CITY COUNCIL MINUTES
MINUTES FOR Regular City Council Meeting of May 16, 2023 As Approved by the City Council at their regular meeting of June 6, 2023 Please note that minutes of meetings are not meant to be verbatim minutes and are meant to be the City’s record of a summary of actions that took place at the meeting. The vote/action is the required information of the meeting actions that took place. Approved minutes are available on the City Council Meetings page. https://www.ci.sebastopol.ca.us/Meeting-Event.aspx
Meeting was held in Person and Virtual /Remote Participation Zoom Link used for providing public comment/Live Stream is utilized for viewing only of Meeting The public is advised that pursuant to Government Code section 54957.5 all writings submitted to the City and City Council are public records and will be made available for review. 6:00 pm City Council Regular Meeting
Call to Order: Mayor Hinton called the Regular Meeting to Order at 6:03 p.m.
Roll Call:
Present: Mayor Neysa Hinton
Vice Mayor Diana Gardner Rich
Councilmember Sandra Maurer
Councilmember Jill McLewis
Councilmember Stephen Zollman
Absent: None
Staff: City Manager/City Attorney Larry McLaughlin
Assistant City Manager/City Clerk Mary Gourley
Administrative Services Director Ana Kwong
GHD Toni Bertolero
Planning Director Kari Svanstrom
Police Chief Ron Nelson
SALUTE TO THE FLAG: Mayor Hinton led the salute to the flag.
PROCLAMATIONS/PRESENTATIONS:
The following was presented:
• Proclamation – In Memory of Ellen Stillman, LANTERN
Reference Order Number: 2023-122
Mayor Hinton commented Item Number 9 has been removed from the agenda.
STATEMENTS OF CONFLICTS OF INTEREST: Conflicts of interest may arise in situations where a public official deliberating towards a decision, has an actual or potential financial interest in the matter before the Council. In accordance with state law, an actual conflict of interest is one that would be to the private financial benefit of a public official, a relative or a business with which the Councilmember is associated. A potential Agenda Item Number: 2 Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
conflict of interest is one that could be to the private financial benefit of a Councilmember, a relative or a business with which the Councilmember is associated. A Councilmember must publicly announce potential and actual conflicts of interest, and, in the case of actual conflict of interest, must refrain from participating in debate on the issue or from voting on the issue and must remove themselves from the dais.
There were no stated conflicts of interest.
PUBLIC COMMENT FOR ITEMS NOT ON THE AGENDA (FIRST COMMENT PERIOD):
Up to Twenty (20) Minute Time Limit (Two Minutes for up to ten speakers). Additional public comment will be held at the end of the discussion and action items for up to an additional twenty (20) minutes. Mayor has discretion to allow for additional time beyond the 20 minutes allocated for public comment dependent upon the subject matter or number of speakers.
Process for calling on Speakers: Mayor or designee shall ask for public comment as follows: Speakers to be called on in an alternate manner (One speaker in person to be called on first; then one speaker remote to be called on second with additional speakers to be called on in the same manner) based upon the time limit.
Nancy commented as follows:
• Unlike the people you listen to when you passed a resolution on animal rights last meeting, I’m from Sebastopol, not Berkeley, not Santa Rosa nearby, not Occidental.
• I would like to propose some follow-up resolutions.
• I would like, and I am dead serious, because there have been over 2500 exploratory cases, studies that animals feel pain, suffering, stress, I would like to ask the esteemed Council to propose a resolution banning all leashes and tethers of any kind attached to a living, sentient and feeling being. They cause pain, stress, and anxiety, and treat nonhuman brothers and sisters like slaves and property. Animals should not be treated like property, which direct action everywhere has explicitly said over and over and over. • Which leads me to a resolution abolishing all nonhuman animal licensing fees paid to the Sebastopol Police Department.
• We do not pay licensing fees on our children or each other, therefore we should not be paying licensing fees on our dogs, who are also members of our family. Such licensing fees only promote the idea that animals are property.
• Speaking of family. I think we need a resolution declaring Sebastopol officially an anti-abortion town • If we can go to such lengths for our brothers and sisters who are nonhuman animals, we need to do the same for our human animals, brothers, and sisters.
Evert commented as follows:
• I would like to propose that the city consider forming a task force committee for economic development focusing on revenue for the city.
• We have a lot of talent, members, retired members, that could look at other alternatives, and sustainable revenues for the city.
• There are opportunities not being utilized. We have thousands of people come to Sebastopol for events such as the apple blossom festival, but are we taking the opportunity to reach out to those people to support our local economy while they are here or in the future.
• Are there services or products the city can generate revenue from? • Many high school sporting events where the gymnasiums are full of people, there is not one sign simply saying Welcome to Sebastopol.
• large organizations such as Safeway have resources that maybe we have not tapped into where they pay employees to volunteer in their community.
• And of the council members should be about down to be part of this committee. Let the committee do the work, and you know, have them come back with some recommendations. • Regarding the issue of the animal cruelty, you know, it is unfortunate, a misuse and waste of our valuable resources and your time and attention, and is not part of your responsibility. • Now, having said that, it puts you in an unfair situation, because the city needs a policy to address those types of things. There are numerous worthy causes, and it puts you in a position that if you talk about this worthy cause, talk about puppies being misused being abused somewhere, and if you think that well, this is the appropriate place to talk about it and we don't have the resources you might be labeled as I guess you don't care about puppies.
Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
• Really, we care about many things. It's just like when we travel on an airplane, they tell us and remind us that in case of emergency, oxygen masks will drop from the ceiling. Take the time to put the oxygen mask on yourself first before attempting to help others. The reason is because many of us naturally would turn to help others first selflessly, and what we need to do is, if we help ourselves, it would be selfish, where in reality if we don't help ourselves first, nobody gets helped.
• I think that we need a policy that addresses those issues that say Sebastopol supports many of these worthy causes , but is not in the place of Sebastopol .
• We need to use our limited resources to help our own communities so that we can turn around and help others. • I think there are a lot a lot of opportunities that we are missing of sustainable revenue sources, because it's the same thing.
• Our budget is in shortfall, and we are going to need to put a tax on the measure, because otherwise you're going to lose services or there will be a slower response to the city and services, and it is another straw on the back of our community.
• Did we tell the District Attorney how to handle her case against Robert Jacob who served on the council, sodomized children? I mean, he had good intentions most times. The resolution was asinine. It's an embarrassment, and I hope to god you guys watched all the live feed videos, and if you didn't, go back and do so.
Ka'Lané Raposa commented as follows:
• I am a private consultant on homelessness issues and I was once a case manager, and I came here today to ask the City Council to launch an investigation into Horizon Shine Village • It has become what most people in Sebastopol feared it would become , in that it is a haven for safe drug use, and in my estimation it's become one of the largest single concentrations per capita of stolen goods and there is substance abuse.
• There is no case management. There is no program. There is no structure. There is no certified staff. • Things like trauma informed care, motivational interviews, they aren't being practiced. • People are routinely being checked out for things that they have not received the services to help them overcome.
• There are no metrics that are being reported truthfully. • There is a problem with the executive director has a long criminal history and how he's managing a site that has homeless, the most vulnerable people in our community, and now we have an executive director that has a history of violence, a history of spousal abuse, sexual assault, and even though these charges were dropped, there was enough evidence for the DA to compel him to give a restraining order against the victim which he violated and pled guilty to.
• There are a lot of things that happening at the village and now there are three deaths connected with that village. • I think continued funding would be irresponsible if you do not explore that. That's all I have to say.
Kyle commented as follows:
• i want to piggyback on the comment about our city looking at revenue. • In particular, I think we have two instances in the last couple of years in which we've failed in terms of taking a deeper look at our revenue. Let me remind us all. First off, due to lack of oversight, we had over $1 million stolen from our property tax coffers. So, that whole process and experience, looking at the details of how that happened in the first place suggests that we aren't keeping is close and I on the property tax revenues as we probably should, so perhaps looking into the way that we are accounting for and auditing those property taxes might be useful.
• Secondly, we saw, I can't remember what the approval process was, but in the process of approving one of our regular street markets, it came to light that this market was not adequately having its vendors provide sales tax to our city. That was a direct result of lack of oversight of our paperwork with these vendors and these business owners, that they were filling out.
• I think it's time we take a deeper look at the way that we manage the account, and we receive the revenues that are city is entitled to.
• I would hate to find out that there is even more loss of sales tax revenue as a result of lack of oversight and a lack of auditing processes.
Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
• So it is my hope that this Council in its process will do its due diligence of being fiscally responsible, hopefully in the future, so it can take a deeper look at the way that we manage our finances. • We spent a lot of money managing our finances. Over hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars an ounce contract services and managing our finances. Are we actually getting what we are paying for Amy commented as follows:
• I just moved here. I bought a house with my husband and I live downtown • One of the reasons that we moved to Sebastopol was because of the quality of life, the community, the healthy food, and access to good, clean water,
• I was very surprised that the water that is coming out of the tap is not drinkable. It has very strong flavor, and when I tried to do research online, I wasn't able to actually find any real, viable information about the water quality, and I feel like for a city that really takes pride in sort of creating healthy lifestyle, ecology and the food systems, I would really like to see a lot more visibility about what's going on with the water system, and if I need to be filtering my water, and that sort of thing.
Myriah commented as follows:
• I just wanted to hop on really quick and extend a thank you to the city, to public works, and to the community for a very successful apple blossom weekend.
• We had over 100 community members’ volunteer.
• The festival went really well.
• Everyone was happy, and I just wanted to say a big thanks to everybody, including the city. • Thank you for coming.
Linda commented as follows:
• Very excellent speakers tonight. But anyway, Evert I'd like to hear a lot more from you. • This is the reason. This is a humorless City Council. I mean, they lack a sense of humor, so I hope to hear more from you, again, like on every City Council meeting. It's so good to hear your voice, effort. You're a good person.
You've always listened to me at the planning commission meetings. You're in my prayers. I hope you're well, and I encourage you to run again. God knows we need better leadership on City Council, so I hope you run for City Council again, please, next year, or following when it comes up again. • Also, about the investigation, thank you for bringing that subject up • I’ve learned a lot about the prison system, and it has made a big change in this neighborhood, and absolutely there needs to be an investigation. I echo everything that you said about the addiction, the theft, enabling, the assaults, and the deaths.
• Actually there were four that I know of that are connected with the RV village here • What I really wanted to speak about was the microwaving of America • The current City Council bidding predatory capitalism with wireless water meters, which we all need to opt out and they need to be removed. There are 1015 of them that have already been installed. • We cannot continue to genetically modify ourselves with radiofrequency transmissions.
City Manager/Attorney McLaughlin commented as follows:
• In absence of the public works superintendent, the city clerk might know the details of this better than I do • We do yearly at least, or twice a year, a chemical analysis of our water, and we provide that to the water customers.
• Where it is posted or can be seen, I am less clear about that.
Mayor Hinton commented I believe I've got something in the mail at least once.
Assistant City Manager/City Clerk Gourley commented it is mailed out yearly, but if the member of the public wants to email me I will get in contact with her public works department, and we will have somebody come out there and see if it is something in the water or something like a filter or something like that.
Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
CONSENT CALENDAR: The consent agenda consists of items that are routine in nature and do not require additional discussion by the City Council or have been reviewed by the City Council previously. These items may be approved by one motion without discussion unless a member of the City Council requests that the item be taken off the consent calendar.
The Mayor will read the consent calendar items; ask if a Councilmember wishes to remove one or more items from the consent calendar; and then open public comment to the members of the public in attendance. At this time, a member of the public may speak for up to three minutes on the entire consent calendar and request at that time that an agenda item or items be removed for discussion.
If an item or items are removed from the consent calendar, the item shall be placed at the end of the regular agenda items unless otherwise determined by the Mayor or Mayor Pro Tern.
Councilmembers may comment on Consent Calendar items or ask for minor clarifications without the need for pulling the item for separate consideration. Items requiring deliberation should be pulled for separate consideration and shall be placed at the end of the regular agenda items unless otherwise determined by the Mayor or Mayor Pro Tem.
Mayor Hinton read the consent calendar.
Mayor Hinton asked if any Councilmember wanted to remove a consent calendar item.
Councilmember’s Request(s): There were none
Mayor Hinton opened for public comment on consent calendar items only.
Kyle commented as follows:
• i just want to make a reference to the minutes, in particular my comments, staff risk management • I wish that we actually had some good risk management, but actually my comments were about waste management, so if those could be corrected
• Secondly, regarding weed abatement , if you look at the agenda item and its description, it describes that there is an inspection process, but it is very vague.
• The reason why I suggest this is because if you look at the report which has been redacted, and if you look at that same exhibit for the last five years, you will notice it is exactly the same addresses. • I'm curious about the inspection process, if it is an annual process, if miraculously exactly the same properties have weeds on their property for five years in a row, and no new properties have any weeds, and none of these properties in the last five years have removed their weeds prior to the annual inspection. • If we can get some details on what the inspection process is like, that would be very beneficial. • As to why we have the exact same exhibit a for 5 years in a row, I’m really kind of curious about that as well.
