Santa Rosa City Council Study Session: 4th Street Pedestrianization, Parking Rates, & Voting Procedures - September 9, 2025

Good afternoon.

I'd like to ask the interpreter currently on the Spanish channel to commence interpretation of the meeting.

For those just joining the meeting, live interpretation in Spanish is available.

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.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Rogers.

Councilmember O'Krepke.

Councilmember McDonald.

Councilmember Fleming.

Councilmember Ben Wellows.

Here.

Vice Mayor Alvarez.

Mayor Stapp.

Here.

Let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of Councilmembers McDonald and Rogers.

Thank you.

We have one closed session item to announce today, item 3.1 conference with legal counsel concerning existing litigation.

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

Seeing none, we will recess in closed session and we expect to be back in 30 minutes.

Welcome back, everyone.

The time is two o'clock on the dot, and we will reconvene.

Madam City Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Rogers.

Councilmember O'Krepke?

Here.

Councilmember McDonald.

Councilmember Fleming?

Councilmember Ben Wellos?

Here.

Vice Mayor Alvarez.

President.

Mayor Stabb.

Here.

Let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of Council Members McDonald and Rogers.

Thank you very much.

And we will move into our study session portion of the evening.

We'll start with item 4.1, our study session for the temporary for the temporary closure of 4th Street.

And I think we have Director Osborne and Deputy Director Adair here to present.

Welcome, gentlemen.

Okay.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the Council.

Gabe Osburn, Director of Planning and Economic Development.

Joining me here today is Scott Adair, our chief economic development officer.

As mentioned in the introduction, the purpose of today's study session is to discuss impacts associated with a temporary closure to portions of Four Street.

So that was moved forward based on that decision.

And as part of that action, there was a bit of some different language that was used.

The more formal request was to discuss the impacts associated with temporarily vacating portions of 4th Street.

So staff has interpreted vacation as closure.

There are really two different legal means there.

Vacation is often a formal abandonment of a right-of-way and a permanent closure, where closure by itself gives some options to operate the street or not, depending on schedules.

So we've made that interpretation.

So that was typically B to D Street with the areas around the square and the side streets open for circulation through Mendocino and Santa Rosa Avenue.

So really the areas of focus that we we looked at as part of this exercise focused on B Street, actually all the way up to E, including that as well, to understand some of the business concerns up in that area.

And also really what we've interpreted as part of this is the benefit of a closure is often reactivation of the space.

Often referred to as pedestrianization, but really can be looked at as reactivation.

It can be a way to support adjacent businesses, it can really just be used as creating a canvas and a creative space where we can support activity and really create a driver where it becomes a destination.

So we use that as part of this process.

A lot of the conversations will be associated with what came out of that.

And really two different interests and themes bubbled up as part of that process.

There are many members of the community that see the concept of pedestrianization as a good thing for the city and really a beneficial value add to a lot of areas because of the flexibility that can provide from an activation.

But in some situations, when you take that concept and put it to an actual street, it can create impacts to the business, either perceived or real.

And in this particular case, many members of the community have expressed an overall desire to see it, but then also many members of the business community in the direct area have expressed concerns associated with parking, really just operational issues, garbage pickup, deliveries, many of those things that would occur by not allowing vehicles to occupy that area.

So that was brought into the decision making process.

So really moving forward with the goals for today.

Obviously, this is an open conversation.

We will talk quite a bit about the feedback that we've received.

Really, what we hope to get is direction from the council moving forward.

So we'll end this presentation with a slide that talks about a few different scenarios on how we can move forward, but that'll help frame how the department treats this topic as of tomorrow and works this into prioritizations and work plans moving forward.

So with that, I will hand the presentation over to Scott Adair.

Thank you, Director Osborn, and good afternoon, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Scott Adair.

I'm the chief economic development officer for the City of Santa Rosa.

Just to provide some context before we move forward.

This session does align with the Economic Development Strategic Plan, which was adopted by this council in April 2024, specifically as that plan emphasizes undertaking efforts to bolster downtown and commercial and retail businesses within our community and to support a thriving economy for Santa Rosans.

I would like to start with a little bit of background for those in the public who may not have the history.

The origin of this discussion traces back to April of 2024 when council requested a future agenda item to consider the impacts of temporarily closing Fourth Street.

Council voted in favor of advancing that discussion, and in response, staff was directed to study the issue and return with further findings.

Since that time, the city's economic development and planning teams have taken extensive steps to engage with stakeholders and to review conversations surrounding what is also known in the industry and a term used by other communities as pedestrianization or street closures, also known as street activation.

And you may hear us use some of those terms interchangeably throughout the discussion.

Staff also studied peer cities, which have piloted it or permanently implemented similar efforts in this regard.

To inform our work, staff examined case studies from a number of cities, including but not limited to Grass Valley, San Jose, San Diego, and cities outside of California, such as Charlottesville, Buffalo, Boulder, Colorado, etc.

Each of these cities had experimented to some degree or another in closing downtown streets to vehicular traffic for the purpose of creating commerce and other activity.

Some efforts from cities that we researched were deemed by those communities to be successes, and others were deemed to be failures.

The examples that we reviewed made it clear to staff that success in those communities depended heavily on program design and execution.

It was found that pedestrian zones thrive when they are thoughtfully programmed, actively managed, and supported by the community and the business sector.

Importantly, in those areas where there were failures, failures tended to occur when closures were implemented without sufficient planning, or when they failed to account for the community, i.e.

resident and business desires and needs.

In short, staff found that through the exploration of other examples in other cities, street closures or pedestrianization efforts are not plug-and-play concepts.

They require careful tailoring to the unique dynamics of the community and the neighborhood as a whole.

Staff from the economic development team and also from planning and our other partner teams conducted door-to-door outreach along Fourth Street, engaged directly with businesses, either in person or by phone or by email, held one-on-one discussions with commercial real estate brokers, other professionals, business support agencies.

Staff also communicated with downtown-centric organizations such as the Downtown Action Organization and the Railroad Square Community Benefit District to capture those perspectives.

Additionally, staff convened several community group meetings.

These meetings were held at the new one-stop shop business lounge at City Hall and conducted both resident and business surveys.

Staff also brought the discussion to other department and division heads to gather their input and brought the discussion to the economic development subcommittee for formal review.

This multipronged approach was used in an attempt to solicit feedback from a diversity of stakeholders.

So the surveys that I just referenced were developed in close collaboration with our partners on the city's communications team and distributed via social media, newsletter, email.

There were QR codes, put on postcards that were handed out.

More than 1,300 individuals, residents, and 30 businesses responded to the surveys over a 30-day period.

The feedback was in many respects very mixed.

The majority of residents and non-businesses who participated in the survey expressed very strong interest and support for walkable downtown spaces and saw pedestrianization as a way to create cultural vibrancy and enhance quality of life.

Our business community, however, were far more cautious and raised several concerns about logistics, customer access, mobility, parking, et cetera.

The split in these responses through the surveys also was reflected in the conversations that staff was having with the broader public at large and with the business community, and seems to indicate that a divide does exist between certain community aspirations for downtown and the operational challenges which are faced by our downtown merchants.

This divide underscores the need for council to weigh these perspectives carefully to ensure that any future steps balance community enthusiasm with the viability of our downtown business ecosystem.

So from these analyses, the outreach that we've performed, the surveys, the peer reviews, staff have seen two very distinct sides of this issue emerge.

On the opportunity side, street closures or pedestrianization, if done correctly, and following other successful models is thought by some to create shared community outdoor gathering spaces to promote recreation, cultural activities, and strengthen community identity.

Creating outdoor walkable areas of commerce does seem to have some measurable impact in stimulating the economy and creating activity for certain specific types of business sectors, especially those in the hospitality, entertainment, food, and beverage sectors, which these sectors also reflect the same sectors where Santa Rosa is currently experiencing a significant leakage in sales and retail activity.

On the challenge side, however, pedestrianization or street closure efforts have a more significant impact on those types of businesses which are not dining food or entertainment related.

And even from some of those businesses which do fall in the hospitality and dining category, businesses expressed our team legitimate concerns over how street closures might impact deliveries, loading zones, patrons with mobility issues, customers, vendors, or suppliers who depend on proximate parking, and other vehicle access.

Some businesses also expressed to our team that the type of activity generated through street closures may not align with their business models, and the type of patrons who frequent some of these activities may not be the same patrons who frequent these long-established businesses in the downtown.

These challenges again highlight that a one-size-fits-all approach likely does not work, and that careful consideration or perhaps a pilot approach, which could be studied and then evaluated might be needed before further implementation of a pedestrianization effort.

The city also has received feedback from other organizations and groups with regards to this topic.

Some late correspondence from businesses, residents, and organizations like Santa Rosa Yimby was received via email or letter and attached to the agenda for today's item.

Previous correspondence from one of our key downtown partners, the Downtown Action Organization, or DAO, was also received and shared previously with the city's economic development subcommittee.

The DAO highlighted the importance of infrastructure improvements, robust programming, and careful traffic circulation planning.

The DAO expressed in their letter that without these, street closures for pedestrianized activation would likely not yield the economic vibrancy that some may be seeking.

The DAO's own perspective reinforces what staff observed in the peer cities that we reviewed, that any type of pedestrianization or street closure effort should be paired with active investment programming and community partnership, and that without these support mechanisms in place, such an effort could risk producing limited results or perhaps unintended negative impacts.

One unexpected and unanticipated outcome that came out of the engagement process was some strong enthusiasm that was expressed by stakeholders for testing closures in areas beyond Fourth Street.

Several participants in the survey and outreach process suggested that other locations might serve as a pilot, including Ross Street, Montgomery Village, or the depot lot at Railroad Square.

These ideas were presented to staff as requests from community members, which included some businesses who were interested in alternate or additional pilot locations.

Now, this feedback was shared with the economic development subcommittee, who did note and observe the distinction between evaluating 4th Street, which was the original council direction, and exploring other sites.

Staff is sharing these unexpected findings with you to give council the full awareness, should it wish to consider targeted pilots outside of or in addition to Fourth Street.

In particular, a pilot closure on Ross Street or at other identified sites could provide a practical low risk opportunity to test pedestrianization and concept and to collect real word, real world data and make adjustments before expanding this program to broader applications.

I would also like to share that another tool available to the community in the pursuit of creating vibrant outdoor spaces is the potential creation of one or multiple entertainment zones.

Senate Bill 969, which was recently passed at the state level, empowers cities to establish districts where open container consumption of alcohol beverages is permitted on public right-of-ways.

It is believed by some that entertainment zones can be successful economic drivers in communities where food, beverage, and performance-based businesses are concentrated.

Entertainment zones could be considered either as a complement to a pedestrianization effort or a standalone activation strategy.

They could provide a mechanism for downtown to feel livelier and appealing without closing streets, and or they could create opportunities for business growth in the food, dining, and hospitality sectors.

The potential use and adoption of entertainment zones requires further review and exploration.

Staff from the economic development planning, public safety, and other city teams have been exploring the entertainment zone process in further detail.

Our team has also been working in close collaboration with the parking division on placemaking initiatives, which are aimed at improving the economic vitality of our downtown as a whole.

Entertainment zones andor opportunities for economic development collaboration with other agencies like parking, police, or others, are topics that once vetted and fully understood and studied will come before council at a future date for additional consideration.

And to move us forward in the discussion concerning some options and to lead the conversation around where we go from here, I would like to turn it over to Director Osburn from the planning economic development department.

Thank you.

Thank you, Scott.

And mayor, I think this slide is helpful to potentially guide the conversation moving forward.

So as we move on to the presentation, we're happy to move back to this as we get in the deliberation process.

But really, what we wanted to do is just present a few options.

But obviously, if staff is to continue with the discussion about 4th Street, what would really be helpful to guide that is to have parameters on the boundary.

So what areas of 4th Street are we specifically looking at?

And also with a closure, there's quite a bit of flexibility on how a closure can occur.

It could occur permanently, it could occur on weekends, it could occur through three months during the summer, it could occur during events, which happens anyway.

So understanding some of those parameters helps us better understand the impacts and better understand whether those impacts can be mitigated.

And the example I can provide, if a closure happens during the day but not at night, or different hours during the day, then parking enforcement can become challenging.

We have to account for how garbage is picked up.

We have to account for really the general trend and what we're seeing is more pickup and delivery services.

So with you know, some of the businesses that focus on that, especially in the food industry, we just need to make sure we have locations for that when we're excluding vehicles from a certain area.

So as we move forward with that, the feedback we would like to receive today is one, is there really a desire for the council to move forward?

And if so, it would be helpful to have parameters.

Ultimately, the closure will come back to council, and staff can then form a more formal recommendation as we work through all the potential options.

Of course, there is always the option of either delaying or abandoning the concept at this point in time.

That particular case, staff stands down on the four street discussion, and it doesn't mean that other pilot programs for other areas will not be entertained and discussed.

I think sometimes, as as you can see in three pursuing pilot programs, closures elsewhere.

Sometimes that organically happens.

There's been conversations over the years about Ross Street with some of the adjacent developments.

The Montgomery Village Ownership Group has approached the city on a few occasions discussing closures.

So those are really very unique to this specific circumstance, and we want to make sure that we can create a platform where the department can take that in and understand how we move that forward because of the benefits the community sees in the pedestrianization.

And this could really be a movement through Four Street as well as looking at a pilot program on Ross or somewhere else.

So that's where it becomes an and.

So understanding Ross Street is really the specific example that Mr.

Adair provided because it did come up out of the community engagement process.

We do have a lot of businesses that are really active in that area and see that as a benefit to their business operations.

So do we want to actually move forward with looking at a pilot program on Raw Street based on that?

But as Mr.

Adair mentioned, that the focus of this conversation is on four street.

So that's really where we want to dig in.

Exploring other alternatives.

We provide an example of an entertainment district.

That is something that the department's moving forward with.

We will move that to the council as a study session, so we're in the very initial stages of that.

Really, what this focuses on, are there other ways to activate the space without physically changing the operations to it?

And an entertainment district is an interesting component because it allows people to move through that space with alcohol from an event to a business that may not see those dollars being spent in that business, can now see that through the entertainment district.

So it creates a different sort of activity in that downtown space that I think really is what the potential that a pedestrianization or a reactivation can create.

It creates outdoor space, vibrancy, and that draws people to that location.

There are a number of other alternatives we can look at as far as events that could do the same thing.

Temporary closures can occur under events.

So concepts where we work with the downtown businesses to see how can you use that outdoor space and how can we present something that would benefit you through that process and do it through a more short-term event as a pilot is an option.

We currently have those tools in the toolbox now.

And it may be a good way to work with the business community to understand what those impacts are, to try certain things before we move to a more formal closure.

And as I mentioned, a combination of all of the above, right?

So really what we're looking at is the areas of focus here and how we would come back with recommendations and form that up to the something that the council can formally decide on.

As far as the formal process that we go through as part of this analysis, obviously, anytime there's a street closure, there's an infrastructure analysis that goes along with that.

We have to ensure fire safety, we have to ensure availability to utilities.

That is an internal discussion between the departments to understand what that would look like.

Obviously, there would be a traffic and parking study.

What we do look at too as part of that is cost revenue analysis.

In many situations, there may be general fund expenditures that are needed to support this program.

So how is that offset by potential revenues that are coming in in different ways?

And then obviously, if a closure is looking at specific times of the day or the week or the month, then it becomes a scheduling analysis to determine how other operations work in relation to the closure.

And for example, how does garbage service work with that to make sure we have availability and how do we make sure all critical elements are functioning and everything is scheduled correctly?

So those would be the more formal next steps, and as I mentioned, we'll take the feedback we received today, move forward, and if that results in direction that would come back to the council, there would be another take at that.

That would be a more formal recommendation we would be forming up at that point where we'd be asking the council to adopt that or not.

And that's the general trend.

So with that, that concludes our presentation.

We're happy to answer any questions and mayor, as I mentioned, more than happy to slide back to the previous slide if that's helpful to move the conversation forward.

Gabe and Scott, thank you for all the work you've done on this.

Uh this has been an an issue that's been percolating in the city for years now, and so it's nice to nice for it to finally come to council in this more formalized way.

Um, and I like the way that you framed it in terms of the in terms of both the options going forward um with the continued emphasis on the underlying goal of activating our downtown space.

Uh, so with that, I'll turn it over to council for questions.

Mr.

O'Kropkey.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um, so the exact uh I have three questions in regards to the interactions you had with the example programs from other cities.

Um did they discuss um the first one I'll just say is they did they discuss um what investment uh the city itself put into these um uh pedestrianizations?

Yes, and the cities that we talked with, most of our peers invested in public infrastructure streetscape, hardscape improvements, benches, trash cans, lighting, and then an allocation of staff time to assist with programming activities on those spaces.

Okay, did they have any comment?

Do you have any conversations about what investments the businesses along those streets invested?

Most of the business investments where there was buy-in and the businesses were proactively part of it uh came in the form of participating in the programming of the spaces so the city could help orchestrate and facilitate, but it was often the businesses who were providing the goods or the services or the entertainment that was actually out on the street.

Okay, and then um, what was their uh implementation process or the best implementation process you found in talking to them?

I think one of the best processes that we were able to evaluate was Grass Valley, and we had a conversation with one of their council members who also was a business owner, and it just entailed a lot of communication with the businesses and having them assist with and be part of the programming and design rather than bringing a programmed design to the businesses for adoption.

Okay, um, when it comes to the outreach, would it be accurate to say that general public non-business owners you interacted with were generally supportive, and that the business owners, especially those along Four Street were mixed with many of the current concerns being logistics?

I would say that's accurate.

Okay.

Um and then my final question is um in looking at other areas, specifically you brought up Raw Street.

If I recall correctly, there's only five four five businesses on Roth Street: a brewery, a massage parlor, a Pilates studio, and a photographer, and an Indian restaurant.

What kind of activation did they discuss for that?

The recommendation for activation of Ross Street came from the three alcohol centric businesses around the corner.

You have flagship tap room, and then you have Cooperage on Ross Street, and then you have barrel proof lounge around the other corner.

And it was actually those three businesses who were fairly enthusiastic about proposing some sort of closure or activation of Ross Street to activate that space with music, events, et cetera.

They also had suggested doing it on off days and non weekend days to offer an alternative to some of the events that are already happening downtown Friday through Sunday.

Okay, I'll save my comments until after public comment.

Thanks.

Thank you, Ms.

Penguellos.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh first of all, thank you so much for the presentation.

It's really um well done.

Um, and I've been waiting for this for uh uh I know others have been waiting longer, but I've been waiting for this actually for a very, very long time.

Um council member O'Crecky actually um touched on an area that I was interested in, that was community engagement.

Um, it looks like you your survey of um 1300 residents, it's a good number.

Uh, and I'm just wondering because I think also in your um presentation on the outreach piece, it talks about different community groups.

And I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about um who responded, if you know any of that, and what community groups you talk with.

I I think what I'm concerned about is I know as was just discussed that uh some of the business owners, the merchants are are a little concerned uh whether or not this will be beneficial for their businesses, but at the same time I'm really um interested in what the community thinks and what the residents want because I think it whatever we do needs to be a combination of both, right?

The if the community wants something like this, um this is something that can bring them to downtown, which is what we want.

So that's why I'm really interested in the community outreach.

The engagement and outreach process for this effort occurred over a period of many months, and it came in a variety of formats and through different venues.

There were meetings that staff attended out in the public.

There were also various meetings that we hosted here at City Hall.

I mentioned a few of those in the presentation, but we did talk with leadership at the local chamber about this concept.

We had conversations with our local small business development center leadership, conversations with our regional tourism partners, internal conversations with department heads.

We had one group that came to the one-stop shop business lounge at City Hall, which represented mothers.

It was um a group of mothers who through an organization, uh a French organization, Alabama Franquette, and in conjunction with the local French school and and the mothers of students there who came and had a discussion in our space about uh outdoor walkable spaces and pedestrianization.

We brought the item to the Railroad Square Association board, had a conversation there.

We had conversation with DAO leadership, and they sent us a letter which we shared with the economic development subcommittee.

It really was a smattering, a diversity of groups that we tried to approach uh and engage with.

Certainly we did not engage with them all.

1300 respondents to a survey does seem um like a good response, but we have a hundred and eighty thousand residents in Santa Rosa.

So I'm sure there's a diversity of opinions out there, but what we can say is from the sampling that we took, uh there really was a sort of division between uh business and non-business sentiment that existed in the community over this conversation.

Thank you.

Um the other thing I think that's a concern I I hear for the businesses, of course, is the logistics.

Um I think that's a big concern, and um so I guess the the question that I have, um, having done events with the city, many of us have, um, who would be I think technically in charge for lack of a better word of those things like making sure there was garbage collection, making sure there was a place for uh truck unloading, all those things that businesses would need to buy into this because I think that's um part of my concern is that if they don't buy into it, even if it brought hordes of people downtown, uh it's not gonna work um if if people are not happy.

So, so yeah.

Yes, thank you, council member.

That's an excellent question.

Um, really, some of that is related to what the closure looks like and how long the closure lasts.

So typically, under event programming, it's really the PED department in coordination with other departments in the city to manage the logistics of the event.

Um, what we saw really with the more longer term closures that occurred through COVID, then you really run into this longer term.

The event is usually two to three days.

So, how do you really manage it as the overall city long term?

And it really becomes a partnership with the various departments, really, between fire and transportation public works to really understand roles and responsibilities.

That would be part of the exercise that we would go through to make sure that the business needs really are met for the core infrastructure.

Um, you know, I think an important point to this is always that if you create the canvas, how are you programming it?

And really how you program it does somewhat affect the impacts to it.

So, as a parallel conversation, is if there's a desire to close the street, understanding how we're going to use it, whether it's going to be live music, whether it's going to be exterior eating facilities, all of that has different operational challenges.

So I think as part of the process, when we do that internal analysis, then it really will daylight the roles and responsibilities, impacts to the department, potential costs.

Um, but really it would be planning and economic development taking the lead on the conversation and then ultimately working collaboratively with other departments to understand roles and responsibilities.

So would you say that um the city would have ownership of the closure?

That is typically how it's occurred, either through an event permit or in COVID for the core pieces.

The city does have to leverage some level of management because it is city property, so it usually does occur under some right, either a permitting or the city accepts the ownership of some of those challenges.

