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

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Claudia, will you please restate this in Spanish?

Yes.

Thank you very much.

Back to you.

But the time is two thirty, and we'll call this meeting to order.

Madam City Clerk.

Councilmember MacDonald here.

Councilmember Fleming?

Here.

Councilmember Ben Wells.

Here.

Councilmember Alvarez.

Mayor Stepp.

Here.

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

Thank you.

We have two closed session items to announce today.

Item 3.1, conference with legal council regarding existing litigation.

We will open it up for public comment.

One moment, Mayor.

Thank you.

Councilmember Rogers.

President.

Councilmember McDonald?

Yeah.

Councilmember Fleming.

Councilmember Ben Willows?

Here.

Councilmember Alvarez?

Vice Mayor O'Krepke?

Here.

Mayor Stepp.

Here.

Let the record show that all council members are present.

Thank you.

Let's move on to item 8.1, our community empowerment plan update.

Is Ms.

Horta available?

Anna, come on down.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and City Council.

I'm Anna Orta, Community Engagement Manager with the Communications and Intergovernmental Relations Office.

And I will be presenting the community empowering plan update for the month of December.

On December 5th and 6th, visit the Handmade Holiday Craft Fair celebrating its 50th anniversary at Findley Community Center, 2060 West College Avenue from 10 in the morning to 4 p.m.

Enjoy the season with gifts for yourself or loved ones in this festive shopping experience featuring over 90 local artists.

On December 6th, join Santa Rosa Water and the Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation at the Volunteer Planting Day number one.

Come and help plant thousands of native plants and trees in this newly restored section of Colgan Creek from 9 in the morning to 12 p.m.

To register, please visit srcity.org or at G backslash Colgan Creek.

Santa Rosa Water hosts bi-monthly volunteer creek cleanups on the first and third Saturday of each month at the Princeton Memorial Greenway.

The next cleanups are scheduled for December 6th and 20th.

All ages are welcome to participate.

Volunteers meet at Olive Park Footbridge near 1698 Hazel Street at 10 in the morning.

To sign up, please visit ASRCity.org backslash calendar.

The Santa Rosa Police Department is hosting its holiday toy drive to benefit Catholic charities.

Now through December 12th, make a difference by donating new and wrap toys for children of all ages.

Toys can be dropped off at Santa Rosa Police Department front lobby, 965 Sonoma Avenue.

Your generosity will help bring joy to local families this season.

Now through December 18th, the City of Santa Rosa is hosting a citywide food drive to support Redwood Empire food pack on our neighbors in need.

Non-penetrable food items can be donated at these convenient drop-off locations.

City Hall, we have three barrels here, City Hall Annex, Finley Community Center, Fillney Aquatic Center, Persons Senior Center, and Reachway Aquatic Center.

Thank you for helping us nourish our community during this holiday season.

Lastly, on December 13th Recreation and Parks will be hosting their monthly park a month volunteer program at Franklin Community Park, 2095 Franklin Avenue.

These family-friendly work days are a fun and productive way to help beautify our parks or to build community.

Hand tools and gloves will be provided.

And that concludes the community empowering plan update for December.

Thank you.

Thank you, Anna.

I'm bringing it back to council for any questions.

Looking at my colleagues.

Let's open it up to public comment.

Would any members of the public like to comment on Ms.

Horta's report?

Mr.

DeWitt, the floor is yours.

Hello, sir.

My name is Duane DeWitt.

I'm from Rosalind.

Wanted to thank Ms.

Horta for the nice report.

Also thank you for the effort that's going forward on community empowerment.

One of the things that could happen is when you make these announcements, also put them into written format.

They could be posted over at the library, could be posted here at City Hall easier.

And do it in such a way that people who aren't as tuned into the internet and the whole uh online approach to life can know about what's going to be coming up.

This is really important, especially for when we want to do creek cleanups and things of that nature.

I'm a volunteer at Roseland Creek, and it's always nice to hear her say about the creek cleanup at Santa Rosa Creek, but we never get any love about what we're doing over in those other neighborhoods.

So, put the word out on stuff like that.

It'd be very nice also, especially because we're having a change of uh management, that when the new city manager gets here, the interim city manager, as it said in the newspaper, that you have some public meetings.

You let the public meet the person out in the seven districts, have a meeting in each district to meet the new city manager instead of having to come down here to City Hall.

Do it in such a way that everybody feels comfortable, it's a welcoming session, and we get to get a feel for how the new approach to government in the year 2025 will be for us.

This is vitally important, especially for the disadvantaged neighborhoods, the neighborhoods that are still having difficulty getting political capacity, if you will.

Is the term they like to use in the academic world, but we're talking about the real world power.

And if you're gonna have community empowerment, one of the best ways we could get that is if the city managers come out to the districts and not just have it go through the council member that's in the district.

Have the city manager come and talk to the citizens, the taxpayers, the people that are gonna have to pick up the bills on the different stuff that's going on right now.

It's gonna be a really difficult time ahead because the regressives out there at the national level, they're gonna be pulling back stuff that comes into California, making it even harder for us.

So we have to basically uh I hate to use the term gird our loins, but we're gonna have to tighten the belts, stand strong, be there for what California folks think is important to them, and the best way for the new city manager to know that is to come and talk to the people in person instead of having it filtered through our council members.

I really like my council member, district one all the way, district seven, good stuff.

You guys did really good for us these last couple of years.

So we'll see how it all plays out in 2025.

We survive, we are alive.

Thank you kindly.

Thank you, Duane.

Would any other members of the public like to speak?

Janice, you have the you have the mic.

Hi, uh, City Council and uh all guests, uh Janice Carmen here, and um I just want to say that um I support what uh Dwayne says.

We're thinking along the same lines.

The county has been doing this the last few years, and it's an excellent way to actually meet each other and speak in a uh you know more casual environment.

Uh they usually prepare food.

This has been in my mind for a while, and I think it's a really good idea that uh you be able to meet the people that are uh representing you.

And uh they've also had an opportunity for the public to speak one after another about issues that uh concerned them.

And uh the other thing, I'm not sure since I was a little bit late today.

Um I want to bring up the perks on the city manager job of the $500 a week for uh month rather for uh her vehicle.

Um, Janice, we have to keep this portion of public comment strictly on the community empowerment update.

That'll be time later.

Oh, okay.

All right, I'm sorry.

Um, see, I didn't know what she was talking about and I couldn't find it on the agenda.

So um, okay, then I'll save that for later.

But uh, but I do think it's a good idea to have meet and greets for uh public uh inclusion.

Thank you.

Thank you, Janice.

Would any other members of the public like to speak?

We'll close public comment and bring it back to council for any final any final comments.

Well, I will I will toss in a few.

Um, you have not been properly celebrated for having hosted for having coordinated and hosted town halls in every district.

So uh we are proud to say that all of our city residents did have a chance to speak with their elected officials thanks to the work that you and your team did.

Uh, that's on top of the gift drives and on top of the food drives and on top of the parks cleanups and the creek cleanups.

Um, you have a full plate, and every time you come to give a presentation, you have great stuff to report.

So thank you so much for the work that you're doing.

All right.

Alright, I think that that will conclude item 8.1.

Anna, thank you very much.

Uh while we have our TPW team coming down to do our capital improvement program, I'm gonna keep our city attorney on her on her toes and cut back to an item that I should have called a few minutes ago.

Item number six.

Um Madam City Attorney, do we have any report on our closed session?

Um thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I have no report, there's no reportable action from closed session this evening.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Uh all right, so back back to item 8.2 and our capital improvement program status update.

Welcome.

Thank you for being here.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council members.

My name is Krista Siegenthaler.

I'm the deputy director of engineering services with transportation and public works.

Krista, could you pull the mic a little bit closer?

These don't pick up that well.

There we go.

Can you hear me?

That's that's better.

Thank you very much.

All right.

I'm Christa Siegenthaler.

I'm the deputy director of engineering services with the transportation and public works department.

I'm here today to provide the capital improvement program update.

So since our last update in August, which was provided by Director Hennessy, we've achieved some pretty significant milestones.

The first being Hearn Community Hub.

This project is in Roseland neighborhood, and it has a new fire station and library.

It's a design build project, and we broke ground on this in October.

The official groundbreaking ceremony was held about two weeks ago on November 14th.

Another big milestone is Fire Station 5.

We are wrapping up work on this project, and we achieved temporary occupancy early November.

We had a ribbon cutting in mid-November as well for this project.

And then lastly, the Highway 101 Bicycle and Pedestrian Overcrossing.

This project, the construction contract has gone out for advertisement.

It went out November 4th, and bids will open in two weeks on December 16th.

In addition to those three kind of big milestones, in the last four months, we've successfully bid the projects that are shown here.

Rock Creek Drive and Matanzas Way sewer and storm water and storm drain improvements.

This project is over near Montgomery High School.

The Piner Creek Crossing Crosswalk Signal on Fulton Road, Country Manor Lift Station and Spring Lake Sewer Lift Station Improvements, and then Howarth Court, the Tennis Court and Pickleball Court renovations.

And then lastly, Sonoma Avenue pavement rehab from Farmers Lane to Hammon Drive.

That last project we actually had to put out to bid twice.

Initially, when it went out to bid, we received no bids from contractors.

So in reaching out to the contracting community, we found that the um community workforce agreement had some requirements that were difficult for them to meet.

So we decided to waive the requirements for the concrete suppliers and then put it out to bid a second time.

And we were successful.

We had four bids, all were under the engineers' estimate.

So you will be seeing that project in two weeks for a contract award.

Out of these five projects shown here, four of them came in under under the engineers' estimate.

Three of those were within 10%.

So hopefully that's a trend we will continue to see.

Looking ahead, we have some big projects going out within the next month.

Pearson Street rehab, Calistoga Road Reconstruction, Hopper Avenue Fire Recovery, which is also a road rehabilitation project, the Galvin Park tennis courts and pickleball courts renovation, and then we also have some work going on at the Laguna treatment plant.

So these will all be coming up in the next approximately month.

So as we close out 2025, we have our number of projects awarded.

17.

So that's an uptick from what we were seeing in 2024 and 2023.

In addition to this, what this number doesn't capture is the projects that we have in the Hopper that are very, very close to being advertised and awarded.