Linda commented as follows:
• On number five, you know that I am computer free, cell phone free, tv free, et cetera, et cetera. I would like to have a little bit of explanation on what the amendment to city personnel rules and regulations and disciplinary procedures is
• A few years ago, there were about eight of us that gathered with the sole goal of getting our previous city planning director fired, and a lot of us, hard evidence was taken to some of the City Council members at that time, and also the city manager, who as I recall, did not want to, was in fear of being sued • Nonetheless, there was hard evidence that Kenyon Webster authored the traffic survey, and that was brought forth by Jonathan Greenberg, who told me about it at length. Kenyon was always pro-business. Anyway, it was for fear of him retaliating suing the city that he was never punished. However, I did get him to go for early retirement, because I confronted him publicly, for pro-business • He is in private business doing the same thing he did when he was with us. • The only thing I recall that came out of our organizing and that meeting was there was some kind of review for the city employees.
• Can you tell me if that exists? Like an annual performance review or something like that Judith commented as follows:
• I noticed that the fountain at city hall and library is proposed to be being made into a planter, and I don't know how far along you all are in this thinking process and execution of it, but I would like to say that as far as I know, the only fountain that's available for all of the things that drink water in nature is the one in the square, and that has just come on after three years of being shut off
Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
• We have loads of trees, thankfully, and I celebrate each one that remains standing, but I’d really like to see the fountain being kept a water fountain, and not being made a planter. • The other item, which is the restroom at the farm, I don't know if you are planning to plumb it in the usual way, in which every time somebody flushes it, a vast amount of water that could be used for plants or for drinking is flushed away
• I know that in this county, it's been, I think, decades that composting toilets have been being considered, being considered some more, and being considered some more. I think Burbank would be very happy to have a composting toilet rather than a usual water plum to toilet on his farm. • I'd be happy to address either of those further with anyone who would care to take more details.
Director Svanstrom commented as follows:
• In general the fountain itself is completely not operable right now. • It would be quite costly to get that back up and running, and ongoing maintenance cost of that is actually much higher than a planter would be.
• Given the fact that we are likely anticipating drought in the future given climate change, it is recommended by both public works superintendent and myself to move forward with this.
Mayor Hinton addressed item 5.
• I wanted to address the comment that was about the approval of personnel rules. • This was simply a minor change from the word in personnel rules from "arbitrator," to "hearing officer." that pretty much sums up the agenda item, for a member of the public that had that question about the agenda related to item 5.
• I wanted to make comments on our member of the public, talking about a former planning director who I was doing a quick calculation, works for our city for 22 years in that department, and I really appreciate that everybody has an opinion, but this planning director retired with a proclamation from the city honoring his work, and I will just say the rest of that appears to be not substantiated, so, comments, again, everybody is welcome to their opinion, but from the city standpoint, I wanted to address that to the public.
City Manager/Attorney McLaughlin commented as follows:
• I know from a number of conversations with the former fire chief Bill Braga that all the properties in question were very definitely inspected on a yearly basis or their address would not be entered into the list. • The reason you see the same properties over and over again, according to what I’ve heard, is the number of property owners wait until a certain time of year or until they receive a certain number of notices, but in any event, they seem to abate their weeds about the same time every year. • They often appear on this earlier list.
• By the time it comes time to have it done or the city would be contracting to do it, those properties are almost always all cleared like they should be.
Councilmember Maurer commented as follows:
• i agree that I am sad about losing the fountain at the library, but I understand that it's broken, and that there is another alternative in place.
• I am glad that the fountain is fixed in the plaza and is working. I think they are beautiful, because having fountains are beautiful, and those kind of symbols I think are important right now. • Curious about the composting toilet idea at the Luther Burbank farm, and I know that farm is one of the public parks, and I think it's important to have a bathroom.
• I'm just wondering how far along is this application, grant application, in the process, I certainly wanted would not want to suggest to be held up in any way.
• There are a lot of volunteers and I think it is important to have an accessible bathroom.
Toni Bertolero, GHD, commented as follows:
• We are in the design phase, and it is standard plumbing fixtures. • We are looking at low-flow on the toilets and sinks.
Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
• However, I can certainly take a look at the suggestion of composting, and maybe even a graywater system and see if there is still an opportunity to look at those in the design.
MOTION:
Councilmember Zollman moved and Councilmember McLewis seconded the motion to approve Consent Calendar Items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 with the correction to the minutes.
Mayor Hinton called for a roll call vote. City staff conducted a roll call vote.
VOTE:
Ayes: Councilmembers Maurer, McLewis, Zollman, Vice Mayor Rich and Mayor Hinton Noes: None
Absent: None
Abstain: None
1. Approval of City Council Meeting Minutes for Meeting of May 2, 2023 (Responsible Department: City Administration)
City Council Action: Approved City Council Meeting Minutes for Meeting of May 2, 2023 Minute Order Number: 2023-123
2. Approval of Resolution of Intention adopts a Resolution preliminarily approving the Engineer’s Report and a Resolution of Intention to levy and collect assessments for FY 2023-24. (Responsible Department:
Administrative Services Director)
City Council Action: Approved Resolution of Intention adopts a Resolution preliminarily approving the Engineer’s Report and a Resolution of Intention to levy and collect assessments for FY 2023-24 Minute Order Number: 2023-124
Resolution Number: 6529-2023
3. Adopt a Resolution Approving the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) Grant for the Burbank Experimental Farm Restroom Facility and Accessibility Improvements Project and Finding the Project Exempt under CEQA Section 15303(e) (Responsible Department: Engineering/GHD) City Council Action: Approved Resolution Approving the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) Grant for the Burbank Experimental Farm Restroom Facility and Accessibility Improvements Project and Finding the Project Exempt under CEQA Section 15303(e)
Minute Order Number: 2023-125
Resolution Number: 6530-20239
4. Bid Award for the Bodega Avenue Phase 1 Project #0513-74.09 and Finding the Project Exempt under CEQA Section 15301(c), 15304(f) and 15304(h) (Responsible Department: Engineering/City Engineer) City Council Action: Approved 4. Bid Award for the Bodega Avenue Phase 1 Project #0513-74.09 and Finding the Project Exempt under CEQA Section 15301(c), 15304(f) and 15304(h) Minute Order Number: 2023-126
5. Approval of Amendment to City Personnel Rules and Regulations (Disciplinary Procedures) (Responsible Department: Administrative Services/City Administration) City Council Action: Approved Amendment to City Personnel Rules and Regulations (Disciplinary Procedures) Minute Order Number: 2023-127
Resolution Number: 6531-2023
6. Approval of Re-Use of Fountain at City Hall/Library from Fountain Use to Planter Use with a Gravenstein Apple Tree planted in the City Hall/Library Planter and Finding the Project Exempt under CEQA Section 15304(b) (Responsible Department: Planning/Public Works)
City Council Action: Approved Re-Use of Fountain at City Hall/Library from Fountain Use to Planter Use with a Gravenstein Apple Tree planted in the City Hall/Library Planter and Finding the Project Exempt under CEQA Section 15304(b)
Minute Order Number: 2023-128
7. Approval of Resolution Declaring Weeds a Public Nuisance and Setting Date/time for Public Hearing (Responsible Department: Interim Fire Chief)
City Council Action: Approved Resolution Declaring Weeds a Public Nuisance and Setting Date/time for Public Hearing Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
Minute Order Number: 2023-129
Resolution Number: 6532-2023
INFORMATIONAL ITEMS/PRESENTATIONS:
8. Informational Presentation from NHA Financial Advisors for Revenue Enhancement Study. The DRAFT presentation was presented to the Budget Committee at a Publicly Noticed Meeting. (Responsible Department:
Administrative Services)
Administra�ve Services Director Kwong presented the agenda item recommending the City Council receive the Informa�onal Presenta�on from NHA Financial Advisors for Revenue Enhancement Study and introduced Mike Myers and Eric Scriven from NHA.
NHA made a presenta�on to the City Council.
Mayor Hinton opened for ques�ons from Council.
Councilmember McLewis commented as follows:
• I was just wondering in the report under the actions for future, were those in any particular order, or was that just random, the sales tax
• Are those in any particular order on the actions for the future? NHA commented as follows:
• There was no intended recommendation on these.
• We feel our job here tonight is to identify that there is a structural deficit. • Your reserves will be dissipated and eliminated over the next several years, and these are potential items to consider in no particular order of course the sales tax would be the largest potential revenue enhancement of this group.
Councilmember McLewis commented as follows:
• I have one other question if that's okay.
• You have TOT tax listed.
• Based on your experience working with other cities, how important is that tax for most places? NHA commented as follows:
• It certainly depends.
• The City of Napa as an example, those are very large hotel TOT generators, tax generators. • Other communities, not so much.
• Based on what we saw from your city, I believe the number was, what was it, $80,000? • It was not the largest number, meaning that your base of hotels that you can get bed tax off of did not seem to be as large and impactful as some other potential taxes.
Councilmember McLewis commented we just lost one, 50% of our hotels, recently.
Vice Mayor Rich commented as follows:
• Looking at I think it was your slide number seven, and identified as part of the section 115 trust recommendation that the city would need to add $400,000 per year to that trust after setting it up. • What calendar years were you looking at for that additional $400,000 per year, or what fiscal years were you looking at?
NHA commented as follows:
• The chart on seven to pick those extra deposits
• The gray bars in fiscal years 24 and 25.
Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
• That is a combined $400,000, and that is not the saying that the city has the resources to do that, but it is what would allow the city to level things out at this $1.4 million level over the next 15 years or so, so the current balance in the reserve plus a little bit extra.
• Obviously if the city is not able to, you'd still be able to lower this peak in payments, just not to the same level. • Probably a little bit higher than the orange line shown Vice Mayor Rich commented that was $400,000 distributed over two fiscal years NHA commented that is correct
Vice Mayor Rich commented is that fiscal years 2023-2024, and 2024-2025.
NHA stated that is correct.
Vice Mayor Rich commented I had a question about the potential revenue items, going to the TOT, the $80,000 potential revenue, and I understand this is just one hypothetical, but that $80,000 is additional TOT that we might take advantage of, is that based on the one hotel that we currently have, or on future predictions about an additional hotel? NHA commented as follows:
• This is hypothetical.
• We basically took your existing TOT and added an incremental 2% • It is based on the current hotel that we have.
• It does not build into future hotels.
Vice Mayor Rich commented that it would not include the anticipated Sebastopol hotel.
NHA commented that is correct.
Vice Mayor Rich commented then the parcel tax amount that is slotted into this hypothetical, the $790,000 per year, that is based on what amount or parcel?
Councilmember Zollman commented it was in the materials and was about $295 per parcel.
Vice Mayor Rich commented the maximum sales tax in Sonoma County is how much at this point? City staff commented it the ceiling in Sonoma County is 10.25 percent.
Vice Mayor Rich commented as follows:
• My final question has to do with the comment about expanding the tax base. • I'm assuming that means taking our city boundaries and expanding them to the outside edges of the urban growth boundary.
• Is that what you meant by that?
NHA commented as follows:
• Not exactly.
• What I meant was, say you are building a new hotel.
• Typical economic development activities, increasing retail or hospitality within the existing city limits, not expanding outwards.
Councilmember Zollman commented as follows:
• Discussed the 115 Trust
Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
• When you said it is common, have you done an analysis, or have you been part of an analysis of a similarly situated city in the situation that we are in in terms of how much of a savior the 115 trust turned out to be? NHA commented as follows:
• For those clients that we have that have put their money and dedicated funding towards a 115 with the idea of leveling off this mountain peak, or in more of a general sense, creating additional cushion and flexibility if bad things happen.
• For instance, a recession, or additional CalPERS costs come online, which we've seen recently. • We've seen that some have actually had to utilize the 115's, but most have been building them up over the recent past while the times have been good.
• So, we know several examples where it has been very, very, very useful, but right now that is not as widespread, but we believe it will be more utilized in the near future.
Councilmember Zollman commented as follows:
• Around the TOT tax, I'm a little bit confused.
• Did you say your figures included the currently planned hotel or does it not currently include the planned hotel? NHA commented as follows:
• Just the existing hotel in place right now.
• That would be additive if you added a new hotel and had a higher tax rate on that.
Councilmember Zollman commented as follows:
• I heard that if the current hotel comes into fruition there is going to be a lag time that when we can actually get the TOT money.
• Is that rumor correct or not correct
NHA commented as follows:
• If they are in operation, you should be able to collect TOT right away. • There should not be any lag time.
Vice Mayor Rich commented as follows:
• My question has to do with the 115 trust.
• What is the cost of setting up a 115 trust
NHA commented as follows:
• The setup cost is zero.
• It depends on the provider with the annual administrative costs are, as well as what type of portfolio it is invested in.
• I'm sure we would as part of that process if that's the direction the city wants to go, we'd be glad to kind of share various options, talk about the cost of various providers.
