Good afternoon.

I'd like to ask Francisco to commence interpretation of the meeting.

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

It looks like a globe.

If you are in your cell phone or tablet, locate the three dots, tap them lightly, and put a check mark on your preferred language.

Click done to activate and begin the interpretation.

Once you join the Spanish channel, we recommend you shut off the main audio so you only hear the Spanish interpretation.

Claudia, will you please restate this in Spanish?

Thank you very much.

Back to you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Rogers, present.

Councilmember McDonald.

Here.

Councilmember Fleming.

Councilmember Ben Wellis.

Here.

Councilmember Alvarez is absent.

Vice Mayor Krepki?

Here.

Mayor Stapp.

Here.

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

Thank you.

We will move on to item 3.1, our conference with legal counsel regarding a significant exposure to litigation.

Two or three minutes.

So I'm looking at this, I'm seeing it says legal, legal counsel, significant exposure to litigation.

So my concern is legal versus lawful, which the law the legal results in a system fraught with corruption that's rather awful.

And the US Constitution, though, is now becoming the law of the land, a beautiful place through Almighty's complain uh Almighty's command.

As the original 13th Amendment restored to its place to a nation serving Americans with a smile on their face.

So why or why is there so much hating is simply on account that it was edited by Satan, seemingly with tips on spiritual survival, have you comprehended the part about the American revival?

It's found where Yeshua gave Peter, not Paul the keys, so to the law that pushed the world to its knees.

Knowing like the Ten Commandments given are truly given, uh I'm sorry, like the Ten Commandments now truly originally given, makes for true freedom with liberty now living, as now the ten be now is one, resonating as one, we see the new dawn's rising sun.

Doors long closed, now open, ending greed's need for tearful hoping.

Into the victory gardens, into the victory gardens, significant uh into the victory gardens galore, signifying the promise and ending of all war.

Dog soldiers activated, and the world will be captivated.

As I am Peter, I am commanding as commanded till every knee to earth is remanded.

Peter, thank you very much.

Uh, seeing no other members of the public here, we will close public comment and we will recess into closed session.

Thank you, everyone.

Hello, everyone.

The time is four o'clock, and we will reconvene in open session.

Madam City Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Rogers, present.

Councilmember McDonald here.

Councilmember Fleming?

Councilmember Banuelos?

Here.

Councilmember Alvarez is absent.

Vice Mayor Krepke.

Here.

Mayor Stopp.

Here.

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

Thank you.

We'll want to item six, our report on closed session.

And there were there are no reportable actions to uh read out from our closed session today.

Which brings us to item seven, where we have three front items, three different proclamations, uh, beginning with item seven point one, our proclamation for national child abuse prevention month.

Uh Miss Fleming, if you could take it away.

Whereas child abuse and neglect are a serious problem affecting every segment of our community and finding solutions requires input and action from everyone in the community, and whereas child abuse can have long-term psychological, emotional, and physical effects that have lifelong consequences for victims, whereas communities must make every effort to promote programs and activities that benefit children and families.

Whereas we acknowledge we must work together as a community to increase awareness about child abuse and contribute to promoting the social and emotional well-being of children and families in safe, stable, nurturing environment.

And whereas court-appointed special advocates, also known as Casa Volunteers, are assigned by the court to speak up for a child's best interest and help ensure a child's voice is heard.

And whereas Casa of Sonoma County, Child Protective Services, Child Advocacy Centers, foster parents, teachers, and others work to ensure that children in our community have safe and happy future.

And whereas CASA is celebrating 30 years of service to our community.

Now, therefore, maybe it be resolved that Mark Stapp, mayor of the City of Santa Rosa, on behalf of the entire council in recognition of our community, does hereby proclaim April 2026 as National Child Abuse Prevention Month and urge all citizens and residents to recognize this month by dedicating ourselves to this cause.

Thank you for that.

And do we have a Miss Heinen from CASA here to accept this award?

Interesting.

Perhaps we are perhaps Miss Hynan is running late.

All right, let's open it up to public comment.

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

Seeing no members of the public, we will close public comment on this item.

We may we may circle back if Ms.

Einan walks in.

We'd love to do a photo op and celebrate the great work that CASA does as well as the importance of this particular issue.

So we'll keep an eye out in the door.

But in uh until she does return, we will move on to then item 7.2, our proclamation for fair housing month.

Ms.

Ben Wellos.

Thank you, Mayor.

One one second.

Is it Ms.

Hynan?

Oh, you're my apologies.

All right, Miss Ben Wellos.

It's my honor to read this one.

Um, whereas the principle of fair housing is not only state and federal law and policy, but a fundamental human concept and entitlement for all citizens.

And whereas discrimination based on race, color, national origin, gender, disability, familial status, exclusion of minor children, religion, and other protected classes is illegal.

And whereas as a community, we welcome all good neighbors, recognizing the contribution and richness tendered by a wide variety of people of all colors and ethnic backgrounds, religious traditions, ages, genders, levels of ability, et cetera.

And whereas interested parties from both the private and public sectors will participate in a city-state and national effort to promote fair housing.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that Mark Stapp, mayor of the city of Santa Rosa, on behalf of the entire city council in recognition of our community to hereby proclaim April to be fair housing month and urge all residents of our community to personally adopt the spirit of equal housing opportunity and adhere to the letter and character of the fair housing laws.

All right, another important issue.

And do we have a let's see, is it a Miss Benson?

Miss Benson, there we there you are.

Okay, good.

The floor, the floor is your floor is yours.

Thank you for being here today.

Hello.

Actually, Mrs.

Ms.

Benson couldn't come.

She's in Atlanta.

She's stuck there because of the flight.

So my name is Elina Lin.

I'm Fair Housing Education Coordinator at Fair Housing Advocates of California.

So I'm I'm on her behalf.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you, Fred.

And if you could lean in close to that mic, it doesn't pick up very well.

So meaning closely.

Perfect.

Thank you very much.

And we're glad you can be here today.

Thank you so much.

So good afternoon.

On behalf of Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California, I want to thank the city of Santa Rosa for issuing this proclamation, recognizing April as Fair Housing Month.

This recognition is especially meaningful in the current political climate, where the principles of fair housing and civil rights are being challenged.

Fair Housing Month marks both our progress and our responsibility.

The Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968, just days after Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, as part of a national commitment to combat housing discrimination and expand opportunity.

Today we are facing renewed attacks on civil rights at the federal level, including changes that directly affect housing protections and enforcement.

The challenges we are facing make local partnerships more important than ever.

We are deeply grateful for the support the city of Santa Rosa has provided us over the years, which has allowed us to continue offering fair housing services.

Laws prohibiting discrimination are essential, but they only work when there are resources and partnerships that help us enforce them.

Thank you so much again for your leadership and your continued partnership.

Thank you so much for that statement and for being here today.

Knowing this community, I'm gonna guess we have some members of the public that wish to comment, so we're gonna open up the public comment.

Fred, I just assumed you'd be making your way to the mic, go for it.

Go for it.

Thank you, Mayor Stepp.

Good afternoon, Mayor and City Council.

I I just wanted to note that uh that housing that in the sustainability paradigm, you have the triple bottom line, and you want to try to do full cost accounting on all of the pillars of the triple bottom line, which are society, environment, and economy.

And of and there's various sustainability indicators within that that show you if you're how you're sustainable in the environment or the economy.

And from my studies, I believe that a housing that's at 30% of a person's annual income is is probably the number one sustainability aggregating indicator of all kinds of other ones like health, um, you know, psychological well-being.

Just down the line, if someone has a secure roof over their head at 30% of their annual income, that's gonna save all kinds of money everywhere else.

So it's really worth it to go for the top aggregating indicators when you when you're looking at sustainability and affordable housing at 30% of a person's annual income is it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Fred.

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

Seeing none, we'll close public comment, but we will take it we will uh take the opportunity for uh for a photo op.

If you wouldn't mind coming down, let's take a picture with council.

Thanks for making your thanks for making your way here.

All right, and so for our third and final proclamation of the evening, we are doing a proclamation uh to celebrate the American Muslim Appreciation and Awareness Month.

Ms.

Rogers.

Whereas, enriched by the unparalleled diversity of its residents, the city of Santa Rosa takes great pride in supporting individual religious freedoms, and it's strengthened by the many varied religious, political, and cultural traditions and contributions of its diverse populations, including those that practice Islam.

And whereas over 9,000 Muslims live in Sonoma County and make innumerable contributions to the cultural, political, and economic fabric and well-being of California and the United States.

And whereas the Islamic Society of Santa Rosa, founded in 2015, is a vibrant community center serving Muslims across the North Bay, a hub for learning, youth programs, charitable initiatives, and interfaith outreach, and remains committed to creating a safe, inclusive, and spiritually enriching environment for everyone who walks through its doors.

And whereas the city council acknowledges the importance of local government in advocating for peace and justice, understanding that Muslims everywhere deserve to live in peace and safety.

Now, therefore it may it be resolved that Mark Stapp, mayor of the city of Santa Rosa, on behalf of the entire city council in recognition of our community, do hereby proclaim April as American Muslim Appreciation and Awareness Month to acknowledge the rich history contributions and guiding virtues of Muslims and to commend all Muslim communities in California for the lasting positive impact they have made towards the advancement of our city and country.

Thank you, Ms.

Rogers.

And I I think we were we were supposed to have Musa Tariq from the set from the Council on American Islamic relations here.

But he mentioned that he was not able to make it and that somebody would just be speaking in his in his place.

So Marhaba, Salam Alekum.

The podium is open.

Thank you for being here this evening.

Hi everyone, and thank you so much for this.

We thank the city of Santa Rosa for recognizing the Muslims in this community and recognizing the diversity, and we really appreciate that.

And we are not we didn't prepare a speech because we knew about this last minute, but we just want to thank you so much, everyone, for recognizing uh the Muslims in this community.

Thank you so much, Shukran.

Um would anybody else like to speak?

Yes, I'm uh very appreciative for this community as uh recognize us, and we are here, and uh I'm very happy they see us, uh like a Muslim community here, because we are big amount here, and I'm very happy.

Is there care people care in government care about us?

And uh even the we meet before with you, mayor, and uh you help us to make proof like you uh care about us and community and people uh because we are so different community.

We are um from different countries.

We exactly this um in this difficult time uh for us for immigration um situation now and the people really afraid, but uh God with us, and we are happy uh government cares about this um weak weakness uh in our community.

That's why we are happy we are the government care about us.

This I thank you so much for you, and uh we'll keep in touch.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for taking the time to be here, and thank you for everything that the mosque, the Islamic Study Center does for our community.

So it would it's it was great to be able to celebrate that today.

Yes.

Uh with that, I'll open it up to public comment.

Are there any members of the public who would like to comment on this item before we do our our our photo shoot?

Seeing none, we'll close public comment.

But if you're willing, would you would you come down to the front for a photo photo shoot?

Yep.

Thank you.

All right, thank you again for all the for all the folks who came up for the proclamations today.

Um now we'll we'll get to work.

Move on to item eight point one, our uh staff briefing on Earth Day at Courthouse Square.

Oh, excuse one one moment.

All right, quick uh we're gonna actually before we move on to item eight point one.

We're gonna go back to item 7.1 because I believe we have is it uh a Miss Hynan here with oh is it is it Miss Sanders?

Ms.

Sanders, are you doing our National Child Abuse Prevention Month acceptance?

I am we are we are so happy to have you here.

Thank you.

All right, we'll adjust the podium.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here.

Uh, we did we read the proclamation earlier.

Uh we all agree that this is a very important issue.

Please say say a few words, then we'll do we'll do our uh our photo op.

So um thank you so much, Mr.

Mayor and members of the city council for the proclamation.

I'm speaking on behalf of the executive director for CASA, which is court appointed special advocates for youth.

She is actually on her way here, but um, it can be a difficult place to find.

So on her behalf, I just want to say thank you for acknowledging April as Child Abuse Awareness and Prevention Month.

We're really fortunate in Sonoma County to have an organization like CASA, which is completely volunteer driven.

They've served over 3,000 kids in our community who are dependents of the foster care system.

And the people who participate are lifelong connections for children just out of the goodness of their heart.

CASA provides all of the training and our community benefits because we have a duty to protect those who are most vulnerable.

So I'm really proud to be a member of their board and to continue to support that work.

Thank you.

Thank you for highlighting in more detail what what CASA does.

Uh it really is a fabulous organization.

Um, before we do our our our our photo, I'll throw it open again to public comment.

Um, inspired by Ms.

Sanders' words.