And we have approximately 20 projects planned for the first quarter of 2026.

So next summer is going to be quite busy in construction for us.

And then I also briefly wanted to touch on the parks projects that we have.

So parks planning is recent addition to Capital Projects Engineering Group.

In September, we took a pretty close look at some of our Measure M funding allocations for the parks.

And we made some changes in order to deliver some of those projects faster and get some of that Measure M money spent more quickly.

So these parks shown here on the slide are all parks that have Measure M funding in construction right now.

Dutch floor neighborhood park, that one is wrapping up and should be done by January January.

South Davis Neighborhood Park, that project is just getting started.

And then Kawana Springs Community Garden and Howarth Courts Renovation, those two are both awarded and will be in construction this spring.

Additionally, Measure M projects, the Galvan Park Tennis Courts, that one will be advertised very soon.

And then Kawana Springs Community Park and Cook School Park Improvements, those will be going out in 2026 as well.

And then lastly, I wanted to just mention the Southeast Greenway.

This project is gaining some momentum, which is exciting to see.

It's a two-mile stretch between Farmers Lane and Spring Lake, and it will be a future park.

We will be putting out the RFP for a master plan early in 2026.

So that's pretty exciting.

And with that, are there any questions?

Thank you.

Excellent report.

Bringing it back to council.

Any questions from our group?

Ms.

Ben Wellos?

Thank you, Mayor.

I don't really have any questions.

I just want to say how excited I am about all of these projects.

Um, specifically um Pearson's tree.

I'm looking forward to that.

And I'm really really glad to see Measure M funding being utilized.

I think that's really important.

So I'm really glad to see that happening.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Other questions?

I have just two.

What I'm gonna put you on on the spot, or perhaps Dan on the spot.

So when we're out in the community talking about the value of the projects that are going out to the bid or going out to bid over, say the next 12 months.

What's the what's the impressive number that we can use?

Because I know it's very big.

I've heard a I've heard over 100 million kicked around.

In fact, I've been repeating it.

Would either would either of you care to care to provide a uh a more accurate figure?

100 million over the next 12 months?

Alright, that needs to be that's needs to be highlighted for the community.

Uh and then am I doing my arithmetic right?

That in in be in the years 2022 to 2024, we put out 35 projects to bid.

And in the year 2025 and just the first quarter of 2026, we're looking at putting out 37 projects to bid.

So more than equaling the previous three years combined.

For a value that's well under the nine figures.

That's that's the work that's coming out of TPW right now.

That's very impressive work.

Thank you.

Thank you to uh the entire team.

Thank you.

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

Would any members of the public like to speak?

Afternoon, members of the city council.

My name is Fred Olibach.

I live in the uh Northeast Quadrant in a senior mobile home park, and I'm very happy with the uh city amenities there with the Brush Creek Trail, Duggar Creek, Austin Creek.

I can walk down to Santa Rosa Creek and do all manner of loops.

And that's a great amenity, and and the Northeast Quadrant has the reputation of maybe being the richer side of town.

But if you break that area down by block group, then mobile home parks are just qualify as disadvantaged communities, and the apartment buildings along Montecito qualify as disadvantaged communities.

If you look at it by a block group, so um I I agree with what uh Dwayne said before about concentrating on the west side and looking at equity priority areas, but the city already has done that in the Northeast Quadrant, and um I appreciate it, and I really enjoy using those amenities, and it would be great if the rest of the city had stuff that was as good as in the Northeast Quadrant.

Thank you, Fred.

Dwayne, you're up.

Gotta wait for the clock.

That's what's the most important thing in a timeline of democracy.

Hello, my name is Dwayne DeWitt.

I'm from Roseland.

I wanted to thank you for all the good things that are happening in capital improvement programs.

I definitely also wanted to thank you for the work that's gone on on South Avenue.

Many of you may never have been on that avenue, but it's beat up, it's been very beat up for many, many years without sidewalks, dangerous place for the kids to walk.

And finally, there's some repaving going on there.

I do hope you'll also get some safe sidewalks in there at that spot.

One of the things that's also important is Barham Avenue.

It's on both sides of Highway 101, District 1.

It's still a beat-up road, and it's a dangerous thing when you have youngsters going to school along these types of roads.

You weren't around when we had uh Patrick Scott get killed over on Bellevue Avenue over 25 years ago.

But we remember all that, and we want to make sure that we never have another child killed like that walking along a road that isn't safe to get to school.

I wanted to also thank you for the work that's going on on Pearson Street.

That was part of the Roseland School District when I was growing up, and before the freeways came through, that was Roseland.

And so you gotta keep that in mind because the kids that live there were a part of the Roseland School District, and we just had a reunion the other day, and I talked to a guy from that street, and he was like, Yeah, man, it may get better.

We've only been asking for it for 30 years.

So I think it could happen.

I wanted to definitely make sure of one other thing that's really important to us over in Roseland area, the South Davis Park.

That name was put on there because of the location.

Many people who live in the area would like to see it named after George Maby.

He was a World War II casualty on the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor.

One man from that ship was recognized at Montgomery Village, but not on the west side of town.

Same ship, died in the same attack at Pearl Harbor.

We didn't get any recognition over there.

So we're gonna do that new park naming process.

We've gotten some of the paperwork.

We understand it's a um what's the term for those things?

It's a bureaucratic fandango, that's what it is.

We got to put in a thousand names on a petition to say that we want to get this thing done.

We're gonna do that.

We hope you folks will work with us.

Last but not least, I want to say thank you to all the staff that's worked so hard on getting these projects moving forward.

We know it's difficult, we know you don't have enough money for everything that's needed, and it's good to make distinctions on where we're at.

But the Hearn Hub is located in Bellevue, not Roseland, and every taxpayer along Hearn Avenue to the north is in the Burbank, excuse me, the Bellevue District School District paying taxes, even though we're in Roseland.

So just say it's Bellevue and don't use Roseland.

Thanks, Duane.

Ms.

Carmen.

Uh, Janice Carmen here.

Uh I just want to say um I'm really grateful about uh Calistoga Road to Homin Drive, uh getting uh uh read construction.

And I go to bed at night thinking about a lot of roads in the east area and uh Sonoma Avenue, Summerfield Road, uh connector routes, um beyond town avenue, uh just around.

And I I think of things like genius is everywhere, and if one of the engineers could just come up with the app that says, okay, look at all these streets, and what number is that?

And we have a number in our head of how much it would cost to improve East Santa Rosa as far as the streets go, not just a small area from uh Highway 12 to um Montecito uh Avenue, and um the streets are still a terrible problem, and I just want to say that um I've traveled quite a bit.

I think my daughter was in 27 countries before she was eight.

And uh I've seen a lot of different kinds of living arrangements, and I I think that you you have to have it in your mind.

You have to know and you have to see it before it happens in order for it to actually become a clear vision that can actually happen.

And I think we need that more in Santa Rosa.

I don't think there's enough people that are thinking on the same same wavelength.

They say things like fix the potholes, fix it, they've been saying this for like I don't know, five or ten years.

It's awful.

And when people come to our town, they may see things that are nice that touch them that are beautiful, they uh see the county with the wonderful wine, the mountains.

It's wonderful to travel through the vineyards any time of year.

It's it's just strikingly glorious.

But the other thing they see and they feel every time they go in the potholes and over the bumps and they look at the houses and the businesses that aren't uh whitewashed, when other countries are out sweeping their uh portals in the morning and washing their windows.

It's dirty and it looks like a dirty city.

And I traveled through a lot of dirty cities.

When I traveled on a bus to the south in 1967, and I remember that very well, and that's what struck me because I came from a place that was clean, it was beautiful, and it wasn't like that at all.

So that's just my message for today, but I'd like to see the streets done so that when people come here, they don't have a uh challenge with, you know, yeah, it was nice, but but anyway, thank you.

Thank you, Janice.

Would any other members of the public like to speak?

Seeing none, we'll close public comment and bring it back to council for any final comments.

Turning to my colleagues, Miss McDonald.

I just want to say thank you for the presentation.

It's really exciting to see this living in one area that we can share with the community about what we're doing for infrastructure.

I appreciate all the work from all the staff, and it's really exciting to see different projects happening all over the city of Santa Rosa and reporting out on it.

So mostly I just want to say thank you and thanks for the presentation.

Thanks, Dan.

And I'll I'll tag on to that only to say, um, as I suspect my colleagues will in their in their reports to come, uh, the Hearn Avenue hub groundbreaking and the Fire Station 5 opening or two of the um most legitimately inspiring community events of the of the past couple years.

Those two capital projects really um have uh altered the tone of the city in some ways.

So and that that's just a piece of what your team has been working on.

So thank you so much, and thank you for the report today.

With that, we'll move on to item nine, our city manager and city attorney's reports.

Uh assistant city manager nut.

Thank you, Mayor.

I have no report tonight.

Thank you.

Um, Madam City Attorney.

And I have no report either.

We are a succinct group tonight.

Fine.

We will we will we'll go to public comment on those on those reports.

Any members of the public wish to comment?

Seeing none, we'll move on to item 10 statements of abstention or recusal by council members.

No statements of abstention or recusal this evening.

So this brings us to our mayor and council members' reports.

Any reports from council?

Ms.

McDonald, I'll start with you.

Thank you.

I just wanted to quickly congratulate um Aroha Memory Care facility that just opened in Oakmont.

It's a care facility that's been really needed out in that community, and I just want to congratulate um Dr.

Raja and Nisha Kahra on their vision and what they've designed for um people that need that type of care and that type of facility.

I'm really proud to have had a little small part to play in that, and I just want to say thank you to staff for all their help um in getting that project off the ground and getting it um finished with this group, and so it's really exciting to see out there.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um, the only thing I have is uh the week before last I had the opportunity to travel to Salt Lake City to the National League of Cities City Summit.

Um it was a great experience uh able to interact with some of those on the federal level that we're searching uh seeking funding from some of their grants as well as um do take a tour um on their local film commission and film trail, which was something that the economic development subcommittee has discussed here, as well as uh we saw a great presentation.

