Good afternoon.

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

For those just joining the meeting, live interpretation in Spanish is available, and members of the public or staff wishing to listen in Spanish can join the Spanish channel by clicking on the interpretation icon in the Zoom toolbar.

It looks like a globe.

Thanks for your patience, everyone, and happy happy new year to all the folks who uh have come for this item.

Thank you very much for coming out.

We will reconvene into open session.

Madam City Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Rogers is absent.

Councilmember McDonald is absent.

Councilmember Fleming.

Councilmember Ben Wellows?

Here.

Councilmember Alvarez?

Vice Mayor O'Krepke?

Here.

Here.

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

Thank you very much.

We'll move on to our study session for the evening, item four point one, which concerns gas station land use regulations.

So we are here today to do a study session with the council on gas station land use regulations.

So we will be going over some of the background, some initial research and findings that we have done to prepare for the study session, and then we will be going over our prior regulations as well as the existing regulations for gas stations, and then some potential options for council to consider along with some potential impacts with those options.

So as a reminder for council, in January of 2020, the City Council adopted a resolution that declared a climate emergency and elevated climate issues to the highest priority.

Sonoma County's nine incorporated cities as well as the county of Sonoma have adopted similar climate resolutions.

Then in September of 2021, the Regional Climate Protection Authority, known as RCPA, adopted a resolution that recommended that the county and the incorporated jurisdictions within the county cease acceptance of all applications for new gas stations and expansion of existing gas stations and their infrastructure in each jurisdiction.

In September of 2022, the City Council adopted an ordinance that amended our zoning code to prohibit new gas station land uses and expansion of existing gas stations and fossil fuel infrastructure.

It included some language that existing projects that were deemed complete prior to the effective date of that ordinance could continue through the process.

There were two such applications that were in, one of which was a 7-Eleven on Highway 12, which was ultimately withdrawn, and the other was the Elmtree Station project, which council approved on appeal in 2025.

And then in June of 2025, Council moved to add a future agenda item to discuss potential changes to the zoning code, addressing gas station modifications, which is why we are here today.

The three that have not are Cloverdale, Healdsburg, and the City of Sonoma.

And of those three, the City of Sonoma is the only one that is currently looking at pursuing an ordinance to ban both new gas stations as well as expansion of existing.

And again, a little bit beyond the Bay Area.

We've got Sacramento and Los Angeles included in here.

It shows 44 stations within the city of Santa Rosa.

13 of those are in northwest Santa Rosa, 16 are in northeast.

We have seven stations currently in Southwest.

One is currently approved, and that's the Elm Tree Station, and then eight in Southeast Santa Rosa.

So I'm gonna hand it over to uh Director Osburn for the next three slides.

Thank you, Jessica, and good afternoon, Mayor and Vice Mayor.

Uh the next few slides I'll give you a snapshot of what we've seen in the gasoline distribution industry within the city over a period of time.

We do not see a number of gas station applications come through on a regular basis.

It's actually fairly uncommon.

So what we looked back at is really the last almost 30 years and the types of applications and where that we've seen come through the system.

So we have seen back in 1996, Mendocino Avenue as a bit of a unique situation that was an existing gas station that when Safeway occupied that site in the early 2000s, rebranded and took over that gas station.

We saw in 1990, Costco added gas and then extended the pumps in 2014.

That would constitute a new gas station since it did not exist in that location.

In 1997, Bennett Valley Road, we saw a chevron move forward.

This is probably the most common request.

It was a gas station replacing an existing gas station.

Through that process, the gas station can do something as minor as rebranding, which would be pain and signage, but quite often it's a full scrape of the site and a redevelopment.

From a policy standpoint, oftentimes that either is constitutes a new gas station or it must meet the requirements of an expansion of an existing gas station under the regulation.

So it can be a bit limiting under the current policy.

On 2012, we saw in Farmers Lane a similar occurrence occur where it was a replacement of existing gas station, and then we saw that again in 2018 on 255 Dutton Avenue.

The most recent new gas station, as Miss Jones mentioned, is Elm Tree Station.

The entitlement was approved for that recently.

It is yet to be seen if that goes through permitting into construction, but that would be the first new gas station the city has seen quite some time.

So really the themes that we see is this is there does not seem to be a significant demand for an increased distribution that the gas station industry is responding to.

Most of the relocations of gas stations are very strategic locations, oftentimes located on major highways or major intersections.

The one unique aspect that we have seen is a transition from retailers that are not typically in the fuel business to the fuel business is a secondary measure of increasing revenue on the site.

The most common really are the warehouse sites that have taken on gasoline.

We have seen grocers do that as well.

And we have also seen traditional smaller markets where they're now incorporating gasoline.

And that has started as really an optional for some of these businesses, but it's been so ingrained in their revenue picture that they actually require it as part of new locations.

So as part of expansion, it becomes very critical.

Now the challenge we've run into with some of that, because we have seen it, is when it is a new development, it is very easy to incorporate that in.

Oftentimes the appropriate acreage is looked at for queuing, for making sure that traffic impacts are not created.

When it's added to an existing use, it becomes a little harder to do that because the area that the firm is working with.

And what we've seen with some of these uses as well is they often they offer gasoline at a price that becomes very attractive, so they draw a significant amount of traffic to them, and they can create more localized impacts.

And that's something as we see this move forward that we want to really just be mindful of from a policy standpoint, as that wouldn't necessarily be a new gas station.

It really just needs to potentially be solutions to make sure that traffic impacts are mitigated and more localized impacts are mitigated through creative approaches.

And looking at the future, the consumer is very price-driven in many situations and very convenience driven.

So as those uses provide that, it can be more of a draw in the future.

So really just wanted to point out that theme.

So the next slide looks at EV sales because obviously this is a big picture to transitioning away from the burning of fossil fuels for transportation purposes.

So this information comes from the California Energy Commission, and it's really focusing on light duty vehicles.

Outside of traditional fleet, most EVs have focused on light duty.

That's generally a vehicle of 8,500 pounds or less.

There's different definitions floating around.

If we look at pickup trucks when picked up truck goes to a heavy duty, that's not in this category, so smaller pickup trucks are in this category as well.

In 2021, we saw quite a bit of EV sales move forward.

And bear with us, I know some of this is fairly small.

I'll I'll point out some of the key numbers.

ZEV is zero emission vehicles, and that is typically electric.

And really, what we saw in 2021, obviously, with the pandemic, supply chain issues were changing.

There was a significant amount of transition to electric vehicle that happened through that, and we saw it really start to jump up.

So at that point, EV sales were grabbing 14% of the new vehicle sales in the county.

So this is county specific information.

The total number of sales was around 16,000.

Although the sales dropped in 2022 for the total number, we saw the percentage grow.

So it's so it was more of a shift to electric, and we generally saw that increase year after year.

So 2023, we saw the numbers jump up.

We saw it grab around 24% of that market, jumped up to 24%, 25% in 2024, 25%.

One of the concerns of what we're seeing is much of that as EV vehicles have a tendency to be more expensive than their gas powered counterpart.

The rebates associated with electrical vehicles and the federal administration's response to those rebates become a little problematic in understanding what the sales of EVs look like moving forward.

We did look at some of those trends outside of the county, and the 20 to 25 percent seems fairly consistent as to where EVs are settling at their market share.

But this is a really a critical important point to understand, not necessarily new gas distribution, but how we potentially can move off that existing supply and transition away to fossil fuel burning to alternate fuel sources.

Next slide, please.

What we wanted to really do is try to just see how many trips we were seeing to fueling stations.

I do have to basically state that mobile analytics are not an exact science.

What they utilize is cell phone data to understand human behavior and where they go at various places.

So what that helps us understand is when there is convenience buying.

Oftentimes we will see people go to a location for something and then shop around that general perimeter, which is often constitutes convenience buying, but it also gives us a good idea if we're seeing major drops at various businesses or uses.

So we had about 11,000 in 2021, and this would constitute all the fuel sale uses within the city.

It jumped up in 2013 or excuse me, 2022 to 13,000, held at 13,000, and it seems fairly consistent.

So once again, this seems to show a pattern of not necessarily an increase in consumption, fairly consistent trips over the years.

But that obviously somewhere in the scenes is playing playing into that because that is grabbing 25% of that new market share.

Now that's obviously the new vehicles being purchased.

That doesn't focus on use car sales or how that's moving through.

But it's important to note that's at 25%.

This isn't really describing a compelling argument either way over that behavior, other than it's staying fairly steady.

And with that, I'll hand the presentation back to Ms.

Jones.

Alright, thank you.

So the prior gas station regulations, as the council will remember, included allowance for new gas stations as well as expansion and relocation of existing gas stations with the approval of a major conditional use permit in all of our commercial zoning districts, with the exception of our core mixed use, which is generally the downtown area, as well as our light and heavy industrial zoning districts.

With that conditional use permit, there were additional specific regulations for the location and operation of gas stations, and those included minimum lot area and dimensions, a uh prohibition for new gas stations located adjacent to residential zoning districts as well as land uses, and then a requirement for a minimum of 500 foot setback between gas stations unless they were located within 150 feet of an intersection with highway 101 and freeway 12.

The expansion of and relocation regulations, so no new gas stations are also prohibited.

There is an allowance for some minor modifications, which are outlined within any of our zoning districts.

So with a minor use permit, um uh gas stations can be modified only to improve air, soil, groundwater, and stormwater quality, uh, to provide um improvements for traffic safety, uh, or to provide battery charging stations.

So what we have on this slide are some potential options for the council to consider through this study session.

The first would be no changes to our existing regulations, keep them status quo.

The second potential option would be to revert back to the prior regulations that would allow for new expansion and relocation in those commercial and industrial zones.

And then the third would be amending the existing gas station regulations.

We've got two potential examples here.

One would be for expansion of existing stations that could include limitations on the number of pumps, requirements for mitigation measures, and any other requirements the council wanted to see, and then potential for relocation of existing gas stations, which could include limitations on locations, requirements for mitigation or remediation, or any other requirements.

And then it could be any combination thereof with potential amendments.

With those options, there would be some impacts if the council were to choose option B or C, or if the council didn't choose either, and the city received a request for an amendment to our code from an outside party, what this would look like would be there would be impacts to existing work items that we're currently working on.

We have a lot of policy and development projects that are currently in the queue, and depending on you know where the priority lands with this type of a project would determine whether there might be a delay to any existing work that we're doing.

There could also be potential budget implications to allow for allocation of funding for consultant services to assist staff with the technical analysis and potential environmental review.

And then as far as timelines is concerned, if this would be prioritized, we likely would be looking at about a six to 12 month process that would depend on the level of environmental review that would be needed as well as outreach to the community.

One thing to be aware of is that we did reach out to placeworks, which is the consultant that prepared the general plan amendment, and also the uh greenhouse gas emission uh reduction strategy uh that was the council adopted recently, asked them about potential impacts to the strategy.

If an item like this were to move forward, um they did indicate that the GHG reduction strategy uh did not evaluate the impact of the current gas station regulations.

Because of that, there likely would not be an effect or require a change to the analysis of our general plan EIR, and while actual construction activities for any new gas stations or relocation would be subject to project-level environmental review.

Um, there likely wouldn't be an issue with compliance if the council wanted to move forward with a change like this.

So those are some of the impacts to those options.

So with that, uh, it's a recommended by the planning and economic development department that the council hold this study session and provide direction to staff related to the current gas station land use regulations, and we are both here for any questions.

Thank you both for putting this together.

Um before I bring it back to my colleagues for for a round of questions, uh it might be helpful to have a bit of other context, especially because I know that there are number what we know that there are any number of interested people around the county in this issue.

Uh when Santa Rosa and other municipalities in the county went through the gas station ban process uh four years ago or so, it was a it was a point of pride for the community, not only for our city, but for Sonoma County, and a point of pride for those of us on the dais.

So let's underline that right at the start.

If you've been paying close attention to our our city council meetings through the course of the last year, what you will notice is that we have on a few occasions brought back some of our ordinances or some of some of our internal guidelines to look at them, sometimes as even as basic as how we're conducting meetings or how we're handling our consent calendar, with the idea that we're looking at how at the protocols that we have in place and the ordinances that we have in place to say are these serving us now in a way that we expected to serve them when we put them into place.

Or are there ways that we can tweak them so that we can still accomplish whatever that goal was, but do so more efficiently or not make the trade-offs that they that they led us to.

So I want to I want to have uh that in the back of people's minds as we're having the study session today, and underlining the fact that we're having a study session.

Um no concrete decisions that we made, but we do want to look at how we crafted this ordinance, how other municipalities crafted this ordinance a few years ago and discuss whether that's accomplished what we wanted to accomplish and whether there's there's there are any ways that we can do we can make it better.

So that that's the context, uh in at least in my mind.

And with that, I'm gonna bring it to bring it to council for uh for questions.

We'll see we'll start with questions, by the way.

Well, I do feel that it's appropriate if you're gonna make such a grand statement about how we frame this.

I I would like to just respond and frame away, and and you were here when this when this one's went in place, frame away.

This was a big deal, and something that I know that council member Alvarez and I um the rest of the council were so proud of getting done, and it's our our goal to to make sure that the greenhouse gas emissions of the council permits going forward are are in line with our climate goals and and I just think to that end, I think I'd be cautious about wrapping uh potential expansion of infrastructure in the guise of process improvement.

I think that it's potential um for process improvements all over the board, but I I just think that that that's a dubious framing.

So I I hope that we move forward and hear this on its its merits.

Mr.

Albers, did you want to want to add to that?

No, I completely agree with everything that was just stated.

And in fact, you know, when we speak about expansion or additions of new gasoline stations, I think it goes contrary to what we promised the people of Santa Rosa a couple years ago.

So I'm definitely weary of touching this at all.

Uh I think the only reason that would even take a look at this is to see how we can better improve the stations that exist currently, opposed to addition or expansions.

Questions from others on council?

Miss Van Willis.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I just have a couple questions.

Uh thank you for the presentation.

Uh, it's um pretty um informative.

Um I just wondered when I was looking at the list of approved gas stations between 1996 and 2025.

Is that a complete list?

Because I think I remember when I was on the planning commission that we approved also a gas station on the corner of Summerfield.

Um, and I don't know if it was an improved gas station, it was or it was a new company that was taking over.

I don't remember the details, but I do remember that, and it just made me wonder if this was a complete list.

Uh so uh we believe that it is a complete list.

Um this was uh a quick analysis of our um permit tracking system.

So I worked with our IT uh staff to come up with this.

Um I'm not recalling one on Summerfield, but it very good could be so um certainly you know we can go back and and re-look at this, but uh we believe that this is relatively accurate.

Okay.

Um and then the uh other thing I was wondering about on uh I don't know what page this is, oh, page six um uh of the slides uh uh just wondering if you could talk a little bit more, Gabe, about the numbers.

I know you said it wasn't a scientific um it's the data is not scientific, but I was just sort of interpreting it differently when I looked at 2021, where we started at 11, and then 2025, which is at 12.

