Good afternoon.

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

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Councilmember McDonald.

Here.

Councilmember Fleming.

Your Councilmember Ben Welloth.

Here.

Councilmember Alvarez.

I'm present.

Vice Mayor Okrepki is absent.

And Mayor Stepp?

Here.

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

Thank you very much.

We will move on to items 3.1 and 3.2.

Item 3.1 is a conference with a real property negotiator, and item 3.2 is conference with real property negotiator.

I believe we have some members of the public here who wish to make comment.

Welcome, welcome back to City Council gentlemen.

Would any of you wish to speak?

And if you are, make your way to uh either podium.

So Doug Dino Rich.

Who wants to be first?

All right.

Hello, distinguished uh council members and mayor stepp.

My name is Dino Dargencio, and I've been a commercial real estate agent and broker and continually active in leasing and development in Santa Rosa since 1979 and had an office at 538 Mendocino Avenue from 1979 to 1984.

My family and I have improved and developed properties within the downtown core since the mid-1995 period and currently own and manage the following properties downtown across from the uh garage number five, 643rd Street, uh since 1995 is currently occupied by the new Mechanics Bank that moved over from Railroad Square, law offices, and a Santa Rosa Fitness.

633rd Street, 8,000 feet since 1998, restaurant and offices, including formerly occupied by the city of Santa Rosa offices.

At 575 Ross Street, we have the newly redeveloped uh building that was a shop and a printing facility.

It's currently Cooperage Brewing Company Taproom.

My most recent acquisition is at 640 Fourth Street, that backs up to the northern the end of the garage number five is recently acquired actually from the partners of the Groupie group.

This building was originally designed by Larry Simons architect, very famous uh architect in the area, and in 1971, it was built for Empire Pharmacy.

This property includes a land area contiguous to and up to the northerly doorway of the parking garage.

Uh it backs up to our property, and the specific purpose of that doorway was the intent so that the Empire Pharmacy and its customers could be assured parking, loading, and immediate pedestrian access.

The same pedestrian corridor leads directly to the back doors of Max Delhi, Sawyers Jewelers, as well as the former Topaz Room building at 96 Courthouse Square and 50 Santa Rosa Avenue, like other stakeholders along this area adjacent to the garage.

Our building at 644th Street is directly adjacent to the garage and 250 Old Courthouse Square, owned by Airport Business Center, the parking requirement for a building at 50 Old Courthouse Square is approximately three parking per thousand based on the code required and the number of employees and and staff in the building, which requires at least 200 parking spaces for that building alone.

Garage number five, I believe, is 220 parking spaces.

Over the last 35 to 40 years, all properties in the downtown core have bought and paid for all the parking garage assessments through the property taxes that expired 10 years ago, but for 30 years prior to that, all the property owners in the downtown core, as far as we're concerned, we own those garages.

We paid for them.

So we do not want or need less parking and expect accountability from the city of Santa Rosa in this matter.

During the past 40 years of active commercial leasing and development.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dino.

I think that's the three minutes.

Thank you for coming tonight.

Doug, you're next.

So mayor, thank you very much.

Um, today I represent my family.

We own ER Sawyer Jewelers at 630 638 4th Street, the store next door at 632 4th Street, and the Sultani family that have Max Delhi.

We are Santa Rosa's oldest business and have been here for a hundred and almost 150 years.

The garage at some point in its life will need to be developed.

We need to make sure that we that you choose a developer that's going to have a vested interest in that development being completed.

There are too many buildings that are already surrounded with fences, buildings that have been knocked down.

Some of you weren't even around when the White House site was torn down, and yet we still haven't been able to get that one finished.

I think one of the things that we keep doing is chasing a shiny penny from out of town or whatever, a different place with a different story or a broad vision.

And I implore you on behalf of our family, our employees, to choose the local developer, airport business center, because they truly do have a vested interest in bringing this project to fruition in manners that can be had.

So downtown is struggling hard enough without having the uncertainty of somebody that is from out of the area that doesn't have that vested interest that we all do.

I've walked it, I've lived it, and can honestly say that my family and I are some of the biggest supporters of downtown.

We've sat on every board, every council, every chamber, every DAO, every organization going back to me being a little kid.

So please, you have an opportunity to make a really good decision, a local decision, and I really really encourage you on behalf of our family, our staff, and the Sultani family, and his staff that have been around since for the 1952 to protect these people, protect our jobs and protect our spaces.

Thank you very much for your time.

Doug, thank you.

Rich, you have the floor.

Richard Coombs, Airport Business Center.

Um nice to be here.

We appreciate the opportunity that the council is giving us to make a proposal to the city of Santa Rosa.

Um this project has had a long history.

Um we had concepts, I don't know, almost three years ago, but the most important concept being um we did our research going all the way back, finding the original structural engineer that designed that garage, and we learned that that garage can sustain development on top of the garage, therefore accomplishing the goals of all three parties in this transaction.

One party is the city, they would like to see more housing in their downtown.

We believe we can accomplish that working together for you.

The second group is our own property, uh, 50 Courthouse Square.

As stated, we need about 200 parking spaces.

That's what that garage has, and we hope to retain those and continue to rent most of them.

In addition, we have neighbors, retail neighbors, and we're committed to the concept that at minimum 50 of the parking spaces would be maintained on an hourly basis.

So the goal here is to have a win-win-win for all three parties.

Uh, it will be still difficult, it's an expensive project to be able to do this, but we feel that working together, we can accomplish something that is really impressive.

We can do it in a timely fashion, and we promise and commit that we will give it our absolute effort.

In addition, um, you know, other projects that we've done.

Uh we did in the Roxy, and again, as I drove by today, I'll separately commit that I'll be talking to my partners regarding the uh facade.

Um you know that that needs to be fixed.

And so I'll go over and talk to the Tikini family regarding that.

But again, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to come together now, and we're hoping that we're selected to work together in partnership with you.

Thank you.

Rich, thank you, and thank you to all three of you for coming out tonight, as well as all that you've invested in Santa Rosa's is downtown.

We are uh we are well aware.

So thank you very much.

And with that, we're seeing no other members of the public here, we will recess in a closed session.

Thank you.

So All right.

Now we can start.

Thank you, everyone.

We will reconvene an open session.

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

Council Member Fleming.

Council Member Ben Wells?

Here.

Council Member Alvarez is absent.

Councilmember or Vice Mayor O'Krepki is absent.

Mayor Stapp.

Let the record show that all council members are present with the exception of Vice Mayor Okrepke.

Council Member Alvarez.

And that's it.

Perfect.

Thank you very much.

All right.

We're about we're about 20 minutes late, but we will show you how Santa Rosa runs an official meeting.

So we will catch up.

We will move on to item four point one, our study session on entertainment zones.

You've come to a fun one today, LSR friends.

All right, so Gabe, Jessica, come on down.

Welcome to all of you, and the floor is yours.

Thank you, Mayor Sapp and members of the council.

My name is Sich Nur Bisla, and the study session topic before you today is regarding entertainment zones.

The purpose of this initiative is to support the economic vitality of downtown, expand nightlife and cultural activity, and create safe and managed areas for outdoor alcohol consumption.

This initiative aligns with the city's economic development strategic plan, which was adopted by city council in April of 2024.

The plan encourages the development of programs that sustain a vibrant, livable environment for Santa Rosans, while advancing the goal of bolstering downtown housing, commercial activity, and retail businesses.

Santa Rosa is famous for its local wine and beer, which draw tourism from around the world.

However, Santa Rosa's beer and wine community has reported that it is presently struggling economically due to a decline in sales and consumption industry wide.

And so the Entertainment Zones Initiative is an attempt to create more opportunity for consumers to enjoy locally crafted beer and wine within our community.

In March of 2025, the city engaged with retail strategies, a consultant to conduct a retail gap analysis for the Santa Rosa trade area.

And the study found that over $500 million per year was being spent by Santa Rosans outside of the Santa Rosa trade area on food, dining, and entertainment.

And so the entertainment zone initiative is designed in part as an attempt to recapture some of these lost sales revenues.

And this is done pursuant to California Senate Bill 969, which went into effect on January 1st of 2025, and it allows cities to establish entertainment zones where alcohol can be consumed outdoors under certain rules.

If a city wishes to establish an entertainment zone, they must first adopt a local ordinance.

And this must be done in con in consultation with law enforcement on the boundaries, days, hours, and other safety considerations.

After adopting, the city must then conduct a biennial review of the operations and impacts.

The eligible participants include on-sale licensees, wine growers, and beer manufacturers inside the zone.

And in order to participate, the businesses must locally the businesses must notify the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, and then continue to notify them on a yearly basis.

In order to establish an entertainment zone, the city must first identify how they're going to readily identify patrons being 21 plus within the entertainment zone, the information necessary to identify the boundaries of the entertainment zone, the days and hours of operation, the types of alcoholic beverages permitted, and the approved containers.

The bill prohibits glass and metal containers from being used for to go beverages.

Several other cities throughout California have successfully implemented this.

They all do it a bit differently.

And here are some examples.

But Santa Monica and Reading have regularly recurring activation.

Santa Monica has Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m.

to 10 p.m.

And Reading's is daily from 10 a.m.

to 10 p.m.

And what most of these cities have done is they've taken a two-step approach.

So first there's the ordinance, and then there's a management plan.

And the ordinance sets the days, hours, and boundaries, and these are typically broader than what's in the management plan.

The ordinance then gives the management plan the authority to further regulate the entertainment zone.

So the management plans will typically have more restrictive hours or uh boundaries, and they go into further detail regarding the regulations.

So we are potentially looking at an entertainment zone in the courthouse square area.

This would be from D Street to B Street and from 7th Street to 3rd Street.

And on 1st Street and Fourth Street, it would extend out to include Shady Oak and Russian River Brewing, as they both express interest in participating.

And the days and hours we're looking at are Friday, Saturday, Sunday from 12 p.m.

to 10 p.m.

Another one we're looking at is in the railroad square area.

This would be from Davis Street to Wilson Street and from 5th Street to 3rd Street.

And same uh days and hours Friday, Saturday, Sunday from 12 p.m.

to 10 p.m.

And there's been some question of whether these would connect with a path from the mall.

That's also an option to possibly consider as well.

We're also looking at a third zone that would cover the downtown station area, and it would only be activated during signature events.

So some examples include the Wednesday night market, live at Juilliard, the Rose Parade, Pride Parade, Peggy Sue Cruise, Winter Blasts, and more.

And the hours of the entertainment zone activation, as well as the location that it would be active is consistent with the hours and location of these events.

Here are uh the some of the parade routes that I mentioned.

And these are just examples.

This would be done in coordination with the event if they want to participate.

So some concepts we are looking at for the management operations plan.

For cups, only reusable or recyclable cups would be allowed and uh would be in keeping with the city's zero waste ordinance.

Using wristbands for ID verification, so patrons would receive a wristband at the point of their first ID check at the first uh the first restaurant or bar where they purchase a to-go beverage, and so only individuals with wristbands would be allowed to be carrying alcohol outdoors.

Potential signage at the zone boundaries and at businesses that clearly mark the entry and exit points and the rules of the zone, no alcohol beyond this point, and possibly painting them on the street.

And again, we'd be coordinating with the existing downtown events for more specific regulations for uh each of the events as needed.

We have had a couple community meetings with uh some business owners in downtown and the railroad square area.

We've received some questions and concerns about safety and liability.

As mentioned earlier, it is required uh by Senate Bill uh 969 that we coordinate with law enforcement as we uh develop our ordinance and uh we have Chris Maharin with uh police department here to speak more on that.

Good morning, Miss Mayer, Council members, city manager.

My name's Chris Maheran.

I'm a lieutenant with Center of the Police Department.

I'm one of the two representatives from the police department who oversee and sit with PED on this project specifically.

We've worked the last several months on several meetings going over the boundaries and some of the safety concerns that have come up as well.

Um today I brought just some information to kind of help guide council on their decision today moving forward.

In 2025, I pulled data specifically that would be in the entertainment district alone, calls for service charges, and things like that.

And this is going Monday through Sunday at 24-hour period.

So in 2025, we responded to 5,095 calls that would be in the entertainment district 24 7.

Of those, we were only made 499 arrests in 2025 related to those calls for service.

The most common calls for service were actually self-initiated calls, like there was a suspicious person or there was an unwanted individual in a certain area, and so that's what our authors were responding to.

We did have about 85 reports of probably closer to 100 if you combined calls of disturbances, and that ranges from a variety of different things, whether that's a fight between individuals who don't know each other, whether it's maybe a domestic dispute between two individuals who do know each other, or other kinds of conflict that occurs downtown, whether verbal or physical, so just over 100 total associated with that.

We had notable things in the top 10 of these items were about 10 overdoses associated with it.

We had very few violent crimes associated with it.

It looks like seven robberies that occurred, only five displays of a firearm in the downtown corridor as well.

A lot of these calls also related to our unsheltered population having to do with our downtown enforcement making contacts as well downtown.

The vast majority of the calls that we dealt with were during daylight hours, not nighttime hours as well.

Even further, I pulled that data down even less, and I kind of combined it down to Thursday through Sunday, and those hours were actually from noon to 10 p.m.

And I kind of did exactly what the entertainment zone would be.

We kind of talked about Thursdays potentially, so I wanted to incorporate that data into this.

If I break that 25-2025 data down to only that time period, we responded to 1,384 calls during that period, making 106 arrests in total.

Of those arrests, just like in 2025, we had only four arrested folks for being under the influence of alcohol or intoxicated where they weren't able to care for themselves.

In comparison to the full year's data for 24-7, we had about 27 people that were arrested at that same time.

When it comes to DUIs, the numbers actually substantially lower for the full year in that area.

We saw about seven DUIs in that period from Thursday through Sunday.

We only had about uh two DUI arrests.

Now that's a little skewed because the vast majority of folks, if they are getting a DUI, it's probably just not in that corridor.

Even if they're initiated from consumption in the downtown core, those DUIs can often be arrested outside of there, and the data would reflect where the arrest occurred, not where the consumption occurred.

So even though it's saying only seven or so DUIs in that corridor in that event center, it could initiate more outside of there.

So that's why that data might look a little low in that area.

Some of the concerns that we've had going through this project that we discussed in length was how do we enforce the conditions associated with the entertainment district?

So while they will have wrist bands, they will have cups that identify where they came from and the location, the time.

We're not going to be able to do just random everyday enforcement and making sure people are consuming and the right folks that are consuming and making sure they have their wrist bands.

We do have our downtown enforcement team who will be downtown on at least two of those days that will be working until usually about 6 p.m., which is about half the time the entertainment zone would be activated.

So there is that resource that exists, but there isn't going to be additional resources from the police department going to be able to do this.

We did talk about in the beginning of this pilot program of being able to do additional enforcement or moving resources around to be able to help encourage appropriate behavior during that entertainment zone activation.

And I think that's something we can do, but it's going to be a case-by-case basis and where we see that need for as we move forward, but there's no way to commit a lot of resources ahead of time to what that's going to look like due to other priorities that the police department has.

But there are benefits.

Like I said, we have our downtown enforcement team, we have beat nine officers that exist.

We also have two separate grants to the department that focus on alcohol and saturation patrol, which we could help to use and have an additional presence downtown to move this project forward, but also make sure there's that safety in the downtown core, especially during the activation of the entertainment zone.

I think that's my part.

Thank you.

And yes, I would also like to add that in the research that we've been doing with other cities and how they've been implementing theirs.

I've met with staff specifically from San Francisco, Sacramento, Reading, Youngville, Santa Monica, and some of them have been implementing for longer, some for shorter, but all of them have mentioned that there's not been any large concerns since they've implemented.

More specifically, Santa Monica said that they have a monthly interdepartmental meeting with police, economic development planning to make sure everything's running smoothly, and that planning and you know, those looking at the policy, have an understanding of any issues from a safety standpoint.

And again, they said uh police has not mentioned anything.

There was one incident that occurred in the area, but it wasn't specifically due to the entertainment zone use itself.

Additionally, we receive feedback that the community prefers doing only events to start instead of weekly recurring days and hours.

Chris kind of mentioned this, but police did uh show support for doing regularly recurring days and hours from a staffing standpoint.

It's easier to anticipate when it's every week.

And we receive feedback regarding doing a pilot program for now and seeing how it goes and then making any changes necessary.

We also received a letter of support from the downtown action organization and the historic Railroad Square Association, and they support the program, and they expressed their interest in cooperating with the city in order to maintain a safe and successful operation.

So for the council's consideration today, council can either direct staff not to proceed with establishing an entertainment zone at this time, or if the council would like to see staff draft an ordinance establishing entertainment zones, what would we like to see in that ordinance in terms of boundaries, days and hours, perhaps doing a pilot program, or perhaps having a more restrictive management plan that could then be amended later?

Um that concludes my presentation.

Thank you.

And I have my contact information here as well as Jessica Jones, the deputy director of planning in case there are any questions or concerns uh following the meeting.

Thank you so much to all of you for the presentation.

Uh, we've been looking forward to this one for a while.

This is it's been interesting to watch this this idea percolate.

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

McDonald.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, this is exciting to me.

I think we've talked about what we can do in the downtown area for revitalization and getting people down there to party.

So um to let them have alcohol will probably help with that.

Um I like that we have to work with our police department, and that's one of the things that we plan to do.

I know specifically, Chris, you talked about the downtown enforcement team.

I have a question because I believe we've had one less officer to the downtown enforcement team.

Um, would we see the need to actually increase how many officers are there or just during the entertainment zone times?

Yes, we actually during the budget uh conversations last year, we actually lost two downtown enforcement officers.

And we're currently down another officer to injury.

