Good afternoon.

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

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Isidra, will you please restate this in Spanish?

Back to you.

Welcome and happy holidays, everyone.

And we will call this the time is 401 and we'll call this meeting to order.

Madam City Clerk.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Rogers.

Present.

Councilmember McDonald here.

Councilmember Fleming.

Councilmember Ben Wells.

Here.

Councilmember Alvarez.

Present.

Vice Mayor Krepki?

Here.

Mayor Stapp.

Here.

Let the record show that all council members are present.

Thank you very much.

We're gonna go right ahead to item 4.1, our housing authority interviews.

Thank you to all the candidates who put in your application and who made the time to be here tonight.

If I'm not mistaken, we have four candidates tonight.

Uh is Veronica Castro here.

Oops, I'm sorry.

Oh, my apologies.

I there's been a lot going on tonight.

Ms.

Ben Wales, do we have a a recusal this evening?

Yes, I do.

Out of an abundance of caution, I'm going to be recusing myself from this item because I sit on the um Sonoma County Homeless Coalition Board, and so does one of the applicants.

Thank you, and thank you both for your service on the on the uh on that board.

So as Miss Van Wales is recusing herself, do we have Veronica Castro here?

Veronica, thank you for coming out tonight.

If you could make your way down to the front.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for joining us.

Have a have a seat at the table.

Thank you, Madam City Clerk, for helping us with the microphone.

Okay.

Okay.

Again, thank you for being here, Veronica.

We'll have three questions for you for you tonight, and the other applicants in the audience can go to school on these.

Uh the first one's easy enough.

Can you tell us a little bit about your background and what and what makes you interested in this position?

Well, I um I've done a lot of volunteering here in Sonoma County, and I was on the housing authority back in 2000.

Maybe I left in 2003, I believe.

So I was there for several years, maybe ten.

And I just saw it come in my mouth.

I thought, well, there's another opportunity as I'm done taking care of the adopted kids I had and all that, so I'm available.

That's uh I I don't know much more to say.

Thank you very much for that.

Alright, question number two.

How do you see your skills and experience assisting the Santa Rosa Housing Authority?

I guess uh, well, I've done a lot of translating.

I've done a lot of things, but uh in my 10 years working with the and might not quite be 10 years, it might be a little more.

With the housing Authority, I learned a lot and sitting on the board and and I went to a I was on the C D B G committee and a couple other things.

Uh so I learned a lot of things here.

I have those to bring back.

Thank you, and thank you for your previous service.

Uh and the third and final question.

What do you think is the biggest challenge facing the housing authority?

I think it's the understanding of the community and the people that are, you know, the people that are trying to get it, they think everybody's against them.

The people that were trying to make housing in their areas don't really understand, I think what it's gonna be like.

They're expecting a lot of just chaos and uh really poor people, and they're not really looking at what the what the person that's on housing is about.

I'm on housing.

I'm on housing because I lost my leg and my hand.

I haven't been able to work very well, but I have been able to volunteer and do a lot of things, so I don't know if that's thank you for that as well.

Uh with that, I'll bring it back to the to the dais to my colleagues for any uh any follow-up questions.

No follow-up questions.

Veronica, thank you very much for your application for taking the time to be here today.

Okay, thank you.

Gregory Fearon.

Thank you for being here.

Gregory, welcome.

You're no stranger to city council.

So you've you've you've heard that you've heard the questions.

Why don't you start by telling us a little bit about your background and your interest in the housing authority?

Well, I've been a resident of Santa Rosa for about 50 years now, and I've in the early 80s and 90s I was an applicant.

Uh I was the executive director of community support network, and I was actively engaged in trying to help our clients gain housing.

I realized that the only way I was really going to do that was to build housing myself.

And so many of the housing that is currently used, a lot of homes, a lot of apartments, a lot of things that you and I think I sent a letter to all of you indicating some of them, but there's quite a few places that are being used for low-income housing through the housing authority and others with section eights.

Then I was instrumental in building for our clients uh who are at that time homeless mentally ill.

So I've been on the side of uh the applicant to a housing authority loan.

I've received a lot of them and thankfully for it's been a long time.

So some of them have actually um served for 35 years and are now free of it.

Uh, but quite a few are still in loans to the housing authority, both city and county.

Uh so I know what it's like to be a developer, I know what it's like to be an applicant, I know what's like to be a low-income individual who's been living in those places.

Um after 77 years, I'm now rich enough not to have to live in low-income housing, but I still remember and I still fight hard for them as you know.

Thank you very much for that.

Question two.

How do you see your skill when you've answered this a little bit with your initial answer?

How do you see your skills and experience assisting this the uh uh Santa Rosa Housing Authority?

Well, I think I'm trusted by a whole lot of people in every possible um uh use of the housing authority.

The developers know me and and I've worked with a lot of them to build stuff with them as partners.

Uh the city knows me and its applic its uh administration, most of its staff know me.

You've heard me quite a bit uh give you advice and tell you what I think um is needed.

Uh the community and most of the residents trust me.

Uh they know me.

I'm on the street a lot with them, and I help with my own private foundation to help in a lot of their ways.

Uh so I think building partnerships and building the capability of having a housing authority do it what it does best uh well.

Uh I'm also uh on a couple of county boards, and I think I'm also possibly uh a strong link between city-county partnerships.

Uh I think that's gonna be absolutely essential, and I see my my skills and my ability as helpful.

Thank you.

Excellent.

And the final question: what do you think is the biggest challenge facing the housing Authority?

Well, I think all government right now is uh being challenged, both financially and uh from the view of the community.

We aren't the government isn't seen as effective as it has been in the past.

I think one of its challenges is to renew its energy and its purpose and to do a good job of providing services to the residents.

I think the biggest challenge is to be a housing authority.

That's not always in their control.

It's dictated a lot by state and federal regulations, but I think we're creative enough, and local government is the strongest, I think, linked to its citizens and to doing good service.

I see the housing authorities' challenge as just doing what it's supposed to do and finding ways to do that creatively.

Thank you very much.

With that, I'll bring it back to council.

Any questions or comments?

Hi, thank you for being here.

Um looking at your application, it looks like you have had a lot of volunteer um experience.

Which of those boards?

I know it says five years, pretty broad, but which of those boards do you currently still sit on?

I'm sorry, I that you currently still sit on.

So there's Sonoma County.

I've gotten um, I guess, old enough to not have to necessarily earn any money from anybody or to really be a uh an active force on boards.

The only board I sit on right now is Stewards in the Coast and Redwoods.

We're helping maintain a forest down on the West County.

Um, but I don't sit on any housing boards anymore.

I do sit on county boards.

I have a county uh appointment to the measure o committee, and I have a county appointment to the behavioral health department's uh behavioral health board, but neither of those are uh at this point making um awards.

We're advising the department and making sure that measure O is spent the way the voters thought it was.

So I'm not in charge of making any applications or giving any money.

Uh I get to be the sort of semi-wise old guy giving advice.

Do you see a possible um connection between the behavioral health and where we are with our high our housing?

Absolutely.

Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Well, as you know, for the longest time, behavioral health and substance use haven't really been a part of our application of funds to housing for homeless uh or for any low-income housing.

We've sort of been so siloed that we don't really think that the county's programs in homelessness behavioral health and side and drug abuse ought to be integrated.

I'm contrarely, I think it ought to all be integrated.

I think we need to build strong teams uh in each of our areas of expertise and work together actively.

Uh, I hope to build that in the behavioral health department is in all of its programs and certainly within its homeless programs.

It's gonna be hard because a lot of those programs are losing money.

Uh, but I think we can uh we I know the staff and I know they want to work together and uh if we can just sort of be a little more creative with our use of their staff and build strong alliances between both county and city and the control contractors, we can do it.

Thank you.

Any other questions from council?

Seeing none, Gregory, thank you for your application for being here today.

Sure, thank you.

We will move on to Kimberly Louise.

Is Kimberly here?

Is Kimberly present?

All right, is John Way here?

John, welcome.

Make your way to the table.

Thank you for being here today.

It's a little like following Adele at karaoke with great rate before me, but that's okay.

I'll do my best.

A good comparison to segue.

Thank you, John.

Alright, all right.

Tell us a bit about yourself.

What what's your background and what's your interest in the housing authority?

So I've worked just shy of 30 years in the nonprofit industry um in administration of multifaceted, government funded, usually uniform guidance or signal audit uh entities in the organ in Sonoma County.

First with community Action Partnership or SCPEO when Gregory was on the board and taught me a great deal.

And then at California Human Development.

I took a step out of the county to uh help a nonprofit in Napa that also provides services here in Sonoma County and is trying to provide more of them to do just that to build them up to be uh government fundable.

Uh they're part of the organization that did the ARA or ARPA funding through Sonoma County, and so that was my organization.

And uh at the same time I did that, I backed out of other activities, which included the school board that was very rewarding, believe it or not.

Um, and so now I'm just kind of at a place in my career where I could do some more things locally, and I wanted to get involved and engaged.

Thank you very much.

Question number two: how do you see your skills and experience assisting the Santa Rosa Housing Authority?

Um, well, there's again, I followed Gregory, so that's a little awkward.

Um, you know, there's a number of pieces that I've learned in the human services arena, which is usually about perception.

And I think part of the issue that we have with most of our government entities, boards, councils, commissions, is that there's an unapproachability to it.

And I would like to think that I could bring some level of approachability and pragmatic thinking from the everyday taxpayer, from the everyday individual, from the everyday neighbor.

Um, I think that's definitely something that could be beneficial to the housing commission for sure.

Thank you.

Perfect.

Uh, last question.

What do you think is the biggest challenge facing the housing authority?

Uh it's two parts actually.

I think the first part is the perception piece.

It's like um the free and reduced lunch program.

Nobody wants to get the lunch when it was a free and reduced lunch program because there's a stigma to it.

I think people don't want certain kinds of housing in their neighborhood because there's a stigma to it, and that's just needs to be um counteracted.

Um I think the same thing with individuals who need that support.

I think there's a certain stigma.

Um, just by connection to my elderly mother.

There's a woman who's like, I can't get on a waiting list.

Other people must need it more than I do.

And I'm like, I know how much you make, you actually should be on the waiting list.

Um, so I think there's a big piece of that.

And then, of course, it's hard to deny or um not speak to the chaos that hits all things that are human-centered and human-serving right now.

Uh so funding, obviously, but mostly the chaos that's just created by a uh government that is doing things in a way that is very much against and counter to what has been built by things like the housing commission and um that really have a person-centered point of view, taking care of humans, a thoughtful answer.

Thank you very much.

Turning to council, any any questions from our group?

Ms.

Rogers.

Sorry.

Um, so I saw in your application you spoke about wraparound services.

And if you ask uh many of the leaders in the community, we do provide wraparound services.

What is it that we're not where is the mark that we're not hitting when we look at wraparound services?

I think again, it's not about the wraparound services from the from the 50,000 foot view down, it's from the what can the individual do accomplish and and participate in in terms of all those wraparound services, right?

For instance, who can come on a four at four o'clock on a Tuesday to get interviewed for a slot like this?

You have to have a position that allows you to leave your job, staff that are like, no, we've got this, those kinds of things.

There are pieces that prohibit everybody from getting what they need, engaging in the way that they can engage, and participating in a way that I think both feeds them in their journey, but also educates the process so that it can constantly be ever changing, if that makes sense.

It's not just about times and bus routes.

I mean, we used to make a there used to be this um commitment that a nonprofit needed to be on a bus route.

It was like the first thing on the sheet of paper, but it's so ridiculous at this point now.

We could be wherever.

Um people aren't using the bus just to get to us.

They're using all kinds of modes of transportation.

It's the same way.

I think there's like a no-wrong door approach that really just could be helpful and could be infused at this time when you have people living in unique situations with multiple jobs with one car in the household, all kinds of barriers.

If there were multiple ways to engage in those wraparound, I think that would be a great giant step forward.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Seeing none, John, thank you very much for being here today.

Thank you.

Thank you to all the applicants.

With that, we're gonna jump ahead quite a ways, actually, all the way to item 10 point or item 10, our city manager and city attorney's reports.

Mayor.

Oh, yes.

Let's give let's give our colleague a chance to come back in.

Thank you for the reminder.

If miss if Miss Ben Whalos could rejoin us.

We also need to take public comment.

Oh, for the inter after the interviews we do?

All right, perfect.

Uh while we're waiting for Ms.

Ben Whalos.

Oh, I guess we have to do the public comment first.

Are there any members of the public who would like to speak on the interviews that we just heard on the housing authority appointment?

Mr.

Mr.

DeWitt, the floor is yours.

Hello, my name is Dwayne DeWitt.

I'm from Roseland and I'm a member of the Sonoma County Housing Advocacy Group.

I would hope that all of you pay attention to one of the things that could be helpful for each of these interviews, no matter who's picked, once they get there, to try to have a more innovative and imaginative approach to the future, because so many problems from the past have not been solved well with what we already have.

One of the former programs, though, that could be reinstituted and could be helpful, is if the Section 8 housing vouchers were once again under the federal purview allowed to be used as payment for mortgages for home ownership.

There was a program like that in the past, and it did help in other places, but both Santa Rosa and Sonoma County stepped back from that, and we don't know what the status of that is now.

One would hope that whoever's chosen tonight to be on the housing authority will take a view forward, looking at how are we going to get as many people as possible to own their own home utilizing the Section 8 housing voucher program that was once available in the past.

Perhaps you can bring it back.

Secondary to that, the HUD VASH Section 8 program for veterans.

VASH stands for Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing.

There's a way we could make that much more effective.

It hasn't been for many years.

But if the city and the county were to work together, we could get people in to those units.

I've actually had a person get the unit, have everything ready, and then one of the city inspectors said the window was one inch too narrow for egress, meaning to get out if there had been a fire.

So not only did they keep that veteran from being able to stay in that home, they then red tagged the building and forced all of the residents out of it, and the veteran that owned the building, and it helped for so many years to house veterans.

Then himself was so frustrated, he sold the building.

It's no longer an affordable housing.

So we have to find a way in which we can get the bureaucrats to have some empathy, even as they look at the rule book.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Duane.

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

Seeing none, we will close public comment and we will invite Miss Ben Welos back into the room.

Thank you all for your patience as we move on to the next item.

Thank you, Lauren.

And welcome back, Miss Miss Ben Wayos.

We really do need to have entrance music to make this slightly less awkward.

Alright.

Now let's move on to item 10, our city manager and city attorney's reports.

Madam City Manager.

Good evening.

I actually have no updates for tonight's meeting.

All right.

Well, we're gonna have an update for you in just a minute.

But until before then, Madam City Attorney.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um, I do have my monthly litigation and settlement report.

I have uh one settlement um that was previously approved by uh the city council in closed session, was finalized in the month of November.

This is a little bit of a long one to explain, so bear with me.

In May 2025, the city received a letter providing California River Watch's notice and intent to sue the city under the Federal Clean Water Act based on the city's operation of the Laguna's sub-regional water reclamation system, Laguna Treatment Plant, and sewer collection system.

River Watch alleged that the city uh violated the Clean Water Act largely based on sanitary sewer overflows, which are also called SSOs, occurring from the city's sewer system during the prior five years.

The city denies uh California River Watch's other allegations.

The city's SSO SSO rate is exceptionally low at fewer than one SSO per 100 miles of sewer, while the regional average is almost eight SSOs for the same distance.

But because the Clean Water Act prohibits even a single SSO, the city settled to avoid costly litigation.

In exchange for River Watch's full release of all claims, and an agreement not to sue the city for six years.

The city agreed to comply with certain operational conditions for six years.

These conditions relate to the city's continued condition assessment of its sewer system near waterways, continued prioritization of sewer repairs near waterways, continued implementation of the city's process for reporting and responding to SSOs, continued training for city staff about reporting SSOs, and adherence to use and record keeping requirements for chemicals needed to prevent route damage to the city's sewer system.

Those funds will be paid from the sewer enterprise fund.