Now, some of it is private on how that handles, so obviously there can be a line of demarcation there, but overall, much of that would be managed because it is public right of way through the city.

Okay, and my last question, thank you for that.

My last question is about uh if we did a pilot program, uh, what do you think that would look like?

Um, or what do you propose it would look like?

So, one of the discussions we had with the pilot program is understanding sort of really a limited time frame, working with the businesses to understand impacts and to understand programming.

Um, the challenge with programming is there are some businesses that really just do not benefit from the programming, either it's real or perceived.

So, if we were to close the street, having a conversation with the businesses to say how would you benefit from that from a programming standpoint is a good starting point.

And at the end of the conversation, the specific business type might not benefit from that.

As Mr.

Dayer mentioned, in most areas where it is really deemed to be successful, it is very heavy with food and beverage because they can use the outdoor space for that purpose.

The entertainment district plays a pretty critical piece into that because it addresses some of the ABC licensing on how alcohol moves in and out.

Um so what we would normally say as a pilot program is a very limited time, it could be through the summer months.

Um we work with the other businesses to see what it really looks like.

You know, there's a lot of off hours.

Many of the sensitivities that we heard are around eight to five, and understanding parking around eight to five, and some of the businesses that don't operate after five, are they okay with closures during that period of time?

We can figure that into the equation.

But what I would normally say is it's working with the business community to understand a limited amount of time to understand what it would look like if you programmed it, and to better understand does it act as the destination?

Is it drawing people into the downtown?

Because I think that's a really critical piece.

With the absence of the programming under a short window, it might not provide the benefit that it would long term.

So it really needs a better understanding of the staffing resources and the financial resources that would go into programming it to make it successful.

So we'd have to make sure the pilot window uncovers enough information for us to bring back something to council where they can make an informed decision on that.

But I think there would be a lot of work with the business communities, and many of the individuals that have expressed concern about it, is there an impact that we can mitigate in that through a pilot program?

And that's what we would want to understand.

Okay, thank you so much.

You noted during the during your presentation that we already do close uh four street on on any number of occasions now for special of events.

We just did a few weeks ago for the for the Santa Rosa Marathon.

Do we have any data with respect to increased foot traffic to our downtown um commercial establishments to money spent um and any kind of numbers that come out that come out of the times that we're currently closing Four Street?

With the acquisition of a new mobile analytics platform, which staff was able to procure this year.

We are starting to pull data on the impacts of events in the downtown.

We can pull that data on a per address or per business location.

We can also create a polygon or an area if you will, and pull the analytics for that particular area for any given day or time.

This is something still preliminary.

We're beginning to explore it, but initial uh look at those metrics is telling us what we suspected that events seems to be drive driving traffic more toward establishments, which are uh either of the hospitality, dining, food, beverage, or entertainment sectors.

Uh it's also important to note too that many events actually do occur in the evenings or on weekends.

And businesses which do not fall into those categories typically don't have hours that extend well into the evening or sometimes on a weekend, like perhaps a Sunday.

So it's difficult because those businesses are actually closed to understand and gauge whether or not those weekend or evening events are having a positive impact on that business immediately.

Perhaps in general, as it's creating more vibrancy in the area, there could be an uptick in sales, but that's something that we would need to review further in collaboration with those businesses who are in the impacted areas.

Thank you for that.

And with respect to Montgomery Village in WS development, my understanding is that they do have an active interest in um running some kind of pilot along some of the streets in that in that area, including uh is it Midway and McGowan?

Could you say a little bit more about that?

Yes.

So there have been discussions with the new ownership group.

Those discussions started when that ownership group took over Montgomery Village.

Um, and they have been associated with those streets.

Um they've ranged from really more of a seasonal closure and a programming to more of a discussion about a permanent as any commercial operation, it balances out the need for parking with that.

So obviously the more short term doesn't necessarily impact the long-term parking where you do it more long-term and understanding how you're pushing vehicles around.

Montgomery village has really evolved the space, and I think in many situations, as the business owner or the property owner moves forward in these directions, and more tenants come in, a lot of times as a tenants control that narrative to some extent because of the perceived impacts that tenants may see with the lack of parking.

Um, so a lot of times that that does control it.

Um, it never moved beyond the conceptual.

Um we were as staff willing to support that with Montgomery Village if they wanted to advance that and to work with the internal teams to make that work.

Um, but actually, I believe even those conversations happen prior to the ownership group because the streets really create this logical situation where you can close it block to block, still create circulation around the area, um, and allow really to more function from a programming standpoint in the center.

Thank you for that.

Uh, any other questions, Mr.

Krebke?

Thanks.

Um, to follow up on the mayor's previous question about um uh uh the analytics of sales and um you mentioned that there were businesses that were closed on Sundays or businesses that wouldn't be that were not open for let's say the Rose Parade, right?

They did not open early um for that.

Um in any of the discussions you had with uh these other cities, did they discuss or describe any sort of increase of demand for retail space in those areas once the closures happened?

Yes, in conversations with our peers in particular cities where these efforts have been deemed successful, it was described to staff that there was an increase in backfill of vacant spaces and new attention into those areas by other retailers either expanding into the area or looking to open second locations in the area.

Thank you.

Alright, let's open it up to public comment.

I know that we have a few members of the public who wish to speak.

Uh let's start with uh with Cadence, Bernie, and Adrian.

Cadence says you're making your way to the podium.

Uh, thanks to all the members of our of our business community who took the time to come out today.

We're looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Thank you, Mayor Stapp.

Vice Mayor Alvarez.

Uh, my name is Cadence Hinkle Alenson, and I'm here today on behalf of the downtown action organization.

I want to start by start by apologizing because I am going to be a little bit repetitive in um echoing some of the things that were shared by staff, but I want to thank staff for all of their work on this issue.

The DAO wants to be an active partner in all potential programming and concept exploration related to downtown.

We really appreciate the city's willingness to focus on spurring investment and activity in the area, as well as staff's inclusion of the DAO's position in their presentation today.

To recap, the DAO believes there are four key points that need to be addressed for a successful pedestrianization effort.

First, ensuring the majority of businesses within the closure area support the concept and are prepared to activate as part of it.

Second, infrastructure improvements must be made to create and maintain a friendly, vibrant and safe space.

That means new pedestrian lighting, enhanced landscaping, improved trash collection, removal of parking infrastructure, and installation of safety infrastructure.

Third, the city needs to invest in enhanced programming for any potential closure area.

And finally, the impacts of potential traffic circulation changes need to be fully understood and explained to the community.

The DAO believes all of these elements are crucial to seeing a pedestrianization plan succeed and bring the desired positive benefits to Santa Rosa.

We look forward to remaining a partner in the discussion as further exploration occurs and appreciate the time and effort that have gone into this so far.

Thank you.

Thanks to Cadence and the DAO.

Bernie, you're up, and then Adrian.

Good afternoon.

In the 45 years I've been at California luggage on Fourth Street, I've seen the street close and I've seen it open.

And when there's special events that are well programmed and marketed, it works great and it brings a lot of people down.

There's been other times when there's been events that have been poorly marketed, and it's a ghost town.

And it's a creepy feeling in the daytime not to really see anybody.

Most of the people that come downtown, over 80%, come by car.

And one of the things that I'm concerned about is that we're not Grass Valley, which has a population of 14,000.

We're the biggest city on the coast between San Francisco and Portland.

And as such, we have been and still are a regional destination for commerce, for services, for culture.

I have people coming from Mendocino, Humboldt, Lake County, and they come down once in a while.

And if they come across orange barricades, they're not going to be able to locate much less access businesses that they haven't been to frequently.

And so I don't want to lose track of the fact that we're not a small town.

We are a regional destination.

I also have a concern about what happens at night when we are a barricaded, isolated downtown, and there's no passive surveillance of cars that are driving through.

I see that we would be vulnerable to an uptick uptick in particularly property crime.

And I'm wondering if there's been any discussion with the police department on how they would patrol if they would patrol a darkened downtown center.

The activity that the cars bring, they're the ones that are putting the pedestrians on the street right now.

There's no reason to think that taking the cars off of 4th Street is gonna spontaneously generate foot traffic.

And in fact, the Wednesday market this year initially closed the 600 block of 4 Street and put vendors on that carless street, and by the end of the run, they had to open it up again because the vendors couldn't make any money.

There's going to be a sacrifice to our seniors to people with mobility issues in our community, as well as inconvenience and disincentive to visit Santa Rosa from people out of our community.

And so, while I believe in street closures, I'm hoping that you guys won't close 4 Street.

Thank you.

Thank you, Bernie.

Adrian.

Good afternoon, members of the council.

Uh Adrian Covert with Santa Rosa Yemby.

I want to thank staff for putting together a great and comprehensive presentation about some of the options facing the city.

Let me start if I can by being a bit pedantic.

We talked a lot about today about taking a right-of-way and reactivating it.

And I think when you take a right of way and you're reactivating, you're bringing more people through more various means of getting there, that's not closing.

That's reopening it.

So it's when we're talking about these things with the public, I think it can be really confusing if you're saying at the one hand, we're reactivating the space that we're closing.

So I would say that and encourage uh folks to talk about what this really is.

It's closing it to street traffic and it's opening it to pedestrian traffic.

So reactivization is I think a better way of talking about this.

Um opening streets for pedestrian uses is become quite common throughout the United States in California.

Staff mentioned a few of the cities that have done it and that have done it successfully.

No doubt a lot of Santa Rosa residents have come into contact with these, which is why they're so uh supportive when polled and asked about it through the city survey of 1,300 residents or through Santa Rosa's Yimbees survey, which we conducted throughout uh uh Wednesday night markets throughout the summer, and we got over 300 signatures of Santa Rosa residents in support of making it permanent of doing it and doing it right.

The business concerns are really important because if you're gonna do it, it's gotta work.

Uh which is why Santa Rosa Yimby, we launched a survey of storefronts affected in the towns of uh Grass Valley and in San Jose, a much larger city that pedestrianized one of its streets uh to figure out what had happened.

And we heard from them that there were a lot of initial concerns about parking and crime and public safety, and yet uh 70% of respondents representing almost half, 48% of all of the affected businesses who responded to the survey, 70% said this was this is increased their bus foot traffic and increased uh uh resulted in increased business and sales and receipts for their businesses.

So this is a good thing, despite some initial concerns.

Uh our also uh our survey also showed that and reinforced staff's message that uh the importance of infrastructure and programming, uh put most simply the more complete a street is transformed from car use to pedestrian use, the more likely it is to succeed.

And this presents some challenges with the idea of doing a pilot and a pilot program, um, because in this instance, half a loaf may be worse than no loaf at all.

Um as for other streets, I think Ross Street both and let's do Ross Street, sure, but Ross Street's only 25% storefronts, the rest of it's parking and office space.

So respectfully encourage the city to be bold, go for the full loaf and continue planning for pedestrianizing our Marquee Street on fourth.

Thank you.

Thank you, Adrian and Santa Rosa Yimby.

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

Seeing none, we will close public comment and bring it back to council for uh final thoughts and direction to staff.

Mr.

Krepke.

I'll lead off with one more question.

Um Director Osburn, roughly, how many units have been permitted in the last two years or completed and permitted in the last two years in the downtown station area?

Roughly, uh, because I don't have that number off the top of my head.

Um 500.

All right.

So we have 500 new units that have been either completed or in the process.

Building permit process or completed.

Um if we look at entitled units, it gets a little higher than that.

Um, but I think that's a good estimate of the number of units that are potentially being delivered in the downtown core.

Okay.

Um, so I think for me, um, let's start with with non-Fourth Street.

Um, Raw Street, if I mean I I'd be open to entertaining that if they want to do it on off days, um, you know, temporarily closing that in conjunction with the entertainment zones, I'd be willing to entertain that.

Um Montgomery Village.

I mean, if we have business owners and we have and we have property owners that are wanting to do this, I don't see why we wouldn't want to study that and see how that works.

Um when you specifically look at Midway and McGowan, I wouldn't really call those areas streets in the traditional sense.

They're more like parking through ways.

Um I grew up in Bennett Valley and our mayor lives there, and I don't know anybody that uses those as a regularly traversed route to get anywhere.

Right now, please um I'm trying to get to the point that I don't think they would be sorely missed for our traffic uh population.

Now, when it comes to 4th Street, um since this is a uh proposal, um since some of these proposals would be analysis and studies, right?

And you'd have to come back to actually implement.

Um I think for me the two options would be um to look at either permanent or a summer closure.

I think doing it for like a month wouldn't really give us the the data that we would need to make a decision.

Um, you know, I am a concern about the logistics, restaurants getting their food, um, you know, whatever deliveries may also need to occur.

Um however, I also want to be very clear that our investment as a city needs to be um not necessarily significant in dollars, but significant in um uh pointed uh and and thoughtful um implementation, um whether that be time periods, whether that be um hardscaping, uh programming, whatever it might be, we can't just throw up ballards and call it a day, um, because then we're just setting it up to fail ourselves, right?

And um I point to the DAO's comments about what they would like to see the city do.

Um and I what you have studied has worked in other areas.

Um so I I would like to follow examples that have worked.

I would like to um do these analyses and studies.

I don't think it's worth throwing this out right now if we haven't even uh over a conversation and um what we'll call um anecdotal thoughts and ideas other than you know the the large amount of survey.

Um I think we should actually need to do the do the the hard work and the analysis to figure out what it really means to do something like this.

Thank you, Miss Penwellis.

Thank you.

Um well, first I I um want to start out by just saying I really like the concept of however it's referred to, pedestrianization.

Um uh and uh I think it's I think for downtown and I've lived here a long time too, really, very long, and I've seen, you know, also the streets closed, the streets open.

I've seen all of that.

Um but I'd like to see our city try something different.

Um, and so with that in mind, um I I do agree with the um DAO's um four points.

I think they're that they are areas that we have to address before we do anything, um, but also um as council member Kreki is saying uh to continue maybe doing an analysis that we need to do the infrastructure analysis that you know, all of that.

I think I would like to see it um happen.

I am also very concerned about logistics, um, and also um merchant buy-in.

I I would love to uh more of the um owners be in favor of this, and uh and I I know it's it's um for some folks it's gonna be a little bit of a risk, and I understand that.

Um, and uh so that's why I think it is important.

I agree um that we do as thorough a study as we can on all these other issues, but I would like to see us um move forward, and I'm mostly focus on fourth street.

I um, you know, have you know Ross Street would be fine as well.

Uh Montgomery Village is an interesting one.

Um I hadn't thought about that, and um uh and I agree that most of those streets are not are really for parking as well um so I think um we could certainly look at other th other streets um maybe if this doesn't uh pencil out as they say but I really would like to see us continue to um study the concept of uh doing it at Fourth Street because I think that would be um something exciting for downtown which is what I think we need you know people are always saying to us how are you going to what are you gonna do to improve downtown and I know they say it to you as well but they say it to us all the time and um you know here's here's something here's a concept that I think would be new and exciting and it you know it could be a great thing for our businesses um but I know it's needs further study so that's kind of where I land thank you Miss Fleming.

Thank you.

You know the way that I look at this as kind of a holistic approach and I'll start with talking about um I'll say with Raw Street I'm agnostic with Montgomery Village I think it's a a really good idea and why I think it's a good idea with Montgomery village is that you have a unifying force with the property owner and the tenants saying that this works and I think that because those things are in place is not just a matter of public opinion but it leads to a good planning decision when everyone's rowing in the same direction and with the downtown we struggle with that because we have you know the city that owns the public infrastructure and then the the business owners who own their individual businesses and then the property owners who own the business the infrastructure in which those businesses are housed and then the public who has obviously a lot of sentiment about that and our I will just say that our public is pretty unified in wanting um a pedestrianization from what I have heard from folks although you you never quite get to hearing from everyone but the the challenge with that is is that I think that Mr.

Schwartz makes a really good point that this is a regional landing place for people from all over the North State and beyond and that um while I'm personally in favor of fully pedestrianizing this um you know full stop I am fully in favor of it I want it to be planful and I don't think that we should sort of take a half baked approach to it I think we ought to wait um for the EIFD to come online and we ought to use those funds to program for our infrastructure needs and we ought to bring folks um from our business community along with that process and one of the things that's sadly going to continue to happen and and this is not a hope that I have I think this is just reality is that um as folks continue to go online as AI continues to infiltrate against my my best um wishes are you know every facet of what we do there will be less retail and there will be more restaurants and dining and it's it saddens me greatly I think the erosion of the public commons is a tragedy and something we ought to fight at every turn but I believe in five to ten fifteen years' time that the tension between retail and food and beverage uses in the downtown is going to shift and there will be a tipping point at which the downtown business community can come to us in a more cohesive manner.

So I think that all of that stuff leads me to think that now is not the moment to implement but now is the moment to plan so that when we arrive at that point we're ready to implement in a way that we have funding from EIFD we have the buy-in from our business community and the residents need to we have to communicate with folks about our vision and not just agree with them that the downtown is a difficult place but help people to understand that the downtown is a regional hub that we have challenges that have to do with the multiple stakeholders and that we are going somewhere with this that leads to a resolution that has a downtown vibrant and effective for all involved.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor.

You know, even before being on council.

Visiting Santana Row was something that was inspirational.

And I thought to myself, how can we have this in downtown Santa Rosa?

But the list actually I want to appreciate the the alternative list of Ross Street as well, as well as uh Montgomery Village, because that actually helps me focus even more so.

You know, we are speaking about the livelihood of business owners.

We are speaking about how fragile any any implementation of policy or change that council makes to the health of downtown Santa Rosa.

And for myself, I'm absolutely supportive of Raw Street being uh one of the pilot programs and seeing what works there and what doesn't work there.

Same with Montgomery Village.

And one of the great things of speaking last on this council is all the great points have already been made, so I won't repeat them.

But for myself, you know, whether it's the the luggage or or the jewelry store and how they've seen the the removal of the connection of Santa Rosa Avenue to Mendocino diminish their business.

You know, that's something that we that I have to take into account.

But again, thank you for the alternatives.

I would love for us to run with them and learn from them.

So when we do implement that into our our courthouse square, we come with a program that serves all business owners and all residents of Santa Rosa.

So I I thank you for that list.

Thank you.

And for my part, I'll mostly echo my colleagues.

Um I would be interested to know what the costs would be to the city to provide the infrastructure improvements along four street that would be required.

I do agree, again, as my colleagues said, and as the DEO nicely highlighted, uh, that we need to go in this thoughtfully and that we cannot hang hang our local business owners out to dry.

Uh so I would be curious to know what kinds of improvements would be would be needed and whether the city can afford those, uh, as well as the programming that would that would need to be put into place, how how precisely that would that would operate.

Uh so I would be interested in that information.

Um again, as my colleagues mentioned.

If Ross Street business owners are interested in being a test case for something like an entertainment zone, um that's an interesting place for the city to try it.

I'm certainly opening to hear hear more about that.

Uh and then back to Montgomery Village.

Um, the reason that I I am interested in Montgomery Village, in addition to the fact that my wife and I are there, are there frequently, is that Montgomery Village is a is a healthy mix of both retail and merchants.

So you've got you've got a lot of stores there, in fact, an increasing number of stores, uh, where people are going not just to dine, but but to purchase things.

Um, and district two is proud of all of its streets, including including those that some might might cast dispersions on as just being for parking.

Uh, but actually, I would point out that that makes that an interesting test case for another reason, uh, because if you close down either McGowan or Midway or both, what you are doing is you're forcing people to park their cars further away from the shops and restaurants that they want to visit, which I think is an interesting test case, uh, because that that will that that will provide some useful data, potentially for Fourth Street or other spots in the city to answer the question of whether people are willing to walk from their cars from their parking lot a little ways to get to the stores they want to go to.

Um, and in my mind, my mind always goes in these discussions to a common refrain in this area, uh, which is why does downtown Santa Rosa or why does no place in Santa Rosa look like Petaluma in Healdsburg?

And yet people forget that when they go to Heelsburg and they go to Petaluma, they are almost never parking their cars right in front of the stores or restaurants they want to visit.

They're parking their car at the Kentucky Street Garage in Petaluma and walking multiple blocks down a hill to get to where they want to go, or in Healdsburg, they're parking their car several blocks away in a kind of nondescript surface lot and then marching themselves over to the square to get to both the merchants and the restaurants that they want to that they want to to visit.

Um the difference again in those towns is that there are a lot of restaurants and merchants that people want to visit, and we've got those here too, both in the four street area and in the Montgomery Village area.

Uh so again, coming back to Montgomery Village, I do find that to be an interesting test case for the reasons that that I named that it would be interesting to see how far people are willing to walk for the stores that they clearly want to go to since Montgomery Village is bustling, um, and as well, what what will the effect be on merchants uh in on um folks who are who are selling goods rather than that rather than just restaurants?

Those are the end of my thoughts.

Anything else from my colleagues?

Alright.

Uh Gabe and Scott, can we provide any other direction or answer any and answer any of the questions?

Uh I really appreciate the direction that was provided, Mayor.

Um, just to summarize, uh, really what I heard is that we can move forward at the staff level.

We're with requests on Ross and Montgomery Village.

We will run those through the process and work with those adjacent business owners to see how we can get that to the finish line.

As far as the fourth street conversation, it sounds like it's a study and come back with information.

As part of that study, we will look at the staffing impacts, we will look at the operational impacts, we will look at the potential funding sources.

We will also overlay the conversation about potential programming options.

And I think unless there's any other direction from council, we'll remain in that E Street to B Street corridor.

Obviously, it can expand and contract, but we'll use that as our study area.

And then we'll just move forward doing the analyses that we had mentioned in the slide deck, which are very traffic parking specific, and we'll initiate that process, ultimately come back to council for additional direction.

Perfect.

Thank you very much.

Thank you both for all the work on this.

Thank you for the opportunity.

And with that, we will move on to item 4.2, which is really a continuation of our discussion on how to activate our downtown area.

We've got item 4.2, our downtown Santa Rosa parking and rate adjustments.

The cost of parking in downtown.

Could there be a more fraught issue in Santa Rosa politics outside of pickleball versus tennis?

So Chad and Tanya, thank you for joining us.

I am Chad Hedge, Parking Division Manager of City of Santa Rosa.