Councilmember McLewis commented I’m just wondering, why haven't we done this in the past? Mayor Hinton commented as follows:
• I was actually going to make a comment on that question as to why we haven't done this in the past • I have sat on the CalPERS committee in the past. This was not a strong recommendation to the council in the past, and I’m not sure, I’d be curious to hear your opinion as to why coming in is a strong recommendation now. • I believe because we’ve had years in these funds in the last few years, but we did have another company analyze this, and it did not look like this, so I’m if your organization can comment to that? • This is something the council has looked at in the past that I’m just curious about if this makes good sense moving forward, or is this based on previous performance of kind of boom years in recent years? Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
Director Kwong commented as follows:
• I think in the past, it was not widely supportive.
• I've always supported having a 115 trust to deal with the largest expenses in the budget is the CalPERS liability. • It was not supported by prior councils.
• It was kind of off the radar for a bit. If there’s any opportunity that staff gets to bring it to the forefront because that is the biggest expenses, we have we will; however it wasn't supported so I wasn't going to go there anymore.
City Manager/Attorney McLaughlin commented as follows:
• It was the removal of flexibility to be able to use those monies for some other emergency purpose if you needed to.
• Once you put it in the 115 trust, you cannot recover those monies, hence previous councils made the decision to put it into a reserve that in the event of an emergency they could reach those monies.
Mayor Hinton commented as follows:
• I did hear the consultants say that other cities have had to dip into these funds. • Can you review if we were to create this 115 trust and had to dip into it, what would that mean to the city? Director Kwong commented as follows:
• You can only dip into this fund created as a trust to only pay for pension. • If you do move forward with creating this trust can only dip into it to pay for pension. • You cannot dip into this fund to pay for anything else Mayor Hinton commented as follows:
• The consultant mentioned that other cities have touched the fund. • Could I hear from the consultant on that
NHA commented as follows:
• I think the way I would frame it is if they have to dip into it, there was some strategic uses where several of the cities decided that they wanted to utilize it to do some prepayments, what we call additional discretionary payments, to re-amortize this very volatile repayment schedule that CalPERS provides many many public agencies in the state of California.
• Was the use of those born out of necessity, or was it more of a strategic approach? • I would say in the recent past it was the latter, but going forward, if we are in a recession or if CalPERS continues to underperform and creates these ascending payment schedules, rapidly increasing your year-over-year payments, there will be more need for cities to tap into these funds just to manage the costs like we've discussed this evening
Councilmember Maurer commented as follows:
• This is a question for the city manager. You've been here and around for a long time. • I was wanting to know, has Sebastopol had to face a situation from this growing structural deficit before, and if so, how did the city get out of it
City Manager/Attorney McLaughlin commented as follows:
• Yes, it did.
• When I first took this job, we first got out of it by considering tax measures with the previous administration had not wanted to do.
• That's why you see on this list the tax measures.
Councilmember McLewis asked specifically what type of tax measures did you do.
City Manager/Attorney McLaughlin commented sales tax and UUT tax.
Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
Councilmember McLewis commented we do have one of the highest sales taxes in the county, correct? City Manager/Attorney McLaughlin commented not the highest.
Councilmember Lewis commented as follows:
• Stated Cotati is higher
• Stated our tax measures did stay in place and yet we still find ourselves now still in a structural deficit.
Mayor Hinton commented as follows:
• Discussed the CalPERS slide
• It's just gotten extremely worse in recent years.
• Am I reading this right, so it was negative in 2022, and has just plummeted to the 3.35. • That is part of our problem with the CalPERS situation, that I don't want to fill in, but when we look at this before I assume we were earning more.
• Is that correct?
NHA commented as follows:
• You are hitting on the main issue with the CalPERS liability, which is it bounces around. It goes up, it goes down, based on CalPERS reinvestment returns.
• You can see their target is 6.8%, and when they are under 6.8%, the unfunded liability goes up. They put a new layer on. When it is above 6.8% AMI like it was in 2021. It was a 21.3%, they reduce the liability, and the payments go down as well.
• So, that is the primary reason that we believe and recommend that it is important to have funds in a dedicated source, like the section 115, where you can control the smoothing so that you can budget with a more predictable CalPERS payment each year, because you can make it more predictable with utilizing funds that you have on account.
• It's going to continue to bounce around, up and down. We hope it goes down again, but we don't know. • Right now, they are not meeting their 6.8% target in fiscal year 2023.
Mayor Hinton opened for public comment. NHA Financial Advisors for Revenue Enhancement Study.
A member of the audience commented as follows:
• Discussed the 115 Trust
• Asked if it is an investment in stocks and bonds
NHA commented as follows:
• It can be a tailored portfolio based on City Council decisions. • You can have very low risk or high risk or something in between, blended between stocks and bonds, typically. • Given the current market situation, that is a calculated risk, would be my opinion, not guaranteed by any means at all.
Steve commented as follows:
• I want to thank the staff and the consultants. The report was a bit in the long time coming. • The most interesting part was the pension part of the report because the revenue quite honestly that's really not very hard to calculate anticipated revenue from what we already know our existing revenue is. • I think it is a pretty glaring omission that we were always told when the hotel was coming up that we are looking at $300,000 per year TOT revenue.
• I could be wrong on that, but I’d really like to see that more prominent in the report. It makes a big difference on these numbers.
• There is very little analysis of the cost, or the next steps, or the list of actions for the future. • Our process for revenue needs to be ongoing not just during crisis periods.
Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
• I think this should be a standing function of the budget subcommittee that we constantly look at revenue measures. We are most likely going to need them for our small town going forward, and we really need to look at these proposals with an equity lens.
• Sales tax is not very equitable. The lowest income residents here, they will end up paying 3 to 4 times more than the highest income as a percent of their income on whatever sales tax would be passed. • We need to look at other ideas.
• I'm interested in that cannabis revenue, and we need a comprehensive list of alternatives with pros and cons, that includes expansion of the city borders with urban growth boundaries in line, and I’m sure there are some other ideas out there on revenue that the consultants just have not yet included in their analysis that would be very encouraging to look at.
A member of the audience commented as follows:
• I wasn't prepared to consider any of this, but I am wondering, for this study and for previous studies per year, per study and per year, I’m wondering what kind of a total you have, because I understand the consultants don't work for two digits.
• They work for three digits only and up, so I imagine, this comes into the hundreds of thousands if not more. • Cost-containment is obviously a critical thing, but in terms of everything that has been discussed, it's constantly in the context of growth, growth, growth, and this becomes government as a profit driven entity. • I don't know that economic development should be a concern. It should be part of the concern, but the corporation is profit driven, and I think the government, especially one for a small town such as this, should have a mission that is above and beyond profit, and that would be an equitable situation for the citizens, not just the business community.
Kyle commented as follows:
• I have watched as the previous City Councils have continued to do business as usual, with their budget, which has put us in the position we are in today.
• Little to no change to the actual budget from year-to-year has put us in a place where we have used up the vast majority of our reserves unfortunately,
• I don't see or have the faith that we can trust our future City Council budget subcommittees do not tap into pensions if needed.
• Going the trust route secures the pensions of our city employees, that they have rightfully earned from the mismanagement of City Council budget subcommittees moving into the future. • I highly encourage you to consider the trust, as a way of protecting these funds from City Council budget committees of the future.
Michelle commented as follows:
• Thank you, Kyle, for saying that.
• I think it is very important that we keep the employees of the city confident that they will reap the benefits that they have earned.
• But the second comment I want to make, I went on the Sebastopol City Walk this week and one of the retired Councilmembers shared with me that the hotel that has not been built or had any movement was given a three to six year waiver before a TOT would be imposed.
• For the City Council members who were on City Council prior to the current City Council members, are you sure that we did not give a waiver for the Sebastopol hotel to get an extension? Yarrow commented as follows:
• Thank you so much for this presentation
• NHA is clearly raised and educated here in the bay area, and it says on your bio that you are a generalist, allow me to take a couple of shots at you and just sit on the box and take them. • I hope that NHA does not stand for no hitting agenda. • When you propose a cannabis tax, it is clear that is not an area that you are confluent in, cannabis taxes have crippled the cannabis industry. So, I am really committed to making sure that Sebastopol wraps his arms around Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
and increasing cannabis taxes is an idea birthed in a vacuum and you would not be able to show me a white paper or study were increased cannabis taxes supports the cannabis industry in California. • I am worried that we are considering taxes without spending reduction conversations, I am really opposed to the parcel tax increase, it would be the most impacted as seniors on a fixed income. • Something more narrow like non-owner-occupied for parcels, more narrowly focused on parcels that can afford it, that could be one thing.
• The sales tax increase, people are just going to go to Costco or not shop at the whole foods or the Safeway downtown, I don't see how increasing the cost of living in this highly desirable area is the right vehicle. • Yes, to the TOT. Given the amount of money that they are going to spend in leisure and recreation, I think there's a lot of room to increase that tax and to the point that was already made, nobody has budgeted in or focused increased occupancy is more lodging comes on like it just seems like that 2% is pretty modest.
Craig commented as follows:
• Thank you for your attention to this matter, this is so critical for our city, my hometown, I used to be on the council.
• I have a local business here, a couple of them. One of them is a cannabis business and I just want to start by emphasizing how difficult this is to make budget cuts across the board and departments and how to balance the budget and basically fill in for CalPERS measures.
• I have run taxes in the past successfully, so I get that we have to do these things over time, and we have to raise money
• What are we doing to attract more businesses
• With the empty business places, the units, how can we add more businesses, whatever we can do to put together a citizens committee with the California Council would be great. • Taxing the cannabis businesses, it would certainly drive businesses out of business and out of town. It is hanging on by one nail on a cliff at the moment. It is so difficult in cannabis businesses. Is often taxed at gross receipts levels.
• There are already a lot of taxes, besides the sales tax for the retail in the supply train that the city receives, there is also a state tax on that. It is taxed, taxed, taxed. Cannabis consumption lounges would be one way to increase sales taxes, start moving forward on some cannabis consumption lounges. • Allow existing dispensaries to create some on-site consumption and increase sales that way. Gross receipts are really unfair, if you look at this, please consider that. • The other way to make money, equity programs. There is a state equity grant, if you apply force now, the city can get more than the can. The study city has to start by passing a resolution in support.
Oliver commented as follows:
• Thanks to NHA. I have been watching a lot of the budget, discussions, they did a much longer presentation, pretty much, that same deck with a lot more nuances.
• I think, about six weeks ago, online streaming if anybody is interested in that graph the budget is very strangely organized
• I guess that the city manager organizes that over the years. • It's a very peculiar process, very convoluted, but as we were saying last fall, this is a real doomsday budget. • Back to basics, single most important thing, as NHA have been saying, public safety. The fire, infrastructure, all of these basic services, which is why the council is sitting there now. We keep getting sucked into these embarrassing, well-meaning, but embarrassing sideshows, like the lady that spoke earlier about animal rights or whatever.
• Over the years, I think there have been some serious missteps by the council. • In the way that they have organized the way the city has been run and what has been a real boom times is the property prices
• The reality is, we have to really get back to the real world and focus on just running the city well. It's as simple as that.
• We were saying all of this last fall, nothing has changed and I’m actually glad that the people are more on the progressive side on the spectrum, having to unpick this and sort it all out.
Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
Andrew commented as follows:
• I am the director of licensing and compliance for one of your two Sebastopol dispensary, we have been here since 2007 and we are proud to call Sebastopol home.
• I want to start by thanking the council and NHA for the presentation, it's clear that the city has some challenging budget decisions ahead.
• I am calling in tonight not to weigh in on all of the various revenue enhancement measures, but to specifically talk about cannabis and the cannabis tax that has been mentioned here. • This is not the time for a cannabis tax to be added, as you have heard from other speakers tonight, the cannabis industry is an incredibly comparative precarious position. • Cannabis taxes that would further impact the sustainability of our licensed local opportunities operators is not the solution Sebastopol needs.
• Sebastopol has long enjoyed the benefits of having a robust cannabis industry and the taxes and fees that come with it. Now is not the time to jeopardize his industry within it with a tax.
Linda commented as follows:
• I want to thank the lady, the person that spoke about continued growth • Unfettered growth is the definition of cancer, which we have a lot of and had it has been growing a lot. • As I said before, 5% of the population in Sonoma County is newly diagnosed with cancer every year. I • Anybody with any sense should recognize and under them and epidemic. • It all speaks to the success of predatory capitalism
• We are nothing more than consumer units and Don Perkins, who is the author of confessions of an economic hit in. In his book, which I highly recommend, suggestions about specifically what I want to address, with the economy here.
• I would like to know how much the study costs, I would also suggest that that $2.2 million that has been flushed away for the wireless water meter, which is badger meters has been sued multiple times for their failed wireless water meters. That is a good place to stop the bleeding • They are not cheap. From China, so anyway, again, I always suggest City Council take another look at these stupid pieces of junk and also opt out and everybody opt out on these to send a message.