Other than that, a settlement of report, I can report that our caseload remains fairly constant with 34 current litigation matters with trial dates assigned to approximately a third of those matters.

We have five cases currently on appeal following rulings in favor of the city at the trial court level.

And we continue as always to try to resolve smaller cases at little or no cost to the city.

And that is the end of my report.

Thank you, Madam City Attorney.

Before we go to public comment, we're gonna turn back to our city manager just for a moment, because an important point that she left out of her report is that this is sadly her final meeting with us tonight.

As has been widely reported, our city manager who has done a wonderful job for the city, is heading off to Sacramento.

Uh, which speaks well both of her and of Santa Rosa, the fact that they were they had to come and poach our city manager for their their much larger city.

Uh we are proud of her for that.

Um but it is a sad day for council because I I will I will speak for myself and I will let my colleagues speak speak for themselves.

Uh but I have uh thoroughly enjoyed working with the city manager.

I've learned a lot from her.

Uh her nuts and bolts approach.

I think, has um I think I think our residents have noticed that.

People have noticed the changes in the downtown, they've noticed the building, they've noticed the a vibe shift in Santa Rosa.

If you get the chronicle and you read the piece yesterday in the chronicle that that was uh really glowing about some of the changes that have been made in in Santa Rosa, you know what I'm you know what I'm talking about.

Uh and a lot of that, a lot of that credit goes to uh Marakeisha and the work that she's done here in her uh almost almost four years.

I'm I'm sure that my colleagues will have will will add to that, so I will I will leave it there.

Uh let me let me turn to my colleagues to see who else would like to like to say a few words.

In fact, let's start.

Let's start with uh uh Mayor Emeritus Natalie Rogers.

Please, the floor is yours.

Thank you.

Um I'll keep it nice, short, and sweet.

Uh CM, when you first came here, I had a goal of learning as much as I could learn um from you, and maximizing your resume and learning from that.

And I think I I did just that.

Thank you for your guidance for our city.

Thank you for not only coming and moving to Santa Rosa, but becoming a part of the community that we love so much and why we why we serve here.

And for me, it is definitely a loss that you're leaving.

I think Santa Rosa, the city is losing.

I think our community members can attest that they feel like um they are losing, but it is a gain for you, and so for that I'm very happy, and I think it's a blessing for you.

So uh thank you so much for everything that you've done for our city and continue to shine wherever you go.

Thank you, Ms.

Rogers.

Other thoughts from council.

Sure.

Mr.

Albrez.

I can speak of the endless conversations that we had, whether it's the weekend, nights, early weekday mornings.

You've always been available to answer my questions.

But our streets are cleaner in Roseland in South Park because of you, and for that I'm eternally grateful.

You made an uh a difference.

You planted seeds that is for us to water and and see its potential, but I know it could not have been possible without your your dedication to the people that you serve.

So thank you for that.

Thank you, Mr.

Alvarez, Ms.

Fleming.

Thank you very much, City Manager.

I I think that it's not gonna notice that under your tenure, a lot of the goals for the city have been reached, and in no small part because you never say anything but like let's figure out how to do this.

You know, even if it's hard.

I've I've almost I don't think I've ever heard you say flat out no.

You might say it's gonna be hard or can have a little time, but it's always a problem to solve or an opportunity to have.

And I think that that's really come across both for the council and the residents, and the skyline has changed, the entrances to our cities have changed, and I think we're on a path now that we've wanted to be on for so long, and we're gonna miss you a lot.

I wish you the best luck.

Um, and I hope it all is just wonderful for you going forward.

Thank you so much for your your service.

Vice Mayor Krupke.

I concur with everything my colleagues have already said, and I'm sure I'll concur with everything my other colleagues are about to say.

Um it's easy to to lose perspective of the dedication somebody has to the boots on the ground, day-to-day um services our city provides when they're a city manager, when they're at the top of the of the of the of management.

Um my favorite story that I learned about uh our city manager about Mara Keisha is that she still has an old public works director in her somewhere to the point that when she first got here, she would take a little piece of garbage and put it in the curve to make sure that the street sweepers are coming by and doing their job, and she would notice when they did and when they did it.

Um it wasn't always the huge high level we're gonna build a building, ribbon cutting this, you know, groundbreaking that it was our services being delivered to our citizens, and I think that's carried forward in your time here.

Um, you're the only city manager I've ever worked with, um, but I so I have no no comparison to how other city managers are, but I know you're a good one because not just our council and our and our staff are mourning you leaving.

We have people from other cities that are sad that our city manager is leaving and going to Sacramento.

When Ronert Park and Healdsburg and Cloverdale say, oh man, that's too bad of a loss.

First, I say it's not it's it's not too bad of a loss.

She's she's continuing on doing something greater.

You know, we've we're a step on this ladder of her success.

But we can always focus on the negative, but I really do think because of your time here, because you have your dedication to deliverables to uh public-facing government that um due to your time here at Santa Rosa is a better place than it was before you came, and I don't think there's any better legacy you could have than keeping so than making something better than the way you found it.

Miss Ben Willows.

Thank you.

Um my gosh.

You know, I I've only been here a year, and I only have had the pleasure of working with you for a year.

Um, but I have to say um I have to agree with uh council member Fleming.

Anytime I brought an issue to you, you always said, Well, let's let's see what we can do.

Always very solution oriented, and and which made it a joy for me and not afraid to bring different issues to you.

Also the fact that no matter what I brought to you, you jumped on it immediately, which I you know always was amazed at and all the projects that have come to fruition just in the time that I've been here has been amazing to me.

So I am I am so sad to see you go because I was really looking forward to working with you for the next three years, but I um am so happy for you because I know it's it's gonna be great for you, it's gonna be really great for Sacramento.

Um, and um I just wish you all the joy and everything that that uh is before you and that all your future endeavors uh because you really are really a wonderful person, just inside and out, and and I just want you to know how much I've appreciated that.

Thank you.

Miss McDonald.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, there's a lot of times a definition between a good leader and a great leader, and I think a great leader surrounds himself with other great leaders, and so I'd like to commend you on the work you've done to feel the heads of our departments that actually are out there working with our staff that get the work done that are willing to roll up their sleeves and change the community.

So good luck in your endeavors in Sacramento.

All right, um, do you want to speak now or later?

I guess I'll go now.

Um so I know tonight we could probably talk about endless projects, and we could rattle them off one to 10, one through 20.

Um, but it's not the list of accomplishments uh that are achieved over the last four years, but it's really about how we got to those accomplishments, um, and really how we got there.

So tonight I really want to express uh my gratitude and a heartfelt appreciation to those who actually helped us get there.

Um so to the council, um thank you for your leadership and thank you for your partnership.

Um we have to have tough conversations sometimes, um, but I think that's why we all sit in these seats, and I that's why I think equity is important because we all have different perspectives.

Um but I just want to thank you for your trust and your involvement.

Um to the community, um, thank you for your trust and your passion.

Uh, I know a lot of times we don't like to hear the complaints, but one of the things that I do say is when you do hear the good and the bad and the ugly, um, our constituents know that they have a voice, and they have a place where they can go to get a problem solved.

Um, to our city attorney's office, um, Teresa Stricker and some specific individuals, Jennifer Hepler, Ashley Crocker, and Adam Abel, and to all the team members who have been instrumental in helping move some of our projects forward.

Uh, to the city managers, it's professional staff.

Uh I think Cher, Luke, uh Lindsay, Lauren, Carrie, and Rhonda.

Uh, thank you for all the work that you do.

Uh, thank you for keeping me straight.

Um, it is a very hard job.

Uh, when you have seven council members and a city manager trying to go in 20 different directions, so directions.

So, thank you.

Um, and a special thank you to our leadership team.

Thank you.

All right, I'm not done yet.

Um Assistant City Manager Jason Nutt, former assistant city manager, Dariel Dunstan, Megan Basinger, Dominique Blanke, Chief Scott Westrope, Chief John Cregan, former CFO Alan Alton, Jennifer Burke, Brian Tickner, Dan Hennessy, Gabe Osburn, Dina Manis, Misty Wood, and Scott Wagner.

These successes that we've experienced are not a result of one person.

They are a result of this entire team.

And as I step away, I'm confident that this city is in great hands.

You have a talented, you have a dedicated team, and they know how to execute that is in the best interest of this city.

To the community.

Ultimately, the community is what really matters.

We're here to serve, and our goal, I'm certain is to continue building a city that stands united while ensuring that every voice is heard and valued.

So please continue the journey together, fostering a place where everyone feels represented and included.

And counsel, no matter who sets in the seat, and I can say this for this council and and any other council.

You have two employees.

Take care of your city attorney and your city manager.

We live in a very vitriolic world right now, and these jobs are challenging.

And I could probably say the same if I was sitting on in your seats.

It's very um vitriolic the things that people say and how people act and take care of your city manager and your city attorney.

We don't have a magic wand or a crystal ball, um, but many of us who sit in these seats, we have a servant's heart, and we're actually called to lead and to lead with integrity and to lead from the heart.

So again, I want to thank all of you for your support, your dedication, and your commitment to making uh not only uh Santa Rosa, but the community a great place to live, work and recreate.

And our and our city manager wasn't gonna deliver any reports tonight.

So our city manager touched many members of the community, including Dwayne.

Dwayne, do I understand that you would like to say a few words?

By all means make your way to the podium.

Indeed, sir.

My name is Dwayne DeWitt and I'm from Roseland.

And I'm sad she's leaving.

Man, you gotta put it in perspective.

For 30 years, nobody paid attention to Roseland.

You did, and thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

DeWitt.

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

Janice.

You have the floor.

Microphone doesn't seem to be working.

Is the microphone working?

There it is.

Um I had expected to have a good relationship with Mayor Quecha.

And I've always had good relationships with anything I attempt to do.

It's one of my success stories, usually.

And unfortunately, I went to her office three times, and I was trying just to get the budget at that time.

Last year I got the budget with no problem, no problem at the county.

I know most of the people at the county as well.

I spent a year and three months there before I ran for city council.

I had nothing to do with the clear cutting that happened across the street from me, and I went for help and I never got a response.

I announced at a housing authority meeting.

How can you run a business leadership?

Excuse me, Janice, does this does this pertain to the either the city attorney or the city manager reports?

It's uh to the city manager.

She never ever responded or helped.

It was a clear cutting, a totally illegal operation that took eight months.

And then your office sent me a violation, which I've brought up here too.

And as far as I know, that violation never got lifted.

I don't know.

I haven't had any communication from your office.

And it's terribly unfortunate, but that's a big problem still, and you're walking away from it.

And there's many others, but those other problems aren't my problem.

But this became my problem because of you and a person that formerly worked here, it's now managers somewhere else.

All right, we'll shock that up to a warm Santa Rosa farewell.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Janice.

Uh, and a sincere thank you again, Markisha, for all that you've done.

One more call.

Are there any?

Are there any members of the public or staff who would like to speak on either of the two reports?

Is it gonna be nice?

Alexa, all right.

We're watching the vibe here tonight.

Alexa, go ahead.

I don't have to stuff it into my public comment.

I just want to say I was born and raised in Sacramento, and so I am both thrilled for Sacramento and sorry for us that you're leaving.

Thank you for everything you've done.

Thank you, Alexa.

Final call.

Anyone else?

All right, again, thank you very much.

And we will move on then to item 11.

Statements of abstention or recusal by council members.

Do we have statements of abstention recusal tonight?

Ms.

McDonald.

Thank you, Mayor.

Because of my personal relationship, I'll be recusing from part of the item 16.5 that concerns whether to hold a study session regarding a new policy addressing intimate relationships between council members and city employees.

Thank you.

Any other statements of abstention or recusal?

Seeing none, we move on to item 12, mayor and council members' reports.

Are there any reports this evening?

Ms.

Rogers.

Thank you.

I have a quick one.

Uh I just wanted to say last uh Saturday I was able to attend Mary Market, which was put on by uh Church Unstoppable to provide uh toys to children within our community to have this holiday season, and also want to give out a oh let me see, and 300 plus families were served on that Saturday.

So that just shows you what the needs are in our community and also give a special shout out to um Santa Rosa Police Department Canine Association, uh, keeping veterans local and Heart and Armor Foundation for also collecting over a hundred and fifty to two hundred um toys to be given this holiday season to our families that are in need.

We know that no child should go without during the holiday season, but we also know what the hard times that are falling on many that many children will.

So just wanted to throw out that we do have um a few toys items left over for some of our children in the community.

So if you know of a child that is in need, whether that is a neighbor, a family member, or if the parents just don't feel like they can reach out, uh there are some toys available.

Please reach out to um to myself at Natalie Rogers at SRCity.org.

Happy holidays.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Fleming.

Thank you very much.

Uh, Mayor, I want to once again congratulate the team for the uh the ribbon cutting of the Hearn Overcross.

I know it was a big lift.

I want to thank uh SCTCA and David Rapierda and Tanya Narrath and all the staff there for all the hard work they did, as well as the coordination with MTC.

I know it's a big improvement, which would not have been possible without some creative work from our city manager a few years ago.

So that's a great example of something that's gonna benefit our community going forward.

On I think it was Thursday night, the Commission for the Status of Women, which is the first in the nation, the Sonoma County Commission for the Status of Women had their 50th anniversary.

And for those of y'all who don't know, the Commission for the Status of Women started women's history week, which is now nationally women's history month in March, and has generally done a lot of advocacy and and been a place for the networking and advocacy to create the leaders of our future to the point where we really are becoming a place where we have much more parity for women, both in nonprofit business and government leadership, but we always have work to do, and I just thought it was so exciting to be a part of that where I got to help them celebrate.

And finally, tomorrow, um, at the SMART um board meeting, the final meeting of the year, we will be hearing the item on Jennings over cross, and I'm looking forward to hearing from the community if anyone is able to make that meeting.

Um we'd love to see you there.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh two quick ones.

First, I just wanna s uh send a shout out to um somebody who has one of the biggest hearts of the the holiday season, and that's our buddy Cannon, um, who does Secret Santa every year, been doing it since I think he was seven years old and has raised tens of thousand dollars each year uh for a secret Santa, and it grows bigger and bigger, and he does it all just by providing apple cider and cookies.

Fantastic cookies, by the way.

Um, and I I wanna so I want to send a shout out to him.

Uh I had this opportunity to stop by on Saturday to see him, and I know some of my colleagues have stopped by as well.

And a special thank you to our fire department or police department for going out there.

I don't know who ended up with the most stars on the tree.

Um, but uh, looks from Chief Kriegan, looks like police may have, uh, but I'm also seeing uh a shaking of the head from fire.

So we'll we'll find out and report back.

But uh special shout out to him.

It it truly is the meaning of the of the holiday spirit of what he does.

And then in that same vein, um uh I think that uh one of my favorite things that I've been able to be a part of is um it took place this past week, and that was a six-annual uh Christmas and coffee park parade.

Um thanks again to Fire and Police for showing up.

Um, next time, please tell police underhand uh candy cane toss, not overhand.

Um, but uh it was it's a great time, it's a great community spirit.

Um, and uh special shout out to Henry One um for participating in that flying over and uh you know sirens and lights.

Um I'm sure nextdoor.com went off after that happened, but it was worth it.

It was really cool to see, and all the kids love it.

So uh thank you to both all those organizations that participated and especially the Christmas and coffee park crew, Steve, Steve, Cameron, and Travis and all the elves.

Thank you very much.

All right, I'll work in reverse order because it was a packed weekend with events, as my colleagues just indicated.

Uh a quick note of thanks for for the Sunday Montgomery Village manora lighting.

Uh it was a it was a it was a crowded event, thankfully, and most of the reason that it was crowded was because SRPD had put out the word that they were gonna be there.

Chief Kriegan, thank you very much for being a very reassuring presence.

You you uh our SRPD was out in force to make sure that people who came to the Minoral Lightning felt safe, and it really was a wonderful event.

So thank you to uh Rabbi Mendel from the Chabad, and thank you for to Montgomery Village for putting that on.

