M I N U T E S
Meeting of the
Scotts Valley City Council
Date: April 6, 2022
Time: 6:00 PM
CONTACT INFORMATION MEETING LOCATION POSTING
City of Scotts Valley
1 Civic Center Drive
Scotts Valley, CA 95066
(831) 440-5600
Zoom Videoconference The agenda was posted
4-01-2022 at City Hall and on the
Internet at www.scottsvalley.org.
CALL TO ORDER 6:00 PM
The City Council meeting was called to order at 6:01 pm.
MOMENT OF SILENCE
ROLL CALL
ELECTED OFFICIALS PRESENT:
Donna Lind, Mayor
Jim Reed, Vice Mayor
Jack Dilles, Council Member
Randy Johnson, Council Member
Derek Timm, Council Member
CITY STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT:
Mali LaGoe, City Manager
Kirsten Powell, City Attorney
Steve Walpole, Chief of Police
Taylor Bateman, Community Development Director
Casey Estorga, Administrative Services Director
Chris Lamm, Public Works Director/City Engineer
Lauren Lambert, Deputy City Clerk
Jayson Rutherford, Captain
COMMITTEE REPORTS
CM Dilles reported he filled in for CM Johnson at a Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission (SCCRTC) policy workshop. The SCCRTC approved an agreement for an engineering firm to prepare a San Lorenzo Valley Schools Complex Circulation Access Study.
CM Dilles reported he accompanied Carol Childers, who delivers Meals on Wheels meals, to deliver meals to homes where seniors reside in Scotts Valley.
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CM Dilles attended a League Legislative Bulletin Webinar and shared his thoughts on a few bills that he found interesting.
CM Dilles attended a Webinar on Housing Element Enforcement and reported the state now has an enforcement program that is monitoring cities for the state mandates in housing elements, and will enforce the mandates through the Attorney Generals Office.
It is a complaint-based system and the state has the ability to review any action or inaction related to housing elements. If the housing element is noncompliant, affordable housing projects can not be denied and the state could act. The state now allows private parties to sue cities if the housing element in that city is insufficient and a housing proposal was put forth.
CM Dilles attended the Santa Margarita Groundwater Agency meeting and reported they approved the Annual Report for the Santa Margarita Ground Water Agency for 2021.
CM Timm reported he attended the Economic Recovery Subcommittee meetings and met with staff from Small Business Development Center (SBDC) to get more guidance on some of the businesses would applied for the CBDG Grants to make sure that as many businesses as possible are able to qualify to be in the pool for the CBDG grant program.
CM Timm attended the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments (AMBAG) meeting and reported the AMBAG meeting on April 13th is when they should hear back from California Development of Housing and Community Development on the housing numbers and get ready for the housing element.
CM Johnson reported that with the CBDG Grants, a lot of it is dictated by the state who has rules and mandates about ratings that they will have to abide by when making decisions.
Mayor Lind attended several different Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District (SCMTD) meetings and participated in the Finance and Budget meetings. SCMTD is actively hiring for anyone interested in a job with Metro and can go to https://www.scmtd.com/en/ for more information.
Mayor Lind also attended the Santa Margarita Groundwater Agency meeting with CM Dilles and appreciated the work that was done for the Annual Report.
Mayor Lind also attended the D.A.R.E. Graduations at Vine Hill, Brook Knoll, and Baymonte Schools and appreciated all the work that Chief Walpole, SRO Patrick Ahrens and the department did for to keep the D.A.R.E. programs going.
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CITY MANAGER REPORT
1. Vine Hill Modular: With spring break happening this week the demo of the Vine Hill modular is underway. It will make room for the new modular building that will be installed this summer for the fall programing.
2. Scotts Valley Theater Guild: City Manager LaGoe had a tour of the theatre project on April 6, 2022 and was able to meet the people who are leading the effort to get the project done. It was great to be able to see the progress that has been done so far.
3. Study Session: April 7, 2022 the City Council will be meeting to continue their Study Session on the Strategic Plan for 2022 at the City Council Chambers from 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM. This is a public meeting.
4. Regional Wastewater Management: Public Works Director Chris Lamm and City Manager LaGoe participated in a meeting last week regarding Regional Wastewater Management and looking a regional approach to wastewater and water supply.
PUBLIC COMMENT TIME
Scotts Valley Resident Victor Alejandro came forward to talk about the strong relationship that has been built with the Scotts Valley Chamber of Commerce and in the Scotts Valley Times April addition there is a recognition for The Scotts Valley Economic Recovery Task Force won the Organization of the year and wanted to congratulate everyone involved. The Scotts Valley Chamber of Commerce is part of the Silicon Valley Coalition which is 18 chambers of commerce, and they have a meeting tomorrow.
Scotts Valley Resident Amee Sawhney came forward about some negative experiences their family has dealt with in the Scotts Valley school system. Amee Sawheny posed a question to City Council about how that can contribute to furthering diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in out community? (Please see attached note for full comment from Amee Sawheny)
Scotts Valley Resident Robert Aldana came forward to ecco what Amee Sawheny stated about his experiences within the Scotts Valley community dealing with racial issues.
ALTERATIONS TO CONSENT AGENDA
CM Dilles would like to move Item E to the regular Agenda.
M/S: Timm/Dilles
To approve the Consent Agenda with moving Item E to the regular agenda.
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Carried 5/0 (AYES: Dilles, Johnson, Lind, Reed, Timm)
CONSENT AGENDA
A. Approve City Council minutes 3-16-2022, 3-22-2022
B. Approve check registers dated 3-18-2022, 3-25-2022, 4-01-2022 C. Approve Resolution No. 2007.7 authorizing the continued use of teleconferenced meeting pursuant to Assembly Bill 361
D. Approve Resolution No. 1955.20 Salary Schedules for the following job classifications: Assistant to the City Manager, Senior Civil Engineer, Associate Civil Engineer and Project Manager
ALTERATIONS TO REGULAR AGENDA
M/S: Timm/Dilles
To approve the Regular Agenda as amended.