Does anybody wish to make public comment this time around?

Seeing none, we'll close public comment.

But Deborah, if you want to come down, let's at least do a photo.

Okay, that'd be great.

I'm hoping Helies.

If she walks in.

Yeah.

We can we can stage one later if necessary.

But let's do it.

Let's do a quick one now.

Let's we can stage it later.

You want to do it that way?

All right, all right.

Well, thank thank you for that.

We will then we'll jump ahead again to item 8.1, our Earth Day at Courthouse Square.

Um, do we have Jennifer Nesbitt here to speak about that?

Jennifer, welcome.

This is a this is a big event, Jennifer.

Thank you for coordinating it.

Thank you, yes.

Thank you for having me.

Good afternoon, Mayor Stappen, members of this council.

My name is Jennifer Nesbitt, and I'm the research and program coordinator for Santa Rosa Waters Energy and Sustainability Team.

Very excited to be here today to formally invite you all to Santa Rosa's 17th Annual Earth Day Festival.

This year, our event will be held in Courthouse Square on Saturday, April 25th from noon to 4 p.m.

Earth Day is a free family-friendly festival that brings our community together through fun activities, live performing arts, great food, and inspiring exhibits that raise environmental awareness.

At our event this year, we're gonna have free bike parking as put on by the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition.

Latino service providers will be hosting a beer and wine tent.

The hydration station will be on site to provide ice cold tap water to all event goers.

We have around 60 local vendors joining us all day in the square, and many generous local sponsors and volunteers have helped make this event possible.

Classroom safari will return again this year to provide an educational animal exhibit.

Stephanie the star will be providing free face painting for kids all day.

There'll be eco-friendly activities for all, including our always popular kids section as put on by the city's recreation and park staff.

Fair free transit will be provided to support attendance and will include Santa Rosa City Bus, Petaluma Transit, and Sonoma County Transit.

Prior to the Earth Day Festival down in the square, there'll be some creek cleanups that you can find more information about volunteering on our website.

This year we promoted a public call for performers and a review panel selected five talented performing groups to showcase Santa Rosa's performing art scene at Earth Day.

The schedule is as follows, and we're excited to be welcoming Sonoma County Pomo Dancers, Jim Ocean Band Trio, Redwood Country Cloggers, Illuminate Dance Academy Children's Group, and Sebastian St.

James Band.

We will also have Wine Country Radio doing a radio show live throughout the event to encourage people to come down to the square.

They will also be providing some interactive games for kids between these performances.

This year, a local community art group through the Santa Rosa Urban Arts Partnership obtained a grant and has organized an Earth Day procession from Juilliard Park into the square.

They will be walking or biking in with their creative recycled art pieces and then displaying these during the event in the square.

And we're looking forward to seeing the art pieces that they have created.

Looking forward to seeing you all at Earth Day in Courthouse Square.

If you need this more information or had any questions, our website has some more details.

And thank you.

Thank you very much.

Any questions?

I'll ask one.

Estimated attendance.

We usually expect about 2,000.

Okay.

All right.

And how many, how many city staff participate?

Both in terms of coordination, the setup actually being their day of.

This is a big lift for the for the team.

Yeah, we have a number of different departments joining us.

The CERO team will be here with Anahorta, Fire and Santa Rosa Police Department, various different divisions within Santa Rosa Water.

So the water use efficiency team, uh Stormwater and Creeks, and then our own energy and sustainability team.

We also have the recreation parks putting on the kids section.

And I believe PED has a table this year as well.

And I think I covered everyone.

Oh, and arts and culture as well.

Outstanding.

And so it's so impressive the amount of work that the city puts forward.

And then it's great that we get so many of the community members to come out.

So if there are no other questions, uh we'll open it up to public comment.

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

Seeing none, we'll close public comment.

Uh, and we'll just thank you again for this for the for the presentation and for all for all the work.

We're looking forward to the event.

Thank you, me too.

Thank you very much.

We'll move on to item 8.2, our community empowerment plan update.

Ms.

Horta, I'm assuming this one is yours.

All right.

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

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

On April 8th, the city will be hosting the Hopper Avenue Corridor Corridor Fire Recovery Improvements Virtual Community Meeting at 5 30 p.m.

The meeting will provide a brief construction timeline and outline that residents can ex and the outline of what residents can expect as the work begins.

This includes improvement that will reveal key roadways and streetscape elements, enhance pedestrian and bicycle access, and improve overall corridor safety as part of a long-term fire recovery.

Attendees will also have the opportunity to ask questions, Spanish interpretation will be available to access the meeting details and learn more about the project.

Please visit srcity.org slash hopperavenue project.

On April 11th, Recreation and Parks will host its monthly Park and Month Volunteer Program at Brush Creek Neighborhood Park, 1180 Brush Creek Road from 9 a.m.

to 12 p.m.

Join this family-friendly volunteer workday, a fun and productive way to help beautify a local park or community center.

Hand tools and gloves will be provided.

On April 16th, the Santa Rosa Police Department is hosting the first of its community traffic safety meetings.

The first meeting will be held at Rosland University Prep in the big room, 1931 Bioana Drive from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

These meetings are designed to provide community members with an opportunity to share traffic-related concerns directly with police staff, including issues such as speeding, roadway safety, and neighborhood traffic patterns.

On April 18, join Santa Rosa Water and the Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation at the volunteer planting day four.

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

to 12 noon to register.

Please visit SRC.org slash Colgan Creek.

Also in April 18, the rural cemetery preservation committee will host their monthly volunteer workday from 9 a.m.

to 12 p.m.

Projects include the cemetery beautification efforts such as landscaping projects, painting, and various maintenance work.

On April 25th, right before the Earth Day celebration, join Santa Rosa Creek Stewardship Team and Community Volunteers for a series of cleanups at Brush Creek, Roseland Creek, and Santa Rosa Creek from 9 to 11:30 a.m.

To register, please visit SRCity.org slash calendar.

On April 26th, the Santa Rosa Police Department and Fire Department would be part of the wildfire and earthquake expo at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds starting at 10 in the morning and until 3 p.m.

Join this exciting and informate informative day focus on wildfire and earthquake preparation.

Learn directly from our incredible first responders and emergency preparedness experts through engaging demonstration, hands-on activities and practical insights.

You will remember when you need them the most.

Finally, the City of Santa Rosa is seeking community members to fill the following vacancies on its boards and commissions.

Board and building regulation appeals, one vacancy.

Boards and public utilities, one vacancy.

To view current vacancies and to apply in online, please visit srcd.org slash board commissions and committees.

And that concludes the Small's Community Empowerment Plan update.

Thank you.

That's a full report, as always, Ms.

Huerta.

Thank you very much.

Bringing it back to council for questions.

One from me.

You mentioned the uh the traffic discussions that SRPD is hosting.

Could you say a bit more about that in terms of the number of traffic discussions?

If I remember correctly, we have a series of four or so across the city.

Correct.

Yes, there will be one per quadrant.

The first one is in April.

We're gonna have two more meetings in May, and then the last meeting is gonna be in June.

And I will be providing those updates as we get closer.

But I believe they also release uh a news flash with the information.

I'm happy to share that with you.

And the cat too.

The catalyst for this was uh the concern of residents around traffic, at least in some of our areas or in some situations, and what the city's plan to uh to address that is I'm sorry to put you on the spot, Chief Kragan.

Those are gonna be important conversations that the community should be aware of.

So I just wanted to highlight those.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's it continues to be one of our number one community concerns that come forward.

But this was actually also part of an Office of Traffic Safety grant that from the state of California, and one of the requirements was actually going out there and getting some more of this community feedback so we can be strategic with how we're utilizing these resources.

But as chief, I plan on being there at all the meetings with our traffic team and really want to hear like what are areas that we can improve with our traffic uh safety and enforcement, and as we look forward for this year about how we're allocating our traffic resources across the city.

So we're gonna continue to spread the word and we'd love to have council members through your network spread it as well so we can get some crowds there for each one of the meetings.

Thank you for that.

Those are gonna be good conversations.

Thank you for hosting them.

Of course.

Thank you.

Uh, and it's a it's a good segue into my next question, which was and I'm looking at I'm looking at Miss Horta and Miss Wood.

Uh, do we need to mention Let's Talk Santa Rosa?

Again, is this does this need to be on repeat at all of our community engagement updates?

I'll put I'll put Miss Ms.

Wood on the spot as well.

Thank you, Chief Kriegan.

It's all right, I enjoy it.

It's good to see you all.

Misty Wood Communications and Intergovernmental Relations Officer.

When I was here last time, I announced the Let's Talk Santa Rosa community engagement campaign that we're doing.

We've currently received about 300 responses, and we're hoping to receive a lot more.

So we're doing continued social media outreach and continued outreach through uh presentations to community groups.

The biggest thing here is that we are coming up on budget planning, as we are all aware.

There are gonna be some difficult choices that probably have to be made, and we want to make sure that we hear from all of our residents and our business owners as part of that process.

So it's a really community-informed process.

So anybody who would like to complete the survey, it's available at srcity.org/slash talk, T A L K.

It's available in English and in Spanish.

And if anybody would like a presentation to a community group, they can send us an email at feedback at srcity.org.

We are happy to come out.

We really want to make sure that our outreach on this is both broad and inclusive.

Uh, an excellent summary.

Thank you for picking that up that up off the bounce, Misty.

You're welcome, May.

Uh, with that, we'll open it up to public comment.

Is there any community engagement on our community engagement plan?

Fred, go ahead.

Yes, I I um look forward to commenting on the traffic traffic item.

And I had a suggestion for uh traffic calming from the public that the city could use a slogan for that called keep your cool.

Thank you, Fred.

Any other members of the public wish to uh make remarks?

All right, we'll close public comment.

And I know we have at least one question from the day, Vice Mayor.

Umce you're here, are there two important groundbreakings over the next week that anybody should know about?

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Yes.

Um, this coming up Saturday, we have the groundbreaking for the um bike ped overcrossing, the Highway 101 bike pet overcrossing.

That is at 10 30 on Saturday, and that is on Armory Drive at Elliott.

So it's um anybody who wants to take a look at that can look on our social media, Facebook and Instagram, or also the city's website.

We also have a uh groundbreaking for the Hopper Avenue reconstruction on Tuesday at I believe 10 a.m.

Thank you.

It's at 10 a.m.

on Tuesday.

Um, and that is a really big one because that's one of our last fire recovery projects, as we all know.

We we've been through the ringer since 2017, and um community recovery takes many, many years and a lot of effort by a lot of community members, staff members, council, et cetera.

So everybody is invited to both of those groundbreakings.

We'd love to see you there if you're available.

Thank you, Vice Mayor, for the question.

Thank you.

Good question.

Any other questions or final comments from council?

All right, you have our collected thanks, both of you.

Thanks for all the work.

We'll move on then to item nine, our city manager and city attorney's reports.

Uh Assistant City Manager Nutt.

Why don't you why don't you kick it off?

Anything, anything from your end?

Thank you, Mayor.

I have a number of items, uh, although the vice mayor stole my thunder just a little bit, but that's all right.

I'm really excited that the community engagement team got to announce uh the two groundbreakings, both for the overcrossing as well as Hopper Avenue.

Those are gonna be phenomenal opportunities to celebrate some great work that's gonna be happening in this community.

Um, but there are a few other things that are happening.

Uh we want to take a quick moment to talk about what's been happening over at Comstock Pedestrian Mall over the past several months.

Uh, city crews have been making some targeted improvements to help make the area safer, easier to walk through, and more visible.

The work has included tree trimming, pressure washing, graffiti removal, and adding some new color and paint that builds on the Garage 9 mural and helps guide people through the space.

These updates are part of a larger effort with more improvements on the way, like landscaping lighting and better wayfinding near Santa Rosa Avenue.

Overall, this is about creating a more open, welcoming downtown space that supports local businesses and encourages positive activity.

It is a very cool uh spot now.

It's a little less daunting, a little less dark, it's quite a bit more airy, uh, and significantly more comfortable uh to walk through as you're traversing downtown.

So I uh hope all of you that have been through there have had the opportunity to experience that.

We also wanted to uh acknowledge that we have a celebrity.

Um police chief Kriegan uh was uh awarded the Alan W.

Sill Founders Award by the California Police Chiefs Association, which recognizes a police chief making an exceptional impact across California.

Chief Cregan received this award for his leadership and officer wellness, his strong support for expanding mental health crisis response teams, and his statewide work to reduce violence associated with ghost guns.

He also continues to serve the association's board of directors and was just elected to its executive board.