Um, and then also this weekend are the city's own Chad Hedge, who when he's not, well, I'll use this joke again, Chad.

When Chad's not out passing out parking tickets to our community, Chad is that's that's that's my opening line with you, Chad.

That Chad uh it uh started up the tunnel to towers uh race here in the community, which raises money for veterans, and he was recognized and Tunnel to Towers was recognized by the exchange club at a at a uh a very well-attended event called Reads Across America, where on Saturday, um I think it was three million people across the states participated, including a couple hundred here in Santa Rosa.

Uh, and as part of the event, they they um um highlighted local organizations that are working with veterans and Chad and Tunnel to Towers is one of those.

Thank you, Chad, for shining a good light on the city as you do good work.

Uh and then a final note from me on the fourth of December.

Uh Sonoma Clean, the Sonoma Clean Power Board met.

Um, Miss Fleming was kind enough to let me sub in.

Um, and it was a it was a great meeting as always.

The key takeaways were we finalized or we talked about the advocacy plan for Sonoma Clean Power in 2026.

Uh a lot of geothermal power there.

Sonoma Clean Power is leading the way to expand geothermal geothermal capability, not just at the geysers, but to make it easier to do geothermal work statewide in terms of in terms of discovery and actual mining.

And then at no surprise, we went over the audit and the audit was uh was pristine because Sonoma Clean Power is a fabulous organization.

That concludes or that almost concludes my report.

Uh I did want to note that I will be agendizing adjustments to current committee and board assignments, but my announcement will be more appropriate is more appropriately made during agenda item 16.5.

So I will hold off until then.

And that concludes my announcements.

Let us then find my notes.

We are gonna move on.

Oh, we're gonna go to public comment.

Any members of the public wish to count, wish to comment on mayor and council members' reports.

Seeing none, we will close public comment and we're gonna go on to item 12.2, uh, where council may vote to make an appointment to the housing authority uh based on the applications and interviews that we looked at earlier.

Thank you, Miss Van Wellos.

I would have I would have forgotten that you were gonna be making an exit again.

We will we will pretend that this part of our meetings is not awkward, I could sing.

I could I could do that, maybe next year.

All right.

I'm gonna call.

Well, let's have a little we we can start with a little discussion, correct?

So Mr.

Alvarez, do you have some thoughts?

Actually, I wouldn't know how to start this discussion, Mayor.

Uh, I think uh if you want a recommendation of who to appoint, I can make that recommendation.

But as far as uh discussion, I think we have three very viable candidates to the position.

Each one brings its own his or her own set of uh uh experiences and attributes.

I could definitely make a positive change in that position.

Thank you for that.

Your hand was up, so I was I was curious.

Um other thoughts from colleagues before I ask for a motion, Miss Rogers?

Um, so I also think we had three wonderful candidates, and I think each of them would bring something different um to the board.

But I whoever is making the motion, I would like to see Gregory Barron put up.

Um, and I say that because I think that he is very well rounded as far as knowledgeable, um, getting out there, providing services when no one's looking, and he knows the ins and outs.

Um, and I think that that would be a good asset um for our community.

So that would be my vote.

I don't know whose motion it is.

And before we do the motion, we will go to public comment.

Are there thought other thoughts right now?

Let's go to public comment first.

Mr.

DeWitt.

Yes, sir.

Duane DeWitt from Roseland, member of the Sonoma County Housing Advocacy Group, frequent attendee to housing authority meetings.

Whichever candidate you choose, I hope you'll impose upon them the idea that it's all right to perhaps descent.

Sometimes at those meetings, it becomes more of a rote, um, our way or the highway type of approach based on what the chair might want.

I've followed it for 30 years now.

You had some really good chairs in the past, one of whom was actually asked to leave because he was being a bit too honest.

He pointed out that the staff was not following the Brown Act at the time, as before Ms.

Smith got here.

So it's the kind of thing that left a bitter taste in my mouth and other housing advocates, because we understood that that person was doing a good job, and yet staff behind the scenes did some things to get him pushed off.

So whoever you pick today, please make sure that they know you're willing to give them independence.

You're willing to give them the idea that what they're going to do can be based on a strong set of ethics that they hold, and they don't actually just have to go your way or the highway.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Dwayne.

Would any other members of the public like to comment?

We will close public comment.

And I will bring it back actually to Miss Fleming for a uh for a motion and any further discussion.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, you know, I think Dwayne brings up an excellent point that we ought to have somebody who's not uncomfortable uh making their opinions well known.

And and I think in that person uh Mr.

Firon has proven himself to be quite fearless in in saying how he feels and I'm going to be recommending Gregory if you're on, but I do want to add that in particular, you know, all the folks who interviewed today brought forward really good perspectives.

And Mr.

Way, I'd like to call him Mr.

Wayne, John Wayne, but it's Mr.

Way here.

It's the first time he's ever heard that joke.

I thought that your perspective was really valuable.

I'd love to see your application again, and I'd I'd be very inclined to strongly consider you for a future position on the housing authority.

So with that, I'll uh suggest that we move forward with Gregory Vieron and ask for a second.

All right, we have a motion and we have a second by Mr.

Alvarez.

If there's no further discussion, oh Mr.

Alkrupke, yeah, I uh just so you hear from somebody else.

I completely agree with what Councilmember Fleming said.

Um just because you're not Barry Bonds can't meet and you're Jeff Kent, who's also a Hall of Famer, right?

Like you can be just as great, but you know, you said it yourself, it's like following a Dell at karaoke.

You're f I we have a great app two great applicants.

So please do if you see an opening, apply.

Um it is not often we get uh extremely capable people applying on a regular basis to some of these boards and commissions, so please please keep engaged.

Thank you, Ms.

Rogers.

Um, just want to say we have three great applicants, but um also wanted to to point out because I may not be able to say this to you and see you.

Um I think when we talk about wraparound services, just so you know, it's that people do not have to access them.

It's not that they're not available, people don't have to access them.

And so if someone has behavioral health background, um and they don't have to access a service, guess what?

They're not gonna access a service, which is gonna put them in jeopardy of losing housing if they have housing.

And so we want to get people housed, but we also want to support them in maintaining their housing.

So that that's for everyone, I guess.

But Gregory, if you can take that torch and lead with it, it would be so appreciated.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Alvarez.

Thank you, Mayor.

You know, as much time as I spent on the Laguna or the Joe Roder Trail.

There's not a name that comes up more than yours, Gregory.

Uh, the work that you put out out there and the way that you inspire those individuals who uh do not call themselves homeless, do not call themselves transient.

They call themselves unfortunate, unfortunate to the to the trials and tribulations of life.

But I definitely, regardless of of whether you get the position today or not, your name is definitely one that is inspiring people on that trail, and I want you to know that.

Thank you.

Any other thoughts?

Then I think we're good.

All right, let's let's call the vote.

Madam City Clerk, whenever you're ready.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Rogers?

Yes.

Councilmember McDonald?

Aye.

Councilmember Fleming?

Yes.

Councilmember Van Wellers has recused.

Councilmember Alvarez?

Aye.

Vice Mayor O'Krepki?

Aye.

Mayor Stapp.

Yes.

Let the record show this passes the sixth affirmative votes.

Thank you very much.

Alright, we will call Ms.

Banwelos back into the room before moving on to our next item.

Give us another minute, folks, and then we'll be back back in order.

Thank you all for your patience.

All right.

Now we are ready to move on to item 13.1, uh, our approval of minutes.

Were there any amendments or changes to the minutes?

Looking to my colleagues.

Is there any public comment on the minutes?

Janice, are you commenting on the minutes?

Carmen here.

And I spoke out about the minutes last time you had a meeting, and I complained that it was derogatory and it was not what I'd said.

And you just approved it.

And this is another question.

And I know you can't have a one back and forth, but where do you find out?

Who do you talk to to get answers to these kinds of things?

Why it doesn't get corrected?

Anyway, um, I was really quite disappointed.

Thank you.

Thank you, Janice.

Would any other members of the public like to comment?

Seeing none, we'll close public comment, and we can adopt the minutes as submitted.

And my the vice mayor has just made a good suggestion.

Um, Janice, when after the meeting or during the weekdays, if you want to talk to our city clerk, she can answer any questions about the minutes.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Um moving on to item 14 consent.

This, uh, let's see.

Well, our our c even our consent items got a little bit more complicated today.

So we've got to handle this in a couple of different Madam City attorney, you want to talk us through our consent calendar.

Sure, I'm happy to, Mr.

Mayor.

Um there are two items on the consent that we do need to provide some additional information uh that is required under the Brown Act.

Uh, there's an oral summary requirement that applies to changes uh or any um approval uh of uh compensation items for certain types of executives.

So we have two items uh and the clerk is gonna go ahead and provide that oral summary requirement.

Um and then once she does that uh you can go ahead and take whatever action you're gonna take on the entire uh consent calendar.

Perfect.

Uh and so talk me through the actual what so Dina, do you are you gonna start Madam City Clerk?

Are you gonna start us off?

Yes, Mayor, I'm happy to read through the summary for items fourteen point nine and fourteen point ten.

Perfect, thank you.

Thank you.

So uh as City Attorney Stricker mentioned, the Brown Act requirements prior to taking uh final action to establish or change the compensation of certain types of executive positions.

Uh an oral summary of the recommendation recommendation action must be made at the same meeting.

So for item 14.9, the proposed ordinance would establish the salary and compensation of the new interim city manager effective January 2nd, 2026.

The following is a summary of the in interim city manager's salary and compensation proposed in the ordinance.

One uh 291,200 annual salary with no merit or cost of living, salary increases unless expressly approved by council, a three thousand dollar a month in temporary housing assistance provided the interim city manager establishes and maintains housing in Sonoma County or Marin County, a five hundred dollar a month auto allowance for personal vehicle use for city business.

This is the same benefit provided to executive management employees in unit 10, the same vacation sick leave and holidays provided to executive management employees in unit 10, 80 hours of administrative leave on the first day of employment, and 80 hours of administrative leave on July 1 of any new fiscal year, a five hundred dollar per year wellness incentive paid in January for the calendar year.

This is the same benefit executive management employees in unit 10 receive, the same benefits provided to executive management employees in unit 10 for health, dental vision, life and disability insurance, participation in CalPur's retirement program and a retiree health savings plan.

Police chief from 283,505 to 331,003.

From 275,024 to 309,77 for director of water from 249,487 to 288,156.

For director of transportation and public works from 249,487 to 274,435 dollars for the chief financial officer from 240,79 to 252,740 744 for the chief information officer from 216,050 to 235, pardon me, 235,651 dollars for the director of housing and community services from 216,050 to 235,651 dollars for the director of human oh let's see here human resources for the director of human resources 216,050 to 200 to 235,651 dollars for the director of planning and economic development 216, uh $50 to 235,651 dollars for the Chief Communications and Intergovernmental Relations Officer from 216,050 to 226,582 dollars for the city clerk position 154,420 to 168,425 dollars.

Thank you very much, madam city clerk.

I will just wait to make sure that we've we've done our legal duty.

It's not often that the consent calendar has drama, but here we are tonight.

So Mr.

Mayor, my comment has nothing to do with what the clerk just read, but um I am noticing that there is no exhibit attached to the ordinance.

The exhibit is the contract that council approved at the last meeting by resolution, and so when council adopts this resolution, my suggestion is to adopt with this same contract that you approved by resolution at your last meeting, and then we will go ahead and add that.

All right.

Well, the charge is sometimes made that the consent calendar flies by too quickly.

So we have put rest to that tonight.

Uh, but we can go back to a well, actually, before we uh go to the motion.

We're gonna need public comment.

Are there any members of the public that would like to comment on the consent calendar?

All right, Mr.

DeWitt, you're closest.

You go first, and I think Fred is second.

Hello, my name is Dwayne DeWitt.

I'm from Roseland.

One of the words that was difficult to understand exactly and what's occurring tonight is compaction.

I know what to compact something means, and I know when a compact is made, but from what's happening here tonight, a serious amount of money is being given to certain people.

I'm really concerned because I think what you ought to do is hold all of these wages below the city manager and 14.9, 291,000 annually.

That's a ton of money, folks.

I don't know where you're getting such a skewed view that all these people should be getting paid this much money to do basic jobs.

The lady the city clerk getting 168,000, that seems reasonable.

She does a lot of work.

I don't think anybody else on this thing should be getting a third of a million dollars a year plus fat benefits to the side when you're facing economic difficulties.

Please, instead of giving these raises, if you will, say, you know what?

Times are tough, they're gonna get tougher because of the regressives at the federal level who aren't gonna be helping you, at least during this administration, and you folks should look at it like you have to tighten your belts, tighten those purse strings and say, no, we're gonna ask you all to take a wage freeze.

The city manager right now just did that for two years right on.

She knew what was happening.

We should be able to have all the rest of these employees on this list tonight be able to agree to keep their wages where they're at right now until we get out of these financial difficulties.

From what I've seen, you're not gonna be out of a structural deficit for at least two to three, maybe four more years.

So don't be giving raises, whatever your compaction might mean.

Instead, say, hey, 291,000 is being agreed upon with this incoming interim city manager, so everybody else can get less than that, and along with that, try to keep that interim city manager here for the long haul.

Why do you got to go spend millions more looking for more employees?

Let's do something that helps the taxpayers here.

Let's cut the costs rather than continuing for them to rise.

Sorry for all of you administrative to you know, folks that might look at me like, whoa, what a skin flimp.

But hey, times are gonna get tough, and we all need to realize that and not just keep plan like, well, we'll kick the can down the road.

Your structural deficit is not getting better and will probably only get worse.

Thank you for your all your efforts.

Thank you, Mr.

DeWitt.

Fred, is that you?

Yes, uh good evening, Mayor Stapp and City Council.

Um, I went to last evening's uh neighborhood study session on the Adobe Creole Adobe, and so today I was researching um how much it costs to buy a median house in Santa Rosa, it's a 750,000 dollars of median household.

So you have to earn a hundred eighty thousand dollars uh median household income to be able to afford um a median income house.

So I just thought I would share that with you, and I don't begrudge the wages, but I just happen to to be uh researching around that same level of of uh annual earnings, so I thought that was interesting to share.

Thank you.

Thank you, Fred.

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

Seeing none, we will close public comment and I will bring it back to Mr.

Vice Mayor Kremke for a motion.

I'll move items 14.1 to 4.10 with the amendment uh as suggested to 14.9 by the city attorney.

Second, we have a motion, we have a second by Miss Rogers.

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

Thank you, Mayor, Councilmember Rogers.

Aye, councilmember McDonald.

Aye.

Councilmember Fleming, Councilmember Ben Well Oath.

Yes, Councilmember Alvarez, aye, Vice Mayor O'Krepki.

I.

Mayor stapp.

Yes.

Let the record show this passes unanimously.

Thank you.

All right.

Now we can move to item 15, which is our first chance for public comment on non-agenda matters.

Again, this is a chance for the public to comment on items that are not listed on the agenda.

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

We have we have many.

This is good to see.

Okay, what we're gonna use both lecterns.

Let's keep this.

Let's keep this moving back and forth.

And we're gonna start with Bruce Cassabury, Robert Capuck, and Dwayne DeWitt.

So Bruce, Robert, Dwayne.

Let's use both lecterns.

Bruce.

Uh good evening.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

My name is Bruce Castleberry.

Uh, this is my 11th day in Santa Rosa.

I am the new editor of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.

I just wanted to introduce myself to you guys.

I look forward to working with you.

Uh I'm rapidly falling in love with Santa Rosa, which I'm sure that each of you are because of your public service.

And I I looking forward to a long career here.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here, Bruce.

Robert, and then Dwayne, and then Jenny Mercado.

Robert.

So Steelon.

Robert Kopic, Santa Rosa, District 5.

Hello, I was here in August.

Do you have any update on the police ignorance of four years about the drug dealer who killed his mother, the guy who lived across the street from me?

That night he had a house full of drugs and guns when they raided it after the murder.

20th of February 2024.

Four years of reports to the police.