And I guess what I when I look at those those numbers, I think, oh, okay, we started at a certain point it's in 2021.

Uh then we s uh the visits really increased uh in 22, 23, and and 24, but then they started to come back down.

So uh the way I look at that is that's the direction we want to move in.

Uh and I understand some of these are, you know, uh convenience stores, and but that's not all.

And so anyway, I just wondered if you would talk a little bit more about um how you found those numbers and what you think they mean.

Yes, absolutely, council member.

Um, I think it's important to have a brief conversation about how mobile analytics work.

So, really what that is is using cell phone data to understand based on location services where people are going and when they're going there.

And obviously, that technology is evolving, it's becoming more accurate.

Uh so there's some inconsistencies as you go back in time just with the data platform.

Now, when we look at the distribution or the amount of gasoline sales, it's really critical to understand human behavior.

So, as we got out of the pandemic, uh, actually fossil fuel burning was less because there were more remote work options, commuting was less, so vehicle miles traveled were down a bit.

So when we look at trip generation, that's a really critical component.

Um, when we build new housing units, where do people work?

Are they commuting and really understanding those patterns because that will really control the trips to gasoline stations because people are fueling up more consistently?

Now, I think where some of the other inaccuracies can come into when you're tracking data if two people are sitting in a car and both those cars have location services.

We don't necessarily know when we're using location data as to whether that's a two-count or a one-count for one fueling option.

Um, so it isn't necessarily an exact science.

What I have seen on the economic development front when we can see significant deviations, so a 50% reduction of a number, it is usually pretty telling, and that's usually an avenue where we dig in.

Um, so we want to use this more because it is a tool in the toolbox to under better understand human behavior.

Um, because very much this is in action of human behavior.

And if people are still buying gas-powered vehicles and filling those, where are they doing that at?

And trying to understand the patterns, really trying to understand why one would go to an electric vehicle if they're they're um more expensive, understanding how critical are EV charging stations in that decision-making process.

Um, so there's a lot really to figure out.

So we're looking at patterns, we're looking at trend lines, and I think part of this from a climate action standpoint, which this is a really critical piece to that, is really understanding where we can make the biggest impact from a policy standpoint when that all fleshes out.

And I know that was a long way of answering your question.

But what we're really focusing on, we know there was some trend changes with the pandemic.

We know as we increase housing units, we're potentially changing demographics of the community.

We're trying to understand what people do either live locally or commute, so it really becomes a vehicle miles traveled connection, and then understanding how that factors into trips to the fueling stations.

Um, but really the the cell phone data is getting better by the day, but it still has some inaccuracies in that system, and it's not a perfect science.

So when I alluded to that, that's really what it's focusing back on, and the the platform is not exact.

I think that those are all the questions that I have at this point.

Mr.

O'Kremke.

Thank you.

Uh thank you so much for the presentation.

Um, I want to ask a couple questions about some of the information you've provided here.

And uh it's not lost on me that you may not have some of these answers, and that there may be as some of our questions are are presented, you may have to come back with more pointed answers or opportunities or solutions or whatever it might be.

So feel free to say I don't know, and you know how we can venture forward with uh through that, but um with the gas stations we do have.

Um, are there any age triggers for um infrastructure changes?

Like if they put a tank in the ground, like after so long, do they have to update it?

Do they I'm seeing heads nodding back and forth.

Yes, absolutely.

Um we have Paul Lowenthal here today to assist from our fire department.

Uh he could talk about the permitting process and what sort of frequency upgrades are needed at existing facilities, good afternoon, Mayor Stepp.

Uh, members of the council, my name is Paul Owenthal, Division Chief Fire Marshal with the San Rosa Fire Department.

Uh yes, the San Rosa Fire Department is what we referred to as a CUPA, a certified unifying program agency, and we are a fire-based CUPA, and one of our responsibilities is the oversight of underground storage tanks, which we typically will see at gas stations.

And so we do regularly regulate the gas stations.

They're one of the most stringently regulated facilities that we have in the city.

But to your point, yes, as times change, regulations change, and sometimes that requires the tanks to be pulled out of the ground.

That is one of the things that's occurring in Santa Rosa right now.

Is a lot of our gas stations that we have uh permitted have done the upgrades where they've removed what referred to as single wall tanks that were more prone to leaking and replacing them with double wall tanks.

Uh Santa Rosa has successfully removed every single uh non-compliance single wall tank in the city with the exception of one, um, and it's actually not associated with a gas station, it's associated with a generator at Memorial Hospital.

Um that is actually an enforcement case that we have underway with the state right now, but typically we do see our gas stations uh looking to proactively in many cases uh upgrade uh sensors, uh do replacements of underground components uh to ensure they're in compliance with uh current requirements.

Thank you.

Um, wouldn't when there's updates, it'd be natural to understand, or it'd be natural to think that with whether it's a cell phone or or a vehicle of any kind, the newer it is, the more efficient it is any way, shape, or form.

Do we have any information as to if newer pumps go in, um what kind of uh emissions those may cause or anything like that?

I would say we don't at this time, but certainly that's something that we could provide the council in the future.

Okay.

Um I'd be interested in that.

Um let's see.

Oh, excuse me.

Um you looked at adoption of uh um, oh, that was the other thing I was gonna say.

Do we have any information as to what um idling?

Let's say there's two pumps versus four pumps, and you have 10 cars with the idling to get to the two versus the idling to get to the four, what what kind of emissions comparatively those are?

That's something as well, and I think that's a really important point because that has to do often with the configuration of the gas station and the idling and the demand.

Um as far as specific numbers, that's something that we'll have to come back with.

Um when looking at expansion of pumps, um, there's a difference between expansion of pumps and expansion of tank size, and usually that goes hand in hand.

Tank size suggests you're selling more product, the expansion of pumps, it's really what we saw with Costco as they transitioned.

A lot of that was meant to meet demand, but it was also meant to meet idling and um traffic impacts.

So generally, it's once again human behavior.

Uh, what we often see is people do run the vehicle idling in waiting lines for drive-throughs and gas.

Not everyone, um, but a lot of that, there is sort of average numbers we can come back to the council with on the length of queuing lines, the number of vehicles.

It's obviously based on the time you're waiting.

So there's quite a few factors that go into the mathematical equation.

Um, but we're happy to look at do a deeper dive in that and bring back some more formal numbers to the council.

Okay.

Um one thing I would also be interested in is to see if there's any sort of EV charging or um solar or clean energy offsets that would be um viable, if at all.

So if you were to, for example, put one new pump in, if if there's any sort of project that could offset that.

Um is that possible to get that kind of information back?

Absolutely.

Uh, we did some preliminary research on that.

Um, I think that's really an important point when we look at the expansion of EV.

And when we look at as a city is looking at master planning both internally and externally for that, it's important to not only understand the location, but also how do you create the either the incentive or the requirement to make it happen?

Um what jurisdictions that have explored options for gas station bans have looked at is a mitigation strategy for electric vehicle charging.

So, for example, for every pump of gasoline, do you do two electrical vehicle charging stations at that location or other locations, or do you have a funding strategy where it's an in LU fee?

Uh so that's actually a fairly common connection to try to drive more accessibility to EV charging.

Um, so if if there is a desire at the council to look at more of a mitigation strategy for changes to an existing gas station, uh we can absolutely look at what that would look like and bring forward options to the council.

Um yeah, that would perfectly segue into what would have been my next question, which is uh going into a little bit more detail, what the mitigation fund would look like.

What would that would some opportunities for that, whether it be on-site mitigation versus um paying for chargers to go into uh multifamily housing or uh anything like that?

So I I'd also like to see that um unless you have any other information you want to provide right now.

I think to add to that, I have seen flexibility on how those mitigation fees can be utilized.

And a mitigation strategy is either the applicant or the developer builds the mitigation, or the applicant or the developer pays an in loo fee for the mitigation, and then at loof fee is then used by either other development to mitigate in close proximity, or it's used by the local jurisdiction.

Um I think from a carbon neutrality standpoint, uh one of the biggest issue, and and Miss Jones can correct me if this is um a little off on that statement, but if we really look at vehicles miles traveled, that's the biggest impact.

Building efficiency is a close second.

So building efficiency through codes and those sort of things requiring solar, there's ways in which we can improve that building stock.

Um, but really looking at incentives for convincing people to purchase electric vehicles, making them more accessible to more members of the community, figuring out the charging if that's the reason is an important piece.

So I think from a mitigation strategy, understanding how we can look at electrification and understanding as part of that process, what is the most important thing to fund.

Um, I usually recommend that flexibility and mitigation is important because that may change with time.

Um so just understanding the importance of mitigation from a financial standpoint and putting it to where it's best used through the community to solve the problem.

Um, but there typically is the flexibility from what I've seen and what other jurisdictions have adopted.

Alright, then my last thing, which I mean to me is one of the one of if not the most important things, is um I'd like you to come back with some information considering the the removal of tax credits of rebates, incentives, um, the NEVI program at the federal level, um the cost of EV has gone up.

Um, there's other things you can throw in there if you want to throw in like tariffs or whatever else.

Um I would like to see some more information about that, about adoption of that, um, to see if it you know really is becoming affordable to adopt that lifestyle because we could also tell pull things into installing an at-home charger or solar to offset that those types of things.

I'd really like to see that.

Um, because one of the other things as I say that, I'd like to see that sort of information and also with that, if there is any sort of um idea of um setback, you know, if uh uh of adoption at the federal level, right?

Like with all of these things going away, if it's actually taking us back, you know, three years, four years, five years in the timeline to where we want to be as a not only as a nation but as a community.

Um, I like to see that because one of the things I would be interested is seeing if there's a possibility for uh anything like equity triggers, where if we see a certain level of adoption, then um automatic triggers um for restriction take place so that we don't have to come back, but basically you say, like, hey, once we hit certain percent of adoption um or uh certain level of reduced station trips, then we can start implementing these things automatically.

I think um I'd like to see more information about that.

I have Ms.

Fleming.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor.

I was just curious if you could go back to the slide where um there were the um the gas station trips.

So when I look at this slide, it'd be it'd be so nice if we had like 2019 data of here, because I think that's actually our our baseline, not 2021.

But I would probably hazard a guess that there was probably around 13,000 13 million trips in 2019, that's my best guess from there.

But what I think is so interesting about this is that, and I would just disagree with that that we haven't had a decrease.

I 12.8 million trips off of in 2023, 13.1, it's 400,000, about less trips a year.

If we lost 400,000 gas trips every two years, pretty soon we'd be in like a lot fewer gas trips.

And I just think that this slide doesn't lend us a whole lot of data on on that count.

So I am curious to know if we've considered like with highway widening, when you add a lane to a highway, people are more likely to get into their cars.

And that's one of the reasons why the state of California doesn't like to give grants to road expansion projects that don't include multimodal uses.

So I'm just curious to know if anything has been looked at this when you add gas station infrastructure.

Does that make people any more likely to use gas-powered vehicles?

And I and I think that question is probably a little bit out of your scope, but I would just caution us to keep in mind that the more readily available and easy something is to access people like to do the thing that's easy and that's understandable.

Um good questions by all.

Just a quick a quick note on that slide.

It occurred to me that actually the city's population and the county's population, unfortunately, were declining through all those years until maybe 2025 when hopefully hopefully we we bottomed out.

So it's interesting to see.

I mean, yeah, there's a lot of noise in that data, but even as the city's population declines to some extent that the the um uh gas station visits remain remain similar.

Um back to I I just I certainly don't want to come across as disingenuous.

Thank you for Ms.

Fleming for for calling me out.

Um I let me add a bit more context.

Um so first of all, my wife and I have been all EV for more than 10 years, for more than 10 years now.

We've we've got the chargers, we've got the cars, we can afford to do that, we love it, we're never gonna we're never gonna buy a gas vehicle again, we're never gonna visit a gas station, knock on wood.

Um having said that though, I think everyone's seen the larger context of this.

Uh in the city's economic development efforts, which have been um quite vibrant over the last 18 months or so, I'm I'm proud to say, we've gotten direct feedback from retailers um nationally that that Santa Rosa and Sonoma County stand out.

Kudos to us.

But as your as the slide in this presentation indicated, other people since 2022 have not followed the lead.

In fact, one question I had is are you aware of any other municipality across the US over the past three plus years that has followed Sonoma Counties and the North Bay's lead North Bay's lead with respect to banning gas stations?

Not that we're aware of.

Um really locally, a lot of this started with Petaluma.

Um, we did focus mostly on the Bay Area, we focused quite a bit on our comparative um agencies and partners close by.

Um as you start heading to Southern California, you start finding that LA has entertained concepts of this, so the concept is not foreign.

Um looking at options to bake it into general plans is not foreign.

Um much of those from what I've seen work back to more of an incentive-based uh but still don't have the restriction of prohibiting.

Um so we really kept it more of a California analysis to understand what it looks like more in our general region, but also in our state.

Um we're happy to expand that effort out to see where this is catching on in other places and work with our partners in those areas to better understand how they're navigating through it.

Um so that's something we would probably have to come back with if we want to expand that search out a bit further.

That's one data point I'd like because again, we can all be, especially my two colleagues here who worked on this initiative.

We can be proud of the fact that that the North Bay put itself out out there, not just Santa Rosa but other cities as well.

I suspect that when those conversations were had at that time, the expectation was that we were riding a wave that was going to break across the rest of the nation and then other municipalities were gonna follow.

Here we are a few years later, and they haven't followed, and that's at least a data point that we should we should think about because then the second item that has hit the headlines uh nationwide is as my colleague Mr.

Kruppi mentioned, is that the the um the funding landscape around electrification has changed.

Obviously, with respect to um private vehicles, but even here at the city we've seen it in terms of electric bus procurement, for example, right?

And the federal grant availability.

It's a different landscape now than it was in 2022.

Uh and so putting these together, I think it's at least a it's at least um uh uh fair for the city to look at it to look at the ordinance and say uh how is this doing what we want it wanted to do?

And the answer may well be yes.

I'm not uh I am not um a strong opponent of the of the gas station ban, but I think it's it's fair to ask is this serving our residents um and a lot of the questions that we've had today have have nudged around that point more specifically and Gabe you you um went through this a couple of times but talk me through it again in terms of the metric that we that we use to evaluate the success of um of this policy of the of the um limitation of gas stations is it a is it a decline of greenhouse gases is it a a um limitation of brownfield sites what's the metric to determine or to indicate that we are we are doing something um that's healthy for the environment.

Thank you Mary for that question I think it's really both and then that that's really an important point with the expansion of gas stations as uh Mr.

Loenthal had mentioned there's quite a bit of regulations to address the safety issue but in the concept of brown fields really focuses on a lot of the relics and older systems that we've had in place that weren't heavily regulated that we now have to deal with but it also does increase risk so as you add that there's more environmental risk by the expansion of gas stations.

So by shrinking that down to avoiding those you're really addressing those additional risks from environmental standpoint in communities.

So I I think that that's really sort of a clear goal of what the policy tried to focus on.