Um if any of those have been to any of these, uh some of those um uh uh uh speeches midday in the in the great rooms can get pretty boring, but there was one by Tim Shriver on the culture of contempt and moving towards civility in government and policy, uh, which was um received with a standing ovation and it was pretty phenomenal and uh I look forward to sharing that information with my colleagues.

Um I think it's important in this time and uh in age to look more towards civility when um interacting with those that have opposing viewpoints as well as to uh structuring policy uh for everybody.

Thank you.

And I will just note uh we had two very successful tree lightings this past weekend.

If you came down to Courthouse Square on what night was it, Friday night, then the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber led tree lighting had a couple thousand people in Courthouse Square, along with a lot of a lot of well-known local sponsors.

Um really a fabulous event.

And then the following night, Montgomery Village held their own tree lighting, and I don't think I've ever seen as many people in Montgomery Village.

Again, there must have been a few a couple thousand people there shopping and dining and participating in the tree lighting.

Uh, a great start to the holiday season in Santa Rosa.

So thank you both to the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber and to Montgomery Village for making those possible.

And with that, we will uh go to public comment on this item.

Would any members of the public like to speak on any of the council member reports?

Seeing none, we will move on to item 12, our approval of minutes.

Are there any changes to the or amendments to the minutes as submitted?

Seeing none.

Let's go to public comment.

Are there would any members of the public like to comment on the minutes?

This is a rare one, Janice.

Good for you.

It is.

All right.

Um, I believe it was the 18th last meeting that I attended, and I was misquoted and it was derogatory.

And I think it should be changed so that it does reflect what I said because I didn't say anything about what they were talking about in the minutes, and it was not satisfying at all.

It was not me.

Thank you, Janice.

Again, any edits from council?

Seeing none, we will adopt the minutes as submitted.

We will move on to consent then.

Madam City Clerk.

I believe that's my my item, sir.

Yes, of course.

I move.

That's true.

We no longer have to read them.

I'm so it's so ingrained in my in my memory.

I was just waiting, I was waiting for for our for our city clerk to launch in, but we are in a new era.

So, Vice Mayor, over to you.

I move to adopt consent items 13.1 through 13.8.

All right, we have a motion and we have a second, although yes, we do have to call for public comment here.

Would any members of the public like to comment on the minutes?

Mr.

Ferron.

Members of the council, my name is Gregory Farron.

I'm here to congratulate the city and its chief and uh also Buckaloo.

Items 13.5 and 13.6 bring to the city one point seven million dollars from Prop 47, a state grant that uh or state proposition that passed 10 years ago.

As some of you know, I'm uh on the oversight committee for measure o the staff executive summary says rightfully so, that this money will be used to in combination with measure o money, money from the state uh that we receive, or money from local that we receive on a on a sales tax.

We ask everyone who partners with us from the county point of view, not to depend entirely on county money for human services.

You guys have always stepped up to the plate, and this is a great example of your doing your share to be able to help uh operate this program.

Uh so I I thank you and I congratulate you on receiving the grant.

Gregory, thank you.

Mr.

DeWitt, did you want to make a public comment?

Yes, sir.

Thank you kindly.

Hello, my name is Dwayne DeWitt.

I'm from Roseland.

And the consent items, I think it's a good thing that you've been able to have 13.4 where mid-block crosswalks, road undulations, and other traffic calming measures will now be able to be put in by the transportation and public works people without having to come here.

Many of the blocks, especially over in Southwest Roseland, are actually long.

They're not typical city blocks and long blocks.

And having these crosswalks done with appropriate safety measures will be a good thing for many neighborhoods.

I also wanted to point out that uh what Mr.

Buck excuse me, what the Buccalo programs are about, that that's a good thing, and what Mr.

Fearon has just referenced.

Thank you for those.

On 13-7, the extension of the homeless emergency.

This is something that's been with us for decades now.

And the rains are gonna come back, even though we've had some dry weather.

There's a lot of people back under the uh underpasses.

And it would be really nice if you folks could work with Caritas Catholic charities for them to open up that empty lot where the general hospital was, and they've built their new stuff.

There's a large lot there, and they could be putting up some tents early.

They could get this ready for when we're gonna need the cold weather emergency heating, and it's something that you'd think they'd be able to do under their existing insurance packages.

It's right there across from the uh Sonoma County Museum, our old post office that was moved over there, and it would be a big help.

Last but not least, please also ask the Sonoma County Fair Board to step up and be helpful on this.

They're in charge of the veterans memorial building over on Maple.

They have allowed Christmas tree lots to be in there and the parking lots, people to sell the Christmas trees.

So that lets me think, you know, there's enough room for those Christmas tree lots.

When Christmas is over, they could be having a site there for the homeless.

It's not gonna take away from the parking, and they could step up.

They could get in there and be helping homeless veterans at least to be in army surplus tents, heating tents.

Keep these people as safe as possible throughout this upcoming winter.

I do believe the rains are going to return, plus cold weather, it's gonna be a harsh winter starting in late January, probably all the way through February and March.

There was an old saying by a guy, oh man, it was centuries ago.

He said, beware the eyes of March.

And this is really important for our homeless people.

They're gonna be facing some real difficulties, and you folks could actually push on the county to use that site.

There's plenty of space there on those asphalt parking lots for us to get in there and do something to help veterans and others that may be homeless.

Good holidays to you.

Thank you, Mr.

DeWitt.

Would any other members of the public like to speak on any of the consent items?

Seeing none, we'll close public comment.

Uh and I got us a little out of order there, so I did want to confirm with my colleagues.

Were there any questions or any uh concerns about any of the consent items?

All right, and madam city attorney, since we went right into the motion of the second, is that still valid, or do we need to redo our motion or second?

Your motion and your second is fine.

All right.

So we have a we have a motion by the vice mayor and a second by uh by councilmember Alvarez.

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

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Rogers.

Aye, Councilmember McDonald.

Aye, Council Member Fleming, Councilmember Ben Wellos.

Yes, Councilmember Alvarez.

I Vice Mayor Okrepki.

I mayor Stepp.

Yes, let the record show this passes unanimously.

Thank you.

And we've got a little bit of time before we hit the five o'clock hour.

So that lets us start with our report items earlier.

Let's go on.

Let's move on to item 15.1.

Our report on the Jennings Avenue bicycle and Pedestrian railroad crossing, real property license agreement, and construction and funding agreement with the Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit District and appropriation of funds to construct the crossing.

Assistant City Manager Nut.

Good evening, Mayor and Council Members.

And Adam, welcome.

Welcome to you both.

Thank you.

This has been a a many-year project for both of you.

So glad to have you back.

We are very excited to be here in this moment tonight.

So this is this is uh where we've wanted to come to, so that we can give you this presentation about the negotiation work that um that assistant city attorney Brand and I have been doing, or Abel and I uh have been doing for the last year uh to try to bring this um particular project to conclusion.

Uh as you're aware, uh, back in March or back in April of 24, City Council directed the uh staff to revise a draft license agreement provided to us by SMART after a series of negotiated conversations, um, and that revised draft created a more balanced approach to some indemnification language.

Uh and we did submit that to SMART and to uh the California Public Utilities Commission back in May of 24.

Just so that we're clear what we're talking about, the intent of this project that uh I got the luxury that I got the luxury of inheriting in 2015.

Just I inherited it in 2015, and have been driving it fairly hard since 2016 when when council made a decision on the environmental impact report is to build this crossing.

Uh, this is a rendering of the crossing from the uh looking east um from the west side of the tracks.

Uh and the intent is to construct approximately 50 feet of at grid crossing that crosses two uh tracks that are one is northbound, one is southbound, um just to the south of the North Santa Rosa uh City of our Santa Rosa State station.

Um after we submitted that document to the California Public Utilities Commission and to SMART, which included our revisions.

Uh, we had a series of um I don't a series of conversations with the general manager at SMART, talking about what are we going to do next.

Um it has been fairly quiet uh through the course of that discussion uh until August of 2025.

Uh in August of 2025, um administrative law judge Kelly uh issued a request in order for both SMART and the city to come to a status conference update uh on October 9th of 2025 to discuss the update.

Uh following that notification from the administrative law judge, um, additional conversations began to happen between the city and SMART associated with the real property license agreement.

Uh following the uh October 9th discussion with the administrative law judge, um, we were directed to do three things.

Uh we were directed to conclude uh activities with the real property license agreement, a construction of funding agreement, and a submission of our petition to modify the decision to uh have the at grade crossing by December 31st of this year.

Uh we were directed to provide an update on November the 3rd, another update on November the 24th, and to appear in person next Monday on December the 8th to provide status updates through the course of that time.

As we were working with SMART through the course of this process, uh we were able to arrive at what we believe is an agreeable resolution for language associated with a real property license agreement.

That agreement that language is attached uh to um this document, and I'm gonna go through that uh, especially where we had questions raised by council and direction given to staff that became the focus of the negotiation point.

We also had the opportunity uh over the last three weeks to begin discussing and looking at a draft of the construction and funding agreement uh that SMART has provided to us to bring this project to fruition.

That creates the relationship from a construction perspective, uh, so that we can get the project in the ground, should this ultimately be determined appropriate by both bodies.

And lastly, on November the 24th, we did submit a petition to modify to the California Public Utilities Commission, expressing our interest in completing this project.

We did describe the current status within that, and it gave us the opportunity to explain that we've been having successful negotiations with SMART with the hopes of coming to a reasonable conclusion.

Focusing right now on the real property license agreement, there were three primary areas that council made a request that we evaluate and provide alternative language to SMART.

Those were in sections 14 and section 15 of the document that we discussed back in April of 2024.

Section 14 was really relating to a butt for clause.

That butt for clause, and I'll get into more detail here in just a second, but that butt for clause really was a predominant poison pill.

It created a situation where, regardless of what happened, the butt for brought it all back to us.

And that was probably one of the single most important aspects for us to address.

Second, in section 15A, we had a discussion about what constituted negligence.

And I will say the assistant city attorney and I spent an enormous amount of time going back and forth with SMART's counsel and Smart General Manager over what constituted negligence.

And ultimately, the proposal was to increase the span of negligence so it was more encompassing of different activities that could be occurring.

And then lastly, under section 15B was this absolute duty to defend SMART in the event something did occur.