So we're down to five in total.

So uh as of actually yesterday is the start of our current rotation, they're working Monday through Friday.

We've actually had to reduce Saturday and Sunday hours due to staffing issues at the moment, so yes, they would be more beneficial to have more officers being able to work those weekends.

It would actually reduce overtime as well, having someone that's dedicated downtown working with businesses and visitors, but also helping with the enforcement if needed during the entertainment zone.

And then as far as the entertainment zones go, can you tell me, is it just the downtown enforcement team that would cover the entire area, or are there other beats that play into the zone that's being proposed?

No, so we also have beat nine officers, which are downtown officers that compass just down or downtown plus the neighborhoods around the larger boundaries as well.

Our downtown enforcement team focuses primarily the downtown corridor, but also with a lot of our unsheltered concerns with encampments that exist and a lot of other resources outside of the core as well.

So there are resources outside of them.

They're just a part of that help.

Great.

As far as the data that you gave us for 2025, before we had the downtown enforcement team, did you see or do you have any data that shows where we we were at prior to that and what the difference was once we put the downtown enforcement team in.

And the reason I'm asking this is because if we've seen a huge reduction because of that coverage, it would lead me to sort of direct or or give direction to make sure that we have enough coverage of the teams down there specifically during the times depending on which way council goes which which I I'm I'm interested to hear what everybody else thinks on when we want to do that.

But I'm just curious if you have that data.

Yeah I don't have a data in front of me anecdotally the chief and I and the captain do downtown walks every month and we have heard from business owners that with the reduction we are seeing more issues associated with minor crimes some of our unsheltered populations and so I do believe anecdotally that would come as a reduction to staffing but I can get you the data more specific towards your question.

Okay thank you and then um as far as the area goes from my perspective I guess is there any data that shows the sales tax revenue from from jurisdictions that have done a pilot like this or done something like that.

Have we seen any of that data I do not have that data but I can get that for you.

I think that would be interesting and the reason being for me is we're always looking at what we could do for economic development so if we have the numbers of well we're gonna increase staff specifically for public safety but the revenue from this can drive up this much money to me then that makes more sense to to be able to give better direction on the potential hours or where we want to do this program.

So you know as far as I'm concerned I'd be curious again like what the rest of council thinks as far as our dates and times go I don't mind doing a pilot program to see how it goes get feedback specifically from businesses and those who are in the downtown corridor during either regular times that we set or the entertainment I think during the entertainment times you know that when something's activated that makes total sense to me but as far as the expansion of that I think I would want to do a pilot program so we have that opportunity for feedback so almost a combination of both from me.

I think those are my questions for now thank you mayor.

Thank you very much other questions Ms.

Ben Willis thank you mayor um thank you for the uh report I really appreciate it and I know when we had a preview months ago I was um excited about this a lot of this particularly in uh the boundaries that you've set are basically in my district so um I and I know I well I shouldn't say I know but I am not surprised that the DOA and and uh Railroad Square Association are very much in favor of this I'm I'm happy to hear all that um I am also uh thinking that um it would be best to start small so a pilot program really appeals to me I think that's the direction that we should go in and I know you I think I heard that maybe um doing it with events first um is something that's uh the feedback that you're getting um I would be in favor of that as well I think um hearing um getting the feedback from uh the the businesses would it would be really important as well as uh the community so I'm wondering uh especially in terms of the impact on law enforcement um what a uh doing a uh excuse me it's uh lose my train of thought all of a sudden doing a pilot program would look like if we tried something like that to try to start start small um how long we would test it for and then when you think that we might get some feedback.

Thank you for that question, Council member uh Jessica Jones, deputy Director of Planning um so uh it really can be up to the council's discretion.

I think what we would suggest would be um at least a six to twelve month time frame.

We could come back, you know, if we did a 12-month pilot program, we could come back halfway to give some feedback.

But I think that's really what we would need to be able to get good data to show you kind of you know where it's worked, where we need to work on things.

Um that would be our recommendation.

And do you think that it would be best?

I'm I guess I'm asking for your opinion, uh, all of you, uh, if we started off with just events or um what is the thinking?

So from the police department standpoint, we brought this up initially.

Um, it would be a little bit easier to have a standard like Friday, Saturday, Sunday with set hours, because an enforcement becomes a little bit easier when we need to versus trying to explain to officers which events do have it, which events don't have it.

Also, from my own perspective, it seems like most of the events are going to be on the weekends anyways, and so they would kind of overlap, minus like a Wednesday night market or things like that, where it could be added as the event space portion, but ultimately I feel in the department feels that if we had set days and hours of the week, it's much easier to conduct enforcement.

It's also easier for businesses to know when they can and cannot sell that alcohol and it could walk out the door to the square to go enjoy live music or things like that.

Okay, thank you.

That's all I have right now.

Thank you.

Ms.

Fleming.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, this is great.

I was excited to see this come to economic development, and I'm glad to see it here today.

Thank you for all the effort that you put into it.

Um, I have one question around how you all conceptualize the tension between uh economic development and vibrancy and vitality, and then also the quality of life for my constituents who um who do struggle with with noise.

You know, we want to have a lot of fun, we also want to get some rest.

Um how do you um think that this approach will impact the folks who live in the downtown outside of the events in regards to the regularly recurring weekly days and hours, um, the vision isn't necessarily party every weekend in the streets.

Um, it's kind of just people who would already be coming downtown dining at these restaurants, drinking at the bars, have now the opportunity to finish their drink outside and take a nice walk.

Um, and over time with that downtown will become more of a place where people come to hang out and spend the day and grab a drink and walk around.

Um the events already um consist of noise, uh, and so that would kind of stay the same, but that's not really anticipated for the weekly activation.

You've done such a great job of explaining this with the vision and sort of laying it all out in the collaboration with other departments.

I'm really appreciative.

Thank you.

Um, as for me, I think that given the concerns around staffing, um, I think it's reasonable to just to go forward with a consistent plan.

We can always roll things back.

The city of Santa Rosa is pushing up on 180,000 people.

We can actually take a step forward that is we can easily pull back.

I think we ought to have a pilot, but I think we ought to go for the full three-day period.

And part of the rationale for that is not just to assist the police department in planning for staffing, but it's also that where there is placemaking in community and people do spend time and hang out and loiter in a good way.

Um, we do see reduced crime in some some situations, and um there's just and there's also some sort of community norms that get established.

And I think that if we're consistent, um, and we take a chance on this, we have the best chance of building up that that community vibe and presence that we're we're hoping for.

So that would be my direction.

The other thing I would say is that if it's possible to connect through the mall in any way that um and that seems like a good idea to you all, I would be in support of that.

Thank you, Ms.

Rogers.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, so my question going back to council member McDonald, when we talk about uh the police and downtown enforcement, I'd really like to see when the calls for service are, and maybe we can rearrange the times because I think it is very important that we do, especially during this pilot period when we don't really know what we're doing, have a presence.

That's very important to me.

So if everything goes great, great, but if we see that we need a little extra support, we've already built it in, we already know that it's there.

And then also I know it came up before when we talked about our downtown enforcement team, but um where did they spend most of their time?

So over 2025, uh it was about 60 to 65% of the time was in the downtown core, and that 35 to 40 percent was assisting with other areas of the city, uh, in particular dealing with encampments and education and getting people resources and some enforcement.

Um, the rest of the time was on the tree the creek trails or outer areas that were experiencing problems.

Okay, so some of the time was not spent spent downtown.

Correct, and yeah, at the direction of our prior city manager, we want to advocate or allocate more time to back downtown.

So that number has gone up in the end of 2025, and we're just beginning that now.

Great.

Um, one question I have I'm really curious about.

Now, when you have like a Wednesday night market or something like that, you have to have a consumption.

I don't know what the real name of the permit is called, but it's a consumption permit.

Um, if anything occurs uh within those boundaries, would you not need it to sell you need the permit, or is it the consumption?

Uh businesses that are within the zone, uh it's not an additional permit, it's just a notification to ABC, and it's businesses who are already licensed to sell uh for on site consumption, they can notify they work with us and the ABC to be allowed to sell those same beverages to go.

So it's for existing businesses with liquor licenses.

Okay.

Um, and then lastly, so you don't have to come back to me.

I am all for a pilot.

I think it's great.

I think Santa Rosa goes dark and uh a little boring.

Um after hours, and now I've been saying this for so long, I think I've surpassed the age where I could even be downtown now at night.

But uh I think there are people that are coming uh after me that it would be nice if we had some sort of entertainment, you know, uh space area that is clean and safe and that they can go and enjoy um enjoy themselves, and we can contain it a little bit more if we know where it's at, so I'm off for a pilot.

Right, thank you.

Just and just a few from me.

Um, Lieutenant, when we have Wednesday night market or some of the concerts downtown, what what has been the the typical uh effect on our response uh or the number the number of incidents we have to respond to?

It's gotten very low.

So in the past, when it was Wednesday night market and then before the square actually existed, there used to be a beer garden, and we kind of put all folks that were drinking in a confined tight area, and we used to have a lot more fights in that part or problems that moment.

Um then we kind of built out where now the permit exists through ABC where you when you can get your drinks, you can get them anywhere in that area, usually on the square, people can walk around and actually enjoy that space.

We've actually seen a reduction in crime, and because of that, we've actually reduced staffing to the Wednesday night market over the years because of the ability to walk around more freely.

That's helpful.

So our larger events have not created an issue for public safety, at least as we've experienced them in in the recent in the last few years.

Yeah, and the staffing for each of those events depends upon what's actually occurring, so whether it's a parade versus a festival versus the amount of consumption anticipated, we do see an increase in staffing for those, but overall our events are very safe with very little um problems that come from them that arise, but the staffing levels vary depending upon the type of event that we're hosting.

Thank you for that.

Uh and the uh support of the DAO and the uh and the um the railroad square association and as well the chamber, um, rest assured LSR students.

We did reach out to the chamber to get their their take on this.

Um they've all they've all been supportive.

The question has arisen are there resources that the business groups could provide um in terms of you know having having volunteers or folks with eyes on to help with public safety maintain order of these events?

Are there any resources currently, or would that have to be thought through in the future thank you mayor Gabe Bosburn director of planning and economic development i i think that's a very interesting point uh we have talked specifically with the DAO on how we could partner on the overall operations associated with this um because obviously there's an enforcement element of people working in the right of way consuming alcohol there's also an enforcement element with the businesses and how they're participating in the program and ensuring they meet the requirements and the DAO and the Railroad Square Association are very tied into the businesses.

So the more we can partner and have eyes on some of these concerns and I think especially in the early phases of deployment where you can really understand what level of enforcement you need to maintain the behaviors see what level of activities there.

I think there's definitely avenues for that.

And as we move forward with this and we start forming the program up a bit more we'll start solidifying those and see what participation we can get from the community to be another set of eyes out there on the operational elements.

Excellent thank you for that and thank you also for the outreach to the other cities who have these programs with with it was it was reassuring to hear that they have not seen a significant uptick in progress in in uh problems as a result of their entertainment districts were any of their templates any of their pilot programs particularly relevant to us where they caught your attention and you said oh the this is a good structure for Santa Rosa to begin with I would say uh yeah it's Santa Monica and Reading just because they have regularly recurring hours Santa Monica's is a bit different is because it's just a few blocks of a a pedestrianized street um so it's a bit different in that sense uh but they there are other resources not just the ordinance um one of them had a participation agreement uh that we could maybe take after for the businesses that they have to sign and kind of like an application process already set up and they've also uh emphasize that the businesses that do participate they participate because they they want the increase in revenue and so they do see it as a privilege to participate and they have been very uh compliant and cooperative with the city and uh whatever local business organization is uh helping to operate oh that's interesting so there's a self-enforcement uh vibe that comes along with this program yeah uh uh there is also oversight from the business organization um but there's a strong sense of uh compliance from the businesses people want people want to be well behaved and make sure their customers are well behaved that's that's good to know that's a that's a helpful insight thank you for that uh those are all my questions for now anything else from council Ms.

McDonald.

You know when thinking about the Wednesday night market I know that we have different businesses that come out um that have pop-up tents that maybe aren't specifically within the zone but I I saw in the presentation they had to be from that zone in order to participate if they have something where they're paying for a pop-up tent or having um and they have alcohol at their restaurant or or their business are they able to then participate in that if they're down in the downtown or how does that ordinance read I'm not I don't believe so um businesses around the square would just now be able to participate but that it isn't change the existing pop-ups that come from being able to uh in compliance with their event permit.

I would think that probably should be clear then if people want to participate in the Wednesday night market that if their business isn't within that entertainment zone they wouldn't be able to sell alcohol at those events is that what I'm hearing from you.

So the signature events zones are would only be active around the location of the event during those hours so the businesses that are located around Courthouse Square, those would be the ones during that event.

Those they they would be specified to be able to participate.

I maybe have a just a little more clarity to that.

I think when we look at the overlay of events, it does become a little interesting uh so the events often provide mobile alcohol sales, and that could be very well part of the event that goes through its own ABC process to approve.

I think the Wednesday night market is a prime example.

Is individuals may want to purchase alcohol in a brick and mortar that is somewhere in the district.

And the important piece is that the alcohol is purchased from a location, it must move within the district and it cannot leave the district.

Where it gets interesting is the overlap on the event from that mobile vendor and how that event programs their own ABC license.

So we're learning more on that front with the intersection.

I think the desire of the event, especially those events that don't serve alcohol by being nimble and allowing it to fluctuate up to the overall boundary that we've presented, it allows those brick and mortars to take advantage of it.

We're also really looking at where we know the uses exist now, but it's also important to note: can this be an attraction tool?

So it's a tool in the toolbox for economic development that may encourage more beverage in that area.

But I think hopefully, council member that answers your question because there is an interesting intersection between events and then how the entertainment district works with the brick and mortars.

I think that probably needs to be brought back to us or however you end up doing the ordinance that there's clarification on the events versus the everyday use.

As council member Fleming said, I also am interested on the ability to go from Courthouse Square through the mall to Railroad Square so that we can start to create that thoroughway of people being able to go back and forth in both areas.

And I got in trouble for saying the downtown is boring, Councilmember Rogers.

So I just want to remind everybody of that last year when I did goal setting.

So I appreciate you bringing it back publicly today.

Both of you should be reprimanded for saying that.

That is not what we're looking for.

Alright, any other questions from council?

All right, let's throw this open to public comment.

And we have a few names already.

And while those individuals are making the way to the podium, I will note that this single issue seems to me to affect business and the economy, health and human services, arts and culture, and public safety.

And so I'm sure that our leadership Santa Rosa Friends will have robust feedback to get to guide us as we think through this policy.

And with that, I will throw it open first to AJ Trombetta, then Dwayne DeWitt, and then Abby Arnold.

So AJ, Dwayne, and Abby, and if we could please use both podiums, that to just to speed things along.

Thank you all.

AJ, the floor is yours.

Thank you.

My name is AJ Trombetta.

I represent a property owner in Railroad Square with an ABC licensed tenant.

I also attended the economic development community meetings in September.

I appreciate the council and city staff's commitment to create a more vibrant downtown.

AJ, if you could lean in just a little bit, it can be the mics don't necessarily pick it, pick up well.

There you go.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Speaking for the property owner that I represent, we hope that the city will consider the benefit of partnering with Smart in promoting walkable thoroughfare entertainment zones for events, train service, and marketing downtown Santa Rosa as a destination, just as Windsor is doing.

This helps increase pedestrian activity and tourism.

It also aids in reducing drinking and driving.

We ask that public leaders consider measures such as ride share or checkpoints to reduce DUIs in active entertainment zones.

You also have a joint letter from Railroad Square and the downtown action organization.

I'm also on Railroad Square's board of directors.

I support the creation of an ordinance, and we also hope that the management plan allows districts a voice in determining the best activation for their areas.

In speaking with other stakeholders in Railroad Square, there's a sentiment that a regular weekly or monthly event-based activation, this might be something like a sip and stroll or First Fridays, is more aligned with the atmosphere of our district than a broad activation every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

There's some concern that a three-day-a-week activation could strain public safety resources and Railroad Square's private security.

I personally do support a pilot program and a participation from brick and mortar businesses.

We appreciate our partnership with Santa Rosa PD and the efforts of code enforcement in our district.

I agree with Lieutenant Mahern on the anecdotal safety sentiment in Railroad Square.

We would also like to see such a program succeed and draw patrons from Petaluma, Windsor, Nevado, Catati, and surrounding areas.

We look forward to working together to promote downtown as a walkable live work neighborhood, an entertainment destination, and an engine of economic growth.

Thank you for your time.

AJ, thank you.

Uh Dwayne Abbey and then Gregory.

Hello, my name is Dwayne DeWitt.

I'm from Roseland.

Let's get this party started in here.

You know, this used to be a really kind of happening town until people deliberately made it boring.

You got to keep in mind we used to have fun.

It used to be something really going on in a lot of places.

I'm glad to hear that you say you want to do a pilot program.

Let's get it going.

With that in mind, it's been 30 years people have talked about connecting Railroad Square and downtown through the plaza, which was a big mistake to make that way in the first place.

Anyway, let's get further into this.

Let's have more hours.

Let's go to midnight.

You know, folks like to have fun.

Back in the day, we used to have songs such as After Midnight.

It used to be that you could go in this town, and there were 11 bars and nightclubs in my neighborhood of Roseland.

So how about you give us an entertainment zone over in Roseland also?

Let's look deeper into this and not just make it over here for the guys on this side of the tracks.

Let's go back over to my side of town where we know how to have fun.

Okay.

With that in mind, I want to dig a little deeper on this.

You should allow dispensaries in there too.