Now the other aspect is is really understanding that if we do shift to full electrification and the community does adopt EVs as the model moving forward that gas stations are no longer needed.

So there's this logical that it really becomes a bit of its own relic in in the fact that it's a product that no longer sells so from really a staffing standpoint why are we investing time and resources in supporting that that really plays into it.

But I think the challenge what we're all talking about is it's really understanding a lot of different factors that are can come together to create that so as it currently stands it is a product that the community is using.

What we really want to be mindful to is supply and demand and price and how from an economic development strategy we keep sales within the community and I know from a policy standpoint oftentimes there are really more important goals to that from a health and safety standpoint but when we look at that from economics we have a lot of money bleeding out of our trade market so how do we keep that in and that's those retail uses and by reducing gasoline in certain areas because convenience buying is important um and to council member Fleming's point when highways are widened and people are moving more on the highways and all of a sudden that changes you know behavior patterns as far as sales go that's something that we really factor into this as well.

But I think from a carbon neutrality standpoint um electrification has always been looked at is reducing vehicle miles traveled from a carbon emission standpoint so by using electric vehicles that is a very critical component to doing that so this becomes a companion to that exercise I think the really important point is how do we develop the metrics to determine success or failure of any policy and this is an interesting one because of the behavior points.

So those are certainly as we come back as we can build in more metrics and understanding to vice mayor's point how are there thresholds in that we can do a bit of a deeper dive to understand that.

But I think just because of the behavioral aspect and very much economic driven decisions that people often have a tendency to make it difficult to understand how we can transition and as those those life rafts reduce themselves from a financial standpoint it just becomes that much harder because the manufacturers adjust their moving back and forth a lot of models are falling off from EV and coming back so I think a lot of the auto manufacturers are trying to address to what they perceive in many situations as a bit of a volatile market with everything going on right now.

So it'd be very interesting to see what the trend lines look like over the next five years.

Agreed we just bought a new EV is it is a volatile market um all right you've gone over this too but just so I'm clear the vehicle miles traveled is really the metric to focus on with respect to uh to number or to availability of gas stations as opposed to say a per capita measurement is that is that accurate?

I would say that's an accurate statement because that affects the amount of fuel one is consuming.

Okay.

All right.

That's all for my questions.

Anything else from my colleagues, Mr.

Krepke?

Um when we're talking about um the size of Santa Rosa.

I think we've seen in past presentations roughly the rough numbers.

The size of Santa Rosa right now is 180,000.

Correct?

Give or take?

Approximately, yes.

But during the work day, we swell to over 300,000 within about five miles of downtown?

That is correct.

So when we're talking about vehicles miles traveled, and we're talking about um the usage of of fuel, presumably if we only have 180,000 people that live here, those those other 150,000 are coming from somewhere else.

And so I'd be interested to see more information on, and this may have to come from our economic development arm on the population that is commuting into Santa Rosa.

Why they're commuting into Santa Rosa, what kind of jobs, you know, if we can get as granular as income level, I would be very interested to see that as well.

All right, thank you all.

And I know we've got interested members of the public here.

Why don't we move to public comment?

If you are a member of the public and would like to comment on this item, make your way to one of either of the podiums, and feel free to put in your name, and we'll go back and forth between the podium between the podiums.

All right, Fred, you can kick us off.

Thank you very much.

This is a very interesting conversation and great staff report, and uh makes me proud to be from Santa Rosa and California.

Um my own personal behavior is that I go for price, and so it wouldn't matter for me if there's a new gas station somewhere because I'm gonna go to find the cheapest price.

And so I also don't want to wait in line forever, so I end up going to the golf station on Melita and Highway 12, which is comparable to Costco, and there's people having to wait in line there.

So that's what I do, and let's see.

So it doesn't look to me now that the current uh use and demand calls for a new station.

Um, I'm not really in a position to buy an EV because I still have my my truck still works, and I still have sunken carbon cost in my truck.

So if I was to sell it and buy an EV, that would waste all that carbon cost that it took to make my truck.

Um, and also I'm really not anxious to buy a new vehicle because I think that newer stuff is cheap, and I don't want to have all the stuff tracking me, whatever I do.

So there's there's a some reluctance to get an EV because of that.

Um, I think and part of your calculation here, I know Santa Rosa is looking at adding thousands of new housing units, and um, you know, downtown and also through the South Santa Rosa specific plan, and as long as the population of Santa Rosa is approximately 35 or 40 percent disadvantaged community, which means their annual income is 80 percent of state household median income median household income and less, then those people aren't really in a position to buy an EV, especially if the prices are going up, and the people who are commuting in are people who maybe you can't afford to live here.

So I think that that that's something that should be taken into account as a metric, is that that that that's uh like an economic fact on the ground rather than something that you would track that you can look in through the census to see how how people's uh annual income are um so that's generally the gist of what I had to say.

I think it's a really interesting conversation, and what I would suggest would be to um allow the modification of gas stations given the metrics that's already been discussed.

So if you if you have a population of people who have a lower annual income and EVs are still expensive, and it turns out you've added thousands of people to the Santa Rosa population, then it might be adaptive to allow gas stations to add a little bit more capacity to meet the needs of those people who can't afford EVs.

Thank you, Fred Woody.

Oh, okay.

There we go.

Good afternoon.

Woody Hastings with the coalition opposing new gas stations.

Uh coalition was uh involved in uh having the uh helping the city of Santa Rosa to adopt the the ordinance in 2022 to date, as well as all the other cities in Sonoma County to date.

This is the first time the first instance where the ordinance is coming back back for reconsideration.

I guess the first comment I'd want to make is as the coalition, um, you know, folks reach out to us, so to uh respond to that question around you know uh that you posed uh mayor staff around other cities following suit in that the coalition has been reached out to by other states Ohio, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington State, and others, those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head, and more nearby in Napa County, all five uh all five incorporated municipalities in Napa County, American Canyon, Calistoga, St.

Elena, Yantville, and the City of Napa have adopted permanent prohibitions in Marin County, Fairfax, and San Anselmo.

Uh Sacramento has it in their 2040 uh climate action planning to get that on the books.

Los Angeles has looked at it, so it is propagating.

But yes, we you know North Bay should be proud that we're leading the way in this, right?

Um the other thing I would like.

Oh, so that you know, the slide that was up there earlier about uh the other cities.

You could just put all you know, nearly all 482 other cities in the state on that chart, but you should have the ones on there that have adopted the um the ordinance.

Can we have the overhead thing turned on?

Because the other point I want to make is there's a little graphic here.

Great.

Can everybody so this is also from this helps respond to that question around trends that was raised, and so um hopefully this helps in sort of the macro look at what the trends are.

This also comes from the California Energy Commission.

Um, you know, gasoline sales in the state of California peaked in 2005 at about 16 billion gallons per day.

Uh, we're now at about 13.7 billion gallons per day.

This chart is in thousands of barrels per day, and the trend lines that the CEC is looking at are all heading downward.

Sonoma County is probably on that quickest, the lower trend line there, because you know, we're pretty high adoption of electric vehicles.

Um, so in my view, the city, you know, if it's gonna do anything, it should be looking at uh engaging with the owners and operators of gas stations as they begin to need to um close and to make sure that the responsible parties are the ones that pay for the remediation and cleanup of gas stations as they close.

Um I think those are the comments I wanted to make, so thanks very much.

Thank you, Woody, and thanks for all of Congas's work on this over many years.

Uh we'll go to the podium over here.

Miss.

Hello, uh, my name is Christine Hooks, and I am with uh CONGAS and also with uh Sonoma County Climate Activist Network who supports the original uh uh ban on new gas stations, and I am here to support that as well, not to not to change or alter it, but uh leave it as it stands.

And I'd like to present an idea and I uh an imagination for why that is we should hold the line with that is as as Santa Rosa grows, and I have seen it grow a lot um in the last 10 years, uh infill of housing and uh you know apartments and that is all and ideally close to transit, transit-oriented growth, that's all that's all good.

We need to infill.

But if we all those people who grow and come in all drive cars, and I if they certainly if they drive gasoline cars, but any car is adds to traffic and traffic is already you know can be quite uh debilitating in uh getting around.

So if we hold the line on gas stations, no new infrastructure for that, and we encourage people to other modes of transportation.

Uh when people need cars, they're going to rent a car.

People are going to rent if if new.

I have heard of rental development new rental developments for EVs.

I think there's one in Sacramento or somewhere in the valley, that the development toward rental and people who don't want to own cars in big cities, that the availability of of electric charging, and it's more efficient to get and the lower cost for driving it is moving towards electric electric cars.

So therefore we want to help push that edge of changing the infrastructure to electric vehicles and maybe to and ideally to fewer vehicles by keeping holding the line on new gas stations and not doing anything to upgrade those except for safety, obviously, and environmental quality.

So I hope that's clear.

So if there's gonna be driving cars, let's drive electric cars and let's let's help push that envelope.

I am proud to hear that that we are standing out as a county and a city, and I think the time will come when very soon that that will be um a recognizing a recognizable thing that is pushing the edge of for cities and counties across the state, particularly and states.

California leads in in a lot of this, so thank you.

I'll try not to ramble.

Um yeah, thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

All right, we'll come back over to this podium here.

Let's keep it moving.

There we go.

You have the floor.

Hi there.

Um good evening, Mayor Stapp and the whole esteemed council.

My name is Matt Callaway.

I'm with the Sonoma County Conservation Action, uh resident of Santa Rosa.

Um, supporter of public health, environmental protection, and responsible climate action.

I'm here tonight to strongly urge you to retain the existing gas station ordinance without changes.

That's option for a uh of the staff report.

Uh this ordinance was carefully crafted in 2022 and addresses a serious environmental and public health concern tied to gas station proliferation.

Uh it strikes a really thoughtful balance, it protects our community from future toxic sites while still allowing existing stations to make important safety upgrades.

Um we talked about how we would need to comply with new regulations to upgrade uh for air quality, stormwater, um groundwater quality, and they could even add uh EV chargers.

Um what's really at stake here, um, well, the science is queer.

Gas stations are public health hazards.

Um, as we expand gas stations, not just add new ones, but expand your current ones, they um are going to increase the release of harmful pollutants like benzen fromaldehyde, node carcinogens like respiratory illness, leukemia, pollutants are especially dangerous for families and children, um, and uh the groundwater contamination, fire hazards, and long-term toxic cleanups of uh petroleum brownfields really also have to be taken into account.

Um, these are gonna be uh paid for by taxpayers when these operators disappear.

Um we've shown that we have more than enough gas stations here in Santa Rosa to meet current and future demands, and weakening this ordinance under vague pressure from unnamed business interests really sets a dangerous precedent.

Um, frankly, it undermines your own past leadership.

Um, this ordinance puts our city on the right side of history, aligning with um what other cities in Sonoma County and around the uh state are have already been doing and are continuing to do.

Um this is part of a countrywide movement, uh away from fossil fuel dependence, and although we might be ahead of the curve, that just shows something to be proud of, and having only a few years under our belt to see that it hasn't been roundly accepted by the rest of the nation is no reason to walk it back.

Um this isn't about banning commerce or limiting freedom, it's about stopping the expansion of what is a dying industry.

I mean, we saw that 25% nearly of cars, new cars are EVs, that's a damning um indictment of the fossil fuel industry and shows that we are riding a wave, even if that wave is not crested yet.

Um so I really ask you, please don't walk back this progress.

Don't open the door for more pollution and more risk to public health, stand by your 2022 decision, uh vote to uphold the current ordinance, um, and protect the well-being of residents for now for generations and protect the legacy that gets fought so hard to cement as being um committed to climate action and um on the right side of history.

Thank you so very much for your time.

Thank you, Matt, and thank you, SCCA.

All right, next podium.

Scott Singer, first of all, I want to say thank you to the mayor, vice mayor, and the city council for letting me speak.

I'm gonna move quickly because I've got less than three minutes.

I'm in contract to purchase 1425 to 1455 Santa Rosa Avenue.

You might know it as the Boot Barn Shopping Center.

It's adjacent to the new Starbucks that was just completed.

Uh we have a written agreement in place to relocate keyword relocate the Costco gas station from its existing site over to what I'll call the new site, which is the boot barn center.

Now, the important part of this is this involves decommissioning entirely the prior site.

It would have all the tanks removed in compliance with all laws, full remediation, backfilled, paved over, striped, and turned back into parking.

This is important because I'm sure you've all been to the Costco.

It's overwhelmed from a parking perspective.

The gas stations overwhelmed.

Um, it's frankly just been far more successful than anyone ever anticipated.

If you do a chat GPT of the Santa Rosa Costco gas station, what you're gonna find is an article about how there's actually traffic crashes because the lines are going out into Santa Rosa Avenue.

It's an overwhelmed site, so we're trying to relocate it over to the new site.

Um I don't represent Costco, I represent only myself, but we're in an agreement to relocate them, just so you understand who the players are.

Uh the proposal again would involve a full decommissioning of the old site.

The new station would be state-of-the-art technology.

Um, the piping changes, the monitoring systems change.

Um, as the police chief meant or fire chief mentioned.

There's dual wall construction now.

Uh there's actually very sophisticated and expensive new systems underground looking for leaks 24 hours a day every second that don't exist at the prior site.

In fact, the piping at the old site is no longer used by most gas station folks because it didn't prove reliable.

Um, so I want to quickly just talk about the benefits to Santa Rosa.

Um, the environmental benefits are the old site gets decommissioned in compliance with laws, and you end up with an old station that's been turned into a safe place with a new station that's obviously um monitored safer dual wall construction.

There's gonna be less greenhouse gases because idle times will go down.

The new site's 2.36 acres.

It has a great uh site plan for stacking, and it's gonna be more efficient and move cars through it without idling like they do with the current.

That will involve less greenhouse gases.

We're gonna add EV charging at the old site.

I'm down to 30 seconds, I better go fast.

I believe it holds about 15 EV chargers or more.

Um there may be EV charging at the new site.

We're open to discussing mitigation measures, mitigation dollars, funds to clean existing brown fields, uh, very open to whatever the city wants to discuss.

The economic benefits are good jobs that pay over twenty-two dollars an hour, sales tax revenue, real estate tax revenue.

Uh I'm out of time.

The request is to amend the zoning code to allow a relocation only.

Thank you, Scott.

Ananda.

Uh, good afternoon, Mayor Stapp, Council members, city staff.

I want to begin by acknowledging and supporting the city's climate leadership.

Uh the environmental and public health impacts associated with fossil fuels are of course real, and it's appropriate that the city continues to take its leadership in this area seriously.

At the same time, I appreciate that the study session is an opportunity to focus on whether the current code provides sufficient flexibility for modifications, renovations, or relocation of existing gas stations, consistent with council goals of economic vitality and safe, healthy community.

As written, the current regulations are extremely narrow.

In practice, they create challenges for existing stations that need to modernize, improve overall site design, or participate in larger redevelopment or relocation efforts.

And these are the very types of investments that we hear are needed for those same uh entities to make investments in EV charging infrastructure.

