real estate exam six years ago was the hardest test I ever took, even though I'm a was a five-point in college, and hardly anything can be sent at me to knock me out.

But all I can say is that this is the place to be, to help in my small way, direct everything to a beautiful conclusion.

Thank you for that.

And now I'll look to my colleagues for any questions that they might have.

Seeing none, Teresa, I'll thank you again for your interest.

And thank you for the for taking the time to be here today.

Thank you all.

I'm very honored to be here.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Thanks, Teresa.

We're gonna move on to Anthony Mazerkowski.

Anthony, come on down.

Thank you for applying and being here today.

Welcome.

Good afternoon.

Alright, Anthony.

You know, you know the sh you know the drill by now.

Here are the here are the three questions.

How do you see your skills and experience assisting the residents of Santa Rosa's housing authority?

Well, I I'm not exactly sure to tell you the truth.

I have several business degrees.

Um I'm a good student.

I'm always willing to learn.

Um, a submarine veteran, a disabled veteran, submarine service.

Um, been in business for a long time up until uh the late nineties.

Um I'm very flexible and uh very adaptable, so I just would like to help, but so other than that, I'm not sure what my life training is staying alive.

That's what it's all about, it looks like now.

Well, that's an important piece.

Uh question number two.

What interests you about serving in a housing authority commission?

Well, mainly, you know, it's getting to crisis stage, it looks like to me.

I walked a dog, the homeless situation, it's it's getting exasperated daily.

Um, I think you're gonna be looking for more than you're gonna be looking to shelter homeless.

Uh I'm sure you are concerned about that now.

I don't know.

Uh again, the city's limited as to funds, so you know, myself, I would have ideas on how to raise some money.

Would be you can't do anything without money nowadays either.

But and it's just gonna get worse.

There's no doubt about that.

Personally, I've been through foreclosure as as a homeowner.

I've been homeless, um, have houses sold out from under me with no notice and how to try to get the the housing voucher, which that's the key part for me, is uh I know without a doubt, if I didn't have that housing voucher, I would most likely be homeless.

I got a sick bird with cancer at home, I have a dog, two other birds, so I would be in the position of many people.

They'd have to give their animals up.

And God knows my bird, they would just euthanize her, and she's not ready for that.

So it's a personal situation.

Um I have feelings for everybody, um, and it's starting to look like a lot of people don't.

I don't know.

I think we're in the right place in California, but it's really getting to be a disaster.

For question number three, you've already touched on this a little bit in your previous answers, but can you give us a sense of your understanding of the mission and responsibility of the housing authority?

Well, I don't know exactly.

I meant to look it up, but I didn't.

I apologize for that, but I would have to assume it's looking for fairness in justice, mainly, you know, as far as the housing situation goes, that people aren't discriminated against the the least.

But again, I I read the paper, the city does everything it can to make uh granny units available, and I would look into more of that.

Again, um I I really, you know, I study up on it.

I got time my age, that's what I'm looking for.

It's to stay stimulated and to help.

Um, again, I served on submarines, I got business degree.

I can do something, and I can research things really well.

But again, it's it's uh I feel for people out there, and again, uh I could go on on and on, but everybody here drives home, and you you'd have to be blind not to see what's going on, and you're in the business of what you do, so you know.

Um, I know I feel it, you know, and it's it's really bad.

So thank you for staying engaged.

I'll look to my colleagues for any questions.

Vice Mayor.

I think good afternoon, brother.

If your life experience, what skill set do you have that you can directly help the housing authority be effective in its mission?

Well, again, I've educated, I've been honored programs in all the colleges I've gone through.

I can take direction.

I don't really know offhand what I could do to help you.

You know what you need help with.

I would be there to do that, and I would go get more education if I needed to do so.

But again, I I I have time and I have, you know, I have a heart, and I would like to try to help somebody.

As you get older and older, you're gonna be knocking on that door, and you want somebody to answer.

So it's not just, you know, personal satisfaction, but it really is.

It's a good feeling to do something for somebody, anybody, you know.

And I don't really know how to help the the the the board right now.

And you said you said a housing vouchers helped you.

Not be homeless.

What other life experience do you carry that could help other individuals off the top of your experience list?

As far as helping people stay in houses.

Yes.

Because you speak you speak from an area of lived experiences where I what I read from you.

So I'm wondering, you know, from that lived experience, what have you experienced that could help others?

Well, just being homeless myself.

You know, there's people, it's it could be disabled.

People don't even look you in the eye.

It's gotten to the point where uh people don't exist.

And uh I hate to say it, it looks like half the country doesn't want them to exist.

And that's why I would like to get involved because everybody deserves to at least exist with respect too, you know.

Um, and it's gotten it's going down the drain, it really is.

Uh it's not to the past point of no return.

There's always hope.

There I believe in a higher power, and I believe, you know, we go through this stuff for a reason.

And if you do the right thing in the right way, it'll all come out right in the end, I do believe.

So there's hope.

Um I I really don't have an answer as to what it is I would hope working with you folks I would find out and try to work towards that goal.

Again I see the need to get money coming in a lot of ideas for that I think the city really doesn't look to enforce a lot of things you have the fairgrounds I that's my business I've had stuff at the state fair and all these concessions forever um you you have a you could make a lot of money with that land um other than that you know I could go on with that stuff uh forever if there's some ideas and I think a lot of them could be valid but I think it's to that point.

You know how much money you got in the coffers not enough I'm sure you know I appreciate you sharing your thoughts with this any other questions?

Anthony thank you very much for being here today and for your interest in in being part of this you're welcome thank you all for your efforts to next we'll call CAD olds is CAD olds in council chambers we'll move down then to Tricia makes Trisha thank you for being here today take your time.

It's kind of a weird setup here to say the least you're not the first to observe that like you're going down into I don't know.

All right Tricia thank you for your application for being here today.

You know the run of show we'll start with the first question.

How do you see your skills and experience assisting the residents of Santa Rosa's housing authority.

Well for my career I was a social worker and work primarily with people with mental disabilities and a lot of times it involved going doing home visits and a home is a very important thing to all of us it doesn't matter where we come from or what our background is and that feeling of having a safe place that you feel that you can be at peace is very important and I think it it makes more sense as I age too because before I got my voucher I was living in a senior high rise and I think that a lot of um people feel that seniors should be like warehoused into places with other seniors instead of living in the rest of the community.

Thank you for that second question what is what interests you about serving on the housing authority commission.

Well like I said it took me a while to get my voucher and I would like to understand the process better because I think I waited six years and it was like I heard from other people that there were also um lotteries and I would like to understand the system a little bit better.

And I also could see that there should be more outreach to people like I walked to the library quite often and I would see this senior woman living on the streets and I tried to befriend her because I I thought that it's just not right for somebody in their 80s to be living on the street and I tried to interest her in going to apply to um there's new senior apartments on Mendocino and as I understand it they're based on ability to pay but she just said no she said that she wasn't one of those people that could abide by a lot of rules but I do think there are a lot of people on the street that need advocates, they need um information and they need somebody to kind of help them along.

That's absolutely true.

Uh, the third question: can you give us a sense of your understanding of the mission and responsibilities of the housing authority.

Well, as I understand it, it's to allow people to live, especially in places like Northern California that are so expensive to live in.

You know, rents, homeownership, all of it is very expensive.

And that it allows people of low income to be able to access to stay in this area.

That's a good summary.

I'll look to my colleagues for questions.

Oh, good.

No questions.

No questions.

Trisha, thank you very much for coming out today.

Thank you for your application.

We'll move next to Linda Martin.

Is Linda here?

How about Rhonda Towner?

Is Rhonda here?

All right.

Let's move down to Christopher Donald.

Christopher, come on down.

Welcome, Christer, Christopher, and thank you for your application.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

All right.

Well, we'll go right into the questions.

Question number one.

How do you see your skills and experience assisting the residents of Santa Rosa's Housing Authority?

Well, I've lived in the city of Santa Rosa for 30 years.

I moved here from Southern California in 1995, and I've seen just the worsening housing situation and homeless situation in the area.

I'm also a client of the Santa Rosa Housing Authority.

I have a housing voucher that has afforded me to continue living here.

Otherwise, I'd be in Texas or Nebraska by now, you know, with the increasing cost of living and rents.

And I feel I have an insider's understanding as a client of the current housing system and how it works.

I've also worked in uh security and in customer service in mental health facilities and in hospitals, and I've worked with a lot of people that are at risk for being homeless or who are homeless right now.

And I feel that there are we have to think outside the box, and there are a lot of creative solutions that would that we could come up with working together, and that wouldn't cost billions of dollars necessarily to provide people shelter.

I think that is the need for the homeless is shelter, not, I mean, it's great that they're building affordable housing developments.

I see more of them being developed, but people need shelter right now and cannot wait to get into shelters or for affordable housing to open up, and I think that is an issue we need to work on.

Thank you for that.

Question number two.

What interests you about serving on the housing authority commission?

Well, I feel with my background and experience and as somebody that has been a client of the housing authority that I can provide some insights based on my own experiences and those of friends and other people that I know in the community, and I'm interested in hearing other uh views from people, maybe from different walks of life, and then coming up with real practical solutions uh to these problems and to develop affordable housing and maybe outside of any government agency because with the current administration and fiscal problems, it's very questionable that there's going to be more support from federal or state levels, and I think we need to come together and think of practical and creative solutions to this issue.

Thank you for that response.

Question number three.

Can you give us a sense of your understanding of the mission and responsibilities of the housing Authority?

Well, the both the city and the Sonoma County Housing Authority exists primarily to administer the federal uh housing programs, HUD and the voucher choice program and then I think there are a few uh project based programs in the area a few of them as well and that is the basic task of the housing authority.

Thank you for that.

Looking to my colleagues for questions.

No questions but thank you for your thoughtful answers.

Thank you for your time and for considering me for this position.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

We will move on to Scott Wimmer.

Is Scott here?

Scott, thank you for joining us.

No problem.

Thank you very much for having me.

All right, the mic is on we'll move into our three questions.

Scott question number one How do you see your skills and experience assisting the residents of Santa Rosa's housing authority?

Throughout my life I've loved to serve uh and help others uh started with Boy Scouts and Military actually did the same thing we went to Panama and basically fixed roads after let's see uh 97 when most of the roads in Panama were wiped out our National Guard unit went down there to fix that uh then when I got out um I did I I've helped since I guess it's 2018 uh helped with the the food drives with Catholic charities and through the VA also worked as an alcohol and drug counselor uh worked with mental health and also uh dual diagnosis which uh pretty sure there's uh a good amount of homeless people who have those services and need more services um also worked as a construction worker and uh plumber and um that taught me a lot about housing rules regulations and such and I'm pretty sure those are most of the skills I think pertaining well that was that was plenty uh the question number two what interests you about serving on the housing authority commission and say it again what interests you about serving on the housing authority commission um well uh I've applied once before um and I think I have enough time and since I'm slowing down in my um uh since I'm 27 not really uh I'm I'm 55 years old and I'm starting to slow down and I am now in the how would you say uh financial ability to put my expect or my experiences other places and volunteering is one of them so I actually help out at the VA handing out food on Thursdays and I have more time so thank you for all that work.