Because you know there's some folks that like to get a little mellow while other folks are catching a buzz.

So the way this could all go down is with you having the police around, you could have it to be where folks are watching it, people are doing what they're supposed to do.

They'll wear their little armband and they'll know, like, hey, we can go out here and have some fun.

But let's pretend we're even more civilized and do it like Europe.

Let's do it like New Orleans.

Let's do it like, yeah, you're an adult and you can go outside and have some fun and we're gonna let you put up with it.

All right.

Drinking outside shouldn't be a crime.

It should be the kind of thing that if you are an adult and you're abiding by the law, you get to go and have yourself a bit of a good time.

Now, I know that's gonna let some people think, wow, how could you be that way?

Well, you could do that because you have a really good police force, you got things set up really well to do it nice, and you still got some of those old bars left from back in the day.

You know, just across the street, we used to have a courthouse square, the hub, we had the cinnabar, we had the topaz room.

Downtown was happening.

Joe Froggers, you guys probably don't remember any of that stuff.

But some of us old guys know about dancing and romancing and having a good time.

I don't know about you guys, but this is boring as all get out now in downtown.

And I'm glad somebody stood up and said it.

Well, excuse me, you were sitting down and saying it, but you get the drift.

You can make it a better place.

They can make more money, that's what they want to do, but we want to have more fun without getting hassled while we're downtown getting around, okay?

I myself walk to my fun, so I'm not gonna be getting no DUI.

Thank you kindly.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dwayne.

We will move on to Abby and then Gregory.

Abby, you're up.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council members.

I'm Abby Arnold representing Santa Rosa Yimby.

Yes, in my backyard.

We are dedicated to making Santa Rosa a fun and vibrant city for all through building housing, supporting businesses, and expanding community services.

We have a mailing list of over 500 people here in Santa Rosa who support our work.

We strongly support the entertainment zone's proposal.

I had the privilege of staffing the Yimby booth at the 12 Wednesday night markets last uh May, June, and July.

And I think the Wednesday night market really serves as served as a pilot project for what it's like to manage alcohol downtown.

And therefore, I would argue that um perhaps a pilot isn't necessary.

Our booth had activities for children, so I talked to a lot of young families, um, hundreds of people who were holding a craft beer while pushing a stroller or managing their kids playing on our Lego table.

They uh, these folks strongly supported more opportunities to have a good time outdoors in downtown Santa Rosa.

We have so much to offer our residents and visitors.

Entertainment zones, both downtown and in Railroad Square will take advantage of our nice weather for live music, strolling around our businesses and interacting with others.

I spend a lot of time in New Orleans, and uh most recently in April during Jazz Fest, and I lived and worked in Santa Monica for many years before retiring to Santa Rosa three years ago.

Um I actually chaired the Pier Commission, and the Pier is Santa Monica Pier is very similar in terms of um getting people outdoors and having a good time in the community.

Both communities leverage their walkability to offer an outdoor entertainment experience.

This will get people out of their houses and get them to come downtown instead of staying home, watching TV.

It will also attract visitors to stay in Santa Rosa instead of other wine country destinations.

The entertainment zones will be a huge benefit to our businesses, but I also think it's an important way that we will learn to interact with each other and come together as we did on Wednesday nights, strengthening community cohesion, which means a healthier city with active participation, reduced conflict, and mutual support.

And I encourage you to um bypass having it be event-only and really go to the weekly activation so that it can become part of the rhythm of our lives here in Santa Rosa.

Thank you.

Thank you, Abby.

Gregory.

And if there are, Gregory, before you begin, if there are other individuals who wish to speak, if you could please make your way to one podium or the other so that we can we can keep this moving.

Gregory, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mayor Stapp.

My name is Gregory Farron, and it's F E A R O N.

I don't want to be Dan Downer, but I do want to report that because I've moved quite firmly into behavioral health and substance use at the county uh heading the subcommittee on the annual plan and integrated uh plan for our money.

Let's be honest.

If you turn a green light on to what this is sounding like, and Duane and everybody else gets to go downtown and have a good time, we're gonna have some problems with substance use.

We're gonna have a problem with uh continued behavioral health.

And I'm here tonight to say that it's gonna be very important for the city of Santa Rosa and the County of Sonoma to work very closely together.

Uh our you've struggled for years for decades trying to define what the city's responsibility is, and I appreciate your responsibility and homelessness and the kind of cooperation between you and the police department to be able to deal with homelessness.

But this is a lot a lot larger than homelessness.

Uh behavioral health and substance use in this city is rampant, and I think that you're going to be able to have to, in your experiment in your pilot, really test how much trying to get downtown less boring is going to turn a whole lot of people on in lots of ways.

So let's work together between the county and the city and see if we can keep it from getting out of control and help people with their own behavior.

Thank you.

Thank you, Gregory.

Are there other Janice?

Go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor.

Janice Carmen.

Um, I'm excited about this in that I'd like to see more fun downtown too.

And I remember when people used to tool town for fun, and uh you could stay downtown, you could you know get out of your car, walk around, everything was pretty safe.

It's a pretty decent place in those days and easy to get around.

Um I'm not for what uh I did hear uh Diana McDonald talking about about the corridor opening over to Railroad Square.

Uh what we need to see is more infrastructure with the city, and this was discussed at the economic development meeting, which I believe Gabe was uh attending, and that was when we were all talking about uh the um development of closing the street, and I've really been for closing the street, and everybody was talking about it, and we were very excited, and then there was no funding for it.

So uh I've sort of been privy to that part of it, but I do want to mention this that there is a ABC uh alcohol and tobacco uh course that the state has offered for servers, and I think that um this would be a helpful thing for the businesses that are serving uh alcohol.

And I've taken this course um I don't know at least 10 years ago, and uh I think that uh it should be something that they look into because it gives them more resources to be able to deal with the people they're gonna have to deal with.

Uh the other is that the lighting, as I say, is a problem, and uh the uh person who spoke on behalf of the uh market who has experienced Santa Monica and some other place, I also have experience in Santa Monica, and it is a good group down there, but it's kind of smaller and it's been at it for a long time where where they do it, and they've been able to work out a lot of the bunions on it.

But the um market is seasonal, and it's usually ended by eight, and I'd like to see this end by nine o'clock as a courtesy as Victoria brought up for the neighborhood.

But um, I do see that it has uh opportunity here, and I do see that it could be expanded.

And I wonder the part that Chamber of Commerce plays in this, and I didn't hear anything about Chamber of Commerce, but I was a bit late, and also I heard about a bracelet, and the bracelet made it sound like a private club.

So uh those are my comments for now.

Um, anyway, um I'm hoping that we do see something developed about this.

Thank you.

Thank you, Janice.

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

Seeing none, we will close public comment and bring it back to council for any final directions to staff.

Ms.

Fleming.

Yeah.

Um I thought that was really good public comment.

I thought we heard a lot of really interesting things, and the one of the things that I really came away from listening to you all speak was an emphasis on uh community placemaking, fun.

Um, and just to that end, you know, I just want to say that I I think that we we should do this.

I think we should fully implement.

I I don't want to change any of my previous comments, but I did want to respond to one comment in particular around mental health and substance abuse, and I um have worked in this field for a long time, and I've been all over the world and I've seen this done in places, and what I don't usually see, except you know, around a soccer game or something is a real emphasis on drunkenness.

What you see is a real emphasis on community space and people coming together, and it's my experience that one of the main drivers of of substance abuse problems is loneliness, and so I'm hopeful that that our emphasis is on not on amplified music, it's not on drunkenness, but is on bringing people together in a way where we can all enjoy our community spaces.

Some people will drink, some people won't.

Um, but the point is that we have a Santa Rosa that everyone can enjoy together.

So I'm fully for it.

Great presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss McDonald.

Yeah, so I think I've heard from police that um a regular hours weekly would be the easiest for scheduling, so I want to make sure that that's clear on the direction of how we want to do it.

Um I do want to emphasize the lighting back and forth.

I think that was one of our public comments, but it's something that I've heard from Railroad Square and Courthouse Square is that connectivity, and so I'm hopeful that as this program goes forward or potentially with the EIF D taxes that we can work together to improve the lighting to connect Railroad Square and Courthouse Square together, so people have a sense of safety when they're going through those two areas.

And then the last thing I do want to address is that I do remember when Frockers was here, Dwayne DeWitt, and I just want to be clear on that.

So thank you again for the presentation.

This is very exciting.

This is exactly what we've been asking for economic development.

So I appreciate all the work that went into it and the work with law enforcement for that feedback as well.

Thank you.

And I'll echo my colleagues in terms of their enthusiasm for getting some kind of pilot project started.

Um this could be a great thing for the city.

We want to get it off on the right foot, as I'm sure everyone agrees with it with a clear eye to what resources we have, and more specifically what resource constraints, as well as infrastructure constraints.

Uh, the point about lighting, it's that's really an important one.

And the fact is that in our downtown corridor, when you go off of fourth street and some of those neighboring streets, it does get a little bit dark, a little bit um less active, a little bit harder to patrol.

And as we're rolling this out, to the extent that we can come up with a pilot using the experiences of other cities that think thank you again for getting those, so that we get this program off to a really good and safe and popular start, and then we can grow it over time.

That would be that would be my um my preference.

So, whatever you have the staff has the best sense of what our what our resource constraints are at the moment and what makes most sense, especially from a public safety standpoint.

Please let those be the guide, and then by all means come back to us with a suggestion in terms of days, hours, um, geography, etc.

Um, I guess the other criteria I should mention with a particular um eye towards our city manager uh is in terms of flexibility going forward so that so that staff in the city feel like there is flexibility to adjust the pro adjust the program as we're going through and undoubtedly learning about different things that work and don't work uh as we roll this out, so from uh uh you know, keeping some flexibility in there as we as we go forward with some kind of initial version of this program.

And with that, thank you very much.

Thank you for the many months of work on this.

I hope you sense the enthusiasm of council, and thanks to the community as well for weighing in.

With that, we will move on to item six, our report on on closed session.

Madam City Attorney.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I there is no reportable action uh from closed session this afternoon.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

We'll move on then to uh item nine.

Our city manager and city attorney's reports.

Madam City Manager, any reports this week.

I do actually thank you very much, Mayor, and good evening, everyone.

I do have a brief report here.

So, first I wanted to say how much I enjoyed participating in the Martin Luther King Day of Service event that we had at MLK Park.

Uh, that was a really good event, and um our mayor was there, obviously, and we had um a couple of other council members there as well.

Councilmember Rogers, and we had Councilmember McDonald there as well, and um had a great time thanks to our parks and rec teams for their assistance and all the volunteers that came out.

That was fantastic.

So I have a couple of updates.

One is that the city is working on an initiative to streamline the conditional use permit process with the goal of making it more predictable and less costly for applicants and business owners.

The primary goal of this initiative is to support economic development within the city by making it easier to establish and expand businesses.

We're asking for public comment on the draft zoning code changes by February 5th, and community members can view the proposed changes and submit comments on the city's website.

It's a it's a long link, but if you look for conditional use permit streamlining, it will take you there.

That's the first update.

The second is that the spring summer activity guide from our recon parks arrives this Thursday inside.

Residents will find a wide variety of programs, classes, and events for all ages.

You can browse the guide online as well at Santa Rosa Rec.com or pick up a printed copy at the Finley Community Center, located at 2060 West College Avenue, and registration opens the following week, Tuesday, February 3rd, for our popular day camps and Thursday, February 5th for all other programs.

So don't miss out on that.

On February 4th, we'll have Transit Equity Day.

And so I'm pleased to share that the city will be hosting a commemorative meetup on Wednesday, February 4th at 10 a.m.

Transit Equity Day is celebrated each year on February 4th in honor of Rosa Parks and her birthday, recognizing the pivotal role that she played and the contributions of all transit trailblazers who fought for equality inclusion and accessibility in our nation's public transportation systems.

So we invite the community to join us at the downtown transit mall on February 4th at 10 a.m.

And the gathering is an opportunity to reflect on the journey that has brought us to this point and share how we can continue advancing equitable and accessible transit for all, and more information is available on our website under Transit Equity Day.

Thank you.

That's my update.

Thank you, Madam City Manager.

Madam City Attorney.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I have my monthly litigation report.

Um there were two settlements previously authorized by the city council in closed session that were finalized in the month of December.

The first was a settlement agreement that the city entered into.

It was a release and waiver of claims agreement with former city manager Marakisha Smith to amicably resolve disputes.

The former city manager raised about the terms in her employment agreement and other confidential employment related concerns.

The city paid 250,000 to Ms.

Smith in exchange for a full release of all claims.

This was not a separation agreement.

The former city manager submitted her resignation in September of 2025, announcing that her last day with the city would be January 2nd, 2026.

The party's discussions about the agreement started after Ms.

Smith announced her departure.

The second settlement I have to report is in the Hartman matter, Hartman versus the City of Santa Rosa.

The city settled with plaintiff Claire Hartman for 205,000 for a full release of all claims.

Ms.

Hardman had been employed as the director of planning and economic development and was terminated in September 2023.

In February 2024, Ms.

Hartman submitted a claim to the city, alleging she was terminated based on age, gender, andor disability.

In April 2024, Ms.

Hartman filed a lawsuit alleging wrongful termination based on those and related allegations.

Per city policy in March 2024, the city retained an independent outside attorney workplace investigator to investigate Ms.

Hartman's discrimination claims.

In August 2024, the investigator concluded that the decision to terminate Ms.

Hartman was not based on her age, gender, or disability, and found no wrongdoing by the city.

In July 2025, the court entered summary adjudication in favor of the city as to the age discrimination claim and determined that the gender and disability claims should be determined at trial.

The city continues to deny all liability in this case.

Aside from those two settlements, our caseload remains uh constant with 32 current litigation matters with trial dates assigned to approximately a third of those matters.

Four cases are currently on appeal following rulings in favor of the city at the trial court level.

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

And that ends my report for the month.

Thank you very much, Madam City Attorney.

We'll go to public comment.

Would any members of the public like to comment?

Mr.

Mr.

DeWitt, you have the floor.

Thank you kindly, sir.

My name's Dwayne DeWitt.

I'm from Roseland.

No offense intended to anybody involved in those two decisions that came close to a half a million dollars.

When Ms.

Smith was working, it didn't seem like she had any concerns, and the word claim was used by the attorney.

So obviously that's because it's a personnel matter, it's kept secret.

But it really, I guess you might say it raises the curiosity of the taxpayers.

Why somebody who was doing well and got a better job then decides, well, you know, I need a quarter of a million dollars to leave, also.

And then with Ms.

Hartman.

Nice lady.

I've talked with her a number of times over the years.

But $200,000.

I mean, maybe money doesn't seem like much to you folks, but this is serious money.

And whenever we try to do anything in Roseland, we always hear, oh, we don't have enough money.

You plead poverty.

You say, oh, we can't get that done.

So I wish that you folks, especially because of the last statement that the city attorney said, we try to settle these things with as least amount of expenses possible.

Just start saying no.

Say no, you're not getting that money.

And then see how that plays.

You don't necessarily have to go to court all the time.

I believe you can actually, isn't there a term that uh is called frivolous lawsuits?

I do believe that could be brought up.

So save us money.

We need it in Rosalind.

Thank you kindly.

Thank you, Duane.

Janice, go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, I'm gonna comment it swell also, and that is that before I came over to the city, ran for city council, and have been involved in almost every meeting I could uh attend.

I was kicked out of a meeting this morning.

It's the first time I've ever been kicked out of a meeting.

Uh, but it was a meeting here, and uh I was kicked out by the assistant uh manager.

I think he's the assistant manager right now.

I've spoken with him before about infrastructure, Janice.

Does this pertain to the team?

It does.

Yes, it does.

Okay.

So uh at my experience at the county, which was uh trying to defend the Rangers with their law enforcement uh training and keep them at the park for sixty-four thousand or sixty-eight thousand dollars, and in the end, uh they were uh not kept and the sheriff took over.

And uh this plays into a lot of things in Santa Rosa, and it has to do with violence, domestic violence and uh violence against women and Janet, can you clarify the relationship that you're gonna do?

What I'm talking about I'm gonna talk about is I have been bringing up many issues here at the city economic, racial, uh at the county misogyny, and uh what I'm trying to get at here, and I I appreciate what Duane says about the money and about the compromises, etc.

It's it's not a real easy go.

I know it's not, but Tina, who ran the, I believe it was human services of the county.

I liked her so much, and she was black, and she was so good, and she got $160,000 when she departed, and I've just found this out because of the representation by the press Democrat, and I've been involved in this for over three years now.

So I'm just saying that this should not be a practice that is tolerated, and I don't know what the answer is, whether it's more ordinances or whether it's uh Mike Thompson in uh the Congress or we have to wait until Trump is gone.

I don't know, but this should not be a practice that they're able to get this money when they depart for whatever reason.

Thank you.

Thank you, Janice.

Gregory, were you looking to comment?

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Please go ahead.

Uh my name is Gregory Farron, and I knew both Claire and uh Mary Keisha.

I miss Claire a lot.

I think she was one of the finest uh public servants we've had.

I didn't know Mayor Keisha long enough to make any determination.

Um I just wanted to make one other comment.

I've been watching the city attorney's uh litigation list for a long time, and one of the issues that's been on it for a long time, I'm really hoping you can settle, and that's Venucci versus City of Santa Rosa.

I'm hoping and I'm looking forward at some point to have that not be on your list.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Gregory.

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

Thank you.

We will close public comment.

Oops, excuse me.

We will move on to item 10 statements of abstention or recusable by council members.

Are there any statements of abstention or recusal this meeting?

Seeing none, we will move on to item 11.