With me is Tanya Cordova, parking division manager.

Parking division now.

All right, let's start over.

With me is Tanya Cordova.

She is the parking administrative analyst, and I've got David Roachford who's with TY Lynn.

Spring of 2023, parking applied for and was awarded a grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

Which is a transportation planning, financing, and coordinating agency for the nine counties located in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The downtown Santa Rosa curb management and access plan that we started came at a time where we saw Railroad Square and downtown street augmentary rising, garage and lot occupancy leveling out, the need for future planning to support the elimination of parking minimums and to encourage more developments.

The outreach and planning that we did included city departments such as economic development, planning, real estate, TPW, and transit.

Today's study session will cover the outcomes from this nearly two year study, unintended impacts from the much needed downtown developments, and discuss an additional MTC grant that was awarded to parking to look at the Santa Rosa North TOC transit oriented community in conjunction with planning.

This presentation will be based on data tracked internally by parking, externally by TY Lynn, and industry standards in regard to transportation demand management, VMTs, and GHG reductions.

At the end, Tanya, David, and I would be happy to address any questions.

Good.

Okay.

Santa Rosa parking is a 24-hour operation.

On this slide on the screen, you'll see some of the issues that we were facing when we applied for this grant and the study for MTC, as well as what was discovered in uh after this two-year study.

First hour free parking that was offered in our garages and currently offered in our garages has not incentivized garage use over street parking while showing uh increases in loitering and safety issues in the garages to the communities.

Our voucher and validation program usage is at an all-time low for the businesses and their employees.

The additional uh real or perceived safety concerns that are happening in the garages require funds and staffing to address.

Um, our revenues, parking enterprise fund revenues have not returned to the pre-COVID levels, although expenditures have continued to rise.

Uh the requests for residential development permit options have increased over the last two years to support new developments and the elimination of the parking minimums, as well as uh establish single family homes that are being impacted by the overflow from the elimination of uh parking minimums, and then the increase in requests for enforcement and our current residential permit areas have become difficult due to uh low staffing that's impacting what the amount of support we can provide.

Uh David is gonna speak about the next few slides, and then I'll jump back in.

Thank you, Chad.

So, TY Lynn, in conjunction with Convey, which is a public outreach firm.

Uh, we did a extensive public outreach process to really understand what the community needs were as it relates to to parking in the downtown area.

Um, and through that public outreach process where we've talked to residents, visitors, business owners, uh business employees, uh, and other patrons of the downtown area, including those who live and work downtown.

Uh, we we have identified three sort of big categories of parking issues uh that I can go through right here.

Uh the first one being employee parking.

Um, you know, for many of employees, uh finding affordable long-term parking options during their work day is a challenge.

Uh some employees try to park farther away from work because of the affordability issue.

Um, others might park in front of the business and then you know, two hours or four hours later try to move their car uh during our lunch break, and um, you know, find uh, you know, continue to move their car throughout the day as necessary to you know park on the street.

Uh in addition to that, we also have employers sometimes paying high parking costs for their employees, and so uh, you know, especially in the post-COVID era, as many people have switched to hybrid work.

Um parking pass that is for an entire month when you're only there one, two days in the office, doesn't really make sense anymore to be able to to require uh those uh those parking passes, and so um thinking about how we can address that was part of the study.

Uh as Chad mentioned, garage safety, um, concerns about poor lighting, car break-ins, loitering, uh, particularly in the evening hours.

Uh, that's something that we heard a lot from the community.

And then uh in terms of other concerns, parking availability.

Obviously, that's always going to be a concern, uh, especially during peak hours, uh, whether that's in the downtown core or in the railroad district, uh, you know, there's certain times of day, particularly in the afternoons and the evenings when uh those are very busy, and uh, you know, we want to make sure that people have uh parking options in those areas or in close proximity to those areas uh to allow for people to want to go downtown and want to uh spend a night and uh enjoy the many restaurants and businesses and uh that Santa Rosa has to offer.

We also heard uh some concerns about the inconsistency across zones, hours, and incentives.

Um, and I'll I'll just uh jump ahead a couple of points here to include signage in that as well.

Um I know when we were doing the study, um, you know, the third street garage is on Fifth Street, or the third garage number three is on Fifth Street, and uh garage number five is on Third Street.

Um, and you know, for someone who is not very familiar with Santa Rosa, that's something that can really cause um confusion and make the parking experience less enjoyable.

Um, so how can we provide that consistency?

Uh whether that's uh you know the the price to park in a uh a garage or whether that's uh naming conventions and other signage that can help facilitate parking.

Uh high cost for long stays.

Uh this is particularly for um smart uh users who are looking to take the uh transit in and out of the city.

Um, you know, they there was concerns about uh parking there and then taking transit, um, what the cost of that parking is and and how that can better interact with the transit service.

Uh we also heard about uh businesses, not many businesses are often offering parking validation, and so we did a survey.

Uh so this was this would have been 2024, late 2024 when we conducted this survey.

Um it was part of the early process of developing this project.

Uh we had over almost 1,600 responses for the survey.

Um, again, reaching every different corner of the business community, uh residential community um and visitors, uh, and the top four responses really um were distance to destination, availability of parking spaces, um, coming in one and two, um, and then safety and security, and then and then price, um, whether that's you know, making sure that we have an affordable price for parking where uh in the downtown core areas.

Uh so in terms of study recommendations, um, there we have seven seven main recommendations that we'll review if you're here.

Um the first one is revising our public parking fee structure.

Uh the second one is new residential fee uh implementing a new residential fee schedule.

Uh, three is construction management and planning amendments, four is wayfinding, five is garage space allocation for employees working in downtown and railroad square, uh six is curb management, uh including the identification of shared parking spaces for delivery drivers and for rideshare uh operators, and seven is EV implementation.

And with that, I will uh kick it back to the chat here to talk a little bit more about the priorities and uh talk more about the findings.

Perfect.

And if we could go back real quick, Tanya, to so uh a couple of updates.

Number three, the construction management planning amendments after the uh start and completion of 420 Mendo, we worked closely with planning and we've created new processes so that the contractors and all the subcontractors will now work directly with parking to make sure that the hundreds of contractors we have will go to the garages as opposed to parking on the street uh all day, having a smaller impact on the businesses.

So uh planning was a great help on that.

Number seven, or I'll start with the number six.

We've been working with the economic development in just this week.

I think we've identified uh at least a minimum of four spaces throughout downtown and road square that will be identified as pickup drop-off, Uber Lyft to help support that goal.

And number seven, if you haven't seen garage nine, we have uh the PG<unk>E and the contractor insulation is complete on our four new dual port level two chargers available for public and fleet use.

Two of those chargers are active and ready to use.

Uh, the other two we're waiting on some parts that the charge point forgot to send us, and then we're working on the final application approval.

So we should start construction on lot 10 where we're gonna have another four dual port level two chargers available for public use as well as two single port DC fast chargers available for public use.

PGE funds are covering 90% of those costs.

Uh, we are also awarded funds and grants through Cal EVIP and communities in charge, which is gonna be huge for us.

So uh I'm hoping spring we should have both projects completely uh available.

Okay.

All right.

So let's start with our uh parking meter fees as we jump into this.

So Santa Rosa and most agencies around the country and especially in the state try to follow a progressive parking model when it comes to paid parking, right?

Our goal and and uh goal of other cities is to try to keep on-street occupancy around or a little bit below 85 percent, right?

The higher rates in the busy zones, and the lower rates in the in the uh and the less use area.

So what we want to do is as the as the occupancy goes higher, 85, 90 higher than that.

Well, what's that doing?

That's creating a lot of circling.

That's creating a lot of EMTs, that's creating a lot of GHE emissions.

We want to create lower price options farther out from the core to allow people to know that they can go here, they can stay for longer terms, and avoid the uh like David mentioned.

Folks, say maybe employees parking in spots in front of these businesses with the high use spaces, so we can keep those spaces open for customers at in and out, that in and out.

Um again, the reduction of GHG emissions via circling.

Uh 100% of the parking fees as it from the enterprise fund are invested right back into what we do, whether it's the lighting, the security, the patrols, the wayfinding, um, and then the last time we've adjusted our meter rates uh was when in 2017.

Okay.

So the map on the screen shows you Railroad Square and Central Parking uh occupancy.

These both these maps were taken 1 p.m.

through dinner, Thursday through Saturday in both areas.

Um the red is the peak above 85% occupancy.

Uh the blue the group, the I'm sorry, the green is average, and then the blue is what we're looking at as far as uh the below.

What we want to try to strive for is that we don't have that red high 95% occupancy, 1 p.m.

through dinner in Railroad Square or 2 p.m.

through dinner in the central parking.

What that means is that folks are not they're not traveling around, they're parking and they're leaving there, and there's not the open spaces for folks who want to drive up 4th Street, 5th Street, and stop in at a restaurant.

Okay.

So in order to try and accommodate this, we're proposing some changes, and on the screen we have our current rates as well as our new proposed rates, right?

And it's broke down between our premium and our value, and we'll go over it in depth.

So our on street parking on the first line, the premium and depot lot.

So the premium meters as well as the depot lot is what we call we're referring to in this one.

The depot lot is considered a premium lot.

The current price is 150 per hour, and our proposal is going up to two dollars and fifty cents per hour on the on the uh the premium parking in Railroad Square.

We've had a lot of conversations with the railroad square board, and we actually adjusted our initial presentation based on suggestions from them to support the 250 per hour on the streets, and as you can see below on the railroad square 13 and 14, the lot.

We're not gonna raise any prices in there because they the conversations around is we want to try to get people off the streets in Railroad Square and push them to those lots or push them to the free parking that's a little bit outside lot 1314, which are the lots underneath the freeway.

Uh, the value lots and in the areas on the on street, which are the farther out from the map we just saw.

We're looking at one dollar to one fifty proposal increase.

And then right there where it says free.

Um, what we're also doing in the areas farther outside of our premium values.

What we're gonna do is we're gonna remove some meters, right?

We're gonna create some time limits in areas where we can make that third option, we're gonna try to create more of those spaces to try to support the community if they if they're okay with walking a little bit, we're gonna create some more free spaces for them with time limits.

Premium lots right there, so lots 10 and 11, Russian River lot, and then lot 11 is the one right behind uh belly, we'll say.

Uh right now it's a dollar fifty.

Our proposals to take up to two dollars.

Our value lots, which are lots two, lot four, and lot seven, one dollar to one fifty.

And again, we're not making any changes in 1314, the lots in Railroad Square, and then the garages.

As David mentioned, we have we currently have different prices in the garages.

So, what we're gonna do is we're proposing making all the garages one dollar per hour.

So some that way there's no confusion over cost.

In regards to permits, we already have or have offered uh different options for permits to support businesses, employees, and right now we currently offer an evening employer permit.

Uh it's ten dollars, and that's still gonna stay.

Although it says 3 p.m.

to 1 a.m., there's no uh end time on that on that permit, it's just they can't go into the garage until 3 p.m.

to to be able to get that uh that evening employee permit.

We're looking at offering discounts for new business accounts as far as all the new developments that are coming in, trying to figure out a way to support the growth in there.

We currently have an offer low wage permits.

Currently, right now in garage one and garage 12 only.

So what we're looking to do is expanding that not only to all garages, but also reducing the cost from $31 a month to $25 a month.

Um the part-time permits, like David again mentioned, there's some folks who don't work in the office five days a week, but they still want to have that option to pay for a permit, not have to pay every time they come to the garage.

So we're also gonna create uh a part-time permit.

We're looking right now and having conversations at 96 hours being in the weekly, the weekly cap, and then if they're in there past the 96 hours, they'll just pay the hourly rate.

But we are still having conversations on where we're gonna settle on that.

But that'll be $25 per month.

Um, our unreserved permits right now in our garages, not counting garage five, average between sixty-two dollars and ninety-five dollars per month.

We're gonna make all of our permits the same price in all the garages.

So uh they're essentially all gonna go down in in price, some more than others.

Our unreserved permit in garage five, because of our occupancy in garage five, uh, we have a wait list right now for permits in garage five.

We don't want to make any changes to that right now.

So we're gonna keep that at $120 per month.

And then a reserved permit in all garages right now, which just means that you can pay the extra fee, it's by choice, and you can have a dedicated spot in the first floor of the garage.

We're gonna offer that, but we're gonna bump it up to one sixty across, make all of them the same price, which some are right now.

And again, these are just for folks who are willing to pay extra for that reserve space on the first floor of the garage.

You don't have to do it.

Okay.

Some of our proposed or our proposed lot permit fees, lot two again.

We're seeing or have seen a a large increase in permits in that lot.

So we're gonna keep those permits at the $95 per month.

Lot six, which is a permit only lot off of E Street, that again is is full, and we have a we have a wait list, so we're gonna keep that at $62.

Lot seven, the White House lot, we have some occupancy in there available, so we're gonna drop the prices in that lot from eighty-five dollars to $70 uh per month for a permit.

Um lot, and so this is important to highlight lot 13 and 14.

Again, the lots in Railroad Square under the freeway, their near capacity in the evenings, right?

We're focusing hard on some sort in order to accommodate the elimination parking minimums and provide permits for these residential developments.

We we're working hard to have better of uh big better use of our shared permits.

So during uh the evening and the times that were mentioned earlier, it's it's we've got that high occupancy.

So what we're gonna try to do, we need to support the cannery sites that have already came to us, and I believe we have 33 or 34 permits already issued.

Is we're gonna try to make sure we have the permit availability, the space available during the day and the early evening for the businesses, but then we're also gonna dedicate some areas in lot 13 for the cannery site so they can have that parking in the evening.

Businesses can hopefully have that occupancy available in the day.

And then we currently and have offered the smart commuter permit, so anybody who can show that they have um ridership information, whether it's a clipper card or anything like that, they can get a commuter permit, which allows them to park in lot fourteen for twenty five dollars per month or for thirty-one dollars per month, which is half the price.

Um, and in order to try to encourage that, because we don't have a lot of usage, we're gonna drop it down a little bit more to $25.

Try to get more people to uh use SMART and public transit a little bit more.

Okay.

So here's some new permit options.

So we we had to adjust our street pricing, not only to uh address uh occupancy, but also to understand that we're gonna try to create more permits that are gonna support the current need, and a lot of this is gonna go back into the system.

So right now we have a request and have had a quest to support 888 4th Street, 891 3rd Street.

Uh they don't have room in their garages.

So we're looking at street parking to support that development.

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna uh talk about creating on Hope Street, which we have metered spaces, creating that area and make it a permit area, residential permit area for the folks in those two developments, so they're not parking on the streets on third street.

Um we've already done and we're issuing out even more residential unreserved garage permits for 20 Mendo.

We have an agreement with already, and we already have folks using it.

We've already entered an agreement with uh the Humboldt development great partnership, and we're looking at about 350 total permits, I think, between the two developments in our in our garages, and though those are gonna drop to $60 is gonna be great to encourage uh these these developments again.

Our residential reserve downtown garage permit, which we don't have right now.

These will be specific to the residential, the new residential uh developments.

Again, it's a special consideration.

If they want a reserve spot on the first floor, we're gonna charge that premium for them so they can have that.

Um lot 13, which we talked about the can the steward cannery development, um, the permits that we are creating and offering up to them, they're gonna be $50 per month, and they're we're gonna try to set them up on lot 14 closest to third street, so it's uh hopefully a little bit easier for the tenants to get parked into their uh residence.

Our current residential permit program, so our RPP zones, which we have throughout all of Santa Rosa and have had them folks.

Communities will have to up, they approach us and they have to do a resolution or and they have to get 60% or more of the community that signs up to join it.

Right now it's $20 per transaction.

So if you come in and you have three vehicles for $20 per year, you can register all three vehicles with us, and you've got a permit for the entire year.

Well, what we're gonna have to do, what we're going to do is we're gonna raise it to $30 per vehicle, which is still annual charge.

So if you got one vehicle, it's $30, $100 a year for that same three vehicles is still a very, very cheap price considered um uh neighboring agencies for the enforcement uh patrols in the sign is that that we provide.

With all of these changes right now, the approximate change in revenue to the parking fund, we're looking at a net total of about $1,033,000.

Again, that'll go right back into the parking enterprise fund that we can do to um increase lighting security patrols, painting projects that we've been working on.

So on here, just to clarify, we have uh free parking options throughout the city already.

So right now, we have free Sundays, and um in certain garages, and what we're proposing is we're gonna make all garages free on Sundays to match the street parking, right?

So everything will be free in in Santa Rosa on Sunday or uh currently there's a mix of locations, and we're gonna offer that across the street.

We are currently working on removing meters again throughout the city to try to encourage a little bit farther of a walk, but for folks won't have to pay.

So 600 block of 1st street, Sonoma, 900 block of 7th Street.

Some of these areas have already been taken out to 800 block of 5th street, and then all the blocks of Morgan Street over in Railroad Square.

Uh including the meters that are here outside on Sonoma Ave, we're gonna take those out to try to and put in in time limits.

Uh, meters we've already removed or on Riley Street for the 420 Humboldt where it used to be one one way and now it's two way.

We took all those meters out the support.

Uh A Street in front of the Craitas House to try to support the residential permit that we have there, um, and then 6th Street and Railroad Square again to try to encourage more street parking farther outside of the high occupancy zones to support the businesses.

And again, the validation and voucher program that city parking has, we've had it for years, and we're trying to get more businesses to utilize this this voucher program for uh guests.

So what we're doing is we're gonna replace the first hour free that we have in the garage currently, which has not uh encouraged growth or or more usage, and we're gonna start having a targeted incentive uh to the businesses.

We're gonna work directly with the businesses.

We're gonna offer um discounts to businesses who want to sign up for the validation program.

Parking staff will go to the business, they'll set the set them up with uh access to this, show them how to use it.

We'll be available to support them on this.

Uh we're working closely with the DAO to help with outreach and and set up meetings so we can, and we've already done to set up meetings to get more businesses to either start return to using the validation program or learn more about it.

Um, and with all these steps, the cost of the program to the parking enterprise funds will be approximately $5400 a year.

The $30 validation discount won't be a lifetime discount, it'll be to try to get people into it, encourage growth, and then eventually we'll the discount will go away.

The next thing we're gonna talk about are the parking citation fees uh downtown of our team, right?

So our parking citation team, our parking enforcement team, citation fees in Santa Rosa, the last time they've been increased were in 2012.

So again, you can a $12.50 surcharge is paid for every citation written in the city of Santa Rosa, regardless of the cost or the amount of the fine.

That money goes directly to county for fees and court costs that that everyone has to pay.

In addition to that, the processing fees that we pay to the company to uh handle all the billing, handle all the mailers is $93,000 a year.

So those two things combined are hitting the uh enterprise fund, which in turn hits the general fund.

Um, and we're looking at ways we can we can address this.

So you can see on the screen, uh, we went from 2122 through 2324, right?

And I think what it highlights, it's you can see the difference in the revenue through the different years, and that's directly related to staffing shortages, right?

So when we're out or short on uh parking enforcement, it's it's more about when you see those revenue numbers.

I want you to see that there's um red curb parking that that can't be addressed.

There's ADA abuses that can't be addressed.

This isn't necessarily about getting more people out there so we can write citations.

This is about our lack or our inability to help uh keep the community safe, and then in addition to that, again the costs stay the same.

So the revenue goes down, and then the parking enterprise fund can't cover these costs, and then that burden will be placed on the on the on the general fund.

So you can see the net revenue in 2122 is was 37,000.

We were fully staffed at that point, and then it went down in 2223 and went down again in 2324 due to staffing, and then 2425 is is uh is actually a negative number due to the staffing shortages and increase in in costs combined.

So the example of what we're gonna propose, and we're only talking about making increases to the citations that are currently between $35 and $50.

That's it.

And we're doing this to get in line with neighboring agencies.

We looked at Roanur Park, we looked at Santa Rosa, we looked at uh Napa and Healdsburg.

Our prices once we raise them, our citation fees are still gonna be lower than some, but we're just trying to address that issue of of um or matching some local agencies, including Sacramento, who they pass that citation processing fee, that $12.50.

They pass that on to the citation holder, where right now we pay that that county fee.

So again, if anything from expired meters all the way down to the fifty dollar white curve passenger loading, those are the only ones we're gonna change, and it's just a $15 uh increase.

The estimated revenue that we'll we'll collect from that that change is was located on the right, and and again, our average yearly collection rate.

So annually, the number of citations we write compared to the number of citations we actually uh get paid for is 86% uh collection rate.

So the current revenue estimation is 1.3 million.

Uh, the projected revenue with the $15 increase on those citations is $1.6 million.

So the additional revenue, so once we parking pay all of our costs, our operating costs and enterprise fund, the additional revenue of $350,000 would go to the general fund because the way our account sets up is the general fund gives us money every month to cover our costs, and then the revenue goes right back into the general fund.

And again, the all of this is depending on staffing.

And a lot of folks have said this, but if we're shortly staffed, which right now we are, then all these numbers are gonna be lower than the what they should be.

Excuse me.

So in conjunction with the study we started with MTC uh nearly two years ago in TY Lynn, we've done a lot of outreach.

Tanya and I went down when and then TY Lynn as well.

We've met with business owners, we've met with the downtown action organization, we've had thorough discussions with them.

Uh we've met with the historic railroad square association.

Again, numerous numerous thorough discussions with them.

Today we're presenting to council, and then we're looking to come back in the fall for approval for the final consent for these items, and then we're not gonna make any changes until January 1 of 2026.

Uh through the winter and and going forward, we will continue with the free holiday weekends.

That will not go away.

We'll continue with the meter uh programs we do over the holidays.

Um, again, this will start January 1, 2026.

And then we are available if there are any questions.

Thanks to all of you for the uh incredible amount of work that went into this.

Thank you for being willing to tackle head-on one of the hot button issues in our in our community.

Uh, and with that, I'll bring it back to council for any questions.

Walking to my colleagues, Ms.

McDonald.

Thank you, Mayor.

Sorry uh for being a little bit late to your presentation.

You may have covered this in the beginning.

My question is around staffing because you said you're short staffed with the increase of revenue.

Does that offset the cost of staffing, or does that have to come out of a different pot?

The increase in so we're not in in specifically regarding enforcement staff, we're not short staffed right now due to revenue, but because we're short staffed, it's affecting revenue.