And while we always assumed that the city would take on the lion's share of responsibility for incidents, because this is at our request over their objection, the absolute duty to defend created an unsustainable long-term mark that we felt was too far for us to push on this particular agreement.

So as I said in section 14, that but for clause, what that basically said was if anything occurred, regardless of whether it was willful or so willful negligence or willful misconduct that SMART could argue that but for the crossing being there at the city's request, this wouldn't have happened, and therefore, city you are responsible.

What it does do is it identifies that the city made the specific request for this crossing, that the city is predominantly responsible for activities that are occurring relating to this crossing.

But it doesn't, it doesn't create that butt for component that draws us into any potential challenge that might occur moving forward.

And so we found this to be a very successful negotiation that ultimately resulted in both entities seeing the predominant value of what they were looking for from this particular statement.

Section 15A was really looking at the concept of negligence.

And if you recall, now again, it was 18 months ago.

So at that point in time, we had two statements that were in the document.

One was gross negligence and one was willful misconduct.

The assistant city attorney and I went around and around with them talking about whether it's gross negligence, sole negligence, or sole gross negligence.

In the end, the intent of this was to identify and separate each of these specific components so that you had soul negligence, gross negligence, and willful misconduct.

Now, I'm gonna tell you there's a lot of legal language and a lot of legal nuance there.

That's why Adam's sitting at the table with me.

He can go into that if you have questions about why each of those specific and individual statements is important for this document.

And you'll see that that specific phrasing around sole negligence, gross negligence, and willful misconduct gets spread and gets utilized in multiple sections here in lieu of the lighter language that was originally proposed.

Along with that component of soul negligence, gross negligence, and willful misconduct was the concept of license area.

Now, when we think about this particular crossing and the image that you look at, one would generally assume that if the individual or the incident occurs within that crossing, that's where the liability would exist.

The original language that was proposed identified the license area as more or less being anywhere within the span from West College North to the North Santa Rosa station, with the intent that the individual or incident was the result of someone accessing or intending to access that Jennings crossing.

The span of control was just simply too great.

And Smart was willing to work with us to come back to language that was more reasonable, where we are now talking about in connection with or adjacent to.

The key pieces on the real property license agreement.

Um, SMART has evaluated this, and from their staff perspective, they agree and concur with the language that's in there.

Um, we have at the city side evaluated this carefully and are making a strong recommendation that this language is reasonable and appropriate in order to move this project along.

The other document that we were asked to proceed with was the development of a construction and funding agreement.

Uh the general manager and I came up with a series of guidelines.

These guidelines were consistent with the guidelines that were utilized back in 2016 when we established the first master reimbursement agreement.

If you recall that agreement was drafted by SMART, it was amended and adjusted by the city.

Um the city manager at the time signed that document.

It was hand delivered to SMART, and it was recent, and it was shortly thereafter that we were told by SMART that they were no longer supportive of the project.

That document was used as the base for the document that we've been presented today, modernized to today's standards.

Um, and there's only one piece that's slightly that's different from it.

And uh we did make a request that um in section six of that document relating to indemnification that SMART consider reinserting the mutual indemnification language that was in the original agreement.

The indication from SMART at this point is that that is not going to be presented uh to the board of directors that that is not um something that they're interested in entertaining.

So right now, the language in this document is a is a one-way indemnification agreement.

Within that, however, there is a statement.

There is a section that describes that all contractors and professional staff will list the city as additional insured.

That actually does provide us with some level of coverage should anything inappropriate or any um uh poor construction activities occur uh during the course of construction, and we're pretty confident that that there is enough coverage there that we're okay.

Where we feel we run a little bit short is when smart staff is involved in providing the final approvals.

SMART staff will be doing final inspections and SMART staff will be con will be uh doing final quality control once this is done.

That's the only area where a mutual indemnification would have given us the additional protection that we need.

While it's unfortunate that SMART wasn't willing to just agree to incorporate that at this point uh from a staff perspective, um, we do feel that the document it gets us into construction and provides us with a reasonable level of protection.

Now, I know that I've had a conversation with the city attorney's office.

It is not um what we would normally want to do, it's not what we would normally put in front of another entity.

Um, but at this point in the game, um, the risk level is relatively controlled.

Uh, and I will allow the city attorney and assistant city attorney to chime in if they feel um they want to add something to that.

But it was important enough for me to let you know that that is a component that it's missing from the document that's before you that I that will be recommending that you approve.

So, with that, uh, it is the city manager's office recommendation that the council by motion approve and delegate authority to the city manager to negotiate and execute both the real property license agreement and construction and funding agreement in substantially the same form is attached to the document, subject to approval to form by the city attorney and return the executed documents to the Smart Board of Directors for consideration at their next meeting.

And I'm happy to answer questions.

Assistant city attorney Abel is here as well, as well as the city attorney.

A sincere thanks to you both, bringing it back to council for questions.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um my gosh.

Uh, first of all, thank you so much.

I know you've been working on this for years.

Um, it's in my district, and and the community there has been fighting for this for, you know, since the end of time almost now.

Um, and so um I'm I'm really um uh you know touched, I guess is the right word uh to see this finally coming to this point.

So I want to thank you both for all your work on this.

I know how hard you you've worked to get to this point.

Um, I just wanted to ask uh going back to the licensing agreement.

Um just wanted to uh you know really for purposes of the public that the but for language is removed okay okay yes the but for language is removed there's still a statement that may that identifies that the purpose of this crossing is generated by the city of Santa Rosa and in essence it's identifying it as our product um which is true uh the but for is what that was the the kicker that pulled all other qualifiers within the document back to that we just couldn't live with so yes the but for language the specific wording that caused that to be a frustration is now gone and council member that my concern was when we had the but for language the carve outs the gross negligence we didn't even have sole negligence at the time and woeful misconduct were essentially irrelevant because the but for language negated them with the but for language gone we now have the three exceptions whereby if smart is found solely negligent their gross negligence or their willful misconduct is the cause of any hypothetical claim we're protected excellent that that sounds really really good um and then also on the uh the construction piece um so I just wanted to clarify so you're comfortable I guess that's I don't know if that's the right word um with not having the mutual indemnification or how how do you all feel about that at this point.

So I will give my comment and then I'll turn it over to the city attorney's office if they want to add in um I'm not happy about it how's that and that's why we made the request to begin with.

Given where we're at in this negotiation from my opinion the risk exists but there's a small it's a smaller risk and therefore I'm comfortable making the recommendation understanding that we are going to accept a risk.

I believe very strongly that the the challenge with the risk relates to our relationship with smart and I believe SMART team is honorable they're gonna do exactly what they would normally do for their construction project with their skill set.

And so knowing the personnel that are there I'm I'm willing to present this and bring this forward as a reasonable risk to take if the council were to request additional negotiations that would likely delay uh the smart board of directors making any additional evaluation of this or taking any taking any decision uh and it could kick it further and get us into another discussion with the Public Utility Commission.

Mr.

Abel I I I concur wholeheartedly with what Assistant City Manager Jason had said.

I mean I don't love it either but I'm the litigator so if there's a claim I get to deal with it and I I do think the risk is relatively minimal but it's it's not ideal.

Okay.

So finally I just want to say I you know on behalf of the community because they've been waiting a long time for this so really again thank you so much for all of your work and I'm uh even with that drawback I I think overall um this is a really good thing and a really good step forward uh for the entire community so thank you.

Thank you are the questions from council Miss McDonald?

I wanted to just piggyback on what council member Benwelo said, and just ask you have we seen any instances where there was two-way indemnification in the other parts of SMART as they did construction work?

Was that allowed in other jurisdictions.

Thank you, Council member.

We when we brought this to you back in early 2024, we did a valid, we did look at some other work that SMART had done with other jurisdictions that included different types of mutual indemnification.

None of them were quite as clean as what we had back in 2016.

The ultimately what we concluded with council during those discussions was that the situations were different, and it was less of a risk for SMART.

And that was really what we ended up, that was where we ended up with a conclusion was that the work that was done in San Rafael or in Novato is not similar to the work that we're proposing here, and therefore SMART was pretty adamant that they weren't willing to incorporate more of a mutual indemnification on those.

From a construction agreement, I haven't seen another construction agreement that they've put together with another agency, so I can't confirm that anything they're doing today has similar one-way indemnification and not mutual.

But the fact that they drafted the mutual indemnification agreement almost 10 years ago, at one point in time, that was the standard.

Thank you for that.

And I like um Councilmember Ben Wellos and the rest of council, I'm sure, we're so excited to see this coming forward after what about a decade of you working on it and and know that it's critical for the connectivity from the west to east side, and so we can you know experience more equity in the community.

So I'm in favor of this.

I just wanted to have clarification on that piece and what Smart has potentially done in the past and what's happening now.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Uh well, we have a number of members of the public who've been following this project closely for many years and advocating.

Thank you for coming out again tonight.

Let's open up public comment, and we're gonna use both lecterns, and I will we will go in order of the names that I have on my list here.

Uh let's start with Steve Bertelba, John Fisher, and James Duncan.

And if we could use both lecterns and be waiting at the lectern when your time comes to speak.

Steve, go ahead.

Thank you.

It's taking way too long to get this project completed.

The danger of having bicyclists on a very heavy thoroughfare is something that needs, I mean, we've been lucky that there's only been about one or two accidents.

Um the bicycle boulevard that's supposed to go on Jennings Avenue and it was there for years, uh, is important.

Um I'm disturbed at the amount of time that's being taken to deal with the question of some accident happening, uh, in view of the fact that about 300 years goes by between the time that a pedestrian crossing is created, and there's an accident on it on the average.

Um SMART has a hundred crossings, about five of them are for pedestrians and bicycles.

Uh as far as I know, there there's no record of any of those crossings having any kind of problem.

Uh I realize that lawyers take a long time.

I was one once to work through these things, but uh please get this going quickly and get the get the crossing rebuilt.

Thank you.

Thank you, Steve.

Uh John Fisher, James Duncan, and then Abby Arnold.

John, go ahead.

And again, let's use both lecterns.

So John and James and Abby, if you could be waiting by one of the lecterns so we can we can uh get moving quickly.

John, is that you?

Is it John or James?

No, I'm not.

I don't know.

Abby, why don't you go ahead?

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

I am here to tonight to speak in support of this um proposed proposal and staff recommendation.