A complete lack of flexibility can produce unintended consequences.

It can prevent comprehensive projects such as a reload retailer locating to a more suitable site, expanding services, or integrating modern fuel and EV infrastructure from moving forward, even when those projects could result in better environmental outcomes than maintaining older constrained facilities.

A thoughtful amendment to the code does not have to undermine the city's climate goals and can reinforce them.

Rather than an all or nothing approach, the council could consider targeted amendments that allow limited expansion or relocation of existing stations paired with thoughtful safeguards.

This approach acknowledges a reality.

We are still living with.

Most residents and workers continue to rely on gasoline vehicles today.

A total prohibition does not eliminate demand.

It shifts it elsewhere.

In some cases, increasing vehicle miles traveled, vehicle idling, traffic impacts, and reducing local oversight over environmental performance.

Revisiting this ordinance is not about choosing between economic development and climate or public health.

It's about ensuring that our land use regulations are nuanced, effective, and aligned with real world conditions while we continue to support the transition to a cleaner transportation future.

I appreciate the council's willingness to revisit this issue thoughtfully, and I encourage a thoughtful calibrated path forward that advances both environmental responsibility and sound economic uh development.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ananda.

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

Mr.

DeWitt.

Hello, my name is Dwayne DeWitt.

I'm from Roseland.

I wanted to point out that a lot of effort was put into making the ordinance and the original text of this was well thought out.

It's difficult when people come forward and say, well, you know, it's not flexible enough.

We need to have some flexibility.

Well, basically one of the dilemmas that we face is people try to game the system.

People try to find ways in which they can overcome what was originally decided by thoughtful decision makers.

And this situation right here, I would hope you just stick with what you got and stop messing around.

They can come back another time with something much better.

And the situation of the city buying land in other places further down Santa Rosa Avenue and other stuff happening further down Santa Rosa leads to that urban sprawl that's such a problem for us here in Santa Rosa.

We essentially have become sprawl rosa, and we're stretching miles and miles past the downtown.

And the downtown is what was supposed to be our main focus for many years now.

And I'll bring that up later when I can use the overhead projector and show you some historical documents from the past.

Just for now, I won't burn up your time.

Don't burn up our atmosphere.

Just build what we got, get more EV charging stations closer into the center of town.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Duane.

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

Yes.

Yes, please.

Thank you.

My name's Jenny Blake.

I submitted a comment by email.

Um, but just to summarize briefly, um, I was dismayed to hear that you're considering uh reviewing the gas ordinance, gas station ordinance.

Um, the reasons for approving it in the first place haven't changed.

Um, everything still applies about greenhouse gas emissions, the health and environmental impacts of gas stations, the brownfield sites, the economic considerations, and so on.

Since then, the general plan 2050 was approved with clear and strong statements on the need to reduce fossil fuels, greenhouse gas emissions, and vehicle miles traveled.

The ordinance was very carefully thought out.

It only prohibits new gas stations and expanded fossil fuel infrastructure.

There's nothing in it which stops safety upgrades, new tanks, or anything that would help to improve the environmental health and safety or safety of people due to gas stations.

So it's only about new gas stations or existing or sort of expanded fossil fuel infrastructure.

Um I'm also wondering why the request is being made now to review the ordinance.

Um I've heard, and I don't know if this is true, that it's because Costco has said that they want to expand or change, make some changes to the gas station site.

Um, if that is so, I just wanted to point out that Costco gets over 70% of its profits from membership fees, and then sells gas to members only at a lower price than other gas stations.

And many people drive miles out of their way to get gas at Costco, thus increasing vehicle miles traveled.

So if it's true that this is being done at the request of Costco, I really think the city needs to consider whether it should be making policies due to the request of a corporate of a big corporation like Costco, or if that is not the reason, please could you explain why the city council is being required to review it now, review the ordinance now.

I urge you not to change the ordinance but to keep it in place exactly as it is.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Jenny.

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

Saying none, I'll bring it back to council for for final comments and direction to staff.

Ms.

Van Wales.

Thank you, Mayor.

Just really quickly, I just wanted to say that I um, you know, thinking through this, uh, I don't think there's anything wrong with reviewing an ordinance or a policy that was made in the past.

I'll just say that because it is true that things change and things do evolve.

Um and so for me as a new uh still a fairly new council person, uh going back and looking at the original ordinance and looking at uh, you know, what was in it.

I have it actually right here, and uh yeah, and who um ultimately voted for it uh was really important so that I understood why it was done at the time that it was done.

Um so for me it was very beneficial, and I think there's other issues and other policies that we have in place that we're gonna revisit anyway from time to time because things do change um and evolve.

Um I don't think I want to just say that the changes that are being made at the federal level and to some extent at the state level necessarily are should dictate any changes in this particular policy, because we know that administrations come and go, we're gonna get a new governor in 2026, no matter what.

So things will be changing and evolving anyway.

Um so that does not necessarily mean that just because the rebates have gone away and all of those things, that we need necessarily to assume that people will not buy EVs when they're able to.

Um I know I would like to buy one.

I don't have one, I'm I'm lower income, and I don't have any V and it's kind of a dream.

So I understand that it's really difficult for folks who want to help uh improve our environment, but they can't.

Uh, you know, but I also think that we want to do everything to encourage that to happen eventually for as many people as possible.

I look back at the reason why this was created, and that was to address greenhouse gas emissions and to decrease fossil fuel use, and I don't think anything has changed as far as I think the city of Santa Rosa wanting to do that.

Um so I would be in favor of not making any changes.

I'm just gonna say that right now.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Other thoughts, Mr.

O'Kropkey.

Um, yeah, I I I'm not in favor of making any changes today.

I'll say that.

I think we had a lot of unanswered questions and a lot of conceptual ideas that may be able to flesh out a fully um uh fully thought out proposal future uh at a future study session or a future item.

Um I mean I think you said we can come back with that information uh half dozen times.

Um so I you know um I don't want to um fly in the face of you know our our climate emergency declaration I want to fly in the face of our greenhouse reduction strategy.

Um I just want to see if there's a possibility that we could, you know, we could we could get both.

Maybe we can't, but maybe we can, and I don't think we have enough information to to discuss that today based on the responses um that we were able to get today.

Um I will say that I am still concerned.

Um, yes, administrations do come and go, but as we've seen on a number of issues, decisions by administrations can take years to recover, and I I'm very concerned about this being um a regressive policy taking uh uh impacting some of our most vulnerable population and workforce, um, whether they're residents or those uh commuting from other areas.

Um, you know, I do want to say that just because there's a gas station doesn't mean that people are gonna use it because it's easy, it may be the only thing they can afford to do.

You don't drive a 2002 Toyota because it's easy.

You don't drive a 30-year-old car because it's easy, it's because all you can do.

So I just want to make sure that we're taking care of everybody in our community and see if there's a way that we could support everybody while also supporting our goals that uh this council and other councils have reinforced.

Thank you, Miss Fleming.

Thank you.

Um thank you for taking the time to look into this.

Uh I don't believe we should make any changes to the code at this time for the following reasons.

Um, one is that, and most of these have already been said, but I'll I'll just say what I think it is right now, which is that I think that we need some time to see how the current code plays out.

Since the code was adopted, we have added, we've added permitting for a new gas station.

Um, I don't know that we we actually show we've shown a decline in in trips to gas stations.

So it's not clear to me that we have any increased demand.

Um, and then in addition, you know, the the arguments around economics I think are important to consider in terms of we have, you know, these huge economic impacts from climate change, and all of almost all of that is driven by um greenhouse gas gas and and petroleum use.

And so I think it's really important to consider the impacts and the costs of that.

You know, we may someone may have a job and someone may have access to something, but the cost of that to to our human society is and and more than just people, I mean our ecosystems is just really profound.

Um then, you know, I I think that over time, as the market sort of settles out on electric vehicles, as we get some more, I hope clarity and stability at the federal level, we'll have a better sense of what our community needs in terms of fueling.

Hopefully, it's electric fueling or other kinds of fueling that are not uh greenhouse gas emission causing.

Um the other thing too is that as we add housing units, making sure that those housing units have accessible transit and that we continue to expand both our our city bus service as appropriate, but also tie that into smart rail and Sonoma County Transit are ways that we can densify without adding too much more demand for vehicles.

So Santa Rosa is really lucky.

Our most folks live and work in who live here work in Santa Rosa.

We have really um great short range transit, and so um hopefully we can start to reduce our our generally our our car traffic.

The other thing around about cars is that electric vehicles on the whole tend to be lighter, as you mentioned, and the city does.

While we may not get all of the the gas purchases in the city, we do get the benefit of having lighter vehicles on the road.

And we know from our TPW team that it is really costly to maintain our roads.

So anything we can do to discourage heavy vehicles in the city is is a bonus for us on a on a back-end savings.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, I'm gonna pull up my EV driver cred for a moment.

One correction.

EV vehicles are actually heavier.

In fact, one of the sick one of the most significant ways that EVs contribute to pollution, and they're awesome in all ways, but almost always, by the way, is uh increased higherware.

So tire pollution coming off the tires because they are heavier as results of those batteries.

Uh we can go down quite the quite the rabbit hole here.

Nevertheless, EVs and electrification is the way to go.

I think we're all very similar up here on the dais.

Uh the county is heading in the right direction.

The only discussion here is um, is this particular ordinance written in the way that it is?

Um is it the optimal ordinance for the county given some of the trade-offs?

And what I would like, I'm certainly not in favor of making any changes today.

What I would like to see to the extent that it's possible to get, and I don't want to send staff down a very difficult wormhole, so by all means uh push back now or in the future as we as we potentially plan for a study session.

Um, how is it how can we measure the environmental success of this initiative?

Is there any way to get to a good measurement of um are we in fact decreasing greenhouse gases by limiting gas stations in our area?

Um you can hear even in the anecdotes of the people behind uh behind the podium today.

There are um in the in these discussions, there's a lot of back and forth about well, when you have cars idling, does that increase greenhouse gases as opposed to you know encouraging people to drive less?

I don't know what the answer is.

To the extent that there could be some data showing that we are in fact making improve or improving our environmental metrics in some way, particularly our our GHD metric, um, that would be helpful.

And then any information about the economic impacts, including the potential opportunity costs of the current ordinance.

Um it should be it should be said because obviously, thank you for um the representative Scott who came and spoke uh uh on behalf of uh an initiative involving Costco that has become socialized in the community.

That is just one of the opportunities that that has um on which there's been discussion.

When we were down at in Las Vegas last year for ICSE, we heard it, we got an earful from a lot of national retail brands that this was in fact an issue.

They are aware of this ban and it's impacting their business decision.

If those if those companies don't come here, that might be a decision we want to make, but it does impact our residents.

And to Jeff's point about a regressive policy, that it's not necessarily impacting us, it's impacting other members of our community that might want those jobs or why might want that convenience.

And to the extent that we as a city have some even back of the envelope sense of what the economic impact is of this this policy, I'd certainly be interested in seeing that.

Uh and those are I think those are my two areas of focus.

I just want to know if this policy is is doing what it's supposed to do.

Um, and and again, one of the things it's supposed to be doing is pushing us forward to a a um a future that is, if not all electric, at least it is has significantly fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

Um that's that's what we want, but there are some trade-offs, and we want to make sure we're making those trade-offs in the best possible way.

And I'd like to have a study session is to talk about that.

Uh any other thoughts from council.

All right.

Gabe and Jessica, have we given you enough enough clarity?

Anything else from from our side.

Yes, thank you, Mary.

Uh mayor, excuse me, and I'll let Ms.

Jones chime in on this.

So, what I heard is a further conversation to address some of the uninsert questions.

Um I think those fall just to make sure that we're all on the same page with the mission moving forward.

Um, really the success of the ordinance, how can we develop measures that is meeting our climate goals, understanding economic impacts, understanding some of the more specifics associated with mitigation strategies.

So that would be understanding impacts to queuing, understanding how funding can be utilized, um, and really keeping it in that parameter is exploring further outside of the state on which other jurisdictions have looked at similar ordinances, um, and coming back to the council through a study session format with with those um those answers, and really we'll bring forward the same recommendations, those will hold through this, um, but that'll allow more informed discussion for the council and the community.

And I just want to give Ms.

Jones an opportunity if I missed anything.

Uh no, I think you captured it all, and I will just say that um staff is working on uh implement or a measurement tool for our greenhouse gas emissions and the new strategy that's been put into place.

So um we should with that tool be able to provide some additional information, particularly on this topic for the council.

Perfect.

Thank you both.

Thank you for all the work on this.

Oh, please, Mr.

Alvarez.

So to add to that list, uh, what I've been hearing a lot today is is the difference between a blanket policy opposed to a case-by-stace case uh scenario or requirements of Costco, opposed to one of our lower or smaller convenience stores and what needs and what what benefits when it comes to public safety when it when it comes to um because we know stop and go traffic, we know emissions of idling vehicles is definitely an issue.

So just the case by case compared to a blanket policy and what that looks like.

Thank you, Mr.

Alvarez, and and thank you again uh for all your work on this, Jessica and Gabe.

Thank you.

All right, with that, we will move on then to uh item number six, our report, if any, on our closed session.

Madam City Attorney.

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh, there is no reportable action uh in closed session today.

Thank you.

Perfect.

Thank you very much.

We will move on then to item 8.1, our community power empowerment plan update.

Ms.

Horta.

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

I'm Anna Orta, community engagement manager with the communications and intergovernmental relations office, and I will be presenting the community empowerment plan update for the month of January.

On January 17th, join Santa Rosa Water and the Laguna, the Santa Rosa Foundation at the volunteer planning day number two.

Come and help plant thousands of native plants and trees in this newly restored section of Colgan Creek from 9 a.m.

to 12 p.m.

To register, please be visit srcity.org slash Colgan Creek.

Also on January 17, the rural cemetery preservation committee is hosting their monthly volunteer work day.

The volunteers meet at Franklin Gate, Franklin, and Monroe from 9 a.m.

to 12 p.m.

Projects include the cemetery beautification efforts such as weeding and landscaping projects, painting, repairing borders, restoring plots, and various maintenance work.

For more information, please visit srcd.org slash calendar.

On January 19, community members are invited to join us at the Martin Luther King Jr.

King Jr.

Day of Service at Martin Luther King Jr.

Park 1208 Henley Street from 9 a.m.

to 12 noon.

Volunteers will work together to honor MLK Jr.

and help beautify the neighborhood park through tasks such as speaking up leader, spreading mulch, and weeding.

Lastly, on February 7, join a start it for your heart free class demo day at Fillney Community Center, 2060 West College Avenue from 9 a.m.

to 12 noon.

Celebrate American Hearth Month by discovering fitness classes designed to keep your heart, body, and mind at their best.

Classes are free, but pre-registration is required.

To pre-register, please visit srcd.org slash calendar.

And that concludes the community empowerment plan update for the month of January.

Thank you.

A full slate as always, Anna.

Thank you.

Uh bring it back to council for any questions.