Question number three can you give us a sense of your understanding of the mission and responsibilities of the housing authority so basically is decent and safe housing for families um disabled and um well seniors and to get them housing uh when appropriate and I know it's a difficult job because I've I know you guys have a what is it 41 month the waiting list or something like that it's uh daunting to get it done uh I was lucky uh HUD Vash uh I get it on a ground floor um the the very first group that went through uh was myself and they were asking questions constantly what should we do how should we do this you know and I very many times gave my input and didn't mind at all uh because it was new there was no HUD Vash here um it was uh I don't like the name drop, but Kim was my social worker, and she's awesome, and she's was constantly picking my brain for new and unusual ideas, and it was kind of fun to do it.

So that's also why I I think that uh HUD uh your mission will meet mine.

Thank you for that response.

Looking to counsel for questions.

Ms.

Fleming.

Did you just name drop a social worker?

I think in my 25 years of being a social worker, that is the first time I have ever heard anybody in our profession referred to with that much respect.

She deserves that.

And I just want to say thank you and ask you if there's anything else about her you'd like to tell us.

Is there anything else about her that you'd like to tell us?

You don't have to, I just thought, you know, uh from the very get-go, the transformation of Hyde Bash was from we have no idea what we're doing, which was what any business or anything starting out does, to pretty efficient, I would say.

I don't I I she's awesome.

I'm so glad you had a good experience.

Thanks for sharing that with us.

Mr.

Kripke.

Yeah, just real quick.

You said you were deployed to Panama with an engineering battalion.

Was that the 579th?

No, you guys were there, or wait, were you engineers?

No, I wasn't.

No, they were there.

Uh I was a map maintenance out of Stockton, so with they broke, I fixed.

Which was a lot.

All right.

Appreciate your service.

Thank you.

No problem.

Ms.

Rogers, did I see you have your hand up?

You did not.

Well, Mr.

Wimmer, thank you very much for being present today, and thank you for your application.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

If I understand correctly, Doug Freedman is here now.

Doug, thank you for joining us.

Take take your time and make your way to the front microphone.

Thank you.

Don't worry about that.

We'll we'll fix that later.

Thank you for your for your years of service, and thank you for reapplying.

Thank you.

My apologies for being late and appreciate the opportunity to be here today.

No worries.

Alright, Doug.

The same three questions you've heard from some of the other uh applicants.

Um the first question is how do you see your skills and experience assisting the residents of Santa Rosa's housing authority?

Um well uh I guess my education, I I have a master's in education.

Uh I completed a year of law school and accounting work for uh uh well then it was Deloyton too.

It's now Deloitte.

Um, and uh so I can understand a lot of the uh more technical and administrative kinds of uh challenges uh that the housing authority has and uh experience I've counseled uh long-term homeless people.

I I myself was homeless for a brief time, um, and uh also worked uh as a counselor with uh substance abuse recovery clients, uh people who have um dealt with mental health issues including suicide prevention counseling, um, worked with at le at risk youth as a paralegal and community organizer, and um uh having been homeless and and now living uh uh I feel a pretty good life with the benefit of um a number of the programs that clients would uh would utilize like uh besides section eight um Medicare Medical uh IHSS SNAP and the food bank.

Uh I can relate to a lot of the issues that would come up with um uh people who would qualify for those services and may or may not need help with uh um dealing with the administrative requirements uh uh to to get the services and maintain them.

Um also I had worked in a program um that was in Marin County, the one year since I moved to Santa Rosa uh area in 1983, the one year I lived outside of the county and uh lived in Nobato.

Uh that program was for long-term homeless folks who not only to help them get housing but to uh learn and maintain the skills needed to maintain that housing.

A lot of people who'd lived on the street have very high skills for surviving on the street, but when it comes to uh transportation, making and keeping appointments in a timely way, and uh the uh the paperwork required to uh maintain whatever services they might be uh entitled to even just obtaining free uh or donated furniture from uh charitable organizations, stuff like that.

Um, so we help people make that transition.

Um, and um uh and and yeah, I guess the last couple of years when I've been privileged to be on the board uh and uh learn more of uh what the housing authority has been doing to try to increase the uh supply of housing in this area and we've made some some good strides, but obviously in this era of uh the dismantling of the social safety net um uh having affordable housing is is critical, and trying to uh maintain and increase that's very important.

Thank you for that response.

Question number two.

What interests you about serving in the housing authority commission?

Well, I have an enormous respect for my uh fellow commissioners and for the staff uh of the housing uh authority um uh and I I'd like to can be able to contribute in this way in the future.

Now being retired, I do deal with some uh health issues, but the two main um kind of work issues that I am dealing with that I I really enjoy.

I mean, they're not paid.

Uh besides working with the housing authority uh on the board is is uh uh I volunteer with uh indivisible and uh although I was not in the in the service, I was drafted and served two years as a conscientious subjector.

Um I do stand vigil frequently with other people and indivisible veterans and service workers in veterans' health care.

Uh every week we have uh from 11 to 1 on Fridays.

If anyone's interested, we have a vigil in front of the uh the Vets Clinic in Santa Rosa.

And um, you know, when I when I was in my 20s, there was a saying if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

And I I took that to heart.

And although I I earned my masters over half a century ago, uh I decided that living a life of service with lower uh lower income than I could have uh had otherwise was something that was it's it's been so fulfilling to me that um uh it I can't measure it in terms of dollars, and uh I would love to be able to contribute continue contributing in this way the next couple of years.

Thank you for that response as well.

And the final question give us a sense of your understanding of the mission responsibilities of the housing authority.

Um and this is not in any prioritized order, but um uh basically a lot of it is is uh uh negotiating the administrative minefield uh uh in this era of of the dismantling of a lot of the social safety nets.

And um my understanding is funding is not yet secure for this year from the federal government, and that's where the huge majority of uh housing authorities' uh income comes from to increase the supply of affordable housing to uh um uh help uh people lower income people uh get decent housing uh and and affordable housing, and um uh I'm I'm having a little senior moment uh blank right now, so that's that's what comes to mind from the top.

No problem.

I'll look to my colleagues.

Any follow-up questions?

No, no more questions from council.

Doug, thank you again for your years of work on the housing authority.

Thanks so much.

And thanks for being here today.

Thank you.

We'll do a second check for uh Cade Olds, Linda Martin, or Rhonda Towner.

Are Cade, Linda, or Rhonda here?

If not, we'll conclude the interview portion of this item and we'll go on to public comment.

Are there any members of the public here who would like to make comment on this item?

Seeing none, we will conclude public comment.

And as we are not yet at four o'clock, we've got 18 minutes of break.

So again, thanks to everyone who came to who applied uh for the housing authority positions and who came for the interviews.

We we will reconvene in 18 minutes.

Thank you.

When would the decisions be made?

Thank you for your patience, everyone.

The time is precisely four o'clock, so we will reconvene.

Madam City Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Thank you, Councilmember Rogers.

Is it Council Member O'Kepkey here, Councilmember McDonald?

Hi.

Council Member Fleming.

Councilmember Benwellows here, Vice Mayor Alvarez.

President.

Mayor Stepp.

Here.

Let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of Councilmember Fleming.

Thank you.

We'll move on to item seven point one, our report on our closed session.

Madam City Attorney.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I have no report from closed session.

I will note for the record that council member Fleming uh did participate in the closed session from the very beginning.

Thank you.

Move on to item nine point one, our community empowerment plan update.

Misty Wood, come down and join us.

Anna Orta, who is out of the office at the moment.

At the last council meeting, there was a brief discussion about the graduation from the teen Culinary job training Pilot Program.

I wanted to let you know that graduation video is on the Santa Rosa City YouTube channel.

So that's on YouTube at City of Santa Rosa if you're interested.

Tonight is National Night Out.

This is a nationwide movement to build relationships between law enforcement and the people that they serve.

Our Santa Rosa Police Department and Fire Department are in the Dix Sporting Goods Parking lot.

They will be there very shortly from 5 30 to 7 30 tonight.

That's at 1975 Cleveland Avenue.

This is a free family-friendly event with resource booths, food, games, activities.

Everybody is welcome to attend.

On August 7th, the Santa Rosa Fire Department will be attending the Sonoma County Youth Ecology Corps Opportunity Fair.

That'll be at 227 Capricorn Way from 9 to 10 a.m.

The fair is open to the public and will include mock interviews with local employers and also educational opportunities about local land stewardship.

On August 18th from 4 to 5 30 p.m.

There is a community open house to discuss the Marin Sonoma Coordinated Transit Services Plan proposed services changes.

The open house will be at the downtown library here at 211 East Street in the Forum Room.

And that open house is hosted by Santa Rosa City Bus, Sonoma County Transit, Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit, commonly called the Smart Train, and Golden Gate Transit.

Everybody is encouraged to attend to learn about the program and also provide any feedback they may have.

And finally, we have our City of Santa Rosa's economic development division survey.

They're doing a brief neighborhood survey.

Takes about five minutes to complete, and it's for all seven city council districts, so they can learn more about the business and economic development needs, including arts and cultural opportunities.

So both residents and business owners are encouraged to take that survey.

It is open through August 15th, and anybody interested in taking the survey can go to srcity.org slash district survey.

And that concludes the community empowerment plan update for August.

Oops.

Misty, thank you very much.

All right, bringing back to council for questions.

Anything down at this end?

Anything down at this end?

Uh well, I would ask questions, but I've been I've been informed by multiple uh of my colleagues that we're supposed to hustle out so we can all attend the national night out at Dick Sporting Goods.

Um and again that's 4 30 to 7 30 tonight.

That is correct, yeah.

All right, perfect.

All right, Misty, thank you very much for this report.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

We'll go to public comment on this item.

Any members of the public wish to comment on the community empowerment plan update.

Peter, is that you?

This is uh what regarding what she just spoke of is that correct?

Correct, yes.

And uh so this also included uh the uh law enforcement uh evening out.

And so I will um be glad to address that and uh in support of law enforcement.

Um I always advise people and law enforcement to be involved with the CSPOA, which is the Constitutional Sheriff's Peace Officers Association.

I find that law enforcement is in a lot of trouble these days, which is why the public has uh a strength and an ability and a responsibility to uh step forward and to uh shut down the corruption from the very high end of what's going on.

And where that is is um those that circumvent the U.S.

Constitution.

Dennis Schulke in his book Above the Law uh emphasized and showed us the missing 13th amendment, which clearly states that no one with a title of nobility may hold public office in America.

People think there's Republicans and Democrats in DC.

There are not.

The House and the Senate is dominated by Bar Association lawyers, which is the British Attorney Registry, which confer upon their lying lawyers the title of nobility called Esquire.

Esquires run the show in DC and service to the U.S.

to the bankers that maintain all the wars.

These esquires do not serve the people.

Not you, not me.

They simply dictate terms on behalf of these um uh bankers that maintain all the wars that never seem to stop.

And so it is incumbent upon us, especially the women, to arise free of all compromise and shut down the game because obviously men have no problem with the second class nature of women, even in the states.

And so it is the power that we have is in the US Constitution.

The 40-day strike frees the U.S.

constitution, in which case I am commanding law enforcement to remove every bar lawyer from public office.

They don't belong there.

We have been taken over a long time ago by the shenanigans in games, and we're all suffering for it.

This small percentage of there's 90,000 law enforcement in California, the 320,000 bar lawyers.

Let me ask you how many of them got their hands in your pocket as we speak.

Three dollars a gallon more for gas, taxes upon taxes upon taxes, the DMV with all their millions of rules.

Where does all that money go?