Zero help.

Then since I'm gonna publish all my emails next summer.

Got a couple of loose ends uh still to tie up about this investigation.

I'll refer to the Santa Rosa police and the city council as corrupt.

Any updates?

I asked for some reason why the Santa Rosa police didn't do anything for four years.

Nobody's responding.

A lady was murdered by her drug dealer and user son.

Thank you, Mr.

Kopik.

All right, Dwayne, Jenny Mercado, and then Alexa.

Dwayne, go ahead.

Hello, my name is Dwayne DeWitt.

I'm from Roseland.

Merry Christmas to you all and happy holidays.

On a lighter note, I want to say a big big thank you to the city manager and to all of you because on Wednesday, the 3rd of December, at about 7 38 in the morning, a whole bunch of city staff showed up over in Roseland neighborhood along Roseland Creek and proceeded to kick some butt.

It was really good.

It was amazing.

As a matter of fact, one of the parks guys said, it seems like the Calvary's here.

There were city staff from both the fire department, the police department, somebody from the housing, along with the parks folks, and there were circuit rider folks from a nonprofit that were there taken out underbrush along the creek and helping to move along the transient vagrants who'd been basically in a sense victimizing the community because they're a band of thieves.

Matter of fact, if you know Christmas stories and you know Oliver Twist, you know all about the band of thieves kind of thing.

Well, a lot of that was changed on Wednesday, December 3rd, over in Roseland.

That was a momentous day for us, folks.

It was so amazing because everybody was in a good mood and everybody was working hard.

And I ask all of you, including the new guy for the Press Democrat, come on over there, bro.

It's called Roseland, Burbank Avenue, the Rosalind neighborhood.

There's a park of nineteen and a half acres, and these folks have been working with us now for the last couple years since Marakisha Smith got here to make sure that it became nature in the city.

And it wasn't happening before Ms.

Smith got here.

Believe me, it was one of those things where we were looked at as bothersome because we would come here and say, hey, you know, the poor kids need some nature over there on the other side of the tracks.

So now we got it.

We're gonna do our best to keep it nice.

We're gonna miss Miss Smith.

But uh if we get our way to get some benches put in there and get some nice things in there, I'm gonna make sure her name's on that.

And Miss Rogers and Mr.

Alvarez, because they've been out there the last two years for our Earth Day events, and that had never happened before Miss Smith got here.

No councilman.

Well, one 25 years ago, Mike Martini, when we first were talking about getting the city involved with this.

So on the end of a great note for all of you, wish you all the best of the holidays and a very happy new year.

You won't see me again until sometime next year.

All the best to you.

Thank you, Duane.

Uh, Jenny, Alexa, and then Ethan Cosgrove.

Jenny.

Thank you.

Hello, Mayor Stapp and council members.

I'm here tonight with some of my neighbors to talk about our city schools.

When my family moved to Sonoma County, the choice of our city and neighborhood was strongly influenced by the schools here.

My three children are graduates of or attend Rinkin Valley and Santa Rosa City Schools, both of which are scrambling to close significant budget shortfalls.

Bennett Valley Schools also recently underwent a reorganization to create a temporary fix for structural budget issues.

And our neighbors to the south and runner park and Petaluma are also struggling.

All these problems will grow worse with projected declines in student enrollment and continued increases in cost of living.

If our largest and only secondary school district goes into receivership, it could be decades before our community recovers and regains local control.

And in the meantime, our generation of students will be burdened with learning loss and subpar educational experiences.

In addition, our neighborhoods will suffer because no one will want to move to an area with under-resourced schools.

We realize that under ideal circumstances, the business of our school districts is not something that the council should micromanage, and we don't blame you for preferring to avoid the often ugly controversies surrounding school board decision making.

But these are not ideal circumstances, and it is precisely because this issue could rip our community apart that we need strong and decisive leadership from you all.

As council members, you are both uniquely positioned to lead on this issue, and you have a responsibility to the city as a whole to do so.

Why do the city's school boards need your help?

Unlike the elected officials on school boards who are tasked with the specific charges of shepherding their own districts alone, your charge is broader.

You don't owe allegiance to just one set of schools or parents or students, but our city's students as a whole, and from that vantage point, you can see citywide solutions that individual districts cannot consider on their own.

You also have a responsibility to lead on this issue.

One of the most important tasks of any local government is to ensure that all students have access to high quality, equitable education.

It's our own commitment to this ideal that has brought us here tonight.

But there are impacts beyond just education at stake here, a number of other key goals the city has that all of you work very hard for week after week, from public safety to economic opportunity to long-term fiscal stability that will also be threatened if our schools slip further into insolvency.

We are here tonight to request that you step in and help ensure that our city has a viable way forward when it comes to public education.

There are many components of this, but primarily the ones that we want to ask for your help with is exploring school district consolidation.

My neighbors here tonight will expand on this issue.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you for coming tonight, Jenny.

Alexa, Ethan, and then Adrian.

Alexa, Ethan, and Adrian.

If you could just lean in a little bit, Alexa.

Good evening, Mayor Staff and Council members.

Um, today I am not here to speak about safe street infrastructure.

You guys are doing great on that.

Keep up the good work.

I am here tonight to speak with my neighbors about schools.

To build off my friends' comments.

We are here today to request that this council spearhead efforts to consolidate Santa Rosa's nine school districts into two to three medium-sized districts.

The truth is Santa Rosa has way too many districts for the size of our current student population, and things will only get worse as projected declines in school age children materialize.

There are many benefits for district consolidation that are worth publicizing.

First, a disproportionate percent of student funds in Santa Rosa are spent on administrative overhead, and consolidating districts could put more of that money into frontline education.

Further, smartly designed districts can take better advantage of current state funding models to yield more money per student across the board.

And finally, a decrease in the number of districts will ensure longer lasting, higher quality administration.

This is the because the effect of having so many districts is a diluted talent pool and chronic job hopping.

Some districts, usually the ones already struggling the most, end up with subpar administrators and high turnover, which is precisely what we've just seen at the Santa Rosa's largest school district.

For all these reasons, consolidated districts will end up better run with more funds to spend on core academic and enrichment programs.

There are also benefits for parents and community members.

Consolidation will, smart consolidation of districts will allow students to stay in district and with schools for longer, and that allows for the development of long-term relationships and community investment in schools, and it will prevent us from the current zero sum cannibalization between districts for student enrollments.

So we are not attached to a particular school district consolidation model at this point, but we urge you to take the following steps, all of which are in your power and your purview.

One, ask the Sonoma County Office of Education to conduct a study of two or three district consolidation models, help educate the community of the need for and benefits of district consolidation, and when the study of consolidation options is complete, evaluate them in terms of their best educational outcomes, financial sustainability, and political feasibility.

Work with Santa Rosa's concerned parents to get a consolidation plan with broad public support on the ballot.

As Jen mentioned, such a proposal cannot be successful if it comes from any one district.

But if it comes from all of you as part of a coherent plan to ensure high quality education to all our students, parents will listen because we are tired of going to emergency school board meetings, and we are desperate for solutions.

Thanks for listening and happy holidays to you all.

Thank you.

From Alexa Forrester of SRJC, we go to Mr.

Cosgrove of Springburg Middle School.

Thank you.

My name is Ethan Cosgrove, and I am a teacher of Spring Lake Middle School.

My children attend SR FAX, and I am very involved in the union.

I am very involved in school board meetings.

I've had the pleasure of the last two weeks of attempting to attend as many of these board meetings as possible, which is impossible because many of them are at the same time.

We have too many school districts in Santa Rosa, and we have declining enrollment.

And it's not that we have declining enrollment because students are going to private schools.

We've declining enrollment because we just have less kids in this city than we used to.

We have over the last decade lost 11% of our student population.

As that has happened, the fixed costs that are normally absorbed by a larger population have got shrunk and has made up a disproportionate amount of how much our students' revenue goes to these.

That in general, we do not want our city council involved in the day-to-day of school board consolidation.

Sorry, school board business.

However, this is literally your legal power, right?

EdCode has stipulated for this exact reason that you are one of the bodies that can put a vote to the people about school consolidation.

We think that looking at concentration grant funding, supplemental basic aid funding, as well as going after mid-sized districts, will lead to both more financial resources for our students and better student outcomes due to better leadership.

Again, we're asking for partners for this.

Every board that I go to tries to tell me about, well, the other boards have to get involved.

There's a lot of passing the buck.

I can promise you that I'm here, and a growing coalition of people are here to talk to all these boards.

We are getting all the stakeholders.

We're getting the teachers' unions, we're getting the classified unions, we are getting the parents, right?

Because we want to see this happen, because right now, what you have, I was in this building last week.

And it was full, and the outside was full as well.

There are people who are incredibly engaged and worried about this process because what they keep hearing is that funding is going down, and we are cutting programs left and right.

I'm sorry, public safety advisory board, whatever we're called now, right?

Seems like every evolving.

A huge part of reducing crime rates in your city is to do preventative measures and preventative measures is good communities at schools.

There's a reason why the parks and rec department has their services concentrated in certain areas of the city.

And if we continue to cut counselors, we cut programs, we cut after school programs, we will find students who instead of joining those good communities at their schools are instead joining more negative, destructive communities.

And we hear about this in the Press Democrat.

I want to just finally plug with the website and the coalition.

We're part of Stronger Together Santa Rosa.

If you want to learn more, go to stronger together SR.com.

I will say that one more time.com.

And I look forward to partnering with the council.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ethan, and thank you to all the school act or school advocates who were here tonight.

Uh, we're gonna go to Adrian and then Adina, and then Janice, you will you will be you will be third.

So uh Adrian, go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, my name's Adrian Covert.

I'm a resident of the West End neighborhood and uh a parent of a child at Santa Rosa City schools, and like the previous speakers, I just want to reflect on the fact that we're currently being asked to endure a lot of risk and uncertainty at the schools right now with our kids as a result of declining enrollment at Santa Rosa City Schools.

And it's only fair, I think, that the city council also be involved and with us uh enduring these tough conversations and leading helping lead these tough conversations about not letting this crisis go to waste and how we can use it to put the city schools on a firmer path going forward, a more solvent path for students and for the whole community.

And part of that has to be a discussion, I think, about the school consolidation issue, the district consolidation is true.

Um, as mentioned by a previous speaker, uh, a number of students that we currently have are typically managed by two or three districts.

We have nine.

Consolidating those leads to opportunities for saving money on administrative overhead, uh, on uh uh improving administrative quality, and possibly even resulting in more state dollars per pupil.

So, with that, I respectfully second the request made by other speakers at the city look into consolidation of districts uh and what leadership role you could provide in advancing that conversation and as always let's build some more housing.

We're in this problem to begin with because we've priced out too many families and they've gone to other school districts and other cities.

So let's build more so more people can afford to live here and raise their kids here.

Thank you.

Happy holidays.

Perfect.

Thank you, Adrian.

Adina.

I echo the concerns regarding Santa Rosa City Schools.

I am the former executive assistant to the board and superintendent.

I was actually illegally forced out as a protected whistleblower and did get a $50,000 settlement.

Particularly, I'm concerned regarding the well-known CANRA and mandated reporting violations.

As we've heard from other constituents, we're in a tremendous budget deficit, and therefore Santa Rosa Schools is not following the laws regarding protecting children.

I am currently being sued by Sonoma Valley Boys and Girls Club because over 40 Latino children were molested at the club and have not received restitution, and I'm their victim advocate.

So the former HR director for that club is Mr.

Brett Ainsworth.

He is a teacher at Luther Burbank Elementary.

Allegedly, every time his ex-wife would try to support our victims through the court, he would knock her out, put her in a coma, broke her hands, things of that sort.

And so we reported this to Santa Rosa schools.

A parent also reported that their child was physically attacked by this teacher.

And through CANRA, they're supposed to notify the police or CPS, and to my knowledge, that was never done.

They moved him to a different school site and then had him file the restraining order against me, which was dismissed.

They also had a stay away order filed against his wife.

And so I continue to outline these things in my substack.

I am the leading civil rights activist for this county.

The Press Democrat tried to file a restraining order against me last year, which was also dismissed.

So during elections, obviously, these issues are very prominent when white liberals don't actually care about Latino children, especially since John Doe, number one, was deported and killed himself.

So I have to ask why I've not been allowed to file a police report, because I do believe I'm being extorted.

The same PI firm that does employment defense investigations for Santa Rosa's schools, they served me back in February by my process server.

And on March 11th, uh they were given specific instructions not to serve Miss Laura Ainsworth until that date.

On the same day, I was offered personally assignments with that PI firm.

And then down the line, your former mayor Aaron Carlstrom for the city of Santa Rosa, she is representing the plaintiffs.

That attorney basically was negotiating somehow with the PI firm that they could drop my case entirely if I be quiet.

So that seems like extortion, but the funny thing is that hasn't only happened once.

How else do you describe that?

It's in writing, it's in text messages.

God bless you.

Thank you, Miss Flores.

Miss Carmen.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Janice Carmen here.

And I just want to, oh, Markisha, she's still here.

I just wanted to say that I had spoken out about Calistoga Road and the difficulties with the apartment building there on the corner of Calistogan Highway 12 and the road and how dangerous it is.

And that on a couple of lists I've seen now that Santa Rosa has from the beginning of Highway 12 to Montecito Avenue, which runs in front of Maria Carrillo High School, that's on the uh schedule to be done.

And for that, I thank you.

I do.

I want you to know that I appreciate that you've done that.

There's still not a crosswalk there, and I think there needs to be.

But the other thing I want to mention, these are all road things that are uh in my mind a lot of the time, as I said last time when I was here, uh Sonoma Avenue, and I went to the Montgomery Soccer Game last Tuesday, which is a school I went to and graduated from, I still wear my ring.

And the road behind the school, because they've done so much to clean the school up ever since the murder, and uh it's it's looking really very nice, and the fence and everything, you know, it's all safe and stuff.

But uh as it approaches the main home avenue, the road is really, really bad.

I mean, and at night it's even worse because it's the creek on one side, and it's only a uh difference of about maybe 75 feet at the most, but I'd really like to see that get done uh for the kids that are going to school every day, walking.

I walked to school from Summerfield Road from the time I was in eighth grade.

So I know what it's like.

And one other thing is the uh white pickets that they're putting up in the streets, and um they do serve a purpose for keeping people off of the area if they happen to stroll over toward the bicycle uh lane.

But the problem is they put the first picket close to where you turn.

So the first picket is usually either broken off or knocked down, or something is wrong with it.

And I think that in the future, if the people that do the roads, if they just kind of put it out just a little bit, you know, like maybe another I don't know, 10 inches or so.

When you make the turn, like out of Trader Joe's is a perfect example.

Just turning right, it's challenging for anybody that is trying to do that because it's really a hard turn.

But um, other than that, I do wish you well, Maryor Kirchha.

And uh I hope you stay safe.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Thank you, Janice.

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

Seeing none, we will close this item.

Thank you again to all the education advocates who came out tonight.

Please keep doing that.

And we will move on to item 16.1, our first report from the evening.

Uh, and this is a report on the community advisory board work plan and annual report with Ms.

Horta and Andrea and Jude.

Welcome all.

Thank you for all for all of the work that community advisory board has been doing.

We're looking forward to this report.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and City Council, Ana Orta, community engagement manager with the communications and intergovernmental relations office.

And I'm here tonight with Andrea Rodriguez and Judith Freights, our chair and vice chair for the community advisory board to present you with the community advisory board work plan and annual report.

The community advisory board connects the city government with our community, so the community can have a voice in the decision making and the things that impact them the most, and they can also we can also build a stronger community.

The board was created as part of the Santa Rosa City Charter in 2002 and represents the views and ideas of the broader community on issues of their interest with the city, and it's a seven-member board.

They're all district-based, and uh the staff from the community uh the communications and intergovernmental relations office supports that board.

Here is a brief history, and as you can see, the CAP has gone through a lot of changes.

The last change was the resolution 2024 200 adopted last year in December 2024.