Does that make sense?

Yes.

So as we increase raven revenue, um, are you able to pay for staff with that revenue, or does staff get paid out of a different bucket of money?

We can pay staff with that revenue, and and we can expand our ability to enforce in an areas outside of our current areas as needed.

Thank you.

And then I have a question around your permit parking on the streets and residential.

Um, do we just currently not have those streets designated so people can't park on them, or is it metered parking and we're allowing residents to actually buy a permit for them to not get tickets?

So the current residential parking program is the neighborhoods will come in and they'll have a petition signed and they'll get 60% of that neighborhood, and then we come to council, and then if council approves that petition, we go out parking, we put up signage uh time limits, and then they get permits from us.

So as our cars drive by and read that permitted plate, they can uh disregard the time limits.

Okay.

And the ones the street permits we're looking at to support some of these residential developments, will be different.

Those will actually be like a garage permit, but available on the street.

Great, thank you.

Yeah, of course.

Thank you.

Uh, one question from me.

Do we have a fine structure for parking in EV designated spots?

Hi, uh Tanya Cordova analyst.

We currently do have a fine for an EV space.

Um I off the top of my head, I believe it's um around 50 dollars.

Um, and it it depends on how it's signed.

So if it's signed that it's EV only, the only person you can only be using that space, that parking space to be actively charging the vehicle.

Thank you for that.

Um I thought I'd well, I thought I'd mention it first because you had the good news about how the city is putting in more chargers, including fast charges into its garages.

Um and uh in in the spirit of this general hunt for revenue, there are very few fines that you can levy that will meet with um a lot of approval and applause from the community, uh, but from the EV community to protect those spaces uh that are often used by cars that are not EVs or sadly, shamefully, EVs who park in those spots but don't plug in.

Um any efforts that the city can make make to enforce those spots would not only uh increase revenues but but lead to to happiness among EV drivers.

So thank you for that.

And if I can mention, I think you're referring to the ones in Courthouse Square.

In particular, yes, but frankly, frankly anywhere.

Yeah, and those have those have always been issues.

So what we're doing because we're gonna have the 10 essential total new ports in lot 10, is we're gonna move the chargers that are currently in lot 10 or in uh courthouse square, and they're gonna go to lot 10.

And some of those spots in lot 10 we're gonna make for the pickup drop off, uh, create additional uh ADA spaces because of the issues we keep having in courthouse square with those EV spaces.

Perfect.

Sounds like a thoughtful solution.

Any other questions from the days?

Mr.

Krepke.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Thanks for the presentation.

Um, as we talk about citations and the increase in citations, um, is there a standardized grace period for when a meter expires to when uh citation can be written?

Yeah.

So there is a five-minute grace period that um the meter will not the citation will not be written for those for those five minutes.

Okay.

Um we're pushing people to use the app more often.

I've seen the signage for the app.

Um, is there a grace period for the app.

Yeah, go ahead.

Um the app does pose a little bit of an issue with grace periods.

Um if um essentially, yes, um we we do have a grace period, but if the app, what we're running into is people, if you do not um extend your time on the app, then um that you're not allowed to start a new session.

And so what people find is that they don't essentially don't get a grace period in that situation if they forget to re-up their time before the app actually times out.

So in theory, yes, they do have a grace period, but in practice, sometimes if they forget to do that before um before their time is up, they can't start another session, and so they end up um not having a grace period.

I've also been told though um from city staff that there's no car specific timer.

It's whether they are paid or they are not.

It's not when it expires, it's when they come up and they scan a car that's used the app or enter a car that's use the app, it's they're paid or they're not.

Not that it expired two minutes ago or that it expired seven minutes ago.

Is that true?

Um I I'm not the one that issues the tickets, but it's my understanding in practice that they are able to look up the expiration time on the app.

Okay.

My point being is we're pushing people towards the app and we can't have ways to give grace period versus using coins or credit cards, then it pr presents a little bit of an issue that we're benefiting people to use something that we don't want people to use necessarily versus penalizing people or potentially penalizing people for something that we're pushing people to use, especially as we increase citations.

Yeah, no, that's a great point, and and to repeat what Tanya's saying.

So, so yeah, when you it's not a paid or not paid, it's a year you're paid from and I'll make up a number from one o'clock to three o'clock.

And and then that the grace period will be in there.

There's also a lot of folks who have figured out and they know that they can pay on the app and then go out and pay on the meter, and then they're overstaying those time limits.

And so those are some of the safety features in the app to try to make sure that we can create that turnaround that we've talked about.

And we are, and the one signs you saw maybe was we're implementing also a text-to-pay app in conjunction.

So we'll have the passport and the IPS app.

And again, that's so you'll get the automatic alerts to your phone.

Folks outside of the city can go to the website and they can put in the directions to it to the city or or restaurants, and we're looking at a um a conjunction with a text-of-pay app to where now you can get business directions or advertising.

It's and a lot of technology involved in there.

But if there's ever any issues, feel free to reach out to us and we can look into it.

Thank you, Miss Ben Willis.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for the presentation and so thorough.

Um I had a question around the um proposal of replacing the first uh hour free with a targeted incentive for people coming to stores, restaurants, and businesses.

What does that mean exactly?

Great question.

So uh I want to say it was two years ago.

Uh we brought forward a proposal and we made the first hour free in every garage.

The intention in that and when we met with council was because we wanted to try to encourage people to come to the garages first and not automatically look for a street parking space.

Uh, based on the data that we can track at hourly and annually, it shows that the garage occupancy has not increased due to that first hour free, and in some cases quite the opposite, where street parking occupancy has drastically increased.

So the validation that we're talking about is it'll be garage only validation.

So if you choose to come downtown, we're working with the businesses, there'll be a sign or a sticker on the door that says we validate your parking, you'll go to the garage, you'll go in and shop, and you'll be able to have your um your uh parking validated based on either your license plate number or if you have your ticket with you or a phone number.

It's a really convenient process.

Um and so that that should help get folks to stay longer because now they'll park in the garage.

They can go to multiple businesses and they can work through this validation program as opposed to parking on the street, short-term or long term, and leave employees especially leaving their cars there there all day.

So just to follow up, so who will do the validating the the city or the businesses that you go to?

The businesses, correct.

We're gonna work with the businesses, create accounts for the businesses, they'll fund those accounts, and then they'll also advertise validation available if you park in the garages and come down and shop.

So I asked this because I've I've seen this conversation so just lately on social media about one parking lot across from a city parking lot, um, that belongs to it's private, it belongs to the business.

I'm not going to mention it right now, but it's a downtown business.

And when folks go in to validate, the business is saying they don't validate.

So I'm just how are we going to incentivize the businesses to validate?

A great question, and and I do know what you're referring to.

Uh, we've worked closely and we'll continue to work closely with the businesses.

When we had our downtown uh action organization meeting, we had I think a dozen businesses there that we gave this presentation to, and we're gonna work directly with the businesses through the support of Railwood Square and DAO associations.

Again, we'll go directly to the businesses, set up their validation account, show them how to use it, and we'll work directly with them to make this as convenient as possible.

Okay, that sounds good.

That sounds like a good plan.

Um the only thing I will I want to say is that I you know did not know that we had the first hour free in our garages, and I think a lot of people don't know that.

And I I personally feel that it that is the problem and why people don't use it.

Once I found out just me personally, I use it all the time.

And I see other people using it.

So I know it's not like you know, many, many people are using it.

I understand that, but I feel like we're not marketing that, and that's to me what the problem is.

More than, and I'm worried about validation because, like, for example, that one business that we just talked about, that I think you know which one I'm talking about.

Um, I'm just worried that businesses, some businesses may not be willing to do that.

Thank you, Ms.

Rogers.

Thank you, and thank you for the presentation.

You were talking about the expansion of ADA spaces, um, in some lots.

Uh I have a a problem and a question about ADA space right in front of the central library.

It's something that I have brought up in the past, but it has come top of mind again, watching a lady circle, um, trying to find a place in front because she would not be able to safely cross the street, and there were no spaces in front.

So I'm asking again if we can look into that because it is a problem for us to have people that require the ADA spaces to get to the library, and they're not able to find those and use them, and crossing the street does not always work for everyone.

That's why we have ADA spaces.

Thank you.

I would enjoy having that conversation.

All right, thank you.

Uh, we'll go to public comment then.

Uh, Cadence, we'll lead off with you.

Thank you, Mayor Stapp.

Um, again, Cadence Hinkle Allenson with the Downtown Action Organization.

I want to start by saying thank you to the parking district staff for their ongoing engagement and active interest in the needs of the downtown business community, especially to Chad and Tanya.

They spend a lot of time engaging with our business owners and talking to our organization downtown downtown.

Um, while the DAO acknowledges that what is presented today isn't the perfect solution to parking in the downtown, I'm not sure anything is.

We really do appreciate the parking district try to balance their fiscal needs with that of the downtown business community, and the DAO is supportive of their recommendations today.

I will say though, I hope that the um $30 a month program for our businesses to incentivize them to use validation is not a temporary one.

$5,400 does not seem like a big expense uh to maintain a program and encourage people to come downtown.

Um the DAO has heard repeatedly from property owners and brokers that the cost of parking is a deterrent to new leases.

So we anticipate that the new um $25 monthly permit for new tenants or I think um Chad called them new business accounts will be a big benefit.

Uh I think some of the other permit additions too, the decreases and um in cost, as well as the opportunity for part-time employee permits will all help remove that barrier and bring new business to the downtown.

So again, thank you for your work and for taking the time to engage with everyone and to counsel for taking the time to consider these potential changes today.

Thank you, Cadence.

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

Peter, go ahead.

Parking, making money from parking, incessantly nickel and diming the public.

Already being nickel and dimed by the DMV, the IRS, and the Fed.

It seems we have permanently parked our minds and our capacity to think.

Has our American spirit been flushed down the commode?

We're better than this.

I mean, we're sending billions of dollars to Israel.

The CIA finders, which is run by someone that's not dead, his name is Jeffrey Epstein, is an international child sex ops.

Over at the courthouse, people get dinged all day long, including me for doing business over there or making public comment or paying other fines.

You get fined for paying fines over at the courthouse.

Meanwhile, billions of our dollars go to Israel.

The same courthouse that released Dr.

Jeffrey Mc uh Dr.

Maurice Wallen, the number one guy that uh the uh uh that TV show The Catch a Predator ever caught, he has terminated the lives of millions of people, and he's been involved in doing things to kids, including murdering them.

And this was proven and verified by Ted Gunderson, former head of the FBI, my friend who was murdered by the same group of people in 2011 by poison.

Israel, yeah, there's some good people there, but they're also the purveyors of uh adrenochrome.

They are also the purveyors of keeping uh harboring actively organized pedophiles, escaping prosecution from American courts.

Let me add a little poetic to this to this.

A poetic message to Sonoma County, land of the peanuts gang and Burbanks Bounty, knowledge not found in college for the masses, truly, truly time to get unruly.

Yes, you inmates and slave classes.

I was recently chilling with Troubadour Bob Dylan as we agreed to take the lead and cease the killing.

Bob says, Peter, you're the king of masterpiece theater.

To be a true servant is indeed a true leader.

We both got respect for brother Sonny Barger.

He knew true history, the Constitution as a patriotic charger.

You are in the presence of and surrounded by the light of Christ, such power and authority the world could never heist.

And regarding the corrosive corruption of warmongering rich, all who claim concern, listen, learn discern or burn.

Better simply, turn off the switch.

We are the most powerful people on the planet.

We're the ones that are allowing all this to happen.

We got better things to do than the charging people for the money we give away.

Thank you, Peter.

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

You have the floor.

Thank you.

Um my name is Amanda Janik.

I'm the executive director of the Historic Railroad Square Association.

I forgot to sign in, sorry.

Um I wanted to say thank you to Chad and Tanya and um to council for hearing about parking.

And I just wanted to, on behalf of the Historic Railroad Square Board, um, give our support for the changes being proposed here today.

We have talked with Chad and Tanya several times, they've done a tremendous amount of due diligence with speaking with Railroad Square and DAO, as Cadence mentioned, and we've spoken about all of our concerns, they've all been addressed, and you know, we are looking forward to clearer, more concise signage to help people who um you know are coming in to ride smarter want those value parking spots.

It'll be a lot easier for people to find those spots, which right now it is a bit confusing.

So we've walked our entire district more than once looking at how we can make it more accessible to everyone.

So I know I and the board are all very appreciative of that.

Um, them taking the time to do that for us.

So I'll keep this short and um on topic.

And so, barring not being able to offer the same kind of parking um advantages that Healdsburg and Petaluma, as you mentioned, mayor, have uh they have free and Montgomery Village, they have free parking, and we don't, and so that's understandable, and having to work with parking fees.

Uh, we support the the fee changes that are are being requested here today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Amanda, and thanks for all your work.

Janice.

Um, I Janice Carmen.

Um, I just want to um say, and I've said it before about Calistoga Road.

I'm really pleased to see that Calistoga Road is uh on the agenda today.

So Janice, this is about downtown parking rated.

No, I know, but it's this is parking.

This is parking related.

Okay.

So anyway, uh, late at night, it's bumper to bumper parked on uh highway 12.

Those aren't really parking zones.

And I I just want the city to know about it because these people are coming in from somewhere, maybe they're sleeping on the floor of the apartment.

So I don't know.

But it's a parking issue.

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 bring it back to the dais for any final uh thoughts or direction to staff.

Ms.

Rogers.

Thank you.

Um, so thank you for listening to my ADA request.

Um, but in addition to that, I really wanted to thank you for the engagement with the community and the rest of the stakeholders.

That's something that as a council, I think we really pride ourselves on encouraging and supporting the staff in doing.

So thank you for doing that.

And then I always have to give a shout out when parking comes up to Chad and Chris.

Chris is like one of the most amazing parking enforcement team members.

And for someone to be able to give you a ticket and you still walk away from that gentleman smiling, I think that that says a lot about the staff that you do have.

So but that comes with great leadership.

So thank you so much and shout out to Chris.

Thank you, Ms.

McDonald.

I just have a follow-up question on the ADA question that Councilmember Rogers gave to you.

If there were open spaces and somebody had a placard displayed, are they allowed to park in any of the open spaces and not be charged parking?

I just wanted to make sure that that was announced today.

You are correct.

As long as someone has a valid, properly displayed ADA, they can park in any street or lot space.

Some of the issues we run into and we're trying really hard is that if the placard falls off the windshield or falls on the floor and we can't see it, a citation may be issued, but all they have to do is reach out to us, show us that they have a valid placard, we'll dismiss it on site.

I wanted that to be announced as well as if we have metered parking.

If there's nothing available, somebody could park in a metered parking and display um their placard, and it would not um result in them getting a ticket of any kind.

Correct.

And again, any street or lot.

The garages are different because they're off street gated, but correct.

Any metered spot, you can use your plaque and park.

Great, thank you so much.

Thank you, Ms.

Van Wellos.

Thank you.

Um just wanted to say thank you again for the report.

I really appreciate all the detail.

Um I do support all the um changes that you need to make and um except for the one hour of the uh free in the garages.

I think I actually think you should keep that.

Uh but other than that, I think it's a really um uh necessary thing for us to do at this time, and I understand all the analysis that went into it.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Ms.

Rogers.

Um, I just want to say to council member McDonnell, uh, thank you for pointing that out.

Um I realize that, but in front of the library, there are never spots available for people that need the ADA parking to park.

And so that is what um my big thing is is that there are no spots available.

I understand that they can park there, um, but there are no spots available most of the time.

I wasn't trying to dismiss the need for ADA additional parking.

It was more of a question that I get is can you park in metered parking with a valid placard?

Thank you.

And I will I will conclude by again thanking you for all the work that you've done here, as well as to all the downtown businesses and the uh historic railroad square association for leaning in on this one and coming up with a solution that's satisfactory for all.

Uh a fun trivia fact for all Santa Rosans.

Uh, during the during the middle part of the day, during that nine to five period, there are about 300,000 people within a within a 10-minute drive of downtown Santa Rosa.

We have a ton of people that are in this area and are um our city is responsible for figuring out ways to to keep them here safely and effectively and to uh also find a way to pay for that.

So thank you for all your work on the parking.

Um do you have any other questions for council?

Any other direction needed from us?

All right, thank you all.

And we will move on to item 4.3.

A little bit less exciting perhaps, but no less important.

This is our count city council voting process for certain appointed positions.

This one's gonna be a spell binder, so so stick around.

City City Attorney Stricker, Mr.

Mayor, if I may.

Okay, thank you, Council Members.

Teresa Stricker, city attorney, and I'm realizing this is literally back again 2.0, same time as last year.

We're only off by one day.

This is a study session that the mayor has asked me to bring back.

You heard some of this last year.

I'm going to give you an abbreviated overview, and the aim of this is to provide you with an opportunity to give some direction on potential changes you may want to make to the process by which council appoints individuals for three different types of positions.

And again, this is when the council acting as a whole as a body is making appointments from the dais.

And those three different areas are situations where there's a council vacancy and the council has made a decision that it is going to appoint rather than calling a special election.

The second situation is to fill boards, commissions, and committees that the full council appoints.

As you all know, sometimes individual council members get to appoint certain commission members, but there are others where the full body together appoints, and so making that selection process is another situation where all of you make appointments from the dais.

And then the third is when you are selecting every two years your mayor and every one year your vice mayor, the process that you have for that.

So I'm going to do a very brief overview of what the current process has and areas where you we historically have found that your process doesn't give you a path forward.

And so when you get to those places, you may get stuck.

And then I'm going to walk through options and recommendations and give you the opportunity to provide some feedback.

Under our charter, if that happens, the council has a choice.

It can either call a special election to fill the vacancy, or the council itself can make the appointment.

Here is the process you currently have.

And what the rule says is if that the majority cannot agree on appointment, then the council really has to adopt some other process at that point in time.

So this is a situation where you really don't have a rule, and you end up having to kind of make it up on the fly and decide really in that moment what the process will be.

Okay.

Okay, the second situation where appointments from the dais come up is that situation where the full council is appointing members to boards, commissions, or committees.

And as you all know, there are some boards where each of you appoint one person.

There are other boards where you all have to make a decision collectively as to all of the members of the particular board.

And so up on the slide, we've listed those particular boards and commissions where the full council makes the appointment.

Okay, so in those in those situations where all of you have to sort of collectively decide, you um your rules set forth, essentially that you can do it in one of two ways.

You can either do it by motion or you can do it by a process of elimination.

And so if you choose to make these appointments by elimination, the process set forth in your rules is essentially that each council member is to vote for the number of applicants and number of vacant spaces plus two.

If there are insufficient to get to that level, then the city attorney is supposed to help you out with how many to vote for.

You do your votes, the applicants that receive either zero votes or one vote are eliminated, and then you keep going through the rounds of voting, each time voting for one applicant fewer than the last time until uh a one applicant has a majority vote.

There are times, however, where you could get stuck and you the elimination rules doesn't tell you how to get unstuck.

So for example, if you had a vote where you had a three-two-two vote, um, there is no way in your rules to figure out how to get stuck.

So that has been a place where questions have arisen about well, what do we do at that point in time?

Okay, and then the last area that I'm gonna walk through and just explain the current rules is your selection of your mayor and vice mayor.

The process is the same for both of those positions.

Again, mayor happens every two years, vice mayor happens every year.

For both of those positions, the process is that the presiding officer calls for nomination, each nomination requires a second and acceptance.

Um if there's only one nomination, one nominee, then that person is elected by unanimous consent.

If you have two or more nominees, then again there is a process of elimination.

It looks very similar to the process of elimination I talked about before.

There are some minor differences, but essentially you have an elimination process.

And once a single nominee receives a majority vote, then that nominee is considered to be elected.

Again, this is a place where your process, your procedures don't give you the process to figure out what happens when you get stuck at a 3 2 2 vote.

Um that has happened to you in the past, and you have been in the position of having to come up with what is your what your process is going to be to get unstuck at that point.

So this time I wanted to walk through and give you a recommendation.

Again, this is just one way to um, if you all want to make a change, you can give direction and we can bring back some rule changes.

Um this is the recommendation that I'm moving forward, but this certainly isn't the only way to handle this.

You know, this is one of those situations where there could be many ways to essentially fry the fish.

Um, so here's the recommendation that I am bringing forward to you if you want to make a change, which is really to adopt one process for all three situations so that you all become familiar with that process, the public becomes familiar with that process, and while staff will certainly guide you through it, it won't feel like maybe the hieroglyphics that it that sort of feels like now because you have different processes.

And so the recommendation would be in each of the situation, if you have only one nominee with a second, then the presiding officer declares that person to be selected by unanimous consent.

If you have two nominees with seconds, then the council votes by ballot for one of the two nominees, and if the council gets stuck at a three-three vote or a two-three vote, then to use random selection.

And I would add in that case that you all would need to determine when you're stuck and when it's time to sort of discuss it among yourselves to see if you can come up with a vote where you're not stuck.

But if you truly end up stuck, again, a three-three vote where we don't have a council member, either because the council member is absent, or it's the situation where you have a vacant council seat, you could end up with a three-three vote, you could end up with a two-three vote where you don't have a majority on either side, and there's no way to sort of get yourself unstuck.

And then in the situation where you have three or more nominees available, then my recommendation is for you to pick one of the three processes to use for each of the situations.

So I'm gonna walk through those three choices.

The first one, and uh those of you who were on council last year, we do have one new council member.

Um we talked about at that point in time ranked choice voting.

Ranked choice voting is a way in which you could select uh you you do a vote one time, and then there is a way of doing elimination based on the way each council member voted in ranked choice, that we can then have you vote once and you retally the votes as you eliminate folks.

So I'm gonna walk through what that looks like a little bit.

Um applicants with the lowest votes are eliminated.

Second choices of the council members who voted for the eliminated applicants are reapplied to the remaining applicants, and then the process of elimination and retallying continues until one applicant has a majority.

And in a second, I'm gonna show you a visual of kind of what that looks like.

Should you decide to use ranked choice voting, um, I do recommend that the city's IT department assist by developing a systematic way to facilitate a real-time ranked choice voting process that provides transparency to the public and to the council, rather than going old school whiteboard, which may be confusing and you know certainly subject to error.