It goes in the pockets of lawyers.

The power we have is the power of the Christos Light, the light of Christ in our hearts to let go, let it flow, and become the show as the most powerful people the world has ever seen.

And I am to all knees are remanding, I am commanding the 40-day strike that begins with this full moon.

It's the rising sun, the full moon.

This is the power of truth and love supported from beyond and above.

It is so, it is done.

Thank you, Peter.

Are there any other members of the public who'd like to speak on this item?

Seeing none, we will close public comment and we'll go on to item 10.

Our city our city manager and city attorney's reports.

Madam City Manager.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of council.

I have no uh updates this evening.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Madam City Attorney.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I have no report either.

All right.

We'll go to public comment on this item.

Any members of the public wish to comment on the city manager or city attorney reports?

Such as they were.

Seeing none, we'll move on to item 11.

Statements of abstention or recusal by council members.

Are there any statements of abstention or recusal tonight?

There are none.

Are there any reports this evening from the Dais?

Miss Benguelos.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just have a really quick report from the uh Sonoma County Homeless Coalition.

Um at the last coalition, uh the uh group received an update from the County of Sonoma Department of Health Services that they plan to release a notice of funding availability in NOFA for measure o funding in the near future in the amount of 10 million to fund homeless services and behavioral health services programs and systems for the current fiscal uh 2025-2026 uh that have experienced funding loss.

That's really good news for us.

Um, and many others as well.

The coalition received a report from the county department of health services on preliminary data from the 2025 point in time.

I know everybody's been talking about the point in time homeless count.

Uh the preliminary data uh registered 1,140 people experiencing homelessness in the city of Santa Rosa.

This represents a 16% decrease from the 2024 count, which was uh 1,365 persons, and a 31% decrease from the 2022 count, which was 1,658 persons.

Uh the full report is anticipated to be released by the county in the near future, and that's my report for now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ms.

Rogers.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I need to uh make a couple of appointments so uh Garmin Pond uh to the Board of Parks and Recs and Jennifer Pickerell to Bikes and Ped, and thank them both for their willingness to serve.

I also have one open appointment that I need to make for arts in public places.

So if anyone is wishing to um serve on that board, please let me know.

I had the opportunity of attending the National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials in BC Leo 2025 summer conference.

Um and we covered subjects such as neighborhood um and built-in environment, economic stability, health care, um, and how it's impacting uh my minority communities and educational access.

Um then yesterday the WAC and TAC met August 4th, and the WAC approved the new Sonoma Water Marin, the new Sonoma Water Marin Water Agreement.

Um the WAC also approved an ad hoc committee to solicit interest for the WAC leadership for 2026, uh 2027.

Um so the ad hoc will take um names of people that would like to serve in the chair and vice chair positions, um, elect them in November, and they will take office in February.

Sonoma Water staff provided an over overview of the new biological opinion that was issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service earlier this year.

The biological opinion is a 10-year framework that outlines various measures that Sonoma Water must implement to protect federally listed endangered fish species and marine mammals in the Russian river watershed.

And lastly, with some good news, due to Sonoma Waters lobbying efforts, and I'm sure many others, Congress has begun to restore federal funding appropriations for the Russian River related activities, including programs specific to the US Army Corps management of Lake Mendocino and Lake Sonoma, the Pacific Coastal Recovery Fund, and continued funding for um forecast informed reservoir operations, which are very important to our area, and Sonoma Water will continue to advocate for these funds at the House and Senate finalizing uh budget appropriations.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Mr.

Okrupe.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I'm gonna make a quick appointment to the Art and Public Places Committee, and I will be appointing Lauren Peters.

Thank you, Ms.

Fleming.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I had the incredible opportunity to visit uh the Geysers operated by Calpine in Lake County last week.

It was a tour that included a bunch of local elected officials and um involved community folks, and we went up there and we got to see this facility.

I mean, it is it it's the largest geothermal production plant in the world.

It's been operating since 1960.

It powers everything we do here at the city of Santa Rosa, I'm pleased to report.

And uh moreover, it's something that's available to anybody in Sonoma County and beyond, frankly.

Uh, if you're interested in purchasing um clean renewable energy, um, you can visit us at Sonoma Clean Power.org.

Thank you.

Excellent update.

And for my update, I will simply note that on August 1st, the Sonoma County Fair opened up yet again.

Uh it's been packed.

Pre-sales, as far as I know, we're a we're ahead of schedule.

Um, and this year, for the first time ever, in a in a striking display of cooperation.

Members of the FAIR board, the board of supervisors, and this council combined to bid on a rabbit at the livestock auction.

So congratulations to Luke Massa of Can of Canfield 4H.

Um, our group purchased your rabbit.

I'm not clear yet of when we will actually get to have this rabbit in council chambers, but that is that is a goal.

Um but again, this this council as well as the board of soups and the fair board are proud to support um all the 4Hers and the and the livestock this auction this year.

And that concludes our mayor and council members' reports.

We can open it up for public comment.

Michael, why don't you kick it off?

Yeah, my name is Michael Hilbert.

I'm speaking to 12.1.8.

You have an appointee to the groundwater sustainability agency who's utterly incompetent and corrupt.

Thank you, Michael.

Are there any other members of the public who who would like to speak?

Peter, go for it.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you, Mayor.

And uh to everybody down there.

Um, blessings for your good intentions and good works.

So I'm looking at this list of the 12 points on the mayor's council.

That's where we're at.

And the first one that came to my mind is 1212, talk about the climate.

I think generally speaking, there's a climate of fear and frustration.

And I shoot down to uh agricultural preservation, and I'm looking at though in Lake County.

There's 400 acres on fire, and with uh they're hardly contained with that.

And I uh I've submitted uh uh dozens of times over the years, the living cactus fence program, which is a wall of water and the most underrated food source on land.

Perhaps it just makes too much sense, but I invite you to consider it more so than ever before.

I know a lady that presses 10,000 pounds every every month in uh Mexico and sells cactus water.

It's the most underrated food source on land and it stops a fire.

So then I come down here to clean power, number 1216, and I'm thinking what we're calling for, what I'm calling for now from myself and all those whose hearts are true is the power of spiritual courage and of critical thinking as uh we deal with the homeless issue.

And I'm reminded that uh Sister Jane Kelly, Sister Jane Kelly had a lot of courage.

She was very much involved in helping children.

She worked with the homeless, and tomorrow in UKIA is a memorial for Sister Jane, who I who I knew, and she was really quite wonderful.

And so on behalf of her and the Times, I'm calling forth all women warriors to arise, arise free of all compromise, and command ye the 40-day shutdown of the financial apparatus that's allowing for all this insanity to happen so that uh we can safeguard the future of the children and the grandchildren.

We are the most powerful people in the most powerful state, and we've been given to think on certain lines, no matter if we're politicians or for workers or for business owners, but all that needs to change into a one direction, which is uh courage, spiritual courage to open up the promised land, which is beneath our feet.

That's why Luther Burbank stopped here and said this is the best place of all the earth to grow veggies and fruits and cactus pizza, do it the right way, we end all disputes.

So the women have every reason to stop coming together and shut down this system.

They also have the children in common, but we also have veterans in common because most of us have veterans in our families, and one man who uh definitely did what he did on behalf of the children, which was to uh try to stop the heroin trade way back as Dr.

Jeffrey McDonald, the Green Beret surgeon, who still after 54 years is still in prison.

And no politician on either side of the fence is doing a darn thing about it, but I tell you the 40-day strike will set him free.

And for us to pretend these things don't occur, is a very fad sad state of affairs on our own hearts.

And the chain by Stevie Nixon fleetload back is to bring the women together.

Thank you.

Thank you, Peter.

Are there any other members of the public that would like to speak on this item?

Seeing none, we will close public comment and we're gonna go on to item 12.2.1, where we will make we will be making appointments to the housing authority.

Uh, for those of you who are with us at three o'clock this afternoon, we interviewed seven candidates, and now we have the uh the responsibility of uh deciding which candidates are uh which of the candidates gets to serve as an at-large representative and which of the candidate candidates gets to serve as a senior representative.

Um and eventually, well, you know what?

Let's start out.

Let's go to public comment to start on this item.

Are there any members of the public here who wish to comment on the board commission and on the housing authority appointments?

Seeing none, we will close a public comment.

I suggest that we bring it back to the board and have a little bit of discussion here.

Um, sorry.

Uh council, rather.

Apologies.

Uh, but have a have a a bit of discussion here uh because we had a we had a number of good candidates.

Uh would anybody like to start out with any thoughts on the at-large representative.

I'm I made notes um on these, if I may, Mayor.

Um I think that um that Scott Withers was uh this a standout with his commitment to um housing for the at-large position and Angela Conti.

Um, you know, I I tend to think that if someone's serving and doing a good job and wants to keep on showing up, that's oftentimes a good way to go.

So I would propose both of those folks.

What percentage of your support for Scott is because you specifically called out social workers.

I mean, listen, we're all biased.

Uh do you want to you want to get into this here?

No, no, it was a rhetorical question.

Okay.

I mean, that notwithstanding, I I thought that he that he that he was a solid candidate.

I thought both Scott and Cr and Christopher presented really well.

I agree.

Oh, I said Scott and Angela.

Um I'm just talking about the at-large representative right now.

All right, um, other other thoughts looking looking to colleagues, Mr.

Mayor.

I'm I'm just gonna um I believe that the clerk has made a recommendation that you all maybe do the senior representative first, because um only certain candidates are qualified for that position, all of the candidates are qualified for the at-large position.

So it may make some sense for you to decide who your senior representative will be first.

Good suggestion.

Let's do it that way.

So reversing reversing the order.

See senior representative.

Thoughts from the council, Mr.

O'Krepke.

Yeah, I will continue the support um that Council Member Fleming put forward for Angela.

Um, I think uh once again, if you've been on a board or a commission and you've spent that time getting to understand um the process, how things go, how to work with staff, that uh having that knowledge base is a key component to continue forward and then to make it more of a more cohesive and effective board going forward, just because you're not have you don't have to bring another person up to speed.

And I I don't see any reason for her work that she's already done to be excluded, so I would support her going forward.

Thank you for that input.

Other thoughts from council.

Ms.

Ben Wellos?

Thank you, Mayor.

I uh too would support Angela uh for the senior position for the same reasons.

Sounds like we're we're coalescing around Angela for the senior for the senior position appointment.

Taking a quick straw poll, is anybody disag does anybody disagree with that?

I see heads nodding.

All right, back to the at-large representative.

Uh, we have one statement in support of Scott Wimmer.

Thoughts on any of the other on actually the one other candidate?

Ms.

Rogers?

Not another candidate, but I like Scott.

Succinctly put, I applaud that.

Mr.

Krepke.

I would support Scott as well.

Um I think one thing that that is key to point out is this is I believe his second time applying for this position.

Um so I think that shows a sense of um dedication as well as an eagerness to serve as he said himself.

You know, he's he did serve in the military.

Uh so a little bit of selflessness and and desire to serve the communities, I think important.

And he knows how to play to the internal politics of that end of the dais that speaks in his favor as well.

Any any other thoughts, uh, Ms.

McDonald?

I'm I'm absolutely fine with the two candidates that we're putting forward or considering putting forward, but I would just like to say this um when we hear people that come and apply for these positions, it always warms my heart to know that there's people in our community that are willing to serve, and a lot of them had lived experience, which I think is also really important when we're working um with the housing authority and working with our uh staff.