And here you see our wonderful members is a list of all of them, and by district, I'm gonna talk now about the 2025-2027 work plan for the community advisory board.

Um, with all the COVID mishaps, uh CAP has to drastically change their work plan after that and adapt again to the things that the community needed.

So the community advisory board and council members started having miss meetings, collaborative meetings, to talk about what are the community priorities, what are the council priorities, and to come up with a plan that will reflect those priorities.

Um was adopted in March 2025.

In November 2027, the board is voted to extend the plan to 2027 to align with council goals setting cycle.

Uh the objectives of the plan are to promote education to our with our larger community, foster meaningful engagement, and build trust and collaboration among community advisory board members, city council members, and our community.

Some of the actions that are outlined in the plan, and to host and participate in community and neighborhood meetings to promote city programs, oversee the continue to oversee the community improvement grant, and to continue to have those meetings with CAP members and council members to collaborate and uh work together on uh priorities.

Uh the plan aligns with the goal number four for council, which is to foster a safe, healthy, and inclusive community.

Here is the visual of the annual cycle.

Um, monthly and quarterly, we have things such as the community advisory board meetings, meetings between the council members and the CAP members, and the community improvement grants.

Spring and summer are the event heavy season, and these are uh great opportunities for our board to be out in the community tabling, talking about the different programs and services that the city offers.

And then for the following winter, they can focus on more target community engagement, hosting and attending community meetings, neighborhood meetings and neighborhood meetings, and also coming to you with the report for their annual achievements.

And now I'm gonna pass it to our chair, Andrea Rodriguez, please take it away.

Good evening, Council.

I'm Andrea Rodriguez, CAB chair.

Thank you so much.

I want to share a few of our achievements, pointing out our community engagement and education.

This is where we really have a chance to attend table the major events that the city puts on.

So Earth Day, Cinco de Mayo, the Rose Parade, the Pride Festival, and of course, Juneteenth.

The neighborhood meetings have been just so amazing.

Great to see everyone out there, and of course, being out there promoting the city at CIG, our community improvement grants, and I'm gonna jump down to that third bullet where we had the opportunity and really the privilege to award forty-seven thousand dollars to 20 grants in the city, and quite an honor.

And this year in 2025, we are on track.

So far, we've awarded over 26,000 to 13 grant applicants.

Oh, now I'll pass it over to Jude, our vice chair.

Good evening, counsel.

I'm Jude Freitas.

I'm the vice chair of the community advisory board, and as you just heard, one of our key achievements this year was the district-based community meetings.

So every district had one of these meetings, and we had a total of 84 citizens show up in total, which we're very excited about.

That's about 16 to 17 citizens per district.

I just want to give a appreciation and thanks to the police chief, fire chief, and the uh director of the planning and economic development board who showed up to district six meeting, and I know they showed up to a bunch of other meetings.

Um, just having the citizens being able to get that like face-to-face one-on-one time is super important, and they know what they're talking about when they give answers, so it's super helpful.

Um, we got a lot of positive feedback.

Um, some of the common themes that we heard, and we got both constructive criticism and you know, positive feedback on what the city is doing.

Um, of course, is housing affordability issues, um, access for seniors and for unhoused is a big issue that we heard across the board.

Transportation and parking, downtown parking is always an issue.

We that comes up, um, bus routes and delays and the smart train connectivity was brought up by many districts.

Of course, infrastructure.

You know, we've seen a lot of improvements in our infrastructure recently, so a lot of positive feedback there.

Um, but safer sidewalks, road safety, green spaces, and play structures, um, and then public safety and emergency preparedness, and this is another reason it was really nice to have the police and fire chief there because they were able to talk directly to the citizens about you know what plans are in place and what they can do to kind of better better educate themselves.

Um, but that was a big one, and then of uh immigration, you know, protection for immigrants and and the resources that the city's providing to them was super important to kind of help spread that word, and then just overall, as I'm sure you guys are aware, but just like how we can balance the growth of the city while kind of maintaining the character that people have come to know and love.

Uh, was what we heard a lot about.

This is a fun exercise.

We took the QA comments from our community and created a cloud word with the most commonly used words, which are the I'm gonna just mention the top 10 community housing, new parking, building more sidewalks, concern, and house and people.

Here's just a quick snapshot of our district meetings.

We had five of them this fall, and I want to say I really appreciated having combined community meetings.

I thought that was a great use of not only resources, but a lot of our neighboring communities.

So thank you again for everyone for coming out.

Alright, so we're gonna show you a clip here on the community improvement grants, which is real quick.

Um basically, this is kind of the best part of what we do is we have people come in and we get to award them funds for awesome projects that they're doing around the community, and so I know people really appreciate just having the city's involvement, and you know, showing them that we care.

But so the the purpose of the compute community improvement grants are to support community-led projects and local solutions, strengthen neighborhood connections, and build a more resilient, engaged Santa Rosa community.

Um I just want you guys to know that uh Anna Orta is like basically the entire engine behind the thing, and so without her like going through all these applications and doing her due diligence, um, she makes our life a lot easier.

So thank you.

She's doing a great job.

Go ahead and have that video.

Um, um, I'm gonna do it.

Just like the city manager said, um, all this work is made possible thanks to the great team that works here at the city, to you, the city council, uh, the department heads, the staff, uh, the CIRES staff, the Americor members are also have been working with us, and of course, thanks to our community.

Um, and with that, the communications and intergovernmental relations office and the community advisory board recommend that council by motion approves the twenty-five twenty-seven community advisory board work plan and accept the twenty twenty-five community advisory board annual report.

This item has no impact on current fiscal year budget.

Questions.

Thanks, Chief.

Thanks to you all for an excellent report as always.

Bringing it back to council for questions.

Any questions right now?

Ms.

Benwayos.

Thank you, Mayor.

I don't really have a question.

I just really want to compliment you all.

Um, I started my city career, if you will, on the CAB.

In fact, I'm gonna really date myself.

I was on the first cab.

So let me just tell you how much the cab has evolved uh and for the better.

I'm just so excited to see what you all are doing.

Uh, and I just want to thank you for all your work and um Anna, especially.

You have done such a wonderful job of bringing us all together and and having the town halls and and a shout out to Doug, my appointee for coming to so many events and tabling with you.

Um I just really appreciate all your work, and I just want to thank you all.

Thank you.

I'll I'll ask a question.

Uh, with all of the community engagement that you did, and there was a lot, and I I had the the opportunity to participate in some of it, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and I thought I found it was I thought it was um really excellent.

What was the most effective?

If you had to choose one, what was the most effective form of community engagement among the town halls, the tabling, all the different ways that that you reached out to the community?

Was there was there something that stood out in 2025?

They're all different.

Um I think when you are on an event tabling people are in a different mood.

They're coming to you, and they see you there.

It seems a little more accessible in a way.

Um, and then but I people really appreciate coming to a meeting and being able to ask questions and engage with their elected officials, their board members, and the city staff.

So I think it goes hand in hand.

It's um it's one of those, it's one of those work that you just um, you know, it it you have it depends in the pa it it changes with the situation, and I think the key is to be available and be there and be present for the community.

Absolutely.

Chair and vice chair, any thoughts?

Um, I love when we have the community improvement grants, being able to read the proposals, um, find a way to award that money.

Anna does all the heavy lifting and seeing that it's effective, but also I appreciate all the city staff updates that come because that also helps us share the information in the community.

So whether I know you guys do a great job getting information out, but we can also talk to our neighbors about flood mapping, about transportation.

So having that information also empowers us to talk to our neighbors.

I mean, I think I've had the most success just uh going to different community events, it's just giving me a good excuse to go to different events.

We have a little cab badge that we get to wear, and so sometimes people like talk to you, or you know, it just it gives you a reason to kind of reach out to more people and and say hi and kind of let people know that there's resources available to them and be able to give them updates on the positive work that the city is doing.

Um, and then if they have like questions, be able to kind of direct them in the right place.

So I think the city events and you know doing a little bit of tabling, but kind of just walking around and chatting with people is has been most effective for me.

Well, all that's the goal.

Thank you so much for your work.

Let's throw it open to public comment.

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

Mr.

DeWitt, you're there first.

We'll go for Mr.

DeWitt and then Miss Flores.

Time limited democracy.

Here we go.

Authentic community engagement.

Thank you.

My name's Duane DeWitt, I'm from Roseland, and I thank you for all the efforts that have been undertaken on this.

I want to add some positive things you might not have known about.

Seven years before the CAB, there was the community action team.

It started 30 years ago.

The reason why there wasn't enough diversity in any Santa Rosa City boards or commissions, and it was decided there would be this action team, and it would be a community-based effort, and it would be something where the people from the community could come and talk to these people who had been chosen and have a dialogue.

Unfortunately, over the years, it's morphed into a Brown Act violation to just have a discussion, and that really detracts from the whole idea of authentic community engagement.

So I wanted to just present something here to you that you need to understand in a better way.

It was mentioned there were 84 attendees, about 16 to 17 citizens per meeting, five meetings in a city of 180,000 people.

Put that in perspective.

That's less than one percent of our community is being able to get engaged.

Now I'm engaged because I'm just one of those guys that believes in democracy.

You got to have public participation to actually have it.

So one of the things I'd like was the term was said, together we create community.

A lot of times we have community created ahead of time before we get to these meetings, and we find that the meetings actually are a bit stifling.

A bit of a I guess you'd say a holdback.

You folks can make that in this new plan that you've got.

One of the things that could be really helpful for us, we need some really big boulders over in Roseland.

Some really big rocks to go along Burbank Avenue to keep the truckers, the guys that want to come and spin their tires in the neighborhood from driving up into the park.

And we can do that with rocks.

There's a whole big acquisition process you gotta do to get rocks.

So I'm gonna come to this grant application and ask for some rocks, big boulders for Christmas.

Thank you kindly.

Thank you, Duane.

Ms.

Flores.

Good evening, Council.

I wanted to applaud the current community advisory board, Miss Horta, as well as the CAB members presenting currently have been nothing but wonderful.

But I'd like to highlight where we were about a year ago when I inserted myself into those meetings.

The presentation made me laugh because about a year ago, primarily the cab members were giving those grants not to the community but to themselves and city staff.

So that's not community involvement.

That's people keeping inside information to themselves to provide monetary relief to their families, and that's not something that I can support.

So seeing that we had two different items in that presentation about Skyhawk, that was one of the tremendous issues that I had because Mr.

Chen was actually on the cab board, requested multiple mini grants for himself.

And I've been informed by multiple community members that he received donated food and then sold that food and actually profited off of the event.

And then I believe he was up for consideration recently at another cab meeting, and they declined to approve his grant request, but that was highly inappropriate.

And had I not been engaging in my capacity as a watchdog, that would have continued on forever.

So I appreciate local constituents like Mr.

Duet who have put in their time to make sure that they're observing what happens at these communities and they stay involved and make sure that the groups of marginalized individuals that we claim to serve, that they actually are served, and usually there they never are.

So I don't want any more mini grants going towards Latinx.

You can survey the Latino community, you have some in, and nobody wants to be called Latinx.

My friends think it's a street gang.

So God bless you guys.

Thank you for redrafting the whole charter because of me.

Thank you, Dina.

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

Seeing none, we'll bring it back to council for uh in motion.

Any final comment?

Let's start with the motion.

Ms.

Fleming.

Yep, uh, I'll put a motion to approve the 2025 to 2027 community advisory board work plan and accept the 2025 community advisory board annual report.

Second.

We have a motion and a second by Miss McDonald.

Any final comment or discussion?

Ms.

McDonald.

I just want to thank you, Andrea, for being the chair of this committee.

I appreciate all you do, and I'm so proud that you're my appointee to this specific um committee and community board.

So I also want to thank you, Anna.

The district, getting all of the council members together to go and do the outreach to the community.

I found that to be very effective.

And you're right, the ability for our community our community members to ask us questions.

I think that's a great venue.

And I know the interns helped as well, and all of your staff.

And so I just want to say thank you and thanks to all the cab members who attended along with you.

Chair and Vice Chair, thank you for all of your volunteer time.

You have a great group on CAB, and you put a lot of volunteer hours into all the different events.

Uh, and we are well aware of the value that Miss Horta brings to the city.

Um, thank you for all for thank you for coordinating so many things during your tenure here.

Uh it is um the community's noticed, and we certainly have on council as well.

With that, Madam City Clerk.

Can we call the vote?

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Rogers.

Aye, Councilmember McDonald.

Aye.

Councilmember Fleming?

Yes.

Council Member Ben Wellows?

Yes.

Councilmember Alvarez.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Krebke.

I mayor stop.

Yes.

Let the record show this passes affirmative with seven affirmative votes.

Thank you.

Uh, and thank you all for being here tonight.

Thank you for the report.

Happy holidays to everyone.

Happy holidays.

Thank you, Honor.

Uh, let's move on to item 16.2, our report on the amended fee schedules for the parking division rate adjustments correction.

Mr.

Hedge, this is gonna be a good one.

It was interesting to see how large the parking font size was in the community community engagement uh word cloud.

Thank you.

That's the context for our conversation right now.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council, City Manager.

My name is Chad Hedge.

I'm the parking division manager, City Santa Rosa.

Uh, we have came to council twice to talk about our fee schedule.

Uh we came once in September and once in November.

There were two omissions that we uh discussed in detail in our our presentation, but we left out of the item that was posted uh for the public.

So I'm here tonight to address those two items, uh, and then and pass it on to the council.

On September 9th and November 4th, parking division of the finance department presented a study session and a public hearing on the study findings and recommendations for parking fee adjustments.

Resolution 2025-180 was passed by city council, and that again the two clerical errors errors uh in exhibits A and B were identified and uh being corrected this evening.

The original exhibit uh that we presented had a clear error that that listed the effective date as June 1st, 2026.

Uh however, that effective date is January 1, 2026.

Again, in our presentation, we spoke January 1, but uh we didn't.

I missed that in our in our uh exhibits.

So exhibit A and B in resolution uh number res-2025-180 are being amended to reflect the effective date of January 1, 2026, and exhibit B is updated to contain the correct effective date to match exhibit A.

Again, the effective date of January 1 26 was used in the analyst uh analysis of the fiscal impacts and was verbally presented.

The second item was exhibit A is being amended to include premium zone lot rate of two dollars per hour, which is omitted from the original exhibit.

So we discussed the premium lot rate increases.

We did not address the cost.

Um the premium zone lots right now are lot 10, Russian River lot, lot 11, which is the one right behind Belly, and then depot lot.

So those are our three premium lots.

So the finance department recommends that by the council by resolution approve the corrected fee schedules for the parking district.

The schedules, exhibits A and B apply to all on-street and off-street parking, and the corrections address clerical errors errors related to the effective date of the rate adjustments, as well as the emission of the premium zone lot fee.

This item has no impact on current fiscal year budget.

Any questions?

Mr.

Hedge, thank you so much.

All right, let's do a deep dive into this one, folks.

Questions from council?

I will ask only one because I'm always fascinated by the by the typo agenda items.

Yeah.

Who noticed the errors?

Who found them?

Uh our analyst found the errors that I had made.

That's really good.

I want the volume of information that they were able to pull out those two tiny red lines.

Yeah, kudos to them.

Yeah, yeah.

I read through it numerous times and just missed those two things.

So impressive.

All right.

Well, let's throw it open to public comment.

Which members of the public would like to comment on this item on the typos regarding parking fees.

Ms.

Flores?

Ms.

Flores, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Mayor Stopp.

My concern is that I've requested on multiple occasions for this council to audit what businesses are conducting themselves within city limits and do not have an active business license that are just flying under the radar because it makes more sense.

This item is only concerned with the parking fee typos, essentially, or at least the parking fee rates.

Yep.

Alright, please continue.

So I to uh to your points.

I don't understand raising parking fees.

I do find it racist because you have many individuals, such as people that work in kitchens and are Latino and they're going to now have to pay increased parking rates when we could go ahead and make sure that all Santa Rosa businesses that should be paying business licensing fees are doing so.