All right, no questions.

We'll throw it over to public comment.

Mr.

DeWitt, are you commenting on this item?

Yes, thank you, sir.

All right, go ahead.

My name is Dwayne DeWitt.

I'm from Roseland.

I'm glad to hear that you consider planting trees and doing natural things as community empowerment.

I do also.

With that in mind, I'd like to see you folks start doing that along the Roseland Creek.

A good portion of Rosalind Creek has been in the city of Santa Rosa for a really long time.

Laguna de Santa Rosa does plant some trees, but we need to have one of those big community empowerment city organized.

Let's get out there and plant the trees for Roseland as soon as possible.

It would give us an opportunity to take the land back from those who might encroach upon it.

And I want to thank you for December 3rd meeting in which you got the news out.

Oh, December 2nd meeting, excuse me.

You got the news out to the city crews and they were in the Roseland neighborhood on Wednesday December 3rd taking care of business trying to treat that creek right moving the transient vagrants along and it was a good day all the way around thank you.

Thank you Duane.

Would any other members of the public like to like to comment?

Seeing none, we will close public comment and bring it back to the dais for any final comments.

All right on it's it's a new year it's a new year hangover we're we're lightweather comments today but thank you for all the work all right that takes us to item number nine our city manager and city attorney's reports and before I officially turn it over to our brand new interim city manager Lorianne Farrell I want to welcome her to the city of Santa Rosa.

I assume those of you those those regulars here noticed around the dais thank you for being here thank you for coming up we're all we're all glad to have you here I can I think I can speak on behalf of the group as part of your report feel free to hold forth.

Good evening thank you Mayor Stapp and thank you council members for putting your trust in me this is a very exciting opportunity for me I'm really happy and thrilled to be here and to be bringing my three decades of experience in local government across different cities throughout the country but in particular in California to bear to help you achieve the goals that you've outlined in your strategic plan and that we've discussed individually just really happy to be here and want to say that the executive team has been very warm and welcoming all the staff that I've met so far have been fantastic and also the community members that I've gotten a chance to meet and so I'll be making rounds to meet different community organizations our employee associations and obviously working closer with you to help you achieve your goals over the coming months until a permanent city manager selected so thanks again for putting your trust in me glad to have you here um any any other official business from the from the city manager's office before I turn it over to our city attorney I I will make a report at the next meeting I just wanted to keep it simple this evening so nothing more.

That that works and the city should know that within a day of her being here I was dragging her off to 7 a.m meetings so we we she we put a right to work.

Over then to the city attorney Teresa anything I have no report this evening but I do want to extend a warm welcome to Lorianne we are excited to have you on board.

Thank you all right any any members of the public wish to comment on this item Dwayne welcome as Dwayne DeWitt I'm from Roseland I would like to invite the new city manager to come to Roseland.

Roseland School Gymnasium is a perfect spot to have a community meeting and talk to a lot of folks that come from Roseland.

They'll come there very easily and they will welcome you we're looking for that new voice that new breath fresh air it's nothing but a good time thank you kindly have a great new year.

Thank you Duane are there any other members of the public who'd like to speak we'll close public comment then and we will go on to item 10 statements of abstention or recusal by council members I believe we have one Mr.

Okropke thank you Mr.

Mayor I will be uh recusing myself from a portion of item 15.2 out of an abundance of caution as it may conflict with my profession.

Any other statements of possession recusal seeing none we will then go on to item 11 mayor and council members reports any reports this evening Miss Fleming.

Yeah thank you very much mayor um I'd like to start out by just extending a warm welcome to Lori Ann I'm so glad you're here and we're looking forward to working with you during this period lots is going on and um I just feel like it's as um a new year a new city manager and just really grateful that you're joining us so um thank you um last week uh the metropolitan transportation commission had a special meeting in San Francisco, and we um convened uh the first meeting of what's called the district.

The district is um a board that will govern um a district of the five southern counties of the Bay Area, which is the Contra Casas uh Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda, and San Francisco.

And the purpose of this um district is to um to address problems associated with the transit fiscal cliff, which have occurred all across the state.

So at our last meeting, our first meeting in our last meeting last Wednesday, we heard polling data around a potential revenue measure.

Um, the polling data was not sufficient um for us to move forward and recommend um going forward with um a measure that that the the district would do, and so at this time um we'll await to more um if another entity does end up deciding to run a measure, and I'll be happy to provide educational information about this.

But you might say how does this impact us here in Sonoma County?

Um and that's a great question.

And one of the things that's important to remember is that the Bay Area ecosystem is an economic ecosystem.

It impacts us, and when there are downturns um in the southern counties there or even upturns, things really affect us around traffic, around property um costs, around all kinds of things, and specifically um we do have a really significant shortfall for BART and Caltran, and there's something called SB 125, which is uh over a hundred million dollars, and that is being funded in part from Sonoma County revenues that would otherwise go to our county.

So this does really matter to us.

So if you have any questions, I'm happy to talk about it more.

Thank you for all your work on those committees.

Ms.

Fleming, uh Ms.

Ben Willis.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just really quickly um wanted to uh extend a thank you to our uh public safety and law enforcement Santa Rosa Police uh for their work this weekend at the rally, and I really just wanted to take a moment to thank them for all the all the times that we've had rallies in the last year and and and this past weekend, and what a fantastic job they have done uh uh keeping everyone safe and keeping everything peaceful.

And along with that, I wanted to thank the community as well for um peacefully exercising their right their constitutional rights to free speech.

Um so really uh just uh really well done, and I hope that that continues and um and I hope that uh whatever happens that we uh continue to conduct ourselves in the best way that we can uh while uh I don't know, probably some folks feel uh a little uh frustrated, and I understand that.

So I just wanted to thank everyone all around for all of their work.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

Good good points.

Uh Mr.

Okropke.

Whoops, sir, I had you uh had you listed.

Um I will add just a few then.

Uh the the board of the Snow of Sonoma Clean Power met last week.

Uh it was the main focus were uh the main areas of focus were to review the legislative foci right now.

Uh they're primarily geothermal.

Sonoma Clean Power to its credit is looking for ways to streamline the state's process um as processes around opening up the geothermal industry, which is obviously of great local importance and regional importance because of the geysers, um, and Sonoma Queen Power is doing a lot of heavy, heavy advocacy around that um as well.

They're gonna buy it, they're they're trying to buy a um a fund, a a um super fund site onto which they're gonna put a solar power generation um facility up in Mendocino.

So, really cool new project that's gonna lower rates, especially for the people in Mendocino.

And then they're also looking to uh expand their e-bike program or at least continue the e-bike program.

So, as always, Sonoma Clean Power is quite busy.

Um, and then on behalf of Mr.

O'Kruppy, I will I will announce I will note that we had our first meeting of the three different ad hoc committees um yesterday actually at the fairgrounds, regard related to the United Soccer League.

So the fair board has an ad hoc committee, the county has an ad hoc committee, and we as a city have an ad hoc committee.

And we met in glorious harmony yesterday to talk about the opportunities with United Soccer League.

Um, and a there was a robust discussion, and we have a few other meetings scheduled for the course of this year, and stay tuned, folks, because lots of activity with the United Soccer League that we'll talk about in the future.

Uh and that can oh now now you want to speak, Mr.

Okropke.

I did.

I didn't have many events uh since our last meeting, but there was one I wanted to do.

Um so we did have um our latest measure H oversight Committee meeting.

Um, and um the unimportant part is that uh I was voted chair.

The important part is that the vice chair is Matt Tegnazi, one of our firefighters, um, and members of four and member of 1401 and a labor representative on the committee.

So uh congratulations to him, and uh come March we will have uh all of our analysis of our department and the rest of the department's usage of the measure of H funds and uh make sure everything is up to snuff.

Excellent.

Glad for a strong Santa Rosa voice there.

Thanks for mentioning it.

Uh with that, let's go to public comment.

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

Seeing none, we will close public comment and we will go on to now to our series of um uh an appointments to our various boards and committees.

Let's see if we can uh if we can scoot this one along.

I'm gonna call item 11.2 to start.

These are the uh board chair, uh these are the um this is our annual the mayor's annual opportunity to appoint or reappoint those uh local volunteers who are doing great work and heading our city boards, um, which range from art in public places, BPU, etc.

Um I'm gonna call for public comment first.

Are there thoughts from the public on this item regarding the appointment or reemployment of any of the chairs for our community boards at the moment?

Mr.

DeWitt, I had a feeling, my name is Dwayne DeWitt.

I am from Roseland and 30 years ago, the city of Santa Rosa had put forward an effort to try to have more diversity on boards and commissions.

One of the things that could be more helpful, I think, is if we also opened up the chairman and chairwoman positions so that they alternated rather than just keeping the same person in a chair position for long periods of time.

This would give the younger people an opportunity to learn how to do these type of activities and how to move on up within our local governmental system.

So I'm supportive of our local governmental system.

I am a person who totally believes in duty, honor, and country.

My case community also.

So let's open it up.

Let's get some more young people in these things, let's let them be the chairs and chairwomans of these different groups, and we'll have a better city in the future.

Thank you kindly.

Thank you, Duane.

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

Seeing none, we'll close public comment.

And we will I will I will announce that my I would like to reappoint all the existing chairs, so no changes and madam city clerk.

If I understand correctly, that means we do not need to take a vote, correct?

Correct, Mayor.

All right.

We are then moving on to item 11.3.1.

This is the change.

This is the uh mayor's opportunity to to appoint or reappoint members to all of the council subcommittees.

We will be staying mostly the same.

I'm grabbing my notes here.

Two changes.

Um I'm pleased to uh to appoint uh Miss Ben Waylos to the violence prevention partnership, and also make her chair.

She and Miss Rogers will do a great job on that committee.

So and then also on uh the public safety subcommittee, uh I am going to uh in the it turns out I'm going to reap or I'm going to appoint myself to that committee uh along with uh Miss Fleming and Mr.

O'Krepke, who will remain as chair.

And those are the only two items among this on the subcommittees that I will or the only two changes I'll make.

And oops, I should have called for public comment first.

Are there members of the public who would like to comment on those subcommittee appointments?

I agree.

Thank you very much for uh for serving.

We will move on then to item.

Oh, actually, I think I do need do I need a a do I need a council support for that?

Madam City Clerk, I just want to confirm the various processes sometimes get me confused.

No, mayor.

It looks like this is solely um a responsibility that Lynn uh lives with the mayor.

Perfect.

All right.

Thank you.

We will move on to item 11.4 point one these are the mayor's appointments to the county regional and state positions and I am just double check there are two changes everything remains everything will remain the same on those appointments with two exceptions so Miss Fleming and I both love Sonoma Clean Power unfortunately Miss Fleming's schedule uh it makes it a sometimes difficult for her to to get to that meeting at least on some on some occasions so she and I have been have been flip flopping we're gonna tag continue to tag team um but in but for the coming year I'll take the primary role and she'll take the alternate role but believe me we will both be attending those meetings so the only change there is flipping the the primary and the alternate and then on the zero waste uh zero waste Sonoma board uh there is a decision for the council to reach here uh as we discussed last month uh during our censure discussion uh it was my my intention and my preference to um remove miss mcdonald from the committees on which she was serving it is my preference that for the reasons that we discussed last month that we that we make that change this month but this is ultimately a council decision and so I want to throw this out to the council that if um again there are issues of workload here when we when we're making these changes and I don't and many of you have expressed the the difficulty of making these committee meetings on the zero waste Sonoma board we have a staff member here at the city who does who attends uh frequently uh and I'm willing to be essentially the I'll be the main appointee but essentially the alternate in combination with the staff if the council agrees that we should we should make the change and remove miss McDonald from this board uh but in order to do that obviously we need a motion and a second and a vote and so I'm gonna throw I'm gonna put that out to council now for for you to decide whether as we discussed last month we want to make that change so moved.

I have a motion mayor can you please clarify the motion on the floor for which two positions it is for the zero waste it is for the zero waste Sonoma.

I guess it would I guess we would do two separate do we have to do two separate votes apologies I was I was racing ahead let's go back to the let's go back to Sonoma Clean Power uh what we're what's at issue here is um simply to reverse to have me as the primary and um miss Fleming as the alternate is there a motion I'll move that thank you all right Miss Fleming is moves that is there second second all right Mr.

Krepti is the second we'll do a quick vote mayor we need to take public comment oh of course these these committee appointments they get me they get me flustered every year all right are there any members of the public that would like to comment on the Sonoma clean power appointment seeing none we'll close public comment and bring it to a vote.

Thank you council member rogers is absent council member mcdonald is absent council member Fleming yes council member ben wells yes council member alvarez aye vice mayor okke aye mayor staff yes that the record show this passes with five affirmative votes excellent thank you let us let's go back to the next or to the discussion that I would we were in the middle of then so we got we have zero waste and in fact this is item 11.5.3 um I'm willing to serve as a effectively the alternate although in reality I would be I would be the primary um the council has to decide if it does wish to remove miss mcdonald from this position I will I'll look for a motion in a second just a point of clarification so the motion would be to remove council member McDonald and then all in one motion that you would um replace her that I would I would I would fill I'm willing to fill in that spot for the time being okay all right um I will move that that we remove council member mcdonald and that the mayor will uh fill that spot.

Miss all right.

So we have a motion.

Is there a second?

Seeing I'll say it.

Mr.

Kreppi seconds.

Alright.

So we have a motion, a second, let's go to public comment.

Mr.

DeWitt.

Duane DeWitt from Roseland.

Duty.

Honor.

I take those things very seriously.

And I think that one of the things that's occurring here is an overstepping, if you will.

Because in the past, there have been other members of our council who've been involved with other members of the city staff in what might be called personal relationships.

That's their business.

And I think that this council should be minding its own business in some ways, because essentially what we got here is a bit of a witch hunt, and you folks are punishing somebody.

It's beyond the pale in a way.

And I really feel that if you believe in duty, you would give that person a bit of a hearing, not just here, but actually the kind of administrative hearings that they have where they look and see if somebody violated one of the rules of their organization.

The military does that, and I believe most branches of government do that.

And I really haven't heard much of what the great problem was that one member of the council was involved with someone in the staff of the city.

It's happened before many times, actually.

I've watched it, and I know some of the people that have been involved.

So I really think that you folks have overstepped here, and I hope that you would look at this like you don't want to set a precedent that might come back and bite you in the butt.

Thank you kindly.

Thank you, Duane.

Would any other members of the public like to speak?

Seeing none, we will bring it back for a vote.

Madam City Clerk, whenever you're ready.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Rogers is absent.

Councilmember McDonald is absent.

Council Member Fleming?

Yes.

Councilmember Ben Wellowth.

Yes.

Councilmember Alvarez?

Vice Mayor O'Krepke?

Yes.

Mayor Stapp.

Yes.

Let the record show this passes with five affirmative votes.

Thank you.

Uh let's actually go back up the page.

I skipped that over.

This is the mayor's appointments to county, regional, and state positions.

Um, no changes there.

I'll open that up to public comment.