And so while the two candidates were putting forward, I'm absolutely fine with, I would say that a lot of them that stood out to me were the ones that maybe didn't have the background of being on the commission, but wanted to serve the community and wanted to help.

And so my hope is that they find another way to either work with the city or work with the nonprofits that work with the community, and I just want to say thank you actually to all of them who applied.

Thank you for doing that.

Yes, we're glad we had so many applicants and so many came uh to interview in person tonight.

Other thoughts on the at large representative, or have we coalesced around around a motion here?

Before we make that specific motion, uh I'm looking to our our city attorney for guidance.

Do we not have to to determine officially by what method we're gonna make this appointment?

Did I understand that correctly?

Um, I I think it probably would be prudent.

This is this rule gives you the option and doesn't default to either one.

So you've adopted uh a rule in your protocols, and for this particular type of selection from the dais, the rule provides that it can be either by elimination or by motion.

So I would suggest that you make a motion.

That said, if you on the right now start making motions to appoint by virtue of making that motion, you've you've selected if you would rather do by elimination.

I would suggest you have a motion that says we're gonna do this by elimination.

Looking for quick head nods, we're okay with motions.

All right.

Thank you for that, um, Madam City Attorney and Miss Ben Wellos.

We're over to you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Okay, I am move to appoint Angela Conte to the uh tenant commissioner senior position and to appoint Scott Weemer to the tenant commissioner at large vacancy.

Second, all right.

We have a motion and then a second by Ms.

Rogers.

Madam City Clerk, whenever you're ready to call the vote.

Thank you.

Councilmember Rogers.

Councilmember O'Krepki?

Councilmember McDonald.

Aye.

Councilmember Fleming?

Yes.

Councilmember Ben Willows?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Alvarez.

Mayor Step.

Aye.

Let the record show this passes unanimously.

Thank you all for that that good discussion.

We'll move on to item 13.1, our approval of minutes.

Are there any edits to the minutes from anyone on council?

Seeing none, we can adopt the minutes as submitted.

We'll move on to item 14.

Consent.

Madam City Clerk.

Thank you, Mayor.

Item 14.1 resolution of the Council of the City of Santa Rosa confirming the amount of an administrative cost recovery lien, confirming and ordering the recovery of administrative costs assessed and imposed by the administrative hearing officer for violations of city code provisions occurring on the property at 715 Placer Court, Santa Rosa, APN 035-440-023, and ordering the administrative cost recovery lien be collected on the tax roll by the Sonoma County tax collector.

Item 13.2 resolution of the Council of the City of Santa Rosa authorizing the Director of Transportation and Public Works to submit transit project applications and related documents under C or SCTCA funding program cycle two and authorizing the chief financial officer to increase appropriations equal to any awarded funding.

Item 14.3 resolution of the Council of the City of Santa Rosa approving the first amendment to professional services agreement number F002912 with Alvarez and Marsal public sector services LLC to amend the scope of services and increase compensation in the amount of 290,000 dollars for a total amount not to exceed 389,500.

Item 14.4 ordinance second reading ordinance of the council of the city of Santa Rosa amending section one-04.020 of the Santa Rosa City Code.

Thank you.

Looking to council to see if there are any questions or concerns with any of the consent items.

Miss Ben Willows.

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

I did have a question about uh I think it's 14.1.

Mr.

Kirk, if you wouldn't mind.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um just um really quickly.

I um read over the staff report a couple of times, and I was just, you know, and then I looked at the picture that was um part of the pack packet here.

Um, and I just I didn't know that, and maybe you could explain it to me a little bit, that if you own a home and you have kind of it looked to me like I didn't drive by there, and I apologize.

I wish I had had time to do that, but it didn't know if you had, you know, a good size driveway and you put your RV there that you can't just keep it there.

It is, I mean, is that what the um uh resident is being uh fined for specifically and um and I think she's got four different vehicles there.

Um, and I and I saw the uh the other picture, I think that's uh one a resident sent where it showed there was a vehicle that was sticking out, and and but that doesn't look like that's at issue here.

Um so maybe you could just explain it a little bit more so I understand what we're fining her for.

Absolutely happy to.

Can you hear me okay?

So there's a number of code sections that apply to this property.

In answer to your question, if you have a uh driveway of sufficient length that you can store an RV or a trailer on it, and it's not in your setback.

So this property, for example, has a 20-foot front yard setback.

Um, you can't store it if it's inoperative or uh not being used.

If it's being used on a current basis, for example, if you own an RV and it's your it's your work drive, that's not a problem.

It's more about the storage in the front yard setback.

Beyond that front yard setback, there's not a violation to park it, but it has to be operative and it can't be lived in.

So with this particular incident, we had the trailer hooked up to electricity and water, and that was evidence to us that it was being lived in.

Um it was also uh partially in the front yard setback.

So, so that was one of the issues.

The other issue with the vehicles is that they were inoperative.

Uh, and an operative vehicle can only be inside an enclosed garage in the city of Santa Rosa.

Uh it's for aesthetics, health and safety, things like that.

Uh, the vehicles blocking the sidewalk, it's also a violation of not only city code, but the California Vehicle Code.

And uh my other question uh was when the hearing came and uh the resident came to the hearing, um, and I can't remember the dates off the top of my head now.

That um, did that person respond as far as they were um as to the uh, you know, I don't know, a reason or how they were gonna pay or if they had trouble paying, you know, what was the issue?

I did not attend that particular hearing.

It was back in March.

Um, and I know that the uh property owner did appear and did speak to the hearing officer, and it was the hearing officers' finding that the cost be confirmed.

So whatever um led him to that, I I think suggest that our code enforcement action was proper.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions from council?

Let's open it up to public comment.

Peter, let's start with you, then Michael, you can go next.

Thank you.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

So, codes, or like statutes, statutes.

They are not law, and if they are confirmed as unconstitutional, they are therefore void.

If someone has a property that they own and they're gonna be charged for every little thing on that property over and over again, where's all that money going?

It's going to Bar Association lawyers once again.

Financial impositions harm and bury the poor first.

The very ones that need our protection more than the others.

Back in 1992 and 2008, we had these so-called users, bankers' planned recession, whereas millions lost their homes.

They lost their life savings, millions, and everybody stood back and watched, hoping that they were not next.

What did Martin Luther King say?

We're all in the same boat now.

You just gonna push out the poor, charge them.

I mean, look what just happened with the homeless in San Francisco.

They won some case, and the lawyers were granted 2.7 million dollars, but two of the hundreds of homeless got 11,000 each, just two of them.

But the bank, but the lawyers split 2.7 million dollars.

This is beyond unacceptable to me, and it should be to you too.

Bankers and lawyers, two groups of people that learned uh uh linguistics of deception.

They need they don't work except with each other to steal from us, and we don't get bothered by it until it causes us financial uh stress, but a lot of us make a lot of money, so we're not too worried about it until it becomes more overbearing.

Well, 320,000 bar lawyers in California is pretty insane.

That's five to every law enforcement officer that actually does a job, and they're the ones that are maligned by the media owned by the bankers.

No one ever complains about the bar lawyers because hey, they're out of sight, they're busy laughing their way to the usurus bankers and uh putting their money aside for this, that, and the other.

We are all better than this, and I will tell you this the 40-day strike will free your city councils and supervisors from the United Nations federal entanglements by bar lawyers, because I gotta believe most of you are well meaning individuals, and I know you're hampered by these things, but the strike will set them free because the real corruption is at the federal and the state level.

Thank you.

Thank you, Peter.

Michael, you're up.

Can we see the picture on the overhead?

Is this activated?

One moment.

Okay, well, anyway, I'm the one who submitted the online uh comment on this item, and I hope you all read it.

Uh this is an abusive fine here.

Michael, just a moment.

That picture is very out of focus.

Is it possible to it's the one that the staff took, so I don't know how to focus it, but thank you.

Thank you.

And and Michael, just one clarification.

Did you do an online comment for this item?

I mean, are we going to double comment situation?

What?

I'm looking at our our uh city manager and city attorney.

We've got so this would be a second comment.

Okay, so Michael, you submitted online, so then you can't do a second comment in person.

Okay, well, just make sure you read over my comment.

We have look at we will look at your comment.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Any other members of the public wish to comment on the consent items?

Seeing none, we will we will close uh public comment on this item and Vice Mayor, over to you.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'd like to move items 14.1 through 14.4 and wave further reading of the text.

We have a motion and a second by Mr.

Krepke.

Madam City Clerk, call the vote whenever you're ready.

Thank you.

Councilmember Rogers?

Yes.

Thank you, Councilmember O'Krepke.

Aye, Councilmember McDonald.

Aye, Council Member Fleming?

Yes.

Councilmember Ben Wellos?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Alvarez.

I.

Mayor Stepp.

Hi.

Let the record show this passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Since the time is not yet five o'clock, we're gonna skip ahead to item 16.1, our first report item of the evening, where I believe it's Rachel.

Uh Rachel Eid is going to be presenting on uh our mascots.

Or the mascots plan update, rather.

All right, good afternoon, Mayor Stapp and members of council.

We're pleased to be back here to report on this item.

I'm Rachel E, Deputy Director of Transit.

And with me here tonight is Matt Wilcox, the city's lead planner on the mascots effort.

As you may recall, we brought a preliminary report on this item back in December when we were in the initial analysis phase.

We've now completed the plan.

It's out for public engagement currently.

So Matt will be providing an overview of the completed transit service plan developed through this very collaborative effort among six transit operators in Marin and Sonoma County, the Transportation Authority of Marin, SCTCA, and MTC.

This plan reflects a really unprecedented level of coordination among all of these entities and can contains elements that are really a dramatic uh remaking of the regional transit network in Marin and Sonoma County.

So definitely something we want to get the public's eyes on and get a lot of comment on.

Matt will also be going over some of the public engagement opportunities coming up and how people can learn more and get involved.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Matt.

Good afternoon, Council Mayor.

As Rachel mentioned, this is the mascots plan, which stands for Marin Sonoma Coordinated Transit Service Plan.

It works if you really think about it.

So as Rachel mentioned, it's a collaborative effort.

Really kind of the gist of the collaboration is to look at the north-south corridor along 101 as if we were one agency, despite the multiple agencies that do serve that corridor.

Just to give you a sense of where we've come and where we are, this process came about in summer 2024 2024, with the use of a consultant and staff, including myself and planning staff from the other agencies.

Moving through understanding what conditions exist now, and then moving now into a review of actual service suggestions and public outreach regarding those suggestions.

And looking forward, the intent is to implement this in early 2026.

If that aligns with the regional service changes that have been established as a region, the Bay Area agencies changed our schedules in August and early August and early January.

So in this case, we're aiming for January 2026.

Just some sense of the existing conditions.

Since the pandemic, travel patterns have changed along the 101 corridor.

Golden Gate was once a you know primary commute option for individuals going into San Francisco.

But since then, with work from home and just other changing factors, it's become apparent that SMART is now the primary mode of public transportation along the 101 corridor, specifically from Sonoma to Marin and beyond.

So the key recommendations to come out of the study, is to streamline overlapping service, and that's kind of a common theme across the Bay Area.

Is looking at where is duplication?

How can we consolidate services?

Improving connections, it's really important that you can have a strong commute corridor, but you need to get people to that commute corridor.