This recognition reflects both his service to Santa Rosa and his growing influence in shaping best practices statewide, and we're proud of his leadership and his positive impact it has brought to our community.

So thank you, Chief Cregan.

And the awards keep coming.

Uh transportation and public works and the Santa Rosa Water Department uh received uh an award from the American Public Works Association of Northern California's uh chapter for the Lower Colgan Creek Restoration Project, phase three as the environmental project of the year.

This recognition reflects the city's strong commitment to environmental stewardship, climate resilience, and high quality delivery.

The project team included Greg Dwyer, Sarah Cozell, Charles Robinson, Steve Brady, Kelly Johnson, Kellen Johnson, and Claire Myers.

They all work collaboratively to bring this complex restoration effort to completion, and their work has transformed a degraded channel into a more natural creek system with improved habitat flood protection and public access.

The project will now advance for national APWA consideration, and we're really excited about that.

It's a beautiful project.

Hopefully, everybody's getting the opportunity to go and uh experience what they've been able to complete there.

Um I mentioned Sarah Cozell in that uh Sarah Cozell is also being recognized as part of the North Bay Business Journal's 40 under 40.

She's receiving an award as the transportation and public works supervising engineer.

Um Sarah has demonstrated exceptional leadership on several major city projects, including the Lower Colkin Creek project that I just mentioned and the Sonoma Avenue rehabilitation.

She also continue uh contributes significantly to critical uh sewer and water system upgrades, known for her strong techno technical expertise and commitment to high quality project delivery.

Sarah consistently advances the city's interests and exemplifies the professionalism within our organization.

Uh really, really uh well deserved recognition.

Uh and really I just want to uh express my congratulations to Sarah.

Uh it was a pleasure working with her, and I'm really excited to see what she's been able to accomplish.

Thank you, Assistant City Manager.

Um Madam City Attorney.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I have no report this evening.

All right, thank you both.

We'll open up the public comment on either of those reports.

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

Go go ahead.

Yes, good evening, David Harris, uh resident uh off of Brush Creek Road, and good evening uh Mayor Staff, uh Vice Mayor O'Krepke, and my district member uh Fleming, I am still in District 4, and to the rest of the council.

I last spoke to you on February the 10th, which was the day that you were considering the award for the 101 overcrossing.

That is a project that I have been advocating for since 2004.

22 years.

And now to see what that has turned into, there is a lawsuit filed by the low bidder.

And I cannot see how this could be uh a project that can just move forward.

There's if you read the details in what was presented by uh uh ball and company on February 10th.

This is not an open and shut case.

And I just cannot imagine what could happen in this whole process.

I can just look back and see that when I got involved in 2004, the JC was proposing to build a parking structure for about 22 million dollars, and the alternative was to build this overcrossing for then somewhere less than 10 million dollars, right?

So the JC did build it, you know, because the logical thing was all of the parking over in Cottingtown when the JC needs parking between 8 and noon during the week is empty.

And if we could use an overcrossing to access it, that would have been the smart economic solution.

But that did not move forward.

The JC ultimately built the parking structure and what did it cost?

$38 million.

$60,000 per added parking spot.

More than the cars that sit in those parking spots.

And now we have smart running.

We have an additional reason to want this one-on-one overcrossing, but to have it turn out to be a $38 million project.

I just uh have to say that it reminds me of Senator Proxmeyer, who used to give golden fleece awards.

And we I just would like to bring to the attention of the council that these things take so long that you lose track of how much money is getting spent on things that should cost a lot less.

And this is now not a positive thing, the fact that there's going to be a lawsuit to deal with, and I don't know what outcome that's gonna have economically because I find it hard to believe that this is not going to become a protracted issue for the city.

This is not an open and chat case.

Thank you.

Thank you, David, and thank you for the shout out to uh Representative Proxmire.

Uh he was from Wisconsin, as am I.

I haven't heard that that name in a while.

Thank you very much.

Um Senator Proxmeyer, that's right.

Uh all right, we're gonna take a bit of a of a uh detour here because do we have um is it Ms.

Heinen from CASA?

All right.

Earlier we wanted to do a photo off to celebrate um to celebrate the the child abuse awareness month and the work that Cossa has done.

Uh and so we're gonna go back very briefly to item 7.1 to make sure we get that that that photo taken.

Um if the if the three of you would come down, we'll do a quick a quick photo with council uh to make sure we commemorate that.

Thank you so much to the entire CASA team for coming out tonight.

We're glad we could we could uh celebrate together.

All right, we'll move back then to item ten statements of abstention or recusal by council.

Are there are there any?

No statements of abstention recusal this week.

So we will go on to Mayor and Council Member Reports.

Who has a report to deliver this week?

Miss Rogers, do I even need to ask?

All right, who wants to start?

Miss Banwellos, why don't you kick it off?

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, let's see, I just have a couple of things.

Um I attended the um West End quarterly meeting, and that was a c about a week ago, and um it was was very good.

They we continued the discussion on homeless solutions.

The community very much wants to be a part of the solution now, which is wonderful.

Um, and so we they had a everyone on a different tables and uh discussing those issues, and then also issues around um keeping the community clean.

They also uh wanted to talk about that.

So uh and they also showed um a Santa Rosa Police's uh video that uh the chief made recently uh that shows folks how to recognize Santa Rosa Police Department as opposed to other entities.

Um it was very good.

So overall, the meeting was very good, and I'm I'm always um happy to represent the city when I go there, and many times we have folks from the city that also attend.

Um the other thing I wanted to mention was just a brief report on the homeless coalition.

Um County staff reported a potential reduction to homeless services funding up to fifteen percent for fiscal year twenty six twenty-seven, and we'll plan to update the board at the um meeting in April.

This does not include local measure O funds or federal continuum of care funding.

City staff will monitor, in the meantime, this our city staff will monitor any updates as this may impact services in Santa Rosa.

And there's a lot of concerns around that, not just for the city of Santa Rosa, but all our cities.

The board received a report from uh MRG, a consultant hired by the county to complete an organizational assessment of the Department of Health Services and its role as lead agency for the coalition.

The assessment outlies the structural, operational funding, and governance changes necessary to strengthen leadership, rebuild trust, improve coordination, and position Sonoma County for the long-term systems performance and sustainability.

County staff are still reviewing the assessment and determining next steps.

And just want to say that we're looking, I know that the city has uh, and we're gonna discuss it later, a a homeless plan, if you will.

The county is looking at how we can all work together based on this report.

So they're still assessing it, and I hope as in the coming months I'll have more to report about how we're gonna work together, uh, particularly with fewer funds being available in the near future.

So that's my report.

An important update.

Thank you, Miss Banwellos.

Uh Ms.

Rogers.

I feel better now, knowing mine probably won't be the longest.

Here we go.

Uh March 25th and 26th, I was able to attend the Cal Cities Policy Committees.

Um one was public safety policy committee, and the second was governance, transparency, and labor relations, public safety.

I was able to attend with our very own assistant city manager nut.

Um we looked at uh AB 1383, AB 1439, which is about public retirement systems, um, open meeting uh language.

So those are some of the things that we look at in the governance transparency as far as um public safety.

We were able to look at things such as e-bikes, um, prostitution.

Uh it got a little spicy in there, which I loved because it encompasses cities from all over California.

Um, and there are a lot of different viewpoints.

So I was able to advocate for what I thought was best for our area and our region going to those policy committees.

And um loitering was another one.

E bikes is definitely a big one, and there's more to come with that.

This past weekend, Santa Rosa um had their springfest at Finley, which I was able to um attend, outdoor activities, art projects.

They had a big huge slide that I actually went down.

Um I would have got you a video, but you know, it's not a site I want you to see, but I had fun.

Um thank you to our neighborhood services program staff for pulling that off.

There are a lot of smiles and happy faces.

Um, the Black Chamber also had an egg hunt at MLK Park, which I was able to attend in a community egg hunt at Church Unstoppable and additional festivities and lunch.

Um, and then I wrapped up my very busy day with the power of word from the Nubian Collective, um, which is an event to hear spoken word, and it was to celebrate my Angelou's birthday.

Uh and yesterday, April 6th, thank you to our mayor for agreeing to step in.

I thought I had an emergency, but I was able to attend our special WACTAC meeting.

Um, Sonoma Water presented the proposed fiscal year 2026-2027 water transmission system budget and rates.

Um, very similar to the presentation that they gave here at council, and the WAC unanimously recommended the proposed budget and rates, which will go to Sonoma Water Board of Directors later this month.

Um Sonoma Water staff provided a water supply update, noting that despite lower than average rainfall to date, regional water supply remain in good shape due to carryover storage and investments from our bureau that allows Sonoma Water to store additional water in the reservoirs.

Um, and staff provided um uh ill Russian project authority, ERPA, and the decommissioning of PGE's Potter Valley project um update on the progress and what's happening with that.

And then that concludes my whose was longer, mine or Caroline's.

Yours.

Oh man, I I'm busy, Mayor.

You have me doing a lot, but thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you for that update, those updates.

Uh Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Just uh three quick things on the 25th.

Um Measure H oversight Committee met and saw the uh first uh report, including all of the individual reports from the uh various fire districts and fire departments.

Uh we'll be meeting again at the end of this month before uh uh approving and recommending to the board of supervisors, which will see it on June 2nd.

Um and it was very interesting to kind of uh make the plane as we're flying, because this is something that nobody's ever really done before, and so we're trying to figure out as we go.

But um the the commit uh the committee oversight committee is really good, has some really great members, and and I think we're doing a great job.

On uh the 27th, I was honored to be asked to speak at the uh Santa Rosa Police Department at awards banquet.

I was joined by councilmember McDonald at that.

Um it was a really cool event, uh, not only because we recognize uh our police department, but also because uh we don't always have uh press releases about the work they do, and sometimes because there's so much work that they do, and sometimes because they can't share things because of confidentiality and ongoing investigations, but to see some of the uh effort uh that our department put uh puts in, including things where like a regular traffic stop turns into the seizure of a kilo of fentanyl.

Um it's really cool to see and hear about uh the work that they do.

So I really appreciate the police for that.

Um and then on this past Friday, the third, I did a 12-hour ride along at station one with the fire department.

That's engine one, truck one, and engine nine.

And I've joked about this before with both police and fire that I am the embodiment of the ride-along curse.

Um I'm proud to say I kept Santa Rosa mostly safe through that 12 hours is that those two engines and a truck had three total calls in 12 hours.

And before police department chimes in about their friends at fire, within 20 minutes of me leaving, there was two fires, uh storm drain rescue, and two major accidents.

So I I feel like I'm in the wrong line of work to keep Santa Rosa safe.

Uh I have my own personal curse with that um or blessing, however, you choose to look at it.

So that was a great time.

Got to know uh the members of the fire department on on those rigs, and it was uh it was very informative and enjoyable.

Thank you.

Good updates as well.

Uh I will add just one.

Uh today, there's been a day-long celebration at the airport and actually at uh at Kendall Jackson Estate to celebrate at long last the fact that Southwest Airlines has finally begun flights to our county.

The very first flight arrived this afternoon, I think at 3 55.

Uh, and this morning, Miss Rogers, Mr.

Krepke, and I uh and Mr.

Osborne were there to as part of a large group, just to along with the uh the Southwest Airlines leadership to celebrate the fact that they're here, they're clearly committed, they want to expand.

It's gonna be a great thing for the county, and it's a testament to the good economic development news that we have going on right now, which is also testament to the work of that our team is doing.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Osburn, for the all the work that you and your team did along with the chamber and visit Santa Rosa and Sonoma County Tourism.

Uh it was a group effort, but it's really it's really paying dividends.

Um, and in uh as as a coda, the pilot for the flight that is that was that was making the inaugural journey to the county.

Who would like to announce where that pilot where that pilot went to school?

SSU, thank you very much.

We have multiple SSU alumni here.

Thank you.

Yes, Caroline, yes, Gabe.

All right.

So SSU was SSU was represented even on that flight.

Uh all right, that concludes our updates.

Any public comment on the any of the updates that you've heard.

Seeing none, we'll close that item and move on to item 12 approval of minutes.

Uh let's see, we have one set of minutes, the March 24th, 2026 minutes.

Any edits?

Any adjustments?

Mayor, those minutes were continued until the next meeting.

There they are.

I did not read all the way through.

Thank you very much, uh, Madam City Clerk.

All right, so those those meetings will be continued.

We'll we'll talk about those uh at our next meeting, which brings us to consent.

We have 13 consent items today, items 13.1 through 13.13.