And the city has no interest in doing that.

So at this point, and you know I'm not kidding.

I can go through and pull that data for you and then ask why you're not willing to collect those fees.

It's just completely unnecessary to target private citizens unethically with continual taxes and increased fees when you're not doing your due diligence to make sure the city's conducting themselves appropriately.

So God bless you.

Please reflect on that matter.

Thank you very much, Adina.

Uh, and I'm showing that Anna Diaz also wishes to speak on this item.

Hi Mayor, City Council members and um people of the public today.

My name's Anna Diaz, and I am from Roseland.

I am not a business owner, however, I am born and raised in this community, and I am a citizen who has received two tickets in one day.

So this very much affects me as it affects our local business owners.

I do want to thank uh the parking division for finally.

I was looking at the languages of the resolution, and there is 25 to I believe $65 worth of permits that goes towards uh employees of downtown Santa Rosa.

So I did find that helpful.

So I do want to thank whoever put up that language to help those employees.

However, as a citizen, I'm gonna circle back and say that.

Uh I've heard comments from many business owners that it is not helping their businesses at all, and this overall reflects on the city itself.

I understand that Petaluma is now adding parking meters.

However, Santa Rosa has been the only city within all cinema county to have parking meters, and like I mentioned, I do understand the budget crisis of the city.

However, I don't think that the citizens, customers, employees, or business owners should be the ones to actually have to worry or be the ones to blame for the budget crisis.

Uh I have gotten many tickets in my lifetime.

Uh it is actually a number that you call to make the payments to a corporation in San Jose.

Uh I do want to know in the future if there could be a presentation on how that actually impacts Santa Rosa's budget when it's not the parking division that actually is the ones who takes these payments to pit back into the Santa Rosa City's budget.

But as I mentioned, Santa Rosa downtown businesses are not striving.

They are actually declining.

When I was walking downtown businesses to let many business owners know of this change that is an effect of July of 2026, a lot of them were upset.

And I do have to remind you guys that some of you guys are up for a re-election, and business owners said stated that they are going to be watching on Zoom today to see who and who votes in favor of this.

Thank you guys.

I do appreciate the language change, and I do want to mention that this is not gonna help downtown businesses strive.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Diaz.

Any other members of the public wish to speak?

Seeing none, we will close public comment, and I will bring it back to Ms.

Ben Willis for a motion and any final conversation.

Um thank you, Mayor.

Uh move to adopt a resolution to approve the amended fees schedules for the parking district to correct errors related to the effective date of the rate adjustments as well as the omission of the premium zone lot fee and wave for the reading of the text.

We have a motion and a second by Ms.

Rogers.

Any final discussion?

Ms.

Rogers.

I I do have a comment.

I would say that uh with the changes that we do that we are making with parking.

Um, one of the comments that I've received from business owners is when we block off the lots by Beer Baron in Hotel E.

Um, if there's not a like food truck or or a a need um for the access only for vendors to park there because they feel like their patrons should be able to park there.

So I think it might come uh it might be helpful to have maybe uh certain slots available for vendors to drop off and then they encourage them to park in the garage or wherever they're gonna park to keep those uh areas accessible for customers to go into our downtown shops because our downtown shops are hurting right now, and so whatever we can do to help them, I think would be a great idea.

Thank you.

And before calling the vote, I'll just add my thanks as well, Chad, for all the outreach you did to the downtown action organization and all the local businesses.

It's important for the public to realize that these rates were set in conversation with the local businesses downtown.

So thank you very much for all of that engagement that you did.

And with that, madam city clerk.

Thank you, Councilmember Rogers.

Aye, Councilmember McDonald, aye.

Council Member Fleming, yes.

Councilmember Ben Wellos?

Yes, Councilmember Alvarez, Vice Mayor O'Krepke, Mayor Stepp.

Yes, let the record show this passes seven affirmative votes.

Thank you very much.

We will move on then to our third report, item 16.3, the report on the water supply assessment for the woodlands at Shanate.

And I believe we've got Claire Nordley here to present.

Ms.

Nordley, welcome, good evening.

I'm Claire Nordley.

I'm the Senior Water Resources Planner for the Water Department, and I'm here today to talk about the water supply assessment for the woodlands at Shenate.

Just to clarify my role and uh today's presentation, we're really going to be talking about specifically water supply and water demand for the woodlands at Shenate.

I can't answer questions about the development itself, but of course, we do have our planning and economic development team here who could answer those questions should they arise.

Here's an overview of the presentation.

We're going to start off talking about what a water supply assessment is.

We'll go into a brief description of the project itself, talk about the water demand and supply analysis, how the demand is calculated, also the requirements to compare the demand to supply under three separate scenarios as required by Senate Bill 610.

We'll talk about the sufficiency determination and the recommendation by the water department.

Water supply assessments are required by the state of California under Senate Bill 610.

It requires water suppliers to analyze demand and supply for 20 years, looking at three separate scenarios.

Under a normal water supply year, a single dry year, and a multiple dry year scenario.

This is specifically for new development where there are two criteria that have to be met.

One, the water, excuse me, the project has to be compliant with CEQA, so it has to be deemed a project under the California Environmental Quality Act.

Two, it has to be either 500 or more units, or the water use equivalence of that.

So if it meets those two criteria, the land use planning authority, in this case, which is the planning and economic development department, would request a water supply assessment from the water supplier, in this case, the water department, and we would provide that assessment.

The WSA or the water supply assessment determines the sufficiency of water supply for that specific project and not for other projects.

Specifically, the woodlands at Shenate is about 70 acres.

It runs along Shenate Road and Cobblestone Drive, and it's basically a rezoning to allow for low density and medium low density properties.

It would result in a maximum of about 660.5 acres.

This doesn't mean that 660 units would be built, but just that there is a they could be.

One is the current water demand.

What do our existing customers need in order to have sufficient water supply?

We also look at our future water demands for existing customers.

We then look at the projected demand for the new development and then our projected supply.

So those are sort of the four main factors that help us understand whether there's sufficient supply for a new development.

The way that we look at new supply or sorry, new demand is through residential equivalency factors.

Basically, this is a way to sort of assess an apples to apples comparison across different types of land use classifications.

So for example, retail development, about a thousand square feet would equal one residential equivalency factor.

In this case, in this development, there's only single family detached units, so it's it's fairly simple.

But basically, we would multiply the number of REFs, which is the average water use for a single-family home per year, times 65,000 gallons.

So the net residential units, which is 660, would be multiplied by one, which is one residential equivalency factor for a REF, 660 refs for this entire development.

If we multiply that 660 refs times the 65,000 gallons, which is again the approximate use of one single family home for a year, it's about 43 million gallons or 132 acre feet per year.

We do add on to that both non-revenue water and miscellaneous water sales.

Non-revenue water includes firefighting flow, flushing, flushing of the system, sewer cleaning, and leaks that may be within our system.

And miscellaneous water sales are temporary meters for construction.

We then also subtract existing demand.

In this particular situation, there is existing demand at that site of about seven acre feet.

So if you do all of that math, the total demand is about 136.5 acre feet per year for this new development.

Then under Senate Bill 610, we're required to assess the supply and demand based on three separate scenarios.

One is a normal water supply year, which we'll talk about first.

So as you can see in a normal water supply year, our supply of 31,000 acre feet is more than sufficient to meet demand.

Just as a reminder, our supply has three separate components.

We have our contractual entitlement from Sonoma Water of about 29,000 acre feet.

We have our own groundwater, which we pump from our municipal wells, and we have recycled water.

So in this case, the demand, which does include the woodlands at China development, is significantly below the supply.

In a single dry year scenario, you can see that supply is slightly lower than demand, resulting in about a 0.6% shortage.

This is because it's based off of the driest water year on record, which is 1977.

And you can see that even though there is a small a slight difference to put this in perspective during previous droughts, including our most recent drought in 2020 through 2023, we've asked for percentage reductions from our customers of you know 10, 15, 20, and even 25%, and our customers have been extremely responsive and been able to save that amount very well.

Also, to put this in perspective, our current demand as of you know in 2024 was about 17,000 acre feet.

So we're significantly below this demand that's projected for the single dry year.

Also, if we were to become in a situation where we had a shortage, we would always implement our water shortage contingency plan, which I'll discuss in a couple of slides.

Did it change?

Okay.

Um and sometimes that supply can be you know above a single dry year.

Again, no shortages expected.

As I mentioned, if we do run into a supply shortage, the water shortage contingency plan could be enacted by council.

It is a plan that's adopted every five years, and depending on what stage of drought we're in, there's various different actions that can be implemented to save water.

Those include anything from water waste patrols, like you can see in this picture right here, all the way up to water rationing if if so chosen by council.

We can also limit or restrict irrigation, and there is the excess use penalty if enacted by council that would incentivize customers to stay within their water allotment for water rationing.

There's also in perpetuity we have water demand management measures.

These are everyday programs that customers can participate in, including anything from rebates to educational events, webinars, workshops.

We also have our advanced metering infrastructure, so our meters where customers can look at their water use hour by hour.

So in totality, looking at the supply and the demand that's requested from the woodlands at Shenate, the water supply assessment does find that Santa Rosa has adequate existing and projected water supply to meet woodlands at Shenate.

And with that, uh recommendation from the water supply assessment, it's recommended by Santa Rosa Water that the council by resolution approve the water supply assessment for the woodlands at Shenate.

With that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you so much, Claire.

Bring it back to council for questions.

All right, Ms.

Penway has a question.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for the report.

It's very thorough.

The only um concern I have is the um the age of the um the reports that were used to do the calculations, and I'm thinking of the urban water uh management plan, which is from 2020, uh, and then the other source the uh 2010 to 2019 average single family home back on I think um slide seven.

Um so I'm just kind of a concern.

I'm wondering if there was anything more available that was more up to date.

Uh and the reason I'm concerned is because I know that our climate has changed a lot uh since 20.

Well, it it continues to change and evolve, but um particularly over these years.

So I'm just kind of curious about that, using those um years um as a basis for some of these calculations and the methodology.

Thank you for that.

Thank you for that question.

Um so the urban water management plan is the required document that we have to reference for the demand analysis.

It's the most recent document that we have.

Um we do plan, you know, it's a five-year document, so next year it will be updated, but it's the most up-to-date document that we have for the water supply assessment that's due now.

Um so we can't, you know, predict into the future what the 2025 Urban Water Management Plan may have.

Um as far as using, you know, numbers that were those were the numbers that were available in 2020 when that plan was conducted.

Um, but my understanding is that even the most recent drought that we've experienced is not comparable to the single driest year that we've had on record, which is 1977.

So that number of the single dry year in the base year would not change in the 2025 plan.

So that analysis is basically going to be about the same if we conducted it uh using new numbers from the 2025 urban water management plan.

Thank you.

So I'm just wondering then uh if we were it's probably true what you're saying, you would know better than I uh if the numbers probably aren't going to move that much, but um if we were to wait for 2025 just to see what the changes are, we that would probably hold up the whole project.

Is that yeah, maybe our planning and economic development team could talk about the timeline for the project.

Um the water supply assessment by law were required to complete it within 90 days of a request from the land use authority in this case, the planning and economic development department.

So I don't have a comment about whether we could push it out further, but I can tell you that we're currently meeting the deadline for the 90 days as required by Senate Bill 610.

That's what I thought.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor O'Crucky.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um, I'm not a water expert, so bear with me.

Um see if you can follow the bouncing ball with where I'm going with this.

So um we get our water through Sonoma Water, correct?

And that is primarily sourced from Lakes, Sonoma and Mendocino.

Yes.

Okay, and then um those do those lakes have any interaction with the Russian River and the Russian River watershed?

Yes.

Okay.

Or on the Russian River watershed.

So with our supply, is there a possibility is there any possibility that with the uncertainty of the Potter Valley project and its future that this was that taken into account when analyzing this?

It was, yes.

Um, so you can see within the water supply assessment, there is a portion where we talk about potential um things that could affect water supply.

So that was um taken into consideration.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Let's open it up to public comment.

Would any members of the public like to speak?

Ms.

Flores.

Go right ahead.

Good evening, Council, and thank you to Councilmember O'Krepke for my exact question.

This presentation was extremely misleading, so I don't appreciate that there are constituents in the city of Santa Rosa that are being lied to.

So the Potter Valley Dam decommissioning is taking place currently, and basically we're about to lose 26 billion gallons of water between Mendocino, Lake County, and essentially the water that feeds the Russian River.

Once those diversions are gone, we will no longer have that water.

The cost is about 500 million to a billion dollars for the dam removal, which will be reflected in increases for constituents.

And so that has not been discussed, and I do believe that Mayor Stopp's wife has senior legal counsel to Jackson Family Wines is actually right now funding to lobby the Alexander Valley Water District because they're very aware that we won't have enough water.

So I don't understand how you could claim we will have enough water because I work with the Native American tribes and they have no idea what the allocations will look like currently under the winter's doctrine.

Tribes are filing motions to intervene.

There are no numbers on that.

So when we're worried that our current residents will have water, why are you even considering building new communities when we're going to not only see rate increases but not have adequate water supply?

So these numbers are extremely vague.

Nobody knows what they look like right now at all.

So to sit here and say that with certainty we know there's going to be enough water, that would be 100% false.

I have requested from FERC all of the comments from stakeholders uh regarding the license surrender.

So I am awaiting those records per FOIA.

Uh the city of Cloverdale as well as Lake County, have expressed interest to go ahead and pay for those records on my behalf because it will be seven several thousand dollars.

But I would encourage the city of Santa Rosa to review those comments to better understand something they're clueless about right now.

I've I go to these meetings frequently and I've not heard the Potter Valley Dam decommissioning discuss whatsoever your firefighters who you know they probably need water.

I spoke to some of uh the department heads and they they hadn't heard of the decommissioning.

So again, we should probably make sure that you know firefighters have water and people that live here already have water before we cater to new communities that again will uh contribute to that shortage.

So God bless you.

Thank you, Miss Flores.

Would any other members of the public like to speak?

Seeing none, we will bring back to council, and I'll ask for a motion from Ms.

Rogers and any any final discussion.

I'd like to make a motion to adopt the resolution to approve the water supply assessment for the Woodlands at Shenate, and wait for the reading of the text.

Do we have a second?

Second, we have a motion and a second by Mr.

O Krepke.

Any final discussion?

Ms.

Rogers.

Um, I just want to say, and I know we don't get in any back and forth, um, but our water department works really hard to ensure that when the city of Santa Rosa residents has adequate water now and also in the future.

Granted, there are things that are unforeseen, such as the drought that we just had, but that that does not mean we have to cease all operations and that we are stagnant and we cannot move as a community.

So with the information that we have, um, including decommissioning that is in the process, um, we currently have enough water, and there has been plenty of studies um to show that, and so I just want the residents to know that our water department, um, although it does not always seem like a glamorous job, does very hard work to make sure that we have good, clean, and great access to the water that we have.

So with that, thank you very much for all the work for all the water people, everyone in our department that is here.

Thank you for all the work that you do.

Thank you for the work that you have done and that you continue to do to ensure that we have that.

Thank you, Ms.

Rogers.

Ms.

McDonald.

I just have a quick comment.

Thank you for the presentation.

And of course, we know that the water department has projected out for many, many years to come on how many houses we can have.

I think what happens when we see housing going into areas like Shenate or areas that have potential for fire.

I think that's part of the anxiety when we see housing going in.

It's not just the reduction of potential water, but it's it's safety, and is there going to be enough?

And if we have emergencies that maybe don't even have to do with water shortages, but actually large fires if if that's going to be an okay area.

So some of the anxiety that I feel that is coming from community members potentially isn't that we don't think the water department's going to be able to deliver water, but there could be other unforeseen circumstances for that specific area.

But for this item, I'll be in supportive.

Thank you for the work on this.

Thank you.

And just a reminder to the public that they can go to the city website and they can they can look for the 20-year projections that the city updates every five years, taking into account population increases, housing, etc.