So agencies like ourselves, City Bus, are an integral part of the whole transportation network, not only to provide local trips, but also to provide those first and last mile connections to the major commute corridors.

And then the other part of this is matching service to demand.

So this is kind of one of the harder things, but it's really a good job being off point to create ridership growth is really hone in where the strongest markets are.

And then once those are established, you know, kind of spreading out from there to expand the transit network.

Just a brief summary of the recommendations.

The most substantive changes are happening in Marin, specifically with Golden Gate Transit.

For Sonoma, that means less one on one service.

It's a truncated run of one-on-one service, which smart would then be the de facto option for your north-south travel between the two counties.

As for City Bus specifically and the other local operators, as I mentioned before, local bus connections are going to be imperative for that success.

So us connecting to SMART stations, which we do with a high level of frequency now, but part of what we have in the plans is more direct service to both stations within Santa Rosa.

So transit becomes a more useful option for everyone as they move from their house to the train to their final destination, or vice versa.

So rider benefits of recommendations, obviously, we do this all in the lens of making improvements for the riders.

The intent is to make an easier understand network.

With more routes, you kind of get a spaghetti looking situation, and it's hard to understand at a glance.

But with this, especially with a rail service taking a dominant role, it's a much easier system to understand where you can get to with just a glance at a map.

More frequency, more options, everyone likes a little bit of play in their schedule, and having more frequency allows people to make those choices that better align with what's going on in their lives.

Better regional connections, once again, that helps.

Will help with that, getting people to those regional connections, increase smart service, connecting to the Larksburg Ferry, also then connecting to the golden route, Golden Gate routes that have been truncated that could provide more frequency.

Once again, transfers are going to happen in transit systems, but if we can make them you know easier to understand and more reliable, then it's a benefit overall, even if you do have to switch your mode of transit.

So benefits directly to the transit operators.

The projected increase is eight to 15% of trips provided by the transit operators.

That isn't just one specific operator, that's kind of as a whole.

And as I mentioned before, we're looking at this as one as if we were one agency.

So reinvesting hours into higher demand service or higher demand areas, and you get a you know, bigger bang for your buck essentially with the reinvestment.

Um there's no new capital, we're all established with our fleets that could provide the expansion of hours.

Um then the impact on the riders, obviously, there'll be some re-education that's necessary to make sure that people that maybe took one route that's no longer there, one trip that's no longer there, that other options are still there, and in some cases, those may end up being better options or more desirable options for the rider.

So a timeline looking forward, right now we're in the public outreach phase, as Rachel mentioned, and as was mentioned earlier in the meeting that their uh reach has been done in Marin already.

We have our Sonoma County outreach scheduled for August 18th at the downtown library.

If you can make it, that would be great.

Um, provide feedback.

If you can't make that, it's okay.

There'll be other opportunities.

Um, we also have another event scheduled for Petaluma, and then there's also a survey available for anybody that does not wish to attend the events or is unable to, um but would like to provide feedback, and that can be found at mascotsplan.org.

Um it's a hosted website by Golden Gate Transit.

Um, so that has all the pertinent information about the plan for both Sonoma and Marin counties.

There are two separate surveys.

Um you can do both, but one is Marin specific and one is Sonoma specific.

Um, that way people can really hone in on what they want to provide feedback on.

Um, and just to also point out this is a pilot, so we intend to evaluate after two years, it gives us sufficient time to evaluate if this is successful, are the changes benefiting the communities that they're intended to serve.

A lot of the time we in we can shortchange ourselves on pilots, but I think with this two years is a good amount of time for us to evaluate the effect that it can have on the transit system.

And then finally, just if you have any constituents reach out to you, the website I mentioned, mascotsplan.org, is the best option, and they're on there, and in the agenda packet was uh one-sheet fact sheet that gives a pretty good overview of what we're hoping to achieve with this project.

And with that, I'll open up to any questions the council may have.

Thank you both.

This really is an important uh update to this region.

Looking to council for questions, Mr.

Krupke.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Thank you so much for this presentation.

Um obviously this is uh hugely important for the mobility of the entirety of the county, and um City Bus plays a very important role in that.

Um, and not just the county but the entire North Bay um area and the in the 101 corridor.

Can you speak a little uh as we all know the best things in life aren't free?

So could you speak to a little bit about the funding of this and why it's important to be funded in certain ways?

Yeah, that's a great question because even though this is what we call revenue hour neutral, like the number of service hours stays the same.

We are shifting um a focus within Sonoma County on service on a bus system to a rail system.

There are increased operating costs associated with that.

Um, and so over the past year as well, we've had a group working on the funding, as you know, and um working really collaboratively among the agencies, and we've worked out a funding uh approach for this plan, wherein our our coordinated claim where we divide up our transportation development act funds here in Sonoma County, we'll be shifting to a new formula that will allocate some additional revenues to SMART to support increased frequency and span of service on the rail system.

It will also provide some additional resources for local bus services, and that that is coming out of funding that in the past has gone to Golden Gate Transit.

Golden Gate Transit's been a great partner, and um and there are some benefits to their overall efficiency and and serving their markets better to this plan, so they've been able to absorb that reduction in funding to allow this um plan to be fully funded.

I should also note MTC is providing some really critical startup funding as well because we do want to implement this in the middle of a fiscal year to get it going, and so MTC is providing several hundred thousand dollars to help bridge the gap in the current fiscal year so we can get um once we're done with public outreach.

We've incorporated the public feedback we can really focus on implementing right away.

Excellent.

Miss Ben Wellos.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I'm just uh thank you for the presentation.

Um I'm just sort of wondering um just as someone that from time to time has to use different services.

I'm just wondering how will this affect the Golden Gate transit?

Um go ahead.

Um, you're talking about the riders or the just the agency itself.

Uh well, that agency itself, I guess would be one thing, but also the ability for folks to still use it if they'd rather use that than smart.

Um part of that is I mean, that was kind of one of the cost benefits of it was you know, the the service is similar, um, smart is higher use, and that's we talked about you know, aiming the dollars, um, where the largest demand is.

Um there are some riders that will have some burden put on them because they do not have the service that they may have been using at that point.

Um this isn't all said and done.

That's why we have the public outreach.

Um, and if the this is all based off the preliminary findings of the study, and in if you know the public feedback comes back, there may be a need to reevaluate where those those changes are made.

Um I will say I don't have the exact numbers, but the level of riders that are just franchised from just completely no transit access is extremely minimal in this situation.

Um a lot of it evolves around the later night service that um Golden Gate provides to Sonoma County.

Um, as SMART isn't at that late of a service level yet.

Right.

I think that 12 riders.

I just I'm I apologize for anybody.

I just wanted to add one just one clarification because I'm not sure if it came through in the presentation.

Um the proposal is for the Golden Gate commute services to remain as they are today.

So the one 172, 174, those services would be consolidated into one route to for greater legibility and efficiency, but those those services would still exist from Santa Rosa.

It would be the 101 service that's the sort of all-day bus that people do use as an inner city bus.

So that would be a shift where those folks would have as a primary option SMART.

I do also want to note that that it would actually be a reduced cost.

That's one thing we've looked at throughout this.

We didn't want to take away a bus service and then have people paying more.

We've done the fair analysis, it will actually be less expensive for people to travel on SMART.

So we've looked at those things, and I think it's about 12 riders that that on average use the late night service, and that is obviously, you know, uh an area where there would not be another option, and so it's something we're really looking to get feedback on in the outreach.

Okay, that's good.

I you know, I am concerned about that.

I think for me, first in terms of SMART, because I have a station that's not far from me that's Railroad Square, but I can't use it because it's too far for me to walk and get there in time to get to my work to get the connectivity is not there, you know.

Um, and I see it every day.

I see people get off near, I work in Sonoma State, they get off, they still have to wait for a bus or take an Uber.

You know, the connectivity is not there, and so they end up being late every day.

So I just I'm just wondering, are we really there yet?

I mean, I understand that since the pandemic things have changed, but a lot of folks have been required myself included to go back to the office, and I think that's gonna happen more and more.

Not unfortunately, I haven't seen it be less.

Um so with that reality, I'm just concerned about the connectivity and the cost.

The other thing for a lot of people is the cost of SMART.

It's it's not, you know, the bus is still you know more affordable, you know, in the long term.

So that those are some of the concerns that I have.

Thanks for those comments.

And you know, we'll be coming back to council in the fall with the results of the outreach and um can report back on what we heard from writers about some of those themes.

And and I'll just chime in on the connectivity piece.

I mean, it's very true.

This this network plan really requires the local operators to find ways to step up within our resources to create that connectivity to SMART.

Um sometimes it's the same connection that we currently have to Golden Gate and SMART.

Sometimes it needs to be a little bit different.

Um, and and so that's something that we'll be working on in concert with the regional operators, and I know Sonoma County Transit as well is embarking on an operational analysis looking at that and and how they could reconfigure some of their services as well in concert with City Bus and Petaluma Transit to make those connections stronger.

So when we when we come back um in the fall on this item, we'll we'll definitely be sure to to follow up on those points.

Ms.

McDonald.

Thank you for the presentation.

Along the same lines as Council Member Bonuellos, um, I had a question about the cost of uh bus pass and the cost of versus cost of smart, just so we can get information out.

And it goes along the same lines of people a lot of times they're using it for choice so that they don't have a car or cost of car, but also it's just because it's more affordable.

So is that going to be part of your findings as well?

And it's almost a two-part question.

Is there any type of programs that either we have in the city of Santa Rosa that people can apply for to use either our busing programs or smart?

Yeah, so uh two two answers to that.

So on the mascots plan.org website, there's actually a fair analysis people can go take a look at, and um it's been set up specifically to demonstrate what the what the fair differential would be between using the 101 bus and SMART.

Um, in every case on that analysis, it's neutral or less expensive in this new plan.

Um, and it's it's by different types of trips.

Um, so we feel that actually, because SMART's uh SMART's fairs are quite affordable, um, they've reduced their fares significantly from when they first began operations, and and at this point it is actually not going to be more expensive based on where the fare structures are today for riders to make this switch, which is not necessarily what we would think, right?

So um so that analysis is available on the on the website, and then secondly, we do have several programs, and I think I will just highlight Clipper Start as being one of the best programs MTC has initiated.

It's a region-wide, it provides a 50% discount on transit to qualified low-income individuals, uh low-income adults, and um uh they're the people can find information on the City Bus website about how to apply for that.

And the nice thing about that is once you um are qualified for Clipper Start and you have that clipper card, you get that 50% discount on all the systems.

So I that would be the first thing I would recommend.

And then we do have obviously we've got our Fair Free for Youth program and our SRJC program and some others, but for folks who are really um where the income is really the barrier to transit, that's a great place to start.

Thank you so much.

Ms.

Fleming.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just wanted to, I don't have any questions, but I did want to um just take a moment to thank you for your work on this.

I know that this has not been a fast thing.

This has been something you've been working on for quite a long time and that won't go into effect until next year.

I also wanted to take a moment to thank my colleagues over at the MPC, both staff and other commissioners for supporting this effort for financing it.

Want to thank Golden Gate for coming to the table and being willing to be flexible.

You don't really see this kind of regional coordination.

I want to thank um supervisors, um, Stephanie Moulton Peters and David Rabbit, as well as the staffs of all the agencies, and in particular SMART for being willing to go out on a limb and hire additional employees.

I know that this is a big step for them, especially in the face of uncertain futures.