So certainly both the clerk and I would recommend that we assist with that.

So if you do have questions after the at the end of the presentation, um Brian Tichter, who is our director of IT, is here and is happy to answer questions about what that might look like.

Okay, so this is a visual you saw this last year of ranked choice voting.

Um I will say that when we looked at this before, staff is not aware of any city that uses rank choice voting for selections made from the dais.

Ranked choice voting is actually used in some jurisdictions for voting by voters at the ballot box, but it's this is a would be a much more simplified version of the same concept.

So essentially the voters, and in this case it would be all of you, rank the candidates first choice to last choice.

The candidate that has the fewest votes is eliminated, and the in your case, the council members who had voted for that eliminated candidate as their first choice would have their votes retallied for their second choice, and we would continue to do this until we got a majority vote.

Ranked choice voting could still result in a tie that cannot be resolved through ranked choice voting.

And so, for example, we're gonna go back to that three-two-two vote.

And so if you choose ranked choice voting, my recommendation is that you also add a process for what happens when you get stuck through ranked choice voting to get unstuck, and then you can go back to ranked choice voting until you get stuck again if that happens.

So the two options for what do you do when you get stuck would be to have a runoff vote by ballot to eliminate one of the lowest vote getters and then proceed with ranked choice voting.

Now you have done you came up, I think several years ago before I joined the city, that you had a situation where you were stuck at the dais, and you all came up with a process that was really like this.

It was a runoff, and in the situation, for example, where you have a three-2-2 vote, you'd have a runoff between the two um applicants that are or nominees that are two and two, the winner of that would then be um the the loser of that would then fall out and be eliminated, and then you can proceed with ranked choice voting here.

The other option instead of a runoff vote to eliminate one of the two lowest vote getters would be random selection.

Your clerk has an amazing Uncle Sam hat that she brought with her today that could very easily be the way to facilitate literally uh names in the hat.

Um that random selection would literally be random, and so we would then be sort of um giving up to chance uh how to resolve uh sort of getting stuck at a 322.

Okay, we're still on ranked choice voting.

How to break a stubborn tie?

What the heck is a stubborn tie?

Well, stubborn tie could happen if, for example, you only had six council members at the dais.

So that will come up every time where you have a vacancy, but it could come up if someone is absent.

So what do you do with a 3-3?

We don't have a runoff ability.

It just you'll be in an endless loop and endless circle.

In that situation where you have all decided that you're truly stuck in what I am calling a stubborn tie.

My recommendation is your Uncle Sam hat to go to random tie.

We have not been able to come up with any other option for that particular problem, but again, we would all need you to declare we're officially stuck before we move on to that.

Okay, the second option now, instead of ranked choice voting, if you decide you don't want to do ranked choice voting, would be a process of elimination.

So you have this process in a couple of your rules now.

We would try to simplify as much as possible, but at least you would have one process of elimination and staff can always walk you through it.

This is a situation unlike ranked choice voting where you really vote once, and then you go the system essentially tallies and retallies the votes.

This is a process where you do several rounds of elimination.

I do recommend that you do it by ballot.

If you do it by ballot, there you know you're no one is tipping their hand in the last person who gets to vote, which traditionally is the mayor.

Um that person isn't able to see where the other people are voting.

So that is why voting by ballot is often in this situation, what is done in what I would recommend.

So we would do a process of elimination by ballot.

Um, unless just like the ranked choice voting process, however, you could get stuck.

Um, elimination does not resolve with every case.

Again, I keep using the 3-2-2 tie that could fairly easily come up.

So, what do we do in ranked choice?

I'm sorry, in process of elimination if there's a tie, it's the same choice that I just gave you before, just like with ranked choice voting.

You could do a runoff vote by ballot to eliminate one of the tied lowest vote getters and then proceed with elimination, or you can select by random selection, either one.

What do you do if you have a stubborn tie?

Again, you could really end up with a stubborn tie when you have six only six members at the dais or four members at the dais if you were in that situation.

Again, once you're if you're really truly stuck at that point, we would go to the Uncle Sam hat.

And then the final method, rather than ranked choice voting or process of elimination, would be to make appointments by motion by ballot.

Again, I would recommend by ballot.

In this in this case, motions are taken one at a time, nominee by nominee.

Under Rosenberg's rules of order, which you all have adopted to fill in where your rules leave off, motions are voted on in the reverse order made.

So if you have three motions on the floor, you would take the last motion first, the second motion second, and the first motion last.

Motion, you could end up in lost motions.

A lost motion is where you have no majority on either side.

And this could happen once again if you only have six members at the dais.

Um so for example, you could have a three-three vote, or you could have a two-three vote.

In that situation, what do we do?

What are your options?

My recommended option is to go through the same elimination process we just talked about before.

So here is the bottom line.

Everything probably is swimming in everyone's head because that's really the problem that I have the feedback I have gotten from all of you.

The problem here is there's too many rules, too many options, and nobody knows what to do.

So I've tried to put it on this chart.

This is the place to look at.

And for mayor, vice mayor, it is process of elimination by ballot, but no method to get unstuck.

So this walks through the recommendation that I made.

If one nominee, then that person is appointed.

Of course, all nominees need to be accepted.

And in the case of mayor-vice mayor, you have to have the nominee has to agree to accept the position.

But this is a simplified version.

One nominee, that person is appointed, two nominees, just do it by motion, by ballot.

And if you're stuck with a tied or lost motion, use random selection at that point.

If you have three or more nominees, so that could be three, that could be in the case of perhaps a council vacancy appointment, you could have 15.

Um, but if you have three or more nominees, your choices here, I I recommend that you just pick one.

Either rank choice voting plus tie breaking rules, process of elimination by ballot plus tie-breaking rules, or by or by motion by ballot, with tie-breaking rules.

And I want to go back real quickly for the motion, the process by motion.

There is one, I would say, um, criticism I have heard uh over time of not from this organization but others of the the by motion tends to give whoever is the presiding officer, which typically would be the mayor unless the mayor is absent, a lot of control over the order in which motions are taken.

And so it could be seen as giving the mayor too much power, that may be power the mayor welcomes or not.

In fact, I I think that there may be mayors who don't want that much power over the process.

So the my recommendation for that reason is that you not do process, do it by motion for that very reason.

But other than that criticism that I have heard elsewhere, it is certainly a valid way to go, and it is certainly done in a variety of situations.

But just recognize that the order of motions taken could impact uh the outcome in that situation.

So with that, if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

I'm also happy to have Brian Tickner come down and answer any IT questions because we all know I should not be answering any IT questions.

Thank you, Madam City Attorney, uh, and thank you in advance, uh, Mr.

Tickner.

I'm sure you're looking forward to having more application development in in your shop.

Uh I'll bring it back to council here for questions.

Vice Mayor, questions and comments or just questions at this time, Mayor?

Oh, let's start with questions.

Your feelings on on by motion, you say that one of the things that you might see is a as a.

As a benefit to the current mayor, is how he or she may choose the order of nominations.

But I'm wondering where your feeling is instead of doing the last in first out, if it was actually first in first out.

In my opinion, you still end up with the same problem because the I think there is a way in which, and again, I'm not commenting on any particular mayor, and certainly not the mayor that you currently have seated, but there could be a strategy, both with how quickly you raise your hand as well as who gets recognized first to make the motions and in what order.

And so that could impact the outcome.

I don't think it would impact the outcome in every situation, but I could see a world in which that could impact the outcome.

So I honestly just wanted to name it, so that if you do select that, you understand there could be a situation where there could be at least an appearance that that was happening, even if it wasn't truly happening.

So again, just a hundred percent out of transparency.

I just wanted to name that out loud.

But it is a perfectly valid way to go.

It is a way that lots of decisions are made.

And to your point, I definitely see in the last and first out, or or last motion made being the first one addressed, where everybody would wait two days to make the motion, waiting for everyone else to make the motion first.

And I think that's probably why Rosenberg has the rule that it does is that the the first one, the first one in is the last motion to be taken.

Otherwise, more of a race to get recognized first rather than everyone delaying uh in hopes that their motion is last.

So I would recommend if you go this route, just go ahead and stick with Rosenberg's rules of order.

I think they were made to promote efficiency and not delay.

Ms.

Ben Willis.

Thank you.

Um I'm wondering, um, would you say that what we're using now, and I'm especially thinking of uh appointments to boards and commissions, uh, is more like a process of elimination right now, because I I've been just I'm looking back at this, and I've only done this a couple times, uh I've been very confused every time we've done it because it's been different, um, a little bit different, you know.

And it I think some of it obviously, the like for example, the um the new board, the design and preservation, that's so different, and now it's kind of based on um special skills, right?

So we had to handle it a little bit differently, as opposed to I can't think of any other board right now that's like that, but it seemed like we did it a little bit different each time.

Um, and I think that's a good observation.

That particular, I'm gonna go back to the slides so that we actually I'll do the summary slide if you all can see this clearly.

For boards, commissions, and committees, you actually the rule bakes in that you can do it either by motion or by elimination.

So part of the reason why you do it differently every time is because the rule contemplates that you have two choices that look very different, right?

By motion is the mayor collects all the motions, or you take one motion at a time.

If it fails, then there's another motion on the floor, or elimination, which is the mayor would collect all of the nominations and the seconds, and once that process is finished, then you do this elimination process, which are successive rounds of voting, eliminating folks until you have a winner, or you get stuck, and then you have to figure out how to get unstuck.

With the design review and preservation board, for example, we have different seats with different criteria, and you saw this most recently with uh housing authority appointment where you have different qualifications for so many seats are reserved for folks with specialized criteria.

And so if, for example, you were to roll back that housing authority, you had we're filling uh different seats with different criteria.

So you would have to take those selection processes as if they were completely separate because they have different criteria that looks different than if you are, for example, filling housing authority seats, multiple ones that all have the same criteria, that gets baked into one selection process with process of elimination, and you're as I'm understanding from uh Brian Tickner, that if IT were creating uh rank choice voting process that allows for um, for example, multiple seats that are exactly the same, that becomes uh I think a more complicated programming exercise than the situation where you're just selecting there's one seat and you're selecting for one seat.

So, Brian, do you want to just come down to maybe talk about that?

Because I'm definitely over my skis on that one.

Good afternoon, Brian Tickner, chief information officer.

Uh yeah, Teresa explained it, right?

I think uh with ranked choice voting really it does get exponentially more complex as the number of candidates and the number of seats becomes larger, right?

So if you're just filling one council seat and there's two, well, say three candidates, that's one thing, but to develop something in-house to do it, we would have to accommodate all kinds of scenarios.

So we could have three seats on a committee, for example, that are open, and six, seven candidates.

And so with ranked choice voting, each of you would then rank each of those say seven candidates.

Now we have seven times seven is 49 different combinations that we need to track, and then say if there's could be up to three who are seated, and then does it need a majority, or does it just need uh certain number?

Is it the top three, or does everybody have to have at least four?

Um, as a majority.

So it just gets more complicated as as it goes, but it's doable if we can define the rules up front.

Okay, thank you.

Uh, one last question.

Um I understand the need for kind of standardizing what we're trying to do.

Uh but I'm wondering about mayor and vice mayor and the possibility now to open up a can of worms of rotation.

Um I just feel like that process, and you know, going through it myself, but also watching it over the years, has been um it hasn't always been the most positive process to watch.

And so I'm just wondering about rotation and the possibility of you know taking the judgment out of it, taking personalities out of it, and just doing rotation and and whether or not that is a possibility, or could we study it if we're if we're actually looking at this process and doing it maybe a little differently?

Typically, when you have a rotation, and and I have seen this in my career that um cities that where they have a rotation, a practice, uh a pattern practice of having a rotation, you still end up taking a vote.

Um, and if you have a you know rule that this is sort of our tradition, assuming that you know the person wants the who's up next wants it, um, if you have this tradition, um, you still end up taking a vote, and so what can happen is that you follow that tradition and you follow that path, um, but not every council will do it every time.

And so um sometimes that the fact that you um in a particular case didn't follow the tradition can become um sort of a uh difficult difficult dynamic uh on the council uh after that vote.

And so I would I would say that you know your charter requires you all to sort of elect.

So if you adopted a rule that we are gonna have this tradition, there could be a departure from that tradition from the dais on a particular occasion, and I would just um I would just want you all to think through what that might look like.

But certainly there are lots of cities out there that have adopted you know rules and or practices where they uh go through a rotation, and that's certainly something we could bring back to you in a relatively easy way, but I would just want some feedback.

So the the feedback today would really be if you want a rule change, I would ask you to give me the feedback about which of which of these directions you would like to follow, so we can bring you back something that we can then tweak and it if needed, but that you would then be able to adopt.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

McDonald.

Thank you, mayor.

I had a quick question about the ranked choice voting.

On what would be um your estimated time to actually make a program like that?

And the complexity of having the larger boards sounds like that that could be much more time-consuming.

So if it was just to say for uh mayor or vice mayor, something like that type of program.

Could you give me an estimate?

Right, yeah.

So, great question.

The um, as you explain, that if we go for the full gamblit, I guess it definitely would take longer, but we could build a prototype in around 20 to 24 hours of development time.

Not meaning you'd be ready by tomorrow at this time.

Um, so 20 to 24 hours of development time and as a prototype, and then once we we'd basically work with different stakeholders, do some testing, get some feedback, and it would take probably another 20 to 25 hours from there to finalize it.

Um, so we're be looking at you know 40 plus hours of development uh for it, and then as you said, it gets more complicated if that scenario I mentioned was seven times seven.

How do you put 49 names on a on a screen and just kind of you get into kind of the you know the the user interface aspect of it to make it friendly and yeah, it's giving me anxiety just thinking of that.

So I'll say no to that one.

But I um I do have a question on the what um council member Ben Willows just said around uh the mayor and the vice mayor rotation.

My understanding, and maybe you could give us some feedback on that, is that those are traditionally mayor and vice mayor positions that are only one year and in terms and they're smaller councils, a lot of times uh five member boards.

So I have not heard of a larger council that has that type of rotation, it's simply because you could be on council for four years and you'd never make the rotation if you only did a one-year term.

So I'm I'm just more curious because it's it's a it's a good question to have, but I I don't know that I have enough data around that.

So I'm gonna um check in with a clerk who was able to do a little bit of surveying.

Um I'm not sure we have the granular on councils where the mayor serves a two-year term.

We have none.

No, that I didn't get to that level of detail on the poll that I asked the uh Sonoma County clerks.

Um anecdotally, most of them were five-member bodies, and um there were instances um on some of the wider responses that I received that even with um a rotation project or a rotation rotation process, um, in the event that the council member who is next in the rotation, they have an opt-out clause, and so then the rotation gets skewed, and you have to build in um protocols in that instance.

So if their work life does not really allow for them to up their game to step into a vice mayor seat in their year, um what does that look like?

So it's more than just a simple, this is the rotation, it is what it is.

There's always an out to, or there's usually an out for um considerations like that.

Anything else, Ms.

McDonald?

All right, thank you, Ms.

Fleming.

All right, thank you.

Well, then let's open this up to public comment.

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

Peter, we'll start with you and then we go to Janice.

All right, Janice, you can lead us off.

Peter, you can be next.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Janice Corman.

Um, does this mean that you're eliminating running for city council in the future?

That you're just going to have this thing where you come up with people and just keep kind of circulating them around within the city council.

I'm not clear on that concept.

So I just like you to tell me how that's working because I think that it's really important to maintain the city council as a voting uh public uh available to the public to be able to run.

Thank you, Janice.

And just to confirm, this is for unexpected absences, everything else remains the same.

Peter, go ahead.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Um, what I'm going to uh now share, I am certain is valid and connected to this discussion and worthy of your attention.

And I believe, without a doubt, that a percentage of honest attorneys will agree with my assessment and hopefully our city uh attorney as well.

As for me, I believe and I have good feelings, much more so towards a Santa Rosa City Council as government servants being truly and more so sincere and facilitating the public as opposed to uh our state and federal uh government servants that are far too controlled by human compromise and have been for a very long time.

You all took the constitutional oath that's never been followed and never been honored, and it's no longer acceptable.

Specifically, I'm referring to the 13th amendment, and there's more than just that, but the 13th amendment of the Constitution, which was initially gifted us from the matriarchal Iroquois states that no one with a title of nobility may hold public office in America, and believe me, this is germane to this cost this this discussion there are no Republicans and Democrats in DC.

They are bar lawyers, British attorney registry that confer upon their workers the nobility title esquire, they dominate the House and the Senate.

They are not Republicans and Democrats, they are bar lawyers in service to usurus bankers that maintain all wars foreign and domestic, and it is now upon us to rise and be majestic.

California has 90,000 law enforcement, 320,000 bar lawyers.

If the U.S.

Constitution were the law of the land as has been wished for and originally designed to be, 90% of bar lawyers would be out of work.

And how seriously have these bar lawyers handcuffed our law enforcement in how many different ways.

Again, that if the lawyers are running this show, what they did in in San Mateo, where they decided they can fire a voted in sheriff.

That's against the constitution again.

That's totally out of line.

And there's a reason that the the devil's advocate was made a lot of sense, and so too the movie Constantine, when the officer says to uh King Ruby, I don't believe in the devil.

He says, That's well, you should because he believes in you.

Thank you, Peter.

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

Seeing none, we'll close public comment and bring it back to the council for uh final comments and direction to staff.

Vice mayor.

Thank you.

And Madam City Attorney, I take it you're looking for for direction or at least the thoughts of council on what we've seen works and what we've seen hasn't worked in past voting processes.

Would that be a correct assumption?

Um, yes, and I'm also hoping to get feedback on if you if you want something to be changed or fixed, what it is you would like.

Very well.

I think I'd I first begin by addressing the comment by my colleague in regards to the rotation.

I think it would be great, but as the as the described, if there are seven of us and we're on a rotation and one of us doesn't run again.

I think that's where the system would be faulty.

But I do understand that it it can be an ugly process, but it's also a beautiful process, that uh we amongst ourselves are choosing amongst ourselves and then supporting that individual that we that we elect as our as our spokesperson is our leader is our mayor.

So I do see the beauty of that process.

Uh, in regards to the the process that I've seen here at council, I believe that the process of elimination is what I've seen works best, where I personally would improve the system, would be instead of giving each council member one vote less than the total amount of candidates, would be one sole vote for each candidate for each uh voter.

And what I've seen that does is lower the amount of of ballot counts, because ultimately we're gonna decide on one individual, and then that total individual gets an amount of votes.

Now, in the process of three three or three, two, two, I can see how there's a differentiation between one and the next.

But I have seen that when we take the three-two, two and put them into a runoff and then put that individual back in the race against the the person that got three votes.

I see that that's much more efficient.

In regards to whether it's a tie or the three-three where it's it's an unbreakable tie, I do like the idea of the hat.

I do like the idea of rock paper scissors, or even a coin flip.

Even though I do prefer the rock paper scissors and the coin flip much more because it at least allows some energy or some effort from the individuals that have something at stake in that race, opposed to uh simply picking in the name of the hat.

And other than that, rank voice, uh rank choice.

I see that process being much more effective in a race where there's eight or more uh candidates, as I could definitely see that if we were do a a process of elimination for for 32 people in a race, that would be uh very painstaking for our our city clerk.

But nonetheless, though, when it's a lower amount, I don't see ranked voice of ranked choice being something that's very effective in that lower count of candidates.

Thank you.

May I through the mayor?

May I ask for just one point of clarification?

You said in a process of elimination instead of voting for um multiples based on the number of seats plus, that you think each council member should just uh have one vote.

Correct.

And when I said multiple, it's because when we look at if we have three candidates, we're allowed two votes, and then amongst those three.

But if we simply voted for one, I think that hurry up the process.

And I've I've witnessed or or observed that in the past each member ultimately voted again for one of those multiple votes, anyways.

So if we just hurried up that process, I see as being more efficient.

And that's that's my observation of the process.

So essentially, one vote per open seat for each other.

Okay, that is correct.

And the runoff, and whether it be it'd be the mayor or the vice mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

O'Krepke.

Yeah, I tend to agree with most of what the vice mayor said.

Um, I think my one concern with a one vote would be if there's three individuals and it comes down to a three two two vote, then a majority of the council did not vote for the person that got the three votes who would then become mayor.

That's where I see some inequity in the process.

Um I would be completely okay with using the process of elimination we have now, then to get unstuck.

Um, you know, use your recommendations with um um a runoff and then get go to the whatever random luck pro I mean throw darts, I don't care, what you know, um pick it out of a hat, that's fine.

It's as far as rank choice voting, I just don't see the you know the the benefit of staff time to do this on a very rare occasion, uh as well as I don't think it really it still leaves the possibility that it doesn't solve anything.

Um so I think that's where my direction lie uh would lie.

Thank you, Ms.

McDonald.

Mr.

Mayor, may I just clarify real quickly my apologies, council member?

Um I'm I'm I have the same question.

When you say process of elimination, do you mean again with the number of seats minus one, or do you mean with one vote per seat as council member or vice mayor alvarez?

Yeah, like I said when I started, I think there's there's structural issues with the one vote where you could get to a majority of the of the council not wanting whoever gets the three votes, right?

So you'd have four who voted another way and then three who voted one way and the three wins.

I don't think that works right.

So then what I would suggest is what we do now, or what we've unofficially do now, which is the runoff of the two and two, whoever is the victor of that um vote goes against the three, and then you you take the majority, unless it's a three-three, and then we go into the stuck process.

Um I I agree with you that if you ended up either because you each only had one vote, or at the end of a longer elimination with three two two, you're you're stuck.

And so that's when we would pull out one of the two tie-breaking mechanisms.

So I agree with that.

So we would we would never you need I need a majority of you to vote, right?

So three, two, two doesn't get you a majority anywhere.

Um so my question then is are you suggesting the same idea that Vice Mayor Alvarez was suggesting, which is rather than the number of seats, you know, a number of nominees minus one, are we just giving you each one vote?

Um so that you are not you're not getting to the what one vote does is it allows you to vote for your top choice, but it doesn't give you any say and others that you might prefer as a second or third choice.

Um so the benefit of the elimination, which takes longer to get there, uh, granted it does, is it does give every council member the ability to weigh in.