Mayor Hinton responded to public comment as follows:
• Discussed the cost of the contract which was $27,600
• I had always heard a projection of a future of Sebastopol hotel, to refresh my memory, I checked online, was going to be 66 rooms. Estimates, roughly, were a TOT of about $450,000 a year, I was not on the council or recall a council waiving that from day one.
City Manager/Attorney McLaughlin commented as follows:
• There is no waiver TOT, what we have done for the hotel, previous council authorized a deferral. • Some of their impact fees and other costs, some other situations, cases they have paid those fees. • It is an involved agreement to defer some of them, they will be paid ultimately, some of them were paid at the time of permanent issuance. There is no waiver of the TOT.
Mayor Hinton asked about grants.
City staff commented I'm not aware of this grant, but I have a meeting with them too I will check with them tomorrow.
City Council Discussion and/or Delibera�ons:
Vice Mayor Rich commented how much TOT are we projecting each year from the new hotel? Director Kwong commented as follows:
• I do not have the exact figures
Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
• As I mentioned earlier, I have heard it tossed around at $400,000, if you just take a percentage of rooms, that is common for hotels, the number of rooms they have an average room price and do it based on 12%, you basically come up between four and 450,000
Vice Mayor Rich commented do we expect to receive that TOT once it opens or is there a delay? Mayor Hinton commented this was answered and we do not have any kind of referral agreement. We have an agreement which defers some of their fees until occupancy but not TOT Vice Mayor Rich commented I would like to know, for purposes of the public, when we look at an increase in UUT of the percentage that you were talking about, what does that mean in terms of an individual resident? What does that trickle down to in terms of a homeowner?
Director Kwong commented I believe that when we went to council about the UUT taking off the sunset, there was some data in there regarding how much it would talk cost the resident. I can go back and get that information.
Councilmember Zollman commented as follows:
• This is a preference for what direction I would like to provide your staff. • Based upon being an alternate to ABAG, which is the Association of Bay Area Government, which includes nine different cities and the trouble they are in, related to their pension payment, is very alarming to me. • Along with the fact that Santa Rosa just recently passed a 115 trust I would like to provide direction to staff to start the process of setting up a 115 trust to address rising pension costs Councilmember McLewis commented as follows:
• We are talking about the TOT tax and the future. I hope our staff will understand the importance of us having this, and while I understand, for some people, it might be controversial, it is also a huge source of income for us. • I think that we should not be doing things to take that away, that's all I have to say Councilmember Maurer commented if there is an increase in the TOT tax, does that have to be put in front of the voters? Same question with the UUT or the sales tax?
Director Kwong commented yes.
Councilmember Maurer commented do those have to come before the voters? Director Kwong commented yes.
Vice Mayor Rich commented as follows:
• I am in support of the 115 trust
• I agree with the concerns raised by Councilmember Zollman. • In terms of the tax measures that have been discussed, can someone here please remind us of the cost associated with pursuing any sort of measure, bringing it to the voters, cost of filing and cost of a consultant to draft the measure and then, a strategist to the extent staff recommends that? • What is the total cost per measure? Estimated, obviously.
Director Kwong commented as follows:
• I can speak to the writing of the ballot, if the city goes for three measures, the writing of the ballots is going to be $30,000, so it's going to be approximately $10,000 each. • The city is looking, when you have this many ballot measures in the election, it is also recommended that the city consult with a strategist and the strategist will cost approximately $30,000. So combined, it is about $60,000, that is just on the consultant for the measure, as far as election, I’m not sure.
City staff commented as follows:
Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
• Depending on when this goes to the election, of course, any election other than November 2024 is going to be higher because it is dependent on how many cities, counties and schools have ballot measures. • If we do one in March, it is estimated that can range anywhere from $20,000 to $40,000, depending on the number of cities. We have estimated $20,000 for each measure. • The drafting is $30,000 for the measure
Mayor Hinton commented are we thinking that this would not happen if we were to move forward on this in November 2023.
City staff commented that is awful quick to do if you are trying to have the strategies involved and getting the public involved, it's very tight.
Mayor Hinton commented the last time the city ran a tax measure, have we used a strategist? City Manager/Attorney McLaughlin commented we did not use a strategist, per se, which as I read it, is to analyze the public's perception about the tax measures and, potentially, do a poll with it. We have not done that; we have utilized assistance to draft the tax measures last several times.
Mayor Hinton commented but we have never used a strategist to write/draft a tax measure to date? City Manager/Attorney McLaughlin commented no we have not.
Mayor Hinton commented as follows:
• Before I moved to a recommendation from this report, which is on our informational and presentation agenda items, even though, I guess it said possible action, I am not prepared to move on that tonight, I will just say that publicly.
• I want to digest this a little bit more and see our full budget. • I think that would be the appropriate time to consider what we are thinking about for full measures.
City staff commented we are not approving doing it, I think what you might want to do is direct staff to get information to bring back to the City Council on what a 115 is, what it would cost, that would be your direction of staff tonight we are not approving doing a 115, but I would direct staff to bring information back to the City Council.
Councilmember Zollman recommended City staff be directed to get information to bring back to the City Council on a 115 trust.
Reference Order Number: 2023-130
9. Progress Report from the Ad Hoc Fire Committee (Responsible Department: Interim Fire Chief)
THIS ITEM HAS BEEN PULLED FROM THE AGENDA AND WILL BE RESCHEDULED FOR A FUTURE CITY COUNCIL MEETING Reference Order Number: 2023-131
Mayor Hinton called for a break at 7:58 pm and reconvened the meeting at 8:10 pm.
PUBLIC HEARING(s): NONE
REGULAR CALENDAR AGENDA ITEMS (DISCUSSION AND/OR ACTION)
10. Consideration of Approval of Resolution Authorizing a Joint Application with St Vincent de Paul for a Project Homekey Grant Application for 845 Gravenstein Highway North and Finding the Project Exempt under CEQA Section 15332, Class 32 (Responsible Department: Planning) Planning Director Svanstrom presented the agenda item recommending the City Council approve a Resolution Authorizing a Joint Application with St Vincent de Paul for a Project Homekey Grant Application for 845 Gravenstein Highway North and Finding the Project Exempt under CEQA Section 15332, Class 32. Discussed changes to Resolution as follows:
Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
New Language:
WHEREAS, St Vincent de Paul will be responsible for the construction and operation of the Project, including all costs associated with City staff assistance, the physical development and on-going operations; and a total amount not to exceed $22 million,
Jack Tibbetts commented as follows:
• I am happy to make a few words, but mostly, I am here to answer any questions that you have, or any questions the public might have about this project.
• Just in short, this will be our second project that we will be applying for funds from HCD. • We did this successfully with the City of Santa Rosa and received $13.29 million to develop 50 units of housing and we’re about 70% completion on that project with an estimated completion date of July 30th. • Permanent supportive services are offered, I know that this is a question some of your public will have. It is a requirement of the grant that there be one case manager dedicated for a maximum of 20 people who live in the property. We anticipate 1.5 case managers.
• Resident-manager laws also apply. Any complex with 14 or more units is required to have a resident manager, so, you know, experience dictates that this is -- these types of projects are really good ways to address the growing homelessness crisis in Sonoma County. And, certainly, if you have a good operator, that becomes exponentially more, I think, true. St Vincent de Paul, I believe we are a good operator and I would point to the example of Los Guillicos Village that we did in partnership with the County of Sonoma. To underline my point, when we began that project with the County of Sonoma, they were actually the lead group pushing that through. We were with them every step of the way and we had about 400 angry neighbors in the senior center in Oakmont, rightfully upset because it was done through a temporary use permit process. Under an emergency order, we stepped in and we have been operating that village for three years and the OVA, which is their board of directors, were leaning towards trying to challenge our initiative with attorneys. We just recently resubmitted to the county of Sonoma to operate that village for the next three years and we received a letter of support from OVA to continue as the operators. Speaking for St. Vincent de Paul, we are really excited, I think this is a great project for the property and for the site. It is kind of our model to go in and find blighted buildings and physical spaces in a community. Typically, like the Gold Coin motel, for example, that have a history of a lot of bad things. And we turn them around to something that can be a positive outcome, both for the individuals, who sometimes get objected to due to the behaviors that occur in places like that, and turn it into something that can help them get back on track and enhance their lives. I will stop there and I’m happy to take any questions.
Mayor Hinton asked Chief Nelson to discuss comments related to this site.
Chief Nelson commented as follows:
• I'm not going to legitimate the comments that were made by getting into the weeds of each specific comment, especially those directed at the residence at Horizon Shine, what I can say, Horizon Shine, when it opened, you have to step back a little bit. And understand this is a difficult situation to manage, from the start. We are dealing with individuals who don't have the life skills that most of us have to manage their lives and to move society often times, that is a root cause of homelessness. Add to that, I’m going to go into the issue, a little more on my next report, some of them are suffering from some mental illnesses, some of them suffer from substance abuse issues, lifelong or long-term. So to place them in a facility like this is a little bit like herding cats at the start. It wasn't that smoothest transition, there were some growing pains, but from the outset, Horizon Shine management has worked collaboratively with us. They have kept open lines of communication, they have brought issues to our attention. We have smoothed some things out over time and we have a good, solid, working, collaborative relationship with them and I truly believe they are doing the best they can under some really difficult circumstances. Some new management was brought in within the last six or eight months. Right away, they opened the door, wanted to have open conversations with us. We had meetings with them, they are doing the best they can with a difficult situation. The speaker alluded to some drug use on the property and things like that, Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
I hate to tell you, but there is drug use in private homes all throughout the city and it is not the police's job to police what people do in their private lives. Yes, I think they're tried to discourage those types of behaviors, but -- it is not a prison, it is not a jail, it is not a locked facility. They are doing the best they can and I really think, overall, they are doing a fine job and it has been a good solution to a pretty significant problem we had previously.
Mayor Hinton opened for questions from Council.
Councilmember McLewis commented as follows:
• How many home key sites are in other cities?
• I am asking because we already have a home key site right here in Elderberry Commons. • I am very familiar with it, businesses in the parking lot. • Just wondering if you know how many other cities have more than one home key.
Director Svanstrom commented as follows:
• I know Santa Rosa has two, I don't know of other cities that have more than one. • One of the things I would say is, Project Homekey started out during COVID as the hotel thing. • Now it has transitioned to a state affordable housing fund in this particular route. • It can be used for a hotel purchase, but it is also just being used as a way to fund affordable housing.
Councilmember McLewis commented as follows:
• I did some research because I wanted to at educate myself on this, what is defined as low income and affordable, so can you tell me where this permanent supportive housing ranks on this • I printed it off from the county, regarding acutely low income, extremely low income, of course, extremely low income will be the category.
Mr. Tibbetts commented as follows:
• It is extremely low income.
• That’s correct, it is the extremely low income, the most bottom of the shadow that exists in a affordable housing levels that I am aware of.
Councilmember McLewis commented where do we rank Park Village in that? Director Svanstrom commented as follows:
• Park Village is actually not deed restricted affordable housing. • It was purchased by the City several years ago, 2013, with an existing mobile home park on it. • There are eight to 10 units, which are affordable housing, I believe those are either low or very low. • The remainder of the units are actually privately-owned mobile homes, just like at Fircrest mobile home park, where they played pay rent for their space and own their unit - that is not a deed restrictive component.
Councilmember McLewis commented can you tell me about our RHNA numbers and how many of our low and extremely low income units has been met?
Director Svanstrom commented as follows:
• We did meet all of our low and very low housing units in the last cycle, I think we had a few extra on the very low, off the top of my head, this may not be completely accurate. • But I know we had a few extra on the very low and I think we didn't have quite as many of the low. • What RHNA does, if you have more very low, they can count for the low. • Similarly, we had more moderate than we needed, we didn't have as much market rate, but all of the lower incomes can be used to meet the RHNA target at a higher income. • So we did meet our RHNA.
• We have just started our next cycle, so we technically have not counted any units yet – we did issue the building permit for Woodmark for 48 units, those will be low and very low.
Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
• Those are the housing permits that we have permitted so far this year. • Again, that is only January 2023 to now, May. We are in that new eight-year cycle that we just started. • Our total RHNA is broken into all of those various categories. • We won't be subject to the SB 35 law as of June or July, when HCD makes that determination. • Hopefully, with Woodmark and should this project move forward, we probably won't be at all during this eightyear cycle. That is the goal anyway.
Councilmember McLewis commented what is the Burbank Senior Housing rated as? Director Svanstrom commented I believe it is mixed, there are some deed restricted units there, I don't know what the income level is for that. I can get that information for you.
Councilmember McLewis comment as follows:
• I read in your report that this site development concept was approved in 2016 as mixed use, when at whatever council was in place during that time.
• When we are looking at what we are doing now, how are the demographics different • I see the units are different.
• Are we serving a different population than what they originally were thinking Director Svanstrom commented as follows:
• The original proposal was a market-rate development.
• The commercial was just commercial, the 11 units would have triggered our inclusionary housing. • We have a different formula now, but I believe it would have been one or two units that would have been deed restricted, likely, and moderate.