Uh so the city, the city is re is continually looking at these estimates, both in terms of water supply and also in terms of ingress egress issues and safety issues in the wildland urban interface.

The city is required to look at these issues, and we and the public can go and look at the results whenever they wish.

With that, we've got a motion and a second.

Can we please call a vote?

Madam City Clerk.

Yes, one moment.

My apologies.

Okay, Councilmember Rogers.

Aye.

Councilmember McDonald.

Aye.

Council Member Fleming.

Yes.

Councilmember Banwellos.

Yes.

Councilmember Alvarez.

Vice Mayor O'Krepke.

Aye.

Mayor Stepp.

Yes.

Let's record show this passes unanimously unanimously with seven affirmative votes.

Thank you very much, Madam City Clerk.

Alright, we're moving on to item 16.4, our fourth report for the evening.

This pertains to code adoption and amendments to the California building code.

And I think we've got Gabe Osborne and Jimmy Bliss.

Gentlemen, welcome.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the Council, Gabe Osburn, Director of Planning and Economic Development.

And joining me today is Jimmy Bliss, our chief building official.

The item before the council at this point in time is part of our comprehensive approach to updating our codes associated with building.

That really takes a two-phased approach.

The first action today for the council will be simply adopting the state model codes.

That is a requirement of local jurisdictions, and we adopt those codes by reference.

So the action today will this will be an introduction of an ordinance to adopt those codes as well as a resolution to set the future public hearing for formal adoption of those codes.

Those are areas where the local jurisdiction can add more stringent or different requirements to the codes.

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

Bliss.

So as the Director Osborne said, we have these state codes that are Title 24, and it's um produced by the California building uh Board of Regulations.

They uh excuse me.

Sorry.

Uh we are supposed to or required to adopt them statewide and enforce them as local building officials and for the city.

It includes it used to be just one little building code, and now it includes all of the elements that you see here the billing of the fire code, plumbing code, all the safety standards that are enforced here to ensure a safe building for the public.

Every three years, the state does an adoption to update the standards to increase the load for new technologies and different things that come up during the year, try to make it a little bit better, things that they've seen that have been challenged over the years, and we just try to make it a little bit better and more easy to um understand.

As part of what we're doing here, um the state adopted it in July of this year, and then it will go into effect in January.

And so we're um trying to follow that up closely with our local amendments to make sure that we align with what they're doing, we can enforce it fully.

Um so the building standards commission, um, we are it is as we said, mandatory.

Sorry, it's a little bit repetitive here.

Uh we are allowed to make typically allowed to make local jurisdictional alterations based on things that are local to our climate that aren't consistent throughout the state.

So the state has their general requirements, and then we have things that we can throw in there.

Go to the next one.

Uh, there has been uh recent legislation that preempts us from making changes for the next few years until June 1st, 2031.

There are a few exceptions to that, and uh one of those exceptions is carrying forward previously adopted amendments.

So that's the extent of what we're doing tonight is just carrying forward those adoptions and making sure that our numbering aligns with the state code.

So it's pretty mundane.

Um go ahead and I'll turn back over to Gabe to take this one.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Bliss.

The second phase to this is what is commonly referred to as reach codes, and really many of the reach codes that local jurisdictions have incorporated have been designed to meet climate action goals.

Uh, the most common that we have seen over the last eight to ten years is associated with all electric, and really what those look at is basically ensuring that all appliances are based on or being powered by electricity to provide services to a building, and codes go as far as to actually restricting natural gas connections to reduce the fossil fuel burning in the building.

The city council in 2020 adopted a REACH code for all electric on certain residential building types.

Unfortunately, since that point, a lot of other jurisdictions have done the same, and those code types have received legal challenges, and there are federal laws that actually preempt those a bit uh associated with the use of gas appliances in a building and the inability for local jurisdictions to prohibit the gas use of those appliances.

Um, so what we've really been doing is trying to reframe that in certain ways to actually meet our climate action goals, to maintain compliance with federal law, and to really meet the goals and strategies of our general or greenhouse gas reduction strategies.

So that was adopted by council earlier this year.

Um so we actually actually formed up a reasonable incentive program for all electric.

Our hope was to track it with the process today, uh, but that is an area where we are not mandated to set that in a certain way.

So that should we want that to require fairly robust community engagement, and we are working with our building and design community as we speak to engage, and we're hoping to bring that forward as a second phase in spring of 2026.

That timeline falls along with the requirements in our greenhouse gas reduction strategies.

That document wants us to move forward the reach code prior to the end of 2026.

So that's really the next phase, and the council will have an opportunity to review that in the spring of next year.

Um also important to note that this is usually a joint effort between our fire department um and PED, because there is fire code, and as you saw earlier this year, fire moved forward their amendments in response to what the state has done.

Um so typically we'll partner together, that will be done separately.

Um, but it it just it's always done specifically in the fire department to ensure that they're incorporating that correctly into their codes.

I will hand it over back to Jimmy Bliss.

And apologize, but all of this has to be in the recommendation.

Um all the different codes need to be included.

Um it is a multi-part process.

Um so we're coming here to introduce it today, and then um later on, part of it we need to set that resolution date to make actually adopt it.

So we would recommend that you adopt the adoption of this state code and then make a resolution for us to adopt it in January.

And we're happy to answer any questions.

All right, folks, this is our chance.

Building code questions.

Who's got one?

There's nothing.

Any even I at this point am struggling.

You you you teased us with the reach codes.

We'll we'll lean in on the reach codes and let this one slip by.

Let's open it up to public comment.

Would any members of the public like to comment on this item?

Not even members of the public.

All right.

Well, let's bring let's bring it back to uh Mr.

Alvarez for a motion.

Any final discussion?

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, I'd like to introduce an ordinance as presented by staff adopting uh adopting by reference with local amendments to the 2025 California Administrative Code, 2025 California Building Code, 2025 California Residential Code, 2025 California Green Building Standards Code, 2025 California Electrical Code, 2025 California Mechanical Code, 2020 2022 California Plumbing Code, 2025 California Energy Code, 2020 2025 California Wildline Urban Interface Code, 2025 California Historical Building Code, 2025 California Existing Building Code, 2025 California Reference Standards Code, 2024 International Property Maintenance Code, and the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination Permit and Waste Discharge Requirements.

We have a motion and we have a second by Ms.

Rogers.

Is there any final discussion?

Seeing none, Madam City Clerk, please call the vote.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Rogers.

Aye.

Councilmember McDonald.

Councilmember McDonald.

Oh, I.

Sorry.

Thank you.

Councilmember Fleming?

Yes.

Councilmember Ben Wellos.

Yes.

Councilmember Alvarez?

Aye.

Vice Mayor Krepke?

Aye.

Mayor Stapp.

Yes.

Let the record show this passes unanimously.

Thank you very much.

All right.

We will move on then to the final item of the evening.

Our last report.

This is the report concerning the resolution of the Council of City of the Santa Rosa censuring council member Diana McDonald.

We have uh City Attorney Teresa Stricker doing the presentation.

Thank you, Madam City Clerk.

Thank you, Madam City Attorney.

Madam City Attorney, what while you're getting while you're getting settled, let me let me set the context for the presentation this evening.

I want to provide the context because obviously the discussion that's going to follow is difficult.

The possibility of council member censure has attracted a lot of public attention.

And I think it's important to clarify for our community why we're taking up this issue today.

The City of Santa Rosa is blessed with excellent staff.

The 1300 people who do the work of the city accomplish amazing things, even in our even in our current tight budget times.

They make Santa Rosa a leader in important ways, not just regionally but statewide.

Our staff facilitates the wonderful quality of life that we enjoy here.

If you've seen the recent chronicle pieces about the city, if you if you've observed the bridges, fire stations, and parks under construction, you have a sense of what I'm talking about in terms of the great work that's happening here in the City of Santa Rosa.

And it's our employees, not the city, not we as city council members, but our employees who do this work, they make Santa Rosa run, and they're an incredible asset for our community.

Part of our job as City Council is to make sure that our staff feel valued and supportive, supported, and have a respectful and positive workplace free from harassment so they can do their jobs.

Simply put, City Council members should support our staff, not be sources of distraction and anxiety.

I'm proud of the work of our council, which has made difficult but necessary decisions during the past two years.

There are more of these decisions to come.

2026 will be an inflection point for Santa Rosa as we evaluate both remarkable opportunities and complicated headwinds.

It is critical that council members maintain the trust and respect of the public and the staff.

To do this, we must address the issue before us this evening and hold ourselves accountable.

And with this in mind, Madam City Attorney, I'm going to turn it back to you.

Mr.

Mayor, I'm gonna ask if we can just wait one moment.

I'm gonna deal with the housekeeping matter, but we do have Special Counsel Jenica Maldonado joining us, and she's up in the City Managers Conference room coming down in just a moment.

Thank you.

Um so in terms of the housekeeping matter, um, councilmember McDonald announced at the beginning of the meeting that she'd be recusing from part of this item.

Uh, in order to allow her to participate in the balance of the item, we have gone ahead and separated this item into two parts.

The first part, um, she will be present for the first part.

Um, we will start the presentation, and then you will consider um uh the first resolution.

I'm gonna call it resolution one.

It's labeled that way in the materials that was pushed out today.

And then you will take whatever action you're going to take.

Um, after that, council member McDonald will go ahead because she's recused from the rest.

She will we will allow her the opportunity to go ahead and leave leave the chambers.

We then will continue with our presentation, which is a short piece at the end, and then there will be another uh resolution two.

I'm calling it for your consideration.

And for both the council members as well as the public, I want to let you know that resolution one and resolution two take the exact same actions that were in the original resolution pushed out with the agenda last week.

So there's no new action.

We literally just split them up into two resolutions.

So with that, I'm gonna ask for one more minute to let Ms.

Maldonado get settled, and I'll go ahead and introduce her.

Okay, with your indulgence, thank you very much.

Um, so I'm gonna go ahead and introduce Miss Maldonado.

Jennifer Maldonado is a partner uh with the Adkinson Anderson firm.

Uh, she specializes in advising cities and other local public agencies regarding labor and employment matters as well as local government law matters.

She serves as special counsel to the city, and in connection with this case, she has been supporting the city attorney's office uh with providing advice with respect to this matter.

I want to be clear that neither uh Miss Maldonado, nor anyone from her firm is the investigator we'll be hearing about a little later in this presentation.

The investigator is with an entirely separate firm.

So just want to be very clear.

There are two firms involved.

Ms.

Miss Maldonado is supporting the city attorney's office here.

And with that, we're gonna go ahead and get started.

Okay, I'm gonna start with just a brief overview.

We talked a few minutes ago that we have two proposed resolutions separated so that council member McDonald can participate in as much of this item as possible.

And then I'm gonna go ahead and turn it over for the rest of the slide to Miss Maldonado.

Good evening, members and mayors.

Uh good evening, mayor and members of the council.

Thank you for having me this evening.

Uh, I am here to provide some um guidance and support relating to this agenda item and to provide you with and the public background relating to the findings that an outside independent attorney investigator from the Vandermine and Macus law firm made um concerning the agenda item that is before you this evening.

Um it is council's role to direct all actions relating to the resolutions that are being brought forward, uh, and we are available to provide you advice on this matter.

The scope of the investigation, which as the city attorney has already indicated, I did not personally conduct, and no one from my law firm personally conducted concerned allegations that council member Diana McDonald engaged in a negative and offensive behavior towards city employees that was motivated by her publicly known consensual romantic relationship with a different city employee.

We will be referring to this relationship as the consensual relationship throughout the presentation.

Again, my role in part was to assist in retaining an outside investigator who is not affiliated with my firm who conducted that investigation.

The investigators' findings were as follows.

The investigator determined that council member McDonald first engaged in negative behavior towards city employees because of her consensual relationship, made unwelcomed comments of a sexual nature to city employees about her consensual relationship, and attempted to influence a city operational decision based on her perception that it may benefit her romantic partner.

The investigator also concluded that based on these findings, council member McDonald violated the city's anti-harassment policy.

Sorry.

Okay, so I'm gonna um talk a little bit about the first resolution.

If it's adopted, we'll take disciplinary action and certain remedial actions based on the investigators' findings that you just heard about.

Uh, council member McDonald uh may participate in this item.

Uh the second resolution will be considered after council member McDonald recuses and leaves the chambers.

That resolution, if adopted, will take one additional remedial action based on the investigators' findings.

Okay.

Um, I'm gonna talk a little bit about a couple of city policies that we have in place that are relevant to the investigation.

The first is the code of conduct uh that is for council members and board and commission members.

This is a council adopted policy.

The code of conduct requires council members and board and commission members to adhere to the highest standards of respect, council policies, civility, and honesty in ensuring the effective maintenance of intergovernmental relationships.

It also requires council members and board members to treat others with respect.

Council members have the primary responsibility for ensuring compliance with our code of conduct, and that is important to maintain full public confidence in the integrity of our city government.

We also have an anti-harassment policy.

The title of that policy is uh harassment discrimination and retaliation prevention policy, and that too is a council adopted policy.

This policy is intended to prohibit and prevent discrimination, harassment, and retaliation in the city's workplace and sets forth related procedures.

Under the city policy, workplace harassment is specifically defined.

It includes conduct that is intended or actually does unreasonably interfere with an employee's work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.

Harassment also includes unwelcomed conduct related to an intimate relationship between others in the workplace.

Harassment does not require an intent to harass.

The anti-harassment policy includes specific requirements relating to individuals who occupy a manager or supervisory role, and that would include city elected officials.

Those requirements include to model appropriate behavior, to take all steps necessary to prevent harassment, discrimination, and retaliation from occurring in the workplace, to receive complaints in a fair and serious manner, to take appropriate action to stop potential policy violations, to implement appropriate disciplinary and remedial measures, and participate in appropriate training.

And finally, the policy does specifically require the council members in particular treat city employees with respect and consideration, model appropriate behavior, and participate in periodic training as appropriate and as required.

And just to be clear, the last few slides, these is this is a summary of the language that is specifically in the city of Santa Rosa's anti-harassment policy, which is germane and relevant to what you all will be considering taking action on tonight.

The city does also have a separate romantic and sexual relationships policy.

This policy, however, not dissimilar to other similarly sized cities in the state of California, does not specifically apply to council members or address relationships between council members and city employees.

At present, your policy applies to those intimate relationships between city employees specifically.

Okay, I'm gonna walk through a little bit of when things happened.

The city received allegations of harassment that we talked about a little bit earlier that happened in June of 2025.

The city followed the process set forth in the anti-harassment policy and retained the outside attorney investigator to conduct a confidential independent workplace investigation.

That investigation began in July 2025.

After concluding the investigation, the investigator provided the city with a confidential attorney client privilege report in November 2025.

So the question, of course, that has arisen is why do we, why are we only giving limited information about the investigation and in the investigation report?

And in determining what information that was made public to both employees and to members of the public, the city carefully balanced, carefully and appropriately balanced two very important but competing interests here.

And these interests we have to remember this is a workplace investigation.

The first interest, of course, is the need for transparency to the public as well as to employees about the conduct of our city's elected officials.

That is also balanced with the privacy rights and other rights of our city employees, along with the city's commitment to maintaining a positive and respectful workplace where employees feel comfortable coming forward to report policy violations.

So your first resolution, we're going to talk a little bit about what that resolution would do if it was adopted.

The first uh action taken by the first resolution would be to censure council member McDonald.

A censure is a public admonishment.

Uh, it is the strongest form of discipline that the council may take against another council member.

Uh, the council has no authority to remove an elected official from office.

Additionally, the first resolution would take some uh a handful of remedial actions as well.

The first would be that it the council would be urging council member McDonald to recommit to her obligations under the anti-harassment policy and the code of conduct.

The second action contained in the first resolution would direct the city manager to implement reasonable, reasonable and appropriate operational steps in response to the investigators' findings.

The third action would be to direct the city manager to bring recommended changes to the code of conduct and anti-harassment policy to council for adoption.

And the fourth action would be to direct the city manager to provide by the end of March of 2026 additional training for council members related to the investigators' findings.