If there are any members of the public would like to comment on 11.4.1.

Seeing none, we will close public comment.

And I don't think we need a vote there.

Do we do we need a vote, Madam City Clerk, on that one?

On no changes to item 11.4.1.

If there was no action made, we're good to go, right?

Public comment needed.

Okay, let's let's clean up um some of these.

I I glossed over quickly.

11.5.

We we've effectively discussed them, but let's get let's do this in the proper fashion.

Open point 5.1.

This is the appointment of uh representative and alternate to cinema clean power transportation um and climate authorities.

No change there.

Any public comment?

Seeing no members of the public, we will um simply keep our our current staffing.

Uh let's see.

Let me move on to 11.5.4.

This is the appointment of representatives and alternate to a renal enterprise district.

Again, uh, I'm not recommending any changes.

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

Seeing none, we will close public comment and we will we are status quo there.

Thank you, Miss Fleming.

Uh Madam City Clerk, just so I don't make any other errors.

Did I get through did I hit them all?

And and Madam City Attorney, that I did I make it through.

This is the most anxiety-producing item of the of the year for me.

For whatever reason, is so it is so confusing.

Okay, we are quickly moving on before we discover something that I missed.

Um we're gonna go on to a much easier item, item 12, approval of minutes.

Uh are there any amendments or edits to these minutes?

Seeing none, we'll open up the public comment.

Would any members of the public like to comment on the minutes from December 16th?

Seeing none, we will close public comment and we'll do the minutes as submitted.

And now we will move on to consent.

Are there any are there any members of the public?

We don't we and we knew we don't have any that we have to read this week.

Is that is that correct, Vice Mayor?

With the with the consent items.

We no longer read the consent calendar.

I'm still getting used to this to the our new streamline method.

We made a switch um a few weeks before Lori Ann arrived.

All right.

So then I think all I have to ask is are there any uh any questions or comments on the on the consent items?

Seeing none, I can I can call for public comment.

Any members of the public wish to comment and consent?

Dwayne, I waited just for you.

We're on we're on consent, Dwayne.

Any comment?

Finally, sir, I could sense it.

Nothing but a good time with you folks, and I really appreciate that fact.

On the consent today, we contract with people from outside of the city when we could actually be getting some of those services here in the city.

Okay, you've got these two contracts with people from Sacramento.

Could you lean into the mic a bit, Duane?

It's pretty it's quiet down here.

Excuse me.

I know you want to hear me.

I apologize.

We waited for you.

My name is Dwayne DeWitt.

I am from Roseland.

And on consent, you have two items 13-3 and 13-4, which are dealing with organizations from Sacramento, West Sacramento.

These types of activities could be done closer to home, and that would help our business community.

We got a whole auto row right over there off of Corby.

We got people that can provide this type of activity.

I don't know how the uh competition goes for the purchasing orders, but I do hope that in the future you look towards local Santa Rosa business folks and give them a better chance.

I'll be speaking in public comment.

Thank you kindly.

Thank you, Duane.

All right, Vice Mayor, do we have a motion?

I will move items.

I will move to adopt consent items 13.1 through 13.8.

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

Alvarez.

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

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Rogers and McDonald are absent.

Councilmember Fleming?

Yes.

Councilmember Ben Wellos?

Yes.

Councilmember Alvarez?

I have Vice Mayor O'Krepki?

Yep.

Mayor stop.

Yes.

Let the record show this passes with five affirmative votes.

All right, thank you.

And seeing as we have about six minutes before it's five o'clock, we're gonna go ahead to uh item 15.1, our federal legislative platform.

Do we have Kyriakis and John online?

And Miss Wood.

Welcome.

Yes.

Mayor, it'll be one moment.

I'm just getting um Kyriakis and John promoted to panelists on Zoom.

No, no worries.

Misty, thanks for leading this.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Kiriakis and John, welcome.

We know it's we know it's late out east.

Well, thank you very much, Mayor.

Um good evening, the mayor and and council.

Uh you folks a happy new year.

Best wishes uh to the city staff in the city of Santa Rosa.

And uh welcome to Ms.

Farrell in her new position.

Um I'd like to start just briefly by talking about several things related to the landscape here in Washington currently.

Um as you know from comments that were made during the work session in Sacramento and in Washington.

We faced some headwinds this year with uh local government advocacy, um, as you may know, as of January 20th, uh 26 executive orders were issued, followed by another two hundred and two um executive orders uh since then throughout this year or the past year.

And we're faced also with some.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt, John.

Um, do you mind if I start the PowerPoint here so we can go through some of the points?

Oh, sure.

And um, thank you.

I appreciate your excitement.

I might have I might have led you astray, John.

My apologies to both of you.

No, no, no.

I I don't think some of this is on that PowerPoint.

This is sort of an introduction, but Miss Wood, we turn to you.

Thank you.

Thank you for your flexibility.

Good evening, Misty Wood Communications and Intergovernmental Relations Officer.

I'm here tonight with John O'Donnell and Carioca Spagonas with MMO.

They are our federal lobbyists, and we're here tonight to discuss the 2026 federal platform.

Each year the council adopts a federal platform that outlines a city's federal policy and project priorities.

This platform provides guidance and direction to city staff and federal representatives about those priorities.

And so with that, I will pass the mic to MMO partners.

They can discuss a little bit of the highlights of 2025 and then look to the proposed changes for the 2026 platform.

Take it away.

All right.

Well, thank you, Mr.

I'm sorry I jumped in front of you.

Um so what I was saying is um so a lot of Biden administration policy and programs have been changed, uh portions of them eliminated.

And as you also know, over the past uh part of the headwinds over the past 12 months uh have been these uh executive orders, which have uh cause federal courts across the country to issue injunctions, restraining orders, vacating parts of the executive orders.

One in particular that Carriakis and myself have dealt with in some places is the Sanctuary Cities um uh executive order, which as you well know is uh involving several court cases, the city and county of San Francisco versus the president, uh the city of Santa Clara versus the president, and then back east uh Chelsea and Lawrence, Massachusetts uh challenging the Sanctuary Cities Executive Order.

We we maintain uh close contact with the Conference of Mayors, the League of Cities, and the National Association of Counties to follow what's happening on the front with these uh executive orders and uh report to those frequently when talking with city staff.

Um, Mr.

Pagonis is going to give you more details about the city's federal platform for 2026 and successes in the 2025 uh platform.

At this point, I just want to mention several things that are on the horizon, both with authorizing and appropriations legislation.

Uh this year, there are four bills that affect local governments that will be dealing with FEMA reform legislation, the water resources development uh legislation, uh two housing bills, and surface transportation legislation.

I'm glad to be able to report to you that on the FEMA housing and transportation bills, and I would add water resources.

There's a significant amount of bipartisan uh partnership that takes place with the minority and the majority in Congress.

And we've seen some of that start with legislate some of this legislation which was introduced last year.

We expect to see more of it this year.

What typically holds up the surface transportation bill, which is a reauthorization of that uh infrastructure investment and jobs act that had so much infrastructure spending.

What will hold this one up, this reauthorization is um finding the revenue to pay for a new reauthorized surface transportation bill.

But even when we get to that point, and that's usually one of the last things that is dealt with by Congress when in that reauthorization.

We'll find the ways and means committee and the Senate Finance Committee uh having to engage in quite a bit of bipartisanship to find the right revenue solution for that legislation.

Where we are in appropriations, we're finishing the FY 26.

I think uh we're reasonably optimistic that all well that 11 of the appropriations bills will be finished before January 30th.

The one that seems to be a problem is Homeland Security, and that has a lot to do with what has been happening with immigration policy.

So it may wind up at the end of this month that all the other federal agencies and departments are funded for FY26, but Homeland Security will have to adhere to the FY25 spending limits.

It won't allow for any new spending in the department.

There can be some anomalies that cover things that are unusual for the department, but it looks like we're going to a CR for Homeland Security, and the other bills will be final before the CR expires on January 30th.

Kyriakis, do you want to take over?

Thanks, John.

I really appreciate it.

Good evening, Mayor Stabb, Vice Mayor O'Krapkey and members of the council and Ms.

Farrell, nice to meet you on online.

Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the 2026 federal platform and outcomes from 2025.

As John highlighted, 2025, to say it mildly, was certainly a tough year for federal funding for local government programs, which faced uh significant headwinds, including as John alluded to, uh some funding cancellations and terminations, uh, project reviews and administration uh proposed budget cuts.

And despite these headwinds, the City of Santa Rosa's federal advocacy program, I'm happy to announce and and discuss, continue to secure funding for priority projects and advance advocacy results on federal policies important to the city.

I'll say this success, and I I've said it before, and John uh and I have talked about this uh many times with you all, is that this is a team sport.

Uh these successes are direct result of the city council's involvement and direction in this platform and advocating for these projects and priorities, the city staff's uh time and effort and involvement, uh, as well as and and to say it mildly the the congressional delegation's steadfast support for your priorities and and projects, and that includes Senators Padilla, Schiff, Representatives Thompson and Huffman.

I'll do my best to kind of give you the high notes of the federal funding uh awarded and and funding that's currently pending.

So right now, as as we look at it, as John mentioned, you know, the FY26 process is still ongoing.

Uh, but to date, uh, about 38.6 million has been awarded to the city through formula funding and through uh competitive grants.

Uh that funding number, uh, and I'll I'll you'll see it on the next page.

Um, and before we get there, I I just want to say that's probably gonna go up to about uh 41 million or close to 42.

Uh once this week is over, we anticipate another 2.3 million for the city's LANO trunk uh earmark requests will be finalized.

So we'll put that in the awarded column at probably by the end of the week.

Uh next slide.

Uh pending funding is about uh 30.5 million.

We've got a number of projects that are still uh in the pipeline and being developed.

Uh first one you'll see is uh economic development uh request uh for the Roseland area, uh a number of projects under water and energy resiliency.

Uh as I said earlier, the Lano Trunk Line uh looks like it's it's closer to being uh final, and we should know by the end of the week.

A couple other competitive grant programs projects are still out there like Farmers Lane and uh a couple of projects.

I I will say on on the the last one on this on this page, DOT buses and buses and infrastructure 9.9 million.

That project was actually awarded a few years ago, but as we we mentioned earlier, uh when the administration came in, uh they they took a pause on awarding uh projects that had not been obligated.

And so this project currently is under review.

Uh the city is is working and we're working with with staff uh to get that project obligated, hopefully in the next uh month or so.

Next slide.

Uh before we talk about strategy, I also wanted to say what's not on this uh sheet right now is is really some of the projects uh that were uh awarded previously.

I know this council and previous councils uh fought hard to get funding uh post-disaster for a number of of critical community projects and fund and those projects came online in 2025.

I just wanted to highlight that about 17 million was made funding was made available for in federal funding for Fire Station 5, which I know you all broke ground and opened the facility recently.

15 million for two housing projects with over 190 new units have come online and again made possible with federal funding through the CDBGDR program.

In addition, I know the city and staff have been working really hard with community partners and the state to get the Hearn Avenue Interchange Project open, and so congratulations on that.

Major major achievements, and just wanted to congratulate you on getting those over the finish line.

So I wanted to now shift over to um you know 2026 and the strategy that's the strategy outlined aligned with uh the city's goals uh and and goal set goal setting cycle that took place earlier uh last year.

Uh it also acknowledges rapidly changing federal government policies and and actions uh almost by the second and incorporates feedback from council department heads and the city manager.

Uh back in October, John and I had uh two days of meetings with with council and the city management and staff to get feedback on the direction for this uh 2026 federal platform.

Next slide, please.

So the platform uh that you have in front of you hasn't really changed uh significantly from 2025.

What the next slides do is sort of highlight uh the the changes that were made.

Uh so without going through uh line by line, there's a lot of um content here.

Uh I'll just point out on this first slide wildfire extreme weather uh FEMA Act and Fix Our Forest Acts were added to the list of legislation uh that we're certainly monitoring and the city is has weighed in on.

We've also had the city's also added update to national insurance program and and flooding uh and funding for flood prevention.

The next slide.

On surface transportation, uh there was a line included uh basically to make sure that uh we were aware and and tracking the surface transportation authorization bill.

Uh also included road safety uh as part of of the language and also extreme weather.

Uh surface transportation authorization bill, as John mentioned, uh will be coming up in the next few months, and the city has weighed in with its recommendations.

Next slide.

Uh, under again under surface transportation, uh, there the language here is is a continuation and slightly modified from the previous year on uh on monitoring any action that Department of Labor may take.

Next slide.

Uh water infrastructure conservation and energy resiliency.

Uh a couple things were added uh specifically in that first uh paragraph under we've added the core of engineers environmental infrastructure as a program to support and to monitor.

Uh that's the account that the city's uh Lana Trunk Line uh project was is funded under, so we've added that to include to reference that.

Next page water infrastructure again, uh conservation energy resilience.

Uh first paragraph is new, and that is in in response to what Congress did a couple years ago to include a direct payments uh to local governments through the tax code and wanted to make sure we uh included a statement that supports any ongoing efforts to bring that that back.

It was it was rescinded under the one big beautiful bill act.

So uh this uh reaffirms the city support for that type of programs.

Uh next next slide, please.

So under the housing and homelessness, uh we added uh the city added, I should say, safe parking programs uh to the list of of programs to support and monitor.

And next slide, please.

And that the um to help attract new businesses was also added uh in recognition of the city's ongoing efforts to attract and and help small businesses expand in in Santa Rosa.

Next slide, please.

Also added uh to transfer or sell federal property local governments given uh some interest that the city has in federal properties located next door or across the street, I should say, uh, and also to provide additional incentives to spur uh affordable housing.

Next slide under public safety uh under the that first paragraph after uh to fund public safety and infrastructure, uh technology was added.

Uh, I know the city has been um using uh new technologies to help augment and support uh police officers.

So that was included, and also drone deployment was included in that second paragraph uh referencing the cops hiring program and uh the nexus to school resource officers.

Next slide.

Then new language was added to uh reflect uh ongoing concerns by the fire department on the uh increased cost for fire equipment and apparatus since COVID, and uh and that's why that was included there.

And I'll turn it back to Misty on the recommendation.

Thank you.

Um thank you, Mayor Staff, Vice Mayor Krepke, and members of the council for the opportunity to present this evening at this time.

The communications and intergovernmental relations office recommend that the council adopt the 2026 federal legislative platform by resolution, and we are all here to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ms.

Wood, and thank you, John Kiriakis.

Um I'm gonna bring it back to council for questions.

Any questions on our legislative platform?

Ms.

Ben Wales, go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh I was wondering, I and last year when we did this, we added something in uh in regard to immigration, which I know you talked about at the beginning.

Um that was kind of uh in regards to economic development.

And I'm just wondering now with the state of the way things are uh again, what which you addressed at the beginning uh um if there's some way we can incorporate something um along the lines of immigration and deportation policies.

Um that's for me, um, that's one of the my big concerns at the federal level is the way that deportations are being handled.