Councilmember McLewis commented are we looking at something that is completely different? Director Svanstrom commented as follows:
• The general design building envelope is the same, the type of housing it is very different, absolutely. • This would have permanent supportive housing on the north side of town • We also have permanent supportive housing [Elderberry Commons] on the east side of town, which is where you are coming in to town on 12, in addition to park village. • We have the affordable housing that would mark as constructing now on the west side.
Councilmember McLewis commented is it safe to say we really have more of a deficit of the market rate housing then this low, low income housing right now, is that correct?
Director Svanstrom commented as follows:
• I'm not sure because we also have a 80-unit market rate development behind the O’Reilly building on the north side of town that was just submitted as a project.
• I believe the address is 1011 Gravenstein north. 80 units of market rate housing by City Ventures, they have done some projects is in Santa Rosa, with inclusionary, which will be 68 market rate and 12 moderate income. • They also designing them with the potential to have up to 16 ADUs use as part of that - someone can have a three bedroom or a two bedroom with the ADU instead. There is some flexibility, but that is a pretty significant development for the city.
• That will be a big lift on that above market rate income level.
Councilmember McLewis commented just comparing our percentage per capita with this type of housing compared to other cities, how do we compare? What is the percentage we have compared to other cities? Director Svanstrom commented I don't have that number on the top of my head, I’m happy to get that for you, though.
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Councilmember McLewis comment I'm just looking at some numbers and we have a much higher percentage already of low income -- low, low, the type of housing where the supportive housing, in general, based on my research, it looks like that we have a much higher percentage than most cities in the county.
Director Svanstrom commented I'm happy to find some of that information for you.
Councilmember McLewis commented as follows:
• I understand that it is changing, with the home key project to the supportive housing • How does this work as far as I understand that they are going to have someone on-site, but a concern I have is just the cost to the city as far as police response, fire. • Having been close to this type of housing that is over where I am at everyday - they are the same type of housing, some just curious, how does that work, as far as, with St. Vincent DePaul. • I was a little concerned because a look at the articles about Gold Coin and the number of complaints about St Vincent de Paul and how they have managed that site. It's pretty damning. • As a Councilmember and living here, I just have some questions about that and how St Vincent de Paul, what have you done to rectify that
• Anyone who can look on the Press Democrat, you can see that a lot of people had many, many complaints about the site that you are managing last year, even.
Jack Tibbetts commented as follows:
• I'm happy to address that, Councilmember McLewis
• When we bought the gold coin motel, we saw a Santa Rosa code report that they were about 6500 calls for service over a ten-year period. It was pretty staggering. • When we bought the property, they were roughly 14 people in it at the time who did not necessarily qualify for tenant status, but they had determined that this is going to be their home. Coming and going from time to time. • When we learned that the sellers in escrow started illegally or wrongfully evicting people to not encumber the sale, I took that information to my board of directors and we made a collective decision that we wanted to let these people stay. When we did that, we let everybody know that that would be done without any funding for permit supportive housing. We are going to let them stay there, as our budget allowed, we were not Homekey funded at this point. This was purchased out of our pocket as an organization. • Fast-forward three years and Covid-19, we finally got funded by Homekey, at least, we got an award notice. It was at that time that, roughly, the Press Democrat article had come out, but we had not been funded by Homekey, the project construction and relocation had not even occurred at that point. • I don't want to give you the impression that we took funds from the state and then didn't provide services, funds had not been received and we were making a strategic or collective decision as an organization to, instead of letting those displacements occur, when we bought the property, we wanted to let people continue to live there. • In addition to that, a lot of these folks didn't have a means to pay, the property was yellow tagged by the city and, again, it wasn't yellow tagged when we owned it, it was yellow tagged prior to that point. We ended up spending about $400,000 out of pocket to rehabilitate their units and bring them up to somewhat reasonable standards.
Once that was done, we didn't charge rent for a year, and then after that point, we started to charge rent, but a lot of people could not pay for various reasons, so since then, we have done about three rounds of rent forgiveness. Universally, across the board, for all of our tenants. Not a single person has been evicted and I think we lost about $190,000 in potential rent income from these decisions. • I hope that paints a picture about who we are as an organization. I would challenge you to find any other affordable housing entity that has gone to those lengths to retain people in place, I would to venture to guess that most folks or most organizations probably would have let those displacements occur. When you do, it is definitely the easier path forward, we had no legal obligation to relocate these folks or continue to let them stay, we just did it, given, quite frankly, our spiritual connection to our worship and mission of charity. • How did we rectify it? To be honest with you, we continue to do the same things we have always done. One thing about that article that I thought was pretty disingenuous was that we provide managerial records from our property manager to the press democrat reporters, showing that they were just about weekly, if not 324 touches Agenda Item Number: 2
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per month, one of the three tenants that made the complaints to the press democrat we made over six attempts through formal legal noticing to abate some of the trash inside of it. • The COVID19 rules would have prevented us from going in and presenting exposures. We were stuck, at the time, providing the notices, I am happy to let you know that the people who complained are now currently in extended stays and when the commons project is complete, roughly July 30th, they will be moved back into the new facility and hopefully, have a lot better place to live than they have for the last seven to 10 years, long before St Vincent de Paul even owned that property.
Vice Mayor Rich commented with these units once built, be helpful for our RHNA numbers.
Director Svanstrom commented yes, they were certainly count towards our RHNA numbers. Overall, from the developments we have in the pipeline, we have a spread across from very low up through market rate, so I think in terms of that, we are looking pretty good. This certainly will help with meeting those requirements.
Vice Mayor Rich commented I think I heard this, but I want to confirm. There will be a manager or is it a case manager on site? Is that your plan?
Jack Tibbetts commented as follows:
• It's both. In the proposed project, there will be a resident manager living on site 24/7, an employee of St Vincent de Paul.
• These people are not case managers, they serve more as security for the property. • There is a requirement from HCD that for every 20 people, not units, 20 people who live in the project, there is at least one case manager there to address their behavioral health needs. Those have to be funded for the next five years in order to receive the grant.
Vice Mayor Rich commented you have heard the additions that have been requested to be added to the resolution? Are you comfortable with that, the commitment to cover the cities cost for staff needed to be administer and facilitate under our agreement?
Jack Tibbetts commented as follows:
• Absolutely.
• My board of directors met, we passed our own resolution, we are required to pass a resolution as an organization.
• We did that and we earmarked up to $100,000 to provide support to city staff. To do some of this project management work.
• I know that Kari probably has a lot more pressing things to do, if that is helpful to the city and makes you more comfortable, to enter into this partnership and give you the help and expertise you need to submit the milestones to HCD we are more happy to do that.
Vice Mayor Rich commented what is your prediction on when you might be prepared to break ground on this project? Jack Tibbetts commented as follows:
• When you look at the funding timeline, I want to say, award notifications, they are hoping to get those out in November of 2023.
• Our lease to SAVS expires December 31st of 2023, so we would try to mobilize shortly thereafter. • HCD - part of the reason for this new program is to help get units into the state of California to address homelessness quickly. They apply pretty strict standards to act in a timely way, but since this is a new construction project, I am hoping we can make the case that there is really not a need to start sooner than March of 2024. Just because, as we have learned with the gold coin project over the past eight months, you can't fight the weather when you are building something new. It probably makes more sense for us to look at march and then, part and parcel to that.
• Making sure we maintain really strong communication with SAVS, so that they are aware of any upcoming changes, but I did email the leadership at SAVS earlier today to give them a heads up, if they didn't already know Agenda Item Number: 2
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about this meeting. But I told them that they can be right up there until the very last day before the tractor's role in. Whatever helps them provide the services they need to provide, we are going to do that.
Vice Mayor Rich commented as follows:
• We are now sitting here in May of 2023, you are talking about a lease ending in December of 2023 • I have heard concerns from members of the public about what is going to happen with the villagers at Horizon Shine
• Have you been in conversation with SAVS about that situation, given your mission that you just described? • As the ED of St Vincent de Paul, what can you offer us in terms of reassurance regarding those individuals that are currently at Horizon Shine.
Jack Tibbetts commented as follows:
• So to date, to answer the first part of your question, our agreement with SAVS was that they would have two years on the property with the opportunity to renew if there was not a development opportunity • You will recall back to those conversations that were had at the town hall meetings. • This was the vision that we wanted to pursue, I don't what to speak entirely for the city, but certainly, for St Vincent de Paul. I hope that we made it pretty clear that this was our intention. • As much as we like villages, we operate villages, we operate very ad hoc communities because we always believe they are better, both for the individual who is homeless and for the greater community that it is better than having people freely wander, lost and on the street.
• We do believe housing is the best standard that we should all be prepared to pursue as a society. • They are aware that this is our intention from the get-go, but we also told them, we are happy to help you guys with the relocation. To whatever extent I am able, whether does financial resources, time and my staff's capacity, we will do that.
• Underline that statement, we recently actually have been working with SAVS to make an offer on a separate property in another municipality that would not only serve the folks in that particular municipality, their homelessness issues, but it could serve as a relocation grounds for this project. Unfortunately, the property did not appraise. It appraised $400,000 less than what the seller was asking for and he was not willing to give ground on that. Our loan would not allow us to go higher than the appraisal amount. Unfortunately, that one is not in the cards, but we are continuing to actively look for another property. • The second option, I have not discussed this with SAVS yet, but I intend to. That is to begin a process at the village of attrition, the village is doing what it is supposed to do, getting people placed into housing, getting people reconnect with family, getting them into appropriate housing and shelter. • As long as that is happening, I think at a certain point, the village should stop accepting new residents so the subsequent relocation efforts will be easier.
• Another thing that can be done, this is also similar to attrition, but St Vincent de Paul, many years ago, one of our first partnerships, was with a group called homeless action, some of them went over and joined SAVS. • We work with them at corporate center parkway in Santa Rosa. There were roughly 42-60 RVs around that business park and we were asked to step in with our resources to help prevent a lot of the widespread impoundments of those RVs by the Santa Rosa police department. • That is our moral code, we recognize that these RVs do create significant impacts to neighbors and we don't like to see that, but at the end of the day, a lot of these RVs are people's last line of defense, it is a door they can get behind and lock in the middle of the night, it is transportation to reconnect them with family. That is what we saw it as and we spent about $15,000 repairing a lot of these RVs. We triaged them, basically, saying here is our vison, we can fix, and insure and register right away to prevent their impoundment and loss of that shelters of the person who lives there. We went right on down the list and in the end, I want to say, 27 RVs get repaired, insured, and back on the road and prevented those impoundments and one of the great things we learned from this, we did not just prevent the impoundment. Through the works of one of our case managers, a guy named Mike, he was actually able to have a conversation with these people and say, hey, do you have family or friends somewhere in this country that you can go to who may have a place where you can park this RV and you can get reconnected with somebody who can help you get back on your feet? I want to say, we helped almost 10 people Agenda Item Number: 2
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make that connection back to family at the end of the day, RV parks and villages are terrific, but there is no better support service than your family or friends who are willing to take you in. • I've got great case managers, but you see better results when you have family step in and take care of their own.
That is another thing that could be pursued to help prevent any widespread evictions. • I know the Councilmember McLewis, you brought up the gold coin and as a negative thing, it did turn out to be negative because we didn't like finding that three out of 10 of our units that lived there did have some mold, despite our efforts to try to get in and address it, but one of the things that we did learn. • Because it was a learning experience for me as an executive director, was that we could be a big, affordable housing organization that goes in, buys property, relocates people to other areas, which means displacement, it doesn't mean anything other than that. Or we could take the risk, knowing full well that there was risk involved with letting people stay there with limited services. We recognized it at their home and weren't going to be an organization that turned a blind eye on them.
• We are not going to do that at Horizon Shine village either. Like I said, I will do everything in my financial and personal power with St Vincent de Paul to make sure that those folks get reconnected with a better outcome.
Vice Mayor Rich commented I appreciate that and I will confirm that, yes, consistently, from the beginning, it was very clear that the ultimate goal was for 845 Gravenstein to be in affordable housing development. Thank you for all of that and the information, I appreciate it.
Councilmember Maurer commented am curious about the future tenants of the new units there. And can preference be given to existing Sebastopol residence, is that even possible? Jack Tibbetts commented as follows:
• That is not possible, unfortunately, fair housing laws prevent any form of housing discrimination. • I have looked into this, when I was on the Santa Rosa City Council and that's the same question I had at the time, somebody sitting on my side of the table.
• That was the advice I was given, it violates fair housing laws, unfortunately, but you did jog my memory. • The last thing I wanted to say, too, our goal and our whole intent is actually going to be to try to get these folks in the village into this final development within the constraints of the fair housing laws.
Mayor Hinton opened for public comment. Resolution Authorizing a Joint Application with St Vincent de Paul for a Project Homekey Grant Application for 845 Gravenstein Highway North Kyle commented as follows:
• It's really interesting journey how we have gotten here today. • I think back to the early stages of our city making decisions about blocking the RV parking on Morris Street. • Using that in conjunction with rapidly trying to find a location to house these individuals as to not be violating the law in terms of evacuating these people. To working that through without a really good public comment process.