I'm a strong supporter of the SMART train.

Um, and of course, like all transportation, including cars, it must be safe, and there must be ways for people to get across.

Uh description of how long the community has been waiting for a way to get across the tracks.

Under the best of circumstances, it would have been built in a way that people would be able to, there would be a difference in the grade between where the train goes and where bikes and cars and pedestrians go.

Um that didn't happen, and so now we're playing cleanup on that.

And so it seems that the staff has done an excellent job of reaching an agreement with SMART on liability that may exist if anything terrible happens in the future.

I also want to put in a pitch for some strong community education about how to be safe around trains that are coming past.

And uh I think over time that it will become second nature to people.

So again, I urge your adoption of this recommendation, and uh thank you very much for uh for coming to this conclusion on a difficult issue.

Abby, thank you.

We'll go to James and then to uh Joanna James.

James, go ahead.

Since 1978, I've lived within a few minutes' walk from the Jennings Crossing.

I first addressed the city council in 2012 about keeping the Jennings Crossing open, and I've joined with the neighborhood and the larger community towards that goal ever since.

The California Public Utilities Commission ruled in 2017 that it has exclusive jurisdiction over the Jennings Crossing and that the improved crossing would be safe.

SMART's real property agreement is contrary to the CPUC's ruling, which means that only the CPUCs can set conditions for rail crossings, not SMART.

SMART's requirements for the city to pay insurance and indemnification appear to be based on its determination that the crossing is unsafe.

But the CPUC has already ruled that it is safe.

If SMART is found in the future to be without jurisdiction to impose requirements on the Jennings Crossing, then the real property agreement is invalid and can never be enforced.

If the city wants SMART to have its contractors build the Jennings Crossing for the city, then an agreement for that is necessary.

But it should be remembered that SMART was going to build the crossing in 2017 for the city, but didn't do it.

SMART's current draft construction and funding agreement provides that SMART could terminate the construction of the Jennings Crossing at any time without cause, and then build the city for any unfinished construction work.

SMART has shown over the years that it is untrustworthy.

And this cancellation provision should be corrected so that termination of the contract agreement, construction agreement by SMART, can only be for stated cause.

Also I had sent in an advance letter to the council.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, James.

We'll go on to Joanna and then to John Fisher if he's available.

Joanna, go ahead.

A resident for over 45 years on Lance Drive, four blocks from the Jennings Avenue rail crossing.

Our neighborhood relied on the crossing for over 100 years until it was, as you know, closed in 2015 as SMART began using the rail line.

Along with so many others who have waited years now, I will be grateful to have the Jennings Crossing improvements done and the crossing reopened.

I am distressed, however, to learn that SMART continues to make exceptional demands for this crossing.

Most troubling is SMART apparently reserving the right to close the crossing again, even after the city or others may have spent four million dollars or more on it.

As far as I know, SMART's board has never requested nor approved this provision, or for that matter, any of the provisions in this proposed agreement.

I urge you to find ways to resolve such unacceptable terms in the proposed agreement and move forward.

Get with getting the Jennings Crossing open again.

And thank you for all the years of work on this.

Thank you, Joanna.

Is John Fisher with us yet?

So if John's not here, then Kellyanne, you're next.

Thanks for coming out tonight.

My name is Kalliani, and my husband and I moved to Santa Rosa maybe eight years ago, and before that, to Sonoma County, about gosh, 15, 16 years now.

So we've been here for a while, and we just bought a new house on Manhattan Way near Jennings.

Very happy to be here.

And uh really grateful that when we moved in, the bike lane was installed on College Avenue on West College, and the bike lane was also installed on uh Dutton.

And that made me so happy because this is my only form of transportation, is my bike.

You know, and the only way I can get across is you know, Gornville Road, you know, to the other side or come through the walk through the um the mall in order to get to you know the the east side so having this Jennings crossing would be a life-changing event for me, and I know for many people.

We live right near Helen Lehman Elementary School, so the kids there, I'm sure if their crossing was available, they would be able to bike to school and feel safe doing so.

So we need more things like this, you know, not only to connect our city, but also to connect our community and our neighborhoods and make it possible for us, you know, to bike and have a better quality of life.

You know, we shouldn't always be stuck in traffic, right?

If we had these opportunities, I think more people would be biking, more people would be interacting and with one another and with our communities.

So I encourage you to make this possible, and I thank all of you who have been working tirelessly on this for the last decade.

I just so I'm just so shocked that it's taken this long, that's all.

But please make it possible for us.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Colleani.

Uh are there any other members of the public who wish to speak?

Chris?

Chris, the floor is yours.

I should go across because it's already high, but you wanted me to be the other lectern.

So uh Chris Gunther with Bikeable Santa Rosa, I'll be quick.

I just want to uh echo the sigh of relief that we are finally at this point.

Obviously, we've advocated very strongly for this to take place and uh share the regret about the delays that have made it take this long.

Um, I you know hope at some point that there will be some sort of reckoning about the last year that we lost because I was in the room on October 9th with the CPUC and the the breakthrough when Smart said, Oh, if that's what you want, then of course we can work that out.

I don't know why it took a year to get to that, but but here we are.

Um I also really want to say thank you to the staff to the council, and I want to really appreciate Assistant City Manager Nut.

I thought you represented the city incredibly well in the hearing on the October 9th, and I just think that, you know, cooler, more reasonable heads have prevailed in what has been a very protracted negotiation, and I hope we can work out the remaining issues and get this built.

Thank you.

Thanks as always, Chris.

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

Mr.

DeWitt.

Hello, my name is Dwayne DeWitt.

I'm from Roseland, but as a youth, I learned to ride my bike on Ridley Avenue between college and Guernville Road and use the crossing numerous times.

One of the things that's most important about all this now is for you folks to have the oversight to know that you cannot trust SMART.

I began going to their meetings right in the beginning when this was all first proposed decades ago.

I went to a number of meetings.

And the dilemma that we face here is bureaucratic obstructionism.

And those folks are masters of it.

And they don't really care what Santa Rosa wants.

They're going to do what they want.

So I'm hoping that you folks will play as hardball with them as they've played with you and not give them a single inch.

Don't give them anything actually, because they have made this so difficult on purpose.

And then once you've got everything in writing with all the attorneys in our city's attorneys' offices to verify that you folks have an ironclad bulletproof agreement that you can hold up in court because they will try to get over on you should it ever come to that.

These folks down there have never been friendly to the community.

And I stopped going to the meetings because it was a waste of time.

One of the things that's most important is when we come here, we don't feel it's a waste of time.

We feel you folks are listening to us, and you can do right by us to make sure that the pathway goes in and that the city of Santa Rosa is fully indemnified in every way, shape, and form for anything that SMART may do wrong along the way.

Save our money, save our lives.

Thank you kindly.

Thank you, Duane.

Would any other members of the public like to speak?

Seeing none, we'll bring it back to council.

Uh why don't we get a motion on the floor?

Uh Mr.

Alvarez, if you want to put out a motion, then we can have we can.

Oh whoops.

My my apologies.

I was looking at the wrong, I was looking at the uh the wrong sheet.

Ms.

Rogers, I should have gone to you.

Thank you.

I thought you should.

No apologies.

All right.

Um, I'd like to make a motion to approve uh and delegate authority to the city manager to negotiate and execute both the real property license agreement and construction and funding agreement in substantially the same form as the attached draft, subject to approval as to form by the city attorney and return the executed agreements to the Smart Board of Directors for consideration and wait for the reading of the text.

Second.

We have a motion and a second.

Any final discussion or comment?

Ms.

Fleming?

Yeah.

Thank you.

I I wanted to just take a moment and um thank our staff for all the work that you put into this, um, and thank in particular the community who's gone out of your way to keep the pressure up on this vital piece, uh, this vital connection.

You know, here at the council, we take really seriously that you have repeatedly asked for safe bike and pedestrian infrastructure across our city, and your efforts have made this a reality that we're we're here today getting to take this vote.

And our um city staff, um, thank you for your efforts to protect the city, um, both our residents and our our assets, and um it's this kind of cooperation um and also timing that lead to good outcomes, and it's an example of that uh when things are difficult, we shouldn't give up, we should keep moving forward, and that there if there's something worth doing eventually it can be done.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Other final comment or discussion.

Well, I will before we call for a vote.

I will I will just note, um, or or rather second, 10 plus years of work between the two of you.

I don't know how much work that is to say nothing of the other staff.

Thank you both.

Um, I I would like to thank the SMART leadership as well for coming to the table and and the smart board, including our own uh representative.

Um, it's nice to finally think that we're moving this forward.

So, and to the to the comments about needing to do this faster, I did double check.

Um, and one of the other major construction projects that the city of Santa Rosa had a hand in was the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge, however many years ago.

That took four years to build.

Jennings Crossing is taking longer than that.

So there is some truth in the notion that we have to find a way to do things a bit more efficiently here in our in our city.

Um thank you again to all the all the uh uh residents who came out tonight too after years of access years of advocacy in your own right.

Thank you for continuing to push this project.

Hopefully, we're getting very near the end.

And with that, we've got a motion and we've got a second.

We are ready for the vote.

Thank you, Mayor, Councilmember Rogers.

Aye, Councilmember McDonald.

Aye, Councilmember Fleming?

Yes, Councilmember Van Welluth, yes, Councilmember Alvarez, yes, Vice Mayor O'Krepke.

Aye.

Mayor Stopp.

Yes.

Let the record show this passes unanimously.

All right, thank you all.

We're gonna backtrack just a little bit to do our first.

Oh, and Jason Adam, thank you so much.

Thank you for sincere thanks.

We're gonna backtrack just a little bit to do our first public comment on non-agenda matters.

So this is the chance for members of the public to comment on items not listed on the agenda.

I see uh Mr.

Pablo.

Daniel, are you ready to speak?

You'll see you on Monday for sure.

Daniel, thank you very much.

And then after that, Dwayne, you're up.

Daniel, thanks for coming out.

Uh thank you, Mayor, and uh, I just want to say good evening to the council and the public.

Uh my name is Daniel Pablo.

I live in the uh Coffee Park area.

Um I just wanted to bring kind of like a non-issue that has been brought up in a few years.