So are you suggesting that we do what the vice mayor is suggesting, which is you got each each person gets one vote, and let's see what happens, or are you suggesting kind of the process you have now where you all have the number of nominees minus one, and we go through multiple rounds.

I I would suggest whatever my colleagues agree with between either a runoff of the two lesser or uh number of nominees minus one.

Okay, and if through the mayor, if I can clarify my statement to my colleague, uh what would my thoughts were is if we do have a three-two-two vote, and and as you stated, I wanted to vote for one of the two-twos, that would run off into a runoff where your vote again would be applied to the one of the two twos, which would also be bringing that winner back against the the three.

So it you don't actually eliminate the person that you might have wanted to get, but you definitely bring them back to life through that two-two runoff.

Right, but I regardless if you're voting for one less than exists and there's only two, then you're only voting for one.

That is true, but you just saved one runoff or one one in my mind, you're saving one ballot count.

I think if I may Mr.

Mayor, um, I think and my question, and I just want to make sure that I'm understanding the feedback, is that any time if you ever end up with three two-two, we have to go to one of these um options, whether that's random or you do the runoff, you have to.

But my question is before you get to the three-two-two.

If you're doing random selection, the vice mayor has suggested every council member would get one vote.

Even if you have four nominees, everybody gets one vote because it's only one seat, and that's see what happens.

If you end up with a three-two-two in that situation, we would have to go to your tie-breaking mechanism.

My question for uh the council member Okrepki is are you suggesting that approach, or are you suggesting the um we have four nominees, so every council member votes for three, and we eliminate and then go back again and do the success of voting.

I mean, I understand the efficiency of what council or Vice Mayor Alvarez is saying, but I also understand the the value in saying, all right, there's four here in my top three, there's three here in my top two, and going that route.

And I understand it may take longer, but I think it gives you voice on multiple people than then just one and seeing what happens.

Thank you both.

Let's move on to Ms.

McDonald right now.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for the presentation.

So I am for the process of elimination and by ballot, and I think in the case where you have a three-two-two, something that may be able to get um us to a quicker decision would potentially be that the person that got three votes automatically moves forward to the next vote.

And the two that are tied, the two-two, there is only a vote between those two, and each member would get one vote, and then that person would move forward.

So then that way you would just be deciding between those two people, the person that got three votes originally, and the person that won between those other bottom two.

If that makes sense.

I don't like rock, paper, scissors, scissors because I've seen people cheat.

So I would like to do something that's a little bit more like the coin toss makes sense, we do it in football, that type of thing.

So, but I think that there's a way that we can get to something maybe a bit quicker.

Where I don't appreciate the process is when we change the rules on the dais as we're going along.

That's when it feels like something's being done inappropriately.

Um, and whether our mayor would choose to take nominations in order or not, I'm not for the um by motion simply because of how that can look to the public.

I think it's important that we keep the process as clean and simple as we possibly can, because there's been confusion, not only from us up here, but actually of the public of how we're making the decisions.

So, as as clearly as we can delineate out not only the rules of engagement prior to going into the votes, but also how we would treat it, you know, during this.

That's the part that I think can get confusing because we actually have the power to continue to change the rules as we go, and that's what I think is important is that when we make the decision today that we keep those rules clean.

If I may, Mr.

Mayor, the the process that you talked about for having a um a runoff between the two twos is, and I think you explained it more artfully than I did, but that is what I was suggesting when you get to three-two-two is the the person who got three gets set to the side, they're gonna go in the final round, and then we do a runoff between the two lowest vote getters.

One of those individuals gets eliminated, and then you do your your continue with elimination with the person who won the runoff and the person who got three in the first instance.

Correct.

And then if you had four people or five people, then we'd just have to do the eliminations as council member Hokropke said, where you had one fewer until you get to that tie, or until we are able to make that elimination.

So but I've seen it where we've had a tie, I've seen it where we've had four people.

So I think it's important that like your 49 different scenarios, this could actually be some of that where you have to write it out.

If it's five people, it goes to this vote.

If it's four people, if it's six people, it can be seven people, to be perfectly honest, because somebody could self-nominate.

So I I think it's important to just write that all out so that we have the rules and also the public is informed of how we're choosing mayor, vice mayor, or any of the board members or any of the other positions you're asking for guidance on.

Thank you, Miss Ben Wellos.

Um thank you.

Uh I um agree with what council member uh McDonnell is saying.

I think that's fine for the council vacancy and and the appointments to boards and commissions of that least for me.

And I would like to see us explore rotation for mayor and vice mayor.

Thank you, Miss Rogers.

Um, so no one rotation for me, two years is a long time.

Um, and then also, uh, I would do the process of elimination by ballot and to clarify with Madam City Clerk.

We hand in our ballots, but you'll still say it out loud what the votes were.

That was a nod of a yes.

Um, and then I think we can eliminate some of the rounds.

So I wouldn't say um minus one.

I would say even if we had four, we would vote for like two.

Um but that that's just me because I think we always get there anyway.

Uh, and I think that would be and I don't really know what to do about a tie.

Too much chance for me.

I don't know what to do about a tie, so thank you, Miss Fleming.

Thank you.

Um, I've heard a lot of great stuff today.

I've done um more of these than I care to remember, and I think that there's a bifurcation between boards and commissions and the mayor vote, and I'll talk about boards commissions and even a council replacement.

I think that um for boards and commissions, I'm comfortable with a mayor um taking a motion and us voting on the motion.

Um, and that that seems to be pretty straightforward.

I don't know that we need to go through, you know, the process of elimination.

I think we we are pretty good at dealing with that here, and not a lot of issues from that process.

I think that for um council replacements.

I like the idea of um process of elimination because there's a lot more nuance and texture to that process and a lot less gamesmanship that can be baked into it in the process in general.

However, when it comes to the mayor, um it's my experience that there's a ton of gamesmanship that goes on, and when you have the chance to do process of elimination, you can also do um bullet voting, and that complicates the whole thing at the dais, and I think that it distorts the will of the council, and I actually don't think that this belongs in the will of the council, and I don't think that these comments belong in the purview of this discussion.

But since the city attorney has not stopped my colleagues from discussing this today, I will say that we are a large city.

We're not a large city in terms of a metropolis, but we're a large city in terms of cities, and cities our size across the nation and beyond do not choose their own mayors, and that is belongs that power, in my opinion, belongs with the will of the people, and that decision should be made in a charter review and cannot be made from the dais.

And so my opinions on it are really irrelevant, but I'm that is the process, and I do hope that we get to the place of our glow-up both in our infrastructure and in our processes.

So did I um and then I will just say that I am in favor of using Dina's hat.

I don't know what the succession planning for the hat is if D never moves on.

We're gonna have to have another succession plan.

Um, but I do think that we we ought to be moving away from anything that obfuscates the process from the voters and from the viewers.

We need to be really clear about what we're doing, needs to be pretty straightforward.

So I think uh the vice mayor had the best suggestion of one person one vote when it comes to the mayor until we get to the point of hopefully the the people of the city of Santa Rosa voting on it, that it should be you say who you want the mayor to be and you go from there.

If you end up with a three, two, two or two, two, two, whatever it is, it doesn't really matter, then you go from from there.

Um but this process of elimination is is too gamey for my taste.

Vice Mayor.

Madam City Attorney, one thing that we didn't uh speak about is the majority uh that we don't need a runoff.

You know, if we're covering all bases here, if any of the candidates were to obtain the majority at the beginning, then there would be no need for a runoff.

That's correct.

If anybody gets four affirmative votes, then they they win, regardless of what uh in any of these three very different situations.

So now I say for affirmative votes.

If you are doing a process of elimination where each of you are voting for four people, then it's not just simply four votes.

It would be four times the number of votes.

Right, but to simplify if there is a majority vote, and if each of you are voting for one person for is the majority, um, regardless of the number of people sitting here, we would need four votes.

So uh if anybody gets four, then we don't need to go to a runoff, we don't need to pull out the hat.

You've just selected you've made your choice.

And speaking again to, and and ultimately, Senator, and you're right, Santa Rosa will get to the point where it should be the will of the people.

I absolutely agree with that.

Uh until that point, I think one of the things that I've noticed is that our mayor is here for two years because of the relationships that he or she may build with the different departments and the people of Santa Rosa, and so therefore I support that even more, giving it even more thought of why the rotation would actually impede those longer relationships and the effectiveness of our mayor to do his or her work while in the tutorship of mayor.

Thank you.

Um, and I'll just begin by saying thank you so much, um Madam Madam City Attorney for all the work that you've done on this.

Uh I think you've been very successful in helping us here on the dais focus our thoughts.

Um, unless I'm mistaken, I'm sensing that we are coalescing around first of all, standing our standardizing our processes, leaving in place the the what's working, namely the the motion um uh the motion in the second for appointments for the mayor vote for really all of our appointments, um, but then focusing our attention on what sounds to me like uh a process of elimination for when we have three or more candidates, just in that just in that case.

Uh, with respect to how we handle that process of elimination, um my preference is that, and this gets back to um Council Member Fleming's point, that we standardize how the vote takes place um and remove um whatever whatever small-scale gamification can go on at that point, just so everyone comes to the dais with a very clear understanding of how many how many are we voting for.

Um, and there is clearly perhaps some difference of opinion there, so maybe your best recommendation for how we handle the number of votes or then the number of rounds, um, as long as it's standardized and as long as it's transparent, I'm I'm I'm agnostic.

Uh I like I like the solution that we've come to.

I have to admit that um asking Mr.

Tickner to go off and do a ranked choice voting uh software application that could have been gamified in other fun ways involving graphics and video game sounds um to to land even more drama to the public experience.

I mean there is some there is some attraction for me there.

But it does sound like for for our purposes the process of elimination makes the most sense as long as we just clarify and and standardize it.

And with that I will I will turn it back to you are there any uh final questions that you have for us or is there other other information you could you could send our way well I think there are two there are two issues that would be helpful for me to clarify and again this is so I can bring something to you that kind of is close to what you want and and hopefully any tweaks can be made at the dais.

And and part of this is truly um you know I I my hope would be to bring it to you in the month of um October so that when you get to your decision in November about your vice mayor you have a process in place.

So that is my goal.

With that in mind I'm gonna poke at a couple of places where I want to make sure I have some clarity.

So one is what I'm hearing is um if you have three or more are we wanting to have one three or more nominees because if you have fewer than that it's all very clear what to do.

But if you um have three or more are we wanting one process for all three I there seems to be a little bit of a difference of opinion and I just wanted to get a collective sense of are you is is the majority of you at least at this point giving direction that you'd like to see one process for all three of these situations.

Among among the three different situations where you might have we have to be taking this vote uh is there is there a wish to standardize among those three situations for when we have three or more candidates it looks like I'm Caroline did I see your standardized for across the three different situations where we might be trying to operate council member Fleming I'm sorry I can't I can't hear you.

May I have the floor thank you.

I I think that the mayor vote is so specific because you're voting in your own self-interest um rather than the interest of um the people and so I think that we have to treat that differently in order to to tighten that process to better reflect the will of the people and taking out any potential for gamification and that means one council member one vote it makes it more transparent to the public so I'm in favor of doing um you know X amount minus one for boards commissions and for replacements but I think that for our mayor vote we ought to really try to just do if we have more than two candidates we ought to try to vote for the one we want on one go.

So that would be um an elimination process where everybody gets one vote or are you doing back to motion motion by motion?

Motion by motion if you have three or more means.

So it's my understanding that when we get to these situations where we have more than three folks on um that so let's say there's you know council members A, B and C are are on the floor they've all accepted the nomination so there essentially have been three motions on the floor at that point, right?

There are three nominees on the floor.

Depending depending on which of these processes you could do the mayor could collect all of the nominees you have uh council members A B and C who have been nominated for mayor.

You could either then do an elimination where everybody votes for one time or you do it by motion which would be so I have seen it done by motion, and I've seen it done by nomination collection, and it's done by motion in my experience when it's there's a coalescence ahead of time from the community around usually one or two people.

I've never seen it done by motion without a collection of nominations when there's when it's a jungle, yeah.

Um so given the more political nature of the council after moving to districts.

I think that it's essential that we do it by collecting the all nominations and not by motion.

That gives everybody who wants to participate a fair chance to have their day at the dais, and then one council member, one vote.

And if you get to the um three-two-two, which is the most common scenario, then you have the two-two, one vote, and then the whoever prevails from that goes against the person with three with one vote, and it's you know, not very many rounds.

I don't think that time we need to be all that worried about doing it quickly.

I think we need to be worried about doing it in a way that's understandable and clear.

Okay.

I I understand what was just presented.

I guess the question is is that am I getting for mayor?

This is this is mayor vice mayor.

A follow-up question for me.

Is there a reason we wouldn't apply that to the other two situations?

Um, it's it's the issue of standardization here.

What's the advantage to have multiple?

I'm not an order Muppet, so standardization is not necessarily the highest like thing that is important to me.

I think that getting it right is the my North Star here.

I think that it's possible to apply it to the other ones.

Um, I think that it's just a matter of how much um the council wants to play with that.

I'm I'm kind of agnostic about it.

If it feels really important to the council to standardize, I'm okay with applying it to those other processes.

I don't have a real strong bias against that.

I was just trying to say that because it felt like everyone was going the other way, and I was saying I was really trying to fight for where I thought it was the most contentious and important.

Right.

No, I take that point, and as I mentioned, I'm I'm somewhat agnostic on the on the actual mechanics of what isn't in a sense still a um an elimination process.

But if if we think that's the most transparent and the best, then I I can't think of a reason why we wouldn't apply it to the other two and keep it the same.

The reason why you might consider not applying it to let's say a board and commission is because you sometimes have so many more seats available, and it might be difficult to for us and for the public actually to understand in the process, um, when you're taking lots of different nominations.

So, like let's say you have three people, then you'd be taking slates potentially like slates of three lots and lots of three people.

Whereas if you ask council member Rogers to give you a slate of three people, then if we really disagree with it, which we rarely do, then we can get into it.

It's just sort of to not make it overly technical when it's not that high of stakes.

Fair point.

Other thoughts from my colleagues, Ms.

McDonald?

Yeah, I think this is getting a little bit convoluted because we have like uh council member Fleming said, we have several different things.

So as far as far as um boards and commission goes, I think the way that we've been doing it by motion is fair and clean, and it's because we're able to say this person who meets that qualification when we have those types of seats that you have to meet a certain qualification or a certain age group in order to represent on that specific board, such as the housing authority, which we just um recently did.

But as far as the um mayor, vice mayor, or even the vacant council seat, I think those are the ones that we go back to process of elimination.

And so I just want clarification when we have more than three people nominated, specifically for mayor, vice mayor, but you could have it for a vacant council seat as well.

That's where I still think the process is not clean.

So if we had seven people or six people that were nominated for those positions, a process of elimination by one viewer makes sense to me.

But if you only have the three people going back to the three, two, two, that's a clean enough system with a third, the person that got three moves on, the person that got the two, you're voting between.

Where I've seen it get messy is when we don't have that process when we've had more than three, and we have had that happen recently, even.

So I think that's where I would like the clarification, and it's because that's where it gets confusing from um the public and from us.

The other one, when it's the smaller nomination, it's not as messy.

It's when we get more nominations that I think that needs to be clarified and standardized, but mostly with mayor, vice mayor, and even the vacant council member seat, which I think I was the last vacant council member seat that got filled, and it was also confusing during that time.

Miss Fleming?

Yeah, I think that if you wanted to standardize it in any way, I would apply the protocol I set forth.

Um I still wouldn't do a process of elimination um for a council member seat, but I think that you could apply the process for the mayor, the same as you could the process for a council member seat.

The chances of us getting more than seven or eight applicants from any one district are are pretty low because we're a lot smaller.

I think we haven't had more than 10 for a single district vacancy.

Well, we have had upwards of 20 when it was at large.

And so I think that if you wanted to standardize the one council member one vote to the applicants for the council seats, and for the mayor, it's pretty straightforward and similar.

I just would I I personally think that the process we use now for the boards and commissions is is pretty good and allows for you know more collaborative process.

And just to be clear, would you then suggest that we go to the uh essentially drawing out of the hat when we get we could start on some of those?

Unless someone wants to arm wrestle me, I think that the hat is appropriate.

Okay.

Uh Vice Mayor.

Just a clarifier, make sure that I understand what's being said.

It sounds like a board and commissions, in a sense, is different from council appointed seats.

And I do see the standardized aspect of even the vacant seat, and if there's a three-three vote or lock, would we go to that or any other process?

But I definitely want to reiterate the one can one vote process and to the point that uh my colleague made of even four people running.

I believe that count might have been close to, and if not, imagine the scenario of three, two, one-one, and what that would do in having to recount the ballot.

And but I believe the the charter says if you received two or more votes, you wouldn't be eliminated, you'd be in the process for the next round if we would kept doing the multiple votes per or one less than the amount of candidates out there.

But if we went to the one-one, one person one vote, the one-one would be eliminated, and the three two would go into that final runoff.

Would that be a correct statement to make?

So our charter doesn't have the rule about how to eliminate it, just says you have to do it, you have to vote.

Where the rule about eliminating individuals who receive zero votes or one vote lives is in your rules.

And so we're talking about what do you want to do with those rules?

Do you want to change them or not?

So you can get rid of that, or we can keep that.

Then anybody who receives either zero votes or one vote is gone.

Um, and then you would uh move to the next round if um you know when you eliminate, and so when you have that uh three, two, one-one, that would be seven.

Yes, three, two, one, one, the two folks who got one vote would be gone if you are eliminating folks who got one vote or zero vote, and then you would be left with the person who received three and the person who received two, and then we would vote again.

And that that goes to the point I'm making of the one vote.

If we were to add or say one less vote than the total running, we'd be doing this approximately three or three times because we would have three votes to different individuals, and the count could be twelve, six, three, three.

It could be.

You go on from multiple times.

I think the other possibility is you could end up with I don't know.

You could end up with each of you voting for one person and they who are different people where you have lots, right?

So we could have a you know, one times seven.

So that means you know, you would all be if you had seven applicants and each of you voted for a different person, I think you'd have to go back to the drawing board and vote again because they would all be eliminated since they all would have one vote.

Just to try to organize where we are right now.

Um, do I do I sense a consensus from my colleagues here that for the mayor or vice mayor vote?

We we don't mind doing the extra rounds.

We just want to have that one vote clarity.

But for the other two, there's more there's more of a need for expediency.

We want there to be transparency and semi consistency with the mayor vice mayor, but we don't mind having you know eliminating some of the rounds of votes um with it with a similar but not exact process.

Is that is that the is that where we are right now?

All right.

So Madam City Attorney, that's not uh a precise place to land, but does that give you enough to come to to refine this and then come back to us hopefully next month?

Yes, I would I would come back with two different processes, one for mayor, vice mayor, the other one for the other two.

Okay.

Um we would do the one vote for the mayor-vice mayor, we would have um a runoff if need be.

Um, and if you're really truly stuck in a stubborn vote because there are only six of you at the dais, then we would pull out the hat.

For the other one, the other two processes, we would do a process of elimination where you're voting for multiples is what I'm hearing.

I I think you've heard a couple of different things on that, um, and more than one different thing from the same couple of us up here.

I think that it's possible to do this well for let's just take boards and commissions off of this.

I think we more or less are at agreement there.

I think the issue here is do we want to have more than um one person, one vote for um council vacancies?

That's really what we're getting at here.

And I just, if I may, through the mayor, look at a straw poll.

Who would like to have a process of elimination?

We're talking for council vacancies process of elimination.

Who would like to have the process of elimination?

I admit I'm somewhat agnostic there.

Me too, which is why I was asking.

So I think I'm seeing a tacit trend towards uh the process of elimination with um did I get that right?

I think that's correct.

Okay.

So there you go.

You've got three slightly different processes.

I I will I will add I wouldn't mind standardizing two of them, but sure, get them get them close.

They don't have to be exact.

Um, but at least it's it's still an improvement on what we have right now, which is zero standardization, lots of confusion and rulemaking on the fly on the dais.

So we would we would have taken at least a little step forward with this.

And I and if I may, I think we'll hear this one more time and before we have to we'll hear this in when we take a vote on it, or we'll hear this in a study session.

I was not planning to bring back another study session.

I would bring back an item.

Now, if you don't like what I bring back, you can tell me to go back to the darling board, or if it's tweakable on the fly, we can do that.

If I may one more I know we're at the end and it's dinner time.

I just would say one more thing because we are all remembering in our most loving senses here, our our dear friend in the assembly, Chris Rogers, as we puzzle through this thing that he assigned to us here.

Um he did have one brilliant suggestion at the end of last year, which was, and I don't know if this falls within the scope of what we're doing tonight or if this would be a charter amendment, but it was an interesting idea that would reduce um some of the uh you know bigness that happens with the mayor vote, which is that you could only nominate one person, and you can't nominate yourself, which in most cases where you have a sitting mayor continues on the council means that you cannot get more than three candidates on the floor, which I think makes it clearer or more transparent to the public.

And I think that that's a pretty reasonable idea.

And I'm gonna take it as mine since he made us do this.

I think we can officially assign that as yours, and I can I concur with that suggestion.

That's a that's a good one.

I'm looking at my I'm looking at the faces of my colleagues.

We'll straw poll on that one.

And just if I can, mayor, just to clarify, you cannot nominate yourself.

And that was that was what you said, right?

And you can only make one motion for one individual.

Absolutely.

Well, it's not about second.

So that's a good point.

Um the he added one other caveat, which is you can only not you can only make, you can only participate in one motion.

You can only nominate one person, it can't be yourself.

You can only second one.

So much less gamesmanship around, you know, nominating.

If you nominate me, I'll nominate you.

No, no, no, no.

Look looking around, all right.

Miss Fleming has had an excellent idea.

It will go down in the record as hers.

Okay.

May Mr.

Mayor, will you tolerate one more question?

Please.

Um boards, commissions, and committees.

I know um council member Fleming suggested, and it seemed to get um uh agreement that you do boards, commissions, and committees by motion.

Your current rule allows for either by motion or process of elimination.

Are you wanting to eliminate the option for process of elimination or keep it as either or I'm thinking that through?

Are there strong feelings in the dais?

Yeah, I'm gonna know that you're really at the end of my strong feelings for the day.