To extending out a temporary change in use, from commercial to residential, to now making a comparison between a previous mixed-use, which had would have contained commercial and market rate housing to the proposal for tonight.
• It is an interesting timeline of how we have gotten here • I am all in support of housing, Sebastopol has been horrendous at being able to do any kind of a housing growth for decades. If you look at the population of the city over the last 20 years, it is abysmally small growth over this time period.
• Congrats on more housing, but let's think a little bit more about the things like revenue. Like the loss of revenue from the lack of commercial use.
• Let's talk about the precedent this sets for changing the use of a commercial lot to residential. • There is a bunch of commercial lots that are in our urban core that would love to see changed into high-density, non-vehicle centric, low income housing for our citizens that could be, instead of things like car washes, in our urban core.
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• I see this as a great opportunity to begin a new conversation about the changing of commercial lots into residential
• I think that is a great opportunity that we can explore in the future. • I also want to recognize the loss of revenue that comes along with changing use from commercial to residential.
Maybe, we can address that
Oliver commented as follows:
• We got places like Glen Ellen where we could have hundreds of pellet shelters with very good facilities. • It's not clear what problem we are trying to solve here, earlier this evening, we were discussing fiscal sustainability and the fact of the matter is, losing our hotel, there is no sign that there is going to be another hotel • Hotel developers are very worried about developing in a city which has a pretty high homeless • Just a lot of homeless people milling about, that's a polite way to put it. • We are, kind of, not going anywhere. Greatly over delivering in terms of providing facilities for homeless and mentally unstable people in the city already.
• As I said, I am not clear what problem we are trying to solve by building even more. • As Kyle said, there is going to be no income from this, there is going to be no business coming from this. • We heard some pretty serious allegations from a former case manager, which were blown off and pretty much ignored, including by the police chief.
• I don't think were being very realistic about this, frankly Kate commented as follows:
• i just wanted to add some information in terms of how much homeless housing we actually have in Sebastopol. • We actually have more than any other per capita than any other city in Sonoma County. • We have one homeless bed per every 51 residents.
• Santa rosa has one homeless bed for every 298 residence. Healdsburg has one homeless bed for every 500 residence and there are some cities that have no homeless beds, such as Windsor, which has a population of 26,000 people and does not seem to be in a budget crisis. Cotati has a population of 7500 and is very similar to Sebastopol, they also don't have a budget crisis, they also have zero homeless beds. Cloverdale has no homeless beds. So we would be exceptional in having two home key projects within our town of 7500 people when there are cities like Windsor that has 26,000 people that have zero home key projects. • I wanted to clarify that and then, in terms of the RHNA numbers, with Woodmark apartments, we will meet our RHNA numbers. We have no need to add any additional and as Kari pointed out, if the project on Gravenstein highway, those will also bring in inclusionary elements as well. • So we have no need at all for more homeless housing and, in fact, we would be, I think, one of the only places besides the city of Santa rosa that would have two home key projects. • That is, like, a very large home key allotment for a town of 7500 people. • That is also facing, like, basically, going over a financial cliff Zack commented as follows:
• This is as tragic as it is shocking.
• One person, one whistleblower coming forward. I do encourage the council to take it seriously. Try to get to the bottom of what is really going on inside of the encampment. Not only for the sake of the souls living there.
Obviously for everybody in the surrounding area.
• The situation in any case, sounds more intense and dire than any of us understood prior to the gentleman speaking tonight.
• A couple of things I would add to that. Opening a new site, new housing, it is the right step forward. I think we can all agree on that. As far as one solo case manager or just a apartment manager on site, it strikes me as not enough. In terms of the complete package to care for people. • Just like what we are saying about the village currently. These are people that need more attention and care.
Whatever it is they need to get back on their feet. It seems we need a much more complete package for something like this to go forward and not just become a kind of free for all consumption site where who knows what is going on inside the walls.
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• The residence inside and outside deserve better than that.
Linda commented as follows:
• I appreciate Zach’s insightful comments and I appreciate the chief weighing in. • The thing is, I live three properties from the RV village • I live in one of the many affordable low income housing units. • I have lived here for 20 years happily.
• Besides this one, there is another one that houses 200 people, low income seniors. And then there is Palm Avenue housing down by the hospital. The City Council is doing nothing about that. • The previous council did recognized the cancer cluster and took radiation levels but nothing was done because the FCC lawyer said the radiation was within limits.
• I believe we are providing housing for low income.
• These people are interesting at the RV village. A golf pro, a plumber, a electrician. many of them are indulging in addictive behavior, not only alcohol and drugs and fentanyl. • Also regular visits to the casino where at least one person told me they lost 180,000. • I encourage the investigation.
City Council Discussion and/or Deliberations:
Mayor Hinton commented as follows:
• I will lead off with this. A lot of times I sit back as the mayor and let everybody go first. On this one I feel very passionate about.
• I have been excited about this project since I knew St Vincent de Paul was buying it. • I was on the council, I do not see this as homeless housing, I see it as low income housing. • As we discussed it is also using the footprint planned for development. Back in the day it used to be housing on the top floor and commercial on the bottom floor.
• We have an extreme amount of commercial vacant in the city and it feels to me like this is the right kind of lot to convert that footprint to the 22-24 units of housing.
• We also learned that Homekey is not what it once was, which was homeless housing during covid but now it is an arm of building these kinds of housing to residents that live in our city or our county. • Many people cannot afford housing. I just had a meeting with my daughter about how much it would cost to buy a home. It is exorbitant for young people.
• I will be supporting this proclamation. I will learn what my colleagues think about it. I just think it is smart for us. It just makes a lot of sense to me. It is really for low income housing.
Councilmember Zollman commented based on what I have heard in my understanding of the arena numbers, going ahead with what is being proposed makes sense also it does not cost the city any money. With that, I will second that motion.
Councilmember Maurer commented as follows:
• Thank you to staff for their willingness to partner with St. Vincent de Paul. • They look like a excellent partner.
• The Burbank Heights and Orchards, last month they opened their waiting list. In three days they closed it after hundreds of applicants.
• We have a need for more low income housing.
• The Burbank Heights and Orchards is a sliding scale housing and they are very affordable. • That sounds like this will be the same. I will also support this project.
Councilmember McLewis commented as follows:
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• When I did my research and I looked at what is considered low income, they mentioned the income level for this is for somebody that makes less than $12,000 per year. While I am supportive of low income housing I am glad to see commercial is being taking out of the site. We have a lot of commercial space already. • The lack of mixed income housing and anybody making less than 12,000 a year, it means there is a lot of support required, because of that I do not support this.
• I think we should be providing mixed housing. What is considered low income is $66,000. Those are our teachers, they are just getting by and I would love it if we were providing housing for people doing that. • To bookend our city with permanent supportive housing with 31 beds going in and we sat on that call with the county. We already have park village.
• I would support this if there was more mixed housing and supporting more people contributing to the community but bringing people in from outside the community that will require numerous services and be more of a burden on fire and safety, I cannot support this kind of housing. • I am disappointed. I would like to see something more mixed and addressing more income levels than just those at the low level. Unfortunately I cannot support this tonight.
Vice Mayor Rich commented as follows:
• I am in support of more housing
• I feel your pain and I am experiencing it myself.
• However I agree, we are blessed to be facing this opportunity with St. Vincent de Paul, a reputable, committed and mission driven organization to do what they intended to do when they first came in and purchased the property and demonstrated through statements they shared with us tonight, their commitment to this population.
• It is not going to cost us the city money.
• Plus a case manager on site, that strikes me as a incredible move in the right direction. With a wonderful partner. • I have to thank Kari for negotiating and working through the details to protect the city's interests. • I am fully in support of this and I think Jack for being here tonight and making this passion a reality to benefit the community.
MOTION:
Mayor Hinton moved and Councilmember Zollman seconded the motion to approve Resolution Authorizing a Joint Application with St Vincent de Paul for a Project Homekey Grant Application for 845 Gravenstein Highway North and Finding the Project Exempt under CEQA Section 15332, Class 32 as amended:
New Language:
WHEREAS, St Vincent de Paul will be responsible for the construction and operation of the Project, including all costs associated with City staff assistance, the physical development and on-going operations; and total amount not to exceed $22 million,
Mayor Hinton called for a roll call vote. City staff conducted a roll call vote.
VOTE:
Ayes: Councilmembers Maurer, Zollman, Vice Mayor Rich and Mayor Hinton Noes: Councilmember McLewis
Absent: None
Abstain: None
City Council Action: Approved
Mayor Hinton moved and Councilmember Zollman seconded the motion to approve Resolution Authorizing a Joint Application with St Vincent de Paul for a Project Homekey Grant Application for 845 Gravenstein Highway North and Finding the Project Exempt under CEQA Section 15332, Class 32 as amended:
New Language:
WHEREAS, St Vincent de Paul will be responsible for the construction and operation of the Project, including all costs associated with City staff assistance, the physical development and on-going operations; and Agenda Item Number: 2
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total amount not to exceed $22 million,
Minute Order Number: 2023-132
Resolution Number: 6533-2023
Chief Nelson provided information on the recent deaths in the City. • I would like to address a couple of the public comments regarding the tragic deaths we experienced in the community and try to dispel some misinformation out there. We have had three deaths in the community over the past couple of months. Those have been thoroughly and completely investigated by the police department.
Two of those tragically were on housed individuals. That have some association with some individuals at Horizon Shine. Both our determination and the coroner's determination post more them absolutely conclusively determined that these were suicides. There was nothing nefarious or criminal about them. It was just a unfortunate Circumstance that resulted in tragedy from the difficulty in these individuals lives and that was the option they exercised. The other death is currently under investigation, postmortem by the coroner's office to try to make determinations regarding toxic substances and things like that. Our investigation turned up absolutely nothing directly linked to that individual's death that would lead us to believe that there was a crime committed that would cause her death. More will follow and I will update the community more once I get more results from the coroner's office, at this point it was not a homicide. • There was nothing nefarious that led to the individuals that.
11. Discussion/Update of Mental Health Response Program (Responsible Department: Police Department) Police Chief Nelson presented the agenda item recommending the City Council Discuss and Receive the Update of Mental Health Response Program and provide direction to staff on next steps.
Mayor Hinton opened for questions from Council.
Councilmember Zollman commented as follows:
• When calls come through the dispatch, what I read in here is that MST is not immediately contacted. • I am still not sure why they are not immediately contacted if a dispatcher has done the evaluation and there is potential violence at the scene.
• Can you provide clarity?
Chief Nelson commented as follows:
• I can't, perhaps I misrepresented what happens but not deliberately. • There are certain calls were absolutely the person is reporting it, it is a family member, they tell us they are schizophrenic and off their medications, they are tearing up the house, at that point if MST is on duty they will dispatch the officers and also make the call to MST and get them rolling.
Councilmember Zollman commented as follows:
• A while ago we had breakfast and we were talking about how we can bring it down to our own city and use her own city resources and we talked about reaching out to various licensed clinicians that would be at your disposable should you need them.
• We talked about possibly reaching out to the chapters, have you had any more luck pursuing and trying to build a more small and less expensive model here?
Chief Nelson commented as follows:
• I have not, I have not had time to do that. What was the organization? • My workload is starting to decrease a little bit and I have help coming in in a few weeks and I will pursue those options.
Councilmember Zollman commented as follows:
• It does seem like you have a good feeling about SAVS and there ability based on how they have been interacting with people services.
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• You think they are all right and they would help?
Chief Nelson commented absolutely. I know the city has been pleased with how they operated their program. As is the park. They did not hesitate to sign on.
Vice Mayor Rich commented as follows:
• I recently went to a presentation where the program was described in detail. What I heard from that and I want to confirm this with you. I came away with the impression that one of the challenges is that we do not have a neighboring jurisdiction with which we can partner. They had the park. We are out here. So that makes it easy in terms of a mental health team.
• For us it seems like there is no one we can naturally partner with, am I accurate? Chief Nelson commented as follows:
• I think that is a accurate assessment.
• Our closest approximate entity with a program is Santa rosa. I have had conversations with the chief, they do not have the capacity to entertain that at this juncture. Plus there model is the most expensive, we would be looking at a significant investment.
• Frankly some of the smaller municipalities, the county is getting pressure from some of the bigger municipalities.
There is a entire area in the county that needs these resources that do not have the availability. Some form of expansion on the MST model needs to occur. You have miles and miles to go out to the coast and there is no ability to provide these resources.
Vice Mayor Rich commented I am getting the impression the training our officers get to provide them with the skills to address the issues, and how does it compare to training officers and other jurisdictions are getting? Chief Nelson commented as follows:
• Quite a few jurisdictions have implemented this.
• We have a few officers that are veterans that received their training previously. • It seems regions in the state that seem to have more difficulties with a higher population of mentally ill people.