Uh minimum wage.

Uh so last time we approved minimum wage was 2019, and that was for eighteen dollars.

And uh a lot of the con arguments were that uh this would increase the prices of everything.

Uh well, it's been six years, and um everything has already skyrocketed.

Um, the main purpose of the council and the government should be to help the poorest people of the community.

Um, and we haven't raised uh the minimum wage in a while.

Uh so I just wanted to put a handout there and uh kind of get started with the bureaucratic process.

Um, I know we have to go through a few c uh committees and a lot of uh bureaucratic processes like I mentioned.

Um, but yeah, I just kind of wanted to get started on the topic of that discussion.

Um, and I believe that uh the city of Santa Rosa is also the leaders of the community.

Uh any time we do anything in this county, every city follows in everything that we do.

Um so I believe that we should be at the forefront of everything.

Um I know the county has also raised minimum wage uh to about $23, $24 about a year ago, and a lot of the cities haven't done anything about it so far.

And I've like I mentioned, uh, I feel like we should be at the forefront of change of starting that as well.

And um finally, I would um let's see.

Um I just want to mention as well, um, that's kind of all I really have to talk about.

Um, but if I could just have a hand from council uh to kind of start that bureaucratic process of just getting uh the legislation uh written.

Um but I just kind of want to end on a quote of Machiavelli.

Um he said the prince should represent the people to maintain order and power.

So thank you to the public and think uh thank you to the council as well.

Thank you, Daniel.

Mr.

DeWitt, you have the floor.

Right.

Prince, very few people and recommend that bad boy.

Hello, my name is Dwayne DeWitt.

I'm from Roseland, and I want to thank you folks for all that's been happening with the Rosalind neighborhood.

Um, the director of transportation and public works left, but basically, the city has been stepping up the last couple of years, and a lot of good things have been happening.

Just the other day, Roseland School District actually stepped up, and they also cut down all of their fire prone flammable underbrush along Roseland Creek.

So you can finally see through to the schools that they built from Burbank Avenue.

You can see all the way over to McMinn Avenue.

There's all this beautiful area we can see, but one problem still exists, and we need to get your help with this.

The parks people have tried to help us, and we know that the city has got lots of issues to deal with, but unfortunately, there is a band of criminals.

There's bandits that are actually living in the creek.

Okay, they've been able to hide under the riparian corridor, and because Roseland Creek has a series of concrete abutments put above it, they take the stolen bicycles, the stolen lawnmowers, the uh leaf blowers, uh hedge trimmers, whatever they get their hands on, they roam throughout the neighborhood on their bikes, they steal things and bring them down there, and now they operate with impunity.

They act like, hey, we can do whatever we want, and they've started to threaten the different people that walk through the neighborhood.

I volunteer there, and it's difficult to try to get them to do anything anymore.

And their approach is kind of like, hey, get out of here, old man, we're gonna take care of you.

And I'm gonna keep coming back.

I don't mind that, but we need to have you folks in there and get the police department back down there.

We went to the parks people last uh a few days ago, asked them to get the police out there.

It's needed.

These folks are a scourge, they're actually a pox upon our house out there, and the only way we can get it taken care of is if we have the police department and the city staff get on it and push.

I can go down there with my rake and shovel working on the neighborhood, but they don't give a diddle squat, and they know if I do anything, it's gonna be blamed on me.

Because that's the nature of all that stuff.

It's like, oh, that guy did it.

And I can't respond that way.

So you understand it.

We're appreciative of all the good stuff you've done.

The school district is stepped up also.

It's for the safety of the children across the street at Roseland Accelerated Middle School at Roseland Creek Elementary School, and for us who walk through the neighborhood and the neighborhood.

Thank you kindly.

Have happy holidays.

Thank you, Duane.

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

Sir, are you looking to make public comment?

Seeing no other members of the public wishing to speak, we will close public comment for item 14, and we we will move on then to our public hearing for the item, item 16.1.

Our public hearing related to the Bennett Valley Golf Course fees, dynamic pricing for non-resident golf fees.

Thank you, Mayor.

Council members, uh Jason Nutt, Assistant City Manager.

I'm gonna be joined here by James Birchhall and Greg Anderson with Kemper Sports.

Uh we're going to this presentation is going to be a follow-up to the study session that we had back in uh November 4th.

That talked about the implementation uh of dynamic pricing at the Bennett Valley Golf Course.

Uh I'm gonna go ahead and run through the presentation uh to basically provide an executive summary of the study session that you heard.

Um, upon conclusion, both James and um and Greg are here to answer more detailed questions about work that Kemper Sports is going to be doing uh to implement uh and what it looks like if you have any.

Uh so as you recall, um, you know, we we've gone through a series of adjustments over the last three years in particular, trying to improve and modernize uh the fee structure at the Bennett Valley Golf Course.

This was all started once um we had a change in management.

Uh, and that change in management occurred at the request of um well, it occurred following a study that we conducted by the National Golf Foundation, uh, that identified that we needed to incorporate a new management structure uh into the Bennett Valley Golf Course.

Once that came through, then there were recommendations on how we modernize and incorporate fee adjustments to try to stay up with the market.

And so this just gives you an example of uh at least the last three years of resolutions that we've gone forward to increase fees.

Um the most recent one was this last June uh this last June uh June when council adopted a two-year fee increase.

Uh that two-year increase was at the request of council to try to limit the number of times that we come back and to put some more consistent increases in motion.

Uh it also allowed us to start this process of segmenting resident and non-resident fees uh for rounds.

Um just to remind you where we're at, uh, this chart is one you've seen several times before.

This identifies where we sit in our marketplace.

Uh, generally speaking, the catchphrase that we use for Bennett Valley is we are the best value course in the North Bay.

And that is a catchphrase that we've heard from council we want to retain.

Uh it's in our best interest to have this beautiful uh location, this great course, uh, but something that's attainable and playable by the majority of community members uh in the North Bay.

And so uh we do compare ourselves to uh other competitors in the region, uh, and in general uh we are below their average rates for rounds.

In November, we presented or Kemper Sports presented a concept uh that uh they've utilized at other courses relating to uh dynamic pricing.

Uh that dynamic pricing strategy includes four primary pillars.

Uh those pillars are variable pricing, business intelligence suite, comp set insights, and innovative booking.

These are components of software that Kemper Sports owns and manages, uh owns and operates in an effort to try to increase value of the assets that they're in charge of.

Uh and um James went through those in fair detail back in November.

I'm not intending to do that today, however, he can provide you with that level of detail if you need it.

What I'm gonna do is talk to you about the most significant component of that, which is the variable pricing aspect.

Within the variable pricing component, there are five key aspects uh that cause their system to identify where the marketplace could be to increase uh increase the fee cost or the revenue potential without reducing the number of rounds and maintaining this course as the best value.

Uh and those particular items are the historical data for how rounds have occurred and been purchased over the course of time, the weather that's currently existing or what's being forecasted in the near future, the current sales, basically, where's the demand at for what's going on at this course?

Um, how long do we have before that the rates need to change or before the rates have changed, and then lastly, feedback from the golfers.

What we don't want to do, and the purpose of this is not to push golfers away.

It's actually to give golfers a continued reason to come and potentially an increased reason to come by discounting certain parts of the day that provide a lower than average rate, but taking advantage of the times when you have peak, when you have peak time uh peak round demand, to be able to appropriately increase fees to increase that revenue without losing rounds.

From a pricing recommendation perspective, this is a snapshot of what the uh what Kemper Sports is proposing based on our current setup.

And then I'll get uh I'll show how this relates in more detail in the last slide.

But what they did is they looked at day, they looked at level of play, they've looked at the time of day, uh, and they started to identify where they felt the variable pricing or dynamic pricing could be the most critical or most valuable tool to implement.

And you'll see each of those different colors starts to segment where dynamic pricing would or could impact the fee for play.

Uh it also starts to provide you what a minimum and a maximum would be for a fee at that time.

In general, the minimums are below what the current flat rate is.

In general, the maximum is above that current flat rate.

And so the idea is to create a range that fits sort of this simplified model that would allow us to increase rounds and increase revenue to support ongoing operations at the golf course as well as increased capital investment.

To provide kind of the synopsis, this is now getting to, you know, what's the end tagline here?

Their evaluation looking at the rounds of play and the cost of play between January and September of 2025, they're plugging this into their model.

Um they believed with 60% of folks paying the higher rate that you would see about a $57,000 increase in revenue having utilized dynamic pricing during that eight-month period.

Similarly, if you look at the walk side, sorry, the prior was if you are the if you are using a golf cart, this is the walk side.

If you're on the walk side, that same concept, you'd see an increase of roughly 28,000 in revenue utilizing this dynamic pricing structure.

In total, that's about $85,000 a year for an eight-month snapshot in difference between the current flat rate model and the increased uh model associated with dynamic pricing.

And that's really a conservative estimate, given the fact that we're talking about only 60% of those rounds paying at the maximum rate.

There is a potential that that increases by 10 or 20%, depending upon how we see this go.

Now, in the end, we don't want to jump too fast or have too over-aggressive of a an interest in this.

We want to be conservative because we want this to be a positive moving forward.

And so when we think about the implementation of this particular program, it's our hope if we were able to approve this tonight that it would go into effect in January, and we'd be able to over the next, over the next four or five months, start to see what type of value the dynamic pricing program has started to put into play.

And we would come back to council during the fiscal year 26-27 budgets to really talk about what we've seen to date.

There have been a couple of public comments that you received asking for greater oversight and control by implementing in January that gives us time in advance of the upcoming budget to really consider whether or not this has been a valuable insertion or a valuable change in the way that we're implementing.

Now, again, the proposal here is just for non-resident rounds.

Um, it's not an intent to incorporate onto resident rounds.

So I promised you a kind of a look at what the dynamic pricing looks like from our perspective.

When you've got five different non-resident fees that are currently in play, you've got weekend and weekday, you have a weekday senior, you've got a Friday and a Friday senior.

And so the I don't the number on the left is the current flat rate, the number on the right is the variable pricing that could be utilized.

So that would be the range with which the Kemper Sports system would identify where they would place the rate or the fee for that day for that round.

And those are the that's the range that you would see.