But the thing is is that it's usually okay to have it just be one way or the other, but there are rare times when you want it to be flexible.

Like if you have a really, let's say there's something that comes along, it doesn't happen all that frequently, but where it's a big process and people have a lot of feelings, you're gonna want to do the process of elimination.

Most of the time it makes sense the way that you do it now where you assign a motion and we vote on that.

Isn't this accounted for in the recommendation that the city attorney had?

Like the simple cases all get are all taken off the top by simple motion process.

So we're the only thing we're just debating here is when we got multiple.

Three or more when you have three or more for the same seat.

So again, not a board where you have multiple seats with different criteria like the housing authority one that you just had.

But I do think that you should still be able to make uh a motion or ask one of us to make a motion um at your discretion.

That's my opinion on that matter.

Um I'm not opposed, Mr.

O'Krepke.

Yeah, I would say if you want to throw in caveats, you could also say that we're not allowed to um put forward slates.

So if there's three positions and there's like seven applicants, you can't make different motions of three different individuals, right?

So you just go seat by seat.

There's three openings, you do one at a time, boom boom.

Instead of saying like I want A and B.

She says I want XYZ, you know, someone says they want LMNO, whatever.

So you don't get into that process, it's just first seat.

Who's the first motion?

Everybody agree, yes, no, move on to the second seat.

You can't just can't put forward slates.

Understood.

Vice Mayor.

Just thinking of all possibilities, what would trigger one need opposed to triggering the other need to be the process which we move forward with?

And I think that's why that's where maybe having two options, we'll have to have the clarity of why one would be used and one wouldn't.

I think you've you've asked why why when would it be ideal to use a motion and when would it be ideal to use elimination?

And I think where you have um my recommendation is if you don't have at least three candidates.

Then uh elimination makes no sense, just do it by motion because you just you have two people and you're gonna pick one, right?

Um if you have three or more, then elimination allows you to sort of rank your choices as as a council member and to decide.

Um particularly if you are, you know, we're doing the minus one as opposed to one vote per council member.

If you're doing one vote per council member, I think there's probably less of a reason other than the order in which motions are taken.

Do I sense any strong opposition to Ms.

Fleming's idea?

So which is to k go ahead and essentially tweak the process but keep it by uh either motion or process of elimination, or to break it up uh depending on the number of nominees.

I wouldn't break it up depending on the nominees.

I would just I think the process actually works pretty well as it stands.

Does that does that give you enough Adam City Manager to get us close and then we can we if once we once we have rested and we see the polished version, we can make any final tweaks and then of course you can.

Of course you can.

I think I my sense is that we're very close here, um, and then our and then our heads are are swirling a little bit.

Are we close?

Are we close enough, folks?

Alright, I think as long as you have what you need to come back with it with a next draft.

I think we're close enough to work on any final details on uh when we see it again in October.

I have what I need.

Thank you for your patience.

Thank you both.

Brian, I look forward to working with you in the future.

All right, thanks.

All right.

Uh one one other little straw poll here before we continue.

Are there objections to moving on?

Everyone good with with continuing to go.

All right, there we go.

We're gonna miss Van Wales today.

All right, we're gonna continue to move.

Thank you all for sticking with that.

Never let it be said that this Santa Rosa City Council does not get its head into the process weeds.

We will move on then to let's see, our uh item number six, our report on our closed session.

Madam City Attorney, when you have a chance to to be settled, we are back to you for closed session report.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

There was no reportable action taken during closed session.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And now we can move on to a more relaxing item, but also a joyous one.

Item 7.1, our proclamation for Creek Week 2025.

Ms.

Rogers, would you please lead us off?

Thank you, Mayor.

Whereas throughout much of California, cities, counties, and stewardship organizations recognize Creek Week as an annual celebration of our creeks, watersheds, and the ocean.

And whereas the 238 creeks and approximately 360,000 residents of the Russian River watershed are connected and mutually supported each other, making the Russian River and its tributaries important resources to the people of Sonoma and Mendocino counties, and whereas pollution in the form of trash and debris, chemicals, nutrients, and sediments have the potential to degrade the quality of life and the quality of resources within the Russian River watershed.

And whereas the City of Santa Rosa strives to protect our lands and waterways through ongoing pollution prevention outreach to raise awareness of the harmful effects of pollutants on our natural systems.

Now, therefore it be a resolved that our mayor, Mark Stapp, the mayor of Santa Rosa, on behalf of the entire city council in recognition of our community, do hereby proclaim September 20th through September 26, 2025, as Creek Week in the City of Santa Rosa, and ask all members of our community to protect our watershed health by participating in Creek Week activities, taking steps to reduce pollution and caring for our environment throughout the year.

Thank you.

Kyle, are you here to say a few words?

Uh good evening, Mayor Staff and members of the council.

My name is Kyle Sponberg.

I'm an environmental specialist with the city's water department, and I'm excited to be here this evening to talk to you about some of the fun events that we have upcoming this year for Creek Week.

Creek Week is an annual celebration of our creeks and watersheds with many stewardship organizations throughout the uh throughout the state, hosting events to help raise awareness of the harmful effects of pollutants on our waterways.

To kick off Creek Week and celebrate California's coastal cleanup day, we'll be hosting a cleanup along Santa Rosa Creek on Saturday, September 20th.

We welcome you to come join some of the incredible volunteer groups that we have here today, like the Friends of the Prince Memorial Greenway, to help make the the PMG and Santa Rosa Creek clean and welcoming for all.

On Sunday, September 21st, our staff will lead a guided nature walk along Santa Rosa Creek, starting at Flat Rock Park.

Our popular downtown underground tours will take place on Tuesday, September 23rd and Thursday, September 25th.

Participants are welcome to join this open house event and explore the culverts beneath City Hall from any time between 4 p.m.

and 6 p.m.

on those days.

On Wednesday, September 24th, city staff will participate for a chance to earn the golden trash cup.

We will have cleanup stations with supplies set up near municipal buildings downtown at Prince Gateway Park, along Santa Rosa Creek at Stony Point Road, and near the Laguna Treatment Plant along the Laguna de Santa Rosa.

Finally, Creek Week will conclude on Friday, September 26th with a Tour de Creek bike ride from Prince Gateway Park down to Williside Road and back.

We ask that anyone interested in attending one of the events, please go on to our Creek Week website and register as some of these events will reach capacity.

Thank you for your time, and we hope to see you at one of our Creek Week events.

Kyle, thank you so much, and thank you to the entire team.

Before we uh invite people down for a photo, are there any other members of the public who would like to speak?

Council members, my name is Jack Cabot.

I'm a member of the uh Friends of the Prince Memorial Greenway.

And I live close by in the uh Juilliard Park South A Street area, commonly known as SOFA.

Uh I want to tell you a story about SOFA.

When I moved there 25 years ago, it was a rough neighborhood, as we all know.

I decided to start working on it, and my neighbors joined in.

We bought buildings, investors came in, the artists came in, and now Sofa is just a really interesting dynamic neighborhood.

Then we attacked Juilliard Park, and we have volunteers there that clean up and ask vagrants not to sleep there.

And now Juilliard Park is populated with dog walkers and children and women, and we feel very uh excited about that.

Now, the Prince Greenway, here's the difference.

Sofa is privately owned.

The Prince Greenway is publicly owned.

I can't go down there and do that much.

I do want to tell you that our group is pretty active.

We spent 16, 1,600 and something hours last year doing volunteer work.

We have a very dynamic crew.

I personally ride down in the morning on my bicycle, and in the evening, I come back in my bicycle and I ask a vagrants not to sleep there and not to make a mess.

Every couple of weeks, I call the police.

The point is it's a public area, and we need more help from the city, particularly the police and the parks.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jack.

We're gonna then move on to Steve, Bill, Robert, and then Carol.

All right, let's use both both podiums to be efficient.

Uh Councilmember Rabinowitz, welcome back to City Hall.

Thank you.

Thank you for doing your work.

We're doing ours with the creeks and uh trying our best.

Thank you, Mayor Step, Steve Rubinovich.

As you know, our creeks are extremely important in so many ways, providing flood control, ensuring our water quality, providing natural habitat for many plants and animals and increasing numbers as creek restoration occurs.

The creeks are providing public access, they're providing the backbone of our off-street bikeway system and walking trails and providing open space that we know is so vital for our residents.

The city's adopted a citywide creek master Plan to continue to advance these goals and has a waterways advisory committee of which I am a member among others, which evaluates proposed development along the creeks to make sure the habitat's preserved and the creeks continue to provide important open space to our residents.

The Creek Stewardship Program has involved citizens in the preservation and the maintenance of our creeks and it provides community ways to get involved in their protection, as we know.

The contribution of these volunteers is vital to keep our creeks and creekside environment clean and inviting.

And the group, Friends of the Prince Memorial Greenway is doing a tremendous job to do that.

The city deserves a tremendous amount of credit for its support of these efforts.

Without them, we couldn't do it.

Creek Week provides education, support for these programs, and yes, fun.

Creek Week's a wonderful opportunity to celebrate our creeks, the dedicated city workers who keep our creeks the way they are and improve the creekside environment.

I hope everyone enjoys this wonderful event.

Thank you.

Thank you, Steve.

We'll go on to Bill and then Robert and Carroll.

I just want to talk.

I just want to talk especially about Prince Memorial Greenway.

We talked about trash and pollutants in there, but there's one other problem in the Greenway that I think through years of work we have conquered.

And that is when the Greenway was first laid out, it was decided that California native plants would be planted along the Greenway.

At the time of the completion, a small number were planted, you know, redwoods, oaks, things of that sort, alder trees, with hope that the creek would bring the seeds and birds would drop seeds for the other plants that came.

And indeed that happened.

They provided plants that sprouted, but we discovered that one of the some of the plants they sprouted were undesirable exotics.

These are plants that we really don't want to have, not work with our native environment and will spread.

And those are primarily the privet tree and the islandhus tree, which is also called the tree of heaven or the skunk tree.

So for the last 15 years, we have been systematically a group of about three or four of us cutting down and trying to remove those trees.

And right at this point, I could say that we are almost complete, but this is 15 years' worth of work, and as soon as we let it down, those trees come back.

So please be aware of this problem also.

Thank you.

Thank you, Bill.

Robert, Carroll, and then Victoria.

Mayor and City Council.

Um I'd like to uh thank the city for uh recognizing the importance of Creek Week and our Creeks with this proclamation.

Uh I could not be more prouder than uh with the city creeks department and the Creeks volunteer program.

Uh it has been given me an outlet which uh I have found a way to give back to my community and ultimately contribute to the health of the creek.

Um I celebrate this proclamation with you, and I'm willing to give my time and my support.

Thank you.

Thank you, Robert.

Carol and then Victoria.

Volunteer with Friends of Prince Memorial Greenway.

I celebrate with you Creek Week.

The Friends of Prince Memorial Greenway celebrate Creek Week every week.

Some of the members of the group celebrate it literally every day.

Park a month started at 9 a.m.

on Prince Memorial Greenway this past Saturday.

It was a joy to work with so many representatives of the city on all levels.

Robert Ash, who was the previous speaker, was there at 7 30 in the morning, cleaning up before cleanup.

Robert does this six days out of the week every day, interacting with the residents of the creek, the guests of the creek, literally amazing.

We want to celebrate our current partnership with the city.

We want to celebrate the strides we can make as volunteers working with the city to keep this wonderful long park clean, safe, and vibrant.

As a closing note, in August, 214 volunteer hours were logged with the Friends of Prince Memorial Greenway.

That doesn't include anything the city did organized or other groups, just the f the friends.

In the dead of winter last November, a hundred and six hours of volunteer work were logged on Prince Memorial Greenway.

In the past 12 months, 1,667 volunteer hours were given in service to this city park.

I commend all involved and look forward to a closer relationship between the city and your and our wonderful volunteers.

Thank you, Carol.

Victoria.

Victoria Yannis, 801 Tupper Street.

I'm here as a member of Homeless Action Exclamation Point.

I hadn't planned on commenting on this item, but people were kind of like speaking in code, you know, calling them my neighbors.

And we're talking about poor people, the most impoverished in our community.

They have to sleep outside.

Now I think the city could cooperate better with these organizations if you had a humanistic plan as to where people should go when they leave the creek or wherever it is that you want to get them out.

I want to commend you for not using that word.

It's kind of like uh classist term, to be free to hate.

So there's already enough oppression going on every day.

People don't even congregate anymore, they're hiding under bushes individually, because the bushes are being shaken everywhere.

You know about the cutting of the trees along the trail and everything, so that those of our houseless most impoverished cannot even get shade under a tree.

Have somewhere for them to go.

Thank you.

Thank you, Victoria.

Are there any other members of the public like to speak, Peter?

Go ahead.

Oh, yes, please, and thank you.

Um I uh at least to a good degree uh uh am in support with Victoria's concerns.

I also would like to say thank you to all the um efforts that are obviously being done to uh uh clean and secure um the creeks.

Perhaps long overdue, but certainly a wonderful thing to see.

It's also true that most all aquifers and waterways have been poisoned to varying degrees, and therefore there's nothing truly organic and hasn't been for almost 30 years.

This is not just my opinion, it's a fact.

And yet here we are in the home of Luther Burbank, where we could grow anything in the world, especially in greenhouses with nice clean water.

So let no truth be rejected.

All these waterways run down to the bay, they run into the ocean, and the ocean brings us to the ports with the trafficked women and children.

And I know that here efforts have been made and are more so much as obvious as being made, but they're still do better on behalf of these children and women.

It's a difficult situation.

So what do we do?

We free law enforcement to be who they're meant to be, and that's that's by the uh the 40-day shutdown of the system because the system has been corrupted and provided and allowed all these things.

I can tell you that I know someone in Napa that presses 10,000 pounds of cactus every month in Mexico and sells it as cactus water in these counties.

These plastic bottles emit problematic uh scenarios.

And again, I applaud these people that have been doing their efforts, but we all need to do more and better with this regards and in regards to these children.

The waterways run down there, and that these traffic women and children end up all over the place.

It's been going on for a very long time, so it's not an easy thing to deal with.

And I know that people in the city council have put efforts in that arena, and I applaud you for that.

But the King of Kings never lies, never dies, suffers neither fools nor alibis and sees all things.

And so it is that a greater effort from the spirit and the soul is required to fix all these problems because as you do under the least of me, which is the children and the animals, we end up doing unto ourselves, and we are in a very blessed place in a very powerful time.

Thank you, Peter.

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

Is there we may have one person making her way to the podium?

No, you're not.

Oh, so apologies.

I didn't mean that you you had your star turn.

Thank you for being here.

All right, we're gonna close public comment.

There are no other members of the public here wishing to speak.

Uh, if we could invite everyone involved with our water team, um, with the with the uh Pence Memorial Greenway volunteer group.

Come on down, let's do a photo.

Thank thank you again to the city water team and to all the volunteers from the Prince Memorial Greenway.

Thanks for coming out tonight.

Uh now I know that we've got we've got folks here from New Hope from Youth, including at least one person driving up from San Jose.

So thank you for your patience.

We're gonna do our first round of public comment.

Then we're coming, we're coming to you next to get to get you back on the road.

So thank you again.

Uh let us.

We're gonna do our first public comment for the evening.

So we're gonna jump ahead to item 14.

And this is our first public comment on non-agenda matters.

So if you are a member of the public who wishes to comment on an item not listed on the agenda, then this is your first opportunity.

All right.

We'll start with Peter and then Elizabeth.

Day oh, sunrise is coming.

It is coming.

All time is now, and now is the time.

I am Peter, I am servant to the king of kings that never lies, never dies, suffers neither fools nor alibis.

Anyone dares tell me that they serve the light of Christ, and I'm sure that they have seen or read the Essene's gospel of peace, my favorite line.

Those of you with flesh and blood on your lips have no capacity to comprehend the kingdom of heaven and no authority to teach it.

I am a big fan of Zechariah 4 6, Jeremiah 29 11 and 33 3.

To remain mute and non-action regarding trafficking is to support trafficking.

The good Reverend James Coffey back in the 90s was brave enough to host FBI chief Ted Gunderson, who clarified that most all governments, including ours at the highest levels, are run by organized pedophiles.

That's the CIA finders.

Sister Jane Kelly, famous in this area for coming down in the mid 90s and doing uh her best to challenge and shed a light on Catholic priest abuse and thievery, did a wonderful job.

She recently passed, she again exposed CIA finders.

That's Jeff Epstein.

Kathleen Kane in Pennsylvania, the first attorney woman general attorney general was fired and sent to prison for she got herself involved in the four cases I gave her, which led to Jeffrey Epstein.

The same thing happened why the uh police chief Ann Kirkpatrick of Oakland was fired.

I could list a continued list, including the corrupt courts here where they released Maurice Wallen, Dr.

Maurice Wallon of Chiron Pharmaceuticals, who had 16 patents of COVID three years before you ever heard the word COVID.

It did not come from China, it came from our military and was never airborne, comes from the vaccines.

I invite you to look up Prince Ray Bullock in search of black assassins and see, he also speaks about Jeffrey Epstein's connection to all these things.

And of course, Jeffrey Epstein is absolutely alive.

The switch, we control, abide your spirit and soul, the promised land, she be my goal, she is my goal.

Beneath our feet, as I am Cactus Pete, is the promised land by the prophetic command given to Peter from Yeshua, my father.

The 40 day freedom strike be the magical mystical path freezing the corrupt economy for 40 nights and 40 days.

Jimmy Hendrix, Purple Haze.

It's a power deal from on high.

And my authority comes from on high, and that highness is in the hearts of all true warriors.

Set it free.

This is the place, this is the time.

I say it, you hear it.

Is so.

For those of you in the courts, I invite you to look up FIGA fully informed jury association, uh, if you're a potential juror.

Thank you.

Thank you, Peter.

Is Elizabeth present?

Um, put this down a little bit.

Hey, um, um, yeah, I'm Elizabeth Neeland, and um, somewhere I have my notes here.

Um, let's see.

Uh I have remained in the United States for 77 years.

I have lived in quite a few different states, but I moved to California in 1968 to fight the Vietnam War, which lasted 20 years from 1955 to 1975.

Um I live here in this country to oppose the war machine.

The government gives $800 billion dollars each year to the current entity, um, yeah.

Yeah, Israel is a puppet of the United States war machine.

And um, eight hundred million children in Gaza have been murdered, and three million have been um had had either arms or legs blown off.

Let's see.

I read a book by Donald Trump's niece, Mary Trump, who has a PhD in psychology.

And the book was called Too Much and Never Enough.

She diagnosed Donald Trump with three psychoses, narcissistic character disorder, all nine traits.

I only read the book once and I quickly wrapped it up and gave it away.

Let's see.

Yes, Donald Trump is a psychotic individual with a very low IQ.

And I really don't have any admiration for that dude.

I personally was a raging granny of Sonoma County a couple of times.

The second time through, I was one of the leaders of the raging grannies of Sonoma County.

Let's see.

Yeah, 31 seconds.

I'll just say that my brother was in the Air Force.

He was born in Toronto, Canada.

When he got out of the Air Force, they asked him to denounce his Canadian citizenship, and he said, why would I want to do that?

And at this point, he's lived in Canada for 50 years.

His four sisters all live in this country.

Thank you.

Thank you, Elizabeth.

And it appears our next speaker is my mom, Sandy Stapp.

Greetings to our regular viewers back in Gordon, Wisconsin.

All right, mom, you have the floor.

Brief.

Is this on?

Can you hear me?

All right.

I'll make this brief.

I'm so pleased to be here tonight.

My husband Bill and I regularly watch your meetings from the wonder of uh YouTube and live streaming.

And so tonight to be here in person, it's just a pleasure.

I want to thank you all for creating this amazing picture of democracy in action.

You've got this terrific staff who comes prepared with all of this information for the community and the board.

You have the place filled with community members that are so dedicated and give up time to sit here and listen and then to bring your concerns.

And then of course you have the terrific um council members sitting there listening and sharing and trying to do the very best they can to strengthen the community.

So Santa Rosa is absolutely awesome.

We are cheering for you all the way back in Wisconsin.

You face difficulties and painful situations, and you just keep on doing your work and going forward, so thank you very much.

Thank you, mom.

Victoria, are you speaking?

Yes, please.

All right, your turn, Victoria.

Thank you.

I am normally a happy person.

I was even accused today of being drunk.

I'm not.

But anyway, I'm concerned about the poverty in our community that is being criminalized.

People are going to jail.

Because they have nowhere to live.

No house to live in, I mean.

I remember when I was homeless, I would cry to Elizabeth, the one who just spoke.

I would cry to her.

I just wanted a place to live so I could get up in the morning, take a shower, do normal things, and uh, she would tell me you're not homeless.

The earth is your home.

So that was comforting.

But then, thanks to the living room, they put me in transitional housing, and then they put me in permanent housing.

So now I volunteered for the living room.

And um I see every day people walking with all their belongings.

They have to keep moving now.

And I'm scared.

I don't know what's gonna happen.

When the executive order from number 47 goes into uh effect.

I would like to see the city of Santa Rosa do something official to show your compassion for people who have nowhere to live inside.

Right now, they're given one warning by the police, and then another warning, and then people are being taken to jail.

So I'm gonna ask for a little moment of silence here to remember all the people who have nowhere to stay.

That isn't illegal.

Long live the resistance.

Thank you, Victoria.

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

Seeing none, we will close public comment.

Uh and with um uh apologies to Anna, we're gonna we're gonna jump ahead to item or jump back actually, item 8.2.

I know we've got our violence prevention team here, including Danielle, and we have New Hope for Youth.

This is a great item.

Thank you for coming today to present Megan and Danielle, welcome.

Thank you.

Okay.

Good afternoon, Mr.

Mayor, Mr.

Vice Mayor, and members of council.

I'm Danielle Ronshausen.

I am the program manager for the Santa Rosa Violence Prevention Partnership, and I am joined here today by our new director, Megan Bassinger, not new to the city, but new to our team, um, as well as our team from New Hope for Youth.

So uh we have in the audience with us Philip Rodriguez, who is the president and CEO of New Hope for Youth.

Hi, Philip, as well as his team here from San Jose and from um Santa Rosa.

So thank you very much to them for joining us today.