They recognize the value of the programs and provided them to police. It was eye-opening for me when I went through it. As police officers we go to some of these things skeptical. This is going to be touchy-feely and I do not need that stuff. It was remarkable. They are heavily involved, there is role-playing exercises. There are people who have had good and bad experiences with law enforcement and have frank conversations with officers. Really remarkable and clinicians and psychiatrists that go in depth and provide information about some of the manifestations people experience when they are in the throes of some of the various mental illnesses.
Vice Mayor Rich commented I think what I am hearing is that you feel our officers are well equipped to deal with the issues they encounter from a mental health perspective or in terms of the un-housed.
Chief Nelson commented they are as well-equipped as they can possibly can be based on the training available.
Mayor Hinton opened for public comment. Update of Mental Health Response Program Kyle commented as follows:
• I want to thank you chief for putting together the presentation. It is a long time coming. • I watched this council in the summer of 2020 spent countless hours engaging with the public and coming up with recommendations.
• That included the funding of a exploration of a cahoots model and as months went on it was no longer the political flavor of the month and it dropped off the radar. • The most recent chief prior to the current chief dodged the issue and suggested that we wait and see what the rest of the county was doing, it seemed like once we did, there was not any actual commitment on that chiefs want
• I want to remind the council there was approval for funding a cahoots investment.
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• When we talk about the reduction in calls as the chief mentioned as being around 10%. That is a significant reduction.
• It is possible we can explore the reallocation of some funding. • 10% of the current budget is around $600 thousand that could be reallocated towards a program such as this with that type of reduction.
• I think we have a path forward and I hope the council takes it seriously.
Linda commented as follows:
• I want to thank the chief for the presentation. You should know I am one of the biggest supporters of our police force in town. Only because I have the experience from the county department that ended with me handcuffed and beaten up due to a wrong address.
• Anyway, you are the best police force I know of. The only thing that would make it better especially on mental health, is we are having a explosion of tics this year. • It would be simple chief if you would arm the police, Dennis used to do it. There were cards he would provide for free, we need to have signs throughout the Laguna and the trails around here. A lot of the mental health issues are misdiagnosed because they are tickborne diseases.
• it costs them because they are unable to work and also the county. These people end up homeless and living in the brush exposed to it. That is my suggestion.
• I hope you will educate your department and hand out tick id cards.
City Council Discussion and/or Deliberations:
Mayor Hinton commented as follows:
• I wanted to address, as the longest sitting council member, I did serve on the budget committee when we put budget away to partner with a small city for somebody in a position that the chief was talking about. • That was reallocated into the homeless coordinator when we found out that they would partner with Rohnert Park which made sense.
• I bring that up to address a member of the public.
• This council has heard a lot of ideas. Unfortunately we have a smaller budget then many cities and that was a bit of a disappointment for me.
• I was invested in the partnership we were trying to pursue at the time but it did make more sense for them with park right next door.
• We do and we have funded the homeless coordinator.
• I just wanted to mention that in this discussion.
• Some people in the council may not have that history. That was before Chief Nelson as well.
Chief Nelson commented as follows:
• I did not get in depth on the homeless outreach person, she does a phenomenal job. • The allocation of those funds have reaped countless dividends in dealing with situations such as these and also with the un-housed.
• They are able to build rapport. Work cohesively with us. That was a wise move under the circumstances.
Councilmember Zollman commented as follows:
• The context for my questions are coming from the fact that I was a mental health patient advocacy worker in San Francisco for almost 2 years and a former public defender whose clients was predominately from the mental health community.
• Not every patient will respond well. Not everyone undergoing a traumatic situation is going to respond well to anybody in a uniform.
• Given the fact that I think our police have already admitted they have not been receiving general comments from the public including those from the queer community, and those with mental health and developmental disabilities, we do not really know the overall sense of our community is when trying to reach out or not reach out to the police.
• Given that experience and my own information, part of this agenda was to provide direction.
Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
• I would provide direction to contact the service, to see if there is a possibility of providing coverage here and if not, then just ask them for their advice. What advice do they have? Are we to faraway for them to extend their services to this city?
• I would also like to see what we can do locally with our own licensed clinicians. Maybe they are worried about malpractice. They are a nonprofit here
• I want to make inquiries about what offers they can provide. • I do not feel comfortable given my experience having police be the only place for them to reach out to if they are experiencing a mental health crisis.
Vice Mayor Rich commented as follows:
• I think what we are hearing is a request that the chief reach out to people service about possible support and the health action coalition to see what resources they may have available. • My question to staff and the police chief is whether that is workable and do they feel that it can be integrated, that request can be integrated into whatever workload you already have. • What would be your response to that? Any input?
Chief Nelson commented I can work it in, I cannot commit to saying it will happen in the next 30 days but I will come back, I think a 90 day window is reasonable for me to at least make phone calls and identify resources.
Mayor Hinton commented we are in a budget crisis that we are aware of and as we said earlier, we have gone down this road doesn’t our homeless outreach coordinator have training.
Chief Nelson commented I am not sure that she has any specific mental health training.
Mayor Hinton commented as follows:
• I can appreciate what the Councilmember is saying. I hate to add to your list. It feels like we are a small community and I do not know with the budget would come from even if we found great rings. • So I would feel more comfortable if you wanted to do that informally and report back but I do not feel like I need to add it at the task list this point.
• I also work in a industry where we are talking about 51-50 holds and that sort of thing. I am with you. I appreciate you talking with us, I do not feel it is necessary for you to come back and report to council in a formal way. • There has been a full inquiry into the topic by the police chief. I have been to presentations and I have been informed on the topic myself. However it strikes me that a request that our police chief reach out to leadership the health action coalition or people's services, even a verbal report within 90 days, again I would bump it to the police chief, is that a lot?
• Is it too much given everything you have going on.
Chief Nelson commented as follows:
• I do not think it is unreasonable for me to make a few phone calls, to dive in and prepare. • Would the Council be comfortable to a verbal report back as opposed to a written document Councilmember McLewis discussed budgeting and adding to tasks of the Police Chief on this item.
Mayor Hinton commented as follows:
• Nothing written that will take a lot of time with a verbal report out to the City Council. We would support that. • It looks like we have three requests for a short verbal report so if you would follow up with that, that would be great.
Vice Mayor Rich commented as follows:
• Aware of the costs and budget
• Requested police chief reach out to the leadership at PPS • Report back in 90 days with a verbal report
Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
The Council received the Update of Mental Health Response Program and provide direction to staff on next steps as follows:
Directed the Chief reach out to Petaluma People Services – services to Sebastopol Gravenstein Health Action – what offer provides
And provide a verbal report back to Council within 9 0 days.
City Council Action: Received the Update of Mental Health Response Program and provide direction to staff on next steps as follows:
Directed the Chief reach out to Petaluma People Services – services to Sebastopol Gravenstein Health Action – what offer provides
And provide a verbal report back to Council within 9 0 days.
Minute Order Number: 2023-133
Mayor Hinton departed the meeting for Item Number 12.
12. Consideration of Approval of Contract for City Manager and City Attorney Services (Responsible Department: City Administration/HR Consultant)
Assistant City Manager/City Clerk Gourley and Deborah Muchmore, MuchmorethanConsultating (MTC) presented the agenda item recommending the City Council Approval of Contract for City Manager and City Attorney Services.
Vice Mayor Rich opened for questions from Council.
Councilmember Maurer commented has anything changed since we last saw this.
City staff stated there were no changes.
Mayor Hinton opened for public comment.
Kyle commented as follows:
• I want to make sure the council takes time to discuss the budgetary implications of what we are hearing. • If in the process of retaining a city manager, the current city manager goes into the city attorney role, maintaining his same salary while we are still paying for a additional city manager that is not Larry McLaughlin. • I would like that spelled out and contrasted with the current budget allocation for salary of city attorney as it is stated within the current budget for the fiscal year.
• So that it is clear to the public exactly how much of a increase this will be if our council is not able to quickly determine who will be the next city manager and our next city attorney.
Linda commented as follows:
• I want to thank Kyle for requesting the clarification. • In addition, I would like to know how much the finder fees are. • What is anticipated to be paid for the next people to fill these positions.
Oliver commented as follows:
• I wonder if the City Manger would contemplate reducing the amount giving the fiscal crisis we are in. • It is not a large city budget overall.
• I wonder if you would discount his service for his remaining time.
A member of the audience commented as follows:
• Over the course of some months, I had a email exchange with Mister McLaughlin that was never settled at all and it ended with my repeated outreach and no responses.
• I have no way of knowing if that is behavior that extends to others but I found it disconcerting, frustrating and inappropriate.
Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
• So I will just enter that into the record and I would ask Mister McLaughlin to respond when I reach out next.
Kate commented as follows:
• Given our budget crisis in Sebastopol, I wrote a letter regarding the idea of disbanding the city and merging with the county. 25% of the budget goes to city administration. • Since we are in the process of reconceptualizing our fire department and also hiring a city manager, it might be worthwhile now to look at if services in Sebastopol would be more at optimum levels if we were part of the county.
• A case in point, the resources we were just discussing, mental health resources. • Do we need to extend the contract and what is the cost-benefit to have a city manager when the city is so poorly run that we cannot fund the vital services.
City Council Discussion and/or Deliberations:
Vice Mayor Rich commented as follows:
• As a first step I will answer some questions.
• This is not the venue to be negotiating a discounted salary with our hard-working city manager and city attorney. • Secondly, having been a member of the budget committee, I am here to tell you the rate that has been clouded for the extension of the contract is substantially below the market rate right now. We are getting quite the deal, so for those that are concerned this is a poor budget decision, I am here to tell you it is not. • As to the implications of the budget with McLaughlin staying on and I think there was a suggestion that he might stay on when we hire a new city manager, the terms of this agreement indicates that McLaughlin agreed to stay until no later than December 31 and the contract will and at the earlier of the two dates, either upon the hiring of a new city manager or December 31.
• Please correct me if I am wrong but it is my understanding there will not be an overlap.
Deborah Muchmore commented as follows:
• It is two distinct positions within the same agreement. • City manager ends on December 31 or at the successful hire of a new city manager. • The attorney would continue, the caller was responding to the salary not changing while the city manager continued, and I can certify that the salary for city attorney is a have to a quarter of what we would have to pay for a city attorney.
• So it is a value to the city to have this agreement in place. • I appreciate the work the city and McLaughlin did in creating it. • I negotiated city attorney agreements with other cities. • There may have been another question about the cost of executive search firms. • We will bring that back. The council will see an item regarding the executive search firms, I do not have a date. • Due to scheduling we are postponing it to probably the first week in June. We are waiting for confirmation from those firms.
MOTION:
Councilmember Maurer moved and Vice Mayor Rich seconded the motion to approve Resolution Approving Contract for City Manager and City Attorney Services stating:
The Employment Agreement calls for Larry McLaughlin to serve as the City Manager until December 31, 2023, or until the City successfully recruits and hires a City Manager to replace Employee, whichever is first.
Upon the employment of a new City Manager and Employee’s resignation as City Manager, Mr. McLaughlin shall remain the City Attorney. He shall remain the City Attorney until the City recruits for and retains a new City Attorney or law firm(s) to serve in the capacity of City Attorney.
Salary: As compensation for the services to be rendered by Employee, the City shall provide:
Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
I. During any period in which Employee serves as City Manager and City Attorney, Employee shall receive an annual base salary of $187,042.00. No additional compensation shall be owed to Employee for services as City Attorney.
II. During any period in which Employee serves exclusively as City Attorney, Employee shall receive an annual base salary of $187,042.00.
III. Employee’s salary shall be increased to adjust for cost of living at the same rate provided to other management employees
Employee shall also receive a longevity stipend the equivalent of 2% of his annual salary, a $350 per month contribution to a deferred compensation plan, a $150 per month electronic allowance, and health and welfare benefits comparable to other management employees of the City.
Employee shall accrue ten hours of vacation and five hours of sick leave per payroll period and two personal days per year.
Administrative: In order to compensate overtime exempt management employee for the added hours worked, employee shall be granted a total of 120 hours Administrative Leave with pay during each fiscal year. 60 Hours to be credited on July 1st of each year and 60 hours to be credited to January 1st of each year. Unused hours to be cashed out no later than May 30th of each fiscal year to bring balance to zero on June 30th of each fiscal year. In the event of resignation, termination, or retirement, an employee will be paid for unused hours of their accrued administrative leave balance.
Vice Mayor Rich called for a roll call vote. City staff conducted a roll call vote.
VOTE:
Ayes: Councilmembers Maurer, McLewis, and Vice Mayor Rich Noes: Councilmember Zollman
Absent: Mayor Hinton
Abstain: None
City Council Action: Approved Resolution Approving Contract for City Manager and City Attorney Services stating:
The Employment Agreement calls for Larry McLaughlin to serve as the City Manager until December 31, 2023, or until the City successfully recruits and hires a City Manager to replace Employee, whichever is first.
Upon the employment of a new City Manager and Employee’s resignation as City Manager, Mr. McLaughlin shall remain the City Attorney. He shall remain the City Attorney until the City recruits for and retains a new City Attorney or law firm(s) to serve in the capacity of City Attorney.