Our mayor and council members' reports.

Are there any reports from council from council members this evening?

Miss Ben Willows.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, so let's see.

On an on a high note, um, I wanted to mention that I attended the Dave and Busters soft opening at the mall at the Santa Rosa Plaza on Friday night, and um, uh I uh council member Alvarez was there as well, and um it was very exciting for those of you that may have attended.

Um you know, the the mall has been they've been working really hard to really expand it and bring more businesses uh to the mall that are different, and this one is really different.

It's it's kind of across I thought it was kind of a cross between a casino and a nightclub.

Um but uh it also is very much for families as well, and so they have some age requirements and and you can bring family members, but you gotta make sure that everybody's uh that there's somebody over I think 25 at this point.

So, but nonetheless, I think it's gonna be really good for Santa Rosa.

You know, we've been talking about the entertainment zone, uh talking also about maybe having some kind of a walkthrough at some point.

Um so I think it's very exciting uh for the Santa Rosa Plaza, but I also think it's very exciting for um members of our community, and it's something very different than just shopping.

So uh, and I think that uh members of our community, like for example, they have uh screens all over, so it'd be a great place to go and watch the Super Bowl, by the way.

Um so I think this all uh very good uh for the community.

So I wanted to start with that because it's very positive.

Um I believe they opened up officially on Monday.

Um so uh I think uh if you have a chance, go check it out.

I think you'll be really impressed.

Um on another note that's not so positive.

I wanted to um address the events in Minnesota over the past two weeks.

Um first I want to say how horrified I've been since the federal government unleashed what they're calling a program on the American people, um, and many areas of the country as well as Southern California.

Um the way that people have been treated in an unlawful and a very disrespectful manner is is in my mind completely unacceptable and quite frankly abusive.

Um died at the hands of ICE, and I keep asking myself when did we become a country that allows cruelty and inhumanity to be normalized?

Even though we have not seen these kinds of acts here, we're very lucky.

Um I don't believe that we can bury our heads in the sand and think that it can't happen here, or to someone that we know, or even to ourselves.

So, like I I said at the last council meeting, I want to thank the Santa Rosa PD again for ensuring that our community was safe over the weekend as we gathered to protest again.

It was very impromptu, it was last minute.

Um, and I also want to thank the community and organizers for what they're doing to exercise their rights to peace peacefully assemble and exercise their right to free speech.

There's no question in my mind that continuing to speak out is not only important, it's essential to letting the federal government know that you do not approve of what is happening to our country.

And lastly, I want to just say that I'm uh I want to really encourage everyone to take care of yourselves.

I find myself, you know, it's this is not clinical, but that I'm experiencing PCTSD through all of this, and it's it's really really painful actually.

Um, as a person of color as a Latina, as a uh children of child of immigrants, um, it's really day-to-day, I just it's it's exhausting, and I don't know how all you are coping, but I want to encourage you to take care of yourselves as well as continue your work for the community.

And that's all I have.

Ms.

Miss Ben Wellos, thank you, Miss McDonald.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Councilmember, for those really you know powerful words today.

I appreciate you sharing that.

Um, I too attended the soft opening of Dave and Busters and just want to say thanks to them and welcome to the community.

And it is exciting to know that we have a place that adults can go and watch a football game while their kids are able to play and have a good time in the mall, or potentially you let the kids run loose in the mall and shop, and you can go and have a beverage.

Um, but uh I also want to say that I attended the MLK um day on is what they call as opposed to day off, the day of service, and thanks so much to Ruben Scott, who really has spearheaded this from the community Baptist Church.

The first year they had about 100 people, and last year I think we had a little over 200 people, and I believe this year we were close to 300 people who attended that event for this particular park.

And and just thank you to them.

I was able to attend that.

Um, I believe Kaiser was also there as a supportive group, and many of them had um food to hand out for the volunteers and things to our city staff and Parks and Rec, who was there to make sure that everybody signed in and that they had the proper tools and they're working alongside them.

So I just want to say thank you to everybody for that great event, and I look forward to it next year.

Thank you, Miss McDonald.

Ms.

Rogers.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, so I attended uh policy committees last week in Sacramento, which was very informative.

Um I have the privilege of serving on the governance transparency and local relations, where we look at things like building trust between local government and the community, how do we show operational excellence and focusing on rule of law and accountability and building relationships, not just policy, um, and also public safety, looking at Prop 36 implementation, addressing fentanyl and other controlled substances, wildfire mitigation and zone zero implementation, and a couple things that I did not know about.

Restoring juvenile sex offender oversight, I guess there is none right now, and so really looking at um how we get back to making sure that there's a registry for juveniles, jail and prison overcrowding, which affect us when people have crimes within our community.

Uh the police take them to our local jail, but due to overcrowding, um, they get sighted and released back into our communities, encouraging our peace officer mental health and wellness, youth access to um class two e-bikes, and after the violence prevention partnership um meeting that we also had, which is in my report, so I'll just put it here.

Um, I was able to speak with um Lieutenant I just in, excuse me, um, regarding getting information out to the community about e-bikes because I know a lot of parents don't know they we just buy stuff for our children, and we don't really understand the safety concerns that come with the e-bikes, and then how ICE may be making the work of our local law enforcement officers harder and eroding the trust that they have within the communities.

Um, and what is the balance?

What can our officers do?

What can they not do?

Um, so these are some topics that we were discussing.

Um, MLK Day, I was able to attend.

Um thank you.

I won't repeat all the thanks, Councilmember McDonald's, but thank you for going over all the people that we should thank.

But I do want to thank our teams.

Um we constantly show up to these community events, and they are so important.

So thank you to um team Santa Rosa for continuing to show up to all the community events.

And then lastly, I was able to meet with our new city manager, and I missed your first meeting, but I did enjoy meeting with you, and I wanna say welcome because I was not able to do so, and I look forward to what you're gonna do in our city.

Thank you, Ms.

Fleming.

Thank you.

Um I just wanted to take a moment.

I think that the remarks that Councilmember Banuelos made in regard to the in my mind illegal aggression that the Trump administration has deployed across this nation over the past year.

Um I just wanted to add a few thoughts to that.

I think she said it really well.

And one of them is that this just really shocks the conscience.

Um, a first-generation American, my my family came to this country to uh flee this kind of thing.

Um, and I don't think that it was ever a thought in their minds that that this would be where this this nation would be at this point in time.

And so, um, it's my commitment to you all that that going forward I will do whatever I can with the apparatus of the city um with what is in my control to move forward um in some way that that makes us meaningfully safer and also gives voice to the resistance that I know is at the heart of the people of Santa Rosa who value freedom and dignity and um a nation free of of domestic terrorism.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Fleming.

Uh and as a segue to my comments, I did I think it's helpful to remind the con the uh the city's residents, rather, that the city's currently engaged in three lawsuits against the federal government on issues related to the kind of tactics and policies that were are were being referenced by Miss Ben Wales and Ms.

Fleming.

Uh and as always, we are still subject not only to our own city's indivisible ordinance, which which uh regulates uh prohibits really the use of city ward or the city um resources to support ice, but also by state Senate Bill 54, the state ordinance that prohibits California cities from uh participating or assisting with uh ice projects.

So uh as you're reading the as you're reading the national news and you're as you're feeling the feelings that are being expressed tonight, just know that the city is um meeting in certain ways or or participating in certain ways, and that will continue.

Turning back to more mundane matters, I did want to note that uh last week there was a meeting of the groundwater sustainability agency, no large updates, but we did uh review the state legislative advocacy plan and also we went over the groundwater sustainability plan.

Uh I won't cover the the uh Martin Luther King park cleanup other than uh as Councilmember Rogers did to thank our staff.

Uh that was a lot of work, and it is worth noting there were so many people at that event that you had to park blocks away.

There were more than 300 people by far the best tended event that I've been to, and it really speaks well of the community that that so many came out.

And then finally, David Busters.

Thank you so much from Ms.

Van Welos for leading off with those remarks.

Especially in some of the some, especially in light of some of the questions that had been raised by the community and others about how much fun there is to be had in Santa Rosa.

Well, there is 44,000 square feet of new fund to be had.

Thank you very much, David Busters, for being here.

Uh I'll underline also, or we can underline also that in part, thanks to the work of our economic development team, Mr.

Osborne.

Thank you to you and Scott and the whole group.

Um if you look at places like Montgomery Village, you look at some of the new people that are coming into the mall, including David Busters.

People are coming to Santa Rosa from Napa.

They're coming here from Healdsburg.

They're no longer driving past us to co to uh Corte Madeira, they are no longer heading over to Walnut Creek, they're coming here, and that's gonna continue, and the data is gonna show that.

Uh and to the issue of our downtown, which is I think most would agree heading in a good direction.

We're getting reports from commercial real from commercial real estate brokers that there are now little bits of bidding wars on downtown properties that businesses that were located elsewhere are telling us or telling commercial real estate brokers that they want to be downtown where the action is, where they can walk, where they see other businesses coming in.

So there are there is good news to be reported, and I have no doubt that as we do economic development updates through the year, this or through the year that there will be uh anecdotes and data like that that uh that point out that Santa Rosa is heading in a good direction, thanks to well, thanks to a lot of people, including the work of our city team.

And with that, I will conclude my my council reports and let's open it up to public comment.

Are there any members of the public that would like to comment on any of the reports that you heard given by council tonight?

Seeing none, we will close public comment and we'll move on to the uh the always exciting um city selection committee efforts.

I 11 11.2.

We've got a couple of different uh commissions to fill tonight, starting with let's see, item 11.2.1, the Sonoma County Mayor's and Council Members Association letters of interest pertaining to the Charles M.

Schultz Sonoma County Aviation Commission.

This is the commission locally that oversees the airport and aviation generally.

There were three letters of interest, and I'm going to turn it over.

Well, actually, I'll turn both items over, uh, not just the uh aviation commission, but also the uh the childcare planning council to Miss Fleming to walk us through potential or uh nominations and discussion.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor.

Um we received three letters for the Aviation uh Commission, which is a new body being formed.

Um, and I'm going to move forward with recommending Tanya Potter and our very own Mark Stapp and ask for a second.

All right, there's a motion and a second before we do the vote.

Do we want to do both at once, or do we want to let me go before we go to public comment?

How do we should we do it?

Here's what I recommend is that um is so long as it's okay with the city attorney, I'll move forward both at the same time.

Um but if any of the council members wish to disaggregate them for um and have a a pleasant discussion about our our friends throughout the county, they can they can suggest that.

So with that, I'll revise my motion to uh move forward Tanya Potter and Mark Stepp for the Sonoma County Aviation Commission and Samantha Rodriguez for the Child Care Planning Council and see if that has a second.

Second.

So we have a motion and a second by Miss Ben Wellos uh before calling.

Well, Maggie should ask, are there are there any competing motions before we go to public comment?

There's talk, there's discussion.

Yes, um council council member um Rogers wanted to know if I knew uh council member now and I answered in the affirmative.

I do know who she is.

Is there a so there's a motion on the table in a second?

Is there a com is there a competing motion?

Seeing seeing none, uh let's go to public comment on these two uh or the set of appointments.

Janice, go ahead and then Dwayne.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um this is uh a little bit unusual.

Um last time there was an appointment, the people came and they spoke and then you chose who was going to be on whatever.

And I've had a problem getting the backup information from the city clerk, and I've spoken about it here in chambers, it hasn't gotten better.

And I know if it's the same Rodriguez I'm thinking of, she's already on two other boards or commissions.

And uh I don't know who Karen now is, and I don't have any copy of the letter or anything attached to the uh agenda, and I think this is something that you should put over to another time when the public can I we know you, Mayor, we do know you, but uh as far as these people and how it's only January uh 27th today.

So I I think that we should be able to have them see them and hear them talk and not just have the city council saying who they want on these sports.

Thank you.

Thank you, Janice.

And just clarification for the public, all of the letters of application are available as part of the as part of the packet online, and for these commissions, typically interviews are not a part of it.

It's the letter of application.

And that's because it's a different process.

Um the process it's for the whole entire county, but there is a meeting called the mayor's and council members meeting where you can see and hear an open and transparent process about how these folks get chosen, and usually they are there and you can talk to them.

And that those meetings are in some ways open to the public.

There might be like a mixer ahead of time that you can drop into.

That's helpful, Ms.

Fleming.

Thank you for making that clarification.

These are these are appointments made uh by the mayors and council members association, and those meetings are public.

Mr.

DeWitt.

Yes, sir.

My name's Dwayne DeWitt.

I'm from Roseland.

I'm very familiar with the airport.

And there's a controversy going on that I think you, Mr.

Stapp need to know about, and that's that there's a helicopter business out there, and it basically has been seen as a nuisance by many of the people who live around the airport, and they have filed complaints and they've done a lot of things to try to make sure that the helicopter business does not disrupt their peace and quiet and way of life.

You'll probably not be told much about it unless you dig into it.

The board of supervisors hasn't really done much about it, so much so that apparently they're getting ready to file a lawsuit about stuff.

And I think you need to understand this and perhaps reach out to those people who live on the periphery.

Laughlin Road is out there, and then there's Mark West Station Road, and then there's the road that goes into Windsor.

It's a really important matter because apparently the helicopter pilot is willing to essentially retaliate against the people that have filed their complaints by buzzing their households, not just once or twice, but numerous times during a day to let them know he can do what he wants because he's got that power of the business, and basically we're a county that's open for business first and foremost.

So please, Mr.

Stapp, look into that.

I haven't used anybody's names because we don't want to libel anything, but it's really important, it's a real deal out there, and you heard it here, and I'll pass the word to others that I know that Mr.

Stapp's going to be on that new aviation committee, and he'll be that balance for fairness.

Thank you, kindly, sir.

Thank you, Dwayne.

Uh, another point of clarification.

Uh, this vote tonight is actually just to allow me as mayor authorization to go to the mayor's and council members meeting and make the recommendations that we're making here.

There's an entirely separate vote to determine who's actually on the on the commission.

Uh thank you very much.

Any other members of the public wish to comment on this item?

Do I see someone making their way towards the podium?

I do not.

All right, we're gonna close public comment.

We have a motion and a second.

Madam City Clerk, would you please call the vote?

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Rogers.

Councilmember McDonald.

Aye.

Councilmember Fleming?

Yes.

Councilmember Ben Wellows?

Yes.

Councilmember Alvarez and Vice Mayor Okrepke are absent.

Councilmember or Mayor Stepp.

Yes.

Let the record show this passes with five affirmative votes.

Thank you, and thank you to my colleagues for their support.

We'll move on to item 11.3.1.

This is a uh kind of leftover item from our council appointments at the last meeting.

We weren't quite ready to do this yet.

Uh, this is the appointment of a representative and alternate to the public financing authority.

This is the downtown EIFD that in the long term long run is going to do great things for our downtown infrastructure.

Um I need to make a motion, and then council needs to support it with a with a second and a vote.

Um my preference would be that our two representatives who have done uh such a nice job to date would remain in their positions at on that public financing authority.

Uh, Miss Fleming is the primary, and Miss Ben Wellos is the alternate, and I'm looking for a second for that motion.

Mayor, if I may, I think that the council member Ben Willis and I have been serving as as equals, not as primary and alternate to the court.

Forgive me, that's true.

I was that I had it.

If I were to make a substitute motion, it would just be that.

Let's let's make that clarification.

It was by force of habit.

Yes, they are they're very much equals and they have done an equally good job on the on the public financing authority.

I I amend my original motion.

Okay, I'll second it then.

All right.

So that with that with that change, there was a second.

Uh so we have a motion and we have a second.

Uh, and now let's go to public comment.

Would any members of the public like to comment on this appointment?

Seeing none, we'll close public comment and we'll bring it back for a vote.

Madam City Clerk, whenever you're ready.

Thank you, member.

Uh Mayor, Councilmember Rogers.

Hi.

Councilmember McDonald.

Aye.

Councilmember Fleming?

Yes.

Councilmember Ben Wellos.

Yes.

Councilmember Alvarez and Vice Mayor Stapper absent.

Vice Mayor Okke are absent and Mayor Stapp.

Yes.

At the record show, this passes with five affirmative votes.

Thank you.

As noted in the agenda, our our minutes from January 13th have been continued to February 10th, so we will address them at that time.

We can now move on to consent.

And again, let's see.

We don't have to read the consent.

I'm still getting used to our new our our wonderful new system.

We don't have to re read the consent items anymore.

So I think I can just ask if there are any questions regarding the consent calendar, at least items one point or 13.1 through 13.6.

With item 13.7 continued to February 10th, 2026.

Seeing no questions or no one polling, I can call for public comment.

Are there any members of the public that wish to comment and consent?

Mr.

DeWitt.

Whenever you're ready.

My name is Dwayne DeWitt.

I'm from Roseland.

Item 13.5 continues the homeless emergency.

It's very important that we get a form of coordination between the different agencies that work to help the homeless.

Up here on the podium today is a nice little flyer about get help for residents experiencing homelessness.

At yesterday's housing authority meeting, um, there was a discussion that caused me to bring up information about what's known as the housing and urban development veterans' affairs supportive housing vouchers for the homeless.

And it's an important assistance to a community such as ours that comes from the federal government, and this current federal administration has released a video through the Veterans Affairs Department in which they extol the virtues of these HUDVASH vouchers and these programs.

Here in the County of Sonoma, the city of Santa Rosa is the one that handles these HUD bash vouchers for the entire county.

One of the dilemmas that homeless people have is they sometimes can't find where they should get the information that's going to perhaps alleviate some of their problems.

One of the dilemmas also is you don't know who to turn to to get this HUD VASH voucher.

There's an organization that meets on Tuesday mornings every week called VETConnect.