Um and I also want to thank uh SETCA, my colleagues um and staff as well as Transportation Authority, Marin.

Um again, I cannot stress how rare it is to see a collaboration effort across agencies that that runs this deeply in order to bring um reliable transportation at affordable prices to um our constituents.

And and I think that in this moment in time, you know, you we can speculate as to how we got here, and I think there's a million little reasons and a few really horrible ones.

But I think one of the things that we were called upon to do that we we just have to do in order to turn things around is we have to deliver for people in ways that are predictable, reliable, and affordable.

And and this is here is a concrete example of government coming forward to do just that.

So a sincere thank you.

I applaud that.

And just one uh real world anecdote.

We had our nephew from Santa Clara, our 16-year-old nephew from Santa Clara staying with us for seven weeks.

And every morning at 6 30, he would hop on the number eight, head down to Smart Station, get himself up to aviation where he was doing an internship, and then smart and bus himself back every night.

He thought it was the greatest thing in the world.

He couldn't believe it.

He got to hop on the bus and the train for free, and it got him to his internship every day.

Um, so there are there are lots of happy happy commuters out there.

Um, and on that subject, hypothetically, you mentioned that service to smart stations might be on the increase depending on survey results and finances, etc.

Um take, for example, the number eight line.

What might happen with that in the future in terms of connectivity with downtown the smart station?

Um plans for direct service, but we are looking at ways to.

I mean, a lot of our service doesn't make a through connection east-west.

Um, so we're we're we're looking at ways to make that happen, whether it's either from like a a time transfer or if you're familiar with transit terminology, we interline our service.

So a bus is a two, and then it comes into the transit mall and it's an eight.

Um, so if we can sync up the schedules that you know, if you came in on an eight, it would become a two, and you wouldn't have to get off the bus.

You would just continue on essentially as far as you're concerned and ended up at the smart station.

Even though the number changed on the bus, you're not removing yourself physically from the bus to make that connection.

Um so that's kind of the interim solution if we can make those things happen when we do scheduling.

Um longer term, you know, looking at different ways to serve um the community.

Um we have a hub and spoke style service where things come to the transit mall and then they go out.

Um, but you know, making sure that we're staying with the times and what makes sense from what the service needs to provide to the public, you know, those things could change.

Thank you for that.

You know, you have some happy commuters over in Southeast Santa Rosa.

Looking to counsel for any further questions.

Seeing none, let's open it up to public comment.

Are there any members of the public who would like to comment on this item?

Peter, are you speaking?

Uh so we will come to that in a moment.

Any any public comment on this item?

Seeing none, bringing it back to council uh for any final comments.

Mr.

O'Krupke.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Yeah, um, again, thank you for the presentation.

Um, I want to uh reiterate uh Councilmember Fleming's comments about the um the collaboration that's gone on, and I understand the concerns of some of my colleagues about some routes that may not be as ideal, um, or some routes that may go away that make connectivity harder.

However, um it's not like any of these agencies made decisions for the other agencies.

You know, SETCA wasn't making decisions for Golden Gate, and Golden Gate's not making decisions for City Bus.

And um, this was all done in a in a complete and open uh method of collaboration.

Um, even to the point where you know Golden Gate Transit would admit that some of their buses were were running basically empty, and so maybe that would it would be a good idea to take a look at removing some of those.

Um, so I'm excited for this, I'm excited for the future.

Um, I mean, this this all started simply from like, hey, if I lived in Clover Cloverdale and was going to Dominican University, could I get there in less than three hours, right?

If I had to take public transportation, you mean Sonoma State University.

I'm going for it's multiple counties, so I just want to start with everybody.

Okay, thank you.

Um that's kind of how it started.

Was that that theory, right?

Was like, do I have to sit at multiple bus stations, or you know, how long do I have to wait to get to where I'm going when if I just took a car, it would take 45 minutes or half hour.

Um, and so um again, in the spirit of collaboration, this I think this is uh a pretty exceptional thing to be on the precipice of, and I'm excited to see it.

Um to get its wheels.

Any other comments before Mr.

O'Krepke accepts the report?

All right, Mr.

O'Kreppy, back to you for the official acceptance.

Yeah, uh, no action to take.

We will receive this report and file it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you both.

All right, the time is now five o'clock, almost on the dot, because again, we run a tight ship here in the city of Santa Rosa.

Let's open it up for public comment for items not on the agenda.

Are there any members of the public who would like to speak on items that are not listed on the agenda?

Peter, I see you standing.

It's your time.

Thank you.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

To be as gods, act as gods.

Being spectators is being silly sods.

To be as goddesses, act as goddesses.

They say, God bless America.

Well, we're being blessed by the God agreed, who arrives with corruption, masks, and slow poison vaccines with nanotech dust filled swabs pushed into our children's brains.

Better now, true Americans bless God by freezing governmental subsidies designed to undermine all of us, which is oil, which we pump out of the ground here to sell overseas, coal that we dig out of the ground here that we sell overseas, and the slaughterhouse industry that's filled with vaccines, 241 to be exact out of Fort Dietrich, Maryland, APGMD.

Women warriors, withhold your monies, fulfilling the prophetic 40-day freedom strike, which is the magical mystical walk into liberty, then justice in the gardens of Genesis.

And so I will read Sister Jane Kelly, American Warrior Hero, truly truly in a world where most at best fiddle as Nero.

Sister Jane Kelly certainly came forth as a spark in the dark and knocked it out of the park with power and grace with a smile on her face, kind of like Joan of Arc.

Some might say otherwise, yet Sister Jane took off her disguise, revealing spiritual courage and critical thinking.

My friends, it's showtime, set aside the drugs and drinking.

How best to truly honor the efforts and works of Sister Jane?

I say together we pull the rug out from under all that is insane.

Yes, the war machine continues financially supported by us.

Accept the invitation, all aboard the Freedom Rose bus.

We all have an almighty responsibility, children and animals to protect.

Warriors united to action when such things we witness and detect.

Be ye clear and free of all fear and get ourselves into full gear.

Yeshua came not seeking followers, but rather leaders to inspire time now this nation to take it ever so higher.

I saw Sister Jane Kelly upon Pegasus, leading almighty warriors upon Almighty horses against all opposing forces, along with Joan of Arc in the heavens.

They again created the spark that went from spark to fire to flame.

The 40-day freedom strike overcomes in winning the game.

Those closely listening be filled with cares, so we initiate 10,000 new gardens amid spiritual pardons, strengthening plowshares.

I am Peter, I'm servant to the Holy Spirit and King of Kings commanding.

The drums are drumming, the guitars are strumming, and I am commanding that which you will witness this full moon, and that be the second coming.

It is so it is done.

Aho.

Thank you, Peter.

We'll move on to Robert and then Michael.

Robert Kopak, Santa Rosa District 5.

This is about drugs in the Santa Rosa Police Department.

The police failed to do anything about the drug dealer across the street from me in Santa Rosa for four years.

And then he killed his mother in dramatic fashion and burned the house down, trying to cover it up while on drugs last year at her house in Mendocino County.

This guy has a lifetime history of drugs use and sales.

He also killed a 17-year-old kid in 2005 during a drug deal robbery in Southern California.

My rep last year, Chris Rogers, did nothing to find out about the dereliction of duty by the Santa Rosa Police Department.

Neither the police nor Chief Cregan will do anything about it.

Miss uh Ben Wellos gave me an SRPD complaint form.

I submitted it against the Santa Rosa police and Chief John Cregan about one week ago.

I'm still awaiting the results.

Oddly, the complaint went through John Cregan.

Strange process.

I'm wondering after many emails and a registered letter to the mayor.

Nobody here is checking to find out while why the taxes for funds for the police are being abused.

Since it is obvious they failed miserably after many, many reports by myself and the neighbors.

Four years worth of unanswered reports of drugs and criminal behaviors.

Can you please explain your lack of interest?

Do you work for the people or just do busy work all day long?

This affects all 175,000 people in Santa Rosa who pay the taxes and the wages of the police and the city council and John Cregan.

I requested he be fired.

I'd like a response from somebody, maybe the mayor that I sent the registered letter to, and my representative, who unfortunately inherited this thing by Chris Rogers not doing anything all last year.

Thank you.

Thank you, Robert.

Michael, you're up.

Thank you, Michael Hilbert.

Based on what I just heard, I think that that man would make an excellent city council member.

He's clear thinking.

But anyway, um, I submitted a bunch of pictures, uh, a good half dozen showing some fields of tall, dry grass that are, you know, willfully being ignored.

And so what does proves is that uh San Rosa weed ordnance is being used uh capriciously to rip people off, to take uh close-up photographs of people's property to find them?

Well, the vast majority of tall grass is allowed to just exist and be ignored.

That makes your the finds you approve here illegitimate, is not being applied in any sort of uh sensible fair way.

Take a good look at all those pictures I submitted.

Thank you, Michael.

Are there any other members of the public who'd like to comment on items not listed on the agenda?

Seeing none, we will close this item and we're gonna move on.

We're gonna skip again to item 17.1, our public hearing for the evening.

Our public hearing on a resolution authorizing a grant application for FTA section 5310 funds for purchase of replacement ADA paratransit vehicles.

Do we have Yuri Coslin here?

And Rachel, you're back.

All right, welcome back.

Thank you both.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Council.

Um, tonight uh Rachel and I are here from the transit division and transportation public works uh seeking uh your authorization for filing a grant application for FTA Section 5310 funds for purchase of replacement ADA paratransit vehicles.

Umly the Federal Transit Administration funds uh are used to improve uh mobility for seniors and people with disabilities.

Um Caltrans is the recipient of the 5310 funds and administers the program, and the transit division is seeking approval for uh to submit a grant uh with Caltrans requesting uh seven seven hundred and seven hundred forty-two thousand five hundred dollars to purchase six replacement 88 paratransit vehicles.

Um the 5310 application process requires uh this hearing uh public agencies to certify that there are no other nonprofit agencies ready uh readily able to provide uh the service that um Santa Rosa City Bus is providing uh with Santa Rosa Paratransit.

Uh readily available, it means uh that they're willing, interested, and capable of providing the proposed service at a comparable cost to the identified clientele and the same service area with the same hours of frequency and at the same level of service.

Um currently what we do is we provide uh in Santa Rosa Paratransit provides um within three quarters of a mile of our fixed route service uh using our city owned vehicles, uh, and then we've administer a city uh contract for the contracted operations.

Uh other nonprofits may competitively apply for funds for the 5310 program, even if not replacing, even if not replacing our paratransit vehicles, um, so the recommendation is that the uh the transportation public works department recommends a council hold a public hearing to receive public comments and determine whether any private nonprofit is ready and able to provide paratrans services within the city, and by resolution authorize the city manager or design need to execute and file a grant application with the California Department of Transportation under Federal Transit Act Section 5310 to purchase replacement 88 paratransit cutaway vehicles.

With that, we'll take questions.

Thank you both.

Bringing it back to council for any questions.

Looking to my colleagues.

We're saying no questions, which does not uh belie the the importance of this item.

Thank you very much.

Uh let's uh it's officially open to public hearing.

Are there any members of the public who would like to comment on this item?

Seeing none, we will promptly close the public hearing.

Uh and again, important work being done here.

Thank you for this presentation.

I'm gonna turn it over to uh my colleague, Miss Rogers, for a motion.

Thank you, Mayor.