I know that that's not happening here at that level, but I am really concerned, really really concerned, um, that things that they're really um raising uh uh fears and um I don't know what is in store for California or the Bay Area, but I I just feel like we need to be prepared.

So and I don't know what the language would be, I uh or if it can be addressed here, but I feel like you know you talked about it at the beginning, so it's really it kind of on your minds, I think.

Um, and it is as well for me, and I think many people in Sonoma County.

So, would you like to jump in with any thoughts?

Sure.

Uh, council member uh, thank you for the comments.

And I I know that this came up uh when we talked about this last year.

I believe the council has uh adopted a number a couple of resolutions um, I think during the previous administration Trump administration.

I I don't know if those are uh you know maybe maybe we need to look at those uh in terms of you know language that's included in those or whether those suffice at this point.

Uh but happy to work uh with with staff and and the city attorney's office and the city manager on uh on developing something that reflects your concerns.

And just to just to clarify, um Kiriyakis, you're probably referring to the indivisible city ordinance.

Correct?

Which is very very much still in effect.

Um to Miss Banwellis's point, I might also add that I think we're all working, all I suspect that all of us are having direct conversations with our federal electeds about this issue, so that kind of advocacy is already underway.

Um did is it is there a more specific thrust that you had in mind?

You know, I know we're all having conversations with them, and I know there's only so much that we can do, but I'm just really concerned.

I I you know what we're seeing at the national level and even in Southern California.

I and I know there have been, you know, shall I say threats to Northern California from time to time about what could happen here, and I just I don't know what the language would be or if it's even appropriate in this package, but I just feel like um if this is our message to the federal government, um I feel like we need to say something.

I uh, you know, I you know I don't know uh about the rest of you, but this is making me ill every day of what is happening um to folks, innocent people, citizens, um, people who have every right to be here, um, and people who are exercising their their constitutional rights, and and we I just feel like we, you know, if we keep saying we're the leaders of the Bay Area and all of that, great.

I think we need to take a leadership role in this as well, because I can't stand for this personally, and and um, you know, people are demanding that we do something, and I know there's it's limited what we can do, but I feel like we need to speak out in some way, and if there's a way that we can do that within this platform, I think we should be doing it.

Point point well taken.

Um is this something is this a conversation that we continue sort of offline?

Is that the is that a good way to proceed?

Sure.

I mean, yeah, I that's why I said I don't know if it's appropriate here, but if this is where we send a message to the to the federal government or to our federal representatives in some kind of an official way, um if we can include it in here, I think we should, but yes, we can continue to have the conversation.

Absolutely.

Perhaps Ms.

Fleming has an idea.

Thank you.

Um, Councilmember Banu is I share your concerns, and I think that it takes a lot of courage to speak up, especially when we have limited power and it can um draw unwanted attention.

But at the same time, I think we have a moral obligation to use the the power that we do have, which um is not not significant, but I would just ask um our um MMO, our folks, John and Carioakis, if you have worked with other jurisdictions who've raised these concerns, and if so, what sorts of items you've been putting in the platforms to support them.

Uh council member Fleming, uh, you know, I I think a lot of um I won't say a lot, a few of our other uh cities that we work with have taken the sort of the same action that you've taken in terms of your uh resolution as the mayor mentioned uh previously.

Um, and I I think you know, obviously they they've worded it differently, or or what have you, or welcoming city, that type of thing.

So I think the actions that you've you've taken are what uh some other cities are are doing as well.

Thank you very much.

Um Councilmember Ben Willis, I don't know about you, but I I find that um you know not really helpful in terms of moving moving forward your concerns for this moment in time.

Those actions were taken at a time when things were bad, but we could probably unimaginable what's going on now.

Um I for one would be in support of something else, um, either through our goal setting process um in terms of you know fast tracking some additional strong language to to rebuke the federal actions.

I would really appreciate that.

I think that that's that we do need as we go back and look at what what was done before and what we could do now, not even ever imagining what's happening now is could happen, uh, that we do need to do that.

Yeah, Mr.

Alvarez.

Carolina, I also appreciate you haven't the courage to speak up while regarding this issue.

You know, one of the things that I think about often is it's easy for me to want something, but I want it because I don't have the same fear of those that are in that fear of there's a sacrifice in the quality of life.

I know that San Jose, for example, is bringing uh policy forward where they require any ICE presence to be without masks to identify themselves.

And something that council member Flynn just said, drawing attention, that word also draws into that conversation of will we be drawing attention to Santa Rosa.

And I mean this, and this is just conversation I have in my head.

And I'm thinking it's easy for me to say, I'm thinking also within my head, it's easy for me to say that I demand this, I demand that, but at what cost?

And who would actually be paying the price of that cost?

But I would love to continue this conversation.

I absolutely support any any any dialogue that we have in respect to that issue.

Is there um consensus around the idea that we continue to start in goal setting?

Since I think we're all in favor of good of continuing or pushing forward exactly what you're suggesting, is goal setting the appropriate place.

All right, thank you.

And it's it's worth uh underlining for the public also that some of the that in several of the lawsuits that John mentioned, the city is a party to those lawsuits.

So we are putting resources uh legally to pushing back at the Trump administration.

Um bringing it back to council.

Any additional questions right now before we open this up to public comment?

Saying none, we'll open this up to the public.

Would any members of the public like to speak?

All right, Fred, you're first at the podium.

Go ahead.

Um I'm not sure exactly what the uh folks in Washington are doing.

Um, but I I have thought that in game theory, when you play by the rules and the people who you're playing with don't, then you get the suckers' payoff.

And so I would hope that as people who are representing Santa Rosa, that uh, you know, you'd play as hardball as you could, so that uh you know, that the partners that we're dealing with in Washington who who might be cheating or not playing by the rules, then we don't get the suckers' payoff here.

Um I I certainly uh agree with uh Councilmember Banuelos' sentiments and also uh Councilmember Alvarez is it's really nuanced as to what to do.

You want to stand up, you don't want to um it in in bully management.

If if you don't confront a bully, then you just keep getting more of the same.

So, but then Councilmember Alvarez's point is that you know who's gonna pay the cost of that.

So that's you know, it's it's it's it's um really difficult situation, but personally myself, you know, I don't like to get the suckers payoff.

I don't want to get bullied, and I hope that the city stands up and you know represents uh what we think is fair and right.

Thank you, Fred.

Mr.

DeWitt.

Hello, my name is Dwayne DeWitt.

I'm from Roseland.

Once again, duty and honor.

American law enforcement people have a duty not to kill unarmed women.

That's real basic.

You're supposed to announce who you are and what you're doing before you fire deadly force on someone.

What I wanted to speak about, though, involved the housing voucher programs.

The veterans administration sent out a recent email to veterans with a link to a videotape of one of the staff from the VA stating they are still strongly behind what's known as U.S.

housing urban development, veterans affairs, supportive housing vouchers, and that they're successfully used in other jurisdictions more so than here, as far as I can tell.

So I would hope that our folks in Washington DC would make a point of having that be a part of the platform and look deeper into it.

It wasn't mentioned in the 2025 stuff, and Santa Rosa is the one that oversees the HUD Vash vouchers for Sonoma County.

So this really needs to be looked into.

Secondary, Brownfields, United States Environmental Protection Agency Brownfield's grants are still in play, and this administration is helping to fund those types of things.

They look to where they can see money being made for businesses.

Brownfields helps that.

Roseland has those problems with Brownfields.

This is a spot where we could be looking to bring in funding, and it could go under your water infrastructure conservation and energy resiliency platform that you already have, because in the past we were able to actually prove that stormwater pollution was happening along Sebastopol Road, and we were able to get the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board to find those polluters and get things moving forward.

We also were able to get a small grant of 392,000 from the US CPA while Roseland Sebastopol Road section was in the county for phase one assessments of contaminated land along Sebastopol Road and Roberts Avenue, which is in the Santa Rosa downtown specific area plan.

So now's the time for us to step up and tell the folks at the federal level they could help us on what we already have in play.

I'm looking forward to you folks reaching out to the community and the new city manager getting more involved in these types of activities, bringing these funds home and showing the federal level people that we're basically on the same page on a lot of things, just not good with bullying and deadly force being used when it's inappropriate.

This is really important, and you'd be doing right to speak up about that.

Thank you, kindly.

Thank you, Dwayne.

Would any other members of the public like to speak on this item?

Seeing none, we will close public comment.

And let's see.

I'll I'll um ask for a motion.

Actually, I'll ask if there's any further discussion and then ask for a motion.

Let's uh let's I'll ask for a motion then.

Miss Ben Wellos.

Let's see.

Um, so I move a uh looks like it's a uh the communications and intergovernment relations office recommends that the council by resolution adopt the 2026 federal legislative platform, and uh yeah and adopt the resolution as presented by staff.

Sir second, so all right, we have a second by Mr.

Alvarez.

Um any final discussion?

And I mentioned that just because I was gonna do a quick thanks with our MMO partners.

Um John of Carriakis, you the the slides early in the presentation with the dollar figures really set it all.

Uh you have changed our city for the better in a lot of different ways.

And Kariakas, thank you for underlining the the Lano trunk line funding that we could that we fingers crossed we can expect by the end of the week.

That was a lot of work by council members across multiple councils and you know, people in your office.

Thank you so much.

You are great to work with, and thank you for bringing um some good news into the city even even during difficult times in DC.

We very much appreciate it.

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

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Rogers and McDonald are absent.

Councilmember Fleming, Councilmember Ben Wellow.

Yes, Councilmember Alvarez, Vice Mayor Kropke?

Yes, Mayor Stapp.

Yes.

Let the record show this passes the five affirmative votes.

Thank you very much.

All right, we're gonna bounce around a little bit since it's after five o'clock now.

We're gonna go back to our first public comment on non-agenda matters, and then we're gonna go to our public hearing.

Uh so I'm gonna I'm gonna call item 14 right now.

This is the this is the chance to comment on items not listed on the agenda.

If you're a member of the public and you wish to comment on an item not listed on the agenda, please make your way to the podium now.

It has been too long, Dwayne.

All right, yes.

Let's let's fire up the overhead projector.

Hello, my name is Duane DeWitt.

I'm from Roseland, but for over 30 years I participating in Santa Rosa downtown activities.

This is the downtown update from the heart of Santa Rosa in the spring of 1995.

It was put together.

I was part of that group, while the downtown task force for the city was meeting across the street in the Chamber of Commerce buildings to talk about how we're going to approve the city.

The reason I bring this here today is because with time, we have actually included part of Roseland into the downtown specific plan.

This is that study area.

This is what you've adopted.

This is Roseland.

This is where Robert's Avenue is.

So when I say the words duty and honor, those are the things I want us to do.

We took on the duty of helping Roseland.

Now's the time to do that.

I actually have here with me the progress report on the Roseland redevelopment area from 1992.

I've been following that since 1984 when that was put together.

And I bring it up because basically we've talked about how we want to get more housing into our community.

We had this here in Santa Rosa 25 years ago, and we talked about, yeah, we're going to get some good stuff in here.

We're going to do urban villages, specific plans.

We're going to involve the community in the visioning.

We're going to do good revitalization.

All kinds of stuff's going to happen.

So with that in mind, 10 years ago, I started up a little column we call the Roseland Review.

This was when we here in Roseland were still in a county island because the city had made that over 30 years ago with the Bellevue Ranch annexation.

So you finally took us in eight full years ago, and we're looking to do some positive things.

It's difficult for a member of the public to be actively involved in such a system because it gets more expensive than you can imagine.

This is the City of Santa Rosa's current general plan.

It costs a citizen 282 dollars to get that bad boy.

Notice I haven't opened mine because it has typographical errors, and I have to take it back and get him to do it right.

This was put together by a firm called MIG, more Isafano and Goltzman.

I know those people personally, and back in 1984, Daniel Isofano did his PhD on public involvement and environmental planning.

Basically, that was followed up on 2007, 2008, with one on public involvement for environmental planning and redevelopment that handled Roseland, and that's in the University of California Berkeley Library.

There's lots of ways we could make it all better, but it takes political will.

We could talk ourselves blue in the face down here and never get anything done unless we can convince you at the podium to step up and actually help make some of this happen.

The best way was just said with these federal lobbyists.

Roseland, Roberts Avenue, go for the money.

Welcome this new city manager.

Thank you, Duane.

Are there any other members of the Fred?

There you are.

Fred, the floor is yours.

Um I had a chance to read the uh city's December quarterly economic report, and I send in uh A-page comment, which I'm sure that you guys are all dying to read.

Um, but um I've noticed that at the beginning of it of the quarterly economic report, it mentioned uh sustainability and inclusivity.

And so one of the things that I'd like to comment on tonight about sustainability is that when the sustainability paradigm first came out, that was uh it was a uh business, a business uh framing that that had a triple bottom line that it wasn't only economics bottom line, but it was environmental and social bottom line.

And so over the years, sustainability has come to be seen mostly as an environmental and climate change thing, and it doesn't include a social component or a social equity component.

In between the economic pillar of the triple bottom line and the social uh bottom line is equity.

And so, what I what I noticed about the uh quarterly economic report was that it was all pretty much um very high-level statistics and metrics and things, but it didn't really give a sense of the person on the street or the scope of of the low-income people in Santa Rosa, particularly um uh and and uh personally I'm interested in the South Santa Rosa specific plan, and I'm kind of using that as my um vehicle to engage in city stuff, and so you know, I would like to see sustainability used in the sense that the paradigm was supposed to be used that would include social equity and and not just um economic and environmental metrics, and not just metrics and statistics and graphs and things, but but things that that include you know what is what's life is really like for poor people in Santa Rosa.

So I would like to see sustainability kind of regain its its true and original meaning in city parlance, and if not, like in the quarterly economic report, that when it says sustainability, it says environmental sustainability if that's what you really mean, and it doesn't say sustainability, so that it's kind of a weasel word where you don't really know if it includes what the the uh full paradigm was supposed to be.

So I think that that sustainability is a great policy framework that the city could use because it covers all the things that that we care about, but it always seems like that social equity and the social pillar is left out of policy, or is it's in a place where where it's not as actionable as the environment, like the whole the gas station thing.

People are really on that, but they're not on it as much for the disadvantaged communities.

So that's just a general comment.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Fred.

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

We will close uh this this portion of public comment then, and we're gonna jump ahead to item 16.1, which is our public hearing for the evening.

It's our public hearing on the 2025 California Building Code adoption with amendments.

And do we have Mr.

Bliss and Mr.

Osburn?

Thank you.

Thank you both for being here.

We have been looking forward to the the second version of this for the last few weeks.

We're ready.

Okay, good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and members of the council, Gabe Osburn, director of planning and economic development.

Uh, this is the second review of this item, which is associated with adoption of our state building codes.

This is actually a fairly simple process.

The state of California adopts building codes on a three-year cycle, and local jurisdictions must adopt those codes into our local codes.

Uh, before I hand this over to Mr.

Bliss, who is our chief building official, uh, just a quick overview on process.

Um, our department changes code quite often through an ordinance.