And the representatives from the Veterans Affairs Department in San Francisco send workers up here to talk to veterans about what might be needed.

One of the dilemmas that's faced by veterans is nobody seems to know the actual numbers of vouchers that are available.

And at yesterday's housing authority meeting, when staff was asked about this, they could not tell us how many vouchers are currently available for a homeless veteran that might want to get this type of assistance.

They could tell us how many are currently being used in the county, and many of them are used for projects to help them get built, and then there'll be a spot for a veteran to get in.

But there is not a system in which a homeless veteran out here right now could get information and get a voucher and get some housing.

It's really important that we figure out how to do this.

At least have your staff know how many vouchers are available and report it out every month at the housing authority meeting, please.

I'll leave you with one other thought.

It might rain tonight, and there'll be people who need shelter.

We've been asking that that Caritas site, which has a big vacant lot there, put up some warming tents, they could be there, and then veterans and others could have a place to be instead of down in Creeks, perhaps if the rain comes.

Thank you kindly for your time.

Duane, thank you, Janice.

I just want to say that uh from being over uh at the county and sitting in on many of the homeless uh meetings and the different organizations that uh have helped in the past to sponsor.

Um I was under the uh idea that a lot of these people were covered, and now the stories that I'm beginning to hear from people that come to me and talk to me about uh being evicted, are not good stories, and I really don't know what to tell them.

And I see ads in the paper.

I have seen in the last three months or so, and I don't know, maybe recent, that uh people were um that they were having the housing vouchers available.

Now I'm not talking about the vets.

Uh Dwayne often speaks about the vets.

I'm speaking about people in a home.

And uh one person that came to me recently, uh she said she'd gotten evicted, and uh it didn't sound like it went through the regular process, and I thought that there was some sort of moratorium, but maybe it's not even happening anymore about people getting evicted.

And I said, Well, how did you get evicted?

And she said that it was the landlord that hadn't taken care of the property, and uh the city came and then condemned the property and told them all there were three or four people that were paying rent on this house.

So I'm just telling a story that I'm passed along from somebody that was really in a bad situation.

She did find uh some help.

I tried to get a little more information from her, but uh I I didn't have more information, but she did end up uh finding a room uh somewhere in another house, but it was very uh disruptive and uh painful situation uh for her, and it was very sudden.

Janice, thank you.

My apologies.

I was stepping away tending to uh to a technical matter.

Um, but thank you for making public comment.

So we're in the situation of having two minutes before we can legally begin our first public comment on non-agenda matters uh before going into our public hearing.

Oh, we've got that's right.

We haven't even voted.

My apologies.

All right.

Are any other members of the public wish to comment?

Seeing none, we will close public comment, and we're gonna take a very we're gonna do a very slow vote.

Is there uh uh Miss Van Welo, so we've you're making the motion, take as much time as you need.

Okay, I'll make a very slow motion now.

Um thank you, Mayor.

Uh, let's see.

I move adoption of consent items 13.1 through 13.7.

And I will uh wave.

We get to jump in.

Thank you for that error because that's gonna be up some more time from us.

It's the 13.7's been continued.

Oh, that's why it's not there.

Okay, again, take your take your time.

Okay, let me redo that.

Then uh I move adoption of consent items 13.1 through 13.6, and waive a further reading of the text.

Okay, that was a very quick second, but we'll we'll accept it.

All right, Madam Cindy Clerk.

We have a motion and a second by Miss McDonald.

This should just about take us.

If we do the vote now, this should just about take us to the five o'clock moment.

I was taking a beat just to get us there.

Absorb the silence.

No, this is good.

Councilmember Rogers.

Let me think about it.

Hi, Councilmember McDonald.

Aye, Councilmember Fleming.

Yeah, yes, I got it.

I'll be back.

Councilmember Van Wellows?

Yes.

Councilmember Alvarez and Vice Mayor O'Krepki are absent.

Mayor Stepp.

Yes.

Let the record show this passes a five affirmative votes.

Thank you so much.

All right.

And in.

And we have just we have just lost our quorum.

So uh do we Madam City Attorney, do we have to officially recess and then come back into two minute break and then come back and start the second half of our meeting.

Thank you, everyone, for your patience.

Two minutes.

This is going to be quick.

All right, folks.

Thank you very much for your patience.

We will call this meeting back into order.

Madam City Clerk, if you could call the roll.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Rogers.

Councilmember McDonald.

Here.

Councilmember Fleming.

Councilmember Ben Wells?

Here.

Councilmember Alvarez and Vice Mayor O'Krepke are absent.

Mayor Stepp?

Here.

Let the record show that all council members are present, with the exception of Vice Mayor O'Krepke and Councilmember Alvarez.

Thank you very much.

And again, thanks to everyone for their patience.

It's nice to see so many community members out tonight.

And I'm going to assume that many of you are here for the uh for the uh budget hearing uh or the public hearing on the on our fiscal year budget priorities.

So here's the run of show.

We're gonna go to our first public comment on non-agenda matters, then we're gonna do the um we're gonna get some public, we'll get the public feedback on uh our fiscal year priorities, and then we'll go on to our PSAP review.

So, now is the time for anybody who has who wants to make up a comment on something not listed on our agenda.

Again, not listed on our agenda.

Now is your now is your first chance.

Janice, go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um first I want to say I can't see where the five o'clock meeting starts on the agenda, but you know, I've kind of been through a lot today.

Um, I want to uh say that I went to the uh violence prevention uh meeting uh last Thursday, I believe it was, and on the uh city, it said two meetings, one for uh nine o'clock at the family center, and another one for nine o'clock at the family center.

So I got there and I was trying to find out where it was, and I was uh led into the Cypress room.

I said, Well, this isn't it.

This is on a council on aging or something.

And then they said, Well, let us escort you over there.

So I walked into this big room with all these people there, and uh was glad to finally land there, and uh I sat down.

I was the only public person there.

I almost sat down at the table, and not a table, the square, and uh another woman came in a little later, but I had a comment and a question, and somebody was chairing it.

I don't know who it was, but I'd like to know who that chair was that day.

And uh this was my question, and I'd like to have it answered at some point, and I think it could be a basic thing that could be interjected somewhere.

But my question is at what point I studied the uh five areas of uh the gang and the violence that's going on here.

I also have a family member that was working with the gangs like 25 years ago.

But uh my question is uh at what point does there become intervention with the gangs or the suggestion of removing their tattoos and changing their dress because I know this is a a part of the transition to help them get back on track, and it's just a real curious point to me, and I'd like to know about that, and I intend to go uh more, and I'd also like to be appointed uh to that board, and I could probably go through the uh way you have people uh do this, and I know I've talked about it before, but I would very much like to be on this board and represent uh district three, which no longer has a person on the board.

Thank you for the city of Santa Rosa.

Thank you.

Thank you, Janice.

Sir, we're gonna go to you, and then we're gonna go to Dwayne DeWitt, Teresa Franklin, and Peter Alexander, and if we could use both both podiums to keep this missing.

So, Duane, you're up next, but sir, go ahead.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Edward Gatherle.

I'm following up to uh email communication from Friday.

I'm a son of Santa Rosa.

My brother and I grew up as wards of the court in the foster care system.

My brother's name is etched on the memorial column on this property, the first from our community to fall in Afghanistan.

Today I'm an SRJC student ambassador and a member of the Baha'i faith.

I strive to follow the teaching to be as a light to them that walk in darkness through my advocacy and currently planning a college resource fair for a transitional age use youth.

Today I'm caught in a stability paradox.

Despite years of the system, despite being despite years in the system and monthly check-ins at the Caritas Center, I have no case worker to help with housing stability.

Because I manage my health and avoid the ER, the vulnerability score ignores me.

I'm on several apartment wait lists, yet I am being bypassed for housing I qualify for because I'm too stable or too disabled to work on permanent disability.

The current system penalizes those of us working hard to maintain stability while we're rewarding high service utilization with housing first.

We should not have to destabilize and hit rock bottom to merit a roof over our heads.

For those of us with foster care history and disabilities, stable housing isn't just a goal, it is the foundation of our mental health treatments.

I urge the city council to advocate for direct navigation services for individuals who are ready to be housed but are trapped in the scoring vacuum.

Please support those doing the work to better their lives before they're forced into crisis to receive help.

To reiterate my advocacy points, the benefit barrier.

My fixed income is a matter of record, yet it is mathematically impossible to afford market rate housing here.

The penalization of stability because I strive diligently to stay out of the hospital, avoid substance use, and manage my psychiatric health.

My vulnerability score remains low.

I'm being told in essence that I'm not in enough crisis to deserve help.

Thank you for your time.

Edward, thank you very much for the thoughtful comments.

And I think we have our housing authority member making his way back to you now.

Gregory, thank you.

Uh Dwayne and then Teresa Franklin and then Peter Alexander.

Duane, go ahead.

Based on what that man just said, I sure hope you can help him.

I came to thank you tonight for the staff coming to Roseland Creek on December the 3rd to do what might be called a cleanup of folks who don't belong there.

And the staff has been really good helping out there in Roseland, and they were there on Friday, and there was actually a probation crew out there trying to help move these transient vagrants from the area.

The reason I asked for the overhead is because those people at the creek, they treat it like this, like this nice little toilet here.

They actually dig pit latrines next to the creek on the creek bank.

They're there today.

I was out there.

I pulled out a machete.

They're cutting down trees and building rails, handrails to go down into the creek.

Now the rain has just returned, thankfully, but that means their stuff's going to wash down into the creek again.

That is a pollutant that we don't really need.

And it's something that actually could be acted upon.

The district attorney for the county of Sonoma has told me that if we would start to issue, not we, not me, but if the city of Santa Rosa and our police department would start to actually issue tickets and violations of those laws, such as no camping, no fires, no weapons in this park.

You've called it a park for years.

I've been out there trying to steward it for years.

We need to have you folks step up and say that those transient vagrants are hurting it more than helping it, and get them out of there.

They return almost the same day frequently and just go to the other side of the creek.

So the district attorney has told me in person, witnessed by her deputy district attorney, that if the city would issue the tickets, that they would follow up on these, and that there would be a chance we could finally get this area cleared and cleaned up.

Just think about it.

If this was the Southeast Greenway that was being treated like this, you know that there would be some enforcement.

There would be some oversight to get rid of this plague upon our community of Roseland.

It's a pox upon our house.

There are thieves, criminals, bicycle theft rings operating out of the creek.

They throw the frames into the creek after they rip them apart, take the parts that they go and sell to get there up.

These dudes are meth heads, they're cranksters, and a lot of them aren't from Roseland.

So please help us.

I know your staff's doing as best they can.

We need an actual letter, perhaps, from the mayor of the city of Santa Rosa, and then also the police chief who's told me he'll help.

Thank you kindly for your time.

Thank you, Duane, and thank you for the helpful visual.

We'll move on to Teresa Franklin and Peter Alexander.

Uh good evening, Mayor Stapp and City Council.

This is an open letter uh to all city staff, attorneys, planners, and commissioners.

My name's Teresa Franklin.

I'm a resident at Sequoia Gardens Mobile Home Park.

To whom it may concern, seniors in Santa Rosa are a rapidly growing demographic and voting block.

We senior mobile homeowners invested in purchasing our homes, and most are living out their days on fixed incomes.

Yet the rented land our homes sit on in 55 and older mobile home parks is subject to park owner actions that threaten our housing security.

Generally, our homes cannot be relocated.

Santa Rosa's senior mobile home parks are needed for housing security, social contact, mental health, affordability, and senior community stability.

Affording housing stock in Santa Rosa is already woefully limited, and our 55 plus mobile home parks are a valuable city resource.

We must preserve them now.

Without your action, they are vulnerable to an unseemly nationwide trend.

Predatory tactics are used to intimidate residents, then convert senior mobile home parks to all ages and impose exorbitant land rent increases for the sole purpose of investor profits, which profoundly destabilizes seniors in our community.

Santa Rosa City Council paused a vote to pass our senior zoning overlay ordinance pending the outcome of Petaluma's senior zoning ordinance process.

Petaluma has proven successful, and it's time for the Santa Rosa City Council to act.

Please don't delay.

Pass the senior zoning overlay ordinance for all Santa Rosa 55 Plus Mobile Home Parks by putting it on the agenda and preserve affordable senior housing in Santa Rosa now and for the future.

We urge you to place this as a top priority for your goal setting as you move into that process in February.

We thank Councilwoman McDonald and others who've responded to our letter writing.

Many, many more letters are forthcoming to the council and city staff.

Here are a few uh bullet points urging this process.

It protects housing stability for seniors by preventing displacement and preserving age-appropriate communities in all our modular mobile home parks.

Keeps seniors housed affordably at a time when fixed incomes cannot absorb bribing rising rents or redevelopment pressures, supports aging in place, allowing long-term time residents to remain near doctors, caregivers, neighbors, and familiar services, preserves existing naturally occurring affordable housing, which is far more cost effective than building new senior housing, promotes community health and safety reducing stress, isolation, and health risks associated with forced relocation, and I'll share more bullet points next time.

Thank you, Teresa.

We will move on to Peter Alexander, if Peter's still here, and then Yala Goodman and Valerie Schlafke.

Is Peter here?

All right, we'll move on to uh Miss Goodman and then Miss Schlafkey.

Hi, my name is Yama Goodman.

I'm from Sebastopool.

Um someone I know was on the border of just over the border of Sebastapool in Santa Rosa.

It was not raining.

They were approached by a policeman or two, I'm not sure how many, and they were told they have five minutes to get their things together and get out.

And they were um one of the women was physically touched by the policeman.

And I would like to know if someone came to that policeman's home and said you have five minutes to leave how that policeman would feel.

I really feel that the people who do the enforcing and the laws have to look at if they were the group of people that the law applies to, is it reasonable?

It's basically the golden rule.

And I think we really need to consider that in our it's very simple and basic in how we govern and how we treat one another, which is um falling apart, really.

So, thank you, Miss Goodman.

Ms.

Schlafkey.

Listening to me tonight, and thank you for your work on the council.

My name's Valerie Schlafkey.

I work as a housing navigator, placing unsheltered people in housing for the Sonoma County.

And uh, if you don't think the silver tsunami is here, I think you better look twice.

We have more seniors than most counties in the Bay Area.

I think we're just right behind Marin County there.

And when we put out waiting lists for housing vouchers at the housing authority, we make a preference for seniors.

Why?

Because that's who is mostly homeless in this county.

So I'm asking you today.

I'm super frustrated.

It takes so long for anything to happen, and the senior overlay has been bumbling around here for over two years.

It's time to get it on the agenda, and it's time to make it real.

We are suffering.

I only own a home in a mobile home because that's all I've been ever been able to afford.

I'm a senior myself, and we have a wonderful community, but we're at the mercy of park owners who are predatory, and it is not a good thing for us seniors.

And if we start losing our affordable housing, guess what?

That lands in your lap with all the other homelessness that we have going on.

So I'm a little disturbed to see other zoning issues brought forth.

We came first, okay?

So let's respect our elders and get this job done.

We're gonna be seeing you many times about this until we get satisfaction.

So I thank you for your service, but I'm also frustrated.

Thank you.

Thank you, Valerie.

Are there any other members of the public that would like to make a comment at this time?

All right, and you can make your way to the podium.

Again, this is for comment on items not listed on the agenda.

And if you do wish to make a comment, if you could be waiting by the podium so that we can keep this moving.

Please go ahead.

Hi, my name is Elena Lamberton.

I live in Santa Rosa.

I'm asking the council to terminate the city's contract with private surveillance company Flock Safety and to remove all Flock automatic license play reader cameras that have been installed in Santa Rosa.

Within the last year, there's been a huge uptick in Flock cameras, and there are at least 200 installed in Sonoma County, 100 of which are in Santa Rosa.

You can search an online map at dflock.me.

Flock has over 70,000 cameras across the nation and counting.

They track not only license plates but facial recognition, and they track patterns of movement and can intuit who you are, where you live, where you work, how long you're away from home, and so much more, and compiles it all into an easily searchable nationwide database, which is absolutely unnecessary intrusive form of surveillance that has created an AI-enhanced mass surveillance state.

Although ICE doesn't have a direct contract with Flock, uh, there have been multiple accounts of local law enforcement sharing Flock database information with ICE to help them with their agenda of stalking, kidnapping, and assaulting immigrants and U.S.

citizens alike, and now ring doorbell cameras have partnered with Flock, and Ring does have a direct contract with ICE, and they can access all of that footage.

Back in May, Texas law enforcement used tens of thousands of flock cameras nationwide to track and locate a woman who crossed state lines to get an abortion and arrest her when she returned to Texas.

This shows that the nationwide AI mass surveillance database erodes our state sovereignty even here in California.

Um this level of national mass surveillance is a major overreach of government power and violates our Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches, and which also upholds citizens' right to a reasonable expectation of privacy in public.

Flock allows there to be 24-7 omnipresent searches with no warrant, no probable cause or meaningful consent of us law-abiding citizens.

Not only is Flock used and abused by federal government, but has been proven to be easily hackable by truly anybody.

Um it is not encrypted.

The public has easy access to live video feeds all over the city from these search engines, and they can be used by anyone, stalkers, people wanting to steal.

To be clear, the underlying problem is not Flock.

The problem is cities wanting a cloud-connected AI-enhanced mass surveillance system without conducting their own security audit or researching efficacy versus risk.

Thank you.

Thank you, Elena.

Fred, go ahead.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council.

I live in a senior mobile home park in Santa Rosa, and I hadn't intended to speak on this issue, but I'd like to suggest that the council consider updating its closure mobile home park closure and conversion ordinance, which it already has on the books.