Carried 5/0 (AYES: Dilles, Johnson, Lind, Reed, Timm)
REGULAR AGENDA
1. To Approve the allocation of the City of Scotts Valley’s portion of the opioid settlement funding to the County of Santa Cruz for FY 2022/23 and authorize City Manager to enter into an Agreement with the County of Santa Cruz to establish a process for City participation in defining priorities for the use of settlement funds in the region and commitment to provide the City’s share of the settlement to the County.
City Manager LaGoe answered questions from Council.
Eric Riera, County Behavior Health Director, answered questions from Council.
M/S: Dilles/Johnson
To Approve the allocation of the City of Scotts Valley’s portion of the opioid settlement funding to the County of Santa Cruz for FY 2022/23 and authorize City Manager to enter into an Agreement with the County of Santa Cruz to establish a process for City participation in defining priorities for the use of settlement funds in the region and commitment to provide the City’s share of the settlement to the County.
Carried 5/0: (AYES: Dilles, Johnson, Lind, Reed, Timm)
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2. Presentation of Scotts Valley Police Department Lexipol Policy #706 – Military Equipment Use.
Captain Jayson Rutherford presented the written staff report along with a PowerPoint and answered questions from council.
3. Future Council agenda items
(This portion of the Regular Agenda allows the Council to determine items to be placed on a future agenda and to choose a date, if so desired.) None.
City Attorney Powell announced the City Council will be meeting in closed session regarding three matters. The first will be pursuant to Government Code 54956.9 to confer with legal counsel regarding a liability claim filed by Ryan Hinn. The second will be pursuant to Government Code 54956.9 to confer with legal counsel regarding a liability claim filed on behalf of Kathryn Grifo, Grant Dickie and Scott Dickie. The third will be pursuant to Government Code 54957 (b) (1) to confer with legal counsel regarding public employment position title City Manager.
ADJOURNMENT
The meeting adjourned at 7:01 p.m.
Approved: _____________________________
Donna Lind, Mayor
Attest: ___________________________
Lauren Lambert, Deputy City Clerk
DocuSign Envelope ID: 6BF6A3E5-A5AC-4D63-8DB4-2125E053FBAA 1 Dear Mayor Lind, members of the City Council, and all those here who work for our community.:
Thank you all so much for your service. I appreciate you all very much.
My name is Amee Sawhney. I’m an Urgent Care physician at Palo Alto Medical Foundation here in our county, and my husband Neil Sawhney is a Cardiologist also at PAMF and Dominican Hospital. We have lived in Scotts Valley for almost 9 years now with our 2 children. While we have loved living in this community and had some great experiences and made some lifelong friends here, it is important to bring to light that we have also had some negative experiences, that need to be acknowledged and addressed, and that a fair number of your other constituents in Scotts Valley have had similar experiences.
A few years back, one of our children was racially bullied in the Scotts Valley school system. Our child was repeatedly called a slave, taunted with the N-word, and told to go back to India. We were appalled by the lack of action after this occurred. Unfortunately the students who did the bullying did not experience any substantial consequences, and therefore the bullying actually got worse. The last 2 years have been incredibly painful for our child, and our family, and I wish that on no one. We know that often children learn these poor values at home, and therefore the issue is not only in the schools, but also in the general Scotts Valley community. Recently, as we all know, sadly- another child in our community was racially bullied and ultimately took his own life, as again no significant consequences occurred for the bullies despite the family asking the school for help on multiple occasions.
This awful occurrence has given me courage to finally speak out about our own painful experience.
During the Covid lockdown, I saw some very ugly racist conversations online on the My Scotts Valley Facebook page, as well as in other forums, and I was appalled. I started communicating with other minority Scotts Valley families as well as others who felt this behavior was awful, but sadly not unusual. There is now a social media page called Scotts Valley Families for Social Justice with over 200 members, as well as a community DEI group. I have now met many others with similar stories of unacceptable behavior, and have had private discussions with those who feel Scotts Valley- more than other nearby areas- is NOT a place that generally welcomes minorities or diverse communities. I have found that the Scotts Valley schools have been rated by students as least welcoming, and this does jive with what I have heard from other parents in the community. I have also attended marches and listened to story after story of others in the Scotts Valley community who had experienced racism over many years, even before we moved here. This is not only a problem in the schools, but very much an issue involving the whole community.
So my question to you- is what can you all contribute as a City Council to furthering Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging in our community? I don’t know if this work is on your list of priorities, but I’m here to tell you this work needs to be done, and the time for it to happen is now. I appreciate that there has recently been some training at the school district and that there have been listening sessions. This seems to be a start, but it also is not enough, and I hope it’s not just lip service. I would like to know whether the City Council and its staff have undergone similar diversity and inclusion trainings? If not, does the City have any plans this year to conduct training for members of the City Council and staff? I would also like to know what other potential initiatives or programs the City might explore to promote inclusivity in our community. I also feel the City Council needs to check in with the school district to ensure that bullying policies are actually being improved and consequences are enforced. As concerned community members of Scotts Valley who feel Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging work needs to be done, my husband and I would be happy to lend our support or resources in any way we can, so please keep us in mind if help is needed.
I realize there will be no response to my requests at this time, but I’d like to ask to revisit this topic as an agenda item at a future City Council meeting, where myself and other concerned community members can come back and follow-up on progress. I’ll be sending this statement also via email tonight, and would appreciate it being included in tonight’s meeting minutes.
Thank you all so much for your time, and again- I appreciate you all so much.
Amee Sawhney
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