Are there any questions from council, any items that council members wish to pull?

Ms.

Ben Wellos.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just have a question, um, I guess a point of clarification on 13.13.

Um I know this is the second reading for the ordinance around uh civil immigration.

And I just I just had a question for I guess um our authors or the folks that we're working on it, our assistant manager and um city attorney.

Um, you know, based on our last meeting uh uh on this topic.

Um I just want to make sure.

I know this is the second reading, and we want to get this on the books, I and I understand that.

But I also uh remember us talking about bringing back either bringing back an amendment or bringing back another ordinance that is stronger.

I I do like this one, but I know we need I feel like we need more.

When I'm out in the community, that's all I hear is that we need more.

So the things that um the um uh interim city manager talked about, which I thought were a really good idea was to have something additional come back.

Or is there something that we need to do to make that happen?

Um in uh looking at the uh areas of uh no cooperation, no collaboration, and no data sharing.

That that was um I think her suggestion, and I don't mean that she meant we had to have those, but just a suggestion, um, which I thought was a really great idea.

But anyway, I want I just want to know um what would be the next step in order to do something like that.

Um yes, thank you for the question very much.

Um we are this this ordinance is coming back to you just the way that you introduced it last time um so that it can proceed on on the books.

We will be bringing back another ordinance to address those issues.

Um we are in the process of drafting them and making sure that we have all of the pieces aligned.

Um we don't have those quite on um the upcoming meeting less list yet because we want to make sure that we have addressed all of the issues that could come up along the way, but I would anticipate um probably sort of the late May or early June meeting that would come back at that point in time.

So we are underway with drafting.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Any other concerns?

Great.

All right, so we'll open it up to public comment.

Any members of the public wish to comment on any of the consent items?

Good afternoon.

My name is Mary Ann Michaels, and I was here in March when you discussed item 13.13 at about nine o'clock at night.

And I'm here today to say thank you to every one of you who listen so intently to the Sonoma County Sanctuary Coalition uh concerns, and stayed way after your bedtimes and are taking this to heart.

Uh it's very important, and you are doing due diligence in this area.

And again, my great thanks.

I am a member of the Sonoma County Sanctuary Covenant.

Thank you very much, and thanks to the coalition for for all their work.

That was a late evening indeed.

Uh seeing no other members of the public who wish to speak, we'll close public comment and I'll turn to the vice mayor for a motion.

I will move to adopt consent items 13.1 through 13.13.

Second.

Uh, we have a motion and we have a second by Ms.

Rogers.

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

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilmember Rogers.

Hi.

Councilmember McDonald.

Aye.

Councilmember Fleming?

Yes.

Councilmember Ben Wellos?

Yes.

Councilmember Alvarez is absent.

Vice Mayor O'Krepke.

I mayor Stepp.

Yes.

Let the record show this passes with six affirmative votes.

All right.

I will be taking over as our mayor has to leave for a previous uh uh scheduled engagement.

Um so we will it is five o'clock, so we will move to item 14, public comment on non-agenda matters.

This is the opportunity for the public to speak on any item, not agendized.

Is there anyone Fred, when you are ready?

Um good afternoon again.

Um I moved to Santa Rosa about a year and a third ago, and I and I really like it.

Um I'm very happy to live here, and um I'm also a connoisseur of public meetings, and you know, being involved in the public give is a meaningful activity for me, and hopefully uh through being thoughtful, I can move the needle this way or that.

But I wanted to compliment the council on the on the March meeting.

I was very favorably impressed with with the council and the staff with everybody stepped up.

It was like the warriors, it was like strength and numbers.

And so I that makes me feel really good sometimes when I see everybody hitting it and making good comments, going through the items, and so I just wanted to compliment the city on your your really good performance.

I didn't quite make it to the end there.

I think it was 1030 when I left, but um I I tried to stick it through.

And also I wanted to mention that I'm also very favorably impressed with Chief Cregan and the Santa Rosa police.

Um I I watched the county and and the kind of the the more tense relationship between county law enforcement and the county body.

And so I'm really happy to live in Santa Rosa where I see uh the police, you know, more aligned with with you know what I feel like is North Bay or or Bay Area values.

And so um I'm I just wanted I wanted to maybe write you a letter, but I thought it would be nicer to just say it in person, and so nice job.

Thank you.

Thank you for add appreciate that you are a connoisseur of public meetings and don't sell yourself short, stay until 10 30 is longer than a lot of people made it that night.

So kudos to you as well.

Um is there anyone else who would like to uh comment on non-agenda matters?

Seeing none, we will close public comment on non-agenda matters, and because it is after five o'clock, we will move on to our public hearing for the evening.

Uh item 16.1 conditional use permit streamlining, and I believe that is um Deputy Director Jones and Director Osburn.

Okay, uh good afternoon.

Thank you, uh Vice Mayor Krupke, members of the council.

My name is Jessica Jones.

I'm deputy director of our planning division.

So the item before you is a proposal for an amendment to our zoning code to streamline our existing conditional use permit process.

Uh the goal of this initiative was to create a more predictable and less costly process for our businesses, um, enhancing the city's economic development efforts and providing a more streamlined review authority uh process to better allocate city uh resources.

So in April of 2024, as the council will recall, you approved a five-year economic development strategic plan.

Um that included a vision for business growth and economic vibrance.

One of the actions within that plan is to review and amend the zoning code to align with the economic strategies.

Then in February of 25, the council set five strategic priorities for fiscal years 2025 through 2027.

One of those was to promote citywide economic development.

In June of 25, the council adopted the general plan 2050, and that includes support for economic development strategies.

One of the actions within that plan is to ensure alignment between the general plan, the zoning code, and all city policies and plans, including our economic development strategic plan.

In July and August of 25, city staff presented uh this initiative to our downtown business owners as well as commercial brokers to collect early feedback on our existing conditional use permit process and ideas for improvements to that process.

Then in January of this year, uh project website was posted and the draft amendments were added to that.

Uh notices were sent out via social media as well as to emails um through the Metro Chamber, the Downtown Action Organization, Railroad Square Association, uh visit Santa Rosa, a business owners and brokers that attended the meetings that I just mentioned, as well as to all of the business license holders within the city, which amounted to just over 10,000 emails.

So in that, the community was invited to uh go to the website and review the draft amendments and provide feedback.

And then on March 12th of this year, the planning commission reviewed uh the proposal that is before you now and unanimously voted to move it forward to the council.

So the proposed amendments, I'm not gonna go into detail on them, but certainly happy to answer any uh specific questions that you might have.

I'm just gonna go over the main points of them.

So they really fall into three buckets, if you will.

Um, the first was the creation of a director level conditional use permit process.

Um, this would allow a process for administrative review of use permits rather than having them go through either a public meeting or a public hearing.

Um, and uh that would reduce the timeline for projects that still need a little bit of review, but would also maintain um that oversight uh as needed.

And through that process, there would be a notice to neighbors um 14 days prior to action on the directorate level conditional use permit.

The second element of this is reducing the conditional use permit level for certain uses.

So with that process, we took a look at the existing land use tables in all of our zoning districts and the current conditional use permit requirements and really looked at it from an economic development lens to determine what uses could be dropped down from major use permit down to a minor, from a minor down to a director, and in some cases down to permitted by right as appropriate.

And that really, you know, again was looking at trying to reduce timelines, costs, and provide efficiencies in that process.

And then the final element of this was creation of a temporary use permit, or sorry, excuse me, amendments to our existing temporary use permit section.

And that was to look at allowing a broader range of temporary activities, including pop-up retail and interim activities for our vacant and underutilized sites and buildings, really to look at supporting activation and encouraging reinvestment in those sites.

And then also what is before you, in addition to the ordinance amendment, is a resolution that would create a fee for the director level use permit.

And the fee that is proposed is in line with the existing director use permit or excuse me, director level process for our design review as well as the non-resident director level landmark alteration permit process.

So in putting this together, we um made sure to analyze to make sure that the proposal was consistent with both the general plan as well as our economic development strategic plan.

Um we found that really this process furthers many of the goals, policies, and actions within both of these plans, and in particular, you know, looking at attraction and retention of new businesses, expansion and support of existing businesses, um, and really just supporting economic development throughout the city.

So as I mentioned, um we uh uh posted the draft amendments on the website in January of this year.

We did receive numerous emails since that time looking at questions about the process as well as some suggested edits, those were addressed and incorporated into what is before you today.

Um we also received a number of letters of support, including from the North Bay Leadership Council.

Um there was also one uh email that um was not in support, and it was just general opposition to streamlining of city permitting processes in general.

Um, and then we did receive a recent email from a local broker that while supporting um the efforts that are being brought brought before you today did not feel that the process goes far enough.

Um we did meet with that person and indicate that this is really just a piece of the pie in this economic development um uh strategic efforts that we're working on.

So um, while this uh may not feel like it goes far enough, we've got a lot of other things that we're working on to kind of bring this all together.

So, with that, the planning commission and the planning and economic development department are recommending that the council introduce an ordinance with the proposed amendments and also adopt the resolution to set the fee for the director level conditional use permit, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much.

Um are there any questions from my colleagues?

Councilmember McDonald.

Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation.

I'm sure it's somewhere in all the pages of these documents, but I thought I'd just ask it.

We've had a couple different appeals lately, and I just wondered if you could clarify were those conditional use permit issues, or were those usually under a major um conditional permit?

I remember there was some differences, so could you walk me through how that would work in this new process?

Certainly.

Um yes, thank you, councilmember, for the question.

Um, so uh the uh we the last two um appeals that came before the council, one of them was for a housing project that included both an appeal of the design review process as well as the conditional use permit process, and I believe that that conditional use permit was a major conditional use permit because it was housing located within office.

Um, and I have to look to see.

I think that we are actually bringing that down there.

While this effort was focused primarily on economic development, there were some opportunities for us to take a look at some housing things.

Um because office is intended for office uses, um, we still felt that it needs review, but I my recollection is that we're dropping that down to a minor use permit.

Um, and then the last project that came before appeal that came before the council was for a minor conditional use permit.

Thank you.

And just for clarification as well, if anyone had an appeal process if it was done through the director, how would that change anything?

I don't believe so, but I I think that's important for the public to know they always have that right.

Yes, certainly.

So yeah, the uh the appeal process for any director level determination is to uh if it's uh if it's use related, the appeal goes to the planning commission, and if it's design related, it goes to the design review and preservation board.

Would those ultimately come to council?

Uh the appeal would would stop there.

The only time that an appeal at that lower level would come to the council is, for example, with the the item that came before council last uh last time it uh is a minor use permit that normally would go to the zoning administrator, which is appealable to the planning commission.

Um that item was elevated to the planning commission for um its first review, and so then the appeal body became the council.

Um but yeah, if at if kept at the the regular director level, the appeal body would be the planning commission, and that's where it would stop.

I think it's just important for the public to know that usually we have another body you can go to if you're not happy with the outcome.

So I just want to make sure that that process is clearly laid out in the new.

Yes, yeah, absolutely.

And just to be clear, as I mentioned that there is a noticing process for the director level.

Um so 14 days prior to taking action, a notice will go out to adjacent property owners within um 600 feet.

That notice will outline.

So while this is an administrative process that would be done at the direct level without a meeting, there is an opportunity for people to request a public hearing if they want that.

So and the notice will outline what that process would be.

And that would be uh prior to any potential appeal.

Great.

Thank you so much, and thanks for the presentation.

All right, any other questions from my colleagues?

I'll I have two.

Um first, I don't think I've ever heard in my time, and I don't I don't think any of my colleagues have ever heard anybody say that they would want to slow down the permitting process in the city of Santa Rosa.

That's a unique piece of feedback that I've heard.

But as we're going for efficiency, I think one of the important things is transparency to maintain the fact that we're um keeping this uh open.

Um with the director level, as we move towards the director level approvals, how do we maintain transparency and protect uh neighborhood compatibility while still improving efficiency?

So because this is for a use permit, um, it would be uh it's it's not design related, so we don't necessarily look at character and incompatibility.

Um, I I guess in a way we do, you know, when looking at um, you know, if a uh light industrial use is wanting to go in next to a residential use, we certainly look at compatibility there.

But um, as far as transparency is concerned in that process, that's where that noticing opportunity comes in and provides an opportunity for folks to get more information and request meetings as as necessary.

And if I can add Vice Mayor Gabe Osburn, Director of Planning and Economic Development, um, I think Ms.

Jones outlined it fairly well, but I think it's important to note that director level use permits are fairly minor in nature.