The council often sees second readings through a consent item.

Uh, this process is slightly different because we're adopting code by reference.

Uh so what that actually means is the code is published and lives outside of reminiscable codes, and we're making references to that.

So the process from a presentation standpoint is a bit duplicative.

Um, as I mentioned, this item is fairly simple and and we'll cruise through the few slides.

I feel like the most challenging part is likely reading the recommendations.

So we apologize for all the verbiage, uh, but that is a necessity to identify all those code sections.

So with that, I will pass this on to Mr.

Bliss.

Good evening.

Um, so as Director Osborne mentioned, uh, this is the state version of our life and safety codes for the most part for private properties.

So all the structures are governed by these codes, and that's Title 24.

That includes the building code, fire code, plumbing code, all the stuff that you're gonna read at the end that is gonna make that a mouthful.

Um as Director Arsman said, every three years this happens.

Um, and go to the next slide.

That one, we're good.

Uh the state uh California building standards regulations, um, they adopted the state codes already.

So it is effective on January 1st, and we are required to enforce them already.

Um this amendment that we have coming basically just aligns our city code with theirs.

Um so we are allowed to make our local amendments more stringent than what the state requires, but not less.

Um but in this case uh there has been some recent legislation that has preempted us from making changes for the most part.

There are a few exceptions, one of which is to continue what we've previously adopted.

Um so that's what we're doing tonight is just renumbering um all the different things that need to be renumbered in order to correctly reference the state codes.

Um we will be doing oh, did you want to take this on?

Or do you want me to do it?

I would be happy to, Jimmy.

Um, we do in a second phase we'll review our all electric codes, which are very uh consistent with our greenhouse gas reduction strategies.

Um, as mentioned in the previous presentation, we want to do more robust outreach with the development community to understand what that would look like.

Uh, that actually really dovetails into the conversation earlier today about electrification and the need to really from a carbon emission standpoint look at building efficiency.

Uh so we're starting that engagement process in Q1.

Uh, we anticipate that will be brought forward to the council in Q2 or Q3 of this calendar year.

And to add uh what we saw earlier on, uh the fire department has covered their portion of the code, uh the council has moved toward those adoptions late in 2025.

So with that, we'd like to recommend from the planning and economic development department that the council adopt an ordinance by reference with local amendments, the 2025 California Administrative Code, California Building Code, California Residential Code, California Electrical Code, California Mechanical Code, California Plumbing Code, California Energy Code, California Wildland Urban Interphase Code, California Historic Building Code, California Existing Building Code, California Reference Referenced Standards Code, and the California Green Building Standards Code.

And we are here if you would like to have any questions.

Thank you both for the second time in a few weeks.

All right.

Please tell me there's some questions here on the dais.

I got an important question.

Seriously, Ms.

Fleming, please.

Well, as this is my item, do I have to read all of the stuff when it's.

No, Dina says no.

Um, yeah, I have a question.

Would you um be so kind as to explain one more time what the difference um in doing this by references or how we traditionally do it?

Absolutely, thank you, council member.

Um, in our municipal code, we have specific language, and most of the local requirements are then identified in our municipal code.

In this particular case, the actual code requirements live outside of our municipal code.

So the state adopts a code section, and then what we do within our municipal code is we make references to that language.

And the legal requirements in that particular case, we set public hearings differently, we do essentially the second reading in a different fashion.

Um, but the main difference is the core language and the requirements do not physically exist in our municipal code.

They're referenced outside of the code.

Okay, that makes sense to me.

Thank you.

Other questions?

All right, we'll open this up to the public.

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

Seeing none, we'll close public comment.

Uh, bring it back to the council.

Any any final discussion?

All right.

I think Miss Fleming, you've got you've got the motion.

All right.

Well, I'll move forward the recommendations set forth by staff, and thank you very much for your your work on this.

Agreed.

Is there a second?

Second.

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

Krepke.

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

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Rogers and McDonald are absent.

Councilmember Fleming?

Yes.

Councilmember Ben Wellos?

Yes.

Councilmember Alvarez.

Vice Mayor O'Krepki.

I mayor Stepp.

Yes.

Let the record show this passes the five affirmative votes.

Thank you.

Thanks to both of you for all the work.

Thank you.

Okay, we're gonna go back then to item 15.2, our second report for the evening.

Our report on the 2026 state legislative platform.

Ms.

Wood, welcome back.

And I'm I'm guessing that we you want me to let you uh let you kick this one off this time.

If you don't mind, mayor.

All right.

Thank you.

All right.

Madam City Clerk, do we have our presenters?

Uh yes, we do.

They just got our being promoted to panelists in Zoom.

There you see them.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the council.

Our next item here is our 2026 state legislative platform.

Joining us virtually, we have Dane Hutchings and Ethan Nagler with California Public Policy Group, which is our state lobbying firm.

And before I jump into it, I'm gonna pass the mic to Madam City attorney to discuss some procedural issues.

Thank you very much.

Um as you know, Councilmember O'Krepke has recused from a portion of this item and he has left chain the chambers.

Um the process that we're going to use uh in order to allow him to participate in the balance of this platform is we're going to have staff do a full presentation on the entire item.

Councilmember O'Krepke is free to watch, and I believe he is watching the presentation uh in the city manager's office, so he will have seen the full presentation.

We will then um go ahead and take questions on just the portion um about which the council member needed to recuse, and I assume you will flag that in your that portion in the staff report.

Uh then we'll do public comment on just that slice of the platform, um, bring it back.

Council can um do its deliberations and take whatever action it chooses to take on that portion of the platform.

We will then invite council member Krepke back to the dais.

Um, and Mr.

Mayor, I would suggest at that point you take questions from all council members on the balance of the platform.

We'll do public comment on that portion and then bring it back to the council to take action uh or not on the balance of the platform.

If you have any questions, I'm happy to chime in as we go along.

Thank you both.

All right.

Thank you very much, Madam City Attorney.

Every year the city council adopts a state legislative platform, much like the federal one that outlines the city's state policy and project priorities.

This platform provides guidance and direction to city staff and to our state representatives about those priorities.

And at this time, I will turn the presentation over to CPPG so they can provide some highlights from last year and propose changes for the upcoming year.

Good evening, um mayor and council Dane Hutchings with California Public Policy Group.

Uh great to see you this evening.

Um so looking at uh the 2025 highlights, um, we engaged or uh had over 530 touch points, meaning that we were either advocating on your behalf, connecting with your staff, uh analyzing bills, sort of all of the above.

It's one of the key performance indicators that we like to track to let you know that we are uh continuously working uh on your behalf uh year round.

This is both encompasses all of the uh touch points between our grants team and our lobbying team.

Uh there was more more than 910 pieces of legislation tracked on behalf of the city.

Uh, we did secure approximately 62 percent success rate on the legislation we engaged on.

Um, one of the key things I wanted to highlight, and this is um uh you know, a big shout out to your to your staff, but um uh uh with respect to AB 306 and some of the reach code issues, we were able to negotiate directly with uh assembly leadership to get uh Santa Rosa specific uh amendment in there that made the uh uh the reach code suspensions a little bit more workable for the city.

Um despite some of the challenges that were highlighted in the federal uh uh presentation.

We were able to secure uh six million dollars in state and federal funding this year from local uh cybersecurity grant program, uh 3.8 million uh in hazard uh mitigation grant program, uh 213,000 for an OTS grant, and then uh proposition 47 one point nearly 7 million to just to support the in-response program, which is really um uh just we saw it in uh in action last time we were there, and it was just a phenomenal program.

So really happy to be a part of that, and I'll note that uh since the time we've uh been in contract with the city, we've helped secure uh 28 million dollars in total grants uh secured and over 12 million dollars uh in state direct earmarks, and so really proud of that work in fact to help support that uh Hearn uh Hearn Avenue station.

Uh next slide, please.

So as we look ahead um and and note that things have shifted a bit since uh the preparation of the slide versus really the governor city of the state, but really we were we were pretty right on the nose here with respect to what we're looking ahead towards.

Um local government revenue is gonna of course be under attack.

Um, you know, in our assessment, uh, we're already starting to see pieces of legislation that go to cap, eliminate, defer, otherwise control our ability to assess uh any types of uh uh fees uh associated with development.

Um there's going to be a ton of you know housing and land use issues.

However, the conversation has maybe shifted a bit uh from how to we uh uh sort of supersize and fast track the actual construction versus over the past six years, we've seen a lot of it uh on uh sort of planning and local mandates.

There will be uh quite a bit uh more of uh sequel cleanup.

Um there was uh about a 300 page SQL reform jammed into the budget last year and passed very, very quickly.

Uh and so now they're going through and they're gonna be uh cleaning up some of those things this year.

Um, and then you know, I think just more broadly uh we're going to be seeing this is you know sort of election year politics, and what we mean by that is really uh some of the election year politics are gonna drive a lot of the policies we're seeing in governmental operations, transparency, uh affordability and things of that nature.

So uh lots to come uh uh for this year ahead.

Uh and I think the platform uh uh puts us in a uh in a great position to engage uh where it makes the most sense.

Next slide.

And so uh with respect to sort of the process and strategy here.

Uh we we gear our platform statements really around uh the council's uh goal setting.

Uh of course we acknowledge sort of the rapidly changing things that are happening federally, which you know then uh precipitates down to how the state's going to react, and then you know, where do we come in the middle of this oftentimes, uh, as I think was eloquently stated before, cities are often caught in the middle between some of these you know federal and state policies that are that are uh sort of going after one another.

And throughout the process, uh we did incorporate feedback from council department heads and uh city uh city manager's office at the time.

Uh and with that, I will kick it over to my colleague Ethan Nagler to highlight the proposed changes.

Ethan.

Thank you, Dane, and good evening, Mayor and Council members.

It's a pleasure and an honor to be with you tonight.

I'll be going over the specific statements that are recommended to be added or modified in the 2026 legislative platform.

The existing platform is very strong, very comprehensive, and so the recommended changes this year are minor.

And as Dane mentioned, we worked really closely uh with your staff to make sure that your feedback was incorporated.

Um, first up in the disaster prevention and mitigation space, um, there's a nationwide effort to better identify uh flood risk.

And so these new platform statements um on this slide aim to address flood risk in the city um as well as mitigation planning and recovery of floods, um, and to also address the financial and physical impacts of flooding on city residents uh in terms of insurance affordability.

Uh these statements also include ensuring evacuation infrastructure is safe and accessible, especially for seniors, and these are all support statements.

Next slide, please.

So again, this statement is addressing the flood risk to the city and ensuring that those um newly updated flood maps uh are taken into consideration.

Uh for this statement, there's just a small wording modification.

Um, and we, you know, we changed uh such as to including here in this statement.

And so this is a support statement as well.

Uh next slide, please.

So in the environment and climate space for this platform statement, there's the addition of any subsequent legislation to the end of the sentence to ensure that the city is covered if there's any future legislation related to uh Senate Bill 1383, which was a law from 2016, which mandates that local governments provide organic collection services, and it also requires mandatory collection for residents and businesses.

And this is also a support statement.

Next slide, please.

What was previously a single platform statement has just been split into two separate statements for clarity and consistency's sake.

And these are both support statements.

Next slide, please.

In the water quality and supply space, we added this statement because water complex uh excuse me, water systems are complex, they're expensive, and they're vulnerable to damage from certain consumer products.

And a consistent theme that we've seen in the legislature for several years has been to address these types of products.

So the city is now positioned on this issue.

And this is also a support statement.

And as I said, pretty minor changes this year.

Uh and so I will now turn it back to Misty.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ethan.

So as indicated by Madam City Attorney Ciro, the communications and intergovernmental relations office is recommending that the council make two separate uh take two separate actions tonight.

So first we recommend that you adopt resolution number one before Vice Mayor O'Krepke joins us, and that covers just the disaster prevention and response section.

And then after the vice mayor rejoins us, we recommend that the council adopt resolution number two, which is the remainder of the platform.

This concludes a staff presentation, and we are available to answer any questions the council may have.

Thank you.

Thank you all for both the presentation and all the great work behind it.

Okay.

Let's bring it back to council then for questions on uh specifically related to the policy proposal related to wildfire insurance.

Any questions from council?

Excuse me, Mr.

Mayor.

We're it's actually um everything having to do with disaster prevention, recovery, hazard mitigation, and resiliency.

That entire section will be um taken before councilmember Krepke comes back.

That's helpful.

Thank you for that clarification.

Okay, any questions in that section?

I should have added.

Seeing none, all right.

Let's we'll call for public comment on that portion of the item on the disaster prevention and recovery hazard mitigation resiliency.

Any members of the public wish to make comment on that section?

Okay.

We'll bring it back to council then.

I'll look for a motion, and I believe that's uh Mr.

Alvarez for that for that portion.

Thank you, Mayor.

Before we resolution, I want to thank uh Natalie Rogers for taking my classes and not returning them yet.

Uh resolution of the council of the city of Santa Rosa adopting certain state policy priorities within the 2026 state legislative platform and waive further reading of the text.

For a second, second.

Miss Van Wellos gets credit for the second.

So we will vote on this portion of the of the item.

Okay, Councilmember Rogers and McDonald are absent.

Councilmember Fleming?

Yes.

Councilmember Ben Wellos?

Yes.

Councilmember Alvarez.

All right.

Vice Mayor Okepke has recused.

And Mayor Step.

Yes.

Let the record show this passes with four affirmative votes.

Thank you.

And I believe we can invite Mr.

O'Krepke to join us once again.

Vice Mayor, welcome back.

So now, Madam Senator, if I'm correct, we can call for or we can have council discuss the remainder of the uh of the item.

Is that correct?

All right, questions on the remainder of the item.

Again, looking to my colleagues, I'm seeing heads, nothing and nothing from our vice mayor as well.

I'm seeing heads nodding no.

Okay, we'll throw this open to public comment.

Are there any would are there any members of the public who wish to comment on the remainder of the item?

Again, seeing no, uh, all right.

Well, actually, before I I call for the motion, I'll just I'll just um thank CPPG um Dane, thank you to the entire team.

Uh, you've obviously done great work for the city.

Uh and you've uh you're you're focused on the on the issues that are top priority for us.

So thank you very much.

And Misty, thank you for for coordinating this today.

Uh with that, all right, Mr.

Alvarez, you're on again.

Thank you, Mayor.

Resolution of the Council of the City of Santa Rosa adopting the twenty twenty six City of Santa Rosa State Legislative Platform and wave further reading of the text.

Do we have a second?

All right, Ms.

Fleming is our second.

Thank you.

Councilmember Rogers and McDonald are absent.

Councilmember Fleming.

Councilmember Ben Wellos?

Yes.

Councilmember Alvarez?

Vice Mayor O'Krepki.

Mayor stop.

Yes.

Let the record show this passes a five affirmative votes.

Thank you very much.

All right, unless I'm forgetting something, we are at our second uh public comment on non-agenda matters now.

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

Speak now or forever hold your peace.

We will close that item and we are officially adjourned.

Thank you, everyone.