So I'm going to provide you with an update on the first six months of implementation of the street outreach and crisis response team, which is run by New Hope for Youth.

Um, to cover some background first before diving into the data.

So the violence prevention partnership released a request for proposals last August.

Um, seeking we were seeking to find a qualified organization to implement our street outreach and crisis response team that would be focused on serving um at-risk, high-risk, gang-impacted, and gang-intentional youth and young adults, as well as their families here in Santa Rosa.

Um, and this was identified as a significant need during our strategic planning process.

Um we uh base this need uh for more intentional intensive street outreach and crisis response services uh were which were previously conducted by California Youth Outreach, which closed their doors in Santa Rosa in 2018.

So we had a significant period of time where we did not have these services available here in Santa Rosa.

Through the RFP process, we found three qualified applicants who submitted proposals.

And our review team for this process unanimously selected New Hope for Youth, which is a San Jose-based nonprofit with 20 years of experience running similar programs in Santa Clara County.

We came before council on November 19th of last year to approve their two-year contract at $600,000 per year, with an option to extend that contract for an additional three years.

New Hope for Youth began implementation of this contract in late January of this year, and was fully up and operational by the end of February.

So with that, I'm going to take you through their services that they offer here in Santa Rosa as well as the data that goes along with their first six months of implementation.

So under their contract, New Hope for Youth provides a variety of different services using the credible messenger model, which is a model that utilizes individuals with lived experience and case management or to case manage youth and families using a trauma-informed care approach.

Now case management services are the core piece of the work that they do, but they also do that through a variety of different services here.

So these services under their contract include cold street outreach, neighborhood climate checks, victim supportive services, diversion and re-entry services, whole family support and pro-social activities.

There's a few notes that I'd like to make before diving into the data.

One, we get asked very frequently how are referrals made and how are individuals engaged in their services.

So there's several different ways.

One through cold street outreach.

Their intervention specialists engage youth parents and other community members when they are out conducting outreach in our priority neighborhoods.

Two, and probably the most common is through referrals.

One, through our the partnerships, guiding people successfully program, as well as directly through probation, Santa Rosa Police Department's gang crimes team, schools, and other community partners.

If the referral comes through the guiding people successfully program, our staff utilizes our referral system called Compile, and then a notification is sent directly to New Hope for Youth.

If the referrals come outside of the VPP, the referring agency reaches out directly to New Hope for Youth to make that referral themselves.

They also engage individuals and services through word of mouth.

So this comes directly from individuals that are already case managing.

So friends will refer other friends, family members will refer other family members and so on.

And finally, direct engagement by the individual themselves.

Sometimes individuals will reach out directly to New Hope for Youth in seeking assistance from them or again through a family member that needs help.

Another note that I wanted to point out under victim supportive services is hospital outreach.

So we had begun engaging Memorial Hospital given that they're a level two trauma center here in Santa Rosa.

However, we have been met with some challenges with that outreach.

I did speak to their emergency department director and provided a presentation on hospital-based intervention services and what we were hoping to develop here in Santa Rosa.

However, follow-up attempts have been stalled.

So a way that we've gotten around that is if New Hope for Youth or my team has to go to the hospital to meet a victim of a violent crime at the hospital.

Our police officers will meet us at the emergency room and we can gain access that way, but we're still, we haven't given up on the hospital approach and engaging hospital staff.

It's just taking us a little bit longer than we had hoped.

So we're continuing to work on that.

And finally, another question that we get asked about New Hope for Youth Services is if they work directly with the police department and in particular their gang crimes team.

The answer is yes and no.

It is really important to keep a certain degree of separation between our street outreach team and law enforcement because building trust with the individuals and the families that they work with is incredibly important, so that they can build that trust, trusting relationship as well as begin services with that individual and their families.

And a lot of times the individuals enrolled in these services are very wary of law enforcement, and so we want to keep that separate.

However, the gang crimes team will reach out directly to my team with a referral for specific individuals, and then we'll pass that along to New Hope for Youth.

And there's participation from both agencies at our operational team, and they both engage in our monthly climate checks, where both SRPD and New Hope for Youth get to share hotspot areas that they're finding when they're out in the community trends, data, and specific youth that are in need of help.

So now I will go ahead and move on to the data.

And again, I want to remind everyone this is data from the first six months of implementation, so that's uh from January through June of this year, and broken out into the different core services that they offer, starting with uh cold street outreach.

Oh, before I jump into that, I want to make a note on how hours of service are calculated here.

So hours of service is the number of individuals per session multiplied by the number of hours per session multiplied by the number of sessions, and this is consistent with the hours of service that we calculate for other public safety and prevention funded activities for both VPP and neighborhood services.

So, with that, cold street outreach.

Uh 915 individuals were engaged at this time, uh, with 124 instances of cold street outreach occurring, which equates to about 31.75 hours of service.

Neighborhood climate checks.

New Hope for Youth conducted 226 neighborhood climate checks in our priority neighborhoods.

With that, they reported 121 reports of graffiti, which was submitted directly to the city, and 10 other reports as well submitted to the city, and that could be for things like trash and blight in those neighborhoods.

Victim supported services.

We had during that first six months uh two critical incidents of violence that um uh among our youth that uh landed both youth in the emergency room and my team, as well as New Hope for Youth met at uh the families at the emergency room and engaged them in services.

Uh diversion and reentry.

So this is where the core piece of their work resides.

So through uh during the first six months, New Hope for Youth enrolled 78 youth into their case management services.

Um of those youth were also referred to additional outside services, and this equated to 4,244.5 total hours of service.

Whole family support, they were also able to enroll 60 families in their services, uh, as well as um developing 51 case management plans for those families, which equated to 256 hours of educational, oh, sorry, uh 256 hours of educational workshops with those families.

And then finally, pro-social activities, so ensuring that our youth are kept busy outside of the school day.

They provided 12 pro social um activities to youth, uh, to 159 youth, which equated to 614 hours of service.

Um, and then the chart on the right hand side here.

Uh number, I'm just gonna go through numbers of sessions.

Uh they conducted 78 intakes, developed 226 case plans, um, spent or sorry, 2,250 mentoring sessions, uh 550 other sessions, which totaled 3,104 sessions total throughout the first six months, which is very impressive.

Um, next slide.

Um, going over some demographic data here with race and ethnicity, the largest uh demographic group here, 76.9% are uh Hispanic Latino group serving serving those individuals.

Um next highest is Native American, followed by both Asian and our white individuals at 5.1% each.

And then 2.6% identified as multiracial and 1.2% Pacific Islander.

I do want to make a note again and reiterate this is from the first six months.

So we are aware that within the first six months, we had a zero in the other category as well as the Black and African American community.

However, since then there have been individuals in those categories that have been enrolled in their services.

So you're gonna see some updates to the demographic data when we do another update in the future.

And then just a quick note on race and ethnicity, this is a note from my staff.

These are designed to be exhaustive.

Well, there is a small number of identities, most notably Middle Eastern and North African, that don't neatly fit into the seven options that are listed here.

Those identities should be covered in the other category.

And then finally, areas of service.

So again, with the 78 youth engaged in case management services, 35.9% come from the 95407 area code, with the next highest percentage being in our 95401 and 95403 at 19.2% each.

And so these are just to run down the 95403, is the Piner Fulton area, 95401 West Steel Lane, Apple Valley and Valley Oak, 95407 Roseland, Corby Olive, West Third, and Moreland, 95409, Recon Valley Area, 95405, the Montgomery Slater, and Bennett Valley area, and 95404 covers Kwana Springs, South Park, and downtown Santa Rosa.

In addition to that, they are engaged, engaging services or working with youth within some of our school districts here in Santa Rosa, including Santa Rosa City Schools, Roseland Charter School, Sonobe County Office of Education through their Amarosa Academy, and some of our other alternative, smaller alternative schools here in Santa Rosa.

And with that, that is my presentation.

Outstanding.

Thank you for the presentation.

Thank you all for all the work.

Bringing it back to council for questions.

Nothing.

Here, I'll throw it a question.

Okay.

Anecdotally, this has made an immediate difference in the city.

Yes.

There is, as I think everyone is aware, in recent years, there was uh there was an uptick in youth violence.

I at least don't hear reports of that as often.

Correct.

Um do we have any correlating data from SRPD or from the schools to really um cement the notion that this program has made it and made um such an such an impact?

We're working on collecting that data from both SRPD and our criminal justice partners, so probation juvenile hall as their, so again, anecdotally, um SRPD reported this summer seeing a drastic decrease in youth violence in our community, so much so that they were able to start focusing on some of the higher level adult uh offenders in our community as it related to gang activity, and very little youth arrests during the summer as well.

And I I do believe that it was a so it's a combination of things, but I think a big part of it was our street outreach and crisis response team with New Hope for Youth, keeping our kids busy with pro-social activities throughout the summer as well as engaging them in case management services.

Um, and we're also hearing from our probation partners that numbers are starting to come down in juvenile hall as well.

Excellent.

Um any reports back from the school districts.

It's been such an interesting year for our school districts, uh especially going into the fall, but again, things have been relatively quiet, at least in terms of the information that's been coming back to me.

Um during the school day, but everything's been positive from our school school partners as well.

Fantastic.

Thanks for this good news.

Let's throw it open to public comment.

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

Seeing none, bringing it back to council for any any final discussion or final thoughts, Ms.

Rogers.

Thank you for the presentation.

I know that the good work that you guys are doing, and I think uh we've spoke about it before.

Uh one of the things that I wanted to point out is that we see an uptake in um domestic violence within our communities, and I know that it starts uh with our youth.

And so um if you're not already, that might be a touch point.

Um, just to talk about domestic violence, how it can start with our youth and it can start, you know, maybe like I'm not beating you down with something, but it's a smaller, nuanced um things that would still go under uh the umbrella of domestic violence.

So I would like to see that to see if we can uh not eliminate it, but to get a hold of that with our youth.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

McDonald.

Thank you so much.

I had a couple quick questions.

One, I wanted you to remind us how we funded this because I know council made the decision, but I think it's important in light of all of our um budget woes that we are reminded that this was funded, I believe, through one of our measures, correct?

Correct.

So part of the funding uh came from our general fund contribution to PSAP.

Um, so some extra uh leftover funds there that we had to work with.

Um, and because this was such a great need, we decided to repurpose those funds for this particular team.

Um, and then the remainder of the contract is funded through uh the PSAP tax that we have here, uh, our fund balance.

Oh, and I I think that goes back to the voters saying that this is something that we want to make sure that we're uh attacking is uh pardon me youth violence prevention.

And I want to thank you and your team for bringing this forward to us for council for putting this in place because it is making an impact.

We can see in six short months how much that's impacting our our youth and the investment that we're making in a city really has a long-term investment when we're looking at corrections, we're looking at um juvenile hall and the rate of recidivism when we can impact our youth.

So I just want to say thank you.

I always tell Mayor this is um such a pleasure to chair this particular committee, but to have data come back to the full council so that they're aware of um what we're investing and what we're doing in this particular arena of the city.

I just want to say thanks and welcome back, Megan to the team.

Thank you, Miss Ben Wellos.

Thank you.

Um thank you for the presentation uh and all of the work, and I have to say the uh numbers of cases and hours and all of that is very impressive.

Um I was just wondering what do you think um the obstacle is with memorial uh in terms of the outreach that that you all were trying to do?

I think it's just buy-in about the program and not really um understanding um what we're trying to do.

Uh one of the things that I presented to them and provided them were contacts to uh city of San Jose and City of Oakland because they have very successful model models there.

Um and I wanted to connect their um emergency department director to emergency room staff in those cities that have those programs.

Um I think it's just uh that he's a very busy person, right?

And there's a lot going on, so just continuing to follow up with him and his staff is going to be important.

Well, thank you.

This is like I said, this is very impressive, and and thank you for bringing it to us.

I think this these issues um around violence are really really important.

So I thank you for all the work that you're doing.

Okay, and we'll conclude by just I'll say thanks as well.

So, Danielle, Megan, Rahelio, New Hope.

Um, outstanding work.

And thanks for your patience tonight.

Uh, it should be the traffic should be a little calmer on your way back.

So, thank you.

Thank you very much.

All right, we will move back then to item 8.1.

Anna, thank you for your patience as well.

Sticking with the theme of community empowerment and community engagement.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Count City Council.

I'm Anna Order, community engagement manager and an official proclamation photographer with the communications and intergovernmental relations office.

And I will be presenting you today the community empowerment update plan update for the month of September.

Tomorrow, September 10, join FEMA and the City of Santa Rosa for a virtual community meeting addressing FEMA's recently released preliminary flood risk maps.

The City of Santa Rosa, in partnership with Sonoma County, has invited FEMA and National Flood Insurance Program representatives to provide an opportunity for community members to be informed and ask questions about flood risk and insurance.

The meeting will be hosted via Zoom and will start at 6 p.m.

For more information and to obtain the Zoom link, please visit srct.org forward slash FEMA flood mapping.

On September 9th and September 25th, the Santa Rosa Fire Department will host Firefighter Story Hour at various Sonoma County Library locations.

Families are invited to join and enjoy the stories read by local firefighters.

For details, visit the Sonoma County Library Event Calendar.

On September 14th, the violence prevention partnership will bring the Marilu to Fiesta de la Independencia at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts from 1 to 7 p.m.

This free community event celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month by honoring Latin American countries that recognize their independence during this month.

Also on September 20th, the Santa Rosa Fire Department will bring a fire engine to the Harvest Festival 2025 at Bayer Farm 1550 West Avenue from 10 in the morning to 2 p.m.

Harvest displays, cooking demos, games, and live performances make for the perfect celebration of community culture and nature in the city.

On September 23rd, the Santa Rosa Police Department will be hosting Fruta with a Cup at 2.770 Stony Point Road from 5 30 to 7 30 p.m.

Join the Santa Rosa Police Department for an evening of ice cream conversation and community building.

Finally, on September 29th, the City of Santa Rosa will be hosting the first of its district series, district-based community series.

Join mayor staff and council member Caroline Banuelos and Community Advisory Board Douglas Mondell for the District 5 community meeting.

The meeting will be held at Filney Community Center, 2060 West College Avenue, Cyprus Room from 6 30 to 8 p.m.

Come and share ideas, ask questions, and learn about projects shaping your neighborhood.

This meeting will be held across the city this fall.

Details about District 5 community meeting and as well all the all the other meetings are on srcd.org forward slash civic alert, or you can also email community engagement srcd.org.

And that concludes the community empowerment plan update for September.

Thank you.

A lot in there once again, Anna.

Thank you very much.

Bringing it back to council for questions.

Ms.

Ben Willows.

Thank you.

Just a quick comment.

I just wanted to thank you, Anna, for all the organ organization you're doing around these meetings that are coming up.

Really appreciated.

Thank you.

My pleasure.

Agreed.

We'll go to public comment.

Are there any members of the public remaining who wish to comment?

Seeing none, uh final thoughts, colleagues.

Well, I'll just note again that almost every one of those items that you mentioned was a pretty big deal, starting with the FEMA map conversations.

Moving on to the district discussions.

So thank you so much for all that you're doing.

You have a you have a packed agenda.

Much obliged.

So we will move on then to uh to item nine, the city manager and city attorney's reports.

Uh deputy city manager, anything to bring to us tonight?

Thank you, Mayor.

I just have a single item to report on.

Uh the Recology Reuse Bazaar, which is a clean Santa Rosa event.

Uh, it will occur on Saturday, September 27th.

The city is hosting the second annual Recology Reuse Bazaar, uh, a clean Santa Rosa event at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds Grace Pavilion in partnership with Ecology Sonoma Marin Conservation Corps North Bay and the Reuse Alliance.

Uh Sonoma County residents can drop off gently used items such as furniture, kitchen items, mattresses, sporting equipment, and more from 8 a.m.

to 11 a.m., and then shop for free from these items from noon to 3 p.m.

Attendees can also learn furniture repair tips and other reuse resources.

Uh and this event helps keep usable items uh out of landfills and supports more sustainable community and encourages community engagement around reuse and waste reduction.

For more information, uh please go to srcity.org forward slash zero waste.

Thank you very much.

That concludes our my report.

Thank you, Assistant City Manager.

Um, Madam City Attorney.

Anything from your end.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I have no report this evening.

Thank you.

Any public comment on this item?

Seeing none, we will we will move on then to uh to item 10.

Not that this is relevant, but we have no statements of abstention or refusal.

I guess it theoretically can be relevant.

Um, all right.

Uh moving on then to item uh 11.1, our mayor and council members' reports.

Any reports this evening?

Miss Rogers.

Sorry, and it's a long one, so I'll go quickly.

Uh August 23rd.

Does it have to be?

Huh?

Does it have to be a long one?

I'm gonna go quick.

You just did some of my time.

Okay, August 21st.

Uh I attended the former mayors and council members' luncheon um with our very own uh comedy stand-up from our mayor, which was great.

And then I also was able to spend some time with the record staff um at the police department to hear their concerns um and some solutions that we may be able to look into in the future.

And on the 27th, I spent the day in Sacramento with legislators and members of the Cal City North Bay Division advocating for the city of Santa Rosa and some legislation that was coming through the pipeline.

Um I also attended at the grand opening of Infinity Beauty Studio in District One.

Um we're always uh happy to uh welcome new businesses into the city.

Um, and just so I can point out the mayor was there, council member Alvarez was there.

Um, and council member Ben Welos.

We were all there.

So that was uh um an exciting time.

829, myself and vice mayor took a bike ride around uh both district one and seven to look at development projects and areas that the public have brought to our attention uh with Director Hennessy.

I would also like to mention that Director Hennessy, Terina and Alexander will be honored by the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition at their Golden Spoke Awards Gala with the Civic Bike Leaders of the Year award, working overtime to make streets safer for folks on bikes.

So on September 3rd, I attended the North Bay Black Chambers of Commerce event, um, encouraging entrepreneurship and tools for success in September 6th park a month event um at Olive Park, where I fell into the creek a little bit.

Um but it was fun.

And then finally on September 7th, I attended a viewing of a film that was titled No Place to Grow Old, and it's highlighting the growing population of seniors, quote unquote baby boomers that are unhoused, the lack of resources, lack of units available, and that the average age of our unhoused when they pass away is 49 years old.

And if I recall that correctly, and I only recall that because I thought, wow, that's only five years from how old I am now, and I consider myself to be pretty young.

So that was uh sad for me.

And that concludes my report.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Yeah, just quick shout out to Dan for that bike ride.

It was absolutely phenomenal to drive or ride around District One and see all the great things that we as a council have helped create along with the community to improve the life of of district one.

So I just want to say thank you to Dan and thank you to my fellow colleagues for making it happen.

Thank you.

All right.

I don't think there are any other reports.

Just something quick, thank you, Mayor.

Um, I'm sorry I I didn't get a chance to say this actually earlier, but I just wanted to do a shout out to the friends of uh Prince Memorial Greenway.

Um they are uh just a the sweetest most fantastic group.

Um I try to go to their meetings.

I went to their August meeting.

Um the amount of volunteer hours that they put in every day is amazing, and just how much they care about um the the greenway um you know, thanks to of course um former council member Steve Rubinovich uh and uh David Ash, who's been honored by um I don't know if it's KGO or whoever it is, someone in San Francisco, um, because of his volunteerism is just a fantastic, and I just uh can't say enough about um the wonderful work that they do and how much they care about the greenway.

So I am sorry I didn't get to say it when they were here, but um I'm glad that they were all able to make it as well.

Thank you, perfect, thank you.

All right, we'll go to public comment.

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

Seeing none, we will then move on to item 11.2.1, which is our delegation of our voting delegates to the League of California Cities Annual Conference.

Uh, and I will turn it over to Ms.

McDonald.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'd like to make a motion um to nominate uh Mayor Stapp to be our designated moaning delegate at the upcoming conference, as well as the two alternates as Vice Mayor Alvarez and if attending council member Rogers, all right.

We have a motion and a second by Mr.

Okropke, Madam City Clerk, whenever you are ready.

You want to take public comment?

Oh, yes, we should.

Is there any public comment on this item?

I see none.

We can go to the vote.

Thank you, Madam City Clerk.

Thank you.

Councilmember Rogers.

Aye.

Councilmember O'Krepki.

Hi.

Councilmember McDonald.

Aye.

Councilmember Fleming.

Councilmember Ben Willows.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Alvarez.

Mayor stop.

All right.

That's record show this passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Item 12.1, approval of minutes.

Are there any amendments to the amendments or edits to the minutes?

Seeing none, is there any public comment on the amendment minutes?

Again, seeing none, we can adopt the minutes as submitted.

Alright, now we're rolling along.

We can move on to consent.

Madam City Clerk.

Thank you, Mayor.

Item 13.1 motion construction management and inspection contract award, Calistoga Road Reconstruction, Montecito Boulevard to Highway 12.

Item 13.2 resolution entitled Resolution of the Council of the City of Santa Rosa declaring the remaining redemption fund balance to be surplus, ordering the disposition of such surplus and approving the closeout analysis report prepared by NBS for the Fountain Grove Parkway Extension Assessment District.

Item 13.3 ordnance introduction.

Thank you.

Council, are there any questions?

Seeing none.

Are there any members of the public that wish to comment on the consent calendar?

Janice, go ahead.

It might be a little tricky for the designer, but I really think that it's possible and it's really necessary.

So I just wanted to request that and I hope it gets included with the uh road being repaired and the asphalt being redone or whatever.

Thank you.

Thank you, Janice.

All right, bringing back to our vice mayor for a motion.

Thank you, Mayor.

I move items 13.1, 13.2, and 13.3, and we have further uh reading or the reading.

Second.

We have a motion and a second by Miss Rogers.

Madam City Clerk, whenever you're ready.

Thank you.

One moment.

Councilmember Rogers.

Aye.

Councilmember O'Krepke?

Aye.

Councilmember McDonald.

Aye.

Councilmember Fleming.

Yes.

Councilmember Ben Willows.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Alvarez.

Aye.

Mayor Stapp.

Aye.

Let the record show this passes unanimously.

Thank you.

All right.

Well we'll move ahead to item 18, which is our final public comment on non-agenda matters.

Are there any members of the public who wish to comment on any items not listed on the agenda?

Seeing none, we are adjourned.

Thank you, everyone.