And the same finding that the director makes would be the same finding that the zoning administrator or the planning commission or any border commission makes.

I think an important exercise here is to really reduce time, which also reduces money to the applicant, but then also to preserve the same level of transparency that we would get out of the public process.

So the noticing becomes critical, the ability to elevate to a public hearing becomes critical if individuals in the community have issues with the specific use.

So we we tried our best to preserve that, but also recognize that a lot of these are really churned through them because they're fairly minor in nature, and those are the ones that affect tenancy, they they affect the timelines associated with businesses occupying a space.

Um but I think it's important to note that the findings are really the same.

Um, and anybody that sits in the director role is really tasked with making the same findings the planning commission would.

Thank you.

And then from uh a larger aspect, uh I guess the you know the 30,000 foot view, how does this um allow your allow staff to focus on more complex issues while still um providing the appropriate oversight.

So as uh Director Osburn mentioned, so really we're looking at uh uh uses that are less intense that um have uh tend to tend to have a less of a uh um concerns brought about by the community.

Um but uh sorry, can you repeat the question?

I was just from a staffing point of view.

How does this allow that your department to focus on more complex issues while still providing the same oversight as necessary?

Yeah, thank you.

That I appreciate that.

Um it really allows us to take these smaller projects that don't necessarily require the same amount of review and do it in a in a more um expedited manner, leaving uh the limited staff that we do have the time to uh delve into the more complex projects that do have more impacts on the community and focus on those and address those concerns.

It gives us that opportunity in a uh a shorter time frame with um less need to write staff reports and um complicated resolutions and go before a public meeting um but still provide that analysis.

Great, thank you.

I appreciate that.

Um if there's no other questions, we will go ahead and open the public hearing.

That's fun.

I like that.

Um if there is anyone that wants to speak on this, uh please.

Again, David Harris.

Oh, I'm looking for the clock.

Okay, thank you.

Um, I did not uh review this in advance of this meeting, but uh my uh experience with uh a conditional use permits has been primarily in the nonprofit field, churches and other nonprofits, and so my questions are whether uh there may be a a different fee structure because they're not looking for these uh use approvals because of their profit motive.

Uh might be you know child care center or some something on a nonprofit uh institution site.

And uh so I that's the one thing that occurs to me that maybe there should be a separate fee schedule for uh uh use permits uh being issued to nonprofits.

Um and I'm a little confused is I mean, there has been an ongoing process with the zoning administrator having authority over some, but it's not getting mentioned here.

You're talking about major minor director and by right, is the zoning administrator now no longer uh one of the sources of approval of conditional permits.

That's unclear and to to me here.

And uh the other question I would raise is you know, this is a complex uh enough thing that maybe there should be a provision that this should be revisited in X number of years or something, you know uh to really know that it will probably need attention and will that attention come to uh to uh uh uh fruition uh uh sooner rather than later if it's needed.

Uh you know, this is the kind of thing that could have a sunset of X number of years or call for uh uh a a particular time in which these changes uh to the process would be reviewed.

Because uh I mean there's got to be a lot of examples of other jurisdictions that have made these kind of adjustments, I assume, and there will be more.

Um the process is obviously going to be a learning process here locally as well.

So those those are my uh comments for today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

Is my mic on?

Yeah.

Good evening.

My name is Al Lerman with the Mitote Food Park.

I just wanted to speak out in support of the presentation by the staff.

Uh we've been working with them actually on uh use permits, and so we we've been operating under temporary use permits.

So this is a great thing, I think, for the streamlining, both for uh not only for us but for other small businesses in the city and for economic development.

So I we we do support it.

Uh this will shorten the process for very route, what I call routine projects like ours.

We hope to apply for this director's conditional use permit.

It'll take it from uh down to days from weeks and months, uh the the previous process.

So we think it's a good thing, both not only for us but for just in general for economic development for small businesses in the city.

And I would encourage them not to stop here to keep looking at other streamlining efforts.

We've been uh applying for a couple of what I would call routine building permits.

It's taken us really quite a long time to get those, and we're still working with that.

So I would encourage them to look at other streamlining and other areas like building permits, for example.

But we wholeheartedly support the work of the staff and the changes that they're recommending here tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Fred, go ahead.

Yes, I have uh a couple of tangential comments here um related to the the idea of uh compatibility.

And I've been uh deep into the South Santa Rosa Pacific plan, and I noticed there was a retail commercial centers planned there.

And so as a result of that, I I live in uh a uh mobile home park near mission ace there on highway 12 and brush creek.

So I walked up to mission and uh highway 12, walked over to um Summerfield area and and over there in there and took an inventory of the type of businesses that there were there that and uh you know, apropos of of the planning idea of walkability and walkable neighborhoods is a big part of a planning meme.

And so that uh I would sort of uh suggest that that staff and the council maybe try to put some intentionality in terms of the compatibility of of things like in that area, you maybe don't need three car washes.

You know, not that I'm against three car washes, but I mean that that would be an example of how you know the planning could direct what what would be a suite of actual neighborhood serving businesses in a neighborhood that you could walk to.

And so when I walked up there, I saw a lot of pizza liquor stores, nails, um, you know, things, things that that tended to to come in and uh convenience stores and pet food, pet people a lot of people have pets, so pet food is a big thing.

Um but you know, maybe the city could could develop a suite of of retail services that you would cultivate the tenants to kind of fill those spots, like hardware store, um post office, uh pharmacy things things that uh you know that would be really neighborhood serving so that it would so the walkable neighborhood would would mean you could actually walk to shopping and it wasn't just walking for the sake of walking, because when I walk uh down to Montgomery Village or or those other places in my neighborhood, the only thing I go to is the hardware store and the post office, and there's all these other stores.

And uh so I mean there's sort of like a lot of gratuitous shopping, but uh, but there are you know maybe essential retail services so that that uh in terms of compatibility and intentional choosing of business.

I don't even know if that's possible, but I think staff could develop a suite of retail and then try to cultivate tenant uh retail tenants to come in and fill those spots so that the so that the city would really serve the neighborhoods because you don't necessarily need more pizza and convenience stores and liquor stores.

All right, thank you.

Is there anybody else who would like to speak on this item?

Seeing none, we'll close the public hearing and come back for final comments or questions.

Councilmember Ben Wales.

Thank you.

Um just want to say thank you for the presentation.

I think this is great.

Um anything that's going to um shorten the time frame for uh potential businesses, I think is a good thing.

Um I think you mentioned because I know one of the questions from the public was about fees, a fee schedule.

And if I'm not mistaken and you correct me if I'm wrong, I think uh you all mentioned that these will look this will lower costs by doing it in this fashion.

Uh that is correct.

So uh most of the uses that are being brought down to a director level use permit currently require minor use permit.

Um I don't have the exact fee in front of me, but a minor use permit is approximately $10,000 and takes you know upwards of you know three to four months, could be more, depending on you know the process and the use.

Um this process is expected to take six to eight weeks.

Um and the uh cost it's in the resolution, but it's eight hundred something dollars, which is again consistent with the other director level um processes that we have.

Great.

That's that's fantastic news.

So overall, I think this is uh wonderful thing, and thank you for all your work on this.

All right, thank you.

Councilmember McDonald.

Thank you.

Thanks to the presentation.

I love streamlining process to get rid of red tape specifically in the government.

I think we have a lot of it, so I appreciate the work going into this.

I just had a quick question, and it's maybe a bit more um rhetorical, but on page 11, you say that you can streamline a process for large musical equipment or instrument businesses, but not small ones.

I'm just wondering if it's specific to only like drum sets or what are you is it is it any kind of musical instrument store?

I don't know if it's necessary to call it out on page 11 of the staff report.

No.

It was just a weird one.

So I'm just making it a little weirder.

Give me one second, I'm like navigate to it here.

Um you're talking about the where we talk about furniture and furnishings.

Okay.

And so with this one, um the we had a request come in from a member of the public um who uh deals with industrial areas and uh the leasing of industrial, and so they wanted some additional language added um specifically to allow um uh basically um selling of of larger um things like furniture and and appliances and such um that would also have storage as part of it.

And so really what we were trying to do with this was to address that person's concerns um in adding some additional language um to the land use table.

And so um what it what it's doing is it's taking our existing definition of uh furniture furnishings and appliance and adding it as a permitted use in the business park and the light industrial.

Okay, that makes more sense.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Um just two quick things for me.

Um just for the public, can you briefly cover where the zoning administrator now lies within this entire process?

Yes.

So the minor um permits, whether it's a minor use permit, minor design review, any of our minor processes um go before the zoning administrator.

That is the review authority.

Okay, thank you very much.

And then um one of the comments that was made, and I tend to agree with this on some of these more um bold and and um uh ambitious initiatives is is revisiting it.

Um I don't want to condition this or anything like that or change anything like that, but I think it might be useful for your team in maybe 18 months or so to build it into your work plan, whether it's just come back with a consent item, everything's great, or you know, come back with a review of like, hey, here's where we found some issues, we might want to change it.

Um like I said, I don't want to change anything now, but uh I'll leave it up to to you as the director and and the deputy director of planning if you think that's appropriate.

Yes, thank you, Vice Mayor, and I can add to that.

I think that's somewhat of a best practice when we make these solid course corrections is really we make our best attempt to understand how we're benefiting the community.

We need to see what that benefit looks like, and then revisit it in some certain time frame.

And that is different based on the ordinances, but I think what the council is seeing with our fee schedule with the massage ordinance, those are all examples of testing it out for a period of time and coming back with smaller amendments that are responsive to the needs either internally through staff or or the community.

Um so I I will say that we we stand that up as a best practice.

It is a bit based on what the staffing level is at the time.

Um but I do agree that's a that's the best way to look at these ordinances because they're never perfect out of the gate.

And I will just add to that, you know, we will continue to work with the community um as we're starting to implement this and and take comments as we go through it.

So um, and as Director Osborne mentioned, you know, as we hear things like we did with these other items, we can um we can quickly bring back um recommended changes as needed.

So nothing that's in here is set in stone.

Um great presentation.

I would say in 18 months, because sometimes what happens is we want to see it come back, but we've moved on to like 20 other things.

So today, if we say we would like to have an update in 18 months, then you guys can put that on your calendars for for 18 months that we just get an update about how it's going.

Yeah, I'd completely okay that unless there's something drastic that needs to be changed really quickly.

I yeah, I I'm okay with that.

And we are happy to accept that feedback.

All right, great, thank you.

Um, and then I think we're going back to councilmember Rogers for uh the motion.

Thank you.

Um I would like to make a motion to introduce an ordinance and adopt the resolution as presented by staff and wait for the reading of text.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right.

We have a motion by Councilmember Rogers and a second by councilmember McDonald.

Um Madam City Clerk when you're ready.

Thank you, Vice Mayor, Councilmember Rogers.

Aye, Councilmember McDonald.

Hi, Councilmember Fleming.

Councilmember Ben Wellows.

Yes, Councilmember Alvarez is absent.

Councilmember or pardon me, Mayor Staff is also absent.

Vice Mayor?

I let the record show this passes the five affirmative votes.

Thank you very much, and thank you for the presentation.

Uh we will now go back in the agenda to our report items with the first one being um 15.1, the report on homelessness solutions strategic plan year three.

And uh I believe that is uh Sasha Brown.

All right, when you're ready.

All right.

Good afternoon, Vice Mayor Krepke, members of the council.

I'm Sasha Brown, program specialist for housing community services, and here with me today is Kelly Kaikendall, Housing Community Services Manager.

The item in front of you today is the homelessness solutions strategic plan year three report for 2025.

On November 15th, 2022, Council approved the homelessness solutions strategic plan for the five-year period beginning January of 2023 through December of 2027.

The strategic plan provides three key strategies and action items to improve the city's response to homelessness in alignment with the Sonoma County Homeless Coalition, the local continuum of care.

The goal is to achieve functional zero homelessness by 2027.

To achieve functional zero homelessness, persons' experience of homelessness should be rare, brief, and non-reoccurring.

To operationalize the strategic plan, staff develops annual implementation plans.

The implementation plan provide prioritizes key actions into two tiers and identifies our regional initiatives.

The plan was updated throughout 2025 and made available on the city's website.

Strategy one in the strategic plan is to improve the city's homeless response with our regional system of care.

In 2025, we continue to lead the implementation of the $3.9 million homelessness prevention pilot program, keep people house Sonoma.

We participated in the Sonoma County Homelessness Working Group focused on prioritizing resources, and we coordinated with approximately 20 agencies, the Santa Rosa specific by names list, which enhances outreach case coordination and housing placement efforts for individuals experiencing homelessness in our community.