There's other cities in the Bay Area that have updated their closure and conversion ordinance to uh conform to recent state laws about that.

I don't have a prepared statement on that, but I do know that legal aid, Sonoma County legal aid could provide the council with some of the critical points that you could use to update the city's closure and conversion ordinance, and that would really help people who live in mobile home parks a lot, perhaps more than the senior overlay.

Both help, I'm not here to say one or the other, but you've already got the closure and conversion ordinance on your books, and so that would be something that you could do that would be a tangible benefit for senior mobile home park people.

Thank you.

Thank you, Fred.

Are there any other members of the public who wish to speak right now?

Gregory, go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just wanted to respond.

Uh I didn't think I was going to say anything about ICE, but Victoria stimulated me.

They were uh escaping persecution as much as anybody here, and they've continued to do so.

And so virtually everybody in this country is escaping persecution.

At some point in their life, they've been afraid of the government and of their neighbors sometimes.

So we're all in this together.

Thank you.

Thank you, Gregory.

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

Seeing none, we will close this segment of public comment and we will go on to our public hearing for the evening.

Item 16.1, our public hearing on the fiscal year 2026-2027 budget priorities.

We have Mr.

Wagner and Miss Connor.

Thank you both.

Well, Scott Wagner, Chief Financial Officer with me here tonight is Veronica Connor, the city's budget manager.

We're very pleased to present this item.

This item signifies the beginning of our fiscal year 27 budget process that very appropriately begins with a public hearing asking the community for public comments in developing our budget.

I will provide a brief overview of the financial status of the general fund and actions over the past year to provide perspective towards that public hearing.

That story with the numbers ultimately tells two stories.

The first being that this council has taken significant actions over the past year to address the fiscal sustainability of our general fund.

The second part of that story is though, unfortunately, we remain in a structural deficit as has been described to council before, and we unfortunately will need to address that structural deficit in the near term.

So a general overview of where we've been over the past year is that uh city council is taking significant actions through a mid-year action during fiscal year 24-25 and a significant reduction during 2526's budget adoption.

Overall, 10.4 million dollars worth of one-time monies was released to the general fund to shore up reserves.

Additionally, $15.2 million worth of ongoing reductions was approved by council.

Our workforce saw a 54 employee reduction within our general fund.

And I would like to characterize this as those actions were critical for this year, meaning that we did not come with a mid-year reduction for the general fund as part of the current year, and that is a direct result of the actions taken by council.

The prior fiscal year also saw a voter-approved uh sales tax or excuse me tax measures that saw a $3.3 million increase in business taxes and a $400,000 increase in TOT.

Despite these significant actions and good news, council adopted an $8.4 million deficit for the fiscal year 25-26, the fiscal year that we are in now.

We expect that structural deficit to grow, and as of adoption, we were estimating that deficit to be around $17.3 million for the upcoming year.

Now we are in the process right now in finance of sharpening our pencils and getting that number more exact.

I can't tell you exactly what that is right now, but very rough math at the moment puts us 15 to 20 million.

But as soon as we have a much more descriptive number, we will come back to council.

Some primary factors driving our structural deficit is that really our two main factors is our sales tax revenue has become very stagnant at the city, especially over the past three years.

We're at the same sales tax revenue that we were three years ago.

Our current year numbers that we're seeing coming in are showing that our projections are accurate.

Secondly, one of our ultimately our salaries and benefits have outpaced our revenue at the city.

One of the primary uh portions of our benefit increases is Calper's unfunded liability, and ultimately we've seen our payment to CalPers double over the past five years.

One update from the last time I was here in October is that I came with preliminary unaudited numbers to show council in October.

I can report back that the city has received their our finished annual comprehensive financial report for 24-25.

We received an unmodified opinion and an auditor speak, that means we were clean and had no audit findings.

I will add, I'm very proud of the work that our accounting team did this year, and I'll point out that that report was filed by December 31st, which is the earliest that's been filed by the city in nine years.

So very proud of our team.

Next slide.

The city's long-range financial forecast is how we ultimately project how the city is doing and we focus our either current year budget goals off of that.

Ultimately, what we see here is that compounding effect of a structural deficit that we've been talking about.

The $8.4 million adopted deficit, which grows in the out years.

Next slide.

What you'll see here is a slide that we've been presenting to council now for the past few years, and really what it shows is how that last slide we slide we saw of the structural deficit ultimately impacts our reserves or the general fund savings account.

Our savings account for the general fund is very important because it does a couple of things.

One, it found that follows council policy of keeping 17% of our operating revenue in that account.

Two, it helps the city sustain in moments of disaster, greater financial crisis throughout the country, and we've really seen that used in moments like the 2017 wildfire or the Great Recession.

I will add that the prior, when I came here in October, and I mentioned that the numbers were not final and they might move a little bit, they moved a little bit, we were off a million dollars.

So there was a million-dollar update in our favor.

So this prior slide showed a 78 and change reserve number.

Now we're at 79.

But ultimately, the important part here is that right box, and that's what we're gonna be working on.

And what we see is that in the coming adoption year, which is fiscal year 27, we project to be right around the council's mandated reserve policy if no actions were taken by the end of the year.

But the alarming thing is when we looked at the next year after that.

If we expect council mandated policy to be around 40 million, a nine million dollar leftover reserve is frankly something that we would need to address.

Next slide.

So we took significant reduction actions as part of the last year that were very difficult.

What I would point out here is that methodology is always important with reductions.

And the methodology that was directed to the departments was to do what we call an 8% across the board cut.

So all departments were tasked with developing what reducing their department's budget would look like at 8%.

This slide really shows how that conversation and those decisions developed over time with meetings where ultimately there was a prioritization amongst departments of where we wanted to cut from and where we wanted to save from for the moment.

Ultimately, a 19.3 million dollar deficit, which was first brought to council was brought down to 8.4 million.

What this slide I think additionally shows in context for our next year is that future actions like the actions we took before will be very challenging.

I think it was mentioned in one of the items tonight that the low-hanging fruit for the city is really been done.

I wouldn't characterize any of our cuts as low hanging, but certainly the cuts ahead are going to be very, very challenging for the organization.

Revenue is a big part of what we look at and what we keep an eye on, and really our revenue is three stories for that fiscal year 2425.

We did very, very well in the city's investment portfolio.

We're very proud of that.

But unfortunately, you can't count on that every year.

This year has been very positive so far as well, which we like to see, but that was what I would call an anomaly.

We saw an increased revenues from our voter enhanced tax revenue measures, brought in a net of around $3.7 million that we hadn't had budgeted prior.

Very positive.

When we segregate those anomalies out, we look at the remainder of the city's budget, and the reality is that the results were not just projections, but we ultimately did not hit our revenue projections.

And there's really one glaring area that did not perform, and that's sales tax.

As I mentioned prior, we're seeing what's now seven quarters of decline for the city's sales tax.

That is not normal.

Uh this is very challenging for us given that sales tax is our top revenue source, and we're seeing stagnation for that period of time.

Next slide.

With that, I'll turn it over to our budget manager Veronica to uh continue the presentation.

Thank you, Scott.

Um, we're here today to hold our public hearing on budget priorities for fiscal year 26-27.

This public hearing is a requirement of the Santa Rosa City Charter.

The charter requires that we provide an opportunity for the public to come forward and provide input on council goals and to share their opinions on where our city resources should be budgeted in the next fiscal year.

So for the public who can't be here today, we also do receive input online at srcity.org forward slash budget comments.

This public hearing unofficially begins our budget season for fiscal year 26-27.

So over the next six months, you'll be seeing a bit more of us.

February through May, departments will be working to be developing their budgets for the next fiscal year.

We will provide a mid-financial mid year financial update to the city council sometime in March or April.

The City Council will review department budgets in depth on May 5th and 6th of 2026, and we will have a comprehensive draft of our budget documents available for the public on June 2nd, 2026.

And then finally, we'll be back to hold another public hearing to adopt our final budget in on June 16th, 2026.

And with that, we are prepared to hold the public hearing.

Thank you both.

All right, it begins a multi-month conversation here on council and in the city and with the residents.

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

Ms.

McDonald.

Thank you for the presentation.

I just have a couple questions for you.

You said that there was a reduction in 54 different positions.

I think you said last year.

Were those positions vacant and just not filled, or were those actually already filled positions that we had to lay off?

Thank you for your question.

Councilmember McDonald, it was a mix.

So the city did issue layoff notices.

I don't have those exact numbers of the split.

It certainly was a composite of vacant positions, filled positions as well.

We will get back to you on that.

We will follow up and give you that breakdown of analysis of how the 54 split out.

The other question I would have is how many more vacant positions we currently have as far as city staff goes.

I think that's important to know going into this next budget season because I know we budget for potential positions that we have, but I'd like to know that number as well if you can get us that information.

And as far as the 8% across the board, is that a proposal that is coming forward for the different departments for this year?

Not at this time, council member.

Uh at this point, we are we're at the very beginning of this process, and as Veronica talked about, that's a collaboration effort with with City Manager Farrell and the departments to really develop uh how we are gonna move forward in that process.

So too early for me to say what methodology is today.

Great.

That's all I have for now.

Thank you.

Other questions from council.

Right, then let's open the public hearing.

I don't have my gavel with me tonight, but we are officially opening the hearing.

Janice, lead us off, and then Fred.

Uh Janice Carman here.

And uh I had uh talked or requested or brought it to the city council attention about uh crosswalk at uh highway 12 and uh Calistoga Road, and it's where a big uh apartment building uh has been uh built there and people run across the street and it's really complicated, even though the road has been a little bit fixed, but I also talked about improving the road, uh Calistoga Road because of all the potholes, and some of them are they must be like eight to ten inches, and they're squares, and I wonder if people are just actually putting them in the road.

But what this is leading toward is that I discovered at a bicycle and pedestrian meeting that I happen to go to that Calistoga Road all the way to Maria Carrillo School, which had been considered for being closed and closed, but it is not as I understand being closed now.

Uh and that portion of the road was to be uh I thought redone, not just uh with the cleanup stuff that they put on it, and then it gets broken down again.

So I'd like to see that project come through and be done because it's been a while now, and I've been talking about it since probably six months ago, but about three months ago I found out that it was actually on the agenda to be done.

But what I think about, and I've talked about this before when I'm going to sleep, is just having the roads repaired.

And what I wonder is with infrastructure, and I know we have some brilliant minds here.

I've talked about it before, and people work really hard at the city, and some of the feedback I get back sometimes from public is terrible.

And I say no, that's not true.

You know, there's a lot of really hardworking people that work for the city, and they're trying.

But what I'd like to see is it apportioned in a way that there's some sort of pattern where I don't know how much, but maybe a one mile area gets redone, and then it moves over to another mile area, and it gets worked in as a workable solution to what we've become as far as the roads are, and that the budget allows for it to actually get done and isn't an additional thing.

Also, um, I think there's gonna have to be another tax measure that is going to have to come up.

And we live in California, it's expensive to be in California, but we have a good lifestyle.

We have clean air for the most part, we have clean water, and we're we're doing well on a lot of things.

And I also went to the water meeting last uh week, and I want to say that the Russian River, according to the water meeting is doing very well, and they're bringing back the salmon and other things, and it was very encouraging.

So that's all I'm gonna say about that.

But I'd like to see the roads repaired in a really formidable way.

Thank you, Janice.

Fred and then Dwayne.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council.

Um I'm here speaking as the co-chair of the Santa Rosa Sonoma County NAACP housing committee.

Um we have two key recommendations for your consideration.

One is ensure the South Santa Rosa Specific Plan includes concrete and forcible anti-gentrification strategies that protect low income residents, BIPOC communities, and seniors implemented with the same level of specificity, accountability, and measurement as the plan's economic growth actions.

Two, adopt a triple bottom line full cost accounting approach to ensure budget decisions reflect economic, environmental, and social sustainability, especially during periods of fiscal austerity.

These requests align with the 2023 through 31 housing element goals, policies, and programs.

In particular, we highlight program H 30, affirmatively furthering Fair Housing anti-displacement strategies, and program H31, affirmatively furthering fair housing place-based revitalization strategies.

So thank you very much.

Thank you, Fred.

Duane.

Hello, sir.

My name is Dwayne DeWitt.

I'm from Roseland.

I want to thank all the staff for the hard work that they've done.

And point out that we're going to have more hard times ahead.

The difficulties lie in the fact that the economy is not as good as people would say it is.

People aren't going to be spending as much money, so your sales tax revenue is not going to increase, probably.

Also, one of the things that's really important, folks aren't going to support more taxes.

People are hurting.

It's going to just get worse.

So what I would hope is that you look into something that is feasible, and this is what the military does.

They're called reductions in force, RIF.

You basically look and see who might be able to retire, those folks that are at your higher levels in the pay scale, let them retire, move younger people in and try to make things happen, even as you try to cut costs.

One of the things that's really important is you look for where the state and federal money still are.

It might be surprising to you, but the federal government actually still gives money out for Brownfield's revitalization and economic development.

You could be doing that here in Roseland over on Roberts Avenue, which is in the downtown specific area plan.

You could be finding ways to bring in funding to our community and make positive things happen.

I would avoid any further annexations because you're already overwhelmed.

You don't have enough to take care of your carrying capacity for the roads and the things that you have to be responsible for at this point.

With that in mind, looking at the bicycle bridge that goes over Highway 101 in our dreams, it might be time to look at how you can do it for far less.

It's been said that you can actually find prefabricated modular bridges that can be put in place quickly with cranes.

It's been done in many other cities, and you can avoid the high cost of that bridge that we've been waiting on.

It's the type of thing that if you say we need to cut costs, people will accept a different design than what you've got there now.

This is something that you might say, well, our different constituencies, the bike folks, the pedestrian folks.

I've been on the county's bicycle and ped committee.

I've done a lot of different things with the city's committees.

You folks could lead the way and say we're going to tighten our purse strings right here, right now, and save seven, eight million dollars, perhaps, on how that project could go forward quicker, more efficiently, and last longer.

These things are possible.

Obviously, you folks have difficult decisions ahead of you.

I appreciate all of your efforts and know that staff will do their best, as you will also.

I'll be back for the other hearings.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dwayne.

Jenny Lynn.

Good evening, Mayor Staff and members of the Santa Rosa City Council.

My name is Jenny Lynn Holmes, and I have the honor of serving as the CEO of Catholic Charities of Northwest California.

I want to begin by expressing my appreciation and my understanding of the extremely challenging times ahead of you, and have been already passed.

But I thank you for your leadership even during these thankless times.

As you prepare for the upcoming budget process, I just want to give a couple of updates.

As you saw in the presentation, the homeless services portion was heavily reduced.

And to help with that, we obviously reduced our services, which particularly focused on reducing hours at our drop-in center, the downtown street outreach team, as well as security and staffing at Sam Jones Hall.

Unfortunately, that means we've also seen an increase in related calls, community concerns, and we also have preliminary data that shows that homelessness has increased significantly since last year.

We've been proactively engaging concerned community stakeholders.

I want to thank Chief Cregan and his team who uh we've been going downtown talking with businesses on a regular basis to address their concerns and see what we can do given the limited resources, and I commit that we will continue to do so.

And although we reduce the services, the need doesn't necessarily go away with that.

And I want to be clear, I'm not requesting any funding reductions be reversed.

Um Catholic Charities is committed to supporting the long-term financial sustainability of the city of Santa Rosa.

We are actively pursuing alternative funding sources and are not standing idly by, and we'll work with everyone in this challenging time.

I do ask that given the magnitude of last year's reduction, there's a consideration that maybe no additional cuts are considered as we continue to kind of uh find solutions for the reductions that have already occurred and continue to address the community concerns that have been coming forward.

And I'll say on a personal note, I want to thank you as a lifetime resident of Santa Rosa for everything you do, and we are committed and I am committed to doing all I can to help you and to help the City of Santa Rosa with their financial sustainability.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jenny Lynn, and thank you, Catholic Charities, for all the work that you do for the for Santa Rosa residents.

Thank you for being here tonight.

Are there any other members of the public that would like to participate in this public hearing?

Any other voices wishing to be heard?

Seeing none, we will officially close the public hearing.

Uh I'll bring it back to council for any final discussion at this time.

Or I'll look to uh Miss Rogers for a motion.

Oh, whoops, I'm just uh on by road here.

Although my notes do indicate a motion.

No, there is actually no motion on the floor for this item.

It was an oversight on the agenda that you are noting on the annotated script.

Perfect.

So we've we've had the public hearing.

There's no additional, there's no additional comment from council.

Um anything else that we required to do on this item, Madam City Attorney or Madam City Clerk, or simply thank staff for kicking off this process.

I'll do, oh, Mr.

Wagner, go ahead.

I will take advantage of this brief pause to answer Councilmember McDonald's question.

So the so the breakdown of filled versus vacant was 15.8 filled, 38.2 vacant.

Thank you for that, Mayor.

No, thanks for getting that data so quickly.

Uh and we'll conclude by just thanking you for this presentation today and for all the work that is to come on, especially over the next six months.

So much obliged for uh for getting our conversation started tonight.

Ms.

Rogers.

Sorry, really quick.

I just want to point out that um just because uh it's vacant doesn't mean that our departments don't operate at a at a loss, and that we're asking our staff to do more with less.

Um, and I'm not saying some positions, yes.

Um, but some positions we're just we're asking our staff to do more with less.

So I do want to acknowledge that that just because it's vacant doesn't mean it wasn't needed.

I'm I'm sure that all of our departments feel that acutely.

Thank you very much.

We'll be speaking again soon.

All right, with that, we'll move on.