Salary: As compensation for the services to be rendered by Employee, the City shall provide:
I. During any period in which Employee serves as City Manager and City Attorney, Employee shall receive an annual base salary of $187,042.00. No additional compensation shall be owed to Employee for services as City Attorney.
II. During any period in which Employee serves exclusively as City Attorney, Employee shall receive an annual base salary of $187,042.00.
III. Employee’s salary shall be increased to adjust for cost of living at the same rate provided to other management employees
Employee shall also receive a longevity stipend the equivalent of 2% of his annual salary, a $350 per month contribution to a deferred compensation plan, a $150 per month electronic allowance, and health and welfare benefits comparable to other management employees of the City.
Employee shall accrue ten hours of vacation and five hours of sick leave per payroll period and two personal days per year.
Administrative: In order to compensate overtime exempt management employee for the added hours worked, employee shall be granted a total of 120 hours Administrative Leave with pay during each fiscal year. 60 Hours to be credited on July 1st of each year and 60 hours to be credited to January 1st of each year. Unused hours to be cashed out no later than Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
May 30th of each fiscal year to bring balance to zero on June 30th of each fiscal year. In the event of resignation, termination, or retirement, an employee will be paid for unused hours of their accrued administrative leave balance.
Minute Order Number: 2023-134
Resolution Number: 6534-2023
Mayor Hinton returned to the meeting for item number 13.
13. Consideration of Amendment to City Council Protocols:
a. Amendment to Proclamations/Presentations
b. Adjournment of City Council Meeting Time
(Requestor: Councilmember McLewis/Responsible Department: City Administration) Councilmember McLewis and Assistant City Manager/City Clerk Gourley presented the agenda item recommending the City Council Consider Amendments to the City Council Protocols.
Mayor Hinton opened for questions from Council.
Vice Mayor Rich commented as follows:
• I want to make sure I understand. Are you asking us to choose one of the three options • Read the title of the proclamation as a ceremonial item only and there are two alternatives Councilmember McLewis commented I am not trying to come and dictate that we have to do it this way but if we can have that discussion on being more efficient.
Vice Mayor Rich commented my question would be to you mayor, you have been on the council for the longest. I would appreciate your perspective on this idea.
Mayor Hinton commented as follows:
• I am torn. I look at what the other cities are doing, most are reading the full proclamations. • It is tradition. I am a traditional person.
• I had asked, we had a record number of proclamations at some meetings, if there are proclamations that we turn down. Is it up to the mayor's discretion?
• A lot of them are time sensitive which is why we get 1 tonight and 11 on the other agenda which might have been a record.
• I understand it takes time, but I understand it is important to the person receiving it. • I do not know if people have ever turned down proclamations or we have done all that the city has received or if the mayor determines it. As a mayor I never turned one down. That is my question.
City staff commented in the times I have been here we have turned down one.
Councilmember McLewis commented many times, in my experience since I have been a Councilmember, 50% of the ones we read, we do not have anybody to accept them.
City staff commented there are times that we do year after year where the people do not ask for it. An example would be Pride month where we were not asked to do it, but we do it based on our values of the city.
Councilmember McLewis commented as follows:
• In the past when we discussed public comment, one of the things we talked about is that we have a very engaged community that comes here which is why we have long meetings. • Am I remembering that correctly?
• I understand other people read the proclamations, but they also do not have the lengths of meetings we have.
Mayor Hinton commented as follows:
Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
• I will say that I think there are councils that meet more often with longer meetings than us. • Also, I think this council likes to talk a lot as well to be fair. • I have thought about limiting questions 2-3 minutes as Council should research the agenda item before hand Mayor Hinton opened for public comment.
A member of the audience commented as follows:
• Proclamations at the beginning are from my vantage point, whether traditional or not, they are on the fluff side of things.
• If there is going to be any discussion about public comment time being shortened to allow for the substantial time given to proclamations, I would say that is wrongheaded. • You are meant to be public servants and it is your job to give the greatest allotment you can to hear the public you are meant to serve.
• So, to proclaim things on a regular basis is often an empty formality, sometimes meaningful but to shorten that time would be more appropriate than even thinking about shortening public comment time. • One other thing from somebody that is not used too coming to council meetings, it is an odd formality to have people that know each other to address one another as vice mayor and council member, I suppose you have reasons for doing that but maybe you would be better served just by calling each other by name. I • think that would add to the authenticity of the interactions between yourselves and your public.
Kyle commented as follows:
• I understand the premise of the agenda item. It is about not wanting to go late into the evening. • I think the council would best be served by looking at themselves and looking at opportunities they can take to reduce meeting times.
• We have already seen as a result of the mayor's unilateral decision to restrict public comment without any public debate until after the fact as an experiment, outside of the bylaws of the council, so we have restricted amounts and all of that was under the guise that somehow public comment draws the meetings out • Regularly I see Councilmembers coming unprepared, not reading the agenda items, not inform themselves on things that are relevant, and openly stating that.
• So, we end up with radical departures from rules of order, and drawn on discussions trying to educate Councilmembers on things that they could have educated themselves with prior to the meeting. • If you are looking for ways to reduce the amount of time in the meetings, look to yourselves and look at what you can be doing as Councilmembers to actively push the meetings through instead of the political grandstanding we see on a regular basis.
Oliver commented as follows:
• I do not think I heard this discussed yet, people in Burbank cannot stay this late. • If the first hour is endless proclamations and handing out certificates and speeches, there are 17 people on the zoom right now and a few more on live stream, people are just not engaged. • Anything we can do to get people paying attention to the budget crisis and everything else going on would be beneficial.
• Proclamations are tradition and I feel it is important to keep it but streamline it. So you guys do not have to sit there until god knows what time at night.
Linda commented as follows:
• I wanted to say I am delighted with the public comments tonight. • We need public engagement, we need oversight of what the City Council is doing, the misdeeds and the mistakes. • Speaking about the proclamations, case in point, I would like to know who that certificate about Lyme disease awareness month was sent off to
• Anyway I was denied the opportunity to speak on this thing that costs millions of dollars. • Blown off by the Mayor who doesn't have a clue about diseases in our community and we need to have signs up throughout the Laguna and it is easy to do but it is causing us millions of dollars in preventable suffering.
Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
• I hope you will take another look at that.
• You know I already talked to public works years ago.
• We got together and put some signs up but they are not there anymore. • This is a huge issue, especially this year.
City Council Discussion and/or Deliberations:
Councilmember McLewis commented as follows:
• I want to comment before we start deliberating, I know we talk about some of this lightheartedly. • I take the budget seriously and we are asking departments to reduce their budget everywhere. • I agree we can look inward and see where we can be more concise but at the same time, the fact remains we have been doing the proclamations for a long time.
• We have a good sense for the amount we are paying the number of people to be on the zoom and if we are asking departments to reduce budgets, we should do everything we can to trim that because every little bit counts.
• I have watched budget meetings and how they are trying to reduce and we should consider that tonight. • I am traditional as well but at the same time we should look at not doing something just because we always have. • We need to trim wherever we can and maybe we go back to it in the future when we can afford it.
Councilmember Zollman commented as follows:
• I appreciate being conscious about time and expenditures, I would love to figure out ways to move these meetings along, I do not feel like this is an appropriate way to do it, on the back of proclamations especially when we are considering bleak budget concerns.
• The proclamations to me serve as inspiration and highlight values I hope we are still striving for in the city. • A lot of the proclamations that gave rose to this was the last council meeting when it was describing marginalized groups, we do not have enough diversity in leadership roles. • I think the proclamations are inspirational, it inspires me as a great way to start meetings. • Also acknowledging individuals work that has been done in the city. A lot of it is volunteer aside from the salary people so I will be voting no on the proposed offerings to reduce times on • the back of proclamations.
• I am in favor of the second part, getting us out of here no later than 11:30 pm.
Councilmember Maurer commented as follows:
• I am also in favor of ending the meeting no later than 11:30 pm. • I agree, the proclamations, there were nine of them and it took 50 minutes to go through them, however I valued the reading of the proclamation because it can be educational to the community and myself. Especially when there is someone there to receive the proclamation.
• When nobody is there, it feels like an empty gesture. • My suggestion would be a modified item, that would be, when somebody is submitting a request for a proclamation, at that time they have the choice to say just to read the title, read parts or ask for the entire proclamation.
• Say I have a proclamation coming up and I have the choice to ask you to just read the title, read parts or the entire proclamation.
• That person would have to agree to provide somebody to accept it. Failing that I would not support this request. • When somebody submits a proclamation to be considered, there would be a checklist they would sign off on, the checklist is, read the title, read parts of the proclamation or read the entire proclamation. That would be there request. Some people might be okay with just having the title read. But if they want the entire proclamation read, agree to have somebody here to receive it.
Vice Mayor Rich commented as follows:
• I am torn also, I agree that if the person is present, that seems like an opportunity to read the full proclamation.
They made the effort and they are present and that to me is a point worth recognizing. • If they are not here, just reading the title does not seem like enough.
Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
• I do see there is a jurisdiction, the mayor reads the first whereas, that usually does not give you anything usually. • What about just limiting it to no more than three
Mayor Hinton commented as follows:
• We have not addressed the part that talks about service awards. • For service awards, years of service recognition, they need to be fully read, they are employees that have done years of service. They should not be shortened.
• I have seen the managers go on and on. We have a manager here that can be short and sweet about his staff • I am not interested in discussing years of service I think that is a different category from proclamations. • What I would say about this, I am guilty with just going along. The proclamations come through and we just placed them, and I have not asked the questions of what was requested and what we have just done for years. • There are other things we have done for years that nobody shows up for and we can drop it off and replace it with something more topical or requested with somebody that wants to receive one. • I am also for finishing the meeting at 11:30 pm. I might be at this position where maybe we do not pass a firm ordinance on it and leave it with the agenda to review and work with this. • As we saw tonight, there is one and the other day there was nine. Sometimes there is more than others but on average we are looking at 3 max per meeting. Without passing a rule. Or a policy.
Councilmember McLewis commented as follows:
• I hear what you are all saying. As a director of the organization and budgeting I am sitting through these meetings and I cannot see how we are reconciling this while asking departments to make cuts. • We just want to go to tradition because that is what we have always done but at the same time it does not sit well with me to say we want to do this for tradition but everybody else needs to cut.
Mayor Hinton commented maybe the City Council can give the agenda review committee some discretion to working to shorten the proclamations.
MOTION:
Mayor Hinton moved and Councilmember Maurer seconded the motion to approve the following amendment to the City Council Protocols to adjourn the meeting no later than 11:30 pm if the meeting is unanimous extended beyond the 10:30 pm ending time.
Mayor Hinton called for a roll call vote. City staff conducted a roll call vote.
VOTE:
Ayes: Councilmembers Maurer, McLewis, Zollman, Vice Mayor Rich and Mayor Hinton Noes: None
Absent: None
Abstain: None
City Council Action: Approved the following amendment to the City Council Protocols to adjourn the meeting no later than 11:30 pm if the meeting is unanimous extended beyond the 10:30 pm ending time.
Minute Order Number: 2023-135
Due to Council protocols, the meeting was adjourned at 10:45 pm.
ADDITIONAL PUBLIC COMMENT FOR ITEMS NOT ON THE AGENDA: Three minutes per speaker for up to twenty (20) minutes total for public comments but can be reduced at Mayor’s discretion depending upon the number of speakers or Mayor has discretion to allow for additional time beyond the 20 minutes allocated for public comment dependent upon the subject matter or number of speakers.
CITY COUNCIL/CITY STAFF REPORTS/COMMUNICATIONS/ANNOUNCEMENTS/FUTURE MEETINGS:
14. City Manager-Attorney/City Clerk Reports: (This will be either verbal or written reports provided at or prior to the meeting).
Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023
15. City Council Reports/Committee/Sub-Committee Meeting Reports: (Reports by Mayor/City Councilmembers Regarding Various Agency Meetings/Committee Meetings/Sub-Committee Meeting /Conferences Attended and Possible Direction to its Representatives (If Needed) on Pending issues before such Boards. (This will be either verbal or written reports provided at the meeting)
16. Council Communications Received (Information/Meetings/Correspondence Received from the General Public to Councilmembers)
17. Future City Meeting Dates/Events (Informational Only): (See City Web Site for Up-to-Date Meeting Dates/Times) CLOSED SESSION: NONE
ADJOURNMENT OF CITY COUNCIL MEETING
April 18, 2023 Meeting will be adjourned to the Regular City Council Meeting of May 2, 2023 at 6:00 pm (In Person and Remote/Zoom Virtual Meeting Format)
Mayor Hinton adjourned the City Council Meeting of May 16, 2023 at 10:45 pm to the Regular City Council Meeting of June 6, 2023 at 6:00 pm (In Person and Remote/Zoom Virtual Meeting Format).
Respectfully Submitted,
Mary C. Gourley
Assistant City Manager/City Clerk, MMC
Agenda Item Number: 2
Agenda Item Number: 2
City Council Meeting Packet for Meeting of: June 6, 2023