We continued administration of the $2.3 million from Home ARP, extending our contract with Catholic charities to provide financial assistance and other supportive services to qualifying Santa Rosa residents.

Strategy two in the strategic plan is to expand service-oriented responses to unsheltered homelessness.

In 2025, we continued administration of the $3.8 million grant from round two of the state's encampment resolution fund.

This provided comprehensive services for individuals residing in encampments in the southeast and southwest portions of the city.

We were awarded $979,040 from the County of Sonoma's Department of Health Services to continue operations of our safe parking program through next fiscal year.

And we continued implementation of the city encampment team to proactively address the health, safety, and environmental concerns associated with encampments.

Strategy three in the strategic plan is to continue and enhance collaboration with regional partners.

In 2025, we completed the year three implementation plan.

We improved the in-client engagement and feedback process through incorporating additional reporting requirements in our homeless services contracts, and we presented findings to council on investments in homeless services, affordable, and supportive housing.

And we developed our year four implementation plan for 2026.

The first three years of the strategic plan, homelessness decreased in Santa Rosa by 31%.

We went from 1,658 persons on the 2022 point in time count to 1,140 in the 2025 point in time count.

The first two years of the plan, the city invested approximately $5 million annually plus for homeless services, plus one-time funds from local, state, and federal resources to augment these efforts.

This was reduced last year to $4.3 million annually.

City funded programs continue to span across street outreach, day services, emergency shelter, safe parking, housing assistance, homelessness prevention, supportive services such as mental health and harm reduction, and coordination of the Santa Rosa by names list.

Sorry, can you pull that a little bit closer?

Stop better.

Okay.

I just wanted to um elaborate on the first bullet point, the 31% decrease in homelessness over a three-year period, and acknowledge that this is a team effort and requires a collaboration of many partners.

So first I want to acknowledge our dedicated homeless service provider community.

The city's investments in affordable housing, one-time funds, which have enabled us to do a lot of this work in addition to city resources, and Sasha's touched on some of those funds thus far in the presentation.

Sasha also mentioned the by names list, and she is the coordinator of that and does a fabulous fabulous job.

And then also regional collaboration.

We can't do this without our partners.

So that's the county, our continuum of care, which uh council member Ben Benuelo sits on that board as well as our cities throughout the region.

All right, back to me.

In fiscal year 2024-2025, 718 individuals were housed through city sponsored programs.

This is a 24% increase over the prior fiscal year.

We've strategically invested in keep people house Sonoma, which in its first year has already prevented 245 households from falling into homelessness.

Additionally, our city encampment team, which started in 2022, has continued to successfully prevent the formation of large encampments with 10 or more dwellings.

We've also cut the total number of encampments citywide nearly in half.

Additionally, the team's proactive approach, coupled with our safe parking program, has reduced the number of occupied vehicles, including RVs and trailers by 95% citywide.

Just want to take a moment to acknowledge the encampment team.

So it is housing and community services, but it is also several city departments.

So we have the police department, we have the fire department, we have public works, planning and economic developments, code enforcement division and our parks team, and also our contracted outreach provider that's Catholic Charities Homeless Homeless Outreach Services Team.

So it's a multi-depart departmental collaboration.

Did I get everyone?

Okay, good.

And then before we move into the next slide, I just want to acknowledge also that in the three years of our strategic plan so far.

This has been our best year so far in terms of housing placements.

That's highlighted in the first bullet point on this slide.

Just because we are seeing some shifts in the community.

We've been monitoring our data this year so far, and we are seeing a decrease in housing placements.

That's due to a number of factors.

One is the number of affordable housing units coming online is beginning to decrease.

And I'll touch on that more in the next slide.

And then also cuts to homeless services funding.

And I know Councilmember Ben Wellos touched on that early on her report out, a recent update that was discussed at the Continuum of Care Board.

And then also that the city made cuts to its homeless services budget this year, and they're having it happening at other levels in the community.

So we don't know the impacts of those cuts yet.

I think we'll know more when we see the results of the 2026 homeless count later this year.

Next slide is mine, and this touches on strategic investments made by the housing authority over a two-year period.

Um, these investments have contributed pretty significantly to the overall reduction in homelessness throughout the community, as well as our increased housing placements that Sasha covered on the previous slide.

So over the past two years, the housing authority has invested approximately 40 million dollars in affordable housing.

In addition to local services that local funds or resources, that includes funding from the state and the federal government that the city administers.

We've completed more than 500 affordable housing units.

Most of those units are have been leased up.

We have one project that's current currently leasing up, and that's Burbank Avenue Apartments.

Of those 500 units, approximately 80 of those are permanent supportive housing or housing dedicated for formerly homeless households.

And those are spread across three projects.

That includes Burbank Avenue Apartments, South Park Commons, and the cannery.

And those are vouchers for formerly homeless households or those at risk of experiencing homelessness.

So as I mentioned in the prior slide, just uh seeing a decline in the number of affordable housing units coming online.

The housing authority has done a tremendous job in the last few years, but we have exhausted some one-time funding, namely community development block grant disaster recover, disaster recovery funding that the city received.

Um, and as I mentioned, we we've just about exhausted those funds, which would contribute to seeing fewer affordable housing units.

Um CDBGDR provided financing for approximately 200 of the 500 units noted in this slide.

So I don't want to discount the progress that the homeless service team has made or the housing authority.

Um, but we can't continue this work without additional resources from outside the city.

Thank you.

So staff has developed a year four implementation plan for 2026.

Key areas include continued administration of the ERF and home art funds, continued operation of the safe parking program with the one-time funds from the county, overseeing year two of Keep People House Sonoma, our homelessness prevention program, continued coordination of the Santa Rosa by names list, and the city encampment team.

So those applications are due June 30th, and Sasha and I'll be working on an application, and hopefully we're successful with that application.

Next slide.

That's okay.

Um the housing and community services department recommends that council receive the year three report for 2025 on the implementation of the homelessness solution strategic plan for 2023-2027.

This item has no impact on the current fiscal year budget.

This concludes our presentation, and we're happy to answer any questions you have.

We'll start with Kelly.

Is it me?

We'll start with Councilmember McDonald.

Thank you, my smare.

Thank you for the presentation.

And um, I just have a few comments because I think when people look at slide number eight, when we see 39.4 million in local contributions, a question I get asked a lot is how much does the city of Santa Rosa spend on homeless services?

And when I kind of have drilled down before, it's actually not nearly as much as people think, but I think it's important to break that number down so that a lot of community members understand that it comes from a lot of different sources and how those reductions are going to impact us versus what we're doing even as a city.

So could you just give a brief of what comes out of our general fund for homeless services?

So for homeless services, um, there's a slide, and I think it is slide what is that?

Six that um our current budget's about 4.3 million dollars.

Um, that is from a variety of funding sources, and I don't have the breakdown in front of me this evening.

I apologize for that.

Um, and I can certainly get that to the council.

We're as you all know, we're in the middle of working on the budget for next year.

Um, but the 39.4 million dollars that you mentioned for affordable housing.

Um our NOFA last year for affordable housing was 3.5 million dollars.

Um, again, that's from a variety of funding sources.

There's some real property transfer tax in there, but the bulk of that 39.4 million dollars over the two-year period is that community development block grant disaster recovery money that I mentioned.

So, you know, affordable housing is kind of a pie, it takes a pie of resources to bring projects to fruition.

The Santa Rosa is a pretty small slice of that pie.

Um, you know, over a two-year period, about seven million dollars in local resources, um, and the balance of that 39.4 would be outside federal and state resources and and just to kind of drill down more.

I know we're going into budget sessions.

I think it's important to show people how the pie works.

We get resources from this bucket, and this is what makes up this slice, and we can only use it on these services because sometimes it gets um a little commingled, or they think we could use it for other services.

The other thing that I noticed in this particular um presentation was how many people we kept housed versus um losing services.

I think it was 265 people you've already been able to keep housed.

Maybe it's more than that.

If I don't remember correctly, I apologize.

But I I think it's also important for council to know, if not in today, but in the future, specifically around budget time, is how much does it cost us to not continue to house them?

And that's a fee that we don't get broken down to.

So when we're making decisions, I think it's important to know yes, we have to invest this much, but we will have to invest this much more if they become homeless, and how that affects the community, specifically families and children that are affected by those being displaced.

So I appreciate this, the work that's being done, the 95% reduction in RVs that are on the streets, and um, we know that that's a collaborative effort as well, but it also has an environmental impact and everything else.

So overall, thank you so much.

I just coming back into budget would like a little bit more detail if you don't mind when we go into that.

Thank you again.

Thank you.

Councilmember Banwellos.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Um, thank you so much.

Uh both Sasha and Kelly.

And and people need to know Kelly is the one that helps me write my my well, she actually writes the my reports from the homeless coalition.

And I mentioned that because if it was up to me alone, my report would be so much longer.

She's so good as making it succinct.

So thank you, really.

Thank you for all your work.

Um, as I think I mentioned uh a few weeks ago um when you all came out to our homeless meeting um over at Finley.

Um, how much I learned about uh all the teams that work on homelessness for the city of Santa Rosa, both the um Santa Rosa PD, the um code enforcers, you all.

I mean, it's it's quite um impressive what the work that you do.

And you know, we see these numbers and the decreases, and um I think what folks need to realize is how much work goes into that to make that happen.

Um, it's it's really phenomenal.

And and so I just want to thank you for all of that.

And I just uh also really impressed with the um keep people housed program, so to speak.

I think that's um also so important because I think that's really one of the ways that you stop homelessness is to make sure that folks that are on the edge don't become homeless to begin with.

Um, and anybody can, anybody, you know, you lose your home, you go your home goes into foreclosure, and you know, we always say that there by the grace of God I go.

That's all of us, uh, especially right now in this economy.

Um, so I want to thank you for all your work.

Um I you know I I understand all the uh all the work that goes into these numbers.

Um, and so yeah, of course, um when we get to our budget talks, it is true that people are gonna ask us um, you know, where are the money is coming from?

And I just want to say as a former provider, I've I've put together a NOFA, and I know how much work that is.

Um so um I again I don't think folks understand what goes into doing that kind of work and putting it out there and hoping that your grant gets accepted because I I remember spending days on numbers and data and then not getting accepted and having a homeless program go away that was very valuable to the community.

So I just want to thank you for all your work.

Um I have an idea of what you do, and I think um as we go forward, we really are gonna have to keep an eye on what happens with um particularly at the county level and at the state level.

Um, and do what we can to make sure that we can continue to provide the services that we're providing.

So thank you.

All right, Councilmember Rogers.

Thank you very much for the presentation.

Uh feel the same about gas and food and all the expenses that are going up.

Um, some of us are only a paycheck away from being unhoused.

So thank you very much.

I did have a question about how many vouchers, and if you said it, I apologize.

How many vouchers are assigned without units?

Or even if you don't have a specific number around in the presentation, I mentioned a hundred emergency housing vouchers, and those are the ones that are specifically for uh households that were formerly homeless or at risk of homelessness.

It for a specific are you wanting more detail on just kind of the general vouchers?

So emergency emergency homeless vouchers, those they need them because they're in an emergency.

You've assigned them, but does that all a hundred don't have places to go?

Those are all leased up, they're all currently being used, and though those came out of COVID, like COVID era times, and we don't have any new vouchers, new emergency housing vouchers.

It's a carve out of our voucher program.

Okay.

Um, and then how do we educate the public who I know you were saying like next year may look different?

I'm asking because you said next year may look different.

How do we educate the public if they have units?

How to get involved, the importance of getting involved, and the extra support that may be provided to people when they do rent a unit to them.

Do we have a program that does that?

Or I feel like it's a community.

We all need to do our our part as a community.

So as community members that may have rentals, what do they do in order to say I want to step up, I want to help?

Thank you for that question.

I would say that they could reach out to our department and let our section eight team uh know that they have uh rental that they would that's available that they would like to make available to someone with a voucher looking for a housing unit.

So that's to the housing and community services department.

Thank you.

Yeah.

All right.

If there's no other questions, we will go to public comment on this item.

If you have uh comment on this item, we will give you three minutes.

Go ahead, Peter.

Thank you very much.

Um we see it in the movies when uh some of these cops go walking around a farmer's market, and someone would just toss them an apple or just offer them some nice food.

And we've gotten ourselves all goofed up in so much of a myriad of illusionary problems.

And I believe that the answer is in magic, and this is a magical town in a magical county.

This is where Luther Burbank, the wizard of plants, did some amazing things, including with cactus.