I would like to adopt the resolution and title resolution of the council of the city of Santa Rosa authorizing a grant application for FTA section 5310 funds for purchase of replacement ADA paratransit vehicles and way further reading of the text.

Second.

We have a motion and a second by Miss McDonald.

Madam City Clerk, whenever you're ready.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Rogers?

Aye.

Council Member O'Krepki.

Aye.

Councilmember McDonald.

Aye.

Councilmember Fleming?

Yes.

Councilmember Ben Wellos?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Alvarez.

Aye.

Mayor Stepp.

Aye.

Let the record show this passes unanimously.

Thank you.

And we're gonna pop back up to item 16.2.

Our report.

Oh, actually, thank you, but thank you very remote.

Thank you very much, Yuri and Rachel.

Um I didn't mean to uh to ignore you there.

Uh back to item 16.2.

It's our report on the diversity of city council boards, commissions, and committees.

Dina, is this one yours?

Madam City Clerk, welcome to that side of the table.

Good evening, Mayor.

Council members, thank you for having me here this evening.

I'm Dina Manis, your city clerk.

Again, as Mayor Stepp said, I'm here to present on the board commissions and committees diversity report, the data from 2024.

Today we're gonna cover the charter requirements for the annual report, the overview of the 2024 report that is attached to the staff report, and then highlight a new data portal that uh the city manager's administrative analysts created for a more dynamic experience in reviewing the data provided and the data gathered.

So section 11 of the city charter requires the annual report on the diversity of council appointments and applications received for boards, commissions, and committees.

Um it does exclude in the charter that it doesn't apply to all of the boards.

We do cover it for all of the boards listed here because we found it important uh data to share with council members.

Uh it excluded the full council appointments, but we felt it really important to include so the council as a whole can hold themselves accountable to the diversity efforts being asked for in the charter.

The charter also requires um the diversity data related to the applicant and appointee ethnicity, gender, and geographics, and then report on the progress and success of increasing the diversity efforts of appointments.

And then over the last few years, council has also given some additional direction in 2022 and 2023 for additional data points to be gathered.

So we are documenting individual appointment data for council members, the full council appointment data and age diversity data.

So we'll get right to it.

In 2024, we had 81 applications total submitted by 52 individuals with 16 appointments made in 2024.

For the gender gender information, women applied in nearly equal measure but received half the appointment rate of men, 19% or three of 16 appointments went to women, underscoring a need to examine selection criteria and recruitment channels for gender equity.

This is a bar chart of the ethnicity data, but I'm gonna skip over to the next slide, which has a table, uh a comparison table that compares the applicant versus the appointee versus the census data.

So despite still being the largest group, Caucasian representation among appointees is 50% and closely aligns with the census data.

Hispanic appointees now exceed their share of the applicant pool, reflecting strong outreach and inclusion efforts, and are emphasized by the high appointment rate of 80%.

However, Hispanic appointees remain under the 36% community representation as indicated in the census data.

Applicants who identify as Asian or Pacific Islanders saw a 50% appointment rate, which may reflect enhanced inclusion efforts in those categories.

On to district or geographic data, this is again another bar chart that we're gonna go over in more detail in the next slide.

In previous years, the geographic data had been recorded using the CAB district boundaries, their CAB boundary maps rather than the districts, as that was how the graphic the geographic data was captured prior to moving to the city council election elected districts.

The decision to transition to district-based reporting will allow more focused and consistent analysis moving forward based on council districts.

With those considerations in mind, it may be important to note that district 7, which falls under the former Southwest CAB boundary, had no new applicants, and only one member appointed who happened to apply in the previous year.

And then in district two, which falls under the former Southeast CAB boundary, district two saw no new appointees.

And historically, these areas have been underrepresented in both total appointments or or and/or appointment rates when compared to other districts in the city.

Here is the table on age diversity.

However, the 18 to 35-year-old bracket saw a strong appointment rate relative to its applicant application, excuse me, application share, suggesting ongoing efforts in youth representation, yet they still underapply.

So as we give thought to the data gathered, reviewing the appointment rate really helps assess how effectively applicants from each group and district are being selected.

It may reveal whether certain demographics are fairly represented and highlights areas where efforts need to address inequities.

A high appointment rate may indicate strong alignment with selection criteria or successful diversity outreach, while a low rate may suggest barriers or mismatches in the selection process.

The city may leverage the recruitment response data to better inform targeted outreach strategies tailored to each group preferred communication to further enhance the diversity efforts of the boards and commissions.

So now that we've touched on that data, let's go into the recruitment efforts that we have been doing at the city clerk's office and that you yourselves have been doing.

So if anybody is interested in listening, if you are interested in serving on a board commission, you can go to srcity.org forward slash boards to apply and learn more.

This past year we started tracking recruitment data in the application portal.

We have been working as time allows on recruitment videos from the communication uh community and engagement team, and the community engagement team has been increasing outreach efforts at community events.

Ana Horta and her community engagement team have been having our uh recruitment flyers at many more events this year, and we look forward to much more partnership for future community events.

Um and upcoming later this week, Anna and her team.

Um, let's see.

Katsali and Emily, pardon me, I lost their names.

Emily and Kat Sally put together a great recruitment video that is targeted to the 18 to 35 year old demographic.

It's going to be dropped on the srcity.org forward slash boards website on our volunteers page.

And then they were going to be making a Facebook and social media post uh version that's a little bit shorter, more abbreviated, to help see how we can move forward with target efforts to space demographics.

Uh the city clerk's office has been upping their game as well.

Um this deputy city clerk has been building our list of uh community partners.

Right now we have about 45 community partners that we reach out to, and I think we're growing to um in the next couple weeks, we'll be growing it to over 50.

If council members have any community partners that they want to know that if whether or not we are contacting them, please reach out.

I have the list of all the different community partners that we are working with and emailing our our flyers to.

Um they also have an option to submit a request to be a part of that distribution online, and if they want to withdraw from that distribution, they can also email us and let us know that they don't want to receive the email.

The report data shows that the best recruitment efforts are made by the City of Santa Rosa City Connections newsletter, referral from a person, which I suspect is much of your efforts for recruiting to fill your vacancies, and then from other efforts across all platforms will continue as we develop more targeted recruitment videos, as I previously mentioned.

Um I'm gonna touch on the current vacancies.

Although both council member Natalie Rogers and Councilmember Jeff O'Krepke made some appointments today.

We still do have some vacancies in art and public places, bicycle and pedestrian advisory board, board of building regulation appeals, board of parks and reconnel board, and the public safety and prevention tax citizens over sight committee.

So I'm gonna leave this up for a minute.

This is a QR code.

I believe I've sent it to all of the council members.

When you're out in the community, you are our best advocates when you're talking to your constituents.

You can download this app to your phone to your pictures, and when you're talking to a really engaged citizen who you think might be of great service to a board or commission, you can show them this and they can take a picture of it and go to the website and apply.

It's just that easy.

Now I'm going to ask Luke Fazer to come down.

He is going to take us through the new portal for diversity data.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Good evening, City Council and uh Madam City Manager.

I am Luke Faser.

I'm the administrative analyst for this city uh manager's office.

I'm gonna walk you through the um the dashboard that was created that highlights some of the data that was created or uh was analyzed for the presentation you just witnessed, I can just stop the speech.

Oops, pretty much.

Apologize, I am techie, but I'm apparently not that tucky.

There we go.

Thank you.

All right, so this dashboard was uh created to kind of um present the the data from the report in a more relational way.

Um I won't go over the data too much.

I'm just gonna show the functionality of it.

Um it's really nice that um all these data points are connected.

So once you're onto this portal, which you can find with the link within the agenda materials, but also at the data portal for the city at insights.srcity.org, you can look through the applicant diversity data right here on page one.

Um so if you want to dive in and see, you know, the female applicants and where they were applying to, it will show you what boards they were applied to, which from which districts, um, their applicant age and um their ethnicity as well.

And you can do that against all the demographics here for applicants.

Um the appointee diversity page also shows the same type of uh functionality.

However, this one also has the added appointee authority.

Um so if we wanted to say take a look at uh Vice Mayor Alvarez's um appointees for 2024, we could see the breakdown of those appointees by district board uh and so forth.

Luke, I want to um just briefly mention that although you don't see it because there was no data reported on this talking point, or what I'm gonna say, um, with under the gender category, there is a category option for third gender or non-binary.

However, all of this data is re um reliant on self-reporting, and that data was not reported.

Correct.

Thank you for bringing that point up.

Yes.

Uh while those options are available, um, if they are not selected, the data will not represent a zero sum.

Um the next page shows the active roster diversity.

Um, this is the active members per board and their makeup.

However, I do say that with a caveat because the active roster is from when the data was pulled from the making of the diversity annual report.

So while it's not um up to date as of today, it is a good snapshot of when the data was pulled back in in May or June, I believe.

Um, and again you can break it down by appointing authority.

So if we wanted to look at city council's um diversity breakup, we can see how it relates across all the sec the data points here.

Um the next one I want to show you is actually the trends um data, which I think that is um shown presented a little bit differently, but it's actually very robust.

I can show you how each member is appointing across the last three years, 2022, 2023, and 2024, um, and also um to which board has they've been applied to as well.

Um so for this one, the bar graph in the middle shows uh just a percentage base instead of raw numbers, and that is to show that the trends across um varying um numbers that may apply or be appointed throughout the the year.

So for example, if we were to look at city council's numbers, we can see there's 27 appointees across the last three years, but if we wanted to see any trends for so for Caucasians, we can see that there is a slight trend there going that we started at 75% of uh were um Caucasian went down to 67%, but now back up to 100%.

Um but this uh this report will show it for all members so that you can make informed decisions and uh about uh appointments and uh continue doing those efforts for diversity.

With that, I'll turn it back over to uh Miss Memis.

Thank you, Luke.

So it is recommended by the city clerk's office that the council by motion accept the 2024 uh annual report of diversity of city council appointees and provide feedback, if any, on future reporting metrics.

Thank you, Dean and Luke.

Let's bring it back to council for any questions.

Yeah, uh maybe I missed it, but um I was just wondering when you talked about council appointments, if you were talking about um individual council appointments or if you were talking about the appointments that we make as a full council.

When you're talking about gender and racial racial um demographics as well as age.

Um within the report there are um there are statistics or data on both full council appointments as well as individual council member appointments and by district.

Okay, and then Luke has created this beautiful portal so you can kind of navigate through what um data points you're most interested in that you can click through to see um all of you can see where you might need to do some more work or where you're doing really good work on creating more diversity and inclusion in our community on our boards and commissions.

Thank you.

Other questions from council, Ms.

McDonald?

Thank you for the report.

My only question to you, because I see that there's a pretty large disparity on some diversity and who's being included on our commissions, and a lot of it is who applies and who wants to come and serve.

But have we done any work to see what the potential barriers are?

Um, just looking at like the population of Santa Rosa isn't reflected on who's serving on our commissions if we were looking at half of our community, if not more as Hispanic.

And so I I just wondered if we'd done any work on that as a city to see is it meeting times, is it locations or what we might need to adjust so that we have a more inclusive um applicant um port, you know, uh pool to look for to look at.

So anecdotally, the city has been looking into it, but the City Clerks Association or the California Municipal Clerks Association and legislators uh up and down California are looking into ways that they can create more diversity on their boards and commissions, and it's all of the points that you just mentioned.