And these trainings would be in addition to the harassment prevention and ethics trainings that are required by state law that council members already participate in.

Thank you, City Attorney Stricker and Special Council Moldonado.

I'll bring it back to council for any questions.

Seeing no questions, we'll throw it open to public comment.

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

Miss Flores, we'll start with you and then we'll go on to Iris.

Thank you, Mayor Stopp.

So as the leading civil rights activist in this county and a local journalist, I know everything, all the dirt that goes on here, even which politicians knock up which prostitutes.

So this story was brought to my attention several months ago through my email, and I know what actually happened, and I think it's disgusting that this is on the agenda.

I do think that everything's politically motivated, that this is a witch hunt for councilwoman McDonald.

So I find that extremely frustrating when councilwoman Victoria Fleming was having relations with assistant city manager David Gueen, whatever his last name is, that was never in the Press Democrat.

They're very selective on who they target, and so for me, like what's councilwoman McDonald's gonna do?

Name a park after herself?

I think it's much more controversial to be sleeping with the assistant city manager.

So I'm hoping that council, if they're going to condemn councilwoman McDonald, that that could be addressed, because I find that really concerning.

God bless you.

Thank you, Ms.

Flores.

Ms.

Harrell.

My name is Iris Harrell.

I live in Oakmont Village with 4,700 other residents.

I wanted to speak about how, as a Santa Rosa citizen, I measure the value of a good city council representative.

Question one would be how accessible is the council member if a constituent has a problem.

Diana McDonald is extremely accessible, helpful on big and small issues for our community.

She just helped my elderly neighbor who needed a replacement street light and poll installed, as the previous one fell down in a storm a year ago.

I asked Diana what the holdup was, and she connected me quickly with Dan Hannesy, who was very responsive.

Within 10 days, a new light pole and light was installed.

Question two.

How helpful is our council member on public safety in the Oakmont village area?

Diana helped our Oakmont HOA board work out details for obtaining a badly needed additional emergency exit out of Oakmont in case of fire or earthquake by connecting us quickly with Burbank Housing when they purchased the property from the former developer of El NOCA.

This successful effort solves a problem that Oakmont has been working on since 2017 after the Tubbs fire.

We needed an alternate emergency exit.

And this new proposal that she has helped with includes a bicycle path connection for the city.

Question three: how does our city council member help senior members in her district?

Diana helped pave the way for the new memory care center in Oakmont that just opened, and she was there to celebrate with the opening with Oakmoters.

This is a need Oakmont has had for a very long time.

Diana McDonald is always available when we need her.

She keeps an eye out for Oakmont's current and future needs.

She is mindful of seniors' problems.

These examples are just a few of the many things that I personally know she has done as our city council.

That's how I measure a good council woman.

I just wanted to thank Diana McDonald publicly at this moment.

Thank you, Iris.

Ms.

Diaz.

Hello, Mayor, City Council members, and member of the public today.

My name's Anna Diaz, and I am from Roseland.

Aside of today's meeting, I am also a local elected elected official here in Sonoma County, and I want to say that in a field of politicians that are mostly men, I could honestly say with pride, Diana McDonald, Councilmember Diane McDonald was one of the most empowering and supportive women that I have come across.

And it's really hard, especially when you're a young woman and a woman of color.

She was one of the few women that instead of criticism, judgment, and constant avoidance, she was always there to uplift, to support and to provide tips and advice to young women like me.

So as for woman empowerment, Diana is the symbol of that.

She has supported many women, not just me.

And along with that, I honestly think that the Press Democrat article was completely false.

City attorney, I think you do a wonderful job at making sure that the council members are accountable for recusal.

So I don't, I've I've come to city council meetings for several years, and I've never ever seen a conflict of interest ever arise when it comes to council member Diana McDonald.

So I think that that was completely false, and I know that Diana does a really great job of standing up and leaving the room before any topic of such of such.

Diana, I think you're amazing.

I think you are a beautiful woman inside of out.

And regardless of what comments or any article says, I know who you are as a person.

I know that you really do stand up for your community and Santa Rosa as a whole, especially as somebody that was born and raised just like me, myself and council member Alvarez.

So thank you for your support for Santa Rosa as a whole, and I know that this is a minor setback.

You are so much stronger, and like I mentioned, you are beautiful inside and out.

Anybody who has come across you knows this fact about you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Diaz.

Miss Carmen, did you want to make a comment?

Uh the microphone doesn't seem to be working now.

Is it working?

Um, I wish I could support Diana as well.

Uh I am one of her constituents.

Yes, she focuses on Oakmont.

I was present when she talked about the escape route that she was going to be having soon.

And an Oakmont resident had to interrupt her and say that's on the five-year schedule.

Uh, I ran against her as a brave Santa Rosen, and she pretended that she was the only constituent, and she was, I mean, excuse me, she was the only campaign person running.

I went to the Democratic meeting and they didn't expect me there.

They didn't know what to do with me, that I had shown up.

And she did admit to one person in the Safeway parking lot that she did know someone else was running.

But she also prevaricates and she misrepresents herself.

The lines were redrawn so that she could be appointed by the city council.

That was not this city council, that was another city council.

So she has been appointed.

I'm the only person that ever ran against her, and she also misrepresented herself on two oaths, and that's a felony.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Carmen.

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

Seeing none, we will close this portion of public comment and bring it back to council.

Uh with my colleagues' permission, I'm going to read a statement, and then you will be free to add or subtract from that as you see fit, and then we'll ask for a motion.

Is that what that works for this group?

All right.

To my mind, the key points that you raise are as follows.

First, after the city received harassment allegations from city staff, the city responded quickly with an investigation by an outside independent attorney investigator.

The outside independent attorney investigator found that council member McDonald violated the city's anti-harassment policy in ways that include negative behavior towards city employees related to her well-known relationship with the city employee and attempting to influence a city operational decision to benefit her romantic partner.

While our city council has no ability to remove a city council member from office, we are able to take corrective action in the following ways.

To publicly censure our colleague to indicate our disapproval of the actions the investigator found she took, to urge our colleague to recommit to her obligations under the code of conduct and anti-harassment policy, to direct the city manager to implement reasonable and appropriate operational steps to respond to the investigators' findings, to direct the city manager to bring forward any recommended changes to the code of conduct and anti-harassment policy with the goal of preventing similar behavior in the future.

To direct the city manager to provide training for all council members that addresses the investigators' findings, training in addition to the legally required trainings we already receive.

Per my comments during the mayor and council member report item, I would also like to add that I will be adding an item to the January 13th agenda to remove Councilmember McDonald from her three current committee assignments violence prevention partnership, public safety subcommittee, and the zero waste board.

Representing the city of Santa Rosa is a privilege.

And in light of the findings of the outside independent legal investigator, I believe Councilmember McDonald is currently no longer an appropriate representative on that board and those committees.

I will refer back to my opening comments.

The city must ensure we maintain a positive, respectful work environment, not only because it's the right thing to do, but also to allow staff to continue to do the amazing work that they do for our community.

City Council must also hold our members accountable so that we can maintain the trust and respect of staff and the public.

This is our duty right now.

I should state again that our goal is not only to make clear that we disapprove of the actions the investigator found Councilmember McDonald took and to take remedial actions to prevent similar conduct in the future.

It is also to emphasize for the public for the residents of Santa Rosa and for city staff that the Santa Rosa City Council is focused on promoting the welfare and enhancement of the city, and we will not tolerate behavior that puts this at risk.

Given the investigators' findings, I believe we should support the resolution.

I ask for a motion in a second so that we can take the disciplinary and corrective actions that are necessary.

And with that, I will turn it over to Vice Mayor Krebke for a motion and any further discussion.

I'll move to adopt a resolution one as presented by staff censoring council member McDonald and taking remedial actions based on the findings of an independent workplace investigator.

Do we have a second?

I'll second.

We have a motion and a second.

Any further discussion?

Ms.

McDonald.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'd like to make a statement, if I may.

I want to sincerely apologize for any of my actions that made anyone feel uncomfortable.

Especially our city staff.

For that, I am truly sorry.

I have learned from this experience, and I will work hard to be a better person and council member moving forward.

I make this promise to my fellow city council members, to all city staff, and to the public.

I will continue to work to make improvements to our city.

I don't shy away when I see ways we can improve, whether it's budgeting operations, city process and structure, or transparency and outreach to the public.

I'll always speak up and work hard to make our city a better place for all of us to live.

I take my oath of office very serious.

And in that oath, we as council members protect, vow to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of California, and to well and faithfully discharge our duties as members of council.

My duty as a council member is to protect the city of Santa Rosa and put its best interests above anything else, even my own interests, to my colleagues on the council, city staff, and members of the public.

Express my firm commitment to the duties as a council member, including my obligations under the code of conduct and anti-harassment policy.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

McDonald.

Madam City Clerk, we've got a motion of second.

Can we please call the vote on this portion on this on the first resolution?

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Rogers.

Councilmember McDonald.

I respect the investigation process.

However, I do not agree with all of the investigators' findings.

So I will be voting no on the resolutions.

Please know that I'm happy to participate in further training and support.

Staff bringing forward any recommendations, updates to the code of conduct and anti-harassment policy.

Councilmember Fleming?

Yes.

Councilmember Ben Wellows.

Yes.

Councilmember Alvarez?

Aye.

Vice Mayor O'Krepke.

Aye.

Mayor Stapp.

Yes.

Let the record show this passes with six affirmative votes.

Thank you.

And as previously noted, I believe Ms.

McDonald is recusing from the second portion of this.

Thank you very much.

Please go ahead, Ms.

McDonald.

Thank you, Mayor.

Finally, I just want to take a moment to take my cloth to thank my close friends and my family for their love and support throughout this process.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

McDonald.

Ms.

Stricker and Miss Maldonado back to you.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Clerk, can you help us?

Yes, thank you.

Okay.

So, like the actions you just took, those actions were directed by council to be brought forward.

There's one additional action to the council directed to be brought forward for consideration tonight, and that is in the second resolution.

If adopted, the second resolution would take the following additional remedial remedial measure based on the investigators' findings.

It would direct the city manager to schedule a study session to obtain direction from council concerning a possible new policy to address intimate relationships between council members and city employees.

It's a natural question.

Why would a study session be appropriate on this topic?

And there's a number of reasons why it might be appropriate, including a study session would allow the council to explore a variety of different policy options around this topic and also evaluate exemplars from other similarly sized cities within the state of California.

It would be appropriate for the council to have a study session because there are a number of enforcement challenges and legal nuances associated with these types of policies.

As the council can probably appreciate, any attempt to regulate intimate relationships in the workplace has potential constitutional and other legal implications, which should be evaluated closely, and the council should be briefed on fully so that any policy is compliant with any appropriate or related legal expectations and restrictions.

There may be an obligation of the city to meet and confer with its employee representative groups in advance of adopting such a policy.

So for these reasons, it is not the sort of endeavor that the council would appropriately undertake unilaterally or without close consideration, and so we would recommend that to the extent the council desires to explore this topic, but it do so in the context of a study session.

That is the end of our presentation on the second part.

We're happy to entertain any questions.

Thank you both for all the work that you've done on this.

I'll bring this part of resolution two back to council for questions.

Any questions from our side?

We'll throw it open to the public.

Any comment from the public on this second resolution?

Thank you very much.

And particularly just for the city of Santa Rosa, you know.

I mean, I thought these sorts of issues were worked out in the 80s, and it was shocking to me to find out that there was something going on now.

It's like the racial issue that's been going on here.

It's very difficult.

But uh, this is what I want to say that this eighty-six thousand dollars that has had to be paid.

Um I question where that's coming from, and I also heard attorney Stricker at I think it was the last meeting saying in defense of Diana, there was a six hundred and twenty-five thousand dollar uh settlement, and it was until you know I couldn't tell whether she was saying the county, I mean the city got it, or it was defending her, and the city had to pay it, but I'd like her to speak more slowly when she reads the um litigation, and uh this is a big issue, and this is an issue that affects everyone.

It's not just Diana, the city council, and the people that care about the city and show up at the meetings.

This is big across the city because we need the money, and this is money that is not well spent, um, and it's no offense to the attorneys because I'm really pro-attorney person myself.

But this is a situation that is just really awkward and weird.

And it's also uh really clever that it was put in the attorneys' hands, because this is a former, I won't name any names, but sheriff program, uh, not program, but sheriff problem that has occurred, uh, not with the relationship part of it, but other things, and that uh it puts it puts our our true people that are really heartfelt and really trying to do everything they can do with the budgets and with the calamities on the outside world that are pressing on them, it really stresses everyone.

So this is not a light thing, not a light thing at all.

And um I just I just I feel for everyone, it's just it's tragic, but uh all of the facts should come out on this, and I believe I do know as well uh what happened, but um, anyway, it's just it's sickening, it really is, and it's had me very very upset ever since I read about it.

And um, I mean, what else can you say?

But the money is important.

Thank you.

Thank you, Janice.

Ms.

Flores.

Good evening, council.

I do echo the support for a study session because this council has repeated issues between council relations with city staff, and so watching that whole conversation was disgusting.

There are some of you sitting at that diaspora, which have absolutely zero integrity.

That would have been a wonderful opportunity for councilwoman Fleming to be like, you know what, yeah, we'll screw in the assistant city manager, and I never said anything about it.

It was never in the newspaper, but you know what?

I'm gonna sit here and vote to censure councilwoman McDonald's so it's disgusting.

You have zero integrity.

Democrats in general have zero integrity.

Victoria Fleming, you are a disgusting human being that you just did that to another woman.

I don't know what to tell you.

God bless you.

I pray for you.

I know you don't believe in Jesus, but I hope you find him.

Thank you, Ms.

Flores.

Uh, Iris, did you want to make a comment?

I do.

Um, I just uh took the anti-harassment uh class because I'm on the PAS uh committee, and it is I I mean, I've I have been the owner of my own company in the past with multiple employees.

There are some clarity issues, and since you don't have anything written about city staff, our city employees having, you know, whatever.

I think the recommendation to get something that's written that is clear, so people know for sure there's no gray areas, and until that happens, I don't think we should be as harsh as it is sounding here tonight.

Thank you, Iris.

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

Seeing none, we will close public comment, and I will ask for a motion on the second resolution uh any final discussion.

I'll move uh to adopt resolution two as presented by staff taking additional remedial action based on the findings of an independent workplace investigator.

Do we have a second?

Miss Rogers will second resolution two.

Thank you very much.

Any final discussion of this item, Ms.

Rogers?

Um, during that study session, I I would like it addressed.

Um, what about pre-existing relationships?

Those that we know of and those that we do not, um, because they're pre-existing.

So what happens with that?

I think probably is one of the biggest questions and and current problems that I see that we have with the with the study session.

Understood.

Absolutely.

And and I'll just note um once again, thank you for all the work that both of you have done.

There have been it has been one months of work at this point um and it's all complicated and nuanced so thank you for putting us in the position to to think through this decision and make the and and make the decisions that we did tonight.

With respect to the second resolution I think this is an important one for the community.

Most of our community members work in organizations where there is there is a very clear standard with respect to romantic relationships in the workplace and there are going to be questions as to why that's not the same in the public sector so it is good that we address that issue head on and take what steps we can complicated though they may be and thank you Ms Maldonado for for highlighting some of the reasons why so that the public understands that we as a body we as a city are trying to make trying to bring ourselves in alignment with the same kind of policies that most of our residents experience in their workplaces thank you very much for that we have a again we have a motion we have a second by Ms Rogers if there's no further discussion I'll look to my colleagues then we can call the vote.

Thank you councilmember rogers aye council member Fleming?

Yes.

Councilmember Banwellos yes council member alvarez aye vice mayorpki aye mayor stepped yes let the record show this passes a six affirmative votes and council member mcdonald recusing thank you very much this brings us to item 19 our final public comment on non-agenda matters are there any members of the public that would like to make comment on non-agenda matters.

Seeing none we are adjourned happy holidays everyone