And back in the 90s, I uh started with uh two Navy vets.

Um that's not all.

They were both named Paul.

One was black and one was white, and we did our best to do what was right, and we started the homeless mentor program, and the concept was based on gardens.

The concept was based on creating an opportunity for certain amount of the homeless to work with uh starting a lot of gardens.

The other ones were to build garden boxes because I believe back then, I believe today this uh a town called Santa Rosa should have more roses per square mile than any other city in the country, and I'm quite almost embarrassed that it's not.

It should be.

We can have roses everywhere, and it gives something for people to do.

And the one thing everybody does, whether you're rich or poor, homeless or not, is you eat.

And if Martin Luther King said if one man's wrongfully incarcerated, so are we all?

And he saw the promised land, that means we're somehow still a bunch of inmates, and we're all sort of really homeless.

Just some of us have four walls uh surrounding us.

We have this wonderful opportunity to start doing what Luther Burbank talked about, what Cactus Pete is suggesting, that you have the power to one way or another implement, tie together with Luther Burbank and some of these other gardening groups, and simply find arenas to start huge gardens.

There's nothing more therapeutic than that.

And there is no reason in the world from my perspective for there to be all these big, you know, corporate stores in these towns.

I mean, you're you're in Luther Burbanks County and you got safeways.

At the very least, these safeways should be turned into arenas where the homeless can have or or the gardeners, forget the homeless, they're gonna be the gardeners working with Safeways.

So instead of safely importing all this stuff from all over the place, they are providing the best vegetables and fruits right here in the stores.

Change the dynamic.

You had that ability, you had the contacts, and it certainly is the time, and there's nothing better than that that I could see that would be uh of benefit that would support everyone, including law enforcement, because you know what?

They should be getting those free apples and free salads, and and so should all of us.

So that's my share from my heart to yours.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Peter.

Is there anybody else that would like to comment on this item?

Seeing none, we will close public comment and bring it back to Councilmember Banuelos.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Um I move that we approve receipt of a year three report 2025 on the implementation of the homelessness solutions strategic plan 2023 to 2027.

Second.

All right, we have a motion by Councilmember Van Welos and a second by Councilmember Rogers.

Is there any further discussion?

Seeing none, Madam City Clerk, when you're ready.

Thank you, Vice Mayor, Councilmember Rogers.

Uh Councilmember McDonald.

Hi, Councilmember Fleming.

Yes, Councilmember Ben Wellos.

Yes, Councilmember Alvarez is absent.

Mayor Staff is absent.

Vice Mayor?

I let the record show this passes with five affirmative votes.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for that.

Really appreciate it.

And with that, we'll move on to uh item 15.2, the police department annual military equipment report.

And that will be uh Lieutenant Mahern and Chief Kriegan.

Good evening, Vice Mayor.

I'm John Krieg and our chief of police here for the city of Santa Rosa.

I'm joined tonight by Lieutenant Christopher Mahern and Lieutenant Mahern serves as our tactical commander.

So he's our true subject matter expert, both our SWAT team and our hostage negotiation team, not overseeing both of these teams, but also the equipment and the resources they need.

So he's gonna go through tonight our uh annual report from the assembly bill 481, uh, which overviews our uh equipment that was deemed in this ordinance as being military equipment.

And uh this is uh part of the statute that once a year that we come before our council and discuss our the three major prongs of this, which is the funding of that equipment, uh acquisition of that equipment, and the use of that equipment, and we'll go through that tonight.

And I'll turn it over to Lieutenant Mahern.

Thank you.

Uh Vice Mayor, Council members, say staff.

Uh first and foremost, I want to make just sure there's a clear correction to one of the documents that you receive today for the resolution specifically.

In the resolution, you'll read the word several times, renew as regards to renewing the ordinance associated with AB 481.

I apologize, that's erroneous in the way it's described.

What you're actually doing with the resolution and the ask of counsel tonight is that you are not amending or making any changes to the ordinance as it as it currently stands.

Um we can't renew any ordinances, you can just amend them or make those changes.

We're not asking you to do that or ask us you to not change the ordinance that brings us together every year for the same exact topic.

So when you see that, and if you approve that, it's going to be the approval, I believe, with the amendments, and then we'll have that updated with the correct version tomorrow to legister.

So if I can just clarify, so you'll be by resolution determining that if you accept staff's recommendation that there will not be any amendments or changes to the ordinance.

Thank you.

And so, like Chief said, my name is Chris Mahern.

I'm a lieutenant with the police department.

Uh, for many years, I was actually on our HT team.

So a lot of my background comes from a negotiator and a de-escalation lens.

So now that I oversee both the tactical teams as for SWAT and HT, that's where a lot of my experience comes, and that's what you're gonna see as part of this presentation as well.

So, first and foremost, the few things we're gonna go over are just some of the things that are required by state law.

Um, this bill came into effect in 2021.

It requires us to discuss for the any funding or acquisition or use of any equipment that the California legislature has deemed as military equipment.

Additionally, some of the requirements that are part of this assembly bill are that prior to meeting with you, we're expected to meet with a community and hold a community meeting about the report itself, and the report has to be posted online.

The report itself was posted online in the beginning of January.

Anyone still has access to it, it's still up there.

It will be up for the entire year, and it doesn't get changed till the new report is done for the 2026th year as well.

Our meeting was held in January.

We had just about 30 community members that came in.

Chief and myself were both there for about an hour and a half.

That meeting, it wasn't much about engagement about what we're doing, similar to what we're doing now, what kinds of equipment we have, and answering probably about 45 minutes worth of questions that community had about it and clarifying any misconceptions about the equipment that we use, how we use it, and when we use it.

Additionally, there's a the end part, which is probably my favorite.

It's kind of like the show and tell.

We bring out a lot of the items so people can see them.

Everything from our rapid response vehicle to our armored rescue vehicle to some of the other tools that our teams use so people can actually see them, hold them, and really understand what they are in a real life situation versus a PowerPoint presentation or just taking our word for it so they can actually manipulate some of those things and see what they are.

Um additionally, we have to seek council approval every year on the ordinance, and part of that's preparing the annual report, which includes how the use or how we use all the equipment, how we maintain and use it, the quantity we possess, our internal audit, any of the community input or questions that we got, and then like said the required council approval for more acquisition.

Um there's 15 different categories for the equipment that falls under this category.

The police department itself, we only have eight of those categories.

Of the eight categories, you'll see a hat on top as well.

Um I'll go through them individually, so I won't read this entire slide to you, otherwise, we're gonna be repeating it multiple times.

I don't want to do that to yourselves.

So we're gonna go through those pretty quickly.

If you have any questions, I'll be here for those as well.

First and foremost are our projectile launchers.

These allow us to use chemical agents and kinetic energy tools.

So they're used some similar looking to like a shotgun sort of kind of tool they use.

These are specifically that are using like our uh less lethal blue tip rounds that are foam tips.

Oftentimes these are used when an individual is armed or behind a barrier that we can be able to use to kind of take away that advantage of theirs and kind of de-escalate the situation without using lethal force, and usually get them to comply without additional force being used as well.

They're typically called sponge rounds, but we use them for, and they're only used in those kind of scenarios where we have barricade individuals or what individuals with weapons or what individuals that are threatening to officers or other people in the area.

This is an example of what it looks like.

The top part is the launcher itself.

The bottom part is the blue-tipped round that we're discussing a second ago.

Chemical munitions or diversionary attack devices, those are everything related to our gas items that we have.

We have several different kinds of gas that we use.

Some of them, the most common kinds are called like a ferret round.

Those are used if someone's like barricaded with a weapon or has a victim in a vehicle with them.

This allows us to actually break the window to implement gas in there, but also ventilating the space as well.

So no one's ever stuck in a space, there's no ventilation when that gas goes in.

Very similar to a house.

If we had a incident where there's somebody inside of a house who's barricading, has a victim in there with them as well.

This would go through the window, is not a lethal if it was to hit somebody, but then would also ventilate the space to allow air in and out, but also have gas in there as well.

Our CS gases are more like a handheld device.

We can use a projectile to shoot them into the room, but they don't go through walls, they don't go through windows.

These are usually things that we put in by hand that release more gas into a space already when the space is ventilated appropriately to be able to get people out there or get people out and encourage that behavior to leave and to surrender, but it doesn't keep the gas in there.

It allows actually air to continue to go into the space.

So it makes it very uncomfortable for individuals, but it's not lethal.

These are some of the examples of the different items that we have in our inventory as well.

These are just different versions of what was just talking about a second ago.

Each of them does a little bit of a different thing, but still the same effect is to get people to surrender peacefully, makes it uncomfortable for them.

It is not lethal, it just makes it so they want to come out of the space that they're in ideally unarmed and peacefully.

And we've seen several in 2025, several instances where these items were used where people exited the house safely and were taking it to custody without additional force being used.

Our command and control vehicles.

This is our rapid response vehicle that's used by our negotiators primarily.

We also use this vehicle as a command post.

You can see the side of it has a can or as a television on it.

What that really allows us to do, and me as a tactical commander, we have several drones, which you'll see slightly further in this presentation.

We can live stream the drone footage that we're using during No.

Sorry, we have to pause for a second.

We've lost quorum.

All right, we have Quorum back, so you can go ahead and continue.

Not a problem.

So where we left off is this is our rapid response vehicle.

It's primarily used for our hostage negotiators, but also as a command vehicle.

The outside of the vehicle has a television where we can actually live stream all of our drone footage.

And so for me as a tactical commander, the benefit of that paired with our drones is it allows me to make decisions based on live time information that I can see and make safer decisions that are based clearly on what I'm seeing, what our officers are doing in the field, not a game of one radio to another to another, and I'm almost doing it, so air quoting kind of blind.

This gives us live access to be able to see things as they're happening initially.

Internally, we're able to do intelligent gathering.

Um, our negotiators meet in there when they're doing phone-to-phone contacts with suspects to be able to negotiate with them from a safe place that we can record all those interactions as well.

The back vehicle, which is no longer in our report, was a larger RV that we use for that command vehicle.

We sold it in 2025, so it's no longer as part of our report because it's no longer part of our equipment.

Our long-range acoustic device, also known as an LRAD.

This in particular is a device that looks just like this.

This allows us to be able to communicate with people from a distance as well as through barriers.

It's effective communication that goes in one straight direction, so we can navigate our or we can put our uh the way we communicate in one direction so it's not going elsewhere, it's not going further.

It's really effective being able to go towards the person or the individuals that we're trying to communicate with.

This helps not just in tactical situations, but it really does help if we have to do evacuations or we have other critical information that we need to get out as fast as possible through a distance.

This is something that really helps with that.

Through the 2020 uh through 2021, when I believe we got this, there was in our policy.

There's a button on it.

I think you could still see it on this device itself.

It is deactivated, so there's no button that creates noise at all to pester or to bother.

It can only be used as a communication device for our officers to be able to communicate with suspects, community during evacuations or critical incidents.

Specialized firearms and uh munitions.

This is a little just more towards the kind of munitions our officers carry and the SWAT team.

Um, this is just for their rifles and the kind of ammunition that specifically goes for those rifles.

Uh it's nothing, it's very sp common for the SWAT operators to carry these kinds of things.

Um, nothing too special about it.

It's just required by the report.

Our armored rescue vehicle, also known as a bear cat.

Uh, this is what it looks like.

Uh next year I'll have a photo that looks like from our back lot, not in the snow, so I apologize for that.

Um, but what this vehicle does is it is an armored rescue vehicle.

So inside of it, it's able to carry our officers.

They're also able to get very close to suspects who are armed to be able to negotiate with them and to gain surrender peacefully is the main concept of it.

There are no weapons attached to this vehicle at all.

There are no weapons inside of the vehicle.

There's no weapons attached to any part of it at all.

So on the daily basis, when we bring up to community engagement events, kids get in it, our community members get in it, they can go throughout it.

It's just an armored rescue vehicle that allows our officers to get very close to suspects in dangerous situations to be able to effectively communicate with them.

What we've learned in the era of techno in the area of technology is everyone we think has a cell phone.

Unfortunately, when a crisis happens, no one has a cell phone with them.

So this allows our officers to get very close to houses, to barricade individuals in cars to be able to communicate with them with our negotiators in the passenger seat who are completely safe from a bulletproof vehicle to be able to help them be able to do that and have those negotiations.

Additionally, we've had several minor incidents of flooding throughout the city, in particular on the east side of town, and I believe one on the east side of town for sure.

We were able to use our bear cat to be able to drive through the water to be able to rescue people, um, to be able to do that.