It's access, um, the ability to pay your boards and commission members.

So if they do have to miss work to be a volunteer, um it's it for many people it's inequitable, it's not a reality that they can miss work to be able to be of service to their community in this fashion.

Um other agencies are looking at child care, providing child care for their boards and commissions.

So even if they move their meeting from after traditional work hours, then who's gonna watch the volunteers' kids while they are at a meeting?

Um, if they are single parents or um both house or both parents or both adults or all of the adults in the household um are working and they don't have backups.

So that is something that the municipal clerks association is looking into as well as I believe the city managers association is looking into.

Uh there's active legislation right now that they're evaluating how they can make the Brown Act less restrictive for a peering in person and uh allow some more flexibility on virtual participation for boards and commission members for lesser decision-making bodies or more advisory bodies.

Thank you.

That's really helpful, and I appreciate knowing that there's some things in the work to make sure that we are more inclusive that we can allow people to potentially participate online.

So we did see just anecdotally across during COVID, because people could participate online, we saw a lot and they had less to do because they couldn't go anywhere.

But we did say uh see a higher participation rate in volunteerism during that time.

So I would be interested in supporting that if those items come forward or for tracking that legislation just so we can be more inclusive.

But thank you for the report and thanks for having it online for us to navigate.

I wanted to say thank you in particular for having that that portal.

Uh it fits right in with the city's ongoing commitment to greater transparency.

Um I have not had a chance to go to website and dig around detail.

I've poked around a little bit, and your demonstration was certainly helpful, Luke.

A question.

Are on the portal, is there does it break out clearly applicants versus appointees?

And is it possible to come up with the appointee demographic data relatively easily?

Yeah, thank you for that question, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh yes, uh page one of that report will uh clearly show the applicants for 2024, and page two of the portal will show the appointees for uh for 2024.

All the data right now is just for 2024, except for that one last page that showed the trends.

But yes, it does break it down by applicant and appointees.

Perfect.

Uh, because you had that one there, there was the Starks um uh statistic at the beginning where you broke down um male-female um gender numbers.

If my memory serves from our last report about the demographic breakdowns for the actual um appointees, the breakdown is not quite as stark, correct, between men and women.

That would be uh um the the applicant data might look like that, but in terms of who's actually on our board, there's a bit more balance.

Am I remembering correctly?

Yes, and Luke might be able to pull that up on the portal, but you know what we're reporting on is this the applicant calendar year correct.

It's not the um year over year comparison which you see on the dashboard that Luke created.

Um, and so you can see that as a whole, um, the disparity is smaller between male and female appointees, but in this 2024 period, it's wider.

Understood.

I just didn't want to leave the public with the with the impression that there is this um this chasm between in in terms of the the demographics of our appointees in reality from of concerning people who are actually on the boards.

It's a bit more balanced.

No, to answer that question, uh Mr.

Mayor, uh the um the discrepancy you saw the the uh application rate or the appointment rate for uh the genders for this year was that four to one.

Um, however, you are correct, it is not that uh disparate um all overall.

Um that was just for this year alone.

Perfect.

Thank you.

I just wanted to I just wanted to confirm.

Uh all right with that.

If there are no other questions, we'll open it up for public comment.

Are there any members of the public?

Janice, you beat me to it.

The podium is yours.

Can anybody hear me?

Um, I uh I think that it should be represented by the demographics of the area for sure.

And I think it's uh a nice idea to have 18 to 35 year olds, but I think 18 is a little young, uh, maybe 21.

Um I think they should have some life experience before they go on a board and start making decisions about the future of the city, as well as people who haven't lived here, uh it's been demonstrated that they don't seem to understand how Santa Rosa really works.

Also, I had read a um ordinance at an earlier time, and it was talking about appointees, and it said that they were appointed, and uh at the end it said uh diversity, equity, and inclusion, and uh through to uh perpetuity, and I object to perpetuity.

I think that there should be a term limit, just like anything else.

You people that are not elected uh on boards and commissions.

Uh I think it would be uh acceptable to if they could make it for uh two terms, whether it's two years or four years, uh two terms, and they're rotated out, and then if they want to come back in, they need to wait and then reapply.

And I don't think that uh perpetuity should be uh anything that's considered in our city as a permanent uh rule regulation or law.

And uh I also think that uh people like uh district four that uh appointed uh Terry Sanders to the Planning Commission when he doesn't live in district three, is really obnoxious, and I think that that kind of thing should be prevented.

And I think that the people that are supposed to be representing the district that they're appointed to live in the district they're appointed to.

Now I've read recent ordinances that reflected that, but I think they all should coordinate, and I think the I think there's eleven attorneys working for the city now.

The 11 attorneys should review all the ordinances and get them uh commitally uh resigned to being specific and uh uniform throughout all of the ordinances, and if um people want to be applied uh to a uh commission, they apply and they get the opportunity, like everybody else does.

That's all I'm gonna say.

Thank you.

Thank you, Janice.

Are there any other members of the public who'd like to speak?

Seeing none, we'll close public comment and I'll bring it back to council.

Any final comments, Ms.

Rogers?

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I just wanted to say sometimes it's uh we have the conversation, it's hard to find expertise for some of the boards, so um, if they have turn term limits, it makes it a little bit harder.

And then also, um, through the mayor, all of our board and commissions um through council policy zero six for boards and commissions appointments.

Um, their terms align with your terms, so it's not in perpetuity that people get to serve until reappointed or a new person is um seated, they can serve just so we don't run into quorum issues for the boards and commissions.

And to council member Rogers' point, we do have a number of boards that um are very challenging to seat because of the nature of uh the unique topics they cover, like the art and preservation boards or the construction, the board of building regulation and appeals.

They have specific requirements that they have industry subject matter understanding or uh credentials that back up the decision making process that happens at those boards.

Thank you.

Um in addition, like in my district, um D7, it's really hard to find people to serve on boards.

My district is predominantly um working families, like if it's two-person household, both people are working, and it's just really hard to find people to serve on boards.

But with that being said, I wanted to thank you and your small but mighty team for helping us one to be transparent, accountable in helping with the recruitment efforts and to making sure that the board seats and the commission seats are filled because I don't feel like that work, I won't say it wasn't being done.

It's just the way that you do it is very uh active.

You're very active and uh so I I appreciate that.

Um, and then Luke, thank you very much for for the portal.

Um, it is very easy, it's user-friendly.

Um, and if anyone in the public wants to see it, they can see it, but then it also helps us when we're making decisions um to appoint.

So thank you.

Yeah, and on the portal, I do want to comment that it is static data.

Every year we will add to it, so your comparisons over time will um be increased, but it's not uh it's not a rolling data portal.

Um, and then to the point of all the work that the clerk's office does on boards and commissions recruitments, uh our deputy city clerk Rhonda Bola takes the lead on doing the recruitment efforts and tracking um compliance for all of our boards and commissions.

Um so she does the lion's share of the boards and commissions work.

So I just want to make sure that is acknowledged because it is truly appreciated across the board.

So thank you, Rhonda.

Thank you, Rhonda.

And both Rhonda and Luke worked together on fine-tuning this report.

Um, so they made it better, and then Luke had the big brains behind the data portal with Rhonda's um data gathered, so it was a very collaborative effort and hoping that it's gonna meet the needs of our community and the city council.

Thank you, Miss Ben Willis.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just had a quick question.

Um, first of all, thank you for the report.

It's really really eye-opening.

Um, I just wondered, um, since it's appears to not include district five, and I know this is for 2024, or does it include district five?

And the reason I ask is because I just wondered if the numbers were skewed without district five, even though I know that's 2024.

So it does include district five, but they had probably no appointments during the calendar year of 2024 because they were all seated, so they probably had limited uh applications and limited appointments because most of the seats were filled.

Okay, so then in just the overall, so this is just about appointments, not people who were sitting on these boards.

On the the static report, but then I believe there's a component on the portal that shows the overall seats.

Yes, thank you.

If you're not seeing the district five is representative in the appointment side, this is exactly how Miss Manus said is that there was no uh data to pull from to display.

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, and thank you both again.

I'm gonna turn this over to Miss Fleming to officially accept the report.

Yeah, thank you for doing this.

Um it's something that when I got on the council is a main priority of mine, and um, you know, I think that you know a lot of my success in this effort um has been due to um you know the outsize amount of folks from my district who are interested in serving.

Um so I I acknowledge that it's it's not an even playing field across the city, and that it's something that we all have to really work at.

So I'm grateful to my colleagues who have a harder slog of this for rolling up their sleeves and and taking this on earnestly because I do believe it makes the city better to have um, you know, good age, you know, gender, racial, um, you know, disability uh representation on these boards, but also geographic.

And while um we're happy to have uh our voices heard in district four, I'm in many of the seats that are not assigned to me.

Um, I have a commitment that we should have uh people from districts representing their districts, um, but I I acknowledge that it's not just not as easy to say do as it is to say.

So thank you to you all who try so hard to make that vision a reality.

And with that, I'll thank the office one more time and um the city manager's office for dedicating the resources and the clerk's office um for taking the lead on this.

I really appreciate you all, and I'll move to report uh accept the report as submitted.

Thank you.

And with that, we'll move on to item 18, our written communications, and we are gonna pause on this just for a second uh because we have some substantive ones tonight.

Item 18.1 is a legislative update.

Item 8.2 is notice of a final map for Kawana Village subdivision, and item 18.3 is notice of a final map for um Panstamon Place.

I don't know that I said that right.

Um, I do want to open this up for for public comment.

Are there any members of the public that wish to comment on this item?

This is item uh 18.

It's the written communications, Janice, but we're coming to the non-agenda matters in just a second.

I think you want the next one, Janice.

Um, seeing no members of the public who wish to comment, we will uh uh close public comment for item 18.

We will move to item 19.

Our last public comment on non-agenda matters for the evening.

This is for any members of the public who wish to comment on items not listed on the agenda.

Janice, this is your moment.

Thank you, thank you, Mayor.

Um I'm uh requesting that the uh violation put on my uh put on me by uh Michael McGilroy, who which was the person that I called when the illegal action was taking place of the clear cutting of all the uh trees that were over 75 years old, environmental disaster is what I called it.

Michael McGilroy was the person that answered the phone, and I have spoken to over a dozen people in the city about this violation.

They're claiming that I have a violation on the curb, and it has to do with the fact that the street has imploded where they clear cut and all the trees are gone, and neighbors are suffering as well, and I feel that this is just harassment.

I have uh complained about this on an ongoing basis, and after I uh started to uh request more information, uh this violation was put on my property on the curb, and I'm being told to get an encumbrance permit, but nobody can say anything really further about it.

They tell me to go on the internet.

I've spoken to all the high-ups, I've gone to all the meetings, the uh economic development, the uh housing authority.

I mean, you name it, uh zoning, uh you name it.

I've talked because there's also a waterway.

And the city is continuing with this, and I feel that this is nothing more than harassment.

And this is not really something I created.

I've lived in my house for over 40 years, very peaceably, and I've had a lovely life there.

I adore the neighborhood, and this is really, really lousy, and I'm asking that you just do whatever you do with that because I was also told by the highest up that eventually you're going to fix the street anyway.

But I'm being in this position, and it's not comfortable and it's not okay.

Thank you, Janice.

Are there any other members of the public who wish to speak?

Seeing none, we are officially adjourned.

Thank you, everyone.