So in most cases, you'll see that in all cases it's lower on the low end, it's higher on the high end, and that's where we feel that range provides the long term benefit for the golf course in the long run.

Now, I told you I'd make it short and sweet.

So the city manager Office recommends that council hold a public hearing and by resolution approve the dynamic pricing fee schedule for non-resident golf fees at the Bennett Valley Colf Course effective January 1st, 2026.

And the three of us are here to answer additional questions if you have them.

Thanks to all of you.

Bringing it back to council for questions.

Ms.

Fleming.

Thank you.

Um I appreciate the efforts to to raise revenues to maintain the golf course, but I do have some concerns about dynamic pricing.

Um, in particular, it's my understanding that um sometimes dynamic pricing uses factors about a person who's trying to purchase a product that can be accessed through their cookies um to determine dynamic pricing, including gender and race.

And I just wanted to know if you have an affirmative policy against using those factors in um determining the pricing.

Um when we take a reservation, we don't ask any of that information other than residency.

So the dynamic pricing though, it's not um it's set before the person comes to the um the portal is not set based on because like when you go to buy airline tickets or whatever, you know, they they they can adjust it based on on gender, and they do.

I wouldn't be able to I don't believe we have any of that type of technology because we don't have that information of um and don't ask for that information when you're booking.

It's not about asking for it, it's the software that you use.

Um so what I'm trying to understand is this is if the the pricing is set for the round, how far in advance of the person signing on to like let's say I get on now.

Is the price predetermined before I log on to the computer and nothing about my interaction?

It's for everybody, yes, it's the same price around.

So when you go to our website, all of the prices are listed, so you'd be able to see what you're booking before you click on anything.

So if you're selecting, say next Saturday, you were looking for a tea time, the rates would already be posted and selected, and it's the same for everybody on the website.

Right, that's what I'm trying to get at.

Is not when I get on to look at it, is before before I even touch it.

Has it been set?

There's nothing that I can do that would adjust that.

Correct.

Okay.

Um the other questions I have are around um what impacts the dynamic pricing would have to drawing folks in from the outside and how because it won't apply to Santa Rosa.

So how will we know if it's not collecting any information about it?

Well, we verify if you're a resident when you check into play, so we want to make sure that residents get their resident pricing so they will be able to, when they check in, we verify that they have a residency in Santa Rosa from their zip code listing, and they provide that when they check in.

Okay, and have you been doing this in other jurisdictions?

Yes, we've we're um doing it currently with the city of Fairfield at the two golf courses there, and we're beginning to launch it at the links of Badega Harbor this coming year as well.

Okay.

Thank you.

Other questions?

Seeing none, let's open the public hearing.

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

Fred, you have the floor.

Thank you, members of the city council.

Um, I sent you a public comment on this item in the last city council meeting, and I sent one also um for this that had a free New York Times article link on uh some of the downsides of dynamic pricing, and that the uh grocery stores are starting to think of doing it for prices on food.

And uh the article went into explain a lot of the downsides of dynamic pricing and how it's really reviled by consumers across the board.

They don't like it.

And so this is a this is a management business thing that they like it because uh the in the staff report it mentioned true demand and to try to keep up with the market, but these are things that that victimize the consumer.

And so um uh I would like to thank council member Fleming for for you know opening up some questioning on this, but um, as I said it at the previous meeting, Milton Friedman said that business's job is to generate a profit, and government's job is to act as a backstop to business excesses.

Here's government going into the business excess part of it.

So I I don't think this is really right.

Um I don't see what's gonna stop the city from going true demand on water rates, uh picnic table fees for parks because you're in a you're in a place now with a budget deficit where you're looking for money.

I don't know any time in my whole life when promises of price have gone down where they ever have gone down.

So I mentioned in my public comment that if you believe that, I'll sell you the Brooklyn Bridge.

Um so I I think I have some serious reservations about this.

I don't play golf, but I do have have experience with the dynamic pricing with uh buying airline tickets and concert tickets, and this is just a really bad idea that I think you're gonna find a lot of pushback from consumers on as it rolls out, and I don't think it would be a good idea for the city to get on board with this and then have you stuck holding the bag with something that something that everybody doesn't like.

So um, those are some of my points that I have, and um it's really difficult for me to have faith in these rationales that this is gonna work out when from my experience in life business has done nothing but go after more and more fees all the time like Pac Man on my wallet.

So I would I would be in uh favor of just a flat fee at the golf course or sell the golf course to a private entity.

So that's just some of my thoughts.

Thank you.

Thank you, Fred.

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

Seeing none, we'll close the public hearing and bring it back for a motion and a second and other discussion.

And uh it's Ms.

McDonald over to over to you for a motion.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'd like to move the adoption of resolution of the council of the city of Santa Rosa establishing new and revised Bennett Valley golf course fees and way further reading of the text.

Okay.

Yeah, thank you.

Um I this probably will be fine.

I'm I'm not gonna be supportive of it today, and the reason why is not an antagonistic one, but I think just sort of a philosophical one about how we view our golf course.

I've been one over to believe that the Bennett Valley Golf Course is a true amenity to the entire public.

And if we were to do this with other things in the city, I know we can't we would never apply dynamic pricing, it would be unlawful to apply it to water rates.

But if we were to say apply it to our city sponsored little league or or our swimming pool hours, I think we would have an uproar from the community, and we would see that folks either view this as a business or they view it as an amenity that the city is providing.

I view this as an amenity that the city is providing, and one that we subsidize because we care about all members of the city getting out and enjoying open spaces, and that's one of the reasons why the city looked at the Venet Valley Golf Course so closely a few years ago and decided to invest in it.

I'm I'm hugely in support of it, and I think that um that your company's done a great job in reaching out to all kinds of different sectors, and I'd love to figure out ways to to be supportive around um making sure that fees pay for all the upgrades that are needed, and I think that's an important discussion to have.

But because of the nature of how I view government's role in this, I don't think that dynamic pricing is the way to go.

I think we ought to have set rates and adjust them, you know, in time over time, based on demand, but in a way that's more transparent and easier for the public to follow.

But thank you for your efforts, and I look forward to um ways that we can continue to improve our our services out there.

Thank you.

Other comments, uh, uh before we come to you, Mr.

Alvarez.

Ms.

Ben Wales had her hand up.

We'll do Ms.

Ben Wallace and then over to you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I have some concerns around this too.

First of all, thank you for the presentation.

I appreciate it.

And I I've been kind of looking at these um prices, and I I do have some concerns in terms of how the public will um be able, whether or not they're built will understand this.

Um, uh so that's my first concern.

I know that that of course we're in a deficit and we need to look for ways uh to um fill in some of those gaps, but I'm not sure this um this is the answer.

I I um we'll probably not be supporting this either.

I have concerns about folks who uh may not be able to afford uh some of this pricing, but most of all I think it's just confusing.

Uh it's confusing to me, and I'm thinking it'll it will be confusing to the public.

So um uh for those reasons and and others, I think um, I'm probably not going to be supporting it today, but um it doesn't mean that maybe we can look at some other alternatives, uh at least in my view.

I don't play golf, so I don't have any stake in this at all.

Um, but I I do have concerns for the public, so thank you.

Mr.

Alvarez.

Thank you, mayor.

Uh I think what I was gonna say has already been said by my colleagues.

The reality for me is the dynamic aspect of this is not only confusing, but you know, we've called the the golf course a gem uh a NASA to the city, and uh I was honored to be part of the council that that did get involved into saving that gym, and I'm very supportive of all the efforts that have been put into that golf course to make it the gem it is today, and the service that it provides to multiple residents local and those that come visit.

Uh, but again, the dynamic aspect of it is is not the direction that I hope we go when we come up with the with another plan.

Uh, increase, I would support increase flat out, but the dynamic aspect of it is not the way we should be doing our business at this time.

Ms.

McDonald.

Thank you.

I have a couple of clarifying questions.

If I go back to slide 10, um, if I'm looking at this correctly, and and this might help me walk through how this is working.

On a weekend rate going up in 2026, it's going to be a flat rate of 70 dollars.

But with dynamic pricing, it could go down seven dollars or potentially up fourteen dollars, and that's how that would read.

So, depending on the time that you would want to golf, if prime time is seven a.m.

and that's your tee off time, that would be potentially the eighty-four dollar rate.

But maybe later in the day could go as low as sixty-three dollars.

I also see on one of those slides that it's potentially gaining eighty-five thousand dollars.

Currently, are you running into the red or are you running into the black on your coffers of how you are seeing the end of your year go?

If I may ask, if you mean black as in positive, we are running out of positive uh from operating just the golf operations between revenues, payroll, and operating expenses.

Um I won't speak too much on the city side, but there is the debt services that is impacting that number.

So that's a different line item.

Yeah, council member McDonald, the the golf enterprise continues to be subsidized by the general fund.

And I know that uh the CFO is here if you'd like to ask him more questions, but part of the rationale for looking at alternatives came from conversation with council during the budget discussions uh last May to look at ways that we can reduce the amount of general fund investment uh into the baseline budget for the golf course, and this was an idea that Kemper brought up, and that's why we brought it forward in a study session to see if there was any interest.

And for this to be an enterprise fund and for us to be pulling from general fund, this is a better model to let you be more sustainable to pay off the debt yourselves.

So at this time, Scott, could you tell me is it still a half a million dollars a year that we're paying towards this for the debt, or is it lower than that now?

Good evening, mayor, members of council, Scott Wagner, Finance Department.

Um, thank you for your question.

So we're we're following it monthly, and as Mr.

Bershall mentioned on their end of things, they're they're coming out slightly in the black at the moment.

But once we incorporate the city's debt service that we're paying on our side of the books, we're still trending at that 500,000 dollar number.

I would really agree with the characterization that this dynamic pricing model gives an ability to be flexible to our operator to maximize a potential decrease in what that loss may be that they don't have right now.

I would also characterize the complexity of the rate model of as a former golf golfer where I spend most of my time here now, not not at the golf course.

Um golfers are very used to a very complex rate model.

Um they understand golf is essentially always been dynamic and twilight hours versus weekend versus et cetera.

Um this really gives the operator an opportunity to fine-tune to give a better deal to some folks and get them out on the course and maximize revenue during periods when they're impacted with demand.

So just a quick calculation.