It's kind of fun because we can beat the fire department and use this vehicle to rescue people too.

So we enjoy that element of it.

But it really is a universal vehicle that helps us in a lot of ways help with our community.

Um it's got ports on the side that allow us to talk to the officers and their sergeants so they can communicate through those ports without having to open large doors and making them more vulnerable to being shot at or other elements.

But this vehicle in the past year has taken at least one shot at it by a suspect, and it was able to defend against that shot, and the officer wasn't injured during that moment as well.

Our breaching apparatus, these are just tools that help us be able to get into spaces that are barricaded, primarily through doors, whether it's the front door or bedroom doors.

This is one of the shotgun rifle, shotgun rounds that allows us to basically use a shotgun, put it up against a door handle basically, shoot it in there, and it'll break the mechanism to be able to allow us to get in.

This is a kinetic breaching tool.

This basically just goes up against that same area.

It doesn't shoot a projectile, it just has an electronic connect or kinetic breaching tool that'll slide up against the locking mechanism to breach the door to allow us to get in.

It's actually much faster, much safer, and a bit quieter, so it helps our SWAT operators be able to get into things quicker, safer, and we're not shooting a projectile that could have collateral issues associated with it.

Our unmanned aerial or ground systems, this is more focused on drones and the robots that we have.

These are the main two uh drones that we have, the top left that you can see in the bottom center.

The top left is primarily our exterior drones that we use for larger scale events.

Um, anything if we're doing a search warrant, we'll use these to kind of help us set up a perimeter with our officers.

Additionally, we use that drone quite often for missing people, in particular our seniors that leave and kind of have decompensation in their lives, but like they don't know where they are, they don't know how to communicate, they don't have electronic devices.

This actually helps us be able to look for them because there's cameras associated.

We can track them much easier and cover more surface area than just with our officers.

We also use it for other large-scale events we had last two years ago.

Uh our drones twice helped us prevent against using additional force.

One was a domestic violence incident where the suspect had the victim in his car with a knife to her throat at night.

Our sergeant that was on scene, dispatched that specific drone, was able to use the lighting mechanism on it to light up the inside of the car so we could see that the suspect did have a knife.

Ultimately, they were able to use that to distract the suspect.

The victim was able to get out of the car, and we were able to successfully recover her and then be able to negotiate with the suspect to come out.

The second time we used it during that same time period was a vehicle pursuit where the suspect actually crashed.

Suspect was refusing to comply with commands to come out of the vehicle.

We were about ready to send one of our trained canine dogs to go in and uh get the suspect to come out of the vehicle.

Before doing that, one of our astute sergeants said, why don't we send up a drone first?

Because it was night as well.

They sent up that drone, same lighting mechanism was able to light up the vehicle.

We were able to see that the suspect did have a firearm on the passenger seat of the car, but equally as important, we were able to see because he crashed his vehicle during that vehicle pursuit, he actually pinned himself in the car and was not able to actually get out.

So it actually changed the tactics in which we used because we were able to identify in real time that was more than just the safety issue.

He couldn't actually comply physically.

He wasn't being intentionally at that point evasive.

So we're able to change the techniques that we did, first get the gun out safely, and then use medical to get him out instead of using additional force that would have been justified, but still not the right tool for that moment.

The top right is a dr is a robot.

It's currently not, we have in our uh equipment, but it's currently not operational.

Our goal is to use grant funding to find another robot that would be more effective to be able to go into homes.

In the robots, what we do with those is we send those in primarily just like drones, and that bottom one in particular is an interior drone.

We use drones and robots to be able to go into houses to ensure that safety as officers and operators start to make their way into houses.

It can help us clear rooms and get intelligence about what's happening before we send bodies inside of houses that could potentially get injured or worse in those moments.

So those are primarily the two interior items that we use.

You can find the policies that we use associated with all this information, as well as SWAT and use of force on our website.

You can also find this report itself on our website, it is available, like I said, 24-7 throughout the entire year.

If you have any questions or community has questions, they're always able to email me directly.

I know Chief loves getting emails, he's more than emailed Chief, or the easiest way is to AB 481 SRCD.org.

Uh if approved, but the recommendation, it will allow us to be able to pursue purchasing these items if necessary.

You will see when you went through that council report, there are a lot of items.

We are not going to be purchasing all of them.

This just gives us authority as we go through to if we need them to be able to purchase them.

Um as part of this, we're not asking for additional funding to help purchase any of these items.

It's already part of only purchases that we make are part of our current budget as well.

So there's no budget impact associated with it.

Um it also allows us to continue using the equipment that we're currently using and have been using for years, and the importance of why we need those equipment, kind of how we've highlighted today, and any also understanding the current inventory that we have and the needs for the some more things in the future that will come up.

Without approval, the department will not have access to and will cease to use any of the items that are listed in 481, all the items we talked about today as well.

Uh we'll no longer have the tools to effectively respond and minimize risk to critical incidents.

And we'll have to rely on outside agencies like the Sheriff's Department, Petaluma, or even Moran County to address critical incidents that would have to get handled by an outside agency because we wouldn't be allowed to use those tools to effectively take people into custody as safely as possible.

So the recommendation is to have counsel.

I want to make sure I don't say this.

Yeah, thank you.

So essentially, you're going to by resolution determine that you don't need to either repeal the existing ordinance or make any changes to the ordinance.

Yes, thank you.

Sorry, I wanted to mess that up, like the report.

All right.

Questions.

Sorry.

All right.

Questions.

Is there anybody with questions on this report?

Item.

Councilmember Ben Wellis.

Just one or two questions.

Um, thank you for the report.

Yes.

Really appreciate it.

Um, I just wondered, you mentioned that you had a community um meeting, I think as you said in January.

What kind of feedback did you get or what yeah?

How was that meeting?

Yeah, of course.

One of the first questions we got asked is what of these tools, um, if any of it, is allowed to be used during protests and the first First Amendment assemblies.

We were very clear that almost none of these are allowed to be used for those.

The only thing that we've used during the First Amendment uh was the drones, and during the recent No Kings protest, um, the folks that were organizing that reach out to me directly.

Uh during this or prior to that on the last month, I think I met with the organizers at least three times in person and two other times virtually.

Uh, we actually tell them, hey, we have our drones, we're gonna be using them for perimeters so we can see if anyone's trying to negatively impact your First Amendment rights.

It's not for surveillance of you all.

We'll tell you where they are, they could see them, so they knew they existed.

And it was really just to help us monitor, especially because the marches, we want to make sure that cars aren't being used as weapons against them.

So we're very forthcoming about how we're using that.

They're not for surveillance of the First Amendment.

It's to protect those protesters.

So they were aware of that.

The other items we don't use during protests.

Another item that did come up on that is questions about could any of this use with cooperation with federal resources, with immigration enforcement.

And so we were very clear under no circumstances whatsoever.

Uh we went over some of the basics of Senate Bill 54 and that we're not gonna be cooperating with anything.

And that was just like a hot topic at the at the time and still continues to be, obviously.

And we made that very clear that uh we're we're not partnering with federal resources, and certainly under no circumstances would be utilizing these tools for immigration enforcement.

Thank you.

And I just have to say, I was at no the last no Kingston, I did see the drone.

And we were all like, whoa, what is that?

So it's good to know that uh what the purpose of that was.

Nobody seemed upset about it, everything, but everybody noticed it.

Yeah, and that was the point.

We want we didn't want people feeling like they were being surveilled.

We thought it was more important to be transparent and clear about what our intentions were.

And to your point, councilwoman, they we got several points of feedback from the community saying we felt more safe to be downtown during that protests than in others.

And if in the end, if the community comes back and says they're grateful for the way we're helping protect their First Amendment, I feel like that's the right choice for us as an organization.

And thank you for that.

Uh, my other uh the only other question was I think you mentioned that you would not be purchasing these unless you needed to.

Um, if I understood that correctly.

Um what what are the indicators of for you to say think that feel that you need them?

I guess.

Yeah, so there's certain levels in which we like to keep certain equipment.

So, for example, our blue tip rounds or even some gas items, for example.

Uh there are times because a lot of those items do have an expiration date, and it's usually about five years.

So that's a good indicator of okay, we need to repurchase to make sure we have inventory in case they need to be used.

Um, when it comes to things like drones and the robots and our ARVs, a lot of times that's really dependent upon the technology that continues to change and evolve in our community.

Um, we have three different kinds of drones.

There's the two that we showed you.

We also have that kite drone that you saw on top of one of the buildings.

That one can stay stationary.

They all have a different benefit.

So that drone in particular, if it's plugged into power, can stay up there forever.

So that does help us with resources.

It actually only takes one operator to be able to do that, where our maneuverable drones actually take two officers or two staff, one to fly it and one to verify make sure it's not gonna come in contact with anything else in the area.

So as technology continues to change, we look at other ways of evolving with technology with the community needs.

So that is another indicator of when we do purchase things and when we don't purchase things.

And then we also look at what's needed by the community and what the community expectations are.

So if the community expects us to be doing a certain thing and we're not prepared to do that, that's when we look for items that we need to be able to meet and exceed those expectations of community.

Thank you.

All right, anyone else with questions?

Seeing none, we will go to public comment on this item.

Fred, all you technology is is procured from the military, or it's just military type technology that is procured from the same people who the military get it from.

Thank you.

Um else.

Go ahead.

Uh yes, David Harris.

Just uh you indicated one vehicle that you sold.

Um, I mean, it this rolls into your budget then.

I mean, uh you've been talking about acquisition of parts and and potentially new devices, but you might potentially have other devices or items that you would sell.

Thank you very much.

Is there anyone else that would like to speak on this?

Seeing none, we will close public comment.

I'll give you an opportunity to um I'll ask the question since we can't get it back and forth.

But in regards to the budgetary concern as well as the procurement from the military, can you address those?

Yeah, so the military procurement portion of it, we do not purchase any equipment that is from the military.

As a matter of fact, to council member Bon Wellos' question earlier, one of the criticisms we often get during the community meeting is that none of our equipment would hold up in the military.

So it's actually nothing that would actually be used in the military at all.

Our drones have no ability to carry anything or they use to carry anything.

Um our armored rescue vehicle would not survive anything outside of normal law enforcement uses, and we do not we are not part of the exchange program that the military had.

The city itself does not allow for that and the police department does not have any equipment associated with that exchange program that existed exists now and was popular several years ago as well.

When it comes time to items that we do sell yes there are items that we have sold um that were part of AB 481 was the um command vehicle that we had was a very large RV that we use for our negotiations and a command post.

Additionally we've also sold other drones that no longer have any sort of um ability for us to fix them or address their issues that they had because companies have gone out of business or the software updates can't be done anymore and those were sold in compliance with city regulations as well as part of that there's no information that was related to any police activity associated with those drones meaning if that drone was able to record anything no recordings are staying on those devices so when they're sold no one's getting any additional information about those things thank you very much all right with that we will turn to council member McDonald for a motion oh we'll come back after the motion thank you vice mayor I move to adopt the resolution as amended by staff we have a motion by councilmember McDonald and a second by councilmember Rogers.

Councilmember Rogers you have a final comment uh yes I did have a comment I wanted to say congratulations to the chief for his accomplishments um but one of the reasons why I feel so confident with our department having the equipment that they need is because I believe that we have good leadership um and that's not that is you chi but it's not just you I feel like we have a lot of good leaders that work um directly under you and we also have a lot of great staff and you're making sure that our staff are educated they're knowledgeable and they know what they're doing when they are on our streets and so and working in the different departments and so that gives me as a council member that has to sit up here and make decisions that gives me you know one a sense of pride but also that I'm making the right decisions when I give you the equipment that you need to go out there and keep all of us safe because you know how to use it you know what it is and you know when not to use it.

And so I just wanted to give uh a big thank you to the department for all the work that they have been doing despite any comments that may um come from people with opposition we we address them we listen and we proceed as as we should so thank you so much.

Okay thank you anybody else with any final comments or questions all right seeing none madam city clerk when you're ready thank you vice mayor councilmember Rogers aye council member McDonald Councilmember Fleming yes councilmember Ben Willows yes councilmember alvarez is absent mayor staff is absent vice mayor aye let the record show this passes a five affirmative votes all right thank you very much we will move on to number 17 legislative written communications we have a legislative update that's attached to the agenda uh we'll move on to item 18 public comment on non-agenda matters seeing as how there is no public we will close public comment on non-agenda matters and we will move on to uh adjournment and we will adjourn this meeting at 625 thank you everyone