We'll move back to item 15.1, our report for fiscal year 2024 and 2025, uh, regarding our public safety and prevention tax annual report.

And let's see, I think we have a few folks who are presenting.

Who's who's going first?

Is there discussion?

Mr.

Westrope, if I recall the presentation, I think you're up first.

Chief Westrope, thanks for being here tonight.

Thank you, Mayor Stapp.

Sorry, I thought there was going to be some big introduction.

You want not for me.

Did you want a more grandiose segue?

I do prefer, you know, a nice introduction, but um we'll get started here.

So uh good evening, Mayor Stapp, members of council, uh Scott Westro, Fire Chief of the City of Santa Rosa.

Um normally joining me is Sarah Roberts, our admin analyst, but she was unable to make it, so um I'm going to try to make it through all these slides on my own.

So looking at uh the PSAP or public safety and prevention uh tax annual report for fiscal year 24-25, um, for the fire department.

Um this slide here shows um an overview of the fund for that fiscal year.

Um we ended fiscal year 24 with a fund balance of 4.6 million dollars.

Um the revenue coming into the fire department was 4.5 um with interest and other revenues at 136,000.

Um our expenditures were about 5.25 million dollars, and uh we'll go into more detail on that on the next slide.

Um I'll note that this was a little bit higher than normal because we had a one-time asset expenditure buying uh two transport capable vehicles, and then the encumbrance for $881,000 is for a new type one engine that's currently in production and we should have here um in the next few months as part of our uh fleet replacement program um out of PSAP, excuse me if I say measure O, um PSAP, so that's the the encumbrance uh there.

Um we ended with a fund balance on June 30th of 2025 of 3.2 million dollars.

So a breakdown of our expenditures here um looking at the actuals um salaries and benefits, uh 2.5 million dollars and 1.6 million dollars um service and supply was 167,000 and administration was 119,000.

Um this actually isn't a fire engine purchase.

This is the purchase of the two transport capable vehicles um for 553,000, and then the transfer out um was our last payment on this debt service on the fire station five on Newgate Court, the one that burned down.

So we're we're done paying off that fire station that we don't have anymore, but um that uh debt service is over with, which is which is great news.

Um, again, reaching a total of 5.285 million dollars in expenditures.

Um, as always, we um show the reventure revenue and expenditure slide.

You'll see that our expenditures spiked a little bit.

That was due to the one-time purchases for um assets.

Um so that's why you see that spike here, it should come down in the next year.

And then for the fire department, just as a reminder, what PSAP can do for the fire department is we can supply personnel facilities and special and special equipment on an enhanced not supplant basis.

Um so for the fire department, the funded positions and the personnel stream, um, we have three fire captain paramedics, three fire capped uh three fire engineer paramedics and three firefighter paramedics.

What you'll see there is that makes up an entire engine company.

So for the 11 engine companies that we have in this city, PSAP pays for an entire engine company and for them to be paramedic.

It also pays for our uh fire captain who runs our training facility and all of our training programs at our uh tower, and then 25% of our EMS division chief is funded through PSAP as well.

And just as a note, um EMS is C EMS division chief for emergency medical services division chief, that equates to about 65 to 70 percent of our call volume is EMS, so it's it's vitally important that we have that position.

And then it pays for essentially both ladder truck companies to be paramedic equipped and staffed.

So all pieces of equipment on the road right now currently have paramedics on them thanks to PSAP.

Uh some of our impacts, like I mentioned before, it pays for an entire engine company.

Um, it's created the ability for three of our engines and both of our ladder trucks to be paramedic units.

Um, it enhances the EMS uh division management through partial funding for our division chief, as we just talked about.

Um, and then obviously with this, with it being prior to measure H, it was 10% of our our engine force, but now it's a little bit less.

But um one of our eleven engine companies on the street um reduces fire loss through improved response times and deployment of resources, which obviously increases EMS patient outcomes and increased community outreach.

Um it also funded as we re-referenced before the the construction of station five, the Newgate station.

Um, and it's currently financing part of the station eight on Hearn Avenue construction as well.

And just an overview of some of the stations that measure, I'm sorry, PSAP has built in the past.

Um, Fire Station 10, which is in the deep southwest corner of town where our offices are at um in 2008, and fire station 11 in the junior college district in 2009.

And then obviously, as we've already talked about, uh it built Fire Station 5 on Newgate Court.

The new station, the rebuild station that is not funded by PSAP opened in October of 2025.

In regards to the special equipment that PSAP purchases for us, um it's purchased two type one fire engines.

Um that is currently encumbered, is on order, and it should be here as part of a uh five asset um delivery in early spring.

They're on the assembly line now, so they should be done in March, delivered in April.

Um it's purchase one uh type three wildland fire engine, the two transport capable vehicles, four command vehicles, and a swift water rescue trailer.

And with that, um I'll turn it over to you for any questions or comments before moving on to the next department.

Thank you very much.

Bring it back to council for questions or comments.

Really nothing.

There we go.

Love it.

All right.

Well, with that, since I shortchanged you on your deduction, I'll just say I would I will just thank you for for years of remarkable leadership for a department that is among the most innovative in the state, that is sought after by by jurisdictions ranging from Maui to Los Angeles to help them with their fire needs.

The work that you do is remark is is incredible.

Uh the presentation was spot on.

Frankly, I think that Santa Rosa police have a have a tough act to follow.

That is why you're first, Mr.

Westrope.

You show them how to do it.

Thank you, Mayor, and uh that's how I appreciate uh being introduced every time.

Great team, great team.

Thank you.

Chief Kriegan, that's how it's done.

Good evening, Mayor Sapp.

I'm John Kriegan, our chief of police, and I'm joined tonight by our administrative services officer Pam Lawrence, and I'll quickly go through the police department's presentation for fiscal year 2425 for our public safety and prevention tax.

And I'll turn over the first two slides to our ASO Lawrence.

Good afternoon.

Thank you for being here.

So this slide shows our beginning fund balance in July of 2024 of 1.5 million.

We had our revenues from sales tax at 4.5 million other revenue, including interest and our lease payments from the lease of the Roseland Library of 150,000, our expenditures totaling 4.7 million.

We had a encumbrance for one of our purchases of our fleet cameras of 15,000, leaving us an ending fund balance of 1.5 million.

Next slide.

This is a breakdown of where those funds were spent.

As you can see, the majority was spent on salaries and benefits for our 17 employees funded by this tax measure.

277,000 spent on services and supplies.

That includes the fleet cameras and all of our marked patrol vehicles, as well as maintenance on the PSAP funded vehicles.

119,000 in administration from the city, and then 64,000 on land, which is our substation leases.

Next slide.

This shows the overview of the tax major since the beginning of the tax measure and 0405.

As you can see, we've been working really hard to keep our revenue and our expenditures in line with each other.

We had a large spike in 23 24.

That was the purchase of the library, but it's come back down this year.

Next slide.

All right, I'll go over just a brief overview.

So for us, we have 17 full-time employee positions that are funded through PSAP, and then two part-time interns with it.

The breakdown, the lieutenant manages our special events, our downtown enforcement team, our traffic team, with it.

And really, that's a really critical position that was Lieutenant Mahern that you heard from earlier this evening.

Two sergeants, one's in our traffic team, with our five motorcycle officers, and our four accident investigator DUI cars in the evenings, and then nine police officers.

Five of those are assigned to patrol or uniformed patrol officers that are supplementing our staffing that we have when our eight different patrol teams.

And then the other four, two are assigned to uh two of our five motorcycle officers are out of PSAP, and two of our six downtown enforcement officers are out of PSAP with it.

Our civilian positions, the filled evidence technicians, which are processing crime scenes, our community service officers, which we now only have one in the department uh with it, but is helping supplement our police officers and taking non-injury collisions, vandalism reports, reports like such as that, our communication supervisor that manages our 911 dispatch center, which saw over 189,000 calls into it in calendar year 2025, and a police technician, which works on our records team, uh, with it.

Our student interns, uh, we had a high of five, two of them had been funded out of PSAP.

Uh one of the things that you're gonna see throughout the presentation is the funding, as you heard from our CFO Wagner, is been stagnant with our sales tax.

Uh employee costs have been going up.

So we're seeing less and less of our monies for sustainably for PSAP in the future.

So we're removed both uh student interns for this year, and we're looking at potentially some other uh full-time position positions in the future.

We're working very closely with City Manager Farrell and our CFO Wagner on the future of what it looks like for PSAP, and we still have funding for this next fiscal year.

Going to the next slide, it is again some of the enhancements that we're getting.

We talked about some of the increased efforts in patrol, our traffic enforcement uh with it this year.

We uh did just under 20,000 traffic stops in the City of Santa Rosa and wrote just over 10,000 citations uh with it, and the PSAP funding really helps us with that.

Uh we also saw this year we were super excited, as in the photo there, to launch our new substation right there at Santa Rosa Plaza, which is becoming more and more vibrant than ever.

And it's so important for us to have a really big presence there.

We're right directly next to the new Dave and Busters, is our uh substation.

Uh, we have a 10-year lease for free that we were able to get from Santa Rosa Plaza.

So the price was right uh for us with it, and uh we use some PSAP dollars to help do some of the outfitting uh of the office uh with it, too, and that's really making us more centrally located with Railroad Square, Santa Rosa Plaza, and still importantly, our downtown uh core area.

So that's been a key part.

Another one is uh completely funded out of PSAP is our fleet cameras uh with it.

I've talked about this publicly often for three key areas for the transparency to our community uh with it.

The body worn cameras are often limiting, but the fleet the all three cars have three different cameras on them with it for accountability if we see things that are going on with our staff that we need to take action on, and also for the liability that so many times what we do see is actually a positive for the city, and now we have clear proof of that for these existing cameras, and that would not be possible without the funding from PSAP.

Also, another key part is our partnerships with the violence venture partnership.

We re brought back our gang crimes team, which was part of the uh PSAP funding, the gang sergeant position, but we're so much more than just enforcement and the intervention and prevention are a key part, and our close partnership with uh partnership and uh what we do with them and the increased uh work that we're doing also with community engagement.

Here's a brief little overview actually for calendar year 2025.

We had 78 like organized community engagement events that we did throughout the city of Santa Rosa.

These dots kind of show them where they are spread across the city.

Uh the reason why you don't see 78 dots is because many of them are at the same location.

As we're definitely at ro at Courthouse Square, Railroad Square, MLK Park and stuff repeatedly for different events throughout the year uh with it.

We saw some progress with our priority one response times down to uh and for this fiscal year, this was for 2024 down the six minutes and 31 seconds from uh six minutes and 50 seconds or 57 seconds in 2023.

And in 2025, we have that down the six minutes and eleven seconds.

So we're continuing to show progress year after year, and that's really important uh me as well.

Uh we've also really worked uh with our real-time crime center of making sure that we're able to use technology to be able to police in our community while at the same time recognizing community concerns and making sure that our policy, our training uh align with state law, and in no way are we sharing with ice or any other type of things that our community has fears of.

We brief little overview of some of our stats, and these are seeing that we've seen a decrease in homicides from 23 to 24, continuing to see their firearms uh throughout the city, which continues to be a problem this year in calendar year 2025.

We see 321 illegal guns, and 107 of those were ghost guns with it.

So we still continue to see a problem, 12 homicides in our community.

But PSAP is really helping us to be able to have the attainable staff to be able to make some measurable difference in this area with it.

The same thing with traffic enforcement that we continue to see over uh 20,000 traffic stops, over 10,000 citations, and continue to make that a priority.

This year we did see eight fatal collisions, but really have had a focus on DUI enforcement, and we're really proud that our department was honored uh as the North our Northern California police agency of the year for DUI, and actually our supervisor of the year and our officer who had the most DUIs in all of Northern California, so kind of took home the trilogy of prizes there, but really trying to use that to be able to make our streets safer here in the city of Santa Rosa.

So it went through a really high level of some of the stats.

Happy to take any questions from council on the topic.

Thank you both.

Bringing it back to council for questions or comments.

All right, I I will note only uh thank you for highlighting the fact that the revenues have flatlined over the past few years.

Uh Chief Westro, I should have when we should have flagged this with you too, that the that these measure O dollars, which are so important to both departments, um, have flatlined.

And so the same discussion that we had earlier about the general city budget is affecting SRPD and and Santa Rosa fire.

Um actually one other question from you, Chief Kriegan.

Do I recall correctly that it's we have a six-minute goal for our tier one response times?

Is that our yes?

Sub six minutes is what we want for our priority one response time, and priority one is that emergency call when you call 911.

So we went from a high of like right at the seven minutes uh with it, and we're getting closer at that 6'11.

So our work is to continue to maintain that this year and get it below six.

Okay, thank you.

Uh and I'm tempted to kind of to try to stick with the uh the um the what would you call it, the melodramatic shtick in terms of the introductions and the departures.

Um, but I'm I'm too afraid of having the rivalry between fire and police.

So I will note only, and I'm sure I have all of my counselors agree, all of my colleagues agreeing with this.

It is great to be an elected official in a place that has top-notch public safety that's innovative both on the fire side and on the police side, where we get to have the kinds of discussions that both of you put before us tonight, and instead of some of the other discussions in other locations uh where they are not as uh not as innovative, and it is a lot harder to be an elected official.

So thank you both for the work that you're that you do and for the presentation tonight.

And with that, I will thank you.

I will thank you very much.

And Danielle, are you up next?

And I should note also that the rate at which we are clicking through these slides tonight.

This is impressive.

This really is just another model for the city.

All right, violence prevention friends.

We are ready.

Hi, good evening.

I'm Jackie Hammond, ASO for the recreation division of the housing and community services department.

Um, with me tonight is Danielle Ronshausen, who is the violence prevention partnership manager, and Joanna Moore, who is the recreation supervisor of our neighborhood services division.

So I'll be reviewing the budget.

We began the fiscal year 24-25 with 1.8 million dollars in reserves.

We received 2.3 million in sales tax and 44,000 in interest and other revenue.

We spent 2.26 million on violence prevention services and set aside one million for contracted services.

This left a year-end balance of $820,000.

This slide shows how that money was allocated.

The largest share went to staff salaries and benefits, which together was 1.24 million.

These funds supported the program's direct services teams, outreach staff, and admin support.

The next major category of spending was our choice grants, totaling 210,000.

This represents direct investment in our community-based organizations that deliver programming throughout the city.

Finally, the smallest share of 200,000 was spent on services and supplies and administrative costs, which included materials, professional services, and outreach tools.

On this slide, you can see the expenditures and revenue trends since the funds inception.

Revenues and expenditures have generally moved in step over the past 20 years.

Both have grown steadily, reaching just over 2.3 million in recent years.

Although expenditures have fluctuated year to year, our overall overall, we have remained aligned with the available revenue.

And with that, I will turn this over to Joanna to talk about the programs we delivered with these funds.

Good evening, Joanna Moore, recreation supervisor with neighborhood services.

I'm pleased to share some new additions and improvements neighborhood services made in fiscal year 24-25 to better serve our community.

We identified a clear gap in programs specifically for our middle school age youth.

In response, neighborhood services rolled out several programs to um to address this gap that we identified and engage this age group.

One of the programs we rolled out is our soccer camp program that we do during the spring, and we hold it at Epicenter, the Epicenter, and the youth get to utilize the indoor soccer fields, jump on the trampoline, um, they get to enjoy the arcade and they even get to um do some bowling.

And this program was really successful, and we will be continuing it this next upcoming spring.

We also launched our teen recreation sensation program, and we modeled this after our popular um recreation sensation camp for our elementary age youth, and just side note I say recreation sensation quite a bit throughout this presentation, and it can get me a little tongue-tied.

Um, so just heads up for that.

Um, we took the core elements of that of our elementary recreation sensation, and we redesigned it to better fit our middle school youth.

So we implemented our empowerment groups, which Danielle will go over a little bit later in her presentation.

We also added a life skills component.

This camp was a huge success, and one of our parents shared that the teen recreation sensation has been a game changer for her daughter.

She finally feels like she belongs somewhere.

This program allowed us to reach youth who really needed structure and a full day option during the summer.

Next, I want to highlight our partner or growing partnership with Santa Rosa City Schools in regards to our recreation sensation program.

This partnership expanded this past summer.

We offer two recreation sensation camps at different elementary schools.

And one of the schools that we hosted this camp at was Monroe Elementary, and we opened up our program to for migrant education students.

By working together, we were able to support students who often face barriers to accessing enriching summer opportunities.

So we provided them a six-week full day summer experience, and if we weren't in partnership with Santa Rosa City Schools, it would have been a two-week half day summer program.

In fiscal year 24 25, we also expanded several of our existing programs.

Our family paint night, we provided this program to over a hundred more participants and their families.

For our junior warriors basketball program, which is our most popular sports league that we offer, we added two minors team and two majors teams.

So in total, we added four more teams for our community.

One of my favorite moments this year came during our self-care day for at our after school program.

We invited local barbers and nail technicians to come out to provide free haircuts and manicures.

And beyond the fun, it was really about helping our youth feel seen, valued, and confident.

One moment I will never forget is a young boy running down the ramp to our Apple Valley from our Apple Valley Rec Center yelling, This was the best day of my life, this is the best day of my life.

And he was running over to his family.

All of our after school programs, they're held in the neighborhoods that we serve.

So this young boy happened to live steps away from the rec center, and so I was able to observe him and his family, and as they were like, Oh, we love your haircut, it's so great, and the smiles on all their faces.

The theme this year was our community reflection, a patchwork quilt.

Quilts traditionally symbolize love, hardship, and resilience, and our participants use that theme to represent the beauty and diversity of Santa Rosa.

One featured piece, which I have Deputy Director Jeff Tibbetts coming up to share with you guys.