If I look at this myself, the max is $14, then 10, then five, then 10, then nine at the max compared to what your flat rate would have been if we didn't do dynamic pricing.

But you can also go the other way on savings depending on your time.

So this seems reasonable to me.

I understand I've never been a golfer, but I have many golfers in my family.

And just another quick question what's a typical round of golf at another golf course locally on a weekend, the highest rate.

And our competition set um, which we had listed, it it varies between, as you can see here, it um these are just the regular rates, but they are significantly higher than what Bennett Valley is right now.

So with our dynamic pricing, we're trying to bridge that gap a little bit as well without trying to discourage golfers from playing.

And one of the key aspects of the dynamic pricing is the utilization.

How much are we utilized?

And if we have low utilization, we want to encourage golfers to come, so it gives us the flexibility to reduce the rate to entice people to come out and play.

And again, we're asking this of the non-resident golfers.

Resident golfers, which are almost 80% of the rounds being played are going to be statically priced.

They will know their rate and get charged the appropriate rate.

This is for the out-of-towners that are coming to visit that are going on our website and looking to book a tea time, they'll see a rate and they'll book it to play.

And that's 20-25% of our play.

So we're talking about 25%, 20 to 25% of the golf rounds being played with this model, but you can see the revenue that it can generate to help offset some of the deficit that is being attributed to the golf course.

So um, and again, we can lower it where we have really low utilization.

We want to be very competitive with our competition and show what we can offer.

And this rate not only shows up on our website, it gets broadcasted out to our third-party sites like golf now, where golfers go and see every golf course that we're competing against, and they will see the rates that we're offering and be able to make a decision on that compared to our competitive set.

So, um, again, I I understand there's a lot of nervousness about dynamic pricing, but I think the opportunity for us to not impact rounds by just raising rates to a higher level immediately and always gives us a flexibility to really respond to what the business is asking for.

So you would also suggest that this is a marketing component because of using this system, it goes out to a broader universe of people who are looking for golf on the weekends or during the day.

Correct.

Okay.

I've been asking for the golf course to not use general fund money as much.

And so I appreciate the work that's being done on this in a creative way that allows people to still lower golf prices at not the prime times, but you know, golfers that want to be out there at that prime time, my understanding is they will pay that fee, and ones that just want to go have a good time might go later in the day anyway.

So I will support this.

I'm not sure you're gonna get through tonight, but I think this is a creative way.

It affects non-residents, so our residents are still capturing the lower rate, and um I appreciate you doing everything you can to not continue to use the general fund resources.

Thank you.

Uh all right, so we've had some some robust discussion tonight.

I'm wondering if the most recent back and forth.

Oh, Miss Rogers, go ahead.

Um, I just wanted to say uh you came here, and we asked you to find ways in order for the golf course to be uh self-sustaining.

Um, so I will be supporting.

I I thank you guys for coming um for doing all the work that you have been doing and to find creative and innovative ways.

I don't know how creative it is, because from what I hear, there the other golf courses are doing it um anyway.

But thank you for coming in and doing this, and I will be supporting it due to this is what we asked you to do.

So thank you.

Thank you for that, Ms.

Rogers.

Um we've had it, we've had a good discussion.

To those who voice concerns, I'm wondering if the last back and forth did answer some of the objections where it's not applying to to locals, it is an industry standard.

I it is worth noting that we don't have, even though we are again talking about raising prices on the golf community, once again they are in the in the um in the main supportive because what they want is they want that facility to be be kept up.

We don't have golfer any golfers here opposing this, uh opposing this tonight.

Does that speak to some of the concerns on council?

Uh let's go, Miss Fleming and then Mr.

Alvarez.

Yeah, I I would have let it lie, but no, the the I mean I I'm not nervous about this.

What I am is I philosophically disagree that this is how government should uh proffer our our community services.

It's not that um I don't think that it's a smart business decision, but I'm not in the business of business.

So that might be just the difference here is that if we were gonna put forth something like our youth sports, like for dynamic pricing, and say if you live outside of the city limits, if you live in Wiki up, you're gonna pay pay more, and it's not gonna be necessarily predictable.

We would probably have a different approach to it.

I think that it's based on the notion as um RCFO mentioned, golfers know this, and it's because we have an idea about the the kind of folks who are golfers, and that's understandable and and no problem with that, but it is kind of a problem when we think about how we want to have our golf course be imagined going forward, and I'd like to have it be something that's really accessible, and I understand that that requires finance, you know, support from the general fund, and that um that this will help make the facility really nice, but it also makes it um less egalitarian.

Um, so at some times and less predictable.

But I appreciate the efforts and um I think you've got your votes.

Mr.

Alvarez, one of my colleagues mentioned that this has become an industry standard or practice uh by other golf entities.

Is that a is that a general consensus?

It is starting to become a normal practice.

It is being uh implemented and adopted at a number of golf courses.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

Well, if we have no further discussion, we have a motion and a second on the floor.

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

Councilmember Rogers.

Councilmember McDonald, aye.

Councilmember Fleming.

No.

Councilmember Ben Wellows.

No.

Councilmember Alvarez?

I.

Mayor Stepp.

Yes.

Let the record show this passes with five affirmative votes.

And council members Ben Wellis and Fleming voting in eight.

James and Greg, thank you for coming out.

Um I can at least I continue to hear nothing but good things uh about your work from the folks who use that course.

So thank you.

Thank you for uh taking the time to come out tonight and for looking for ways to keep that course great.

Much obliged.

Uh all right.

With that, we are going to turn back to our second report for the evening, item 15.2, uh a report on the appointment of in our interim city manager, approval of employment agreement, and introduction of an ordinance adopting a salary of the interim city manager.

And assistant assistant city manager Nutt, you're on tap again.

Welcome.

Good, good uh good evening.

One more time.

Uh I am not Dominique Blanchi.

Uh uh, but I am gonna sit in because she is uh unavoidably away tonight, uh, as is uh the city manager, and so I will um sit in and give this presentation.

Um I'm gonna be joined by uh city attorney stricker.

If you have uh questions at the end, we will do everything we can to answer questions, but we may ask for uh the mayor to also chime in with some input as um Director Blanchi was the predominant negotiator in this instance.

So with that, uh, as you're aware, the city manager City Manager Smith has announced her resignation, and her last day will be January the 2nd, 2026.

Uh and the city will be conducting an open recruitment in early 2026 for her replacement, which will likely take uh six months or more.

Uh, the council did hold interviews for interim city manager and provided direction to staff in closed session in October uh and early November.

Uh in doing so, council selected Lori Ann Farrell to serve as the interim city manager, and Lori has joined us this evening.

Um, just a little bit about Lori Ann.

Uh, she's a local government and finance expert with 35 years of experience in the public and private sectors, most recently serving since 2019 as the city manager for the city of Costa Mesa, where she managed an oversight of city operations across eight departments and over 600 employees, including police, fire, development, public works, parks, information technology, and finance.

Uh, prior to her position uh in Costa Mesa, um Miss Farrell served at the Huntington Beach at City of Huntington Beach for nine years, and as the assistant uh as the assistant city manager and as the city's finance officer where she was responsible for oversight of the city's 10 departments and 344 million dollar budget.

Uh Ms.

Farrell is an innovative and inspirational leader, recognized for her leadership in municipal administration, expertise in financial management, passion for improving quality of life services in communities where she serves, and an unwavering commitment to ethics and government.

And I'll tell you we're excited to have her come and join us.

If appointed, Miss Farrell will begin on January 2nd, 2026, and continue for a temporary time until a new city manager is selected and starts.

Her uh compensation and benefits as an interim city manager include a salary of 291,200 annually.

There will be no merit increases or cost of living salary increases unless expressly approved by council, which requires a public approval process like this one.

She'll receive a temporary housing assistance of $3,000 a month if she establishes and maintains housing in Sonoma County or Marin County.

She'll receive an auto allowance of $500 a month for personal vehicle use for city business, which is the same benefit provided to executive management employees in unit 10.

She receives vacation leave, sick leave, and holidays.

Similar, it's the same benefit provided to executive management in unit 10.

She'll receive 80 hours of administrative leave on her first day and 80 hours of administrative leave on July 1st of the new fiscal year.

There'll be a wellness incentive of $500 a year paid in January for the year, the same benefit as executive management employees in Unit 10.

Other benefits will include she'll be provided uh executive similar, she'll be provided other benefits similar to executive management employees in unit 10, which include health, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance, participation in CalPur's retirement program, and a retirement uh health savings plan.

Along that lines, it is recommended that council one adopt a resolution appointing Lori Ann Farrell as interim city manager, effective January 2nd, 2026 and approving an employment agreement with Ms.

Farrell to introduce the proposed ordinance establishing monthly salary of 24,266.66 cents, which equates to 291,200 annually, and other compensation and benefits for the interim city manager.

And we, as described earlier, we're here to answer questions if you have any.

Thank you very much.

There are elements of public life that are a little bit awkward, and this is this is one of them.

Um thank you for sitting there and having all the details of your benefit benefits package read out.

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

I am I am seeing no questions.

So let's throw it open to the public for any questions or comments from the public.

Seeing none, we're gonna bring it right back to council for uh a motion from Mr.

Alvarez.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'd like to move uh that we adopt the resolution to appoint Laurianne Pharrell as interim city manager effective January second, twenty twenty-six, and approve an employment agreement with Mrs.

Pharrell.

Also introduce an ordinance establishing the monthly salary of 24,266 and 66 cents, which equates to 291,200 annually, and other compensation benefits for the interim city manager effective January second, twenty twenty-six.

Second.

We have a motion and a second by Miss Rogers.

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

Councilmember Rogers.

Aye.

Councilmember McDonald.

Aye.

Councilmember Fleming?

Yes.

Councilmember Ben Wellows?

Yes.

Councilmember Alvarez?

Aye.

Vice Mayor O'Krepki?

Aye.

Mayor Stepp.

Yes.

Let the record show this passes unanimously.

Thank you.

All right.

This then this then takes us to item 18, our final public comment on non-agenda matters.

Are there any members of the public who have not already commented that would like to comment on any items not listed on the agenda?

Seeing none, we will close public comment and we are officially adjourned.

Thanks, everyone.