It was a recreation of the Flower Vendor by Diego Rivera.

Youth at Apple Valley used collage techniques to mimic the texture and color layering of the original artwork.

These showcases are held at Steel Lane Community Center, and they're truly meaningful.

And I'll make sure to send you all an invite and invite next time so you can meet the artist yourselves.

In fiscal year 24-25, we launched a formal evaluation plan.

Oh, I'm sorry, I jumped ahead.

Oh, here we go.

This past year was a strong year for neighborhood services.

We increased program, we increased programming across all age groups.

We more than doubled our middle school offerings, delivering 16 programs for ages 12 to 14.

And we delivered over 4,000 program hours to our community.

These numbers reflect the growing trust and engagement from our community, and they also reflect the hard work of the neighborhood services team.

Next slide.

In fiscal year 24-25, we launched a formal evaluation plan to better understand program impact and guide future planning.

Key pieces included pre and post surveys for all for all of our participants to fill out, a post-survey for our parents and guardians to fill out, and a collection of demographic data.

Data shown in this presentation reflect summer 2025 and fall 2025 programs.

Moving forward, we're collecting race and ethnicity data through our membership forms to improve accuracy and consistency.

Next slide.

Nearly 25% each live in 95403 and 95401, and these align with the Santa Rosa Equity Priority Areas.

We noticed lower participation in the Rinkin Valley area.

So we launched, so we reached out to principals and our partners in that area, making sure that they are aware of everything that neighborhood services has to offer.

We also introduced a neighborhood services discounted fee for our city booter soccer program.

This led to new signups and new memberships this past season, and that's exactly the kind of targeted outreach that we want to continue.

That concludes my portion of the presentation.

Thank you all so much for your time and support.

Go ahead, Danielle.

All right, good evening.

I'm Danielle Ronshausen, violence prevention program manager.

So fiscal year 24-25 was a really great year for the partnership.

We continued to implement pieces of our five-year strategic plan, and we started to see results from that.

We saw in 2025 no gang-related homicides in the city of Santa Rosa, which was a big accomplishment.

We haven't seen that in quite a while.

Overall, anecdotally, youth violent behaviors were down.

Juvenile arrests were also coming down, and along with that, the population in juvenile hall was starting to come down as well.

So let's get into how we did this.

Starting with our guiding people successfully referral program.

So we received 226 referrals from our community partners, which we want to note is a 61% increase in referrals compared to the last year, which was 140.

This is likely due to the increased availability of services and programs in-house as well as through our partners for the populations served, and intentionally focusing our programs and services on not only those who are at risk and high risk for gang involvement, but also those who are gang impacted and gang intentional.

The vast majority of these referrals came from our non-probation partners, including our schools and our Santa Rosa Police Department gang crimes team.

Of the 226 referrals we received, 244 referrals were made by my staff to programs and services, including our own in-house programs and services and those of our partners.

These programs and services include our one circle youth empowerment groups, our street outreach and crisis response team through New Hope for Youth, our choice funded programs, programs and services or programs through our neighborhood services team, and other outside services such as Verity and DAC.

129 youth successfully completed their programming, which is a completion rate of 85%.

And just a quick glance at who we're serving through this referral program.

As you can see, our Hispanic Latino population is uh highest for race and ethnicity, and just wanted to make a note on that.

So historically, there are two main reasons uh we see this higher uh servicing of our Hispanic and Latino youth and their families.

So we have two main gangs here in Santa Rosa, which are the Norteños and the Serreños, and they predominantly focus on recruiting those who identify as Latino.

And Latinos in our community are disproportionately impacted by social determinants of gay participation.

As far as gender goes, we see a higher percentage of male males being referred to our program, which aligns with what we see in gang prevention across the board.

Traditional gang structure does not allow females to be full-fledged gang members, but we do also recognize that females are used in various ways by our local gangs, and so we do offer programs and services that address those issues.

And finally, as far as zip codes, the 95407 area has the highest representation of those who we served in our programming, but that can most likely be explained by our youth empowerment groups.

We had three youth empowerment groups through our middle schools in both the Santa Rosa City School District and the Rosen School District per semester.

So that was actually six total for the whole year.

Moving on to our street outreach and crisis response team.

I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time tonight because I was here in October providing you with the same information and data.

This is the first six months of their first year of implementation here in Santa Rosa.

So this is a contract with New Hope for Youth.

And just as a reminder, New Hope for Youth uses the credible messenger model, providing case management services to youth and young adults who are gang impacted or gang intentional.

This includes victim supported services, reentry services, neighborhood climate checks, and whole family support.

And then the first six months of their implementation during the last fiscal year, 78 youth were engaged in their case management services.

This included 226 case management sessions, 2,250 mentoring sessions, and 60 family members also being provided services.

They engaged 915 individuals through cold street outreach, conducted 226 neighborhood climate checks, and also conducted 12 pro-social activities, engaging 159 youth in those activities.

So we also continue to use our PSAP funds to implement our choice grant program.

This included completing our cycle 11 program and beginning our cycle 12 grant program at the beginning of 2025 with a slate of new grantees that are focusing on mental health services, diversion programs, whole family support, as well as work readiness initiatives and pro-social activities.

We also launched during this fiscal year our clean slate tattoo removal program.

This is a program that provides free laser tattoo removal services for those who have eligible tattoos, eligibility means visible gang-related, hate-related, and human trafficking related tattoos.

And the services we partner with North Bay Laser and Skin Care and Laser Fresh Aesthetics as our two local clinics that provide those laser tattoo removal services.

So during the last fiscal year, 27 eligible participants completed intakes, 20 participants completed at least one tattoo removal session, and 74 total tattoos were treated, and we continue to implement that program this year.

Um including our safe campus intervention program, which is our crisis response and communication protocol we have with our local middle schools and high schools.

So we had a total of 28 safe campus intervention program activations.

This included level one, so our early intervention level, which is really our rumor control.

We get a rumor, or the schools might hear a rumor that there's a fight that might happen after school, or tensions might be a little bit high on campus.

We had 11 of those.

Level two, which is our de-escalation and mediation level, we had seven, and level three, crisis response level, ten.

In total, we had five high schools and four middle schools that utilize that program, activating our team, which allowed us to allowed us to engage 229 youth on campus during the last fiscal year.

We also implemented our youth empowerment circles, which are our weekly support groups that utilize the One Circle Foundation's boys' council and girls' circle curriculum.

We did this throughout the school year as well as with our neighborhood services team during the summer during the school year.

We held eight boys groups and four girls' groups total, engaging 112 youth in those circles at four local middle schools, so both with our Santa Rosa City Schools and Roseland School Districts over eight weeks each semester.

The groups focused on topics such as anger management, conflict resolution, toxic masculinity, healthy relationships, boundary settings, so on and so forth.

And having these relationships with youth that are participating in these groups allows my team to develop relationships, ongoing relationships with them, providing mentorship throughout the year, not just during these groups.

And so this allows them to also engage with the participating students outside of school hours during school breaks, such as summer break, winter break, spring break, and taking them on field trips and other pro-social opportunities in partnership with our other community partners.

So, for example, during that last fiscal year during spring break, they took a group of students to the snow, and some of our students had never been to the snow before, so it was a really great experience for them.

We also launched our teen culinary job training program at the end of the fiscal year.

This was done in collaboration with Sonoma Family Meal and leveraged funding from the Haas Family Foundation and the Sonoma County Sheriff's AB 114 grant program.

Nine youth participated in the six-week program, earning valuable job training and culinary skills, as well as a stipend of up to 1,200 each.

It culminated in a showcase where the youth participants made a four-course menu for their family friends and community partners.

And the photo up here on the screen is just two of the youth that participated, and I know some of you were able to attend that day.

So we're creating relationships through these programs as well.

Finally, we were also busy with education and outreach.

We did conduct the violence prevention seminar on October 10th, 2024, with keynote speaker Elder Jackson III from Inside Circle with 225 attendees.

We also partnered with SRPD on six community meetings, which included presentations on fentanyl and gang awareness, and my team participated in 159 community events and activities, reaching 6,152 people.

So looking ahead, while this report is focused on the previous fiscal year, I do want to close by saying that we continue to implement these programs as well as evaluate them for effectiveness during this fiscal year.

And while these programs are critical to interrupting and reducing youth and gang violence, and my team is doing a fantastic job at the work that we do.

There are outside factors that are contributing to another surge in gang violence right now in our community.

As this is a community issue, the partnership will continue to work with other community partners and members of the community to address this ongoing issue with the funding and the resources currently available to us.

Thank you.

And that's my presentation.

Thank you all for the amazing work.

And for the and for the warning at the end that comes through loud and clear.

Bringing it back to council for questions.

Ms.

McDonald.

Thank you for the report.

I just wanted to say thanks so much.

It's been such a joy working with all of you.

Danielle, could you just remind me again who the people are that sit around the table for the VPP program so that the public is aware of who those folks are that are at that meeting and why they're there.

Yep.

So I'm assuming you're referring to the policy team because we do have two meeting bodies.

So the policy team is our open public meeting that we have every other month.

And this includes representatives not only from our city council and city staff throughout throughout the other departments.

But we also have our chief probation officer, DA's office, public defender's office, representatives from our local school districts, leadership from our variety of nonprofits from throughout Sonoma County, our health care partners and faith-based community as well.

Okay, thank you so much.

And I just wanted to say congratulations, congratulations again on the progress on the strategic plan and how the choice grants are now focused on support of supporting that strategic plan.

And so I am happy to hear of all the movement you've made on that.

Thanks again for the presentation today.

Other questions, Ms.

Manwillos.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

Just wanted to follow up a little bit with Danielle.

I know you mentioned the seminar, and you also announced at the VPP meeting that you would not be, you and your team will not be putting on the seminar this year.

And I wondered if you could.

I know this is about last year, but but the future is really important.

And I just wonder if you would talk about that a little bit, if you wouldn't mind.

Sure.

So the seminar I mentioned was our 2024 seminar because it was part of the last fiscal year.

When we come back either later this year or early next year, I'll talk about the 2025 seminar and what we did there.

Future seminars are currently, we've decided not to hold them.

Given reduction in the revenue coming in and our need to look at what programs and services are going to be our priorities and with the surge in violence currently in our community.

We really need to look at putting that money towards direct programs and services for our youth.

So for street continuing with our street outreach team is sustaining that team here in Santa Rosa, as well as our youth empowerment groups and providing direct support for our youth here in Santa Rosa.

Thank you.

And just to follow up on that a little bit, I wonder if you would just talk for a minute about some of the things that are happening right now in terms of gangs and uh and why we are seeing a slight rise at the moment.

Sure.

So I think you're all aware at this point that we've had four shootings here in Santa Rosa just this month alone, since the new year, there were several uh youth victims in those in the first two shootings, uh, one at the transit mall and uh one in the uh MLK Park in the South Park neighborhood.

And it's not just the shootings though, we were seeing things uh starting to rise again in the fall and early winter as well.

Um and what we're hearing from our law enforcement partners is um this is likely due to there are leadership from some of our local gangs here that have gotten out of prison recently and are back in our community and are they have received instructions from those above in the prison system to actively recruit youth here in Santa Rosa to drive up their numbers.

And it's not just as simple as it sounds, you know, going out and recruit, um it's a tiered system for them, so they go out and recruit one, and then that one recruits three, and then those three recruit three each, right?

And in addition to that, those recruits have to go prove themselves out on the street, which means committing crimes.

And so we are seeing an increase in a variety of different crimes happening across the community, including uh graffiti, including fighting happening both out in the community, fights happening um in the schools.

Um, my team is being called out a little bit more often this month because of that.

Um, some of them uh ending in uh injuries due to those violent incidents.

Um, so our young people are being sent to the hospital, and so we are trying to connect those victims to services and resources also uh and with those violent incidents come increased tensions in the community and the desire among our young people to retaliate, and so we're really grappling with that right now and really trying to figure out how to move forward with the resources that we have currently.

Thank you.

I think it's really important for the public, just um us community partners and and council to hear about what's going on and and the work that you you all are doing.

Uh, and the fact that of course your portion of this um uh this tax measure is the smallest, uh, and but yet you do such important work out in the community, and I just want to commend you all for the work that you do, and and thank you because I know I could hear the passion in your voice when you were talking to the community partners about how how important it is that you reach parents, uh, and I know because I have experience with gangs as well, that um that is key, talking to parents, and if you can't talk to parents, you don't get very far.

So, thank you so much for all that you're doing, Ms.

Rogers.

I just want to quickly add, I know we all want to go home.

Uh one of the things that I was learning also with the policy committee is when we make laws and that our youth don't have consequences for their actions, that's a selling point.

Um, and so now we have laws that encourage these older uh gang members to recruit younger because they get off with a tap on the on the wrist, and and and that is appealing to them.

So it's all interconnected.

So, yes, we can we can help you, but when we also go out and we vote, or we uh support our police department when they're saying like we're we're booking people or we're doing this, and then they just come out, or that they have no consequences, so they're disrespectful like there's just no no respect in the system anymore, and so we we need to rail it back all the way around, Miss Fleming.

Thank you.

I just feel compelled to um offer one additional perspective.

Thank you for the work that you do treating this completely unnecessary situation of gang involvement.

Gangs are an adaptation to lack of resources to disrupted family structures, to the challenges of the extreme version of capitalism that we have in our country, and and while we do need to have accountability, asking people to go without the most basic necessities of belonging, of um stability and predictability are the some of the terrible causes of this.

So thank you for doing the hard work of pulling people out of the stream.

I believe it's our job to change those factors when we have the ability to do so.

Thank you all for your comments.

Are there any other questions or comments?

I'll just add my things as well.

And it's hard to think of work that's more critical right now given what's going on with our schools and our youth.

So thank you all.

Uh, and with that, we'll we'll throw it over to the public.

We have at least one public comment.

Dwayne, are you ready to go?

Janice, you will first, then Duane.

All right.

Thank you.

Uh Janice Carmen here.

Uh I think that Danielle was the person that was chairing the meeting that I was at on Thursday.

And I think I understand why I haven't seen her around.

Not very often, anyway, and I didn't realize who she was.

But wow, you are one busy person.

And that was a very exciting and unbelievable presentation.

I mean, it was really, really good, and I hope that it's broadcast everywhere.

Um, I did introduce myself and spoke at that meeting on Thursday, and I spoke about engagement and keeping children busy and all of those things being really important and the familial part of it as well.

But it's hard to do it when the other resources are as strained as they've been.

So I know that you've been here and you've heard the rest of it, and you know the rest of it really deep and meaningfully.

But it was an excellent presentation.

Thank you for your presentation.

And uh I hope I see more of you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Janice.

Duane.

Hello, I'm Duane DeWid from Roseland, which is the 95407 zip code, which was mentioned.

I'm really glad for all the work that's been done.

I want to thank all of the people that presented just now, and I want to work from this group right now back through it.

The violence prevention partnership is an important part of what could make Roseland a better place, especially right now because what she just mentioned about the uh prisoners that have come out of prison now exerting their influence.

We have much more graffiti on the fences and the walls in Roseland in the last few weeks.

Nortenos trying to come in and push on Serreños.

One of the things that we could do is paint that stuff over as soon as possible.

I've been willing to volunteer.

I have some supplies, but we need to get the people who leave the graffiti up on their fences to be responsible.

There's a law that says they're supposed to do something about it.

And it's actually, I was told by one person, they're frightened to remove it.

So then that lets the gang think like we got those people there.

And you can see this over on West Avenue, right by Shepherd's School on a few fences that I haven't been able to paint yet.

I don't have the redwood stain fence or the gray paint that we need, but we'll get on it.

We just need some more enforcement in a way.

Let those property owners know what the law is, and then we can go and get that painted right now.

They don't let us.

So this would be something that we'll do, and they won't be frightened, I would hope.

I want to thank the police department.

Their presentation was wonderful, and the Roseland substation has done wonderful work.

We're glad that they're there and that all these things are occurring.

We need to make sure that the police substation can do some more work over in Southwest Community Park.

Illegal vendors are there every night now, three and four setting up.

Drug deals are going on.

There's a lot of negativity at Southwest Community Park.

We'd like to see more enforcement there, and that could happen with just code enforcement.

Those illegal vendors don't have the public health Sonoma County uh permits to be out there, and they just act like they can do it wherever they want to.

And then the fire department.

They're doing great stuff.

I'm glad to hear what they've said.

I just wanted to make sure about the um Burbank Avenue neighborhood fire station.

We still want to keep it there because hundreds more housing units are coming in in North Roseland.

There's another uh development coming on Roseland Avenue.

There'll be more coming in as the former um auto repairer and wrecking yards are switched over into housing.

So please keep that Burbank Avenue Roseland Fire Station alive.

Make sure that we have not just the station but the officers that we need, even as you go down to the Bellevue District with your Hearn station.

Thank you kindly for all of you.

All that you do.

Have a good new year.

Every single employee in here.

Thank you, Duane.

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

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

McDonald for a motion.

Thank you, Mayor.

I move to accept the public safety and prevention tax annual report for fiscal year 2024-2025.

We have a motion and a second by Miss Rogers.

Madam City Clerk, we can call the we can call the vote whenever.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Rogers, Councilmember McDonald.

Aye.

Council Member Fleming.

Yes.

Council Member Ben Wellos.

Yes.

Councilmember Alvarez and Vice Mayor O'Crepe are absent.

Mayor Stepp.

Yes.

Let the record show this passes with five affirmative votes.

Thank you.

All right.

We're on to item eighteen, our second and last public comment on non-agenda matters.

Are there any members of the public left who wish to make public comment?

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

Thank you, everyone.